'Sir,' she said again; 'ye have made this King rich, but I will give
to him again his power to sleep at night; ye have made this realm
subject to this King, but, by the help of God, I will make it subject
again to God. You have set up here a great State, but oh, the children
of God do weep since ye came. Where is a town where lamentation is not
heard? Where is a town where no orphan or widow bewails the day that
saw your birth?' She had sobs in her voice and she wrung her hands.
'Sir,' she cried, 'I say you are as a dead man already--your day of
pride is past, whether ye aid us or no. Set yourself then to redress
as heartily as ye have set yourself in the past to make sad. That land
is blest whose people are happy; that State is aggrandised whence
there arise songs praising God for His blessings. You have built up a
great city of groans; set yourself now to build a kingdom where
"Praise God" shall be sung. It is a contented people that makes a
State great; it is the love of God that maketh a people rich.'
Cromwell laughed mirthlessly:
'There are forty thousand men like Wriothesley in England,' he said.
'God help you if you come against them; there are forty times forty
thousand and forty times that that pray you not again to set disorder
loose in this land. I have broken all stiff necks in this realm. See
you that you come not against some yet.' He stopped, and added: 'Your
greatest foes should be your own friends if I be a dead man as you
say.' And he smiled at her bewilderment when he had added: 'I am your
bulwark and your safeguard.'
... 'For, listen to me,' he took up again his parable. 'Whilst I be
here I bear the rancour of your friends' hatred. When I am gone you
shall inherit it.'
'Sir,' she said, 'I am not here to hear riddles, but here I am to pray
you seek the right.'
'Wench,' he said pleasantly, 'there are in this world many rights--you
have yours; I mine. But mine can never be yours nor yours mine. I am
not yet so dead as ye say; but if I be dead, I wish you so well that I
will send you a phial of poison ere I send to take you to the stake.
For it is certain that if you have not my head I shall have yours.'
She looked at him seriously, though the tears ran down her cheeks.
'Sir,' she uttered, 'I do take you to be a man of your word. Swear to
me, then, that if upon the fatal hill I do save you your life and your
estates, you will nowise work the undoing of the Church in time to
come.'
'Madam Queen that shall be,' he said, 'an ye gave me my life this day,
to-morrow I would work as I worked yesterday. If ye have faith of your
cause I have the like of mine.'
She hung her head, and said at last:
'Sir, an ye have a little door here at the gallery end I will go out
by it'; for she would not again face the men who made the little knot
before the window. He moved the hangings aside and stood before the
aperture smiling.
'Ye came to ask a boon of me,' he said. 'Is it your will still that I
grant it?'
'Sir,' she answered, 'I asked a boon of you that I thought you would
not grant, so that I might go to the King and shew him your evil
dealings with his lieges.'
'I knew it well,' he said. 'But the King will not cast me down till
the King hath had full use of me.'
'You have a very great sight into men's minds,' she uttered, and he
laughed noiselessly once again.
'I am as God made me,' he said. Then he spoke once more. 'I will read
your mind if you will. Ye came to me in this crisis, thinking with
yourself: _Liars go unto the King saying, "This Cromwell is a traitor;
cast him down, for he seeks your ill." I will go unto the King saying,
"This Cromwell grindeth the faces of the poor and beareth false
witness. Cast him down, though he serve you well, since he maketh your
name to stink to heaven."_ So I read my fellow-men.'
'Sir,' she said, 'it is very true that I will not be linked with
liars. And it is very true that men do so speak of you to the King's
Highness.'
'Why,' he answered her debonairly, 'the King shall listen neither to
them nor to you till the day be come. Then he will act in his own good
way--upon the pretext that I be a traitor, or upon the pretext that I
have borne false witness, or upon no pretext at all.'
'Nevertheless will I speak for the truth that shall prevail,' she
answered.
'Why, God help you!' was his rejoinder.
* * * * *
Going back to his friends in the window Cromwell meditated that it was
possible to imagine a woman that thought so simply; yet it was
impossible to imagine one that should be able to act with so great a
simplicity. On the one hand, if she stayed about the King she should
be his safeguard, for it was very certain that she should not tell the
King that he was a traitor. And that above all was what Cromwell had
to fear. He had, for his own purposes, so filled the King with the
belief that treachery overran his land, that the King saw treachery in
every man. And Cromwell was aware, well enough, that such of his
adherents as were Protestant--such men as Wriothesley--had indeed
boasted that they were twenty thousand swords ready to fall upon even
the King if he set against the re-forming religion in England. This
was the greatest danger that he had--that an enemy of his should tell
the King that Privy Seal had behind his back twenty thousand swords.
For that side of the matter Katharine Howard was even a safeguard,
since with her love of truth she would assuredly combat these liars
with the King.
But, on the other hand, the King had his superstitious fears; only
that night, pale, red-eyed and heavy, and being unable to sleep, he
had sent to rouse Cromwell and had furiously rated him, calling him
knave and shaking him by the shoulder, telling him for the twentieth
time to find a way to make a peace with the Bishop of Rome. These were
only night-fears--but, if Cleves should desert Henry and
Protestantism, if all Europe should stand solid for the Pope, Henry's
night-fears might eat up his day as well. Then indeed Katharine would
be dangerous. So that she was indeed half foe, half friend.
It hinged all upon Cleves; for if Cleves stood friend to Protestantism
the King would fear no treason; if Cleves sued for pardon to the
Emperor and Rome, Henry must swing towards Katharine. Therefore, if
Cleves stood firm to Protestantism and defied the Emperor, it would be
safe to work at destroying Katharine; if not, he must leave her by the
King to defend his very loyalty.
The Archbishop challenged him with uplifted questioning eyebrows, and
he answered his gaze with:
'God help ye, goodman Bishop; it were easier for thee to deal with
this maid than for me. She would take thee to her friend if thou
wouldst curry with Rome.'
'Aye,' Cranmer answered. 'But would Rome have truck with me?' and he
shook his head bitterly. He had been made Archbishop with no sanction
from Rome.
Cromwell turned upon Wriothesley; the debonair smile was gone from his
face; the friendly contempt that he had for the Archbishop was gone
too; his eyes were hard, cruel and red, his lips hardened.
'Ye have done me a very evil turn,' he said. 'Ye spoke stiff-necked
folly to this lady. Ye shall learn, Protestants that ye are, that if I
be the flail of the monks I may be a hail, a lightning, a bolt from
heaven upon Lutherans that cross the King.'
The hard malice of his glance made Wriothesley quail and flush
heavily.
'I thought ye had been our friend,' he said.
'Wriothesley,' Cromwell answered, 'I tell thee, silly knave, that I be
friend only to them that love the order and peace I have made, under
the King's Highness, in this realm. If it be the King's will to
stablish again the old faith, a hammer of iron will I be upon such as
do raise their heads against it. It were better ye had never been
born, it were better ye were dead and asleep, than that ye raised your
heads against me.' He turned, then he swung back with the sharpness of
a viper's spring.
'What help have I had of thee and thy friends? I have bolstered up
Cleves and his Lutherans for ye. What have he and ye done for me and
my King? Your friend the Duke of Cleves has an envoy in Paris. Have ye
found for why he comes there? Ye could not. Ye have botched your
errand to Paris; ye have spoken naughtily in my house to a friend of
the King's that came friendlily to me.' He shook a fat finger an inch
from Wriothesley's eyes. 'Have a care! I did send my visitors to smell
out treason among the convents and abbeys. Wait ye till I send them to
your conventicles! Ye shall not scape. Body of God! ye shall not
scape.'
He placed a heavy hand upon Throckmorton's shoulder.
'I would I had sent thee to Paris,' he said. 'No envoy had come there
whose papers ye had not seen. I warrant thou wouldst have ferreted
them through.'
Throckmorton's eyes never moved; his mouth opened and he spoke with
neither triumph nor malice:
'In very truth, Privy Seal,' he said, 'I have ferreted through enow of
them to know why the envoy came to Paris.'
Cromwell kept his hands still firm upon his spy's shoulder whilst the
swift thoughts ran through his mind. He scowled still upon
Wriothesley.
'Sir,' he said, 'ye see how I be served. What ye could not find in
Paris my man found for me in London town.' He moved his face round
towards the great golden beard of his spy. 'Ye shall have the farms ye
asked me for in Suffolk,' he said. 'Tell me now wherefore came the
Cleves envoy to France. Will Cleves stay our ally, or will he send
like a coward to his Emperor?'
'Privy Seal,' Throckmorton answered expressionlessly--he fingered his
beard for a moment and felt at the medal depending upon his
chest--'Cleves will stay your friend and the King's ally.'
A great sigh went up from his three hearers at Throckmorton's lie; and
impassive as he was, Throckmorton sighed too, imperceptibly beneath
the mantle of his beard. He had burned his boats. But for the others
the sigh was of a great contentment. With Cleves to lead the German
Protestant confederation, the King felt himself strong enough to make
headway against the Pope, the Emperor and France. So long as the Duke
of Cleves remained a rebel against his lord the Emperor, the King
would hold over Protestantism the mantle of his protection.
Cromwell broke in upon their thoughts with his swift speech.
'Sirs,' he uttered, 'then what ye will shall come to pass.
Wriothesley, I pardon thee; get thee back to Paris to thy mission.
Archbishop, I trow thou shalt have the head of that wench. Her cousin
shall be brought here again from France.'
Lascelles, the Archbishop's spy, who kept his gaze upon
Throckmorton's, saw the large man's eyes shift suddenly from one board
of the floor to another.
'That man is not true,' he said to himself, and fell into a train of
musing. But from the others Cromwell had secured the meed of wonder
that he desired. He had closed the interview with a dramatic speech;
he had given them something to talk of.