Anne Boleyn: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

New World had made Spain fabulously rich, and the great trading center of the Netherlands had been added to his inheritance by his father, Philip of Burgundy.
    At this point, Henry had surprised his Minister by remarking that the English people, whose principal trade was the export of wool to the Netherlands, would hardly welcome the loss of their best market in exchange for an alliance with their hereditary enemy, France.
    The point irritated Wolsey, whose interest lay with politics rather than economics, and he brushed it aside a little too quickly. The King’s vanity was touched and for a moment he watched his Minister with dislike; he interrupted again, to say shortly that the poverty resulting from a break with the Netherlands might well prove a greater danger to the security of his throne than all the might of the Emperor, mustered thousands of miles away.
    The Cardinal had recovered himself, within seconds he was humbly admitting that the King was right and he was wrong, and that whether Henry married the French Princess or not, the trade in wool must be maintained. But he made the mistake of confounding Henry’s argument, by pointing out that it was in the Emperor’s interest to keep the Netherlands market open; he was too realistic to avenge the divorce of his Aunt Catherine at the expense of his dominion’s prosperity. Either way, there was nothing to lose.
    Henry had listened in sullen silence. There were times when Wolsey’s opinions carried him too far, when he forgot that the young inexperienced King of former years was now a man and a ruler. The Cardinal had retired from that audience, unaware that his very plausibility had cooled Henry’s enthusiasm for Princess Renée or any other candidate he might put forward.
    The King moved restlessly in his chair, and his foot kicked the lute; the strings quivered and the sound suddenly drove his thoughts into another channel. He forgot his anger with Catherine and the scene at the bear-baiting; he forgot Wolsey and the divorce and the difficulties which harried him.
    The lute reminded him of Anne Boleyn. He remembered her letter and his excitement when he read her acceptance of the post at court. God, but she was beautiful that afternoon, and as keen on the sport as he was himself...He remembered the lively atmosphere in the group where she was sitting, and the looks of some of his gentlemen as she took her place. Wyatt had been among them, but he knew that she had never seen Wyatt alone since she came to Greenwich. That was over, then; his vanity suggested that it had never really begun. He wondered if she was a virgin, and then rejected the idea; the only certain virgin at court was his own daughter Mary...his thoughts shied away from her and returned to Anne.
    It was odd how Anne’s image heated his imagination. A week passed already, and Catherine had kept her so occupied that she might as well have been buried in Kent for all the good it did him! Three months of thinking about her, driving out of his mind that memory of the figure in the window in a white nightgown because it made him sick with desire; remembering her wit in the rose garden, and the ease he felt in her company, and then suffering jealousy for the first time in his life when he heard that Tom Wyatt was her lover...
    He sighed and stretched; his bad temper had gone, only his loneliness remained, and there was a remedy for that. He bent and picked up his lute and struck a few chords; the sweet tones echoed in the quiet room. A boatman called out on the river below, and he looked out of the window.
    The red and gold barge of Cardinal Wolsey was drifting into the jetty and he could see the figure under the rich canopy, the Cardinal’s boatmen drawing in their oars. He suddenly resented Wolsey’s state; the barge was too big and too splendid; he had too many attendants with him, and his musicians played a fanfare when he landed; for some time that ostentation had annoyed the King. He frowned,