“The Rebels demand that “vile blood” be drained from the Council. It’s your blood, I imagine.” – Imperial Ambassador Eustache Chapuys
The talk of the court is suitors, marriages, pregnancies, heirs, newborns and children in this episode as an uprising erupts in the East and spreads to the North.
Cromwell is not in a good place. He may come across as a 16th century terminator, but he is a human being. He is deeply hurt by Dorothea’s false claim that he betrayed the Cardinal and her words keep haunting him in his dreams. And he wakes up only to get bad news.
A rebellion started in Louth in the East and has spread to Lincolnshire. The man who brings the news says that people believe that the King is dead, Cromwell is ruling England and that Cromwell is the Devil himself.
“They say he means to pull down the parish churches, melt all the crucifixes for cannons to fire on the poor folk. He wants the King’s daughter for himself. They want his head.”
Cromwell is smart enough to know that the poor do not rise without leaders. He is confident that landowners, who do not want to pay taxes, are behind this. And fake news being abound as well as the rich manipulating the poor to get what they want make the story incredibly relevant for our times.
While Henry is willing to grant the rebels a general pardon if they stop the fight now, William ‘Fitz’ Fitzwilliam advises against leniency. The uprising may get out of control if it spreads to Yorkshire and north to the border. When Cromwell asks whether they should send Norfolk to quiet the East, Henry’s answer is no. It seems Henry holds on to the idea, and maybe rightly so, that the marriage between his niece Meg and Norfolk’s half-brother Thomas the Lesser is nothing but a scheme by Norfolk himself. So he asks Cromwell to keep Norfolk away from him.
Henry wants to go to the East himself to prove that he is alive. The Council, in particular Fitzwilliam is against the King risking his “sacred person” because the rebels believe that Cromwell has practiced some kind of sorcery on Henry. Fitzwilliam, who we’ve always seen to be friendly with Cromwell, is now ready to single out Cromwell as the scapegoat.
Well, Cromwell’s quick mind is his sorcery. When he directly addresses Fitzwilliam that he is offended for his prince because ‘Fitz’ makes it sound like the rebels take Henry no more than as a child to be led, it’s Henry’s turn to be offended!
“If I say Cromwell is a Lord, he’s a Lord. And if I say Cromwell’s heirs will follow me and rule England and then, by God, they will do it.”
Now, I find it remarkable that Henry has promoted Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, based on his merit. However, the words that come out of his mouth may convince The Privy Council, most of them being noble, that Cromwell has indeed practiced some sorcery on the King! And as it may come across as a joke when Fitzwilliam asks Cromwell how it feels to be proclaimed as the next king, I don’t think he is joking. Cromwell is in such an impossible position: he is perceived to be “vile blood” by the nobility because of his lowly background, and he is perceived to be “vile blood” by the rebels because they believe he practices sorcery. I agree with Cromwell’s nephew Richard that Cromwell needs escorts. He is not safe.
Since the King never does an unpleasant thing and Cromwell does it for him, it falls on Cromwell to break the news to Norfolk. The Duke is obviously frustrated and blames Cromwell for misreporting about him. And I think Cromwell pushing Norfolk further to explain why he is not providing for his wife whom he left with her family is just to provoke him so he spills the beans. Norfolk takes the bait.
“In the north parts, they use your name to terrify their children. ‘Be quiet’ they say, ‘Or Cromwell will come. He will jump down your throat and bite your liver.”
Norfolk may be one of the people responsible for the misinformation campaign against him. And Cromwell suspects another one is the Imperial Ambassador Chapuys. Cromwell sends a message to the Emperor through him: If the Emperor tries to undermine Henry’s power and authority in his own country, Cromwell will make sure the Emperor suffers for it. How about England uniting with the Princes of Germany who the Emperor thinks of as his subjects?
And then there is Mary. The rebels want Mary to be restored as the legitimate heir to the throne and she must not somehow fall into their hands. Cromwell finds the solution in bringing Mary back to the court immediately and kindly asks Queen Jane to put a good word to the king for Mary. While the queen is happy to do that she doesn’t know if the King will agree since she is not…
Cromwell and Jane cannot have a proper conversation since Lady Rochford, whose eyes seem to be everywhere, completes their sentences for them. Jane has to explicitly tell Rochford to stay away to have a moment with Cromwell. She shows Cromwell a piece of glass the King gave her and pretends to talk about it. What she really needs to share with Cromwell is that Henry is having bad dreams in which his dead brother Arthur is visiting him. This is new for Jane. But we know that Henry had his dead brother visiting him in his dreams in Wolf Hall Episode 2 Entirely Beloved as he was trying to split from Rome. And Cromwell put on his therapist hat and pulled Henry out of his desperate state.
Jane’s kind request about Mary before Henry in the sight of the court is accepted warmly by the King. But Jane does not stop there. She is concerned with the uprising, and she is not comfortable with devout customs being left off – the subjects want to have the Pope, the statues they have had all their lives, blessed candles and holy days. I give it to Henry that he is surprisingly calm explaining why he would not allow a foreign prince to interfere with his rule. But when Jane mentions his dreams, he puts her in her place. He would consider any lawful petition, but in her case, he will listen to her complaints only when she’s fruitful. Yikes! It’s a relief not to have lived as a woman in the 16th century.
It is well known that Jane is a devout woman; however, who would expect her to give the King a lecture on what Christian customs he should keep?! It is obvious someone has instructed her to make this request but who? Is there someone trying to pull the new queen down? This experience gives Cromwell bad dreams in the form of Anne Boleyn’s ghost haunting him. He may be battling his conscience since, after all, it was him who concocted the charges against her and the men he sent to death. And when approaching footsteps wake him up in the middle of the night, he pulls his dagger from under his pillow. It is Rafe delivering more bad news: York has fallen. And the King is waiting for him in Chantry Chapel.
Henry is quite calm as he’s talking about the last year and a half. And terrifying as ever. He’s bastardized his two daughters, he doesn’t have a heir and doesn’t have high hopes of having one. His subjects are rising against him, his coffers are empty. Henry is confident that it is the Poles and the Courtenays are behind the uprising. Their plan is to have Reginald Pole marry Mary, overthrow Henry, and conquer the throne. And that is the reason, Henry explains, that he asked Cromwell to bring Reginald Pole back to England, or get rid of him by other means. He finishes with a threat: maybe he should reach out to Gardiner from Paris to fix this. And he admits he has to allow Norfolk to ride north.
Despite the terrible news from York, Henry needs to keep the appearances so he chooses to dine in the Great Hall that night in great glory. Lady Mary is back at the court and sharing a table with Jane. Norfolk, his rights restored, is getting ready to ride North. Fitzwilliam is confident that Mary returning to court earlier than expected is Cromwell’s doing. I wonder whether ‘Fitz’ believes what the rebels were told to believe: That Cromwell wants Lady Mary for himself. The King is with Sexton, his fool, whom he had banned from the court earlier. And Sexton is making jokes about Cromwell’s background as the King asks his Lord Privy Seal to take his seat.
“Go lower, Tom. Which is the table for the blacksmith’s lad? Go lower. Keep Walking. Trot on till you get to Putney.”
Sexton’s performance reminds me of the play staged in the court mocking with the Cardinal’s background in Wolf Hall Episode 2 Entirely Beloved. And guess what? Sexton was playing the Cardinal in it! The King points out that Cromwell should not be upset by Sexton’s rude jokes. Does Cromwell have a choice when Henry tells him so? But if I were Cromwell, I would pay extra attention to those laughing the hardest at the jokes!
Word travels faster than light at the court so Mary has obviously heard about the rumors about her and Cromwell. And when she thanks him for the tender care he gave to her “like a father” she communicates that Cromwell should stay away from her because of the possible danger. We learn that Henry gave his daughter the ring with ‘In Praise of Obedience’ inscribed on it , but Mary knows it came from Cromwell. And she knows that she is alive and at her father’s side thanks to him.
The Portuguese ambassador Don Diego de Mendoza arrives with Chapuys bringing a love letter and gifts to Mary on behalf of Dom Luis, the Emperor’s nephew. Don Diego not having a portrait of Dom Luis with him makes Cromwell rightly suspect that this visit is more about Mary’s obedience than her marriage. As he allows Don Diego to have fifteen minutes alone with Mary, he lets Chapuys know that one of the rebel leaders implicated him – guaranteeing Chapuys takes Don Diego to his next engagement as soon as his time with Mary is up. And he asks Mary to give him the secret letter Don Diego brought her hidden under his shirt 🙂
The rebel army growing up to 50,000 men presents a huge challenge for the King’s forces. So Cromwell offers a truce promising the rebels that Jane will be crowned in York, a parliament in the North, and a general pardon. Have rebels never heard of commitment problems? Come winter, when the food is scarce and disease breaks out, Henry’s forces put an end to the uprising.
Despite the mockery about his lowly background, Cromwell is the most eligible bachelor in England. Everybody is talking about his marital status. And when he tries to arrange a marriage between Queen Jane’s widowed sister Bess Oughtred (aka Elizabeth Seymour) and his son Gregory, the Seymours assume Cromwell himself wants to marry Bess. And knowing what the King has said about Cromwell’s heirs in the latest Privy Council meeting, they probably believe they are grabbing the throne. They have the wedding at Mortlake Manor, a gift from Henry.
Alas, the happy event turns sour for Cromwell. Gregory has obviously heard the misunderstanding about the marriage proposal. Embarrassed, he asks his father to stay away from his wife. Yikes! This should be very painful for Cromwell.
The arrival of a new baby in court, Jane’s older brother Edward Seymour and his wife Nan have a daughter, let people make good wishes for the queen to be a happy mother, too. Cromwell, intrigued by Jane’s response that she will not be a happy mother if she has a girl like her sister-in-law, corners Lady Rochford for details. And voila! The queen’s status in the court changes immediately. She is eating quails sent to her from Calais and Holbein is at the court to paint her and the king.
The king falls sick as he tells Holbein he needs to chase him if he can’t finish the drawing today because he doesn’t want to spend time at Whitehall when he could be hunting. The incident should remind Cromwell of the time Henry had his jousting accident in Wolf Hall Episode 5 Crows and that he has no friend in the court but Henry.
Henry is impatient with Norfolk who is asking him to spare his half-brother’s life. Why would he not have Thomas the Lesser beheaded for enticing his niece? Cromwell shares that sparing Thomas the Lesser’s life will make the Howards feel indebted to the King forever but Henry is not convinced. He treated the Poles and the Courtenays kindly and his prize is Reginald Pole touring Europe calling him the Anti-Christ. And he explodes when Cromwell tells him that he is too stupid to kill – Cromwell has men waiting to kill Pole at appointed places but either Pole fall from his horse or misses his way.
“Then learn to be stupid, too. Always you. Always you with the bad news.”
Cardinal Wolsey does not appear in Cromwell’s interior conversations these days; however, he warned Cromwell ages ago that Henry would take credit for his good ideas and blame him for his bad.
“When fortune turns against you, you will feel the leash.”
Every conversation Cromwell has with the King ends with a reference to Reginald Pole and Cromwell’s inability to lay hands on him. He must be feeling the leash now.
The episode closes with a young lady visiting Cromwell from Antwerp. Do you remember the tapestry depicting the Queen of Sheba in Wolf Hall? Cromwell loves it because the lady on the tapestry reminds him of Anselma, a woman he loved when he was young. And Henry finally gives it to him as a gift in Wolf Hall Episode 3: Anna Regina.
Cromwell’s young visitor recognizes the woman on the tapestry as her mother. She’s Anselma’s daughter. And, no, her father is not the banker Anselma married after Cromwell came back to England. She is Cromwell’s own daughter who names the next episode: Jenneke. Note that she is a fictional character created by Hilary Mantel and we will get to know about her next week!
Episode 4: Jenneke
