By the time Friar Gabriel approached the archbishop’s palace, low-hanging gray clouds were humped on the horizon. Lightning crawled through them like glowworms.
The smell of the marsh and the heat were still heavy in the air, but the stench was gone. Across the Thames, the high towers of Westminster Abbey gleamed golden in the lambent light, lifting his spirits. A light breeze cooled both him and his horse. The heat lightning in the distance promised rain. As he approached the gatehouse of Lambeth Palace, two grooms welcomed him, one to take his horse, the other to guide him to his quarters.
“His Excellency will attend you in the chapel in the undercroft, as soon as you are refreshed from your journey. He said that you should know that Prince Harry will be at the meeting.”
An archbishop and a prince!
Friar Francis would be very proud of the company his protégé kept.
“What do you know of a man by name of Sir John Oldcastle?” Archbishop Thomas Arundel belched his question in Gabriel’s direction.
Gabriel was the first to arrive and now sat with the archbishop at a large oblong table in the center of the chapel. At one end was a high-backed chair, larger than the rest. That was for the prince, Gabriel conjectured. The support arches that held up Lambeth Palace lent strange shadows to the place. No sunlight spilled upon the candle-banked altar at the far end of the room.
He looks even thinner than when I last saw him, Gabriel thought. He could play the grim reaper in one of the guild plays without darkening the hollows in his face. The heavy torchlight lighting the subterranean chapel lent the archbishop’s face an orange pallor. Or maybe that was his natural complexion. Gabriel had heard that he was ill. Perhaps that was the reason Arundel felt so driven to rid England of heresy. Maybe he was looking out for his legacy.
Gabriel rephrased the question. “You mean Lord Cobham?”
“One and the same,” Arundel said.
He was always uneasy in the archbishop’s presence. Gabriel did not remember ever having seen him smile. He answered carefully. “Only that he is a man of some standing, congenial, his merit and mettle proven on the battlefield.”
The archbishop frowned. That was obviously not what he wanted to hear.
Gabriel added, “I hear he is a particular friend of Prince Harry’s.”
The archbishop’s scowl deepened, and he emitted another belch behind his skeletal fingers. “He is a heretic.”
“I did not know. I had not heard—” Gabriel stammered.
Those same beringed fingers gestured Gabriel to silence. “We mean to stop him. Even if we have to burn him. He is an enemy of the Church.”
Arundel’s fierceness almost took Gabriel’s breath away. “Stop him from what?”
“He is publishing the English Scriptures abroad and holding secret Lollard meetings where he entertains poor priests, as they call themselves—as if we weren’t all sworn to poverty.”
Gabriel thought of the poor priest he’d seen at the Tabard, contrasting his worn brown tunic with Arundel’s ermined cape—even in this heat—and gem-encrusted pectoral cross. What kind of poverty was that? he wondered, and then immediately rebuked himself for the unworthy thought. But when Arundel prissily crossed his skinny legs, encased in their costly silk hose, his glove-leather shoes pointing sharply upward in the latest silly style, Gabriel suppressed a smile and had to pinch himself to bring his thoughts back to the orthodox view that even the archbishop’s riches belonged not to him but to the Church.
The archbishop continued. “Oldcastle speaks openly against papal abuses, spreading the Wycliffe heresy. He has succeeded in getting Parliament to pass a ruling whereby all prisoners of the Holy Church are under the jurisdiction of the king. So we must first gain permission from the king for Oldcastle’s prosecution, and since the king is too sick to give it, we must get it from Prince Harry.”
“But I thought Oldcastle was a friend of Prince Harry’s.”
“And I am the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without my approval how can young Prince Harry become King Henry the Fifth? We’ll get his permission.”
And where do I fit into this scheme of yours? Gabriel wondered, suddenly wishing he were somewhere else.
THREE
We therefore decree and ordain that no man shall hereafter of his own authority translate any text of the Scriptures into English … this most wretched John Wycliffe of damnable memory, a child of the old devil and himself a child or pupil of the anti-Christ.
—FROM AN EDICT OF THOMAS ARUNDEL,
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Prince Harry was not looking forward to this meeting. It was his first official ecclesiastical council, and he was going to be late. He’d nodded off after dinner and would still be dreaming had not his chamberlain shaken him awake. And it had been such a pleasant dream! Truth to tell, he’d been most reluctant to waken from it.
In his dream he’d still been Prince Hal, not Harry at all, not soon to be Henry V, and he was back with Merry Jack and the old gang. He and Jack were arm-wrestling mightily across Mistress Quickly’s alehouse board while the others gathered round and egged them on, the winner to pay for the next round of ale.
“Get the whippersnapper, Sir John!” came Pistol’s guttural growl.
“Nay, my money’s on Prince Hal. What ’e lacks in weight, ’e makes up in spirit!” Bardolph punctuated this with a slap to his thigh.
“Be careful! You’re going to break the bottle. I’m calling the constable on the lot of you!” That high thin wail belonged to Mistress Quickly.
Back and forth they’d wrestled, leaning first to Jack and then to Hal, then back to Jack until Hal took one deep breath and almost—
“Your Grace, Your Grace, wake up. Lord Beaufort is without. He says you are to be at Lambeth within the hour.”
Harry had opened one eye to see the harried chamberlain leaning over him.
Those dear, glad days, swept away in a cloud of garlicky breath.
He opened the other eye and leaped up, drawing on his own boots. “Bid him enter.”
By the time Beaufort entered the room, Harry was shrugging into his jerkin. With one hand he buckled on his sidearm while reaching for the cup of wine with his left.
“Your Grace,” Lord Beaufort said, “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for me to go with you. Arundel will not be happy to see me.”
“All the more reason for you to be there,” Harry said after he’d drained the cup. “The archbishop must learn to share power.”
Gabriel was about to gently protest to the archbishop his lack of credentials for participating in a hunt for heretics—in spite of the signal honor bestowed upon him to be summoned to the conference—when from beyond the chapel he heard scurrying feet. He recognized the cleric Flemmynge from his fine dress and affected manner. He’d met him only briefly once at Blackfriars Hall, and had not particularly liked him. He had something of the sycophant about him. Red-faced, the newcomer took the seat opposite Gabriel as he muttered about traffic on London Bridge.
Arundel scowled. “I believe you know Friar Gabriel. He crossed the same bridge. He arrived early.”
Flushing even deeper at the implied reprimand, Flemmynge nodded perfunctorily in Gabriel’s direction. He was stammering an apology when he was interrupted by a short blast from the horn of the king’s herald. The sound echoed discordantly in the undercroft. The archbishop and the bishop sprang to their feet as if jerked. Gabriel followed suit.
Two men entered the room.
The prince took his place in the high-backed chair reserved for him at the head of the table. The other stood beside the chair to the prince’s right, directly opposite the archbishop.
Gabriel considered the prince from beneath a respectfully lowered gaze. He looked nothing like the scapegrace youth who was the subject of so much tavern gossip. He looked older, more sober. His hair had been shorn high above his ears like a monk’s, and he was simply dressed in a studded leather jerkin and hose, the costume of a soldier. He cleared
his throat and spoke in a well-modulated—almost practiced—tone.
“Archbishop Arundel, you may introduce us. You are, of course, acquainted with our honorable uncle Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who is here at our invitation and whom we will soon see restored to the post of chancellor.”
The archbishop’s strained look and the pink stain on his sunken cheeks showed his dislike for this decision. As John of Gaunt’s bastard, Beaufort was uncle to the king, but his bastardy would be enough to exclude him from the Privy Council, in the archbishop’s estimation. Gabriel had heard there was bad blood between them though he didn’t know the particulars and didn’t want to know. The less one involved oneself with court intrigue, the better. Indeed, the initial glow Gabriel had felt at being summoned to this august assemblage was beginning to wane. He had thought there would be many participants, all discussing orthodoxy, an erudite body representing the finest minds of the Church.
“Chancellor? Ahem. As you wish, Your Grace,” Arundel said. But the frown he bestowed upon Beaufort would have withered a cabbage. “Next to Lord Beaufort”—the sour expression on the archbishop’s face suggested Lord Beaufort’s name tasted of vinegar—”is Richard Flemmynge, of Oxford College, bachelor of divinity and commissioner appointed by His Highness, your father, to examine the writings of the late John Wycliffe for heresy and to act upon their extinction.”
Flemmynge stepped forward and dropped to one knee, his elaborate sleeves dusting the floor with their dagged edges. “Your Grace.”
Gabriel suddenly wished he were somewhere else.
“And on your right?” Prince Harry looked point-blank at him, taking his measure with his eyes.
“Your Grace, this is a friar by name of Brother Gabriel of the Dominican Order of Friar Preacher. Young in years, but already much advanced in service to the Church. As an envoy to Rome from Battle Abbey, he was given an audience with His Holiness, and now he has a unique opportunity to travel in circles some of us never see. As he preaches, he keeps his eyes and ears open, always alert for heresy.”
Anywhere else!
“Brother Gabriel.” Prince Harry inclined his head in slight acknowledgment of the introduction.
Gabriel gave an attenuated bow, hoping it would satisfy protocol.
“Have you replaced the archangel Gabriel’s horn with that pardoner’s velvet scrip tied at your waist?” the prince asked.
The archbishop answered for him. “Brother Gabriel serves his church not only as preacher and ordained priest, Your Grace, but he is that rare jewel, an honest pardoner. The crown is also enriched with each and every soul who receives forgiveness from the holy treasury of merit built by Christ and all the saints.”
A politic answer, Gabriel thought, reminding the prince that the sale of the disputed indulgences enhanced his own exchequer, thereby giving the crown all the more reason to suppress the Lollards because they railed against the practice.
“Then you do double service, Brother Gabriel. To both your church and king.”
“My liege, we all who are gathered in this room—Commissioner Flemmynge, Friar Gabriel, and myself—are committed to stamping out this heresy that your father the king fought so hard against. Except of course for Bishop Beaufort. I do not know where Bishop Beaufort stands on the matter of the Lollards.”
It was a direct challenge to Beaufort. But Prince Harry answered in his behalf.
“As chancellor, Lord Beaufort will concern himself with more secular matters. He will advise us on the war with France. But he is here today because as chief adviser to the king he serves ex officio on all matters important to England. You may be seated, my lords, and we shall begin the discussion.”
Thomas Arundel cleared his throat above the sound of scraping chairs and shoe soles, the rustling of silk stockings.
“Your Grace, it is my thinking that it is not enough to go after the peasants and the so-called poor priests. The Lollard heresy has spread beyond the peasants who are drawn by the heretical notion that God created every man equal. At the universities and in the towns, people meet without fear of retribution to discuss the Wycliffe harangues against Holy Church and read the profane English Bibles. Moreover, we can now say that we have the distinction of having exported this heresy to other lands. The exchange of academic ideas between Oxford and Charles University of Bohemia has carried the Lollard teachings there.”
“So far as that!”
Gabriel too was surprised at first but then remembered that an exchange of scholars between Charles University and Oxford had begun during the time of Queen Anne, who was of the royal house of Bohemia. It was logical enough—especially in the early days—that they would have included the texts of John Wycliffe among their exchanged works.
“It is spreading across the Holy Roman Empire like a plague. Two summers ago, Bishop Zybnek of Prague burned Wycliffe’s heretical scribblings in the public square and prohibited the teachings. But with little avail. A heretic named Jan Hus still preaches these teachings daily from the pulpit, and the people of Prague are rallying to him in great numbers. If we do not act now, England will become another Bohemia.”
The prince looked thoughtful. Arundel looked impatient.
Finally the prince spoke. “Why is the reading of the Bible for oneself so bad? With the renewal of our own interest—under the tutelage of my lord archbishop in matters of faith—I’ve often thought I’d like to read the Scriptures for myself, but my mastery of Latin renders such a task more burden than joy.”
Gabriel heard a sharp intake of breath and hoped it was not his own. Arundel’s face turned the color of bile. Gabriel cringed as the archbishop pounded his fist on the table.
“I shall tell you why, Your Grace. Bible reading by the unlearned masses fosters rebellion. You are too young to remember the riots in eighty-one. I remember. Ignorant peasants used their imperfect understanding of the Holy Scriptures as an excuse to burn and pillage the property of their betters. Your father remembers. Ask him. Ask Henry Bolingbroke how the rebels burned the Savoy Palace, beheaded the archbishop, blackmailed the young King Richard by marching on London. Why do you think your father has spent his effort and his treasure to root out this heresy? If the Lollards would kill an archbishop, Your Grace, do you really think they’d quibble to overthrow a king?”
Arundel paused to let this sink in, then resumed in a more reasonable tone. “And there is the matter of the sale of indulgences, which the Lollards despise. The crown gets a portion of those monies.”
The prince held up his hand to indicate that he’d gotten the point. “If these Lollard Bible readings have been forbidden, why don’t we just break up the meetings and confiscate the materials?” he asked. “If it is the law of the land—it is the law, is it not?”
Thomas Arundel nodded. “The Act of De Haeretico Comburendo, on the burning of heretics.”
“Well, then, if it is the law, just enforce the law. Have we not soldiers?”
“We’ve tried that. We even burned a heretic priest named William Sawtry. They call themselves lay priests—who flout the law—and their numbers grow daily. They get away with it because some of your nobles have succumbed to the heresy and protect them. Some who even sit in Parliament. Surely you can see the danger there; if the heresy spreads in Parliament, well … Until we prosecute one or more of these, we will make no headway.”
“The nobility?” Prince Harry asked. “This is a serious charge. Have you proof?”
“Not enough to stand in court. But we are determined, with your permission, to obtain it.”
“You mean spying on my nobles? I would be loath to commit to that, I think.”
Gabriel felt a kind of sympathy for him. It was plain he did not want to make the same mistake as his father, Henry Bolingbroke; he did not want half his nobles turning on him. Civil war would not be an auspicious beginning for a new reign.
The lines in Archbishop Arundel’s lean face deepened with his frown, then relaxed into a smile. Gabriel knew what was co
ming.
“Those who commit heresy are in danger of hell,” the archbishop said. “You as their prince are responsible for their souls. Surely you must know that. Your father knew it well. He would have no problem spying on the nobles to save their souls. If this heresy is allowed to gain full sway, the whole of England could be placed under papal interdict. Are you prepared to have all those souls on your conscience?”
It was the whip the Church always used to bring a monarch in line. Excommunication. The gates of heaven barred. The king and all his subjects turned away. Gabriel’s unease was growing with Prince Harry’s. What his own part in this matter was to be he was not sure, but anyone who stood too close to Arundel was bound to have his own soul scorched by so much fiery zeal.
“What of the evidence gained?” the prince asked. “Who would decide on prosecutions?”
“Any evidence gained must be presented to His Majesty, if he recovers, or to Your Grace, if His Majesty remains indisposed, before any punitive action can be taken. That is the law too.” He frowned as though this were one law he did not like. “It will probably only take one prosecution from you to bring the rest in line.”
Gabriel watched the young prince pursing his petulant lips in concentration. He could almost imagine what was going on in his mind. One prosecution. One nobleman, who would have his own retainers. One nobleman who would spread sedition, gather arms against a king who imprisoned his own nobles. One nobleman with a banner under which all his enemies could unite. Yet the threat of papal interdiction was not to be taken lightly.
Prince Harry exhaled deep and long. “I suppose we may proceed if we are only gathering evidence. Just to see. But no action shall be taken against any of the nobility without the king’s assent.”
The Mercy Seller: A Novel (v5) Page 3