The Mirror and the Light

But at length Magnificence is brought low, he is beaten and shamed, spoiled of all he has and plunged into poverty. Enter Despair, tempting him to make an end by stabbing or hanging himself, the sorriest knave that ever was damned.

Just in time comes Good Hope, and saves him.

But if you think your audience would prefer it, there is always the choice to end the play early, leaving Magnificence in the dust.

Rafe says, ‘Call-Me was there. At Gardiner’s masque.’

‘Was he?’ He is disturbed. ‘Looking after our interests, I am sure.’

Whispers have come from Gardiner’s private office. The bishop has set his people to look into Call-Me’s finances. They share territory in Hampshire; their business cannot help but be entangled, and if there is sharp practice, it could not long be hidden from the bishop. He says, ‘I wish Call-Me would come to me, and let us look at the figures together.’

Sometimes transactions have holes in them. Sometimes columns fail to tally. To mend the matter, it is possible to be ingenious, without being dishonest.

He says, ‘If Gardiner sends for Call-Me, he has no choice but to answer. If something is alleged against him he must hear what it is.’

He thinks, Wriothesley will accuse me of teaching him covetousness. I would have taught him accountancy, if he had ever sat still to listen. He says to Rafe, ‘Perhaps there is a deal to be done. Gardiner has much to hide himself, if someone cared to spy it out.’

After the evening of the masque, Katherine Howard does not return to her duties at court. The queen’s people report that Anna is relieved to see her go. But Anna does not know our history, or she would realise this bodes her no good. The maid has been re-installed at Lambeth, in her family’s house, but now she has maids of her own and is served with deference by those who hope she will carry them to high fortune. In the evenings, the king’s barge crosses the water. His minstrels play ‘The Jester’s Dance’, and ‘La Manfredina’ and ‘My Lord and Lady Depart’. Henry stays with her till late, rowing back after sunset, the drums and flutes silent.

He thinks of the surgeons, their bloody book. Carved and pierced and sliced, Wound Man stands upright on the page. He holds out his arms, one half-severed at the wrist: ‘Come on, come on, what else have you got?’

He has kept his word to the king: a tractable Parliament has given the treasury what it needs. Before summer it will disperse, without a day appointed to meet again. Though he, Essex, has shed his duties as Secretary, he seems more pressed than ever, preparing for invisible dangers. If Pole is really heading to Ireland, his sails are not seen. Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam leaves his captains on watch, and returns to take his place in council.

The fact that Lord Lisle is in the Tower does not prevent him hurling accusations. The only way to stop him would be to stop asking questions. He insists that Lord Cromwell has acted as patron of all heretics in Calais these seven years past, circumventing justice and holding in contempt the king’s commands.

Lisle will not be specific, when and where and who. In his position, you would fling mud and hope it would stick. His wife is now under house arrest. He, Essex, is unsurprised to hear that the Lisles have not paid their household servants for two and a half years.

6 June, the king calls him in. ‘My lord, I hear you have been assailed.’

Assailed? ‘I am used to that.’

‘Insulted openly,’ the king says, ‘at the performance of a masque. But I have let it be known, that those who denigrate Cromwell, denigrate their king. It is for me, no one else, to reprove or reward my servants.’

They have not spoken – the king and his chief councillor – about the Duke of Norfolk’s niece. Now the king allows himself one angry outburst. ‘I pay a compliment to some sweet little fool, and the world says I am going to wed her. What have you done to counter this?’

He says, ‘It is Norfolk’s part to counter it. Besides, the world is answered, surely. Your Majesty cannot marry. He has a wife.’

Henry says, ‘Wilhelm was in Ghent. He saw the Emperor. They have reached some accommodation. Or else – I know not which – they have reached some impasse.’

Something is needling Henry, beyond the matter at hand, making him querulous, edgy. I will know by and by, he thinks, I shall not avoid knowing. He says, ‘We are not yet informed what has passed in Ghent. And I would not trust the first information. I never do.’

‘Well, it is you who gets it,’ Henry snaps. ‘I know letters come to you, that should come to me. I am obliged to send to your house, and be a suitor for knowledge of my own affairs. Surely someone can tell us whether Cleves and the Emperor have parted friends? For if they have not, then it signals war. It is no good to go to Parliament and get me the subsidy, my lord, if it is spent at once, on a war I do not want, for a man who uses me ill –’

‘I do not believe Wilhelm will go to war.’