Old Merry England
by
Cardinal Wolsey’s oared galley pushed off from the Tower Bridge, below the iron gateway. It gleamed with red and gold; flags and sails flapped lazily in a gentle breeze. The Cardinal sat on the stern-deck surrounded by his little court; most of his attendants he had left at home in York Palace, later known as Whitehall. His face was red both from the reflection of his red dress as from the wine which he had been drinking at noon with King Henry VIII in the Tower, and also from the new French sickness, which was very fashionable, as everything French was.
He was in a cheerful mood, for he had just received fresh proofs of the King’s favour.
At his side stood the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Both were parvenus. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, Cromwell the son of a smith, and that was probably one of the causes of their friendship, although the Cardinal was by twenty years the elder of the two.
“This is a happy day,” said Wolsey joyfully, and cast a glance up at the Tower, which was still a royal residence, though it was soon to cease to be one. “I have obtained the head of Buckingham, that fool who believed he had a right of succession to the crown.”
“Who has the right of succession,” asked Cromwell, “since there is no male heir, and none is expected?”
“I will soon see to that! Katherine of Aragon is weak and old, but the King is young and strong.”
“Remember Buckingham,” said Cromwell; “it is dangerous to meddle with the succession to the throne.”
“Nonsense! I have guided England’s destiny hitherto, and will guide it further.”
Cromwell saw that it was time to change the topic.
“It is a good thing that the King is leaving the Tower. It must be depressing for him to have only a wall between himself and the prisoners, and to see the scaffold from his windows.”
“Don’t talk against our Tower! It is a Biblia Pauperum, an illustrated English History comprising the Romans, King Alfred, William the Conqueror, and the Wars of the Roses. I was fourteen years old when England found its completion at the battle of Bosworth, and the thirty years’ War of the Roses came to an end with the marriage between York and Lancaster….”
“My father used to talk of the hundred years’ war with France, which ended in the same year in which Constantinople was taken by the Turks–i.e. 1453.”
“Yes, all countries are baptized in blood; that is the sacrament of circumcision, and see what fertility follows this manuring with blood! You don’t know that apple-trees bear most fruit after a blood-bath.”
“Yes I do; my father always used to bury offal from butchers’ shops at the root of fruit-trees.”
Here he stopped and coloured, for he had made a slip with his tongue. In the Cardinal’s presence no one dared to speak of slaughter or the like, for he was hated by the people, and often called “The Butcher.” Cromwell, however, was above suspicion, and the Cardinal did not take his remark ill, but saved the situation.
“Moreover,” he continued, “my present was well received by the King; Hampton Court is also a treasure, and has the advantage of being near Richmond and Windsor, but can naturally not bear comparison with York Place.”
The galley was rowed up the river, on whose banks stood the most stately edifices which existed at the time. They passed by customhouses and warehouses, fishmarkets, and fishers’ landing-places; the pinnacles of the Guildhall or Council House; the Convent of Blackfriars, the old Church of St. Paul’s; the Temple, formerly inhabited by the Templars, now a court of justice; the Hospital of St. James, subsequently appropriated by Henry VIII and made a palace. Finally they reached York Place (Whitehall) by Westminster, where Wolsey, the Cardinal and Papal Legate, Archbishop of York and Keeper of the Great Seal, dwelt with his court, comprising about eight hundred persons, including court ladies.