The Heretic’s Wife (46 page)

That was a lie. He knew what the document said. Both Tyndale and Frith had made it clear they would not be returning to England under the king’s conditional pardon though he had practically begged them. They were good men, and he could tell somewhat tempted, Frith in particular. He’d arranged the meeting, even suggesting that perhaps once they were back in England, they could persuade the king of the importance of an English Bible. After all, why had he extended the pardon if he were not in some sympathy? Perhaps the Boleyn woman was influencing him in favor of the Bible cause.

Longing to be dismissed, Stephen watched as the king unfurled the parchment and began to read. The more he read, the more tightly his mouth pursed. His skin turned a mottled red color.

Stephen’s choking sensation returned.
He could die of apoplexy, and I’ll be blamed.

“I shall translate for you, Master Vaughan,” Henry said, and began to read aloud, each word clipped and hard with derision. “ ‘If it would stand with the king’s most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of the Scriptures
to be put forth among his people.’ What kind of criminal dares to bargain for an offer of mercy—by God, he’ll rue the day he might have been saved from the fire and spurned it.”

He rolled the document into a tight narrow column, his ringed fingers clutching it as if it were Tyndale’s neck, and then slapped it down upon the chessboard, sending the pieces flying.

Vaughan leaned down to pick them up.

“Leave it,” he barked. “Footman,” he shouted, and when the footman appeared, “Summon Master Cromwell,” and then looking hard at Stephen continued, “And what of Frith?”

“He is of a mind with Tyndale,” Stephen said soberly.

Cromwell entered the room, his robes brushing against the rushes on the floor. His gaze traveled briefly over Vaughan. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Master Vaughan is to be paid. His work is finished here.”

Moments later, Stephen left Whitehall with a pouch full of relief and a few gold crowns for his efforts. Not extravagant pay, but adequate. It was the best possible outcome for his failed mission. But he doubted and fervently hoped Henry would not seek his services again. A second disappointment might not be forgiven. The king was a hard man to cross. He was glad he was not wearing William Tyndale’s boots—or even John Frith’s.

Anne Boleyn was still at Hever, still waiting. It had been months since Henry had summoned her. Some days she thought she would simply die of boredom. Some days she even sought out the priest Henry had sent her, who instructed her in patience and in the finer points of the reformed faith.

“It is true the old queen has her followers, but so do you, my lady. And you have the king’s ear. You will be a great agent for the faith. You have many supporters.”

And as if to prove his point, on a dry day in late September, when it seemed her garden like her life had lost its bloom and her youth was slipping away, Thomas Cromwell showed up at her door with a summons. Henry Rex desired her return to Hampton Court with all due speed, and he had sent a high court official to escort her.

But if I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, He would not have given me over to my grey hairs.

—C
ARDINAL
W
OLSEY
UPON HIS ARREST FOR TREASON

T
he daylight was fading as Thomas Wolsey was led from the small barge that brought him to the traitor’s gate of the Tower of London. As the cardinal walked up the water stairs, the torchlight painted his shadow along the curtain wall that fronted on the Thames. In the flickering light, he appeared a man of diminished stature; a twist in the stone stair leading into the Tower keep and his shadow loomed large; two more stairs and it was but a wraith. Had he been a more thoughtful man, he might have paused to ponder what this fickle rendering might portend. But he was not and did not.

His chief concern at the moment was the chronic burning of his innards that had erupted into conflagration when the king’s soldiers arrived with the summons from the Crown. It was all he could do to hold himself and his dignity upright as he entered the gaoler’s comfortable quarters.

During the trip back to London, he’d allowed himself to think that he would get no worse than a warning from the king. He’d always been able to bend Henry to his will. The king might rule over life and death in this
world, but as the pope’s representative in England, Wolsey ruled over life and death in the hereafter: “whatsoever ye shall bind in heaven.” And that was a powerful tool to hold over a man’s head—even a king’s. The soldiers who had arrested him in the chapter house in York had certainly shown him due deference, calling him “Your Eminence,” even helping him to pack a chest and bring two of his servants. They waited now with his belongings outside the gaoler’s quarters.

When the constable entered, Wolsey swallowed the taste of gall rising in the back of his throat. He had no love of Sir William Kingston. With the Tower’s elaborate fees and extortions from prisoners, Wolsey considered its constable an unscrupulous opportunist and exploiter. Constable of the Tower was one of the most lucrative posts in England—outside the Church. It was like a small fiefdom: every ship that sailed upstream to London had to come through Tower Wharf and leave a tithe of the goods they were carrying. Everything that grew on or wandered onto Tower Hill or swam under Tower Bridge belonged to him. And then of course there were the fees he charged prisoners for his “suites of iron.” If the cardinal had been a more thoughtful man, it might have occurred to him that the constable might have felt perfectly at home at the Vatican. But he was not and he did not.

“Constable Kingston, I trust you have an explanation for this indignity visited upon a servant of Holy Church.”

“It is as a servant of the king that you are here to answer, Your Eminence. You will be our guest until your . . . until the king’s mind has been satisfied as to your guilt or innocence on the charge of praemunire—of serving the pope above your king.”

“That will not take long,” Wolsey said. “There is no evidence that I have ever been anything but His Majesty’s loyal servant.” But the griping in his gut reminded him of the letters he had written to Carpeggio. What a fool he had been to put his thoughts in writing—and to advise an alliance between France and the Holy See! Whatever demon had overtaken his mind! But he knew the demon’s name. Ambition. He had thought to be called to Rome by now, beyond the reach of Henry’s wrath.

“That may be,” the constable said, “but you are to be our guest for that duration, however long it takes. I see that you have brought two servants. You are to be allowed only . . .”—he consulted a sheaf of papers on his desk—“one servant. And as I have no set tariff for a cardinal, I would say you rank at least equal to a duke, so you are assessed twenty pounds per annum for your board. Of course, you will not be our guest that long, I’m
sure; such charges are usually dealt with expeditiously. We will say ten shillings a week for your board.”

“So much?” The pain in his gut cut a swath across his wide girth. “May I sit? I am not well.”

The constable kicked a chair in his direction.

Wolsey heaved himself into it and added, breathless from the passing pain, “You are well paid for your service to the Crown. But you might as well know I am as poor as a beggar. Our Lord’s poor servant. I have not a farthing to my name. All my secular tithes, rents . . . fees have been stripped from me.”

The constable smiled and leaned forward to finger the luxurious ermine of the cardinal’s red cope.

“Even the clothes on my back belong to the Holy Father, who, I might add, will not be pleased at the treatment of his servant.” He paused for effect and lowered his voice almost to a whisper—as he always did when asking this next question. “Have you no thought for your soul, Sir Kingston?”

But the constable appeared unfazed. It was a sign of the times, a sign of Luther’s malignant influence, that such a threat no longer froze the hearts of those who heard it. Pope Clement himself was being held prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor.

“In that case, Cardinal,” the constable said, without looking up from his papers. “You’d best let your servant return to York. He’ll not like the pauper’s fare we serve here. Nor will you, I suspect.” Here he looked up and smiled as he said, with just the slightest hint of sarcasm in his tone, “Though I will do my best for our Lord’s poor servant.”

“I have not much appetite of late, anyway. Where will I be quartered?”

“We had thought to put you in the Bell Tower. But that is reserved for better-paying guests. Don’t look so frighted, Eminence. A man of your fame will not be put in the dungeons. Though I’m afraid you’ll find the Beauchamp Tower a little less than what you are accustomed to at Hampton Court or even York.”

But it was not until he was led into this windowless chamber by the surly warder who’d actually spat on the floor in front of him, that the full force of this dire circumstance began to dawn on the cardinal. He held his pomander ball to his nose and inhaled. His father’s butcher shop in Smithfield carried a more pleasant odor than this hellish pit, but he suffered it in silence. He would not give them the pleasure. He knew that every word he said was being reported to the constable and from the constable to the king. At least his clothing chest had been brought up, though there was no sign of his servants.

“Bring me a clean piss pot if you please, warder. And a pitcher of water. I shall try not to overburden you with my presence.” And then after a pause he added, “Any good deed you can vouchsafe for the Lord’s servant in his hour of need will not go unnoticed in heaven. I shall pray for your soul.”

“Save your prayers, Cardinal. I’ve no need of ’em. I say me own prayers. But I’ll get yer water and empty yer piss pot out of Christian charity. My English Bible tells me ‘to love my enemy,’ ” he said as he shut the door behind him.

So, what Wolsey had feared might happen, had assured himself would never happen, had happened: the King of England had decided to break with Rome. Otherwise he would not have dared arrest a cardinal. The Boleyn woman had simply bewitched a king, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that Henry would do anything to have her—in the carnal sense of “having” her. One had to admire the woman in one sense. He had known princes who lacked the whore’s cunning mind and great lords too craven to make such an absolute gamble for power. If the wench had opened her legs for her king as her sister had done, then this crisis would have been averted.

But it was not her virtue she was guarding, he was sure. Reports of her behavior at the French court were widely gossiped about, and he’d seen her with young Percy with his own eyes—admittedly not making the beast with two backs, but close enough. Yet for all her cleverness, the vixen had no idea what chaos she had wrought. If Henry could treat the most powerful man in England in such an abominable fashion, and set aside a beloved queen, did she think herself invincible? The king would tire of her soon enough. But he feared he would not be around to see her get what she deserved.

The warder returned with a pitcher of fresh water and, wrinkling his nose, picked up the chamber pot.

“I thank you, good sir,” Wolsey said, affecting a rare, humble demeanor.

Imagine the hands that touched such filth handling the Holy Scriptures,
he thought as he crossed himself and murmured,
“Benedicte,”
in the warder’s direction.

The warder returned a few minutes later to find him on the floor doubled over in pain and, moved with compassion, went in search of a pallet and a doctor, thinking as he went that it would not be good for such a famous man to die on his watch.