children.
Wolsey’s shape illustrated his passion for cuisine, but beneath the effulgent flesh and appearance of health lay a weakness of digestion that must be catered to absolutely. It was the master cook of the privy kitchen’s job to keep the internal workings of his master as finely tuned as a well-oiled clock, for as the Wolsey-clock functioned, so prospered the realm. Wolsey had been the secret power that planned England’s future since the death of the shrewd, stingy old king who had fathered Henry the Eighth. Under Wolsey’s capable management had come all the business neglected by an amusement-loving young king. Whenever there were statutes to consider, treaties to ponder, papers to be inspected before signing, in short, whenever dull work enclosed in a cabinet threatened, the king was only too happy to have Wolsey stand beside his stirrup and say, “Don’t let this matter spoil your day’s hunting, Your Majesty. Take your princely pleasure where you will, while I, your humble servant, shoulder the dull duties of the council and dispatch your business entirely according to your will.”
So well had Wolsey done that prince’s will in the dull matters of business that dull money, dull manors, and dull bishoprics had fallen like ripe fruit into the King’s Almoner’s busy, if plump, hands. At this time two great projects occupied entire compartments in his multicompartmented and ever-calculating mind, beyond the project of tomorrow’s dinner, which occupied a section that might be called “miscellaneous, recurring.” The first project was the search for a manor located near the capital city, but free from its pestilential airs. Wolsey feared illness as only a man with complex and far-reaching plans can. And so he employed tasters, hired physicians, and procured water from faraway sources. The thought that so humble a thing as poisoned air might lay low his grandest schemes offended him; he preferred enemies of rank. He had secured the lease of a place on the river called Hampton Court where his physicians had assured him the air was salubrious; now a part of him was given over to planning a residence worthy of his splendor.
The second project, rather less personal but no less dear to him, involved the complete realignment of the powers of Europe, in England’s favor, of course. The centerpiece to this plan was the engineering of an alliance with England’s greatest enemy, France, which would offset the power of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor. But the key to the plan was a woman, or, rather, a flirtatious, lighthearted, spoiled girl of seventeen, Mary Tudor, the king’s younger sister. Just as Wolsey had been worrying about how to approach his project, and almost as if God had willed it, the King of France’s wife had died. Through secret negotiations (how convenient de Longueville had been!) Wolsey had offered the King of France Henry’s newly widowed sister, Margaret, the Queen of Scotland. But the old king had rejected her. The Queen of Scotland, the king had heard, was old and stout, having already reached her twenty-fifth birthday.
Wolsey, like a cat watching a mouse hole, waited while the old king inspected other brides and found them wanting. Quietly, he took the old man’s measure; a man trying to recapture his lost youth, speculated the shrewd cleric. He wants beauty, he wants frivolity, he deludes himself into thinking he acts only for an heir. With an almost satiric craft, the King’s Almoner had dangled the prize bait in front of him: he had offered to seal an alliance between France and England with the most beautiful and frivolous princess in Europe.
The French king hesitated; Wolsey dispatched by secret courier a life-size portrait of her head in three-quarters view, her lips parted, her eyes shining invitingly beneath long lashes (it had not hurt that the master painter was quite handsome and had a most flattering tongue). It was a picture calculated to set an old man’s blood
Wolsey’s shape illustrated his passion for cuisine, but beneath the effulgent flesh and appearance of health lay a weakness of digestion that must be catered to absolutely. It was the master cook of the privy kitchen’s job to keep the internal workings of his master as finely tuned as a well-oiled clock, for as the Wolsey-clock functioned, so prospered the realm. Wolsey had been the secret power that planned England’s future since the death of the shrewd, stingy old king who had fathered Henry the Eighth. Under Wolsey’s capable management had come all the business neglected by an amusement-loving young king. Whenever there were statutes to consider, treaties to ponder, papers to be inspected before signing, in short, whenever dull work enclosed in a cabinet threatened, the king was only too happy to have Wolsey stand beside his stirrup and say, “Don’t let this matter spoil your day’s hunting, Your Majesty. Take your princely pleasure where you will, while I, your humble servant, shoulder the dull duties of the council and dispatch your business entirely according to your will.”
So well had Wolsey done that prince’s will in the dull matters of business that dull money, dull manors, and dull bishoprics had fallen like ripe fruit into the King’s Almoner’s busy, if plump, hands. At this time two great projects occupied entire compartments in his multicompartmented and ever-calculating mind, beyond the project of tomorrow’s dinner, which occupied a section that might be called “miscellaneous, recurring.” The first project was the search for a manor located near the capital city, but free from its pestilential airs. Wolsey feared illness as only a man with complex and far-reaching plans can. And so he employed tasters, hired physicians, and procured water from faraway sources. The thought that so humble a thing as poisoned air might lay low his grandest schemes offended him; he preferred enemies of rank. He had secured the lease of a place on the river called Hampton Court where his physicians had assured him the air was salubrious; now a part of him was given over to planning a residence worthy of his splendor.
The second project, rather less personal but no less dear to him, involved the complete realignment of the powers of Europe, in England’s favor, of course. The centerpiece to this plan was the engineering of an alliance with England’s greatest enemy, France, which would offset the power of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor. But the key to the plan was a woman, or, rather, a flirtatious, lighthearted, spoiled girl of seventeen, Mary Tudor, the king’s younger sister. Just as Wolsey had been worrying about how to approach his project, and almost as if God had willed it, the King of France’s wife had died. Through secret negotiations (how convenient de Longueville had been!) Wolsey had offered the King of France Henry’s newly widowed sister, Margaret, the Queen of Scotland. But the old king had rejected her. The Queen of Scotland, the king had heard, was old and stout, having already reached her twenty-fifth birthday.
Wolsey, like a cat watching a mouse hole, waited while the old king inspected other brides and found them wanting. Quietly, he took the old man’s measure; a man trying to recapture his lost youth, speculated the shrewd cleric. He wants beauty, he wants frivolity, he deludes himself into thinking he acts only for an heir. With an almost satiric craft, the King’s Almoner had dangled the prize bait in front of him: he had offered to seal an alliance between France and England with the most beautiful and frivolous princess in Europe.
The French king hesitated; Wolsey dispatched by secret courier a life-size portrait of her head in three-quarters view, her lips parted, her eyes shining invitingly beneath long lashes (it had not hurt that the master painter was quite handsome and had a most flattering tongue). It was a picture calculated to set an old man’s blood
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