Read The Courier's Tale Online
Authors: Peter Walker
‘If His Highness has as many realms and provinces as you say,’ said the Queen, ‘I doubt that he will be willing to leave them and come and live in England. Do you really wish me to marry a man I will never see?’
‘It would be much better to choose a king with many realms than an ordinary king with only one or two,’ said Renard. ‘In any case, His Highness would have no dearer wish than to stay with you day and night. And besides, his kingdoms are so near one another and so close to England that when he is in one he could hardly be said to be away from the others.’
‘That is all very good,’ said the Queen, ‘but I know nothing at all about him. I may have heard that he seems younger than his years and not as wise as his father. And I hope you will not tell me that he is disposed to be amorous, for that is not at all to my inclination.’
‘As to His Highness’s character,’ cried Renard, ‘you have been informed by very doubtful characters, fond of slander, with vile motives and without any regard for the truth. He in fact is so admirable, virtuous, prudent and modest that he may well seem too wonderful to be human, and although Your Majesty may think I am speaking the language of a servant, in reality I minimise his qualities.’
‘I am as free as the day I was born,’ said the Queen reflectively, ‘and have never taken a fancy to anyone in my life. Yet how can I make up my mind? How can I confer with my council? When they once brought up the subject of matrimony, I rebuffed them so severely they have never dared mention it again.’
‘If your council sincerely desire the greatness of England, I do not believe they will oppose you,’ said Renard. ‘Besides, when you have made your desires known, it is their duty to find a way to bring them about.’
‘I have heard,’ said the Queen, ‘that when the King of Bohemia went to Spain he gained great renown for the way he conducted himself and his affairs, and in comparison the Prince of Spain is not highly thought of in this regard. O Lieutenant d’Amont, I conjure you: tell me truthfully what his character is.’
‘Such a prince,’ said Renard, ‘so noble, so mild and so puissant that no one in the world could suggest a better match for you. And remember – you have many enemies, none of whom will ever cease to cause you trouble if they can: the French, the Scots, the heretics, and the lady Elizabeth, who is to be feared for she has the power of enchantment. With such a husband at your side, you will be safe. You may think he is is too young, yet in fact he is in his twenty-eighth year, with a son aged eight. In fact, he is of such a stable and settled character that no one could possibly call him young. And besides, a man who is nearly thirty is nowadays considered as old as men used to be at forty.’
There was another pause. Then the Queen took Renard’s hand.
‘Are you speaking the truth?’ she said. ‘Or are these the views of a servant or subject influenced by love or fear?’
‘I beg you to take my honour and my life as hostages,’ said Renard, ‘if you should not find that what I have said is the truth. His Highness has qualities as virtuous as any prince that breathes.’
At this, the Queen pressed his hand and breathed the words: ‘
That is well
’ and then she asked him to leave her.
‘By which I understood,’ reported Renard, ‘that she was so moved she could not say more.’
There always are and always will be, Flamminio used to say, wonderful new follies making an appearance among mankind. Yet few can be as wonderful as this: a government that puts its foreign policy in the hands of men who are devoted to the interests of another state. That is what happened to the Roman See.
The Pope left all the decisions about England to several cardinals working more or less openly in the imperialist interest. When the Emperor’s letter, seeking to stop Pole, arrived in Rome, they seized their opportunity. An order was sent commanding him to stay in Dillingen until further notice.
That was the moment, in my view, when he should have resigned his red hat and gone straight to England, travelling through France if necessary. After all, what could have happened to him? Would his cousin, who adored him in her youth, have cut off his head? And almost everyone else in England greatly desired his presence there, even the Protestants, for they dreaded the Spanish marriage more than anyone. But once again, as at midnight in the conclave a few years before, my master fell prey to that fearful indecision, that immobility of soul which finds reasons to delay and do nothing. And so he did what he was told, and stayed where he was.
In due course, a month later, the betrothal between Mary and the Prince of Spain was announced, and the whole kingdom descended into uproar.
Pole contented himself by writing to the Emperor in these terms, saying the church of Rome might be unpopular in England, but ‘it is not nearly so universally odious as this marriage to your son.’ In any case, he added, the Queen, at her age, should content herself with the love of her people, and leave the succession to itself.
For this he was sorely punished. Renard immediately informed the Queen of her cousin’s opinion. She then wrote him an icy letter, in Latin, as if to an unknown foreign official, to tell him that his appearance in England would be inconvenient.
Apart from the chance that sent Cardinal Monkey into his office one day, everything had been managed brilliantly by the Emperor himself. He gave up all other affairs to concentrate on the match alone. Ambassadors going to see him on other matters were kept waiting twenty or thirty days for an audience. This was told to me by the Mantuan ambassador in Brussels, M. Giulio.
‘And if you do get in to see him,’ he said, ‘you get three minutes, as long as it takes to say the Credo, and you’re out on your ear again. He is lying in the dark in any case – one scarcely knows in which direction to bow. He is crippled with gout in every member of his body, even to the back of his neck, and is so afflicted by catarrh he can speak only in a whisper. And as well as that, he suffers from haemorrhoids which have swelled up and which torment him so much he cannot turn over in bed without tears.’
‘And there’s our paranymph!’ I said.
‘That’s him, indeed,’ said M. Giulio. ‘Night and day he dwells on this marriage. They say he spends long hours sunk in thought and then weeps like a child. But no one in his household has enough authority to dispel his dark imaginings. Even his sisters dare not say anything to him. The success of his whole life depends on this match, which now looks certain to go ahead. Already the French are so troubled and amazed, so terror-stricken and enfeebled at the thought of it, that they cannot conceal their melancholy.’
Thus the wooing and capture of the Queen was accomplished by her uncle, the most powerful man in the world (though he couldn’t turn over in bed without tears) who ended his niece’s brief moment of happiness, and in fact ruined her life.
As the French ambassador in London was to say a year or two later: ‘I am truly sorry for this tragic queen, who tried to win a husband’s love and the love of her people and who has lost both because she listened to evil counsel.’
In December I was allowed to leave Flanders. It was judged, I suppose, that I could no longer do any harm. The marriage plans had been announced. My letters from Pole, seeking admittance, were long out of date. As well as that, my plight had become known in England. I was now an embarrassment: if the Imperialists were already arresting Englishmen as they pleased, what would they be like once they had installed their own fellow on the English throne? One day I woke to find that my restraints – my guards, my smiling attendants – had all vanished. Nothing was ever said to me. I went to the coast unhindered, I sailed away, I reached London. And as soon I got there I made my way to the palace. I did in fact have a new message from Pole to the Queen, which the Imperialists knew nothing about. My nephew Inglefield was then on the council and was able to arrange admittance for me.
It was strange to be approaching the great brick gate again, seventeen years since the last time I came there. From the outside everything looked much the same. I could see the King’s beasts – the wooden dogs and griffins on poles – above the garden wall. And, after all, what had really changed? There I was, once again with a message from Pole, going in to see the sovereign Prince of England who, like her father before her, insisted on marrying a young person who was not the least bit in love with her.
Of course there were some of the changes, of the ironic type, which Time loves to ring: on my first visit, Pole was ordered to come to England, but he would not go. Now he wanted to be there but was ordered to stay away. And this time, as I was led into the Presence Chamber (inside the palace everything had changed around and I had lost all my bearings) there, instead of a great bearded man with a dagger slung on his hip, I saw a little pale woman, not unhandsome, in a plum-coloured riding costume of mannish cut, who, despite an attempt to seem imperious, was looking at me with somewhat frightened and even imploring eyes.
The atmosphere in London at that time was terrible. The Queen’s ladies spent half the day weeping and trembling for their lives. The town rang with talk of revolt and rebellion. Even within the palace, obscene pamphlets showing the Queen giving suck to Spanish goblins had been found scattered about. A dog with its ears cropped had run shrieking into the Presence Chamber and out again. Cries of ‘papist’ and ‘heretic’ were heard at divine service. The Queen at times gave herself up to tears, and each day asked anxiously whether a letter or note had come from her beloved.
She was already, her ladies assured me, violently in love, although Philip had not yet bothered to write to her. All she had was a portrait by Titian, showing the Prince in white wolf-skins, and that was on loan from his aunt in Brussels and had to be returned.
When I took her hand, so thin, light and cold, to kiss it, I almost said aloud, ‘Ah, you poor thing’. Red wine, beefsteak, an arm around her – that’s what she needs, I thought, but of course this was not a proper sentiment for a subject kneeling before his sovereign. In any case, my sympathy would be out of place. For she also looked at me with some hostility: I came from the enemy, the man who opposed her happiness in love.
‘My councillor tells me you have a message from a certain personage,’ she said with an indifferent air.
‘Only this, noble madam,’ I said. ‘The Cardinal wishes you to know that since he is not allowed to return to his own country, or even to come near it, or to serve you in any way, then he intends to retrace his steps and go back to Italy, where he will never molest you again.’
At this she looked somewhat appalled. The fact was that she did love her cousin, in the abstract at least, as the only kinsman who had never deserted her cause. It was just that she did not want him coming along and spoiling her marriage plans.
She said nothing. I rose and bowed and went away.
As I left the court I could not help noticing that, within, all the women were rather plain. Outside in the streets many beauties could be seen.
A little while after this, Pole received a message in Dillingen saying that he was now permitted to come a little nearer the imperial court, and even visit Brussels, but he must approach softly –
pian piano
– as the very thought of him would infuriate the English people.
And after a little further time in London, I was summoned to the chamberlain’s office. In recognition for my signal services to the Queen, I was informed, I was to be rewarded with grants of land.
It was impossible to believe what I heard next.
‘All lands at Ullenhall in Wottom, Warwickshire; lands called “Packers” in Shustock, Warwickshire; the messuage or farm of Wynerton in Wynterton, Warwickshire and all demesne lands and profits of the same; the manor of Honeley alias Honylie and Blackwell; lands in Alcetter, formerly belonging to St Sepulchre’s priory; and all lands and profits in Ullenhall, Wynterton, Wynerton, Honylie, Blackwell and Wotton, belonging to the said manors, the manor of Haseley, late parcel of the lands of John, the Duke of Northumberland, attainted, and advowson of the rectory of the church of Haseley, the herbage, agistment and pannage of Haseley Park, the reversion of the said park, and the lodge, house and mansion in the same, with free warren and chace and liberties of park within the same.’
This was nothing less than the land of my childhood, and still occasionally of my dreams, that lay on the horizons of Coughton – hilly land, flat land, rich fields, shadowy woods, torrents and chases. Some of it was even property my brother rented from the owners. Now I was the owner. Of course, I had done nothing to deserve this. The grant was a signal from the Queen that she still bore affection to my master. All the same, I was glad that poor Sir George was no longer living – he had died the previous year – as the shock of it might well have killed him.
Since he was unable to get into England, Pole turned to the second part of his legation, to make peace between the Emperor and the new King of France, whose countries were back at war and fighting more bitterly than ever.
After many days wait, he was permitted to see the Emperor, who greeted him coolly but invited him to sit. The Emperor himself was sitting on two chairs, with his foot up on one because of the gout, which had nonetheless improved over the last month.
On the question of Pole’s going to England, he would not budge. The hatred of Rome was so great there, he said, that no risks could be taken. Perhaps after the wedding . . . On the question of holding peace talks with the French, he did not completely close the door.