Who was it who poured that poison into Dorothea’s ear? Perhaps the Cardinal himself, or perhaps Cromwell’s enemy the Duke of Norfolk.
Norfolk was absent in person from episode two, but behind most of its drama. Cromwell’s deeply enjoyable interrogation of Thomas “Tom Truth” Howard – England’s worst poet until Rick from The Young Ones – ended with the rhetorical question of who put into his mind the thought of marrying the king’s niece and one day becoming king himself. Of course it was Howard’s half-brother, Norfolk. As Lady Shelton warned, ever since his niece Anne Boleyn was separated from her head, the Duke has sought another route to the throne, and this was his latest.
Norfolk too, is likely behind the destructive rumour that Henry intends to marry Cromwell to his daughter Mary, a fabrication clearly designed to put the king in a killing vein.
Unless… It is a fabrication, isn’t it? Low-born Cromwell can’t possibly entertain hopes of marrying the daughter of English and Spanish royalty. So why does he risk looking like it by giving Princess Mary a ring? Artist Hans Holbein looked rightly green about that idea, and even though Cromwell told Meg Douglas that a ring is not a pledge, he must know how it might be interpreted. And what are we to make of Cromwell dwelling on Mary’s intimate declaration that she would like a child of her own? Could our man be starting to push his luck?
Whatever he may have dreamed could be possible with Mary, it certainly isn’t now, and neither could Cromwell save his reputation with a quick kill-two-birds marriage to Dorothea.
Cromwell’s luck either being pushed or running out was a preoccupation of “Obedience”. The episode started with a replay of series one scenes showing Wolsey’s downfall, and it was more than just a useful catch-up for anybody with a foggy memory – it was a version in miniature of what’s to come. Wolsey’s story – a low-born rise to great wealth and influence followed by a cruel demise at the hands of Henry VIII – is also Cromwell’s story. When he and George Cavendish discussed what brought Wolsey down, his pride or having made an enemy of Anne Boleyn (Wolsey stopped a younger Anne from marrying nobleman Lord Henry Percy due to the Boleyn’s taint of “trade” and she never forgave him), we can also ask the same of Cromwell. What will be the great mistake that leads to his own downfall? And has it already been committed?