The Mirror and the Light

Cromwell is informed that his household has been broken up, his belongings confiscated, and his papers rifled through. He also learns that Wriothesley has betrayed him, though most members of Cromwell’s entourage are unsurprised. He tries to pray about his predicament, but he finds himself feeling “very ill” (700) and weak. He is given little reason to hope that the king will change his mind—he is told that he remains Earl of Essex, and he is allowed to write a letter directly to Henry—but he clings to these possibilities nonetheless.

He is questioned repeatedly and at length by various courtiers. While the king and Cromwell’s enemies have several potential—if fabricated or exaggerated—reasons to imprison the Lord Privy Seal, “[i]t appears to be about Mary as much as anything. The stories of how you meant to marry her” (702). The rumors about Cromwell’s designs on usurping the kingdom are not so harmless after all.

Cromwell’s inciting of Norfolk’s wrath also undoes him: “To Norfolk, a Cromwell is just a blot to be erased, like a discrepancy in book-keeping” (720). As it turns out, the king has decided to rid himself of Anne of Cleves so that he can marry Norfolk’s young niece, Katherine Howard.