Page 10 of Love, Remember Me

"Thank you, m'lady," Tillie responded, bobbing a little curtsey. Then she put the cloak over Nyssa, settling it smoothly and turning her mistress about to fasten the gold frogs that held the garment shut.

"Where are the boys?" Nyssa asked as they exited the house.

"Awaiting us in the coach," her aunt replied. "Edmund and my Owen will ride with the coachman. 'Tis not far."

Her two cousins scrambled from the carriage and climbed atop the coach box with their driver as the two women reached the vehicle's door. Nyssa saw her brothers, seated with their backs to the coachman. They were more elegantly dressed than she had ever seen them. Philip was dark-haired and light-eyed like their father; Giles, fair like their mother. They wore haut-de-chausses of black velvet, the slashings in the fabric showing white satin beneath. Their stockings were striped black and white, and their black leather shoes had rounded, narrow toes. Their doublets were of black velvet, embroidered with pearls, over which they wore identical sleeveless jerkins of white doeskin with shoulder puffs. The jerkins hung to their knees. Each boy wore a small gold neck chain from which hung a medallion with the family's coat of arms. Small jeweled daggers hung from their girdles, and each wore a flat bonnet of black velvet with ostrich tips atop his head.

"You both look very fine," she complimented them, surprised.

"As do you, sister," Philip Wyndham told her in return.

"Look, Nyssa," Giles said excitedly. "I have my own dagger!" He proffered the bejeweled weapon for her to see. It was studded with garnets, tiny diamonds, and seed pearls.

"You must never draw it in the king's presence," she warned him. "Or the prince's either. Remember, Mama told you that was treason."

Giles nodded, his blue eyes wide. "I won't forget," he said.

Philip, however, looked irritated at his elder sister's admonition. "If you tell me once," he said archly, "I remember. It is not necessary to repeat it, Nyssa."

"Your apologies, my lord," she mocked him, settling her skirts about her. "I don't know why I always forget how wise you are, Viscount Wyndham. How terribly remiss of me to have done so."

Giles giggled, and even Philip was forced to smile at the barb.

"There must be no squabbling amongst you," Bliss warned.

Nyssa folded her hands meekly and became instantly silent, as did her two brothers. The coach pulled away from the house and headed down the road to Hampton Court. Soon the traffic was very heavy. Nyssa found herself fascinated by it all. Other coaches surrounded theirs, some of them even more elegant and rich-looking. There were ladies and gentlemen mounted upon fine horseflesh wending their way amid the carriages. Everyone was going, it seemed, in the same direction—to Hampton Court.

Hampton Court had been erected by Cardinal Wolsey, the king's counselor. It had been built on land acquired from the Knights Hospitalers of St. John in 1514. The Order of St. John, however, would not sell the cardinal the land. They rented it to him instead for ninety-nine years, at a nominal fee of fifty pounds. Building had begun in the spring of 1515. Although the king and Katherine of Aragon were entertained there in May of 1516, the palace was not completed for several more years.

It was built around three courts: the Base Court, the Clock Court, and the Cloister Green. The buildings were of red brick, decorated with blue-black patterns in a diamond shape. All the turrets were crowned with lead cupolas. The exterior walls of Hampton Court were decorated with the cardinal's coat of arms, as well as a set of terra-cotta roundels which had been a gift from the pope. There was a long, windowed gallery where the cardinal walked on inclement days, and a garden where he would sit each evening. The palace had a thousand rooms, of which 280 were guest chambers. There were two kitchens, and in a room between them sat the master cook, garbed as elegantly as any courtier, directing his underlings grandly by word and the waving of a wooden spoon, his badge of office.

Bliss explained this all to her niece and two nephews as the coach slowly traveled along the crowded road.

"Mama met the cardinal once," Nyssa told her aunt.

"I know," Bliss replied. "He was a man to be feared in his heyday. He climbed long, and high. His fall was swift."

"Mama always said he was a loyal servant of the king. Why was he executed?" Nyssa wondered aloud.

"The king grew angry with him because he could not seem to get the pope to agree to a divorce for him from the Princess of Aragon. The cardinal knew that the king wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, and the cardinal did not like her. He wanted the king to marry Princess Renee of France. It is possible the Princess of Aragon might have given way to a princess of France that the king have a male heir; but Wolsey had no intention of her giving way to Tom Boleyn's girl.

"The cardinal had many enemies. Very powerful men always do. They saw this rift between the king and the cardinal as a chance to pull Wolsey down. The cardinal's rather extravagant way of life was suddenly questioned quite vocally. A rather scurrilous rhyme was circulated. It set the king to wondering who was really in control of his realm: himself or the cardinal. The king does not like being eclipsed.

"I know the rhyme!" Nyssa said excitedly. " 'Why come ye not to court? To which court? To the King's Court or to Hampton Court? Nay, to the King's Court! The King's Court should hath the excellence but Hampton Court hath the preeminence.' "

"The author had to seek sanctuary at Westminster," the Earl of Marwood told them. "The king was very angry, and became even more so when a Franciscan monk visiting court saw the magnificence of Wolsey's court and asked, 'Have they not in England a king?' I heard it myself, as did those who were quick to report it to the king himself. Poor old Wolsey! The king's vanity was sorely pricked. He called the cardinal to him, demanding to know why he had built so magnificent a house for himself at Hampton Court. I will give Wolsey credit, for he as quickly answered the king, 'To show how noble a palace a subject may offer to his sovereign.' He then turned the place over to the king, lock, stock, and barrel," Owen FitzHugh finished.

"You mean lock, stock, tapestries, and carpets," Bliss said with a laugh, and then she explained to the others, "The cardinal had a passion for tapestries. One year he ordered one hundred and thirty-two of them. As for carpets, he had all kinds. Foot carpets, table carpets, window carpets. In one shipment from Venice there were sixty carpets alone just for Cardinal Wolsey. How he loved beautiful things!"

"Mama says he was going to be tried for treason," Nyssa said. "What treason did he commit?"

"None, child," Bliss told her, "but never repeat it. Wolsey simply made too many enemies. When he fell from favor, he was exiled to York, where he was archbishop. Had he lived quietly, and piously, perhaps he would have escaped his detractors, but the cardinal was not capable of it. He once again set up a sumptuous court. The king heard of it, and allowed himself to be persuaded that Wolsey might be in league with foreign powers. After all, the cardinal had always been able to gain the king what he desired, until now. With regard to the king's divorce from the Princess of Aragon, he seemed helpless. Or was he? He was arrested at Cawood Castle, and died in Leicester Abbey on the road to London."

"The king wields great power, doesn't he?" Nyssa said softly. "I think I am afraid of him now, and I was not before."

"You are wise," her uncle told her, "to fear Henry Tudor. He can be the best of friends, kind and generous; yet he is a deadly enemy, Nyssa. Your mother survived her tenure at court because she was clever. She never allowed anyone to draw her into a faction, nor did she flaunt her privileged position while she held it. You would be wise to model your behavior after hers."

"Perhaps I would be better off going home," Nyssa said, and her brothers groaned in disgust at her cowardice.

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