An Uneasy Crown: Power and politics at the Tudor court (The Tudor Saga Series Book 4) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2019-10-05T22:00:00+00:00

Two days later, Richard Ashton smiled at Grace across the breakfast table and asked, ‘Do you think you could handle riding Patience for two hours or so today? One hour there and one hour back?’

Patience was a young filly born to one of the estate brood mares while Grace had been away. She’d been broken to human command and Grace had already happily walked her around the home paddock without mishap, so she nodded gleefully at the prospect of a longer ride on her back. ‘Of course — where are we going?’

‘To somewhere very important, in the ruins of Leicester Abbey.’

‘The Cardinal’s grave?’ Thomas chipped in. ‘That’s boring!’

‘Then you won’t be disappointed when I tell you that you’re not coming with us,’ their father said. ‘It’s time that Grace learned how we come to be living here. Dress for a long ride, by your standards, Grace, and be prepared to do some rough gardening when we get there.’

Two hours later they stood on either side of a weed-strewn mound of earth, surrounded on all sides by the ruins of what had once been a large monastery, but had over the years been robbed of its finest stones following its closure along with most others of its type. At the head of the mound was a fine carved headstone and as Grace carefully fingered the moss in order to trace the inscription she looked across at her father.

‘Why is the Cardinal’s the only grave that’s still properly tended?’ she asked.

‘It’s been my life’s work to maintain it in some semblance of decency. I’ve been coming here almost every week since before you were born, to keep down the weeds and it was in return for undertaking that service that I was granted our estate.’

‘By the King?’

‘No, the man in whose service I was at the time. You’ve heard of Thomas Cromwell?’

‘I have,’ Grace replied guardedly, ‘but not always in a good way. Lady Mary says that he was a Godless heretic.’

‘That’s because he put an end to abbeys such as this one, which were an important part of the old religion that Lady Mary still espouses. But Cromwell was King Henry’s Secretary and I was one of his clerks.’

‘Only a clerk?’ Grace asked with raised eyebrows. ‘Then why did he give you this estate?’

‘You need know nothing other than that I received it in return for tending this grave, which contains the body of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who rose from being the son of a butcher to become the most powerful man in England after the King. And he raised Thomas Cromwell to greatness — the son of a Putney blacksmith.’

‘They both rose to high office, even though they were lowly born?’ Grace queried.

Her father nodded. ‘They were men of great ability and King Henry valued that. It made no difference to him that they did not come from a noble family, raised on a mighty estate.’

Grace looked thoughtfully across the mound at him. ‘Did Mother tell you about Allan Bestwick?’

‘She did indeed, and that’s why I brought you here.

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