I'm a little better now although still not the full ticket. I am not sure I ever will be. HOWEVER, I have overcome it and the book is due for release on 20th March 2023. You can pre-order it now and really help give it a boost up the charts. The more I sell the longer I will be able to continue writing. Book three is already underway.
Scroll down for more on A Matter of Faith or read An excerpt from A Matter of Conscience: Henry VIII, the Aragon Years.
January 1530
The year opens, a slow creaking door, giving way to the new and the fresh. As the festivities draw to an end, I resolve that this year I shall be merrier, my court will be joyous again. There shall be a new beginning.
I will throw off the trivial traditions that bind me to the wife I abhor. I shall play and sing and joust, for life is for living. From now on I will cease to envy the sons of other men and concentrate on begetting my own.
Ignoring a papal edict that I acknowledge her as my queen, I no longer admit Kate into my company. While she keeps her own dull court, in my part of the palace, I surround myself with young, energetic companions.
Although I lack their youth, there is still not one that can best me on the tennis court or in the saddle. We hunt all day, dance all night and create an atmosphere that is brittle with joy. If life with Anne lacks the warmth I knew with Kate, it makes up for it with delight.
To all intent and purpose, Anne is my queen already. It is she who sits beside me at the feast, she who orders the entertainments, and she is the lady I lead onto the floor to open up the dancing.
My advisors whisper that I should be content with that. I have the woman I love at my side, why not let matters lie? There is no need for an annulment. Let Kate rot in her apartments like some forgotten cat. There are few who will care.
But I want more than that. I want to show Anne off as my wife, my queen and besides … she continues to refuse me the pleasures of her bed. Sometimes it is not easy for her to refuse but she is strong; her will so much more determined than mine.
I am so eager for her that I often overstep the boundaries. It is clear from the way her heart patters beneath my hand that she wants me too. When she allows me close and my lips graze her skin, she groans and writhes with wanting. But we go only so far. We both recognise the moment we must draw back for there is more at stake than the sating of our lust. We need a son, but he must be born in wedlock, there can be no question as to his legitimacy.
Wolsey continues to fumble his way through the meeting of the privy councillors. Norfolk, who has ever looked down on him, smirks beneath his hand, shuffles his feet noisily beneath the table, coughs loudly to further interrupt the cardinal’s flow.
“What can you expect of a butcher’s boy,” I hear him remark as Thomas quits the room when the meeting is done. “It isn’t the king he works for. His paymaster sits in Rome…”
I rest my chin in my hand and tell them to go. I watch as, one by one, they take leave of me. When the room is empty, Norfolk’s words repeat in my head. His opinions of Wolsey’s low beginnings and compromised loyalty echo Anne’s. It is the only thing she and her uncle agree on.
At first, I wonder if he sowed the seed in her mind or contrariwise but then news comes from Francis Bryan whom I’ve sent to Rome on my behalf. He too believes Wolsey and his cardinals have done me a great disservice. He reports that abroad it is widely believed that had the matter been properly dealt with, I’d have been free of the queen long ago.
These findings make sense. When all is said and done, Wolsey is a Cardinal, and as such he must carry out the wishes of the pope. He also has little love for Anne and, if I am successful in ridding myself of the queen, would sooner see me wed to France.
I am at a loss; without dependable advisors I can trust. Brandon can no longer be relied on, his hatred for Anne is surpassed only by his love for Kate. I mourn the days when our friendship was carefree, and I could confide anything to him.
What can I do about Wolsey?
I’ve trusted him since my youth, yet he has failed me; his loyalty is conflicted. He cannot serve both the pope and his king, that is …that is premunire – a crime against the crown.
If I were to take him down, strip him of his titles, his positions, remove his properties, not only could I elect a more trustworthy advisor, but my coffers would be the fatter for it.
I have long envied his palace at Hampton. It is wasted on Wolsey; it needs a woman like Anne to grace its elegant halls. It should be mine. What right has a subject to own possessions that outshine the king’s?
I call a secret meeting with the few I trust … or perhaps, those I know who crave Wolsey’s fall.
Norfolk, scratches his long nose, addresses me without making eye contact.
“Of course, the cardinal is in pay of the pope, and so is Campeggio who is no doubt sneaking from the country as we speak with his baggage full of incriminating papers.”
I look up sharply.
“He has embarked?”
“Not as far as I know, Your Majesty.”
I snap my fingers at a scribe who stands ready with a sharpened pen.
“Order Campeggio stopped, order his baggage searched, order that he is not to leave until every cranny of his luggage has been investigated.”
“But what of the Cardinal?” Norfolk is eager, his face wolverine. “He is a traitor, Your Majesty. He has deceived you and England by putting Rome before the good of our realm.”
For a long moment, I stare into a corner, haunted by the wraith of my younger days, when I was newly king. I recall walking with Wolsey in the gardens, he laughed at my jokes, praised my skills, and make little of my failures. He was my friend, my mentor, the first one I’d turn to when matters of state seemed overwhelming. What happened to sway his allegiance? Was it me? Was it Anne? Or was his eye always on the higher prize?
I remember joking once that he would be pope one day. I recall the way his laughter had faded, how he’d peered into the distance as if imagining it was so. Perhaps he has never loved me for myself, but only for what I could provide!
And hasn’t he risen high at my expense? Without me, he’d still be gutting rabbits at his father’s butcher shop. I thump the table so hard pain shoots up my arm, then I stand up, my chair tipping to the floor.
“Strip him of his diplomatic position,” I say before storming from the room in search of Anne.
Even as I hover on the edge of despair, she soothes me, her honeyed voice salving my pain, erasing the inner fear that I am running headlong down the wrong path. I cannot stop it now. I try not to think of him, Thomas my friend...
Against my will, I imagine the guard approaching him. I envision how he will turn, surprise turning to horror as he realises why they have come. He will drop his bundle of papers, throw up his hands, cry out a protest and beg an audience with his king but …they will not listen.
His day is done. His fate is sealed.
I wonder what Kate will say when she hears of it.
“You must take Hampton for yourself,” Anne says, running her hands down my chest, tweaking the buttons on my doublet as though she intends to loosen it. “I have always thought it too grand for Wolsey. The gardens are wonderful. When you travel along the river and come upon the palace suddenly from the water, it takes one’s breath away.”
“There is no need. He has made a gift of it.” I answer distantly.
Events are running away with me. I try to turn my mind from the enormity of what I am allowing to happen. I must concentrate on the here and now, the future with Anne. I can never go back to how things were before … even if I wanted to.
“I will need a new chancellor. I will ask Thomas More – I trust him. He is a good fellow.”
She sits up, pouting, her prettiness marred by a frown.
“He has little liking for me. He is Catherine’s man.”
She never gives Kate the title ‘Queen’ and although I shouldn’t, I always find I resent it a little.
“He loves me. He is my man. He will always be my good servant.”
“Hmm.”
She turns to me, her dark eyes glinting in the shadowy light. “You should speak with Thomas Cranmer. I find him very eloquent, very wise. He believes there is no need for you to beg permission for an annulment from the pope at all. He says there is no reason you cannot just put Catherine aside and marry me at once …”
She sits up, yawns and stretches so the fabric of her gown is pulled tight to her body. I yearn to undress her. One day, one day very soon, I will do so. I will lie naked with her in my bed and I will get a son on her. Every inch of her body screams of fertility. I can smell it in her hair, in the musky sweetness of her neck. I know, the first night that we finally lie together, I will get her with child.
A Matter of Faith: Henry VIII, the Days of the Phoenix
Judith Arnopp
'Superbly inventive insight into the mind of one of our most famous monarchs' -
Deborah Swift: award winning author
Finally free of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII is now
married to Anne Boleyn, and eagerly awaits the birth of his son. In a court
still reeling from the royal divorce and amid growing resentment against church
reform, Henry must negotiate widespread resentment toward Anne. But his
lifelong dreams of a son to cement his Tudor bloodline are shattered when Anne
is delivered of a daughter.
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