Ravens are a traditionally creepy type of bird. In fact, seeing many of them together can strike a bit of fear into one's heart. Mary thinks it's something to do with looking like the dead of the night- darkness. But to him, it makes one feel a shroud of loneliness and despair and death.
In many communities, the sight of a raven is considered to bring about death and evil tidings of trouble. Some people also believe that ravens are symbolic of justice and inward character. These same people say the raven shows up when you need some introspection- reflecting on one's personality and life choices.
The irony is a group of ravens is called a conspiracy, which seems fitting. All of these things about this black bird seem appropriate. Because here on Tower Hill, there is a group of ravens, literally and figuratively, gathered about. As Charles looks around, he counts six of the birds on the ground, appearing to stare at the executioner's block. And then there are four in his conspiracy group: himself, Edward Seymour, Thomas Howard, and Bishop Stephen Gardiner. All of them, the birds and men alike, are there for blood.
When he started this campaign, he only thought Cromwell deserved to lose his powers and be humiliated. The King should not sentence the man to death or lose his head. The former secretary should only be out of office and go quietly into the night. Unfortunately, it did not go the way he hoped it would happen.
With the King's marriage fast-tracked to annulment, Thomas Howard gathered support to rid the Privy Council and His Majesty of Thomas Cromwell. He was arrested on charges of treason, heresy, corruption, misusing funds, taking bribes, making appointments without royal approval, and plotting. None of those things are true, except for the man's irreverent tendencies toward destroying the Catholic church.
As for the treason charges, His Highness thinks those are a little much.
He knows Henry had used treason due to the organizing of his marriage to Anne of Cleves- which has been a complete failure and disappointment, to be sure. But honestly, that had been expected because he chose her from a stupid painting! It's no one's fault but the King's own. Naturally, he's not going to say that. And naturally, Henry would never admit to his fault in the issue.
To make matters worse, Mary is upset. Her disgruntled attitude, eyes, and face tell the story every time she looks his way lately. He remembers the evening after Cromwell's sentencing. Having just returned from the courtroom, he entered their apartments. She cast her knitting aside and stood up from the armchair.
Her finger began to poke him in the chest, and her voice chastised him. "You spread slander about the man, and now he's been sentenced to death. I hope you're proud of yourself. I hope you can look your children in the eye with a clean conscience."
Oh, the self-loathing he felt after her sharp words, not that he didn't already feel it. Then his wife declared further, "Treachery is the avenue of fools who don't have enough courage, to be honest. Charles, I never took you for a fool."
Every time he thinks about those particular words, it guts him in the crawl. They cling to him like a sweaty shirt in the heat of summer. Even now, as he stood by Seymour and Sir Francis Bryan awaiting Cromwell, the words apprehend him. His stupid black velvet doublet and fur make the heat rise within him and his stomach nauseous.
Within minutes Cromwell marched out with the guards surrounding him. He mounted the scaffold steps. The Prince's former nemesis, standing tall though weary, made a speech to the crowd. His voice rang clear and steadfast.
"Many have slandered me and reported that I have been a bearer of such as I have maintained evil opinions, which is untrue. But I confess that like as God, by His Holy Spirit, doth instruct us in the truth, so the devil is ready to seduce us, and I have been seduced."
He then commended his soul unto the Lord. His articulate voice announced, "I see and acknowledge that there is no hope of salvation in myself, but all my confidence, hope, and trust is in thy most merciful goodness. I have no merits or good works which I may allege before thee."
The former secretary ended his speech and knelt at the block. Then it happened, the worst beheading of all executions on record. It was gruesome and gory to behold. Many heads turned aside, not to take it in, just as His Highness heard many gasps from the crowd.
Indeed a sad ending for a man who rose from humble roots like Charles himself. The Prince said a silent prayer for the Master Secretary and left the heinous Tower. This time he didn't even make it back to the palace before he threw up. He did so outside the carriage and wiped his mouth with the handkerchief from his doublet pocket.
Once he arrived at Whitehall Palace, the King decided he wanted to move Court there; he was ushered into Henry's private sitting room. Today the King looked happier than he's been in months. His Majesty sat in his kingly chair at the head of the breakfast table, dressed in royal clothes of silk and velvet. Henry put his fork down and acknowledged his dear friend. As Charles sat down, he asked with nonchalance, "Is it done?"
Pouring himself a glass of ale, the Prince told him, "Yes. In all its horrific, grisly entirety, it's done. Cromwell is no more."
Leaning back in the chair, the King wore a smug look. It made Charles disgusted. "Good, good. The man was too high on his horse, doing things that should have been my own doings. He led me down paths I never intended too far to go. Anyway, let's talk about more pleasurable things." He took a sip of wine as his friend wondered what those more favorable things could be. It didn't take long for him to find out.
Forking some eggs, Henry declared, "I feel more alive today than I have in ages. It's all due to Catherine Howard, of course. She is my rose without thorns. We will marry in July, of that I'm certain."
Charles said nothing, only sat there thinking things over. He thought about his part in the death of Cromwell. For as much as he wanted the man removed from power, he didn't want him beheaded. It's his own folly to have thought Henry would set the secretary aside and replace him. By now, he should know that the King doesn't do the usual thing. No. If Henry wants someone set aside, he'll remove them. If he wants someone dead, they'll die. Sometimes on false charges too. Politics is an ugly business.
Plus, his wife is correct. The deception he partook in is like trying to stuff an alligator into a trunk. It's challenging and has ways of attacking if not careful. In other words, it's pure stupidity. As Mary said, now he has to live with himself over his choice to be part of the fraud.
The afternoon wore on with the Prince putting his decision to rest and taking in King lessons. While he did that, Mary oversaw the packing for the house in Cardigan. It's summer, and they've been at the palace long enough. The family will be back regardless of what will most likely be her father's wedding to that idiotic Howard girl.
The insipid creature is absurd and mindless. Like Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard had not been born or raised to be Queen. Mary still can't get over the girl's age compared to her father. She's seventeen! And yet she's to be the Queen and, by all accounts, her newest stepmother. It's ridiculous and mental. As she packed things into a trunk, she fumed all the more.
A servant knocked on the chamber door to alert her to their presence. "Your Highness, a letter arrived for you," Annabeth, the lead Chamber maid, announced.
Taking the message, Mary thanked the maid and opened it. The unfamiliar handwriting left her wondering who had sent this as she read it. It's an invitation to tea in the garden with Catherine Howard. Paisley, who had been helping the Princess pack, stopped at stared as she heard her friend stamp her foot in frustration.
Crumpling the letter up and pacing back and forth, Her Highness brewed with anger. "Of all the nerve! This... this... this child invites me to tea in the garden. She's not married to my father. She's not Queen- she's his mistress, yet this girl is pretending to be my equal, which she is not. It's insulting!"
Paisley snickered. "So I take it you're not going to tea?" The expression on the Princess's face is all the answer she needs.
Mary stopped pacing and sat at the writing desk. "No. I am not going." She dipped the fine quill into the ink and wrote a decline message. After blowing on it, she stamped it with her official Princess of Wales seal and had the servant deliver it to the child. That is exactly what Mary is going to call her- the child. And so, a "cold war" began between the Princess and the child.
When His Highness returned that evening, they dined alone. The conversation lagged, mainly due to Charles not wanting to speak about the execution and Mary not wanting to chat about her father's soon-to-be child bride- a stain and embarrassment on the kingdom and their family. But both were content to discuss getting away from the palace.
The next morning the Brandons quit London and went home to Wales. The King, Lady Anne, and the child saw them off. While Charles said his goodbyes to Henry and Tony, Mary having hugged Anne bypassed the child and went straight to Dot. The two embraced and spoke about baby things, with Mary telling her, "Once I return home to Wales, I'll send you some of the pregnancy tea Mrs. Nevitt prescribes me."
When Charles called her, she embraced Dot a final time and loaded herself into the carriage. Once he sat and the carriage pulled away, he stated, "Are you proud of yourself? You're making an enemy of your father's soon-to-be wife."
Not caring a wit, she picked up the book from her basket. "His mistress, you mean. Yes, I am proud of myself. I can live my choice and sleep just fine at night too." She began to read about Sir Bedivere and the Battle of Tryfrwyd. Lately, she cannot get enough to read about the knights of King Arthur's Court. They make her swoon with their courtly manners and chivalric love.
Picking up his own book, the Prince asked, "Are you going to keep making subtle digs at me the whole way home?"
Marking her page with her finger, Mary shook her head. "No. How I treat the child has nothing to do with you. If you feel guilt, that's on you, not me." She returned to reading.
"How you treat your father's soon-to-be wife reflects on you and your family. Besides, she makes him happier than he's been in ages. It's not your decision to choose his bride or who he courts," Charles reminded her.
Again she marked her place and turned her head to her husband. Her sarcasm rivaled Lady Flora's at that moment. "Thank you for telling me. I was so worried I had overstepped my bounds. So, you are saying that you see no impropriety in him marrying that girl? You're okay with her being a giggling fool, who's only seventeen to his forty-four?" And before he could respond, she qualified her statements by saying, "If this were Gillian marrying a forty-four-year-old man, you would be fine with that too?"
Taking the book from her hands, His Highness held her eyes. "No. I would not be alright with that. But you did marry me when you were eighteen."
She picked at the gauze on her sea-green gown. "I did, but you were not forty-four. You were in your late twenties, twenty-nine. Our situation is vastly different. Don't even disparage our love by comparing my father and the child."
Charles pointed out, fixing his eyes on her, "I would never do such a thing. I'm only suggesting not to rile up the girl. Once she's married and the Queen, she can make your life difficult. Plus, there's no changing your father's mind. I seem to have forgotten that when I conspired against Cromwell."
She scooted closer to him. They haven't really spoken about the former secretary. Mainly her righteous disappointment didn't allow her to at the time. "What did you mean to accomplish by your part in the plot against him?" she asked.
He blew out a great breath as he played with her fingers. "Only that he would be set aside and gone from office."
Her hand lifted his face up and toward hers. "That's unfortunate. Perhaps you should have had a private conversation with my father to set him aside. He might have done so for you."
A small laugh escaped him. "No. When Henry's mind is made up, there's no going back. For him to do so would mean taking an arrow to his pride, which seldom ever happens. Cromwell was already dead. We just provided the avenue to do it. I let my frustrations at the man get the better of me, just like you're letting your own feelings show toward the child."
Yes, she knows that. She broke one of Lady Flora's quintessential rules, not to mention one she had been raised with. The one about never letting your true feelings show on a matter or topic. During Queen lessons, she said, "You become dangerous once you learn to control your feelings. Don't be in bondage to your emotions. Control them before they control you."
The couple rode the rest of the way, each reading or napping. When they arrived in Cardigan, at the castle by the beach, the pair prepared for a terrific summer. It was a season sure to be filled with children playing in the water and building sandcastles on the beach, checking the orchards for fresh fruit and getting them ready for fall, Queen lessons with Lady Flora and Mr. Harris, and fun romps in the maze.