Anne Boleyn: A Novel by Evelyn Anthony Page A

and like her father, the King was disconcerted by it. He was frowning. “Come, tell me the joke.”
    She looked up at him, giggling, with her eyes full of tears.
    “The joke, Harry...why it’s just that I was thinking that I couldn’t live without you now. Isn’t it comical? Before God, I really couldn’t...”
    On January twenty-second the heralds of England and France declared war on Emperor Charles V. The pattern of the Cardinal’s foreign policy was taking shape for the last time, as the French King prepared to launch a new attack against the power of the Empire with the help of English money and a force of Englishmen. Heavy taxes had been levied on the English people for the purpose of another unpopular war abroad and the enclosure of common lands by the great nobles had deprived large numbers of peasants of pasture for their flocks. Poverty began to spread, so soon after the prosperity of Henry VII’s thrifty reign, and the Cardinal’s splendid barge was greeted with yells and handfuls of filth whenever it sailed too close to the banks of the Thames. Wolsey was blamed for everything, because it was commonly accepted that he directed the King’s policy. He, and the Church with him, were joined to the greedy, hated nobility who had tyrannized for centuries over the common people, and became the focus of their resentment. By contrast the King’s popularity increased while Wolsey was bitterly accused of trying to remove their good Queen Catherine and there were growing rumors of a conspiracy between the hated Cardinal and some court lady to have her put away.
    Dispossessed peasantry roamed the countryside, begging and robbing, so that the roads were unsafe without an armed escort, and the wool merchants and the townspeople waited anxiously for the effect of the Cardinal’s war on the Netherlands’ trade. In Europe the armies of France had penetrated deeply into the imperial kingdom of Naples under the leadership of the Sieur de Lautrec, and the emissaries of the King of England had their audience with the Pope on April third to open the petition for the annulment of his marriage.
    At the Vatican Dr. Reginald Foxe and Dr. Stephen Gardiner were announced at the door of the Papal audience chamber, guarded by the halberdiers of the Swiss Guard in their scarlet doublets and breastplates, emblazoned with the arms of the Vicar of Christ. The chamber was high-ceilinged and lit by torches set into the walls; it was hung with magnificent tapestries depicting episodes from the New Testament, and the Pope’s throne stood at the far end of the room, under a white and gold canopy.
    Clement VII seemed like an old man; his shoulders were bent and his hands knotted with rheumatism; he withdrew them from his scarlet sleeves and made the sign of the cross over the two Englishmen as they bowed before him, and came forward to kiss his ring. He looked delicate and tired, but his dark eyes were alive with intelligence. The face was very Italian with its aquiline nose and sallow skin.
    “I give you a hearty welcome, gentlemen. Please sit down. You had a good journey, I trust?”
    Clement looked from one to the other and smiled gently. He knew how fast they had traveled, gathering speed as the French armies drove further into imperial territory, and he knew that their insistence on the point at issue would have gained by the Emperor’s weakness. The day before, he had given an audience to the imperial Ambassador and listened to his pleas not to yield to English pressure and injure the Emperor’s aunt. He had said as little to Charles’s emissary as he meant to say to Henry’s. Until he knew the outcome of the war, he dared not give a decision either way.
    “We come to Your Holiness on the matter of the King’s Grace and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon,” Gardiner began. He had been told to avoid calling Catherine Queen . “May I present this letter from your Legate Cardinal Wolsey?” Clement thanked him and opened the