‘NT epilogue’ (+ fiction)
St James’s Palace Gatehouse
A great convoy wheels towards them (them: the Queen’s two ‘C’s’— the ‘Crum and Cram’ once jangled into a mass of disturbance, thundering all the way from Louth— and the Queen’s two ‘A’s’—chancellor Audley and Alexander Ales—and the fathers of Queen’s poet-taught schoolroom: John Dudley, William Stafford, Baron Norris, and Rowland Lee), their short ride from Whitehall gliding in a triangle, like a train of cygnets: white velvet litter inside and out, accommodating the joints of the elder of their party.
The wheel of diplomacy spins, so that the treasury does not suffer: the transport and white mules were gifts of the French king, a triplicate version of his gift for the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, and have more practical utility than the diamond of the same haul, delivered withal.
For now, they serve as a hint of the dowry one of them might acquire, of the kingdom one of them might inherit, of the benefits to an alliance, even towards those, not so fortunate in that Valentine draw…if they are successful, in their aims (to secure the protection of the King of England from the Emperor)—if they are successful in their advantage (the recent vacation of the betrothals of both from an alliance with the same, once their erstwhile ally failed to uphold the contract of both: in not extraditing an enemy of the state, of his territory…an enemy whose heart remains uneaten, for all of Lord Cromwell’s promises…)…
With the grinding roar of the portcullis behind in their ears, the embassy from the Schmalkaldic League clatters into the bricked courtyard of the nursery palace of the Tudor heirs.
Soles settle upon the sand fine, laid to honour their arrival. A few halt their steps, and turn their faces towards the noise, and then back, to the façade, and all the while don miens like Jonah, waking up only to find themselves inside the whale they had been warned of.
But the philosopher-theologian, Melanchthon, is the member whose presence has been most sought by the King of England, and so he does not match the miens of his party: he descends his coach-steps in sunny disposition, which only increases once his specially marked transport gets first greeting: the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, godfather to the Prince and Princess of England, kisses him on both cheeks, and escorts him towards the open double doors.
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Melanchthon cannot help but crack a smile, at His Grace’s attire: black university robes, like the clergy of all rank in Basel, to appease the Swiss reformists in attendance, and yet purple vestments over the same: No such gesture for me?, he demurs, gesturing to them.
Alas, our Swiss brethren saw and argued the righteousness of King Henry’s first matrimonial case and cause years before many of this embassy.
A stab at me, Your Grace?
Surely not.
Tell me…does Lord Cromwell still wear body armour?