Nicholas Carew

Courtier and diplomat

Sir Nicholas Carew (1496 – )

The story so far…

Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)

First the assembled courtiers must make their bows to Anne. Her ladies sweep back and leave her alone in a little sunlit space. He watches them, watches the gentlemen and councillors, among whom, on this feast day, are so many of the king’s boyhood friends. He watches Sir Nicholas Carew in particular; nothing is wanting in his reverence to his new queen, but he cannot help a downturn of his mouth. Arrange your face, Nicholas Carew, your ancient family face. He hears Anne saying, these are my enemies: he adds Carew to the list.

Week 14: Devil's Spit / A Painter’s Eye

Cromwell redistributes some of Katherine’s land holdings to Carew. Carew is no ally of Anne or Cromwell, but “gifts blind the eyes of the wise. Carew is not particularly wise, in his opinion, but the principle holds good; and if not exactly blinded, at least he looks dazzled.”

Week 19: Crows (Part 1)

“An antique man with his long grave face,” Nicholas Carew is scrapping with George Boleyn, with his “parvenu pretentions.” Carew is a papist and Katherine’s man.

Did George and his evil company make a racket outside the chamber of Sir Nicholas, while he was at some solemn business like admiring himself in the looking glass?

Week 21: Angels

Carew is a knight but not a lord, so he sits with the common folk like Thomas Cromwell. There, he makes a ‘gloomy’ toast to Henry Guildford, the ex-Master Comptroller who opposed the Boleyn marriage.

Men like Carew, he knows, tend to blame him, Cromwell, for Anne’s rise in the world; he facilitated it, he broke the old marriage and let in the new. He does not expect them to soften to him, to include him in their companionship; he only wants them not to spit in his dinner.

Week 24: The Black Book (Part 3)

Sir Nicholas Carew comes to see him. The very fibres of his beard are bristling with conspiracy. He half-expects the knight to wink as he sits down.

He speaks on behalf of ‘the ancient nobility’ and he says ‘the most part of England would rejoice to see the king free’ of Anne Boleyn. By which he means, ‘my England, the England of ancient blood. Any other country, for Sir Nicholas, does not exist.’

He asks Cromwell to join them. He accepts that Jane will be made queen. Their goal: get Henry back to Rome. Going out, he says: ‘Don’t keep me waiting next time. It ill becomes a man of your stamp to keep a man of my stamp kicking his heels in an anteroom.’

Carew and Fitz begin to conspire with Cromwell.

Week 27: Master of Phantoms (3/5)

He does not come into a room like lesser men, but rolls in, like a siege engine or some formidable hurling device: and now, halting before Cromwell, he looks as if he wishes to bombard him.

Carew reminds Cromwell of the deal, as he sees it. The old families want to see Mary reinstated in the line of succession and back by the king’s side. Carew even wants Mary returned to her old governor, Margaret Pole. His final demand: ‘You must pull Wyatt in.’

Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils

During the last days of Anne, Carew is with Jane Seymour. He is watching Cromwell carefully to make sure he stays the course.

Week 30: Wreckage (I)

A letter arrives for Cromwell from Nicholas Carew. Carew wants to arrange a meeting with the old families. They want Mary back in the line of succession. They think this is what Master Secretary promised in return for their help in removing Anne.

Week 31: Salvage (Part 1/3)

At court, Chapuys cannot pronounce Carew’s name. He calls him: Cara-vey. Richard calls him Carve-Away.

Carew wants to arrange a meeting: his friends want to escort Mary back to court.

‘We made a bargain with you, Cromwell. We expect it to be honoured.’ Cromwell’s version of the bargain is different to theirs: ‘You help me remove Anne, and… nothing.’

Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body

Nicholas Carew joins Lord Exeter and William Fitzwilliam in walking Cromwell through the rites that will make him a Garter Knight.

Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance

Nicholas Carew is arrested on the last day of 1538. He is implicated in the Exeter conspiracy. The king says the cardinal always warned him about Carew, but he didn’t listen. In his cell, Carew picks up the bible and ‘laments his life.’ Martin asks whether they can help him, ‘Now he has come over to us?’