to me. I was busy, in my early twenties, with my girl-life. Smitten with a pretty-boy. Henry was a man, in his thirties and into his second decade of marriage. Moreover, of course, he was the king. For me, he wasn’t a potential lover; it never crossed my mind. And if it had, Henry wouldn’t have appealed to me. Oh, he impressed me, yes, of course. And intrigued me. But the sheer spectacle of him…Well, that was what it was: spectacle. He wasn’t for falling in love with.
Henry didn’t divorce Catherine because of me. For me, yes; in the end, yes. But not because of me. He was thinking of doing so anyway, in time, probably to marry some French princess. Wolsey was keen on that idea. He was late to catch on to what was happening, was know-all Wolsey. Even though he did know about me. Or thought he did. But what he knew—or thought he did—was that I was the king’s new bit on the side. I’d been suitable to invite again and again to lavish dinners at his gorgeous Hampton Court (a thousand rooms, a thousand crimson-clad servants) on the arm of the king…but I was nothing more. As wife-to-be, I rather crept up on Wolsey. But that’s because he’d been kept in the dark. Replaced as the king’s confidant. By me, funnily enough, as it happens. Right-hand man replaced by bit on the side: no wonder he was caught off-guard.
Leviticus 20, verse 21: And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless. Henry’s wife was his—had been his—brother’s wife, briefly, before his brother’s death. The marriage had been deemed a non-event because, according to Catherine, Arthur hadn’t been up to doing his husbandly duty. The problem was, Henry and Catherine still had no children. Well, no sons. There was of course the daughter, pathetic example though she was. A mis-translation, said Henry, turning sudden specialist in Hebrew: it should read ‘sonless’. Henry and Catherine’s lack of a surviving son, he decided, was God’s judgement on a sinful marriage. That’s what he said, and he believed it; he talked himself into believing it and from then onwards his fervour was unshakeable.
I didn’t suggest Leviticus to him. Why would I? In my view, he had grounds enough to rid himself of that Spaniard: she’d proved no use at all, and now—aunt of a rampaging emperor—she was a liability. And Leviticus was no discovery for him: he’d quoted it, years before we met, in his book on Luther. As for the dubious validity of his marriage: he knew that it had been an issue at the time; and he knew, too, that for some the misgivings had persisted. A French bishop, for example, had queried the brat’s legitimacy during a round of marriage-brokering. None of it was news, and none of it—yet—was due to me.
Like anyone else at court, I’d heard speculation from time to time about a royal divorce: Why doesn’t he just get rid of her? Marriage breakdown and separation happens all the time. Sometimes an annulment, or a divorce. And in this particular case? Our lovely young king married to a babbling old nun? Worse: a babbling old Spanish nun, when England’s focus was firmly on France. Her being a Spaniard could be overlooked, though; she’d been here a long time. What really mattered was that distinct lack of live baby boys.
If Wolsey had had his way, he’d have got Henry his divorce and then shipped in some French flesh to produce princes, and to have French friends and deck up for functions. Well, I could do that. And more. And I wouldn’t have to be royal; Elizabeth Woodville hadn’t been, and it hadn’t stopped her marrying Edward IV. And anyway I wasn’t completely un-royal; I had that smidgeon of Plantagenet blood. (Didn’t we all, though. All except Wolsey, that is.) Surely I could produce sons—my useless sister had just managed one—and I was practically French, I’d done a long stint at the French court and was liked by anyone, there, who was anyone. There was another way in which I was queen material, too: no one in England rivalled my dress sense. I dressed the part. So, I’d do. Better still, I’d be no homesick half-wit. But best of all, this was my country and I had plans for it, along with the guts to see them through. And one of those plans was going to make me very popular with just about anyone who wasn’t Wolsey: I wanted rid of Wolsey.
I’d say Wolsey was too big for his boots, but let’s not beat about the bush: what Wolsey was too big for was England. Never before had there been a man in England so rich and powerful who wasn’t a king. Moreover, this was a man who wasn’t anything at all, not originally: a nobody turned cleric, a butcher’s boy become cardinal. The nobles had a thing or two to say about that, behind his back.
I suppose that’s why Henry trusted him with the kingdom: no friends to favour; no claim to the throne. Henry’s talent—the best talent of all—is for recognizing other’s talents. I wonder, now, if I should include myself in that. Did he see that I’d flinch at nothing to rid him of that used-up wife? He recognizes talent and he trusts: he trusts absolutely; right up until when, suddenly, he doesn’t. It’s Thomas Cromwell whom he trusts now: Cromwell, the next and even better Wolsey. Wolsey’s talent had been running the country for Henry. And serious statesman though Henry is…well, when he was young, his passion was for the good life. He’d do a certain amount of work, but then he’d want to go hunting or dancing. Wolsey would stay behind and pick up the pieces. And build palaces from them.
If anyone was a match for Wolsey, glorified butcher’s boy, then it was me, king-favoured granddaughter of a merchant. I knew where he was coming from. He, however, didn’t even know I was coming. Me being a woman, he didn’t see me coming. And I was ample match for him: no chinless wonder; no Stafford, who, four or five years earlier, had assumed he could click his fingers and have the nobility collect quietly behind him while he asked the Tudors a few awkward questions about their lineage. When Stafford clicked his fingers, Henry overheard. Henry did some clicking of his own—for quill, ink, warrant—and Stafford went to the block. This, from a king not given in those days to bloodshed; a king who loved to be loved. Stafford’s execution had left them all—even my Uncle Norfolk—sulking, subdued. But me, no. Stafford was history for me, I’d never known the man and wouldn’t have liked him if I had. He was no loss for me: one more English aristocrat peering down his pox-eroded nose at the likes of us Boleyns. What had happened to Stafford was no warning to me. I wasn’t about to lose my nerve.
The door’s opening, and there’s someone in the doorway. The someone’s asking, ‘Miss Cornwallis?’ Male, young, not a voice I know. Bad timing: I can’t take my eyes from this pan of boiling sugar, it’s just about to reach the crucial point. He shouldn’t be knocking at the confectionery door; he should know better. There’s delicate work going on, in here; everyone knows that. What’s the matter with these boys, knocking on this door all day long? ‘Richard’s not here,’ I tell him. ‘Can you shut the door, please?’ I can’t have the temperature drop; and it’s barely spring, outside.
He obliges. But he’s still here. True, I didn’t actually say, With you on the other side of it. Swiping the pan from the flame, I glimpse him. Glossy black hair; pale-faced, kid-pale; dark eyes. I settle the pan in a basin of water; and through the hiss of steam, I hear him saying, ‘You’ve a sore throat.’ Concerned. For me, by the sound of it; not for himself, for the prospect of contagion.
‘Dry,’ I clarify; feel obliged to. ‘Sticky. Comes of working in here.’ Our confectionery kitchen is purpose-built, here, at Hampton Court: we’re on the first floor above the pastry ovens. Good for sugar, not so good for me. ‘And from the sugar.’ Sugar, powdered, gets everywhere. In my hair and down my throat. When I glimpsed him, just now, it was through sugared eyelashes. ‘Look,’ I ask him, ‘if you find Richard, can you tell him to get back here?’
He draws breath, as if he’s about to say something, but I hear no more.
Good. I’m not passing messages.
And he goes. Gently closing the door.
