The Cromwell Enigma

by Derek Wilson

  Serene Highness, I humbly commend me unto your regal goodness and am to report on my poor service to Your Ladyship. Would to God I had better tidings to deliver. My crossing hither by dire contrary winds was much delayed and its accustomed torments much multiplied. I swear that if there be a purgatory, which there is not, it could not be more vile than the rolling, tossing, heaving, diving, leaping of one ill-found ship making passage ’tween Calais and Gravesend, where I came ashore happy to find shiftless ground beneath my feet. Thinking to reach journey’s end sooner by road than remaining aboard the vessel bound for the Tower Docks, I took horse and was in London within two hours.

  Yet, in truth, there was no need for haste. I had to make no search for news. It came to me on the road. It was, seemingly, on the lips of every gentleman riding from the city, every wench swilling out slops on to the highway, every carter calling out to any who might yet not have heard. All the street along, the shout went up from smiling lips: ‘He is dead!’ Aye, Highness, smiling lips, for I swear I saw not one man or woman in fifty heartsore to tell of Lord Cromwell’s execution or ready to lift to heaven a prayer for his soul. In brief I may tell that he who of late stood higher than any other in the kingdom of England was beheaded before a cheering crowd on the twenty-eighth day of this month.

  Thus is my mission for Your Highness done ere it began. Yet knowing that you would hope for more details and would desire to know how this act may affect affairs between our country and England, I shall seek out some well acquainted with the workings of the royal court and will endeavour to satisfy Your Highness within days.

  From London this thirtieth day of July 1540

  They were dismantling the fence around the scaffold. A dozen men, a well-practised team, were hurrying to complete their task before a pewter sky released its threatened deluge. The stakes were loaded on to a large wagon. Soon, very soon, the horses would be whipped up for their short journey across the hill’s flank, past All Hallows Church and so to the storeroom somewhere in the city, there to leave their load until the next time it was called upon to perform its ceremonial role in killing another of the King of England’s subjects. Here, beyond the wall and the moat, only a wide circle of trampled green would be left as tempor­ary witness that one of the age’s more remarkable Englishmen had perished in this place.

  If anyone had asked me why I was there, I would have been at a loss to offer a satisfactory reply. Had I gone to pay my respects? I think not. Was mere curiosity my motive? Possibly. All I can recall is that somehow it seemed appropriate to begin at the end.

  I was not alone. I do not mean that there were several ­other people walking or riding across the green on their way to or from the city or the Tower of London. Someone else was, like myself, standing still, gazing up at the platform from which, I supposed, Thomas Cromwell had spoken his last words to the spectators, cried out his last prayer to God. My ‘companion’ was a gentleman, to judge by his dress, though his clothes were somewhat dishevelled and he had neglected to don a cloak against the coming storm. For all I could tell he was about my own age (and I was then in my thirty-eighth year). A mourning relative, perhaps? I would not intrude upon his grief.

  It was as I made to leave and stride across the grass to the shelter of the tenements flanking the open space that the other man also turned. And there was something familiar about him. His dark beard was very full and masked much of his lower face, but the blue-green eyes were of an intensity that had made their impression on me years before and never been forgotten.

  As we passed each other I put memory to the test.

  ‘The greatest comfort that I can pretend

  Is that the children of my servants dear

  That in your word are set, shall without end

  Before your face be ’stablished all in fear.’

  The man stopped. Stared at me in panic. ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘Only renewed friendship,’ I replied softly. ‘You are Sir Thomas Wyatt, are you not?’

  ‘Aye, fellow. Who sent you? By your voice you are not English.’

  ‘My name is Nicholas Bourbon; we met many years ago.’ I glanced towards the scaffold. ‘In far happier days.’

  ‘Truly?’ He peered closely. ‘You know my old verses.’

  ‘And share the faith they speak.’

  ‘You are not in Gardiner’s pay? Or Norfolk’s?’

  ‘I come at the behest of Queen Marguerite of Navarre.’

  ‘Even so?’ Wyatt relaxed somewhat. ‘Then, if you would take a cup in memory,’ he glanced upwards, ‘come with me – though I fear you will find me poor company.’

  A few hurried paces took us to a very impressive mansion bordering the hill. Pausing only to give orders to a servant, Wyatt led the way up a broad staircase to a first-floor parlour.

  ‘A fine house,’ I ventured as I sat in the armed chair to which my host pointed.

  He remained standing. ‘It belonged to the Crutched ­Friars until last year.’ He stared down at me intently. ­‘Nicholas Bourbon, you say. Yes, now I also remember. You visited us in Queen Anne’s day. My apologies. So much has happened since then. So many curtains drawn across the past. It is as though we live now in a different country.’

  A liveried page set a flagon of sack on the table beside me, together with Venetian goblets and a dish of saffron cakes. He was about to pour the wine, but Wyatt waved him away with his hand and he quietly withdrew.

  ‘I recall that you are a fellow poet, Master Bourbon. Are you now at the French court?’

  ‘I dwell in Navarre, serving Her Highness as tutor to the princess and, yes, I am something of a poet. Her Highness and I share fond memories of Queen Anne.’

  ‘You left before Anne and her supposed lovers were executed, as I recall.’

  ‘It seemed prudent.’

  ‘Prudent!’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Aye. Always we do what is prudent, do we not? We obey our rulers out of prudence. They, after all, have the power to advance our careers if we please them. And if we do not . . .’ He walked across to the wide window and stood staring out. ‘No one understood prudence better than him.’

  I went to stand beside him. The casement offered a clear view of the ruined scaffold, no more than twenty paces away and almost on the same level as our vantage point.

  ‘What exactly happened?’ I asked.

  He seemed not to have heard the question. ‘Prudence serves well ambition and self-preservation. Can it ever be made to serve a higher end, think you?’

  ‘Higher end? I am not sure . . .’

  Wyatt turned to face me. ‘You were often at Lord ­Cromwell’s table in those good days, were you not?’

  ‘Aye. They were precious times – exciting, stimulating.’

  ‘And what was his driving passion?’

  ‘The Gospel of Christ,’ I replied without hesitation.

  ‘Exactly.’ His eyes glinted. ‘And to set that forth he had to act prudently – to serve the king faithfully, climbing the rickety ladder to the topmost rungs, little by little achieving the position that would enable him to influence ­policy.’ He sighed. ‘People watched his extraordinary rise and did not understand. They thought they were looking at a poor boy from Putney, driven by personal ambition, greedily grasping at power and wealth, lands and titles, the glittering ­baubles thrown from the king’s hands. But his prudence was in a good cause. Without His Lordship’s work over the last dozen years, England would still be under the thumb of Rome, the council would be dominated by arrogant ­bishops, and monks would be eating off the fat of the land while honest husbandmen go hungry.’

  I was surprised and silenced by this febrile speech. Why was this courtier-diplomat unburdening himself thus to a virtual stranger? Clearly it was not because he had ­taken Nicholas Bourbon into his confidence. The pot of his grief and outrage would have boiled over whoever had been there to overhear
it. I searched for some response that would not sound empty or sophistical. ‘This sudden reversal is a ­tragedy – and a mystery. In France, and I dare say in other lands, people will be struggling to make sense of it.’

  Again my host shunned conversation. ‘To please the prince while clinging firmly to what you know to be true is a rare – a very rare – gift in a courtier, Master Bourbon. ’Tis one I do not possess.’ He opened the casement. ‘At the end, after his speech to the crowd, he looked straight at me here and called out, “Oh, gentle Wyatt, goodbye. Pray for me and weep not.” How could I keep from weeping? ’Twas I who brought him to this pass.’ He turned his face away, brushing tears with the back of his hand.

  I withdrew to my chair, there being nothing I could say in response. Minutes passed before Wyatt came to the seat opposite, pressing a kerchief to red-rimmed eyes.

  On the Death of Thomas Cromwell

  The pillar perished is whereto I leaned,

  The strongest stay of my unquiet mind.

  The like of it again no man can find,

  From Est to West still seeking though he went.

  To my unhaps*, for hap+, away hath rent

  Of all my joy the very bark and rind,

  And I, alas, by chance am thus assigned,

  Dearly to mourn till death do it relent.

  But, since that thus it is by destiny,

  What can I more but have a woeful heart,

  My pen in plaint, my voice in woeful cry,

  My mind in woe, my body full of smart,

  And I, myself, myself always to hate,

  Till dreadful death, do cease my doleful state.

  (Thomas Wyatt)

  *misfortune +fortune

  ‘You loved him dearly,’ I said, ‘but to blame yourself for his fall—’

  ‘When our king believed himself cuckolded – or feigned such a belief – Queen Anne’s supposed lovers were thrown in the Tower and brought thence to that scaffold out there. I was one of them. Innocent, of course, as were we all.’

  ‘Yet you were spared.’

  ‘Aye, and at whose behest? Cromwell’s.’

  ‘Then are we both indebted to him for our lives. He was one of those who interceded for me back in fifteen thirty-three.’

  He nodded. ‘That was just one of many favours he showed me. He who had the power to give much did not stint. Whatever I have now I have almost all to thank him for – including this house. ’Twas Cromwell who had the Crutched Friars convent granted to me.’ He paused and for the first time the trace of a smile flickered on his lips. ‘It was to be a lasting reminder.’

  ‘Of your time in the Tower?’

  Wyatt poured wine into the exuberantly decorated goblets. ‘He wanted me to know, every day I spent here, that the courtier walks always along the cliff edge of royal favour.’ He sighed. ‘I learned the lesson too well.’

  ‘But you have served your king faithfully. We hear often of your diplomatic service at the Emperor’s court – Madrid, Brussels. You have been very—’

  ‘Prudent!’ He laughed. ‘The word is excellent sauce to the meat. What do ambassadors do but tell foreign princes what they want to hear? Last winter I was sent to Flanders where our pious Catholic Emperor, Charles V, was holding court, to convince him that Harry of England, despite rumours to the contrary, was still an obedient son of Holy Mother Church.’

  ‘This was to conceal the fact that the king was making an alliance with the German Lutheran princess?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Wyatt slammed his goblet down so hard that the fragile glass shattered. ‘Change of plan. Henry had decided to cement his friendship with the Emperor. He now claimed the agreement with the Lutherans was a devilish scheme dreamed up by his minister. He had discovered, to his shock and dismay, that Thomas Cromwell was a covert heretic. My task was to explain that Henry was encour­aging Cromwell while evidence against him was being secretly gathered. The instructions I received were quite specific: use all the guile at my command to draw His Imperial Majesty into this secret scheme.’ He stared at me intently and ­never have I seen a man more abjectly melancholy. ‘God help me, Master Bourbon, that is exactly what I did – betrayed my friend and patron. And not even for thirty pieces of silver.’

  ‘I see. But if you had disobeyed your orders—’

  ‘I would have been sharing the scaffold with my friend. It would have been a privilege. That is why you see me ­wretched as Judas . . .’

  I ransacked my mind for some words of consolation. ‘Even Judas might have found forgiveness.’ Then, after an awkward silence, ‘You may trust me to keep secret what you have told me. I will not even report it to Queen Marguerite.’

  ‘No!’ Wyatt was suddenly on his feet and pacing the room. ‘Tell her. Tell the world. Mayhap ’tis the reason you have been sent to me. Yes, that must be so. You are my salvation, Master Bourbon. You will make known what I still fear to reveal.’

  ‘But that might mean—’

  ‘Arrest. Trial. The chance for me to declare my faith ­firmly and do what I should have done weeks since.’ He stopped abruptly by the window. He turned. ‘Only take care. Say nothing of this till you are safely out of England. I would not have your blood also on my conscience.’

  ‘My blood? Come, Sir Thomas. No one here, surely, is interested in a poor French scholar.’

  ‘Oh, my friend, think not that.’ He seated himself again and leaned across the table. ‘Underestimate the hatred of our enemies and you are like to be lost. Keep well clear of Gardiner, Norfolk, Rich and their fellows; a kennelful of snarling curs. They have brought down the great stag and are still licking the blood from their maws. They are in full cry and nothing will stop them bringing to bay those they call “heretics”. Cranmer, our archbishop, keeps well away from court and I am minded to do the same. In the shadow of the throne lurk so many informers, liars and slanderers, a man knows not who to trust. I urge you, Master Bourbon, haste you back to France.’

  He sat back in the chair as though exhausted. After some moments he took up a lute lying on the table and began plucking absently at its strings. It was clearly time for me to leave. I muttered my thanks and made my way downstairs. As I crossed the great hall I beckoned to a servant.

  ‘Someone should go to your master. It were best not to leave him unattended.’

  Serene Highness, my dutiful respects. This is to inform Your Grace that I have done my poor best to carry out Your Highness’s instructions. The task, though doleful, has been simple. I think the detailed news will have reached you ere you read this. It is soon told. Thomas Cromwell was raised to the position of Earl of Essex, but days later was arrested on suspicion of heresy, imprisoned and, on the twenty-eighth of July last, publicly beheaded. The king, meanwhile, was wed to a young woman of the Duke of Norfolk’s kindred. Men say she is no more than sixteen. God grant she tread not the same path as her cousin Anne four years since. The king’s former wife, sister to the Duke of Cleves-Jülich, is sent away into honourable retirement, though not, as it is rumoured, permitted to return to her kindred. Lutheran envoys invited here by Cromwell have been ordered back to their own land and all thought of a Protestant league abandoned. The king has renewed his amity with the Emperor Charles. I gleaned more details in conversation with a member of the court and will convey them to Your Highness on my return.

  Pray permit me to begin my homeward journey soon, since I think I can be of little further service. I will await Your Highness’s instructions. I stay at the Sun in Cheapside and will send this by Ambassador Marillac which, in this troubled city, is the safest way to communicate.

  This second day of August 1540

  Charles de Marillac is an intemperate scavenger of ­gossip who vomits forth his ill-digested scraps of news as a fountain perpetually gushes forth brackish water. However, even self-important young men like him have their uses and I hoped the ambassador w
ould add his support to my appeal to the queen for a recall. I was eager to obtain quittance from my English mission, the more so as I found the mood in London disturbing – menacing, almost. My initial impression of Sir Thomas Wyatt had been of a man almost beside his wits with melancholy at the loss of his friend and patron, but I soon realized that his fears were not without foundation. In taverns and market-places the talk was all of sudden arrests, of jails filling up with people suspected of ‘heresy’, of householders being pressed to inform against their neighbours.

  When I called at Marillac’s town residence I learned that he was away. A courteous letter the following day explained that he was at Hampton Court, where the king was currently lodged, and that he, Marillac, had taken a house not far from the palace. He would be delighted to welcome me there for dinner two days hence, when he would be able to introduce me to some of his friends who were influential members of the royal inner circle.

  The house I approached that Sunday sat atop a gentle rise flanking the Thames – old in style and built around a centre courtyard. A servant led me from the entrance and through a great hall that was but sparsely furnished. There was, however, nothing wanting in the decoration of the solar that adjoined it. Marillac had furnished it as a more intimate dining space, designed to impress. Brightly coloured tapestries (somewhat garish to my taste) covered all the walls, and a long buffet was well stocked with silver and gold plate.

  My host detached himself from a small group of guests standing by the oriel and bustled across to greet me. ‘My dear Monsieur Bourbon, so good to see you again. I trust you are in good health. And the dear queen, your mistress? I long for news of her. Are you well lodged? We must find you somewhere more healthsome. The city is not a safe place in this thundery weather. It may be only days before the plague . . . but come and meet some other friends.’ The little ambassador hustled me across the room towards the tall window, where three men stood talking.

  Introductions were made. The most important member of the group – sombrely but expensively dressed, a thin-faced man with little more than a wisp of beard – was the Earl of Hertford, Edward Seymour. I knew the name, of course. Seymour was Henry VIII’s brother-in-law, through the marriage of his late sister Jane, and uncle to Henry’s infant son, Prince Edward.