The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [60]
As, dearest Kate, you can see. Would you like me to marry a Spaniard and worship the buttock-bone of Pentecost and the great toe of the Trinity, once I am divorced? Not that there is any prospect of annulment at present: Mr Crawford has not deigned to write. But I have heard, in the most roundabout way, that he is well and active, and no doubt making Hell hotter somewhere. Perhaps Sybilla will wish to be reassured. And I can confirm that, whatever he has done, he cannot have married.
I am at the Sidneys’ in St Anthony’s, very merry because their precious Russia Company is about to be granted its charter. The wool trade (did you know? do you care?) has declined in the last three or four years, and they want a new outlet. This lets them trade in any part of the world, and gives them a monopoly of Muscovy trade and all the north lands not before frequented by Englishmen. That is the practical element. The dream is to travel through to Bokhara, and open up a direct route to the Orient. They have their navigator in Diccon Chancellor. (You may commence worrying: he is a widower with two small sons.) And they have their genius in this old man Cabot, who can tell you more about the ways of the sea, sitting at his desk than any man alive in the world.… Would you let me go overseas again, Kate dear?… I rather thought that you wouldn’t.
I go back to Court in two days, and shall thereby miss Conception Day, and the Spanish procession round the Savoy. We are very stiff in our Poperies, but the Dormers are selflessly kind as well as devout. The Queen worships with a fervour which seems to disturb her nerves rather than calm them. But her outbursts of temper are quickly over: her intentions always good. She is afraid, more than anything, that King Philip will leave her before the baby is born.
I have nothing of news or of levity to tell you of that, for it doesn’t bear speaking of But the Cardinal, as ever, is confident, and working hard, as he says, for two births. To the Queen a son, and to Christendom that peace which is desired.
He may be right. They can’t fight for four months anyway. But they say France has plenty of money and isn’t interested in peace, except to buy a delay. And that the Emperor will never forgive what Henri did to his sister last year, hacking the trees and statues at Binche with his own sword, even though the Netherlands is exhausted with a tax (did you know?) bigger than all the Peruvian revenues.
Everyone is afraid that if there is a resumption of war, Philip will drag us into it, even though the marriage contract said otherwise. At any rate, the Spaniards here are longing to have an excuse to leave court and would infinitely prefer, I rather think, to abandon us all safely behind them. It might please you to know that Master Ascham, on reflection, thinks the Sultan of Turkey to be a good, merciful, just and liberal prince, and thinks that if the Emperor Charles were as fair, he would have no trouble with his subjects. It remains to see what trouble his subjects are going to have with his son.
Do you remember when all I did was make threatening gestures at greenfly? You have seen all this, and so had Gideon, and you chose distance and sanity, although there could have been little enough safety when Henry was King. Imagine what we have now, faced with the records of three different reigns in seven years, each with differing policies and attitudes to religion. And the statesmen from each reign still here among us (those who