Wolf Hall - Bring Up the Bodies

from you. Why would I believe you?’ He pats his son. Hurries off to his private room and shuts the door.
     
     
    The meeting with Norfolk has, on the face of it, no pay-off. But. He takes his paper. At the top he writes:
    THOMAS BOLEYN
     
    This is the lady’s father. He pictures him in his mind. An upright man, still lithe, proud of his looks, who pays great attention to turning himself out, just like his son George: a man to test the ingenuity of London goldsmiths, and to swivel around his fingers jewels which he says have been given him by foreign rulers. These many years he has served Henry as a diplomat, a trade for which he is fitted by his cold emollience. He is not a man wedded to action, Boleyn, but rather a man who stands by, smirking and stroking his beard; he thinks he looks enigmatic, but instead he looks as if he’s pleasuring himself.
    Still, he knew how to act when the chance presented itself, how to set his family climbing, climbing, to the highest branches of the tree. It’s cold up there when the wind blows, the cutting wind of 1536.
    As we know, his title of Earl of Wiltshire seems to him insufficient to indicate his special status, so he has invented for himself a French title, Monseigneur . And it gives him pleasure, to be so addressed. He lets it be known this title should be universally adopted. From whether the courtiers comply, you can tell a great deal about where they stand.
     
     
    He writes:
     
     
Monseigneur : All the Boleyns. Their women. Their chaplains. Their servants.
All the Boleyn toadies in the privy chamber, that is to say,
Henry Norris
Francis Weston
William Brereton, etc.
     
     
But plain old ‘Wiltshire’, delivered in accents brisk:
The Duke of Norfolk.
Sir Nicholas Carew (of the privy chamber) who is cousin to Edward Seymour, and married to the sister of:
Sir Francis Bryan, cousin to the Boleyns, but cousin to the Seymours also, and friend of:
Mr Treasurer, William Fitzwilliam.
     
     
    He looks at this list. He adds the names of two grandees:
     
     
The Marquis of Exeter, Henry Courtenay.
Henry Pole, Lord Montague.
     
     
    These are the old families of England; they draw their claims from ancient lines; they smart, more than any of us, under the pretensions of the Boleyns.
     
     
    He rolls up his paper. Norfolk, Carew, Fitz. Francis Bryan. The Courtenays, the Montagues, and their ilk. And Suffolk, who hates Anne. It is a set of names. You cannot take too much from it. These people are not necessarily friends of each other. They are just, to one degree and another, friends of the old dispensation and enemies of the Boleyns.
    He closes his eyes. He sits, his breathing calm. In his mind, a picture appears. A lofty hall. Into which he commands a table.
    The trestles are lugged up by menials.
    The top is fixed in place.
    Liveried officials unroll the cloth, tweaking and smoothing; like the king’s tablecloth, it is blessed, its attendants murmuring a Latin formula as they stand back to take a view and even up the edges.
    So much for the table. Now for somewhere for the guests to sit.
    The servants scrape over the floor a weighty chair, the Howard coat of arms carved into its back. That’s for the Duke of Norfolk, who lowers his bony bum. ‘What have you got,’ he asks plaintively, ‘to tempt my appetite, Crumb?’
    Now bring up another chair, he commands the servants. Set it down at my lord Norfolk’s right hand.
    This one is for Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter. Who says, ‘Cromwell, my wife insisted on coming!’
    ‘It does my heart good to see you, Lady Gertrude,’ he says, bowing. ‘Take your seat.’ Until this dinner, he has always tried to avoid this rash and interfering woman. But now he puts on his polite face: ‘Any friend of the Lady Mary is welcome to dine.’
    ‘The Princess Mary,’ Gertrude Courtenay snaps.
    ‘As you will, my lady,’ he sighs.
    ‘Now here comes Henry Pole!’ Norfolk exclaims. ‘Will he steal my dinner?’
    ‘There is food for all,’ he says. ‘Bring up another chair for Lord Montague. A fitting chair, for a man of royal blood.’
    ‘We call it a throne,’ Montague says. ‘By the way, my mother is here.’
    Lady Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. Rightful queen of England, according to some. King Henry has taken a wise course with her and all her family. He has honoured them, cherished them, kept them close. Much good it’s done him: they still think the Tudors are usurpers, though the countess