When, some days after his meeting with Stephen Gardiner, the travelling court had reached Winchester, new bishops had been consecrated in the cathedral. ‘My bishops’, Anne called them: gospellers, reformers, men who see Anne as an opportunity. Who would have thought Hugh Latimer would be a bishop? You would rather have predicted he would be burned, shrivelled at Smithfield with the gospel in his mouth. But then, who would have thought that Thomas Cromwell would be anything at all? When Wolsey fell, you might have thought that as Wolsey’s servant he was ruined. When his wife and daughters died, you might have thought his loss would kill him. But Henry has turned to him; Henry has sworn him in; Henry has put his time at his disposal and said, come, Master Cromwell, take my arm: through courtyards and throne rooms, his path in life is now made smooth and clear. As a young man he was always shouldering his way through crowds, pushing to the front to see the spectacle. But now crowds scatter as he walks through Westminster or the precincts of any of the king’s palaces. Since he was sworn councillor, trestles and packing cases and loose dogs are swept from his path. Women still their whispering and tug down their sleeves and settle their rings on their fingers, since he was named Master of the Rolls. Kitchen debris and clerks’ clutter and the footstools of the lowly are kicked into corners and out of sight, now that he is Master Secretary to the king. And no one except Stephen Gardiner corrects his Greek; not now he is Chancellor of Cambridge University.

Henry’s summer, on the whole, has been a success: through Berkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset he has shown himself to the people on the roads, and (when the rain isn’t bucketing down) they’ve stood by the roads and cheered. Why would they not? You cannot see Henry and not be amazed. Each time you see him you are struck afresh by him, as if it were the first time: a massive man, bull-necked, his hair receding, face fleshing out; blue eyes, and a small mouth that is almost coy. His height is six feet three inches, and every inch bespeaks power. His carriage, his person, are magnificent; his rages are terrifying, his vows and curses, his molten tears. But there are moments when his great body will stretch and ease itself, his brow clear; he will plump himself down next to you on a bench and talk to you like your brother. Like a brother might, if you had one. Or a father even, a father of an ideal sort: how are you? Not working too hard? Have you had your dinner? What did you dream last night?

The danger of a progress like this is that a king who sits at ordinary tables, on an ordinary chair, can be taken as an ordinary man. But Henry is not ordinary. What if his hair is receding and his belly advancing? The Emperor Charles, when he looks in the glass, would give a province to see the Tudor’s visage instead of his own crooked countenance, his hook nose almost touching his chin. King Francis, a beanpole, would pawn his dauphin to have shoulders like the King of England. Any qualities they have, Henry reflects them back, double the size. If they are learned, he is twice learned. If merciful, he is the exemplar of mercy. If they are gallant, he is the pattern of knight errantry, from the biggest book of knights you can think of.