At the sound of his name Thomas looked up and he recognised the man at once. It was Richard Rich, one of the pack of unscrupulous lawyers Cardinal Wolsey used to hunt down his enemies and tear them to pieces, sometimes literally. Thomas knew Lord Rich often applied the instruments of torture with his own hand and had a particular fondness for the rack.
“I’m Thomas Devilstone and I demand to know why I’m being held in this noxious midden?” Thomas replied angrily. The gaolers raised their clubs to deliver the painful retribution such impudence deserved but Rich shook his head.
“You’re here because the king desires it, so what price your witchcraft now?” said the lawyer, with barely concealed glee.
“I’m no witch,” Thomas repeated. “All I seek is the wisdom of the ancient philosophers, is it a crime to seek such knowledge?”
“That is precisely what His Majesty’s court is waiting to decide, now make haste, your judges do not like to be kept waiting,” replied Rich with a menacing smile.
“I am to be tried this day? But this is villainy! I’ve had no time to engage an attorney or prepare my defence!” Thomas protested.
“Fear not, you’ll get a fair trial before they find you guilty,” sneered Rich and he ordered the gaolers to bring the manacled warlock to the tumbrel waiting in the courtyard without delay. The fattest turnkey went to unfasten the prisoner’s chains from the ring in the wall and the stink of the gaoler’s unwashed flesh caught in Thomas’ throat. Whilst he coughed and spluttered, the gaoler hauled Thomas to his feet and began pushing him roughly towards the dungeon’s door.
“Mind your manners you bastard son of gong farmer’s daughter! I’m Sir Thomas Devilstone of Tynedale, I’m a veteran of Flodden under the protection of the Lord Warden of the Marches and I demand to be given the treatment due to my rank!” Thomas cried but the gaoler, thinking he was dealing with a foppish, dissolute courtier, merely replied with a mocking laugh. The smirking man quickly regretted his mistake when his prisoner suddenly turned and smashed his manacled wrists into the gaoler’s face, removing several of his rotting teeth.
Lord Rich cried out in terror, and fled towards the cell door, but the two other gaolers were skilled in the art of disabling a prisoner and before Thomas could attack the lawyer they’d bludgeoned him to the floor. Whilst Thomas gasped for breath, the gaolers dragged him up a long flight of stone stairs to the courtyard. Still groaning Thomas was slung into a cart, guarded by four yeomen officers of the court dressed in a scarlet livery and armed with halberds, as if he were no more than a sack of mildewed flour destined for the pig trough. Rich watched the scene and smiled with satisfaction before climbing into a comfortable litter slung between two sleek black horses.
“Bastard took out four of Perkin’s teeth so watch him,” said the fat gaoler to the sergeant in charge of Lord Rich’s escort.
“He’d better not try any tricks with me,” replied the sergeant and for emphasis he brandished his halberd over Thomas’ recumbent form.
“Hear me well scum, cause me any trouble and you’ll go to The Devil with your cock in your hand!” said the sergeant as he held the razor sharp blade dangerously close to Thomas’ groin. Thomas still had no wind to reply and before he could recover the cart had lumbered out of the prison’s courtyard and into Farringdon Street.
The early spring sunshine was uncharacteristically warm and the little procession soon attracted a large group of spectators. Thomas braced himself for the onslaught of stones, mud and insults that were usually hurled at prisoners being taken for trial but he was surprised by the crowd’s good humour. As they passed The Horn Tavern, merchants eating their breakfasts of ale and cheese raised a toast. As the cart trundled through the filth and mire of Fleet Street, apprentices looked up from their labours and gave a loud huzzah. Along The Strand, cooks and kitchen maids waved and blew kisses in his direction. Thomas was utterly mystified by his celebrity until an old woman scuttled up to the cart.
“Bless you sir,” said the crone.
“For what?” replied Thomas, trying to keep his balance as cart bounced over a particular bone jarring collection of ruts and potholes.
“For killing Pynch, I was there when you sent that thieving swine to hell and all East Cheap thanks you for it,” said the elderly woman, her wizened face beaming with delight.
“Always glad to be of service, but are you quite sure it was me, I thought it was a demon summoned from The Pit who did for Pynch?” said Thomas. He was careful to avoid any admission of guilt, as this hag might be one of Wolsey’s paid stooges.
“A demon that you summoned,” the woman cackled and she tossed a dried white rose into the straw at the bottom of Thomas’ cart.
“None of that mother, we can’t have you passing flowers to prisoners, especially ones accused of treachery and witchcraft. Now be off with you or you’ll find yourself dangling from the gallows alongside your lover boy,” said the court yeoman and he threw the flower into the mud. The crone questioned the sergeant’s parentage but she wisely withdrew into the safety of the crowd leaving Thomas to wonder if their meeting had been coincidence or something more meaningful.
The guards may have chased off the crone but they couldn’t prevent the huge crowd from following the cart all the way to Westminster. At intervals Lord Rich would poke his head from between his litter’s silk curtains to threaten the mob with all manner of painful punishment but Thomas’ growing band of supporters steadfastly refused to disperse. Instead they started to sing scurrilous songs accusing Cardinal Wolsey and his servants of all manner of unnatural practices.
Thomas happily led the crowd in their singing and gave a speech urging his followers to resist the tyranny of corrupt clergymen, though he was careful not to say anything that might be considered treason against the king. By the time the cart reached the gateway to the Palace of Westminster, the procession looked like a Bartholomew’s Day Fair. Street vendors sold ale to the crowd, acrobats performed tricks and cutpurses silently relieved the richer spectators of their cash. The sentries that guarded the entrance to the palace stared incredulously at the throng that approached them until an exasperated Lord Rich bawled at the captain of the guard.
“Captain, disperse these riotous peasants immediately!” cried the red faced Rich, “The king’s justice must not be mocked in this way!”
“At once My Lord,” said the captain who lost no time in summoning the rest of his company from the guardroom. The captain’s men formed a hedge of steel halberds in front of the palace’s gatehouse. This manoeuvre was greeted by howls of protest from the crowd and for a moment, Thomas thought the mob might snatch him from the cart and carry him away to safety. Then someone took a step back and one by one Thomas’s supporters drifted away, like pieces of chaff carried off by the wind. As soon as his fickle followers had abandoned their hero, the cart was allowed into the oldest and most derelict of King Henry’s palaces.
A few years ago a fire had burned the royal apartments to the ground so the king now preferred to live in his new palace at Greenwich, but the clerics and clerks that carried on the business of government were still lodged at Westminster. The teeth-numbing squeaks of the cart’s wooden wheels rattling over the courtyard’s cobblestones, only served to remind Thomas that once he’d been welcomed into all Henry’s palace by lutes and minstrels. Yet even though he’d returned to Westminster as prisoner he refused to be disheartened by the reversal of his fortunes. He damned Wolsey for a knave and resolved to face his accusers with the defiance and dignity that marked a true Englishman.
The cart stopped outside Westminster Hall, which stood between Edward the Confessor’s great abbey church and the river Thames. The medieval hall was home to the highest law courts in England and the steps in front of the entrance were filled with petitioners and pettifoggers busily preparing their cases. Despite the previous crowd’s interest in Thomas’ procession through the streets, this gaggle of lawyers and their clients were too concerned with their own affairs to pay him
any notice.
“Bring the prisoner inside at once, His Eminence does not like to sit in judgement beyond eleven of the clock and it is already past nine,” Rich barked to the escort.
“I would hate to inconvenience My Lord Wolsey so I’ll gladly take my leave and call another day, now if you would just free me from these chains. I’ll be off,” said Thomas, holding up his manacled wrists, but the guards failed to see the joke. One of yeomen, standing behind the tumbrel, rammed the butt end of his halberd into the prisoner’s back pushing him off balance. Thomas toppled out of the cart and landed face down in a pile of steaming manure.
“You should be thankful, that shit is fresh from the arse of the cardinal’s own mule so it’s truly blessed,” laughed the guard but this time it was Rich who failed to see the joke.
“Enough! Clean that filth from the prisoner’s visage at once and be quick about it, the court is waiting,” barked the lawyer and he disappeared inside the hall.
Five minutes later Thomas, still dripping from the buckets of water tipped over his head was led into the largest, and busiest, room he’d ever seen. Not even the great banqueting hall at Alnwick Castle could compare with the majesty of Westminster, where every stone declared that this was the seat of Henry’s power. The roof, supported by mighty hammer beams, soared above Thomas’ head like the vault of heaven whilst the brightly coloured flags decorating the walls seemed to glow like the banners of the angelic host.
The hall itself was divided into different courts by a number of moveable wooden partitions that could be rearranged to create larger or smaller spaces as necessary. Between these makeshift courts, lawyers scurried about consulting papers, searching for witnesses and cursing the inefficiency of their clerks. The passages were crowded but, like the throng on the steps outside the hall, those inside seemed oblivious to the dead man walking amongst them.
The escorts led Thomas to the court of the King’s Bench at far end of the hall. The judges’ seating, which gave this court its name, was placed on a dais below an enormous arched window. This seat was separated from the rest of the court by the King’s Table, which was covered in a cloth of green and white silk. Flanking the dais were large wooden stands containing several tiers of seats. The first tier on the left was reserved for the jury, but the rest of the seating was open to the public. The escorts manhandled their prisoner towards a second smaller dais in front of the King’s Table. This platform was surrounded on three sides by a simple wooden bar. Thomas stood behind this crude balustrade and waited calmly for the proceedings to begin.
News that a trial for something more interesting than debt or detinue was about to start soon reached the ears of others in the hall. Law students, lawyers and even witnesses in other cases began scrambling for a seat in the Court of the King’s Bench and the ushers had to use their staffs to stop latecomers from forcing their way in. Once filled with spectators, the court took on the air of an unruly schoolroom. Some of the audience pointed at Thomas and laughed whilst others poured ink down the collars of their unsuspecting colleagues or tried to snatch the square scholars’ caps from one another’s heads. Not even the arrival of the twelve jurors and the nine solemn faced judges could quell the crowd’s excited chatter.
Thomas watched impassively as the white robed, black-capped judges took their seats on the bench. He didn’t recognise most of the learned men who were to sit in judgement upon him but he couldn’t fail to identify the man in red robes who occupied the central seat. It was Cardinal Wolsey. In his capacity as Lord Chancellor, Wolsey normally sat in the Court of Chancery, which heard civil rather than criminal cases, but no one would question the right of Henry’s chief minister to preside over a different court, especially in a case of treason, if he wanted. Once seated, Wolsey carefully adjusted the scarlet cardinal’s robes that he habitually wore, even when sitting as a secular judge.
Fearing the worst, Thomas looked around the court to see if an advocate had been appointed to help him plead his case but no one approached the bar where he stood. In that moment, he knew he had no friends in Westminster save the lice that infested his skin. Only these bloodsucking vermin would be glad to see their host spared the gallows so if he were to stand any chance of speaking in his own defence, he had to seize the initiative. Realising he was about to plead for his life, Thomas took a deep breath, spread his arms wide and spoke like Cato in the Roman senate demanding that Carthage must be destroyed.
“My Lords I must protest, My treatment at the hands of the king’s officers has been outrageous, I’ve been assaulted, refused an attorney and given no time to prepare my case. Does the king know of the injustices being committed in his name? Is our Sovereign Lord Henry a foreign tyrant or a King of England sworn to uphold the rights and privileges of free born Englishmen?” said Thomas. He spoke in a strong, clear voice and the crowd were delighted by the prisoner’s pugnacious courage. They cheered and applauded Thomas loudly but the cardinal, whose face had turned as red as his scarlet robes, exploded with rage.
“Silence traitor! You’re not permitted to speak in this court save to answer the lawful questions asked by your prosecutors,” Wolsey boomed.
“I may not speak in my defence? Even Pilate did not deny our Lord Jesus the chance to defend himself,” said Thomas.
“Our Lord’s name must not be allowed to pass through the lips of a traitor, heretic and necromancer, only an attorney may speak on his behalf,” cried a white haired judge, covering his ears like an apothecary who fears the mandrake’s screams.
“But I’ve not been allowed to engage an attorney,” insisted Thomas.
“Have you the money to pay an attorney?” Wolsey asked and Thomas shook his head. “Then the prisoner will remain silent or he will be removed and his case tried in absentia. The clerk will now read the charges.”
Wolsey waved his hand and a shrivelled old scribe, who sat hunched behind a small desk below the King’s Table, began to read from a parchment.
“Thomas Devilstone, formerly of the parish of Dilston in the Franchise of Tynedale,” intoned the clerk, “you are hereby charged with the grave and heinous crimes of heresy, necromancy and high treason contrary to laws of God and your king. The details thereof are …”
The clerk paused to clear his throat.
“… That firstly, on numerous occasions, you did summon demons from the deepest pits of hell to instruct you in the black arts of the warlock and aid you in your treason against your lawful king Henry Octavius. Secondly that in summoning said demons you committed the most serious acts of blasphemy and sacrilege against the Holy Name of our Blessed Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly, that by summoning said demons you have shown that you hold the most dangerous and heretical views contrary to the wisdom of Holy Mother Church. Fourthly…”
By now Thomas had stopped listening but the clerk continued to list the prisoner’s alleged offences, including the precise times and dates when he’d summoned the servants of Beelzebub. In his flat monotone, which somehow made the crimes seem more lurid, the clerk described how Thomas had danced with the five legged beast Buer when the sun was in the house of Sagittarius, cavorted with the four headed demon Asmodeus when the sun was in Aquarius and so on. As each President of Hell was named, the crowd gasped whilst the judges crossed themselves and muttered silent prayers lest their souls be imperilled by merely hearing the demons’ blasphemous titles. Thomas even glimpsed a judge kissing one of the amulets he’d made several months ago.
“These are your crimes,” said the clerk, “how do you plead?”
“I will not dignify such an outrageous abuse of the king’s justice with a plea. I freely admit that I’ve studied the wisdom of the ancients but only to aid the king in his search for an heir, no more and no less. If this be treason than call me traitor!” Thomas declared. Again the crowd cheered and again the cardinal was not amused.
“Enter a plea of not guilty and call the witness,” Wolsey muttered to the clerk who obediently wrote in his ledger and ges
tured to an usher standing in the corner of the courtroom. The usher opened a door in the partition and an apple cheeked, buxom, young maiden entered the court.
“Stand there and take the oath,” said the usher pointing to the far corner of the King’s table. The girl did as she was told and stared demurely at the floor as she mumbled her promise to tell the truth before God.
“State your name witness,” said the cardinal.
“They call me Joan of Cheapside,” the girl said sweetly. Cheap is the word, thought Thomas.
“Are you engaged in honest work?” Wolsey added kindly.
“I am, my father died of the sweating sickness some years back so I help my mother keep our shop. We sell gloves and ever so nice they are. We only use the very best calf and kid skin so they’re even worthy of such noble hands as yours My Lord,” said the girl and she ended her advertisement with a little curtsy. Thomas rolled his eyes to heaven.
He’d heard of the professional ‘men of straw’ who strolled between the courts of Westminster Hall with a corn stalk in their shoe to show their willingness to bear false witness but he’d never dreamed there were also women of straw. He wondered how much the trollop had been paid to perjure herself but it must have been a pretty penny for Joan of Cheapside seemed to be an accomplished liar. Having won the judges’ hearts with the story of her tragic childhood, she fluttered her eyelashes and brushed her flaxen hair from her face at exactly the right moments to beguile the jurymen.
“Mistress Joan,” said Wolsey kindly, “please tell the court exactly what you observed on the night of St Joseph’s day last.”
“Well your honour,” said the girl, “I went to the common beyond Aldgate looking for mushrooms. It was just before dawn, that’s the best time for mushrooms, and I saw a very queer light coming from behind some hawthorn trees. I was afraid but something drew me towards that coppice. When I got to the trees, and saw what was going on, I wanted to run away as fast as my legs would carry me but I was as helpless as a pet bird tied by a thread. Oh sir, please don’t make say any more, it was so horrible I can’t bear to speak of it.”
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