by Derek Wilson
My host’s zeal was almost as unsettling as Winchester’s hostility. The bishop used threats to demand my silence. Sir Richard appealed to my conscience to stir me to commitment. And I? What did I want?
I said, ‘I assure you that your uncle’s work is well appreciated among those who seek the truth. In many places – Strasbourg, Geneva, Languedoc and, of course, Navarre – we have marvelled to see England throw off the Roman yoke. Yet you need a better advocate than me to advance the cause. I carry no influence in high places.’
‘You can help to silence the wagging tongues – the tongues that accuse Lord Cromwell of manipulating the king, of pursuing his own greed, of hypocritically using the Gospel as a cloak for his own ambition. Tell all who will listen what manner of man Thomas Cromwell was.’
‘But,’ I protested, ‘I do not know what manner of man he was. Everyone I speak to has contrary opinions and no one, it seems, is well informed about his origins. I have been told that, of a purpose, he kept his true identity a close secret. No one I have yet met can tell me anything about your uncle’s early life. Some suggest that he was guilty of crimes that would have ruined his career had they ever come to light.’
‘Calumnies!’
‘Doubtless. Yet if they cannot be countered, suspicions will grow. To understand a man you must know his origins. That is why a close kinsman, or at least someone close to the family, will be far better placed than I—’
Sir Richard frowned and held up a hand. ‘’Tis not that simple,’ he said. He stood to prod a poker at the fire and was obviously collecting his thoughts. When he had resumed his seat, more moments passed before he spoke.
‘I did not really know my uncle before he returned from his foreign travels. That was in the first year of the king’s reign. I remember it well because Thomas threw a very extravagant family party. He had several casks of wine from Italy. He also brought back his own cook, who introduced us to Italian sweetmeats we had never tasted before.’
‘Was that in Putney?’
‘No. Thomas left his father’s house there before he went to Italy. In fact, even before that he spent much of his time with my family in London. He features quite often in my early childhood memories. He was always fun to be with. My mother often chided him for spoiling me with gifts.’
‘Why was your uncle more at home here than in Putney?’
‘There was no future there for a young man with an enquiring mind and a thirst for adventure. He could never have followed his father as a village innkeeper and small-scale sheep farmer. My mother had married a local lawyer, Morgan Williams, and they moved to London where he set up his own practice. Thomas was determined to do the same. I think there was some talk of him joining my father’s practice, but he left quite suddenly in fifteen oh-three. I was about ten at the time and did not really come to know him properly until his return seven years later. By then he was much changed.’
‘No longer good company?’
‘On the contrary. He was always very entertaining, but there was a new fervour about him.’
‘Doubtless he was working hard to build his career.’
‘Certainly that. But there was more. He was deeply studious, seldom seen without a book in his pouch. Whatever was impelling him, it was not ambition. He had become a man of intense passion – loves and hates. Thus, he deeply loathed the monastic orders but showed the other side of his ardour when he took it upon himself to rescue a wayward young fool called Richard Williams from the mess he was making of his own life. Within the space of a few months Thomas made me resume my studies, occasionally found me work in the law courts and even arranged an advantageous marriage.’
‘Was Thomas married by then?’
‘Yes, Elizabeth; a sweet lady. A childhood friend from a Thameside village close to Putney.’
‘He did not use marriage to advance his social standing?’
‘No, it was a love match – brief but very happy.’
‘Brief?’
‘Elizabeth died of the sweating sickness in fifteen twenty-nine. Their two daughters fell to the sweat in the same year.’
‘That must have been hard to bear.’
‘He never fully recovered. It is my opinion that he buried himself in work to keep memory at bay.’ Sir Richard stood to fetch the flagon from the buffet and refilled our cups.
‘I think I heard mention that Thomas had a son,’ I said. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes, poor Gregory. Of all those being close watched by his father’s enemies his position is the hardest.’
‘Why so?’
‘Thomas’s attainder meant that all his property was forfeit. The large fortune he had earned in the royal service – lands, houses, furnishings, jewellery – all gone. Gregory has no inheritance – nothing save a couple of properties made over to him by his father, which the king cannot touch – for now. Gregory is terrified that the net of suspicion will be thrown over him. He and his wife have gone to their manor in Leicestershire – virtually in hiding. They care also for Mercy Prior, Gregory’s maternal grandmother. She lived for many years with Thomas and Elizabeth. She is old and frail now. I am surprised that she survived the horror of Thomas’s arrest and death.’ He sighed. ‘So you see, Master Bourbon, how hard it is to set the record straight. How keenly we feel the need of friends.’
‘’Tis unfortunate, then, that your uncle was secretive about his past.’
‘No,’ Sir Richard shook his head, ‘the fault is not entirely his. As soon as Thomas was arrested men were sent to seize and destroy all his papers. His enemies were determined to erase all trace of him. They foolishly thought that by obliterating his memory they could destroy his legacy. And you may be sure that people who had any correspondence with him were quick to void their coffers also. I know of three people to whom Thomas had given portraits of himself. They made hasty bonfires of them. Thank God, he was too clever for them. They could not bury his achievements.’
‘Then, Sir Richard, it must be those achievements that speak for him – to our generation and generations to come. For my part, I can be of little service to you – or to him. There is no more I can do here.’ I rose to take my leave.
‘Ah, well.’ Again the sigh. ‘Perhaps you are right – for now. But things will change – sooner than you or I might think.’ He walked with me down the length of the hall. At the door to the screens passage he paused. ‘While we wait upon God’s time there is someone who was close to Thomas and would not be afeared to speak – if you were disposed to seek him out. His name is Stephen Vaughan.’
‘And where, should I be disposed, would I find him?’ I asked.
‘In Antwerp.’
* * *
* Ecclesiastes 12:11
† Hebrews 11:4
4
Sea interlude
My plan was now simple. I would return to Queen Marguerite’s court as rapidly as possible and resume my duties. If my mistress was still intent on learning more of Thomas Cromwell and what it might, or might not, mean for England’s future relations with France, she might gain some enlightenment from Stephen Vaughan and might decide to despatch some other emissary to Antwerp.
‘Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit,’ as the good Thomas à Kempis writes.* Many more days would pass before I stood once more before the queen and very few before I found myself in the presence of Stephen Vaughan.
At St Katherine’s Dock in the shadow of the Tower of London I walked along the quayside, once again in search of a suitable ship to convey me across the Channel. I was now eager to return home without further delay. Too eager. Decisions made in haste are often repented at leisure. There were, I discovered, five vessels making ready to sail for Calais, but the only one whose lading was complete was a small two-masted carrack, more like a coasting vessel than one built for the open seas. Her name, blazoned on the stern,
was Hope, but peeling paint had partly obliterated the word so that, at a quick glance, it seemed more like ‘Hole’ – an omen I would have been well advised to heed. The master, a boisterous fellow who seemed little more than a boy, welcomed me aboard warmly and offered me the use of his own cabin if I could have my chest brought down and stowed in time for him to catch the evening tide. Oh, that I had heeded Solomon’s words, ‘He who hastens with his feet falls into sin.’
The little ship slipped her moorings and moved gently downstream before a benign breeze. The late sun peered across the city roofs and spires behind us. The waterfront villages were reflected clearly in the untroubled surface of the Thames. To landsmen like myself it seemed that the Hope carried a large crew for such a small vessel. I mentioned this to the master as we sat in the aft cabin over a light supper.
‘Every one hand-picked, Sir,’ he assured me. ‘Handy with crossbows and wheel locks and cannon. You’re well protected by my boys.’
‘Need we such protection?’ I queried.
Doughty (that was the seaman’s name, Thomas Doughty, as I should have mentioned) drew off his red cap and shook out a full crown of fair hair that looked almost golden in the gently swaying lamp above. ‘The Narrows is a violent place, Sir. Ships leave law and order behind when they up-anchor.’
‘Pirates, you mean?’
He threw back his head in a deep-throated laugh. ‘Pirates! Now that’s a word for legal lubbers to conjure with! What does it mean, think you? In France, for example? You are French, are you not?’
‘I am currently at the royal court of Navarre.’
He waved his knife, on which was impaled a lump of cheese, in my face. ‘Well then, in Navarre, what do they think about pirates there?’
‘Much as they do in England, I am sure – that they are gallows-fodder rogues: thieves, cut-throats, rakehells, like their cousins ashore. The one difference between them and rufflers is that the ruffler attacks innocent wayfarers on the highway and the pirate preys on folk who use the seaways.’
Doughty mouthed the cheese, chewed it briefly and swallowed with the help of a draught of ale. Then, continuing to waggle the knife, he continued. ‘Let me put a supposal to you. Suppose your king of Navarre is at war with my king of England. And one of your ships comes across mine. There is a fierce battle. The poor old Hope fights long and strong but, at the last, she is overborne. She is captured and taken back to Navarre. Would that, think you, be an act of piracy?’
‘No, ’twould be an act of war and your ship a prize of war.’
‘Just so. But suppose your vessel had been long out of port and her master did not know that England and Navarre were at war. What then? Is his attack still an act of war – or an act of piracy?’
‘A nice point for the law men,’ I muttered.
‘Aha!’ Doughty pounced for the debating kill. ‘And who’s to send for the law men when we’re all a-tussle and there’s holes in the sheets and blood on the deck?’
The disputation was lost but I grasped at the only argument that was in sight. ‘There are courts ashore for deciding such cases.’
He sat back with a triumphant smile. ‘Much good your courts will do me when your countrymen have slit my throat and sent me down to Father Neptune.’ Once more the cabin filled with his roared laughter.
I joined in. ‘You have bested me, Master Doughty. I see now what a blessing it is that my land of Lower Navarre has no port and no ships. So you are safe from us.’
Night fell and the master, true to his word, left me in possession of his cabin. Before testing the comfort of his berth I took a brief turn of the deck. The Hope was stationary, riding at anchor, sails neatly furled. We were close inshore, and lights indicated nearby dwellings.
‘Tilbury,’ one of the crewmen informed me. ‘We spend the night here. Sandbanks out there.’ He nodded in the direction of the sea. ‘We’ll be away at first light.’
‘The weather looks fair for our crossing.’
‘Maybe,’ he replied, sniffing loudly. ‘But ’tis on the turn. I can smell it.’
With those discouraging words in my ears, I returned to the cabin and laid down on the bed. Only too well aware of how prone I was to sea-sickness, I hoped the mariner was wrong. But it was not only the prospect of bouncing across the Channel that caused me some disquiet. There was something about Doughty’s demeanour that was disturbing. He talked easily of piracy and lawlessness at sea. It was almost as though he revelled in it, and savoured the freedom from restraints that landsmen live by. I made up my mind to remain vigilant and not to sleep. The next I knew it was morning.
Crossing the cabin and steadying myself against the frame, I opened the door and peered out. The tranquil scene of the previous evening had been replaced by one of vigorous movement. A mix of rain and spray flung itself in my face. The Hope bucked through the waves like an eager colt. I could just hear Doughty on the aft castle above me shouting orders to four of his men who were aloft and clinging to the gyrating mainmast as they tended the taut-stretched sail.
Fixing my eyes on the swaying scene above was a mistake. Everything became a frenzied blur. My head throbbed. My knees buckled. My stomach rebelled. I managed three paces to the side rail. Clinging to it in miserable desperation, I leaned over and committed the contents of my belly to the foaming bow wave that rose up to meet me, then as suddenly fell away again. Wedged into the corner where the aft castle rose from the main deck, I tried to be a stable element amidst the demented chaos of rearing water and roaring wind.
‘A God’s name, Sir, go in!’ a sailor shouted above the cacophony as he wrestled a snaking rope.
I nodded but made no move. Not trusting my quivering legs, I could do nothing but stare into the horizonless grey of sea and sky, which was only relieved by creamy wave caps and the outline of another distant vessel which, like ours, was labouring through the storm.
After a while I felt a firm hand on my arm. ‘Go in, Sir,’ Doughty commanded, his mouth close to my ear. ‘You’re in the way of my men here.’
With the master’s aid I stumbled back into the cabin and laid down on the bed. I heard Doughty busying himself pouring liquid from one container to another.
‘Sit up, Sir, and drink this. ’Tis sovereign against what you call the “maldymer”.’ He held a metal cup to my lips and I gulped down a bitter-sweet liquid. My head fell back on the pillow and I closed my eyes on the swaying world.
The next few hours were among the strangest of my life. All around me the Hope’s timbers groaned and protested. The sea hurled itself frantically against the hull, its savagery inches from my body beyond the meagre shield of a thin oaken wall. Sometimes its force was so strong that it resembled the roar of cannon and the whole ship trembled at it. Did I sleep? Did I dream? Or did the cabin fill with grotesque sea demons, glowing-eyed dragons and multi-headed serpents? Did the Hope lose its battle with the elements and was I fathoms down, drifting and writhing amidst rock and coral and the bones of other dead ships? Desperately, I forced my breath-starved body upwards through the liquid night, longing for air and life. My strength and my will drained away until, just as I resigned myself to death, I broke through the surface, my gaping mouth greedily sucking air.
I opened my eyes to see the cabin filled with daylight and felt the ship rocking gently, no longer the plaything of the tempest. I looked around the empty cabin, thankful that it was not spinning before my eyes. But when I tried to move, my limbs were slack and aching. I found that I was shivering, my cold shirt wet with sweat.
I must have drowsed again, for the next thing I knew was a tall, thin-bearded man in a leather jerkin gazing down at me. ‘Ah, señor,’ he said, ‘esta’s despierto.’
I thought I must be dreaming again. Who was this stranger and why was he speaking to me in Spanish? I have a little of the language (though in Navarre our neighbours speak an outlandish dialect o
f it) – enough to be able to ask who he was and what his position was in the Hope’s crew.
He laughed. ‘My position? Why, I am in command. This vessel is my prize. Or, no, it is a prize of His Imperial Majesty, Charles V. I am Hernando Valdes, captain of the San Gabriel. You, I think, are Señor Bourbon, a passenger. Not one of these English scoundrels.’
I eased my tender limbs into a seating position on the edge of the bunk. ‘What has happened here?’
Valdes sat in one of the cabin’s two chairs. ‘You remember nothing?’
‘Only that there was a storm and I was taken ill.’
He nodded. ‘You had a slight fever, I think. Yes, it was quite a bad storm. Wind from the south-west. Your ship was, I gather, bound for Calais but was driven far to the north. We are from Santander and had just cleared your accursed Channel when the storm broke. We took in all sail to reduce speed as much as possible. But your English pirates? They were under as much sail as they dared. They were actually trying to catch us. They came up on our port quarter.’
‘Pirates, you say?’
‘Oh yes. Your Master Doughty – Protestant pig – was more interested in taking my ship than caring for his own.’ He explained how the Hope had kept close to his vessel even though her own sails were threatened with shredding.