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.”