by Barbara Kyle
“No. I will not let her run us off again. We ran last year, left everything behind and ran like dogs. And it was the worst year of my life. Looking bankruptcy in the face. Watching Adam work as a common seaman because I couldn’t employ him. Watching Isabel sail off to God knows what hardship in the New World because I had nothing to give her and Carlos. Watching you sell your jewels—”
“I don’t need jewels. And we have some money. We have the house in Antwerp, too.”
“And how long before we’d have to sell it to feed ourselves? I am not a young man. I don’t have the luxury of time to start earning a living from scratch.”
“Richard, I would take in washing before I’ll stay another day here.”
“You’re talking nonsense. And you’re not listening to me. Nothing will make me run away again.”
“Nothing can make me stay. I’m going to get away from this madhouse country, and on the very next ship that sails. I hope that ship will be the Elizabeth with Adam captaining her, because I need to get him to safety, too. And if you have any sense you’ll come with us.”
His face darkened. “Don’t rope Adam into running. Don’t force him to take you there.”
“Once he hears what’s happened he’ll want to go. He has more sense than you.”
“Don’t do that to him. He needs to build a life here.”
“You can’t stop him.”
“I think I can.”
“You would order him?”
“If you make him choose, yes. Don’t, Honor.”
They stared at each other, she breathing hard, he rock still. Suddenly, he turned and strode to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To work. Someone’s got to keep their word.”
“If you go out that door, consider it locked.”
He walked out, slamming it behind him.
16
The Jaws of Victory
December 1555
The temperature had plunged overnight. As the House of Commons convened to debate the Exiles Bill, wind blew in icy gusts that blasted the precincts of Westminster along its water-front expanse. Going up the steps into Westminster Hall, Richard rubbed his hands to warm them after the frigid boat trip from the city.
He had spent a sleepless night at the house of his London agent. The awful quarrel with Honor had unnerved him. It wasn’t like her to buckle under pressure. He understood her fears, of course. Watching George’s terrible death. Facing down the Queen’s wrath. And she must be in pain with those burned hands. But she knew that she had bound herself to Princess Elizabeth’s cause. And the damned thing was, she was right about that cause. As long as Queen Mary ruled, they would be forever hiding, dissembling, forever fearful of her power to ruin them, to even take their lives. And John Grenville, now so close to the Queen—he would do his all to hasten that destruction, Richard was sure. Now, as never before, they had to take a stand. Honor had to see that, he felt. Now that she had slept on it, she would see it.
In any case, he couldn’t stew about it now. He had to stay focused on today’s fight. So as he walked into Westminster Hall he welcomed the din of legal business that engulfed him. The sheer size of the place always awed him. It was one of the largest medieval halls in Europe, and from the honeycomb of shop stalls that lined its length, hundreds of haggling voices echoed up to its massive hammer-beam roof. The place teemed with members of Parliament, lawyers and their clients, judges, priests, clerks, scriveners, pages, footmen, food vendors, ale sellers, and soldier-guards of the sergeant-at-arms. Richard made his way past stalls that spiced the air with the smell of their wares, the tang of meat pies and saffron buns alongside the mustiness of books, paper, and parchments. Outside, faint cries of “Oars! Eastward ho!” came from the busy wharf where gentlemen, lords, and servants shouted for wherries to take them back to the city.
Richard bought the paper and ink he needed, jammed them in his satchel, and left the Hall to make his way toward the House of Commons, squeezing past a rookery of black-robed lawyers bickering outside the Court of King’s Bench, while inside a lawyer thundered his case in Latin. To the east and south of the Hall lay a warren of offices, library, chapel, kitchens. These had once been the domestic apartments of the monarch’s household, for the centuries-old Palace of Westminster had been a royal residence for generations of kings until Henry VIII moved his main residence to Whitehall Palace, leaving Westminster solely as the hub of government. All this Richard had learned from his mentor here, Sir William Cecil. The place now housed the Court of King’s Bench and the Court of Common Pleas, the Treasury, and the Chancery, the administrative branch of the Crown, as well as Parliament when in session, both the House of Lords and House of Commons. Westminster was such a crowded place that for over two centuries the Commons had met in whatever room was available. But five years before Queen Mary took the throne, they had been granted a home in the chapel originally used by the monarch’s family. St. Stephen’s Chapel became the permanent House of Commons.
Richard pushed through the throng of hangers-on outside the House, showed his badge to the guards at the door, and walked in. St. Stephen’s Chapel was not large—Adam’s new ship was bigger—but it was magnificent. Its slender stone piers and vaulted ceiling seemed to float above the splendid stained glass windows. But Richard imagined that the ghosts of past kings would be shocked by what the place had become. Built as a spiritual oasis of peace, it was now as packed as a bawling market square and as raucous as a boys’ dormitory. Three hundred and nineteen MPs milled among the sloping choir stalls on either side, and on the stone floor between them. The word Parliament came from the French word parler, to talk, but right now there was a great deal of shouting. Everyone was on edge after the seemingly endless days of debate.
Richard especially. He felt on tenterhooks as he strode across the chapel floor. So much depended on this vote. He spotted Cecil and climbed the steps to the choir benches, elbowing past MPs standing in ragged groups. Cecil, who stood listening to the member from Buxton rant at him, had cocked his head in irritation, his customary calm civility obviously pushed to the brink. He saw Richard coming and made his way toward him. They met in the aisle.
“I count it at a hundred and forty-three for us,” Richard said, raising his voice above the ruckus. “We’re so close.”
Cecil nodded, cautious hope apparent on his weary face. “They’ll have to call the vote today.”
Richard looked around. “Or face a mutiny.”
Cecil jutted his chin toward the elderly MP from Coventry, shuffling to his seat in the lower choir stalls. “Did you talk to old Perkins? How did that go?”
“Sweet-talked him for an hour last night,” Richard said. “Even promised him ten ells of Florentine silk for his daughter’s wedding. No good. He won’t budge.”
“Old fool.”
“But a dozen others are leaning our way.” Richard and Cecil and their seven friends from the tavern had been at it all night—and the three days and nights before that—visiting undecided colleagues at their homes, stopping them on the street, in shops, in taverns, laying out the horrors that awaited their mutual friends among the exiles if the bill passed, and outlining the potential dangers to them personally, namely the confiscation of their estates and impoverishment of their families. Richard had been heartened by the response—the bill incensed most of them—and he felt that a small majority were ready to kill it. But he was nervous after losing the ecclesiastical bill. These fair-weather friends could waver if they had much time to think about the Queen’s persuasions. Hard for principles to compete with a post that brought bags of money. What was essential now was the timing.
He scanned the faces for Kingston, Peckham, and the rest. “Are all the others here?”
Cecil pointed them out around the room, the seven men of their faction. Each was engaged in earnest talk with some MP.
“And the Speaker?”
Cecil nodded. “Pollard will support us.” He looked at Richard.
“Ready, then?”
“Ready.”
They moved down to the floor and spent the next hour milling among the three hundred and seventeen other MPs, shoring up votes, urging others to join them. Just before ten o’clock Richard and Cecil and their seven friends stood near the closed chapel doors, set to enact their plan. Richard was nervous, but eager to make this happen.
Speaker Pollard caught his eye and Richard nudged Cecil to get his attention. Cecil turned and nodded to Pollard, and the Speaker nodded back. Richard felt a thud of hope. This was it.
“Order!” the Speaker called out. “This House will come to order! Order!”
It took a few minutes for all the MPs to hear him and calm down, but soon they began heading for their seats. Cecil, Peckham, Courtenay and Perrot did, too, as planned, while Richard stuck by the closed doors with Kingston, Chamborne, Young, and Roper. They all had their roles. The first four fanned out to steel the nerve of the suspected waverers, while the other five would stop anyone from slipping out the doors to avoid voting. Richard would call loudly for the vote the moment Cecil gave him the nod, and Kingston would second it.
The debate began. The Queen’s spokesman, Sir Matthew Aylesworth, got to his feet and delivered a diatribe against the exiles. Warming to his subject, he denounced them as “These wretches, these heretics, these traitorous, execrable villains!”
Richard looked around at the brooding faces in the choir stalls. Aylesworth either didn’t know or didn’t care how his invective was infuriating many of these men. Though every one of them outwardly conformed to the state religion, just as Richard and his family did, many sympathized with the Protestant cause. Aylesworth is pushing them into our arms, he thought. But he also sensed that others, even among those he had visited who had earnestly agreed that the bill was wrong, might now, at this penultimate moment, be too timid to ally themselves with the exiles.
Two members from the west shires rose from their seats in the far stalls and made their way as inconspicuously as possible toward the doors. Cowards, Richard thought. Just this morning on the wharf both had assured him they were with him. He stood with his back to the doors, ready to halt them if they got this far. But Peckham and Young stopped them first, engaging them in low, urgent talk. Good, he thought. Keep them here. Make them vote.
Cecil was on his feet now, speaking to the House. “…which touches the rights of every Englishman, born into Her Majesty’s protection as well as her service. The rights of property are enshrined in the laws of this realm, both common law and statute.”
There was a scraping sound at the door. It opened, forcing Richard to move back. The sergeant-at-arms, Martin Rowland, stepped in and came to his side.
“What is it, Martin?” he asked quietly. He had befriended the man, promising his son a job as secretary to his trading agent in Antwerp. It never hurt to have muscle on your side.
“Some lords on their way, sir.”
Richard glanced back at Cecil, who was still speaking with energy as the members of the House listened. Richard stepped outside into the corridor, past the two guards who stood on either side of the doorway looking bored. Three men were striding down the corridor. The Duke of Suffolk, Cardinal Pole, and Baron John Grenville. The Queen’s men.
Richard ducked back into the chapel, his pulse thumping. The bastards were coming to stir things up. The cardinal could intervene in the proceedings with impunity, could request a postponement. His immense power could easily intimidate most of the MPs, and all of them would fall into their customary deference to the authority of a duke, even a baron. And then? Richard did not doubt that the lords would use bribes, threats, whatever it took to enact the Queen’s will.
He turned to the sergeant. “Lock the doors.”
Rowland looked surprised, and not exactly willing.
“Your orders are to guard the Commons, are they not?”
“Aye, sir.”
“And it is our right to debate in private. Those men have no business here.”
Rowland considered this, still hesitant.
“Speaker Pollard expects it, Martin,” Richard warned. The sergeant held his job at the pleasure of the Speaker.
That was enough to convince him. He lifted the ring of keys that hung at his belt, fitted one in the lock, and twisted. The doors were locked.
Richard turned back. Aylesworth was holding forth again, suggesting that a nay vote could be considered disloyal, even treasonous. Cecil jumped up, furiously ready to rebut, for they could not let Aylesworth frighten even one of their hard-won allies.
A fist banged on the door. A few faces turned at the sound. The sergeant ignored it, standing wooden-faced with his arms firmly crossed.
Richard saw Aylesworth take a breath to continue his screed. No time for this, he thought. If we don’t call the vote now, we’re lost.
“Gentlemen!” Richard called out. Hundreds of startled faces turned to him, for this was outside the rules of procedure. He should be in his seat. And he should let Aylesworth finish.
No time for that, either. He stepped forward, just paces from the doors, and declared, “Three days ago members of this House pushed through a bill in defiance of many consciences. They must not do so again. The provisions of this bill are clean contrary to our rights and the rights of our good fellow countrymen who travel in foreign parts.”
The pounding on the doors got louder and many MPs looked anxious and began murmuring, questioning one another as to what was happening.
“I am a merchant trader,” Richard called out. “I own a home in Antwerp where much of my business lies. Would this House, by passing this bill, call me an exile, too, and seize my English property? Many of you likewise do business in the Low Countries, in France, and in the German lands. Would this House call you exiles and seize your English property?”
Behind the doors came a muffled shout of “Sergeant, open the doors!” amid more banging.
“This bill must not pass!” Richard cried. He looked to Cecil for help. Cecil looked perplexed, unsure what was happening. This was not the plan.
But two of their friends, Peckham and Courtenay, were closer and immediately left their seats and joined Richard at the doors. It gave Richard a jolt of hope. He threw his arms around their shoulders and declared, “These gentlemen stand with those of us who stand for the rights of Englishmen. Stand with us now, all of you,” he challenged the House. “Any man who loves his country, stand with us to fight this bill!”
Kingston, Chamborne and Young stood and cried, “Hear, hear!” and “Down with the bill!” and started for the doors, beckoning others to join them.
There was a hum of confusion. The pounding at the door became a furious hammering. A few more men left their seats, grinning like emboldened schoolboys, and hurried to the doors. Several others stood, looking uncertain but excited. Throughout the chapel, faces that moments ago had been brooding broke into bright looks of anticipation.
Richard shouted, “Mister Speaker, call the vote!”
Cecil finally took the cue. “Mister Speaker, I second the motion. Call the vote!”
Pollard seemed only too ready to do so. Despite the din from three hundred and nineteen excited MPs, he called on them one by one, and each quickly called back “Yay” or “Nay.” It went so fast, and Richard was so worked up, he found it hard to keep count.
Finally, amid the raucous babble of the members, and the lords’ loud banging at the doors, the Speaker called for silence. He was ready to declare the vote tally.
“Just the one trunk, mistress?” The carter kept his eye on his two adolescent apprentices who were hefting Honor’s belongings into his cart.
“Yes,” she said, rooting in her pouch for money. She was so distracted by worry she could barely count out the coins. Where was Adam? And Richard—was he at this very moment doing reckless battle in the House of Commons? No word from either of them.
An old man brushed past her, making for the door of the Crane Inn behind her. “Here,”
she said, handing the carter the money. “Deliver it to the Bona Esperanza at Billingsgate Wharf.” She added another coin, a large tip. “Get it aboard ship before the bells of St. Paul’s ring compline and you’ll have another shilling.”
He happily pocketed the coins. “Consider it done, my lady.”
She felt a small, sharp coldness at her heart. Fleeing England. Again. The Spanish ship was bound for Bruges with the evening tide, the soonest passage she could get. From Bruges she could make her way to Antwerp. But alone, it seemed. Richard had not come back last night and their argument festered inside her like a canker. It made her feel almost ill to be leaving him like this, but her mind was made up. It was madness for them to stay here courting danger. He must realize that and follow her to Antwerp. She had written a note to him saying as much, and left it with the landlord.
The apprentices hopped onto the rear of the cart, their legs dangling over the back. The carter settled himself on the bench and flicked his horse’s reins, and the vehicle clattered off into the noonday traffic of Thames Street, a skinny dog running after it, barking. Honor watched it go, then pulled her cloak tighter against the damp chill and turned into the arched alley that led to the Crane’s stable. A beggar was hunkered beside the arch wearing the coat of a soldier, but tattered and torn. She dropped three pence into his grimy palm.
Ned had her mare saddled in the stable courtyard. She asked him, “Did you get a bite to eat?”
“Aye, my lady. Master Legge had some cold game pie left from breakfast. I thank you.”
He looked as though he’d gotten as little sleep as she had, and she felt bad for having made him travel back and forth to Colchester overnight in this bone-chilling weather. She had sent him home with a message for Adam, explaining that they needed to get away from England immediately. She had included another message for Geoffrey and Joan, warning them to be on their guard if the Queen’s agents came sniffing. But Ned had returned this morning to report that Adam was not home. “They said he’s come to London town, my lady.”