LITMIR.BIZ

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I do not pretend to understand them. And before you begin, I do not want them explained.’

      The cardinal has endowed his Oxford college, as also the school at Ipswich, with land that will produce an income in perpetuity. Henry wants their silver and gold plate, their libraries, their yearly revenues and the land that produces the revenues; and he does not see why he should not have what he wants. The wealth of twenty-nine monasteries has gone into those foundations – suppressed by permission of the Pope, on condition that the proceeds were used for the colleges. But do you know, Henry says, I am beginning to care very little about the Pope and his permissions?

      It is early summer. The evenings are long and the grass, the air, scented. You would think that a man like Henry, on a night like this, could go to whichever bed he pleases. The court is full of eager women. But after this interview he will walk in the garden with Lady Anne, her hand resting on his arm, deep in conversation; then he will go to his empty bed, and she, one presumes, to hers.

      When the king asks him what he hears from the cardinal, he says that he misses the light of His Majesty's countenance; that preparations for his enthronement at York are in hand. ‘Then why doesn't he get to York? It seems to me he delays and delays.’ Henry glares at him. ‘I will say this for you. You stick by your man.’

      ‘I have never had anything from the cardinal other than kindness. Why would I not?’

      ‘And you have no other master,’ the king says. ‘My lord Suffolk asks me, where does the fellow spring from? I tell him there are Cromwells in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire – landed people, or once they were. I suppose you are from some unfortunate branch of that family?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You may not know your own forebears. I shall ask the heralds to look into it.’

      ‘Your Majesty is kind. But they will have scant success.’

      The king is exasperated. He is failing to take advantage of what is on offer: a pedigree, however meagre. ‘My lord cardinal told me you were an orphan. He told me you were brought up in a monastery.’

      ‘Ah. That was one of his little stories.’

      ‘He told me little stories?’ Several expressions chase each other across the king's face: annoyance, amusement, a wish to call back times past. ‘I suppose he did. He told me that you had a loathing of those in the religious life. That was why he found you diligent in his work.’

      ‘That was not the reason.’ He looks up. ‘May I speak?’ ‘Oh, for God's sake,’ Henry cries. ‘I wish someone would.’ He is startled. Then he understands. Henry wants a conversation, on any topic. One that's nothing to do with love, or hunting, or war. Now that Wolsey's gone, there's not much scope for it; unless you want to talk to a priest of some stripe. And if you send for a priest, what does it come back to? To love; to Anne; to what you want and can't have.

      ‘If you ask me about the monks, I speak from experience, not prejudice, and though I have no doubt that some foundations are well governed, my experience has been of waste and corruption. May I suggest to Your Majesty that, if you wish to see a parade of the seven deadly sins, you do not organise a masque at court but call without notice at a monastery? I have seen monks who live like great lords, on the offerings of poor people who would rather buy a blessing than buy bread, and that is not Christian conduct. Nor do I take the monasteries to be the repositories of learning some believe they are. Was Grocyn a monk, or Colet, or Linacre, or any of our great scholars? They were university men. The monks take in children and use them as servants, they don't even teach them dog Latin. I don't grudge them some bodily comforts. It cannot always be Lent. What I cannot stomach is hypocrisy, fraud, idleness – their worn-out relics, their threadbare worship, and their lack of invention. When did anything good last come from a monastery? They do not invent, they only repeat, and what they repeat is corrupt. For hundreds of years the monks have held the pen, and what they have written is what we take to be our history, but I do not believe it really is. I believe they have suppressed the history they don't like, and written one that is favourable to Rome.’

      Henry appears to look straight through him, to the wall behind. He waits. Henry says, ‘Dogholes, then?’

      He smiles.

      Henry says, ‘Our history … As you know, I am gathering evidence. Manuscripts. Opinions. Comparisons, with how matters are ordered in other countries. Perhaps you would consult with those learned gentlemen. Put a little direction into their efforts. Talk to Dr Cranmer – he will tell you what is needed. I could make good use of the money that flows yearly to Rome. King François is richer by far than I am. I do not have a tenth of his subjects. He taxes them as he pleases. For my part, I must call Parliament. If I do not, there are riots.’ He adds, bitterly, ‘And riots if I do.’

      ‘Take no lessons from King François,’ he says. ‘He likes war too much, and trade too little.’

      Henry smiles faintly. ‘You do not think so, but to me that is the remit of a king.’

      ‘There is more tax to be raised when trade is good. And if taxes are resisted, there may be other ways.’

      Henry nods. ‘Very well. Begin with the colleges. Sit down with my lawyers.’

      Harry Norris is there to show him out of the king's private rooms. Not smiling for once, rather stern, he says, ‘I wouldn't be his tax collector.’

      He thinks, are the most remarkable moments of my life to be spent under the scrutiny of Henry Norris?

      ‘He killed his father's best men. Empson, Dudley. Didn't the cardinal get one of their houses?’

      A spider scuttles from under a stool and presents him with a fact. ‘Empson's house on Fleet Street. Granted the ninth of October, the first year of this reign.’

      ‘This glorious reign,’ Norris says: as if he were issuing a correction.

      Gregory is fifteen as summer begins. He sits a horse beautifully, and there are good reports of his swordsmanship. His Greek … well, his Greek is where it was.

      But he has a problem. ‘People in Cambridge are laughing at my greyhounds.’

      ‘Why?’ The black dogs are a matched pair. They have curving muscled necks and dainty feet; they keep their eyes lowered, mild and demure, till they sight prey.

      ‘They say, why would you have dogs that people can't see at night? Only felons have dogs like that. They say I hunt in the forests, against the law. They say I hunt badgers, like a churl.’

      ‘What do you want?’ he asks. ‘White ones, or some spots of colour?’

      ‘Either would be correct.’

      ‘I'll take your black dogs.’ Not that he has time to go out, but Richard or Rafe will use them.

      ‘But what if people laugh?’

      ‘Really, Gregory,’ Johane says. ‘This is your father. I assure you, no one will dare laugh.’

      When the weather is too wet to hunt, Gregory sits poring over The Golden Legend; he likes the lives of the saints. ‘Some of these things are true,’ he says, ‘some not.’ He reads Le Morte d'Arthur, and because it is the new edition they crowd around him, looking over his shoulder at the title page. ‘Here beginneth the first book of the most noble and worthy prince King Arthur sometime King of Great Britain …’ In the forefront of the picture, two couples embrace. On a high-stepping horse is a man with a mad hat, made of coiled tubes like fat serpents. Alice says, sir, did you wear a hat like that when you were young, and he says, I had a different colour for each day in the week, but mine were bigger.

      Behind this man, a woman rides pillion. ‘Do you think this represents Lady Anne?’ Gregory asks. ‘They say the king does not like to be parted from her, so he perches her up behind him like a farmer's wife.’ The woman has big eyes, and looks sick from jolting; it might just be Anne. There is a small castle, not much taller than a man, with a plank for a drawbridge. The birds, circling above, look like flying

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