The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [149]
The Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.
She coveted others’ husbands. Me, in the beginning; then Thomas Wyatt, Francis Weston, even her brother George. All were married, yet she demanded that they pay court to her.
The Tenth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.
Greedily, Anne had always looked to the possessions of others, wanting them to spite their owners. I remembered the insistence on depriving Katherine of the christening gown, of the royal jewels, on taking over Wolsey’s York Place. She desired the things only because they were treasured by an enemy.
“Thoughts lead to deeds,” I said. “Must we wait for a murderer to murder?”
“We must, as God Himself must. Besides, in the eyes of the law, he is not a murderer until then. Your Majesty ... can you not clarify the problem regarding the Queen? I could help you so much better if I knew your meaning exactly.”
No. To let him be privy to my knowledge might endanger his life. The Witch would know.
“No. It is enough for you to know that I must be rid of her, divorced from her. Find means to effect this! Use all your subtleties, use all your powers, but bring it about!” The same instructions I had once given Wolsey about Katherine, and he had failed. “Fail me not; it is a desperate situation!” Crum was not bound by his own glory and reputation; he was much freer to act than Wolsey had ever been. His own ambitions did not hobble him from serving his King. Our self-interests were perfectly in harmony.
“I will need time,” he said. “It would perhaps be beneficial if I were to attend the Queen’s Michaelmas festivities to observe. If you could secure me an invitation?”
So Anne was planning yet another of her fetes. “Yes, of course. Is it to be a large one?”
“The entire court, so they say. I did not receive an invitation. The Queen has never ... cared for me.”
“How ungrateful, considering that you masterminded the great revolution which she now uses as her throne.”
He shrugged in mock humility. “I have not exhausted my capacity to mastermind, and nothing is secure forever.” His eyes were alight, like those of a small boy given a great wooden puzzle. His ingenuity was being challenged and given a chance to fly, hunt, and bring down prey—like one of his beloved hawks.
I had received an invitation from Anne regarding the fete in honour of Saint Michael the Archangel and All Angels, to be given by Her Majesty the Queen, the time, the particulars, all interwoven with a curious pattern of black and white, in which gradually the design changed from one to the othersterde Solicitor-General, was standing between Chancellor Audley and his wife. His utterly featureless, forgettable face smiled blandly, blankly. His lips moved, saying nothing. Yet his testimony had helped to convict More.
More.
His replacements and inheritors milled about: Thomas Wriothesley, another “find” of Cromwell’s, strutted about pointing and mincing. He had lately aristocraticized his name from Risley to Wriothesley and talked in what he assumed was a fashionable soft tone. Beside him stood Ralph Sadler, a pleasant little rodent of a man; William Petre, sweet and malleable; Bishop Stephen Gardiner, calculating but inept—an unfortunate combination.
They all left a bad taste in my mouth. I found myself wishing to spit, particularly on the plume of Risley’s rakishly affected hat.
It was with relief that my eyes found another group of “New Men.” There was William Parr, barely twenty, but with a gravity of manner that suggested an earlier era. He was from a northern family, one that had served me well against the Scots. His sister, Katherine, married to old Lord Latimer, was beside him, her youth not at all compromised by her husband’s needs. Although he was also from Lincolnshire, he kept a London town house and brought his wife often to court, where she sought out the few remaining scholars and Humanists, pointedly avoiding Anne’s suite. I was surprised—pleased, but surprised