“How I hate this intrigue! I feel like a prisoner in the Tower rather than a Queen in her Palace.”

The ambassador looked at her sadly. He wondered what might have befallen her, standing in the King’s way as she did, had she not been the aunt of the Emperor.


* * *

FRANCISCO FELIPEZ presented himself to the King and asked if he might speak to him in private.

Henry granted this request, thinking that the man came with some message from the Queen, but as soon as they were alone Felipez said: “Your Grace, I am in great distress. My mother is dying and wishes to give me her blessing. I have come to ask your permission to go to her.”

“You are a servant of the Queen,” said Henry. “Have you not asked her for this licence?”

Felipez looked uneasy. “I have, Your Grace.”

“Well?”

“And she has refused it.”

The King’s blue eyes were wide with astonishment.

“Why so?” he demanded.

“She believes that I do not speak the truth.”

“And has she reason to believe this?”

“None, Your Grace.”

“This is unlike the Queen. I have always thought her to be most considerate of her servants.”

“The Queen has changed. She accused me of seeking to leave her, as all her servants would do in time.”

“But why should she say such a thing?”

The man hesitated, but Henry insisted that he should continue. “Your Grace, the Queen says that, since you are displeased with her, all her servants will find excuses to leave her.”

“I fear the Queen is suffering from delusions,” said Henry. “It grieves me that she should have so little thought for her servants. You did well to come to me. I will grant your licence; I will do more. I will give you a safe-conduct through France which will make your journey so much easier.”

Felipez fell to his knees, tears of gratitude in his eyes.

“We see you are pleased,” said Henry gruffly. “I will give you your licence now.”

“How can I thank Your Grace?” stammered the man.

But Henry waved a hand and went to the table. He wrote for a while, then handed the man a document.

“This will suffice,” he said. “You need have no fear that you will be intercepted. I trust that you will reach your mother in time.”

When Felipez had gone, Henry thought: There is a man who, should he return to England, will be my servant, not the Queen’s.

It was some days later when Henry remembered the incident and mentioned it in a letter he wrote to the Cardinal who was now in France.

The Cardinal’s answer came back promptly.

“This man but feigns to visit his sick mother. Your Highness will realize that it is chiefly for disclosing your secret matter to the Emperor and to devise means and ways of how it may be impeached. I pray Your Grace to ascertain whether this man has left England and, if he has not, to stop him. If he has left, I will, if it be in my power, have him intercepted in his journey across France, for if this matter should come to the Emperor’s ears, it should be no little hindrance to Your Grace.”

When Henry read that letter he was furious. He had been foolish not to see through the ruse. What a cunning woman the Queen had become! He should have seen through her deception. And because the Cardinal had seen at once, and because had the Cardinal been in England the licence would never have been granted, Henry, perversely, felt irritated with the Cardinal.

There was another reason which made him uneasy when he thought of the Cardinal. There were certain matters which he had withheld from his minister. Anne hated Wolsey and she was gradually persuading Henry to hate him.

Anne had said: “If the Cardinal knew of our desires he would work against us. Never have I forgotten the time when he treated me as though I were the lowest serving wench—and all because Henry Percy had spoken for me.”

“But, sweetheart, if any man can get me my divorce, that man is the Cardinal,” Henry had insisted.

Anne had agreed with that. They should use the Cardinal, for he was a wily man; she did not deny that. But he believed that the purpose of the divorce he was trying to arrange was that Henry might marry Renée, daughter of Louis XII, not Anne Boleyn.

So there were secrets which the King had kept from the Cardinal, and during recent months it had often been necessary to deceive him. Once there had been complete accord between them, but this was no longer so, and now Henry was irritated to think of those secrets; he might have despised himself for his duplicity, but as he could not do that, he gave vent to his feelings in his dislike of Wolsey.

He brushed the man out of his thoughts and had the Court searched for Francisco Felipez. He could not be found. It seemed that he had left England several days before.


* * *

THE KING SENT for one of his secretaries, Dr. William Knight. This was a man whom he trusted and who had already shown himself a worthy ambassador, for Henry had often sent him abroad on state business.

William Knight was a man of some fifty years and Henry had chosen him for his wisdom and experience.

“Ah, my good William,” said the King as soon as Dr. Knight entered his apartment, “you have been in my service many years, and I have great faith in you; that is why I now assign to you the most important task of your life.”

William Knight was surprised. He stammered: “Your Grace knows that whatever task is assigned to me I will perform with all my wits.”

“We know it, William. That is why we are entrusting you with this matter. You are to leave at once for Rome, travelling through France of course.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“And when you reach Rome you must find some means of seeing the Pope. I wish this matter of the divorce to be hastened. I chafe with the delay. I wish you to ask the Pope to give Cardinal Wolsey the power to try our case here in England. And there is one other matter. As soon as the divorce is settled I shall marry—immediately. I consider it my duty to marry and I have chosen the Lady Anne Boleyn to be my wife.”

William Knight did not answer. He had heard rumors of course. He knew that the Boleyn faction had great influence with the King, but had not realized that the matter had gone so far and that the King could possibly contemplate marriage with Thomas Boleyn’s daughter while Wolsey was in France—not exactly negotiating for a marriage with the Princess Renée, but surely with this in mind.

“There is one matter,” went on the King, “which gives me great concern. I fear there may be an obstacle to my union with the Lady Anne, owing to a relationship I once had with her sister, Mary. Because of the existing canon law a close relationship has been established between the Lady Anne and myself, and in order that this be removed there would have to be a dispensation from the Pope. Your mission in Rome is that you request the Pope, beside giving Wolsey permission to try the case, to give you the dispensation which would enable me to marry the Lady Anne with a free conscience.”

William Knight bowed. “I will set out for Rome at once,” he told the King, “and serve Your Grace with all my heart and power.”

Henry slapped his secretary’s shoulder.

“Begone, good William. I look to see you back ere long. Bring me what I wish and I’ll not forget the service you have rendered. But, by God, make haste. I chafe against delay.”


* * *

WOLSEY HAD set out for France, travelling to the coast with even more than his usual pomp. His red satin robes, his tippet of sables, made him a dazzling figure in the midst of his brilliant cavalcade; he held himself erect and glanced neither to right nor left, because he knew that the looks of those who had gathered to see him pass would be hostile. At one time he would have scorned them; he did so no longer; he, the proud Cardinal, would have eagerly welcomed one kindly smile, would have been delighted with one friendly word.

He thought as he rode along that he was like a man climbing a mountain. He had come far over the grassy slopes which had been easy to scale; but now the top was in sight and he had to traverse the glacial surface to reach it. He had come so far that there was no going back; and he was on the treacherous ground where one false step could send him hurtling into the valley of degradation.

All about him were his servants in their red and gold livery. Where the crowd was thick his gentlemen ushers cried out: “On, my lords and masters, on before. Make way for my Lord’s Grace.”

Even he who had been wont to pass each day from York Place or Hampton to Westminster Hall in the greatest pomp had never travelled quite so magnificently as he did at this time. Now he rode as the King’s vicar-general, and as he went through the City and over London bridge, through Kent on his way to the sea, he could not help wondering how many more such glorious journeys there would be for him; and what the next journey would be, and whether the people would come from their houses to watch Wolsey pass by.

Yet even though his heart was heavy with foreboding, he could enjoy this ostentatious display. Here he was the central figure among nine hundred horsemen, seated on his mule with its trappings of crimson velvet and stirrups of copper and gilt. In his hand he held an orange, the inside of which had been removed and replaced with unguents and vinegar which would be proof against the pestilential air. Delicately he sniffed it when he passed through the poor villages and from the corner of his eye saw the ragged men and women who had come out to stare at him. Before him were carried two enormous crosses of silver and two pillars, also of silver, the great seal of England and his Cardinal’s hat, that all might realize that he was not merely the great Cardinal, as his red robes proclaimed him, but the Chancellor and the richest man in England—under the King.