"Healthy?" "Yes, Your Majesty." "Call her Elizabeth." "Cancel the jousts." " He didn't ask how the Queen was." " Hardly matters now, does it?" "TRIO PLAYS" "BABY CRIES" "I think she was hungry." "My daughter is to live at Hatfield." "Yes." "I think Spanish Mary's household should be broken up." "She can become a member of my daughter's household." "In the capacity of?" "In the capacity of my daughter's servant." "What else can she be?" "There can be no pretence of equality." "Mary is a bastard." "Waste can be saved and the proper order of things asserted." "Meanwhile, I want you to go to France." "I want a marriage contract for my daughter." "A French prince." " Stephen Gardiner is..." " You're very unwilling today." "You don't like the French?" "Perhaps you would prefer an alliance with the Emperor?" "You're very friendly with his man, aren't you?" "Chapuys?" "If that will be all, Your Majesty?" "Hmm." "DOG BARKS" "HUBBUB AND CHATTER" "Why don't you ask for her?" "The Seymours are poor." "They'll sell her to you happily." "You mistake my interest." "Oh, fah-la-la!" "Tell your lies to the Commons, not to me." "I see things." "You and me, we keep our eyes open." "I could keep my eyes open in places you cannot go." "In Anne's rooms, for example." "When you call you'll find her at prayer, sewing a smock for a beggar woman." "Do you think that's what's really going on?" "Do you think she's given up all her nimble young men?" "All those sonnets in praise of her beauty?" "She has the King to praise her now." "She'll get no praise from him until she has a ripe belly again." "And what would hinder that?" "Nothing...if he's up to it." "Careful." "And that little sneak is for ever in and out of every room, acting as a go-between for all the gallants." " Oh, I see no harm in the boy." " He doesn't know his place." "He's a jumped-up nobody, taking his chance because the times are disordered." "Well, I suppose you could say the same thing about me, Lady Rochford, and I'm sure you do." "The Queen sees enemies everywhere." "So she should." "They're waiting for her to fail." "She's said she'll give Henry a son, so if she doesn't, all the old families are waiting their turn." " How's our Holy Maid?" " Popular." "Mary Magdalene sent her a letter, illuminated in gold." "Visitors?" "Bring her in." "You say that you can roam through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory?" "And have you seen the Devil also?" "And how did he look?" "Like a bird." "That's a relief." "You think so?" "He stinks!" "He's got claws smeared with blood and shit." "He came to me once as a young man... to tempt me." "Pawing at me." "And were you?" "Tempted?" "I'm not for Satan." " When I rejected him he spat in my face." " No manners." "I wiped it off with a napkin." "It's black, with the stench of Hell... ..something rotting." "And where is it now?" "Dom Edwards has it." " And does he show it to people for money?" " For offerings." "You said that the King wouldn't reign one month after he married Lady Anne." "Well... the months have passed and the Lady Anne is queen and has given the King a child." "So...what do you say now?" "I say, in the eyes of God, he's no more the real king than HE is the real archbishop." "Then would it be justified to raise a rebellion against him?" "Assassinate him?" "Put another in his place?" "What do you think?" "Of the possible Plantagenet claimants to the throne you've chosen the Courtenay family, not the Poles." "Henry, Marquis of Exeter, not Henry, Lord Montague," " or do you get them mixed up?" " Of course not." "I've met both of those gentlemen." "I've met their wives." "I've met Bishop Fisher." "They all come to me." "Now, Courtenay descends from a daughter of King Edward." "Montague from his brother." "How would you sort out their claims?" "Or would you let them scrap it out?" "It's good to have a few kings and queens in reserve if you are going to start a war." "Oh, no need of a war." "God is sending a plague to England." " Henry will be dead in six months and so will his whore." " And me?" "And you." "And everyone in this room." "Except you?" "And my niece, Alice, who has done you no harm?" "All the women of your house are heretics." "The plague will rot them all." "We're too soft with her." "She's laughing at us." "She's close to confessing." " What makes you think that?" " Because my niece is with her at night." "She cries because she knows she's a fraud." "Then she peeps out from under her eyelids to see the effect her tears have had." "Trust me, she'll confess." "I want to start bringing in her followers." " Thomas More?" " No, he's clear of this." "The others she mentioned?" "Bishop Fisher, Lady Exeter, the Poles?" "I'll deal with them myself." "They are some of the most powerful people in the land." "Well, then, I'll be on my best behaviour." "HE CLEARS HIS THROAT" " My Lord Bishop." " Benedic..." " Why are you so gullible?" "You'd better ask the King's forgiveness." " Plead old age." "Infirmity." " I don't know my offence." "And, whatever you think, I am not in my second childhood." "I think you are." "Why else would you have given such credence to Elizabeth Barton?" "Because when she speaks, she is inspired." "With my own eyes I have seen a golden letter sent by Mary Magdalene..." "Mary Magdalene, yes." "Actually it was written by Father Bocking." "The gilding is by a monk." "One William Hawkhurst." "And we know that before the Lord goes about his work, he gives a warning of himself through his servants." "For is it not stated by the prophet Amos..." "Please, don't prophet Amos me." "Barton threatened the King." "She foresaw his death." "Foreseeing is not the same as desiring." "She sat down with the King's enemies and told them they would be king." "If you mean Exeter, why don't you speak to him?" "Well, Exeter's not been writing against the King." " You have." " Where?" "Show me?" "Your printers abroad, they're very good." "They're working for me now." "In June last year, just after the Queen was crowned, your son Lord Montague and your son Geoffrey Pole dined with Lady Mary." "Two weeks later, they dined with her again." "I wonder what they discussed?" "I'm sure you do." "Actually, no, I don't." "The boy who carried in the asparagus, that was my boy." "The boy who cut the apricots, he was mine, too." "Holy simplicity was all very well in its day, but its day is over." "We're at war." "Just because the Emperor's soldiers aren't running down the street, don't deceive yourself." "This is a war and you're in the enemy camp." "They talked about the Emperor, about the invasion, about the best way to bring it about." "So, you see, Lady Margaret... ..your family owes much to my forbearance." "Write to the King, my lady, beg his forgiveness." "Tell him you are exceptionally easy to mislead." "Tell him that you don't have the brain of a flea." "Grovel." "I see why Wolsey retained you." "You are a ruffian, and so was he." "Fall ill." "Take to your bed." "That's what I recommend." "It's hard to believe they'd betray me." "These people, I've known them all my life." "Exeter's been a friend of mine since I was a boy." "Do you remember Greenwich, that Christmas?" "The snowball fight?" "It's the wife who's to blame." "She's fickle and weak, like all her sex." " Easily led into scheming." " Forgive her." "Write her a pardon." "Put these people under a debt of gratitude to you." "If you forgive them, they'll play us for fools." "I don't think so, my lord." " Everything they do now, they do under my eye." " And the Poles?" "Well, I don't think they should be allowed to assume" " they'll be pardoned." " Greenwich!" "That Christmas, the snow was knee-deep." "Christ, we were young then, Harry." "You got lost in that drift under the yew tree for half an hour with that girl." "What's her name?" "So-and-so's daughter." "How will you frame the charges?" "Well, the common law doesn't deal with women who say they can fly or bring back the dead." "Treason for the principals." "For the accessories, life imprisonment, confiscations, fines." "I think the King will be merciful." "I'm more interested in unravelling the plans of these people." "Well, I'm clear anyway." "You know I'm clear!" "Do you remember how you used to compare the King to a tamed lion?" "You can pet him, you can pull at his ears if you wish." "But all the time you're thinking to yourself... ..those claws, look at those claws." "We're putting a Bill of Succession forward, recognising Anne as Henry's lawful wife and their children as the rightful heirs." "If the bill succeeds, and it will, we'd like to seal the act with an oath." "What sort of legislation needs to be confirmed by an oath?" "Well, believe it or not, there are those who will feel such matters should be left to Rome." "We want to make it clear that Rome has no legitimate voice here in England." "So, why don't you sign the oath?" "Put your loyalty beyond doubt." "She seems to be rather enjoying the attention." "Perhaps that's all she ever wanted." "Come home for dinner with me." "Well, I would if you only wanted to put food in my mouth." "But I think you'd like to put words there, too." "You mention my death." ""If it should happen, your said dear" ""and beloved wife, Queen Anne, to decease..."" "I can't exclude the possibility." "You say that if I die, he can put another queen in my place." "I can't imagine anyone else in your place, sweetheart." "It's notional only." "And what if she has a son?" "That son will inherit." "And then what will happen to my daughter and her claim?" "Well, she would still be Princess of England." "Look, it says here..." "And where does it say Spanish Mary is a bastard?" "Lady Mary is out of the line of succession, so the inference is clear." "Forgive the language." "We try to write the laws sparingly, so that they're not personal." "This IS personal." "Cromwell serves us well, sweetheart." "He's not who you should rail against." "There are others." "Stephen Gardiner, for one." "The way he has turned on me." "I hate ingratitude." "Hate disloyalty." "Thomas More is another one who has disappointed me." "If Your Majesties will excuse me." "Your bill against Elizabeth Barton." "You should add More to the list of the guilty." "Thomas More is not involved, Your Majesty." "He came to me even before Barton was arrested." "Do it anyway." "I want him frightened." "Fright can unmake a man." "I've seen it happen." "Cromwell?" "I won't die." "I'll give the King a son." "And I won't die." "You want me to kneel down and beg for More's life?" "The Commons won't like him being included on the list, my lord." "They could oppose the bill." "And the King swears he'll come before them himself and insist." "He could have a very public fall." "If you begged, my lord, the King couldn't refuse you." "It'll allow His Majesty an honourable way back." "After all, we're asking him to contradict the wishes of his own wife." "That's true." "This is my niece's work." "Take things personally, women." "I think the King takes it personally." "Which is weak." "Why should he care what More thinks of him?" "You call the King weak?" ""Call the King weak!" "Call the King weak!"" "Speaking for yourself for once, Lord Chancellor?" "Usually, you wait till Cromwell speaks and then it's, "Tweet tweet, whatever you say, Tom!"" "If I had a crossbow, I'd shoot your fucking head off!" "I said no-one in!" "Thomas More's son-in-law is here to plead for him, sir." "Hm." "My lord?" "Should we send for my Lord Suffolk instead?" "No, his son's dying." "His heir." "He'll have to start breeding again with his new wife." "She's 14, you know?" "He won't leave her alone." "Not judging by the startled look on her face." "If only I could get rid of my wife." "My lord, you've been well married these 20 years." "Yes." "I know." "It's like placing your person inside a grizzled leather bag." "All right, I'll do it." "If Cranmer does it, too." "Why should the laymen wear out their joints?" "She'll spit blood when she hears!" "HE LAUGHS" "Very well." "Remove his name from the bill." "But tell him, he will take the oath." "Thought I'd be stuck there for another hour, entreating and entreating." "Cromwell!" "The Queen has missed her..." "Ah." "This time, for sure." "England is ours." "Crom!" "I can't take the oath." "But I will not speak against it." "And I won't try to dissuade anyone else from it." "That's not enough, and you know it's not." "These are the names of the priests who have all sworn to the act." "You know the members of Parliament are...conformable." "So, why not you?" "This is not a comfortable place for any of us." "More comfortable than where you're going." "Well, not Hell." "I trust." "So, if your soul is damned if you sign this oath, what about all of these?" "Are they damned?" "Or is your conscience so much more refined than all of theirs?" "I cannot speak for their conscience." "Well, where it is a question of conscience, there must be some doubt." "And when you entered the King's service, you took an oath to obey him." "So, won't you set your doubts against that certainty and swear?" "When you were appointed archbishop, you swore an oath to Rome." "But they say, all through the ceremony, you kept a little paper folded up, saying you took the oath under protest." "Then perhaps you could...?" "Yes, you would suggest that, Richard Riche." "I remember you as a youth and you were ever a creature of vice." "But I will not be such a juggler." "I have respected you." "Since I was a boy, I have respected you." "But I'd sooner see my own son killed, than see you refuse to sign this oath and give comfort to every enemy of England." "Oh, Gregory is a good boy." "Do not wish him away." "We can't let you go home." "Will I see my daughter again?" "Just have to say some words, that's all." "Ah, just words." "Out of interest, of what vices are you a creature?" "I was a boy." "But to this day, he can't see me without trying to make me a sermon." "He should at least give his reasons." "We know his reasons." "All of Europe knows his reasons." "He's against the divorce." "He doesn't believe the King can be Head of the Church." "His heart is with Rome, not with England." "He'd sooner see some foreigner imposed by the Emperor ruling us than back a man who has been his friend since childhood and do you know what I hate most?" "He's writing an account of today for all of Europe to read and in it, we'll be the fools and oppressors, and he'll be the poor victim with the better turn of phrase." "He wrote this play years ago, and he sniggers every time I trip over my lines." "Do you think it's already been decided what the Queen's baby will be?" "Or does God decide later?" "I wish we could see inside her, so we'd be able to tell." "I wish you were down in Wiltshire." "I'd like a baby." "Watch yourself." "If your belly shows, they'll brick you up alive." "Although, your family would probably give you a bouquet." "They don't know what continence is down at Wolf Hall." "I meant no harm." "God, it's like baiting a field mouse." "I..." "How is the Queen?" "I heard of her loss." "It's a yes or no today." "You must speak." "If I say "no" to your oath, I put my body in peril." "If I say "yes", my soul." "So, I say nothing." "Bishop Fisher is more of a man than you." "He declares his dissent and takes the consequences." "You want to be a traitor, but hide behind silence." "No, what he wants is to be a martyr." "What I want is to go home." "I've never understood where the line is drawn between sacrifice and self-slaughter." "Christ drew it." "You don't find anything wrong in the comparison?" "I do nobody harm." "I say none harm, I think none harm." "If this isn't enough to keep a man alive..." "You do nobody harm?" "What about Bilney?" "What about Bainham?" "You remember James Bainham who you had racked in your own home?" "That you had beaten and abused?" "His body was so broken they had to carry him, carry him in the chair to Smithfield to be burned!" "And you say, Thomas More, you do no-one harm?" "HE SLAMS" "You just be grateful, sir, that we have spared you the methods you use on others." "It's the King's pleasure that we move to indictment and trial." "When I was a serving boy, at Lambeth," "I brought you bread one night." "You must have been about 14." "They were already speaking about you being the great scholar." "You were reading, I remember." "I asked you what was in the book... ..and you said..." ""Words..." ""..words..." ""..just words."" "As I have already told you, I have no recollection of meeting you then." "No." "Why would you?" "Hear your Tyndale's been caught." "They say someone tempted him from his hiding place, some agent... ..and he was taken." "Your man?" "No, of course not." "Thomas More hurts no-one." "Yes." "'It's all because of me.'" "When, finally, you have out of More, what troubles his singular conscience, you'll find it's that he won't bend his knee to my queenship." "I have no peace until Fisher is dead." "I have no peace until More is dead." "England will have no peace." "Thomas More prays for the Emperor to invade us." "I know this." "You know this." "He knows it, but he won't admit it." "He was my friend." "And yet, now, in this time of danger for England, when you need his support, he gives comfort to the enemy." "This silence of his, on which he relies." "It conceals treason." "So, MAKE him talk." "No, madam, we don't do that." "My wife is..." "..her grief..." "Yes." "It's Katherine I blame." "All those years she couldn't hold a son." "Now, she ill-wishes me." "She lies in between me and the woman I love, with her cold heart..." "You know they burnt it before I could see if it was a boy." "It may have been impossible to tell, Your Majesty." "So soon." "This, erm..." "This business of Thomas More." "I don't doubt his loyalty to Rome, or his hatred of Your Majesty's title as Head of the Church." "However, legally, our case is slender." "It won't be easy." "Do I keep you for what's easy?" "Do you think I've promoted you for the charm of your presence?" "I keep you because you're a serpent." "Do not be a viper in my bosom." "You know my decision." "Execute it." "That woman on the wall." "I know who she is." "Sheba." "For you." "I know who she is for you." "Why you always look at her." "They told me about her in Antwerp." "The woman Cromwell loved." "Why don't you go back and claim her?" "She's married." "It was years ago." "I've changed." "Ja." "You're rich now." "I think..." "What?" "Nothing." "What?" "You're going to hang me up by my wrists until I talk?" "HE CHUCKLES" "I think there is another woman in your heart now." "Thomas More's wife is here to see you." "Lady Alice." "When I came here before, this was a musty old place." "My husband used to say, "Put Thomas Cromwell in a dungeon and by evening," ""he'll be sitting on cushions, with gaolers owing him money."" "Did he talk a lot about putting me in dungeons?" "He..." "It was only talk." "I thought you might take me to see the King." "I know he's always kind to women." "I can't do that." "I wish I could." "You've always been good to us." "I wonder why." "You always have some trick." "Born tricky." "Can't help it." "Alice, why is your husband so stubborn?" "I no more understand him than I do the Holy Trinity." "I worry he's cold." "He tells me nothing." "All his letters are to his precious Meg." "Don't think there's no tenderness between us." "We had dealings, one time or another." "And when that's true, you can't help but worry about a man, wonder if... wonder if he's feeling cold." "When you talk to him, ask him from me..." "Ask him, does he think it's clever to leave his wife without company, his son without advice, his daughter without protection?" "And all of us at the mercy of a man like yourself?" "We have to take away your pens and papers and your books." "Very well." "If you must take them, take them now." "Alice came to see me." "She wants you home." "All you have to do, is sign this." "Meg has signed it." "Your own beloved daughter." "Just sign the paper and the King will be happy." "I'll send my barge to row you back to Chelsea, back to your garden, your children, back to Dame Alice who will be waiting to bear you up to your own bed." "Don't you want that?" "Don't you want to be out of this place you're in?" "When we meet again in Heaven... ..as I hope we will..." "..all our differences will be forgot." "But, for now, we cannot wish them away." "All I have, all I own is the ground I stand upon." "That ground is Thomas More." "If you want it, you must take it." "I will not yield it." "When you come before the court, throw yourself upon the King's mercy." "He's not a cruel man, you know that." "Do I?" "He didn't used to be." "But then he's changed the company he keeps." "Anyway..." "It's not important what happens to my body." "Are you not afraid of the pain?" "Oh, yes." "I'm very much afraid." "I am not a strong and robust man, such as yourself." "I cannot help but rehearse it in my mind." "But I will only feel it for a moment, and God will not let me remember it afterwards." "I would have left you, you know... ..to live out your life..." "..to repent your cruelties... ..if I were king." "DOOR SLAMS" "Take away his books." "I'll send someone." "No, Richard, I'd like you to do it yourself." "If the jury throws it out, the King will skin us alive." "No." "The Queen will." "My God, looks like we've had him whipped." "And he says I never miss a trick." "If he stands on his silence..." "His silence proves nothing." "He doesn't have to prove anything, my lord." "His plea is that his silence is consent enough to the King's desires." "Bollocks." "It is the maxim of the common law." "Still bollocks." "He hasn't been entirely silent." "I came to take away your books." "And as I did so, I tried to convince you one last time to take the oath." "I put a case to you, did I not?" "I asked you, if Parliament had a vote and made me king... ..would you go along with it?" "And you said, "Nothing that Parliament would do," ""would surprise me these days." ""But, if they voted that Richard Riche should be God," ""I would draw a line there."" "I asked you why?" "Do you remember your reply?" "I made no record of it, having no writing materials." "You having already taken them from me." "You said, "Parliament cannot do it." ""It can make laws in the earthly realm, not the heavenly."" "So I said, "It could not make me God, nor Head of the Church, either," ""for surely that is a spiritual jurisdiction?"" "And you said, "No, Parliament cannot do it."" "Meaning what?" "Meaning, if Parliament names the King the Head of the Church, it has no effect." "According to Sir Thomas." "He denied the King's title." "That would be treason." "Ask yourselves, gentlemen, why would I open my mind to a man like Richard Riche?" "Why, when the learned and the pious have implored me, when the King himself with weighty reasons has sought to persuade me." "Because you think I don't matter." "That is what you said." "I will take my oath on it." "Your oath?" "Your oath isn't worth the Devil's fart!" "Christ help you, Riche, I have known you since you were a child, you were the despair of your family, you were a gambler and a waster." "May I remind you that Richard Riche is Solicitor General, and not to be talked to like some pot-boy." "Did you speak the words alleged?" "I doubt it, and if I did..." " If you did?" " If I did, they were not meant with malice." "And so, masters, you cannot find them treasonable and you are bound to disregard such words, whatever this court tells you." "Prisoner, this court has found you guilty of treason." "Your sentence will be..." "Forgive me." "Does the prisoner have anything to say?" "I have followed my conscience." "You must follow yours." "My conscience satisfies me and now, I will speak plainly, that your statute is faulty and your authority baseless." "CLAMOUR" "My conscience stands with the majority." "Against Henry's kingdom, I have all the kingdoms of Christendom!" "Now we see your malice, sir!" "Against each one of your bishops..." "Now, we see you choose Rome over England!" " Against your Parliament!" " You traitor!" "I have all the general councils of the Church, stretching back for a thousand years!" "UPROAR" "It's the prayer book he had with him at the end." "You had no choice, master." "HE PLAYS RECORDER" "Thomas?" "Liz." "Thomas?" "It's Johane." "You have a fever." "Liz, let me..." "Let me love her." "Let me love her, Liz." "Fetch Dr Butts." "It's a fever I got in Italy." "It was a snake." "Let's say it is." "If I'm dying..." "..get Gregory." "Gregory, there's things I need to tell him." "Slow down, so I can see how you do it." "I can't slow down." "If I stop to think how I'm doing it, I won't be able to do it." "Itinerary for the King's summer progress." "Depart Windsor, then to Reading, Missenden, Abingdon." "We join them at Sudley." "If we leave on the 18th...?" "Leave a day earlier." "The roads." "Yes." "Gloucester, then to Thornbury." "Iron Acton." "Bromham." "Late September, Winchester, Bishop's Waltham." "Sir?" "Before Bromham, add another." "Yes?" "Early September." "Five days." "Wolf Hall." "Sir John." "Majesty." "Welcome." "Lost my hat riding here." "I'll send servants to find it, Your Highness."