“My Lord King, you honor me too much, I feel myself inadequate to meddle in such matters.”

“Nay, nay,” said the King. “You underestimate your powers.” His voice was kind still, but his eyes flashed a warning. This matter was very near his heart, and he would brook no interference. This was a matter of conscience—the King's conscience and no one else's, for the King's conscience was such a mighty monster that it would tolerate no interference from the consciences of others. “Come. You agree with these men who will bring a suit against me, do you not? You know, as they know, that your King and Queen are living together in sinful incest. Come! Come! Be not afraid. We ask for the truth.”

“Since your Grace asks for the truth, may I ask for time— time that I may consider this matter?”

The King's eyes were narrow, his mouth sullen.

“Very well, then. Very well. Take your time.”

He turned away abruptly, and several courtiers, who had been watching from a safe distance, asked themselves what Sir Thomas More had done to offend the King.


* * *

ONE OF the sights to be seen in the City, rivaled only by that of the marching watch on Midsummer's Eve and the Eve of St. Peter, was the ceremonious procession which attended the great Cardinal on all his journeyings. Before him, about him and behind him, went his retinue of servants, extravagantly clad in black velvet with golden chains about their necks; the lower servants were conspicuous in their tawny livery. And in the center of all this pomp, preceded by the bearers of his silver crosses, his two pillars of silver, the Great Seal of England and his Cardinal's hat, rode the Cardinal himself, in his hand an orange, the inside of which had been replaced by pieces of vinegar-soaked sponge and other substances to counteract the pestilential air; the trappings of his mule were crimson velvet and his stirrups of copper and gold.

He went with as much ceremony as if he were the King himself.

He passed over London Bridge, and the people watched him in sullen silence. They blamed Wolsey for all their ills. Who was Wolsey? they asked themselves. A low-born man who, by great good luck, lived in the state of a King. When taxes were too high—and they always were—they blamed Wolsey. And now that the King wanted to replace the Queen, they blamed Wolsey for that. The people wanted an heir to the throne, yes; but the more serious among them remembered that the Queen was the aunt of the Emperor Charles of Spain; they might not be troubled on account of the Emperors humiliation, which he would undoubtedly feel if his aunt were cast off, but they feared his armies. So … they blamed Wolsey.

He was on his way to France now, and in his retinue rode Sir Thomas More.

The great Cardinal was more deeply perturbed at this time than he had ever been before.

Fortune was turning against him. Had he looked too high when he had coveted the Papal Chair? Ah, if only he instead of Clement had been elected Pope, all his anxieties would be at an end. There he would have been content to rest, at the pinnacle of fame. There he would have had no need to fear any man. He had climbed to great heights, and now he was on a narrow ledge, his foothold precarious; he must retain a very careful balance if he were to continue to climb. About him snapped those angry, jealous wolves—Suffolk, Norfolk and their followers. There was only one man who could save him from those ravening beasts, and that was the most dangerous of them all—the King.

The secret court which he and Warham had called, that the King's marriage might be proved incestuous, had failed because of the obstinacy of the Queen, who insisted that her marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; therefore there were no grounds on which legality could be denied. Wolsey's foreign policy had resulted in his winning for England the enmity of both France and Spain; and now the Pope, on whose help he had relied in this matter of the royal divorce, had been captured during the sack of Rome and was a prisoner in the Emperors hands.

His mission to France was an uneasy one. He must talk with Francis; he must tell him of the King's doubts regarding the legality of his marriage; he must try to arrange a match between the Princess Mary and the son of Francis; he must cautiously hint that he was looking for a future Queen of England in France. Perhaps the Princess Renee, sister of the Queen of France? Perhaps Francis's own sister, the talented Marguerite de Valois?

Everything depended on the successful termination of the King's Secret Matter; and this was a most delicate matter even for a great statesman to handle. To juggle with the politics of Europe was one thing; to secure the gratification of the King's desires another.

Still he who had achieved so much would achieve this also. What perturbed him was the growing truculence of Norfolk, and particularly of Suffolk—for Suffolk, the King's brother-in-law and his greatest friend, had the King's ear; and there were times when Wolsey felt that Suffolk would not have dared to treat him so scurvily, had he not done so with the sanction of the King.

And at the root of this uneasiness was one factor; the King was no longer that careless boy who could be fed with the sugar plums of masques, jousts and fair women while the able hands of his shrewdest statesman steered the ship of state, which was England, along its perilous journey. This King had done with playing the careless boy; he had come to realize that the fascination of power politics was as great as a new feast or a new woman. He was breaking the bars of his cage; he was testing his strength; he was roaring with pride in his own glory. And he was saying: “I will have all… all… I will be King in very truth. I will have my rich entertainments, and I will stand on the bridge of my ship, and if any attempt to come between me and my desires they shall not live long to do so.”

On went the procession—all the pomp and glory—and in the midst of it rode an apprehensive man.

Thomas, riding along unnoticed in the glittering throng, was also pensive. All his sympathy was for the Queen. Poor lady, what had she done to deserve this humiliation? Had she wished for marriage with the King in the first place? He doubted it. He remembered her, serene and dignified, at the Coronation. Yet she had accepted her fate with meekness; she had tried to love the King, and she had been a faithful wife to him; the second was to be expected, for she was a virtuous woman; but her love for the King must have been sorely tried during these last years.

Now was his chance to leave his post, to tell the King the state of his mind, to say boldly: “Sire, I resign my post, for you will wish to have about Your Highness those ministers who can help you to obtain the divorce.”

It was a relief to rest at Rochester on the the journey to France, and there to stay in the company of his old friend, Bishop Fisher.

It was pleasanter still to have a private talk with Fisher after Wolsey had sounded him.

In the small paneled room, the two friends were serious together. They talked solemnly of the terrible calamity which had befallen the Pope; then their talk turned on the King's Secret Matter.

How could the divorce be concluded without the sanction of the Pope? And how could the Pope give his consent to the King's divorce from a lady who was a close relation of the man who held him prisoner, even if he was satisfied that he should grant a divorce?

“These are grave matters, my friend,” said Bishop Fisher.

“Grave indeed,” said Thomas, “for where they will end I do not know.”

And the next day, the Cardinal, with Sir Thomas More in his entourage, left for Canterbury, and so to France.


* * *

THE SWEATING sickness had again come to England; it roamed through the streets of the City like a hungry beast who was nourished on the filth which filled the malodorous gutters and the fetid air inside the houses. Men, women and children took the sweat; they lay down where they were, in a state of exhaustion, and died unless they could be roused from the coma into which they fell. This horrible pestilence was no respecter of persons; it struck at beggars and the highest in the land.

In the streets, the people were muttering together, telling each other that it was clear why God had sent this affliction. He was displeased. And why should He be displeased? The Secret Matter was no longer secret; they knew that the King wished to put the Queen from him; and there was no denying the rumor that the woman he wished to make his Queen was Nan Bullen—his mistress, so it was said. Who was this woman? The daughter of a knight. She was no royal Queen.

All the hatred the people felt for the upstart Wolsey they now allowed him to share with the upstart Anne Boleyn.

God was angry with England, and this was His way of showing it; there was the reason for a further visitation of this terrible pestilence.

The King was also angry. He had been deprived of the presence of his beloved mistress, who he desired to make his wife more than he desired anything on Earth. What had she said to him? “Your mistress I will not be; your wife I cannot be.” But he must be her lover even if, as she implied, the only way in which he could be was by making her his wife.

And now she had left the Court.

Wolsey had done this. What had happened to Wolsey? He had lost a little of his arrogance. He now knew that the King had not given him his confidence, and that when he, Wolsey, had been trying to negotiate a marriage with one of the princesses of France, the King had already firmly made up his mind that he would have none other than Anne Boleyn. Wolsey now knew that it was mainly Anne Boleyn who had set the King searching his conscience; but he had learned that important factor too late.