The Courier's Tale (35 page)

Further on we passed below to a waterfall with a throw of water as great as a mill which midway through the air turned to snow and fell continually in great heaps on the ground. Through this we trod and went on our way.

At last we came down to the plains of Italy, which, resigning myself to my destiny, I now must acknowledge as my home.

Flat, hazy, lined with poplars, and with no wild wood or forest for miles, that land is not entirely to my taste. My heart, I suppose, has always been in Warwickshire. But my wife and children, my ease and contentment and joy, were somewhere in the haze of the great plains stretching away like the sea, bush after bush, tree after tree, town after town, tower-girdled, as far as the horizon.

In every town we came to, the ambassadors were greeted with great demonstrations. Troops of handsome youths and beautiful maidens were assembled at the gates to lead us in, and on the street corners children were mustered, calling out ‘
Vive, vive l’Inghilterra!
’ with all the Italian vivacity.

At Mantua, I accompanied their Lordships to the ducal palace where a banquet was held and the first green almonds of the season were placed before them. Mr White and Lord Thirlby had never had green almonds before. It was there that, as agreed, I resigned my commission and hurried through the streets to the door of this very house, where, after twenty months apart, I embraced my wife and kissed my children.

Little Judith was just two years old. She had no idea who in the world I was. At the sight of me she wept great tears – never have I seen such tears – shining, spherical, rolling slowly on her cheeks. After a few minutes, however, she became somewhat resigned to my existence and, with tears still brimming, she climbed on my knee to pat my beard with the flat of her hand.

Chapter 6

Later that same day we rode out to Cerese, where my eldest son Francis took me by the hand and led me gravely round the whole establishment – stable, mangers, kennels, hay barn, chaff house, orchard and dwelling houses – to show me in what very good order everything had been maintained. It is a golden occasion in life to return home after a long absence and find nothing has been neglected. I almost ran out of terms of praise. I knew Agnes was a good wife but had not realised she was such an excellent manager and breeder of horses. Four yearlings I had never seen before were in the far paddocks, and the new shaky-legged foals of that spring were nearby nuzzling their mamas. I am sorry to say I almost ran out of an inclination to praise. How well everything flourished! It seemed that they had no need for me there at all.

But this was unjust. On the way back to town, Francis rode in front of us, solemn and upright, like a page before a dignitary.

But as we passed some urchins of his acquaintance, he squeaked ‘
Mio padre!
’ – and jerked his thumb over his shoulder at me, like one of the stable lads, to show me off. I realised that my long absence had in some way impugned his dignity, and there and then I resolved never to leave them alone again as long as I lived.

This resolution I kept for a good long time; in fact I would have said that from then on I turned my back on the world and gave it no more thought, except that it now came visiting me so often there was no chance of that. Now that I was no longer a ‘dead man’, an attainted traitor condemned to death, it seemed that every Englishman who set foot in Italy beat a path to my door, coming to me for advice, food and shelter, even new horses. I soon heard everything that happened at home, the good and the bad. A month or two after I had left, the burnings had resumed. The King then departed from England, pleading pressure of business in his other realms, and leaving the Queen desolate. It was reported that he had no intention of returning. The tempo of burnings increased. Pole, meanwhile, devoted himself to foreign affairs and presided at a peace conference between the French and Imperialists in a great wooden city, built specially for the occasion in a field near Calais.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, and Latimer were put to death. Cranmer recanted and confessed his errors, but was burnt anyway, against all customary usage.

His great enemy, Stephen Gardiner, had gone before him into the grave.

‘
Mortuus et sepultus est
,’ said my guests cheerfully: ‘He’s dead and buried and gone to hell, so we’ll talk no more about him.’

But after Gardiner was gone, the penal fires continued. Bishop Bonner – the same who once demanded Brancetor’s arrest in France – was now the leading light, if I can use the phrase, of the persecution.

‘The great cockatrice is dead but his chicks live on,’ said my visitors, now speaking more mournfully.

Many of the English in Italy were exiles, leaning towards Luther or Calvin or Zwingli, and, since I had left England as well, they assumed I was sympathetic and they spoke frankly to me. Among them was young Edward Courtenay. This was the Marquis of Exeter’s son, Pole’s cousin, who had spent his youth in the Tower. He was now a fine, handsome man of twenty-five or so. Unfortunately, what the Emperor once said of him – that being brought up in prison rendered him unfit to wear a crown – was true. In fact, he was hardly fit for life beyond the prison gates. On reaching Venice, he soon found himself in grave trouble and sent a message begging me for help.

I rode over at once and found him in a state of terror. Certain agents and courtiers of the King of England were seeking his life. Assassins had been hired to kill him.

This was not something Courtenay had imagined. Arrests had been made in Venice and confessions obtained.

‘I am not safe anywhere,’ he said, staring all round. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Calm down,’ I said to him. ‘This Republic will protect you. The Signory has a long arm, it takes hares by cartloads. These lords do not like to see their noble visitors murdered on the doorstep.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, brightening. ‘They have just sent me a present of the finest wine and jams. They understand my importance.’ Then he began – as the phrase goes – to magnify himself. ‘I will require you to purchase me some horses,’ he said, ‘noble animals, good for both
ménage
and beauty. A man in my position cannot be seen on one of the wretched beasts the Paduans try to sell me, and at three times their value.’

Courtenay was convinced that, one way or another, through French plotting or marriage to Elizabeth, he would one day sit on the English throne.

I sighed to myself. He was a moth to the flame. Yet I was fond of him; in fact, I loved him like a son – it was not his fault that he had been fatherless since he was a boy and had been brought up by prison guards instead. And, although unfit for the world, he was highly intelligent. In prison, while hardly more than a child, he had translated a book that had been written by Flamminio when we were living in Viterbo. Courtenay still knew the book by heart. His Italian had a strange theological ring to it: he couldn’t ask you to pass the butter, but could discourse easily on the free gift of God’s grace and the benefit of Christ’s sacrifice.

How Flamminio’s book had come into his hands in prison in England I do not know, but when I looked at him I thought of Marc’Antonio and me roaming high in the hills in the summer, the silver Tiber glinting far away below us. It made me think that we must all be bound together in some way, perhaps too close to see.

I tried to talk some sense into Courtenay.

‘Take up the study of the law, here at Padua. Nothing can be more steadying. Look what it did for me. And at all costs stay away from Ferrara. It’s swarming with French who would love to draw you into another plot against the Queen. And this time, England would go to war with France.’

I should explain that as soon as he had been freed from the Tower Courtenay had rushed from one folly to another. All the prettiest girls flocked around like butterflies and he quickly made up there for lost time. The Queen made him Earl of Devon, which only increased his vanity. She and he quarrelled over whether he might wear blue velvet at her Coronation. He enraged her by calling her ‘Mother’ or perhaps it was ‘Aunt’ – I forget exactly which term of abuse was employed. At the same time, he was said to have a liaison with the Princess Elizabeth. This he denied so vehemently there was probably something in it. He was then involved in a plot hatched by various young men to kill Mary and put Elizabeth on the throne. All the conspirators lost their heads as a result, except my own nephew, Nicholas, who was too clever to be caught, and Courtenay, protected by Gardiner, who had taken a great fancy to him when they were both in the Tower.

Nevertheless, he was sent back to prison again, where, like a tame bird that dreads the open cage door, he was probably happiest.

A year later he was sent abroad, first to Brussels and then here to Italy, ostensibly to keep him out of harm’s way, but in fact to be rid of him. He might be safe, I thought, if he behaved wisely, but otherwise . . .

Of course he took no notice, and his story turned into a very sad one. But in the meantime I tried to look after him as best I could. The following morning in Venice I took him across the lagoon to an island where I used to go to fly my hawk in solitude, when I too had been a young man trapped in that great city, with no idea of what the future held.

Chapter 7

Crossing the lagoon that morning, Courtenay was more sensible and more forthcoming than the night before. There were just the two of us, with our hawks, on a skiff steered by a black Venetian who never uttered a word all day long. Courtenay’s pride dropped away. He began to talk openly. His mother was a lady of the Queen’s bedchamber and Courtenay had all the inside information about the English Court. The state of affairs there was appalling. The Queen was hysterical with grief and rage. Her husband, who had gone to Brussels, kept promising to return but every day one or two more of his household slipped away to join him. She wrote to him every hour. He replied occasionally, mentioning the burdens of his work and his fragile health. But her own spies informed her of everything. Philip went out masked every night, even in the worst weather, and often returned at dawn.

‘You know the sort of big, fat girls he likes,’ said Courtenay. ‘They cheer him up, he has these great debauches and eats bacon fat by the handful. The Queen knows all about it. My mother has seen her fly at his portrait and attack it with her nails. Then she falls weeping on the floor. Then, perhaps after an hour, the storm passes. She sits up again. She smiles: she remembers the dream of love. She calls for the musicians to play that song of Heywood’s, who is always hanging around:

She said she did love me and would love me still

She swore above all men I had her good will.

‘She listens, and remembers anew the sweet hours with her husband. He was always kind to her, you see. He hid the fact that he was dying to get away – every hour with her was like a thousand years for him. He was frightened of her as well, what with her terrible temper. She has no idea of his true feelings. So she smiles with grief, and with love. Her anger departs. But then a new frown appears. It is not her fault that he has left. It is her subjects who are to blame! They have rejected her prince of love. Some of them hate him because he is a Catholic. They, especially, must be punished. Thus she turns a
mauvais visage
on her people and prepares to fill the realm with smoke and blood. Truly, she is just like Dido who set her city on fire when her prince of love sailed away.’

Courtenay had grown agitated as he spoke. His face was red. For weeks he had had no one to talk to frankly about these things. It was late in the morning – the heat of the sun came through the black awning and the gusts of wind fanning the water did nothing to cool us.

‘It is horrible,’ said Courtenay, bursting out as if he could no longer contain himself. ‘I don’t think you realise what is happening, Michael. There is no one to protect the little people from the law – the weavers and tallow-chandlers and butchers and widows. And the blind! I don’t know how many blind folk have been sent into the flames in the last year. I suppose they are the easiest to catch; officers of the law are always lazy, they prefer to hunt down the easiest prey.’

He proceeded to tell me ugly stories of burning limbs, of three, four, five people all consumed in one fire – ‘to save on wood’ – of the great crowds that flocked to see the
charbonnades
in market squares or in the gravel pits outside town where cherry-sellers sold cherries by the horse-load.

During this exordium I began to feel very uncomfortable. I told myself it was the heat, but in fact it was Courtenay’s voice drilling on and on. It is unpleasant to be lectured by a youth for whose powers of judgement you have felt only pity. I wished the voyage would end but we were not even halfway across – the red towers of the city and S. Giorgio Maggiore were clear and sharp behind us, and the island we were going to was still only a line on the horizon.

‘There is nothing you are telling me that I don’t know,’ I said. ‘In any case, what can be done? After all, Pole is there. Imagine how much worse things would be if he were not. Look at the Netherlands. How many have died there? Thousands. And in England? A handful. Fifty. Eighty.’

‘
Pole!
’ said Courtenay. ‘No doubt Pole speaks to the Queen in private, urging moderation. But on this matter she does not listen to him. His leniency makes him suspect. So he gives up and says no more. Yet it is his responsibility. None of this could happen without him. He is the legate. If he was not there – if you had not worked so hard to get him there – how could these people be burnt?’