Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The Cardinal's Court: A Hugh Mac Egan Mystery > Status Update

‘He smiled but there was still a worried look in his eyes. I understood that. The king had overridden him, had taken the matter out of his cardinal’s hands, for the sake of a low-ranking courtier. That was a grave rebuff to a man who normally held such power. Who was behind it, who had persuaded the king to do this?’

‘By now I was quite convinced, and vastly relieved to be so convinced, that, wherever he had been killed, the instructor of the wards, Master Edmund Pace, had been stabbed through the heart with a knife. And afterwards, when the body was slumped on the floor, the arrow had been put through the heart in order to throw the blame onto James.’

‘He had seemed, then, to be very happy, excited at the thought of his marriage to Mary Boleyn’s younger sister, who was at the French court. James had been thrilled at the idea that then, through this marriage, he would be heir to the Ormond earldom and there would be no more legal battles with English lords over his Irish inheritance.’

‘“I don’t think that the cardinal would like that match. I believe that all the papers have been signed for Harry Percy’s match with Mary Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter. His Grave won’t be pleased if there is any flirtation with Mistress Boleyn, and yet, you know, Hugh, the two of them there, they made such a handsome young couple, he smiling down at her, and she looking up with those lovely dark eyes”’