The Shadow of the Pomegranate (11 page)

The King proved his wisdom when Surrey turned out to be a first-class general and as ready to work for the Tudor as he had for Richard III. For his services he was made a member of the Privy Council and Lord Treasurer.

When Henry VII had died, Surrey, on account of his age and experience, had become the chief of the new King’s advisers; and recently, to show his appreciation, young Henry had bestowed upon his faithful servant the title of Earl Marshal.

As soon as these three men were together Fox told them of his concern.

‘The King contemplates war with France. I confess that the prospect does not please me.’

‘The expense would be great,’ agreed Warham, ‘and what hope would there be of recovering that which we laid out?’

They were looking at Surrey, the soldier, who was thoughtful. The prospect of war always thrilled him; but he was becoming too old to take an active part in wars and therefore could consider them, not in terms of adventure and valour, but of profit and loss.

‘It would depend on our friends,’ he said.

‘We should stand with Spain.’

Surrey nodded. ‘Spain could attack from the South; we from the North. It does not sound a pleasant prospect for the French.’

‘The late King,’ said Fox, ‘was against wars. He always said that it was a sure way of losing English blood and gold.’

‘Yet, there could be riches from conquest,’ mused Surrey.

‘Victory,’ put in Warham, ‘is more easily dreamed of than won.’

‘The King is enamoured of the prospect,’ Fox declared.

‘Doubtless because the Queen has made it sound so attractive to him,’ added Warham. ‘Can it be that Ferdinand has placed an ambassador nearer to the King than any of his own advisers could hope to be?’

He was looking ironically at Fox, reminding him that he had been in favour of the marriage while he, Warham, had seen many disadvantages – of which this could be one.

‘The King is pleased with his Queen as a wife,’ put in Fox. ‘Yet I believe him to be wise enough to look to his ministers for advice as to how matters of state should be conducted.’

‘Yet,’ Surrey said, ‘he would seem eager for war.’

‘How can we know,’ went on Warham, ‘what has been written in Ferdinand’s secret despatches to his daughter? How can we know what the Queen whispers to the King in moments of intimacy?’

‘It always seemed to me that the young King must tire of his sports and pageants in time,’ said Fox. ‘Now the time has come and he wishes to turn his energies to war. This was bound to happen, and the conquest of France is a natural desire.’

‘What course do you suggest we should take in this matter?’ Warham asked.

‘Why,’ Fox told him, ‘I believe that if we advised His Grace
to send a few archers to help his father-in-law in his battles, that would suffice for the time.’

‘And you think the King will be satisfied with that?’ demanded Surrey. ‘Young Henry is yearning to place himself at the head of his fighting men. He wishes to earn glory for his country . . . and himself.’

‘His father had turned a bankrupt state into one of some consequence,’ Warham reminded them. ‘He did it through peace, not through war.’

‘And,’ put in Surrey, remembering the confiscation of his own estates, ‘by taxes and extortions.’

‘I was not speaking of the method,’ Fox told him coldly, ‘but of the result.’ He went on: ‘I have asked the King’s almoner to join us here, for there are certain matters which I feel we should lay before him; and he is such an able fellow that he may help us in our counsels.’

Surrey’s face grew purple. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘That fellow, Wolsey! I will not have the low-born creature sharing in my counsels.’

Fox looked at the Earl coldly. ‘He has the King’s confidence, my lord,’ he said. ‘It would be well if you gave him yours.’

‘That I never shall,’ declared Surrey. ‘Let the fellow go back to his father’s butcher’s shop.’

‘Ah,’ said Warham, ‘he has come a long way from that.’

‘I’ll admit he has sharp wits,’ conceded Surrey. ‘And a quick tongue.’

‘He also has the King’s ear, which is something we should not forget,’ Fox told him. ‘Come, my lord, do not allow your prejudices to affect your judgement of one of the ablest men in this country. We have need of men such as Thomas Wolsey.’

Surrey’s lips were tightly pressed together and the veins in his temples stood out. He wanted them to know that he was a member of the aristocracy and that he supported his own class. If there were honours to be earned they should be earned by noblemen; to his bigoted mind it was inconceivable that a man of humble origin should share the secrets of the King’s ministers.

Fox watched him ironically. ‘Then, my lord,’ he said, ‘if you object to the company of Thomas Wolsey, I can only ask you to leave us, for Thomas Wolsey will be with us in a very short time.’

Surrey stood undecided. To go would mean cutting himself off from affairs; he was growing old; he believed that Fox and this upstart of his would be delighted to see him pass into obscurity. He could not allow that.

‘I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘But, by God, I’ll stand no insolence from a butcher’s cur.’

Thomas Wolsey had taken time from his duties to visit his family. This was one of the pleasures of his life; not only did he enjoy being a husband and father but the fact that he must do so with secrecy gave his pleasure an added fillip.

He was a priest but that had not prevented his being uncanonically married; and when he had fallen in love with his little ‘lark’, and she with him, it became clear that their relationship was no light matter of a few weeks’ duration and must therefore be set on as respectable a basis as was possible in the circumstances.

So he had gone through a form of marriage with Mr Lark’s daughter; he had made a home for her which he visited from
time to time, leaving his clerical garments behind, and dressed so that he could pass through the streets as an ordinary gentleman returning to his home.

It was a rather splendid little home, for he enjoyed ostentation and could not resist the pleasure of making his family aware that he was rising in the world.

As he entered the house he called: ‘Who is at home today? Who is ready to receive a visitor?’

A serving maid appeared and gave a little cry of wonder. She was followed by a boy and a girl who, having heard his voice, rushed out to greet him.

Thomas Wolsey laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and put an arm about the girl. The smile on his face made him look younger than his thirty-seven years. The alertness in the eyes almost disappeared; Thomas Wolsey briefly looked like a man who is contented.

‘Why, my son, my little daughter, so you are pleased to see your father, eh?’

‘We are always pleased to see our father,’ said the boy.

‘That is as it should be,’ answered Thomas Wolsey. ‘Now Tom, my boy, where is your mother?’

There was no need to ask. She had started to come down the stairs, and as Thomas looked up she paused and for a few seconds they gazed at each other. The woman, thought Thomas, for whom I was ready to risk a great deal. Not everything, and perhaps what he had risked was not very much – for why should not a priest have a wife as long as he did not prate of it – but the fact that he was ready to risk anything, that he was ready to pause in his journey up the steep and difficult slopes of ambition to spend a little time with this woman and their children, was an indication of the extent of his feelings for her.

‘Thomas, had I known . . .’ she began; and she came down the stairs slowly, almost reverently, as though she marvelled yet again that this great man should have time to spare for her.

He took her hand and kissed it.

‘Well met, Mistress Wynter,’ he said.

‘Well met, Master Wynter.’

It was the name behind which they sheltered from the world. She longed to boast that she was the wife of the great Thomas Wolsey, but she knew well the folly of that. He had given so much; he could not be expected to give more. She was happy enough to be plain Mistress Wynter, with a husband whose business frequently called him away from home but who was now and then able to visit his family.

The future of her children was secure. Thomas was rising rapidly in the service of the King; he was proud of the children; he would not forget them, and their way would be easier than his had been. Honours, riches would come to them – that would be when they were of an age to receive them – and by that time Thomas would be the most important man in the realm. Mistress Wynter believed that, for Thomas had determined it should be so; and Thomas always achieved his ends.

The children stood aside while their parents embraced.

‘How long will you stay, Thomas?’ she asked.

‘Naught but a few hours, my lark.’ Even as he uttered the endearment he wondered what certain members of the King’s entourage would say if they could see and hear him now. Fox? Warham? Surrey? Lovell? Poynings? They would snigger doubtless; and the wise among them would not be displeased. They would tell themselves that he had his weaknesses like all other men, and such weaknesses were not to be deplored but
encouraged, for they were as a great burden hung upon the back to impede the climb to the heights of success.

There are some who are afraid of Thomas Wolsey, thought Thomas, and the thought pleased him; for when men began to fear another, it meant that one was high upon the ladder since others could see him mounting.

But I must take care, he thought as he stroked his wife’s hair; no one however dear must prevent my taking every opportunity; the road to disaster and failure is one of lost opportunities.

But for a few hours he was safely hidden from the Court, so for that time he would be happy.

‘Why, Mistress Wynter,’ he said, ‘you were not warned of my coming, but I smell goodly smells from your kitchen.’

The children began to tell their father what was for dinner. There was a goose, capon and chicken; there was a pastie which their good cook had made in the shape of a fortress; there was pheasant and partridge.

Thomas was pleased. His family lived as he would have them live. It made him happy to think that he could pay for their comforts; and the sight of the rosy cheeks and plump limbs of his children was an immense satisfaction to him.

Mistress Wynter in a flurry of excitement went off to the kitchen to warn the servants that the master was in the house; and there the cook harried the lower servants to do their best and prove that, although the master of the house was often absent on his important business, the house was so well managed that he need have no fears.

So Thomas sat at table and watched the food brought in, while his wife sat facing him and on either side of the table was a child.

It was very humble compared with the King’s table, but here was contentment; and in such moments he deeply wished that he was not a priest and that he might take this charming family with him to Court and boast of the health of the boy and the good looks of the girl.

He now wished to know how young Tom was getting on with his studies, and he put on a sternly paternal expression when he discovered that the boy was not quite so fond of his studies as his tutor would wish.

‘That must be remedied,’ said Thomas, shaking his head. ‘Doubtless you think that you are young yet and that there is always time. Time is short. It is hard for you to realise it at your age, but soon you must understand that it is so, for when you do you will have learned one of the first lessons of life. It is those who dally by the wayside, my son, who never reach the end of the road.’

There was quiet at the table, as there always was when he spoke; he had a melodious voice and a way of driving home his points which demanded attention.

And as they sat eating their way through meat and pies to the marchpane and sugarbread he told his family how he himself had once defeated time in such a way that he had convinced the King that he had a little more than ordinary men to offer in his service.

‘It was when I was in the service of the old King . . .’ He did not tell them that he had been the King’s chaplain; children often talked freely in the hearing of servants, and he must keep secret his connection with the Church. ‘This was not the King you have seen riding through the streets. This was the old King, his father, a King with a very serious mind and one who had learned the value of time.

‘He called me to him and he said: “I wish you to go on a journey to Flanders as a special envoy to the Emperor Maximilian. Prepare to leave as soon as possible.” So I took the message which I was to deliver and I set out for my lodgings. My servant said: “You will leave tomorrow, my lord?” And I answered: “Tomorrow! Nay, I shall leave today . . . at this very hour.” He was astonished. He had thought I should need time to prepare for such a journey; but I was conscious of time and I knew that the message I carried was of great importance. It might be that if it arrived a day later than I intended to deliver it, the answer to that letter would not be the same favourable one that I was determined to get. Circumstances change . . . and it is time which changes them.

‘The message I carried was the King’s request for the hand of Maximilian’s daughter in marriage. If I could bring a favourable reply from Maximilian, the King would be happy, and that would make him pleased with me; and if that reply came quickly, the better pleased he would be.