‘Fetch a mirror,’ he says, ‘to hold to his lips. Fetch a feather to see if it stirs.’

The king has been manhandled out of his armour, but is still laced in his tournament jacket of wadded black, as if in mourning for himself. There is no evident blood, so he asks, where was he hurt? Someone says, he knocked his head; but that is all the sense he can glean from the wailing and babbling that fills the tent. Feathers, mirrors, they intimate it has been done; tongues clam-our like bell tongues, their eyes are like pebbles in their heads, one shocked and vacant face turns to another, oaths are uttered and prayers, and they move slowly, slowly; no one wants to carry the corpse inside, it is too much to take on oneself, it will be seen, it will be reported. It is a mistake to think that when the king dies his councillors shout, ‘Long live the king.’ Often the fact of the death is hidden for days. As this must be hidden…Henry is waxen, and he sees the shocking tenderness of human flesh evicted from steel. He is lying on his back, all his magnificent height stretched on a piece of ocean-blue cloth. His limbs are straight. He looks uninjured. He touches his face. It is still warm. Fate has not spoiled him or mangled. He is intact, a present for the gods. They are taking him back as he was sent.

He opens his mouth and shouts. What do they mean, leaving the king lying here, untouched by Christian hand, as if he were already excommunicate? If this were any other fallen man they would be enticing his senses with rose petals and myrrh. They would be pulling his hair and tweaking his ears, burning a paper under his nose, wrenching open his jaw to trickle in holy water, blowing a horn next to his head. All this should be done and – he looks up and sees Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, running at him like a demon. Uncle Norfolk: uncle to the queen, premier nobleman of England. ‘By God, Cromwell!’ he snarls. And his import is clear. By God, I’ve got you now; by God, your presumptuous guts will be drawn: by God, before the day is over your head will be spiked.

Perhaps. But in the next seconds he, Cromwell, seems to body out and fill all the space around the fallen man. He sees himself, as if he were watching from the canvas above: his girth expands, even his height. So that he occupies more ground. So that he takes up more space, breathes more air, is planted and solid when Norfolk careers into him, twitching, trembling. So he is a fortress on a rock, serene, and Thomas Howard just bounces back from his walls, wincing, flinching, and blethering God knows what about God knows who. ‘MY LORD NORFOLK!’ he roars at him. ‘My lord Norfolk, where is the queen?’