The Mirror and the Light

He thinks of Thomas More, in ward for fifteen months. Continually he scribbled, till his pen and paper were taken away. Although, More could have freed himself at any moment. All he had to do was say some magic words.

When the Giant kills Jack, the Giant himself begins to fail. He is worn down and diminished with loneliness and regret. But it takes the Giant seven years to die.

Next morning Kingston comes in at eight o’clock. ‘How do you?’

‘I do very ill,’ he says.

There are mirrors in the queen’s lodging, as you would expect. He has seen himself, paper-faced, unshaven, unsteady.

‘I have seen this before,’ Kingston says. ‘It afflicts not a few prisoners, in their early days. Especially if their downfall is sudden.’

‘What remedy?’

Perhaps no one has ever asked Kingston this before. But he is not a man to hesitate. ‘Accept it. Settle your mind. Make your reckoning with yourself, my lord.’

‘I am still “my lord”?’

Kingston says, ‘You came in here as Earl of Essex, and you are Essex unless I am told otherwise.’

So Gardiner was wrong: wrong on big things and wrong on little things. He is not sure if his earldom is a little thing. In the sight of God, perhaps it is. But he had felt it, this last two months, as protection, a wall the king had built around him.

‘Also,’ Kingston says, ‘the king has sent money for your support while you are here. He wishes you to be kept as befits your rank.’

He wants to say, my support for how long? Kingston answers without being asked: ‘The king will fund what is needed. No term is set.’

Till yesterday, he had money of his own. Now he is the king’s beggar. Kingston says, as if it were a matter of indifference, ‘Your boy is here.’

An uprush of anguish: ‘Gregory?’

‘I mean young Sadler. Or rather, Master Secretary, Sir Rafe, one forgets these recent promotions. No, bless you, he is not in ward, I mean he is without, he is waiting for you. Call for anything you need.’

In his black clothes Rafe looks overheated. ‘Morning, sir. That wind has dropped. It’s as warm as August out there. They say this will go on all summer. We can’t be suited, can we? Warm, cold, we’re always complaining.’ His glance flits up and down the room, because he cannot look at his master. He takes off his cap and crushes it, his fingers bruising the velvet.

‘Rafe,’ he says, ‘come here.’ He embraces him. ‘Kingston frightened me, I thought they had arrested you.’

Tentatively, Rafe touches his sleeve, as if to test if he is still solid. ‘I think they would have, except the king does not want the disruption to his business. I hardly know where I am. Early this morning I sent Helen and the little ones out of London.’

‘They will be watching you.’ He sits down again. ‘I am ill, Rafe. My breath comes short. I feel crushed, here. Kingston tells me I have to get used to it.’

‘It is shock, sir. I did not know myself what was happening, or I would have got a warning to you somehow. As we were going into council, they had someone call me back for some footling piece of business – and next thing, as I was hastening in your direction, I saw a crowd streaming away. Audley said to me, “Your master is arrested, and I am going to the Parliament house to announce it.” He was prepared. He had the paper in his pocket. He was just waiting for word from the guard.’

He thinks, I had scarcely a foot in the boat, and they were rowing me across the Styx. ‘And how did Parliament take it?’

‘In silence, sir.’

He nods. Both Lords and Commons might have been astonished, that a man made an earl in April is by June kicked out like a dog who’s stolen the beef. But then, Parliament men do not expect to understand the king’s mind. He does not answer for himself downwards, to his subjects – only upwards, to the Almighty; and perhaps, these days, not even that. To hear Henry talk, you would think God ought to be grateful, for all Henry has done for him in England these last ten years: the way he’s set him up, got his big book translated, made him the common talk.

Rafe says, ‘Edward Seymour went at once to the king, to speak for Gregory.’

‘Did he speak for me?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Did anyone speak for me?’

‘Yes. But I was not heard.’

‘Not Cranmer?’

‘Cranmer is writing the king a letter.’

‘Try and get me its content.’ He lowers his head. ‘When I think of Call-Me … I wonder what inducement … I suppose I expected it of Riche. Though I have been good to them both.’

Rafe would be justified in saying, I told you at the first not to trust Call-Me. Instead he says, ‘All the years we have known him, I think he has been trying to show us his own unhappy nature. How fretful he is, how ill-at-ease, how envy eats away at him. He was trying to warn us about himself.’

‘It is my vanity, really. I did not suppose anyone would prefer Gardiner’s service to mine.’

‘Gardiner has threatened him. But you know that. As for Purse, he runs to the day’s winner.’

‘Tell Gregory,’ he says, ‘to be as humble as he finds it necessary. He will be questioned, and he should say what they want to hear. Richard too.’