‘You want to be a martyr.’
‘No, what I want is to go home. I am weak, Thomas. I am
weak as we all are. I want the king to take me as his servant, his
loving subject, as I have never ceased to be.’
‘I have never understood where the line is drawn, between
sacrifice and self-slaughter.’
‘Christ drew it.’
‘You don’t see anything wrong with the comparison?’
Silence. The loud, contentious, quality of More’s silence. It’s
bouncing off the walls. More says he loves England, and he fears
all England will be damned. He is offering some kind of bargain
to his God, his God who loves slaughter: ‘It is expedient that
one man shall die for the people.’ Well, I tell you, he says to
himself. Bargain all you like. Consign yourself to the hangman
if you must. The people don’t give a fourpenny fuck. Today is 5
May. In two days’ time the commission will visit you. We will
ask you to sit, you will decline. You will stand before us looking
like a desert father, and we snugly wrapped against the summer
chill. I will say what I say. You will say what you say. And
maybe I will concede you have won. I will walk away and leave
you, the king’s good subject if you say so, till your beard grows
down to your knees and the spiders weave webs across your
eyes.
Well, that’s his plan. Events overtake it. He says to Richard, has
any damnable bishop of Rome in the history of his pox-ridden
jurisdiction ever done anything so stupidly ill-timed as this?
Farnese has announced England is to have a new cardinal: Bishop
Fisher. Henry is enraged. He swears he will send Fisher’s head
across the sea to meet his hat.
The third of June: himself to the Tower, with Wiltshire for the
Boleyn interest, and Charles Brandon, looking as if he would as
soon be fishing. Riche to make notes; Audley to make jokes. It’s
wet again, and Brandon says, this must be the worst summer ever, eh? Yes, he says, good thing His Majesty isn’t superstitious.
They laugh: Suffolk, a little uncertainly.
Some said the world would end in 1533. Last year had its
adherents too. Why not this year? There is always somebody
ready to claim that these are the end times, and nominate his
neighbour as the Antichrist. The news from Münster is that the
skies are falling fast. The besiegers are demanding unconditional
surrender; the besieged are threatening mass suicide.
He leads the way. ‘Christ, what a place,’ Brandon says. Drips
are spoiling his hat. ‘Doesn’t it oppress you?’
‘Oh, we’re always here.’ Riche shrugs. ‘One thing or another.
Master Secretary is wanted at the Mint or the jewel house.’
Martin lets them in. More’s head jerks up as they enter.
‘It’s yes or no today,’ he says.
‘Not even good day and how do you.’ Somebody has given
More a comb for his beard. ‘Well, what do I hear from Antwerp?
Do I hear Tyndale is taken?’
‘That is not to the point,’ the Lord Chancellor says. ‘Answer
to the oath. Answer to the statute. Is it a lawfully made statute?’
‘They say he strayed outside and the Emperor’s soldiers have
seized him.’
He says coldly, ‘Had you prior knowledge?’
Tyndale has been, not just taken, but betrayed. Someone
tempted him out of his haven, and More knows who. He sees
himself, a second self, enacting another rainy morning just like
this: in which he crosses the room, hauls the prisoner to his feet,
beats out of him the name of his agent. ‘Now, Your Grace,’ he says
to Suffolk, ‘you are wearing a violent expression, pray be calm.’
Me? Brandon says. Audley laughs. More says, ‘Tyndale’s devil
will desert him now. The Emperor will burn him. And the king
will not lift a finger to save him, because Tyndale would not
support his new marriage.’
‘Perhaps you think he showed sense there?’ Riche says.
‘You must speak,’ Audley says, gently enough. More is agitated, words tumbling over each other. He is ignoring Audley, speaking to him, Cromwell. ‘You cannot compel me
to put myself in hazard. For if I had an opinion against your Act
of Supremacy, which I do not concede, then your oath would be
a two-edged sword. I must put my body in peril if I say no to it,
my soul if I say yes to it. Therefore I say nothing.’
‘When you interrogated men you called heretics, you did not
allow evasion. You compelled them to speak and racked if they
would not. If they were made to answer, why not you?’
‘The cases are not the same. When I compel an answer from a
heretic, I have the whole body of law behind me, the whole
might of Christendom. What I am threatened with here is one
particular law, one singular dispensation of recent make, recognised here but in no other country –’
He sees Riche make a note. He turns away. ‘The end is the
same. Fire for them. Axe for you.’
‘If the king grants you that mercy,’ Brandon says.
More quails; he curls up his fingers on the tabletop. He notices
this, detached. So that’s a way in. Put him in fear of the more
lingering death. Even as he thinks it, he knows he will not do it;
the notion is contaminating. ‘On numbers I suppose you have
me beat. But have you looked at a map lately? Christendom is
not what it was.’
Riche says, ‘Master Secretary, Fisher is more a man than this
prisoner before us, for Fisher dissents and takes the consequences.
Sir Thomas, I think you would be an overt traitor, if you dared.’
More says softly, ‘Not so. It is not for me to thrust myself on
God. It is for God to draw me to him.’
‘We take note of your obstinacy,’ Audley says. ‘We spare you
the methods you have used on others.’ He stands up. ‘It is the
king’s pleasure that we move to indictment and trial.’
‘In the name of God! What ill can I effect from this place? I do
nobody harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. If this be not
enough to keep a man alive He cuts in on him, incredulous. ‘You do nobody harm? What
about Bainham, you remember Bainham? You forfeited his
goods, committed his poor wife to prison, saw him racked with
your own eyes, you locked him in Bishop Stokesley’s cellar, you
had him back at your own house two days chained upright to a
post, you sent him again to Stokesley, saw him beaten and abused
for a week, and still your spite was not exhausted: you sent him
back to the Tower and had him racked again, so that finally his
body was so broken that they had to carry him in a chair when
they took him to Smithfield to be burned alive. And you say,
Thomas More, that you do no harm?’
Riche begins to gather More’s papers from the table. It is
suspected he has been passing letters to Fisher upstairs: which is
not a bad thing, if collusion in Fisher’s treason can be shown.
More drops his hand on them, fingers spread; then shrugs, and
yields them. ‘Have them if you must. You read all I write.’
He says, ‘Unless we hear soon of a change of heart, we must
take away your pen and papers. And your books. I will send
someone.’
More seems to shrink. He bites his lip. ‘If you must take them,
take them now.’
‘For shame,’ Suffolk says. ‘Do you take us for porters, Master
More?’
Anne says, ‘It is all about me.’ He bows. ‘When finally you have
out of More what troubles his singular conscience, you will find
that what is at the root of it is that he will not bend his knee to
my queenship.’
She is small and white and angry. Long fingers tip to tip,
bending each other back; eyes bright.
Before they go further, he has to recall to Henry last year’s
disaster; remind him that he cannot always have his own way,
just by asking for it. Last summer Lord Dacre, who is one of the
northern lords, was indicted for treason, accused of collusion with the Scots. Behind the accusation were the Clifford family,
Dacre’s hereditary enemies and rivals; behind them the Boleyns,
for Dacre had been outspoken in support of the former queen.
The stage was set in Westminster Hall, Norfolk presiding over
the court, as High Steward of the kingdom: and Dacre to be
judged, as was his right, by twenty fellow lords. And then …
mistakes were made. Possibly the whole thing was a miscalculation, an affair driven too fast and hard by the Boleyns. Possibly
he had erred in not taking charge of the prosecution himself; he
had thought it was best to stay in the background, as many titled
men have a spite against him for being who he is, and will take a
risk to work him displeasure. Or else Norfolk was the problem,
losing control of the court … Whatever the reason, the charges
were thrown out, to an outpouring by the king of astonishment
and rage. Dacre was taken straight back to the Tower by the
king’s guard, and he was sent in to strike some deal, which must,
he knew, end with Dacre broken. At his trial Dacre had talked
for seven hours, in his own defence; but he, Cromwell, can talk
for a week. Dacre had admitted to misprision of treason, a lesser
offence. He bought a royal pardon for £10,000. He was released
to go north again, a pauper.
But the queen was sick with frustration; she wanted an
example made. And affairs in France are not going her way; some
say that at the mention of her name, François sniggers. She
suspects, and she is right, that her man Cromwell is more interested in the friendship of the German princes than in an alliance
with France; but she has to pick her time for that quarrel, and she
says she will have no peace till Fisher is dead, till More is dead. So
now she circles the room, agitated, less than regal, and she keeps
veering towards Henry, touching his sleeve, touching his hand,
and he brushes her away, each time, as if she were a fly. He,
Cromwell, watches. They are not the same couple from day to
day: sometimes doting, sometimes chilly and distanced. The
billing and cooing, on the whole, is the more painful to watch. Fisher gives me no anxiety,’ he says, ‘his offence is clear. In
More’s case … morally, our cause is unimpeachable. No one is in
doubt of his loyalty to Rome and his hatred of Your Majesty’s
title as head of the church. Legally, however, our case is slender,
and More will use every legal, every procedural device open to
him. This is not going to be easy.’
Henry stirs into life. ‘Do I retain you for what is easy? Jesus
pity my simplicity, I have promoted you to a place in this
kingdom that no one, no one of your breeding has ever held in
the whole of the history of this realm.’ He drops his voice. ‘Do
you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your
presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as
cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom.
You know my decision. Execute it.’
As he leaves, he is conscious of the silence falling behind him.
Anne walking to the window. Henry staring at his feet.
So when Riche comes in, quivering with undisclosed secrets, he
is inclined to swat him like a fly; but then he takes hold of
himself, rubs his palms together instead: the merriest man in
London. ‘Well, Sir Purse, did you pack up the books? And how
was he?’
‘He drew the blind down. I asked him why, and he said, the
goods are taken away, so now I am closing the shop.’
He can hardly bear it, to think of More sitting in the dark.
‘Look, sir.’ Riche has a folded paper. ‘We had some conversation. I wrote it down.’
‘Talk me through it.’ He sits down. ‘I am More. You are
Riche.’ Riche stares at him. ‘Shall I close the shutter? Is this
better played out in the dark?’
‘I could not,’ Riche says, hesitant, ‘leave him without trying
once again –’
‘Quite. You have your way to make. But why would he talk to
you, if he would not talk to me? ‘Because he has no time for me. He thinks I don’t matter.’
‘And you Solicitor General,’ he says, mocking.
‘So we were putting cases.’
‘What, as if you were at Lincoln’s Inn after supper?’
‘To tell the truth I pitied him, sir. He craves conversation and
you know he rattles away. I said to him, suppose Parliament were
to pass an act saying that I, Richard Riche, were to be king.
Would you not take me for king? And he laughed.’
‘Well, you admit it is not likely.’
‘So I pressed him on it; he said, yes, majestic Richard, I so take
you, for Parliament can do it, and considering what they have
done already I should hardly be surprised if I woke up in the
reign of King Cromwell, for if a tailor can be King of Jerusalem I
suppose a lad from the smithy can be King of England.’
Riche pauses: has he given offence? He beams at him. ‘When I
am King Cromwell, you shall be a duke. So, to the point, Purse
… or isn’t there one?’
‘More said, well, you have put a case, I shall put you a higher
case. Suppose Parliament were to pass an act saying God should
not be God? I said, it would have no effect, for Parliament has
no power to do it. Then he said, aye, well, young man, at least
you recognise an absurdity. And there he stopped, and gave me
a look, as if to say, let us deal in the real world now. I said to him,
I will put you a middle case. You know our lord the king has
been named by Parliament head of the church. Why will you
not go with the vote, as you go with it when it makes me
monarch? And he said – as if he were instructing some child –
the cases are not alike. For one is a temporal jurisdiction, and
Parliament can do it. The other is a spiritual jurisdiction, and is
what Parliament cannot exercise, for the jurisdiction is out of
this realm.’
He stares at Riche. ‘Hang him for a papist,’ he says.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We know he thinks it. He has never stated it.’