The Mirror and the Light

The bones proved durable. They survived a fire that destroyed most of the abbey. Over the years they attracted so many pilgrims that Becket’s shrine waxed jealous. Lead cross, crystal cross, Isle of Avalon: they wrung out the pennies from the credulous and awed. Some say Jesus Himself trod this ground, a bruit that the townsfolk encourage: at St George’s Inn they have an imprint of Christ’s foot, and for a fee you can trace around it and take the paper home. They claim that, after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea turned up, with the Holy Grail in his baggage. He brought a relic of Mount Calvary itself, part of the hole in which the foot of the cross was placed. He planted his staff in the ground, from which a hawthorn flowered, and continues to flower in the fat years and the lean, as the Edwards and the Henrys reign and die and go down to dust. Now down to dust with them go all the Glastonbury relics, two saints called Benignus and two kings called Edmund, a queen called Bathilde, Athelstan the half-king, Brigid and Crisanta and the broken head of Bede. Farewell, Guthlac and Gertrude, Hilda and Hubertus, two abbots called Seifridus and a Pope called Urbanus. Adieu, Odilia, Aiden and Alphege, Wenta, Walburga, and Cesarius the martyr: sink from man’s sight, with your muddles and your mistranscriptions, with the shaking of your flaky fingerbones and the compound jumble of your skulls. Let us bury them once and for all, the skeletons of mice that mingle with holy dust; the ragged pieces of your tunics, your hair shirts clumped with blood, your snippets and your off-cuts and the crisp charred clothing of the three men who escaped from the Burning Fiery Furnace. That lily has faded, that the Virgin held on the day the angel came. That taper is quenched, that lighted the Saviour’s tomb. Glastonbury Tor is over five hundred feet high. You can see for miles. You can see a new country if you look, where everything is fresh, repainted, re-enamelled, bleached, scrubbed clean.

The king picks out jewellery for the bride. The gems repose in caskets of ivory and mother of pearl. The letters ‘H’ and ‘A’ are entwined in plaster and glass: a strange sight, after such labour to erase them. The king says, get me musicians from Venice, against the coming of the new queen. If they bring new instruments, so much the better.

The Princess of Cleves will arrive in a godly nation. Printing of his Bible speeds. Mr Wriothesley asks him, ‘Sir, did the French send you the sheets they impounded? Why would they favour you?’

He doesn’t answer. Mr Wriothesley looks hurt: as if he has not been trusted.

‘Bonner has been helpful,’ he says, ‘working among the French. He is not the blunderer you take him for.’

When Edmund Bonner returns from France he will be appointed Bishop of London. It will ease conditions for our preachers. Bishop Stokesley may be worm-food, but so is Thomas More. The smell of them lurks above ground, and their brawling supporters are ever alert to pull gospellers from the pulpit.

‘I know Bonner is your man,’ Wriothesley says, sulking. ‘But he won’t last, the French don’t like him.’

‘They don’t like me,’ he says.

You gain a point and lose a point, gain and lose.

The ladies gather at court, ready for the new queen. The matrons Lady Sussex and Lady Rutland have the sway, and say who can have what place and what duties, and what they should wear. Margaret Douglas, the Princess of Scotland, is the senior lady by rank. Her friend Mary Fitzroy is brought up from the country to serve. The Lord Privy Seal’s family are in place: Edward Seymour’s wife Nan, Gregory’s wife Bess. Lady Clinton will be on the strength, Richmond’s mother; but not Lady Latimer? The boys of Austin Friars are dismayed. How will Lord Cromwell woo her, they ask, digging each other in the ribs. We know he writes her great letters: but she has been so long now from court, she will have forgot his many charms.

Jane Rochford will head Anna’s privy chamber. She has a sufficient income, since Thomas Boleyn died. She could retire to Norfolk and live in her house at Blickling. But what would be the point of that? She is not much over thirty, for all she has seen. ‘How do you like the new maids of honour?’ she asks idly, as they pass in a chattering knot. Their short veils swish after them, and their French hoods are pushed as far back as they dare.

He smiles. ‘They seem very young this year.’

‘That is you, getting older. The maids are the usual age.’

‘That one looks familiar.’

Jane Rochford hoots with laughter. ‘I should think she does. That is Norfolk’s niece. Catherine Carey, Mary Boleyn’s girl. You had a passage or two with her mother.’

He is shocked: Mary’s little daughter, grown up to marriageable age. ‘I never had passage with Lady Carey.’