And what could his faithful servant do to hasten the decision when Campeggio had clearly been advised by the Pope to avoid a trial of the case if possible, and if not to use every means to delay bringing matters to a head! Wolsey was powerless to work without Campeggio; and the Pope and the King were pulling in opposite directions.

One of his most trusted servants entered the apartment, and the Cardinal, startled, withdrew his hands.

“I suffer from a headache,” Wolsey explained.

“A pressure of work, Your Eminence,” was the answer.

“Can it be so? I have suffered from a pressure of work, Cromwell, for as long as I can remember.”

Thomas Cromwell sighed sympathetically and laid some documents before the Cardinal. In a lesser degree Thomas Cromwell shared his master’s uneasiness, for people in the Court and in the City were beginning to show their dislike of him, which was entirely due to the fact that he was the Cardinal’s man.

He thought of himself as a parasite feeding on the abundance of the Cardinal; and if Wolsey fell, what would happen to Cromwell?

Could Wolsey stand out against all the powers that fought against him? There could not be a man in England who had more enemies. Norfolk and Suffolk were watching like vultures; so was Lord Darcy; and the Boleyn faction, which was daily growing stronger, was standing by eagerly waiting for the kill.

The King? The King was Wolsey’s only hope. Henry still admired the cleverness of his minister and was loath to part with his favorite. That was Wolsey’s hope…and Thomas Cromwell’s.

Now suppose the Lady Anne lost a little of her influence over the King; suppose she gave way to his pleadings and became his mistress; suppose Henry made the natural discovery that Anne was very little different from other women…then Wolsey might yet retain his hold on the King. That was if the French alliance provided all that Wolsey and Henry hoped for. But François was an unreliable ally—even as Charles had been.

So many suppositions, thought Thomas Cromwell, for a Cardinal’s fate to depend on, and the fate of his lawyer who had risen because he was in his service hung with that of his master.

It was nearly six years before that Thomas Cromwell had set up in Gray’s Inn and had been called to work for the Cardinal. He had helped to suppress certain small monasteries in order to promote colleges at Ipswich and Oxford in which the Cardinal was interested, and there had been complaints about the manner in which he, Cromwell, and his colleague, John Allen, had set about this business, but the Cardinal had protected them from trouble.

Wolsey had been pleased with him, and since then all his legal business had gone into Thomas Cromwell’s hands. Thus it was that a lawyer could rise from obscurity to greatness, but Thomas Cromwell was too shrewd not to know that a man could as easily fall as rise.

He had come a very long way from his father’s blacksmith’s shop, although his father was a man of enterprise and had been a fuller and shearer of cloth in addition to his trade as blacksmith. Thomas had intended to go farther, and after a somewhat wild youth, which had resulted in a term of imprisonment and flight from the country, he had, following a period spent abroad, returned sobered, with the intention of making his fortune.

He had every reason to be pleased with what he had done until he suddenly understood that the Cardinal’s good fortune was turning sour.

“These are troublous times,” murmured Cromwell.

“You speak truth,” answered the Cardinal grimly.

“Your Eminence,” went on Cromwell, “what in your opinion will be the King’s answer if the Pope refuses to grant his divorce?”

Wolsey’s body seemed to stiffen. Then he said slowly: “The King will have only one course of action. He will accept his fate, and give up all plans for remarriage.”

“Your Eminence has noticed, no doubt, that there are many Lutheran books entering the country.”

“I know it. Since that man Luther set the new doctrines before the world there seems no way of preventing these books from coming here. They are smuggled in; they are read, talked of…”

“Is it true, Your Eminence, that the King himself is interested in these ideas?”

Wolsey looked up sharply at the thickset lawyer, with the big head which seemed too close to his shoulders; at the strong jaw and thin lips which made his mouth look like a trap, at the cold expression, the gleaming, intelligent dark eyes.

“How did you know that he was?” demanded Wolsey. “Has he told you this?”

Cromwell smiled deprecatingly to indicate his humility. That smile said: Would the King confide in Thomas Cromwell? “No, Your Eminence,” he answered. “But the Boleyns are interested. I believe the Lady passed a book to the King and told him he must read it. And he, being told he must, obeyed.”

Wolsey was silent.

Cromwell leaned forward slightly and whispered: “What if the King should so dislike the Pope that he became more than a little interested in heresy?”

“He never would,” declared Wolsey. “Is he not Defender of the Faith?”

“He was a fierce foe of Luther at the time that title was bestowed on him. But times change, Eminence.”

Once more Wolsey looked up into that cold, clever face. He had a great respect for the lawyer’s intelligence.

“What mean you, Cromwell?” he asked.

Cromwell shrugged his shoulders. “That the Lady and her friends might give their support to Lutheranism, seeing thereby a way to dispense with the services of the Pope.”

“I think not,” said the Cardinal, rising and smoothing the red folds of his robe as though to remind himself and Cromwell of the importance of Rome. “The King has always been devoted to the Church.”

Cromwell bowed and Wolsey said: “I must go now to His Grace. I have a matter of some importance to discuss with him.”

The lawyer walked from the apartment at the side of the Cardinal, his manner obsequious. He was thinking that Wolsey was growing old and that old men lost their shrewdness. Then his problem was pressing down upon him: What will Cromwell do when Wolsey has fallen? When would be the time for the parasite to leave his host? And where would he find another?

Cromwell’s eyes glinted at the thought. He would leap up, not down. Was it such a long jump from a Cardinal to a King?


* * *

THE CARDINAL had summoned Thomas Abell, the Queen’s chaplain, to appear before him and the King.

“He will be here in a few minutes, Your Grace,” Wolsey told Henry.

“And you think he is the man for this mission?”

“I am sure we could not find a better, Your Grace, for since he is the Queen’s chaplain, the Emperor will think he acts for the Queen.”

“It seems a marvellous thing,” said Henry peevishly, “that there should be this delay. When…when…when shall I be granted what I wish? How much longer must I live in this uncertainty?”

“As soon as we have the brief safely in our hands the case can be opened. But let us not despair of the Queen’s entering a convent.”

“She is a stubborn woman,” grumbled the King.

“I know, Your Grace, but she pins hope to this brief. Once it is in our hands her case will crumble.”

A page entered to say that Thomas Abell was without.

“Send him in,” commanded Wolsey.

Thomas Abell bowed low before the King.

“Now to our business,” said Henry.

“It is His Grace’s wish,” said the Cardinal, “that you should leave at once for Spain. You are to go to the Emperor and hand him a letter from the Queen. He will give you a certain document, and this you are to bring to His Grace with all speed.”

“Your Grace, Your Eminence,” said Thomas Abell, “gladly would I serve you, but I must tell you that I have little Spanish and I fear that would be an impediment to me in this mission.”

Henry looked at Wolsey who said quickly: “You shall take a servant and interpreter with you.”

“Then I shall set out with all speed. There is a man in the Queen’s household who would make a good servant and is moreover a Spaniard. I refer to Montoya. If this man could accompany me I should have no qualms in setting out immediately.”

“Let it be so,” said the Cardinal. “You should leave tomorrow, and in the meantime it is His Grace’s wish that you should have no communication with the Queen. You must carry with you, apart from this one, no letters from the Queen to the Emperor. To do this would incur the King’s displeasure and, as you know, you could then be accused of high treason.”

Thomas Abell said he understood, and withdrew in order to make his preparations for the journey, while Wolsey summoned Montoya that the importance of his journey might be impressed upon him.

When he left the King and the Cardinal, Thomas Abell was thoughtful. He was to carry a letter from the Queen to the Emperor, and this letter was to be given him by the Cardinal. He was not to take any other message from the Queen to her nephew. It therefore seemed to him that the letter which he carried, although in the Queen’s handwriting and purporting to express her wishes, had no doubt been written under duress.

Thomas Abell was a deeply religious man. His position at Court had by no means increased his ambitions, which were not for worldly gain. He was a man who cared passionately for causes; and it seemed to him that the Queen’s cause was more worthy than the King’s.

There had been a moment, as he confronted the King and Cardinal, when he had almost refused to obey their orders. No, he wanted to say, I refuse to work against the Queen in this matter of the divorce.