Cromwell said something to the guards I could not hear. They stepped back a few more feet and he leaned down, to speak to Hungerford. He laid his hand on the wretched man’s quavering back. After a couple of minutes, Hungerford stilled, nodded, and looked up, his face wet with tears. Whatever Cromwell said had calmed him.
Cromwell said loudly, “Now we may proceed.”
Geoffrey and I looked at each other, struck with wonder at what we had witnessed.
In a short time, Cromwell stood on the platform, his shrewd gaze as steady as ever as he surveyed the assembled crowd and then said his last words, clear and strong:
“I am come hither to die and not to purge myself, as some think that I will, for if I should do so, I would be a very wretch and miser. I am by the law condemned to die, and thank my Lord God that hath anointed me this death, for my offense. For since the time that I had had years of discretion, I have lived a sinner and offended my Lord God, for that which I ask him hearty forgiveness. And it is not unknown to many of you that I have been a great traveler in this world and being but of a base degree was called to high estate, and since that time, I have offended my prince. For that I ask forgiveness and beseech you all to pray to God with me, that He will forgive me.”
Cromwell held up his hands as if he were in fact beseeching us and then said, “O Father, forgive me, O Son, forgive me, O Holy Ghost, forgive me.”
My lips moved in response. I noticed a man standing in front of us and to the side, closer to the scaffold, cross himself. Something about his gesture seemed familiar, but then another man shifted to stand in front of me, so I could no longer see.
Cromwell cleared his throat and continued, “And now I pray you that be here, to bear my record, I die in the Catholic faith, not doubting in any article of my faith, nor doubting in any Sacrament of the Church.”
Shock rippled through the crowd. No one seemed to have expected that—least of all myself.
His voice edging into anger, Cromwell said, “Many have slandered me and reported that I have been a bearer of such and have maintained evil opinions, which is untrue but I confess like as God by His Holy Spirit doth instruct us in the truth, so the devil is ready to seduce as, and I have been seduced, but bear me witness that I die in the Catholic faith of the Holy Church.”
He paused, and a sadness shuddered through his square body, driving out the anger. “Like God by His Holy Spirit does instruct us in the truth, so the devil is ready to seduce us, and I have been seduced, but bear witness that I die in the Catholic faith of the Holy Church. And I heartily desire you to pray for the King’s grace, that he may long live with you, may long reign over you. And once again I desire you to pray for me, that so long as life remains in this flesh, I waver nothing in my faith.”
Cromwell stepped back from the edge of the scaffold. A man wearing the headsman’s hood knelt before him, seeking his forgiveness, and Cromwell nodded, jerkily. The others stepped away as Cromwell then knelt on the platform, before the small wooden block.
“Close your eyes,” whispered Geoffrey, but he did not need to, for my eyes were clamped shut. If only that could obscure the horrific deed—but I knew from experience it was not just sight but sound that left its mark on the souls of those who gathered at Tower Hill.
Sure enough, a dreadful ten seconds or so of silence were broken by a crashing thud. I heard oaths and cries all around us—more than I’d heard when I was last here. I took a deep breath, and just as my eyes opened, a damp hand clamped over them and Geoffrey said, “No, Joanna, it’s not over!”
Incredibly, there was a second thud, a third—and a fourth. Geoffrey threw his other arm around me, holding me as tight as he could, as if he wanted to shield me from it with his very body. I could feel his heart pumping, light and fast, in his chest.
There were no more crashing noises. Cromwell was in God’s hands now.
“That axman should be whipped,” said a man behind us. There was a string of German singsong in my ear—did Holbein chant a prayer? My poor, poor artist friend. This was too much for him to bear.
Geoffrey slowly released me, and my eyes fluttered open. Would this now be too much for me to bear?
At first there was nothing but ferocious white sunlight, burning my eyes. I blinked and blinked. I managed to focus on men rushing around the scaffold platform now, bumping into one another, as they frantically tried to recoup from the disaster of what had just occurred. All but one: Sir William Kingston. He stood stock-still, staring out at us, gone blind and deaf and dumb. This execution, the latest in God only knows how many he presided over, seemed to have annihilated his mind.
One of the men stumbled and fell on the platform, and with a sickened rush, I realized what felled him: Cromwell’s arm. The axman had cut him into pieces.
I heard a coughing and then a splash behind me—a man was retching onto the ground. The stench of it made a sour thrashing rise in me and for a moment I thought I’d be sick, too. I dug my fingernails into my palm, and willed myself not to vomit. A few moments passed as I stared down—they must be carting away the remains of Cromwell.
“Hungerford,” groaned Surrey on my other side.
It was the turn of Sir Walter Hungerford to die, and he had lost his calm. Who could hold on to courage after watching Cromwell beheaded thus? Hungerford fell back against the railing of the scaffold and quivered there. He said nothing, made no noise, but his mouth opened and closed like a frightened bird’s.
I searched my mind for the correct prayer and then began. No matter whether he knew of my presence or not, I must carry out my promise.
One man took his right arm, the other his left, and they propelled Hungerford forward, toward the headsman that more than a hundred people now knew to be incompetent.
“Is there no pity here—none?” screeched Sir Walter. He looked out across the crowd, as if frantic for a rescuer.
My cousin the Earl of Surrey tensed beside me. “No,” he muttered. “No.” What did he fear—some final betrayal in the form of a screaming confession on the scaffold? Would the covenant be revealed?
Hungerford’s terrified searching gaze froze when it came to Surrey. I braced myself for what we were about to hear. There was a part of me that prayed Hungerford would say something too insane to be understood. But there was another small part that craved to know the truth about their covenant, though its revelation would surely destroy two people I cared about, Surrey and Culpepper.
With a start, I realized it was not Surrey whom he stared at but me.
“Joanna Stafford, help me—can you not help me?” Hungerford wailed. “Only you can save me now. Come closer, I beg you.”
28
As all heads turned in my direction, Geoffrey, distressed, said, “Why does this man cry for you? In the name of the Virgin, what does he expect you to do?”
“Prayer,” I said. “Sir Walter Hungerford needs me to say the Dominican blessing. As I did for Baron Montagu. That is why I am here.”
“You can pray from back here,” said Geoffrey. “You should not be any closer to the scaffold.”
I glanced at Surrey’s pleading eyes and said, “I’m sorry, but I must do this.”
“Mistress Joanna, no,” pleaded Master Hans Holbein.
I turned away from them and took a step toward the scaffold. I realized I was too far back for Sir Walter Hungerford to hear me, that is why he begged me to get closer.
But I was so terrified of the scaffold that I couldn’t move. It was as if an invisible barrier pushed me back. Every spectator on this side of the platform stared at me; Sir Walter Hungerford stood atop it, his arms quivering at his sides. Desperate and waiting.
It took every scrap of willpower to force my right leg to move, and then my left. Forward, I prayed. Mother, Mary of God, help me forward.
The men in front of me silently shuffled back to afford me a path to the
scaffold. Some stared at me, uncomprehending.
I made it ten more steps and then stopped. A repugnant odor wafted from the scaffold—rotted wood and dirt and sweat, and much worse. There was the sickly sweet smell of blood and the horror of a man’s loosened bowels.
“May God the Father bless us,” I said, but my voice was raspy and broken. I coughed and then forced myself to continue: “May God the Son heal us. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us and give us eyes to see with, ears to hear with, and hands to do the word of God. Feet to walk with and a mouth to preach the word of Salvation with.”
I glanced, self-consciously, to my left and caught the gaze of Eustace Chapuys, imperial ambassador. He was the one who had crossed himself at the beginning of Cromwell’s speech. Behind him was Señor Hantaras.
I turned back to the scaffold. I was now near enough that Sir Walter looked down on me—and his lips moved.
“Agrippa, Agrippa, Agrippa,” he said in a rushed chant.
I almost buckled. Did anyone else understand that he spoke a name—and know that it belonged to a German occultist?
Much louder, desperate to drown him out, I said, “And the angel of peace to watch over us and lead us at last, by Our Lord’s gift, to the Kingdom.”
When he realized I’d come to the end, Hungerford’s mouth fell open and he stiffened. At that moment, two men leaped forward and pulled him back toward the center of the platform. One kicked in his knees from behind so that Hungerford slammed down, on his knees, in front of the block. Another pushed his head onto the block. Sir Walter would not be given the chance to say last words.
A hand gently but firmly pulled me away, back to where I’d stood. “That’s enough, Joanna, that’s enough, shhhhh,” Geoffrey said, as if he were soothing a skittish horse. I couldn’t help but be grateful for his taking charge, for my feet were unsteady.
And so my back was turned when the ax crashed onto the neck of Sir Walter Hungerford. It took only one blow to do it. Presumably, the executioner had practiced enough on Cromwell to do it correctly on the next man.
When I returned to Hans Holbein, his head was bowed, hands clasped, and he was weeping hopelessly. The Earl of Surrey was no longer in our group. I caught a glimpse of him racing away, toward Tower Street. There was no opportunity to discover if he had heard Hungerford chant Agrippa’s name.
The spectators all silently headed toward Tower Street. There had been no effort to rescue Cromwell from death—it seemed to me ridiculous that anyone would dare such a thing. We who came to observe his and Hungerford’s deaths did so for our own private reasons, and were now most anxious to get away, though none fled as openly as Surrey.
I was under no illusion that my prayer would be enough to spare Sir Walter Hungerford from God’s judgment. As a novice, I had seen terrifying pictures in our priory’s devotional books of Purgatory. Hungerford’s many sins condemned him to a long and fiery time in that celestial prison. But now I must turn from the afterlife to the needs of the living.
Geoffrey had one arm around my waist, and I realized he had also linked arms with Master Holbein, who must be helped along. Although it was dangerous to show grief at the deaths of traitors, the royal artist could not conceal his feelings and was in great difficulty. The three of us shuffled forward, awkwardly.
What would Geoffrey and I do now? If there were enemies waiting for me west of Tower Hill, how could we anticipate their next move? I was so dazed, so horrified, by what I’d just seen that my mind could not form any sort of defensive plan, although I knew one was urgently needed.
As Geoffrey and I escorted the broken Hans Holbein away from Tower Hill, I felt no one’s eyes seeking me out, sensed no imminent danger. The sun blazed from on high, meaning there was scant shade on the street. “If only I’d brought a flask—I’m a fool,” said Geoffrey. “He is suffering from the heat and a drink could make all the difference.” Holbein seized on that, pointing weakly at the Rose Tavern, halfway down Tower Street. “I am acquainted with . . . the tavern keeper,” he said. “Could we not rest there a time?”
I nodded to Geoffrey. I was feeling light-headed myself, whether from the heat or what I’d endured. Although the tavern was no place for a woman, racing down the baking hot streets of London was impossible.
The Rose Tavern boasted long tables covered with clean cloth. The tavern keeper did indeed know Master Holbein, and he cleared a table in the corner for “the greatest artist in all of Christendom.” The establishment was full, the men drinking with a grim purpose I saw more often in the faces of worshippers at Holy Trinity Church. Many were spectators from Tower Hill, their faces reddened with sun. That more than explained the sour spirit.
Tall cups were delivered to our corner, brimming with Lepe, a Spanish white wine fresh from the cellar. Holbein downed his drink in one continuous gulp, ignoring Geoffrey’s warning to drink slowly. Wiping his mouth, he sat back in his chair and then, finally, shared with us his thoughts, in a low voice so that no stranger could hear him: “Make no mistake, my friends, in Germany I’ve seen bloodshed, terrible acts of violence. The Peasants’ War swept across the country, with battles that you cannot even imagine. But here—you English—you make a terrible cold business of killing a man in the prime of his life. And you expect him to walk up to the ax, so nonchalant, and admit to crimes he is not guilty of?”
“You’re referring to Cromwell’s last words?” Geoffrey asked.
Holbein gestured for another wine.
“Yes, what was that all intended to mean?” Geoffrey said. “Cromwell’s no Catholic.”
Holbein’s eyes filled with tears again. Geoffrey patted him on the back and I took one of his knobbly artist hands in mine.
“Afterward, to kill a madman like Hungerford—and why do it the same day as Cromwell?” Holbein said, genuinely baffled. “As hard as it is to watch someone spout lies to suit some strange custom, it’s just as hard to look upon a man’s pure terror, in the face of death.”
Holbein downed his second cup of wine, once again ignoring Geoffrey’s advice to drink slower. Only a few sips made my head swim; it was strong wine. I swallowed a chunk of brown bread, and that gave me a little strength.
“How did you do it, Mistress Joanna?” asked Holbein, turning to me. “How did you have the bravery to walk up to that scaffold, and say a prayer for a condemned man in front of so many others?”
Such attention to my actions made me uncomfortable.
“It is not bravery so much as fear,” I sighed. “How could I face God our Maker if I had refused such a request—whether it was made to me as a representative of the Dominican Order or not, I had no choice but to comply.”
Holbein shook his head. “Your humility does you justice, but such a reasoning is inadequate to the occasion. I’ve never known a woman before who would do a thing like that.”
“There aren’t any other women like Joanna,” said Geoffrey. His voice was soft, and for a few seconds it was possible to accept the sentence as just another statement of fact, such as the sun shone bright or wine was made from grapes. But as the full import sank in, I felt a surge of happiness. He often seemed angry and suspicious with me, overly protective, just as I was wary and defensive with him. The trauma of Tower Hill stripped away our usual emotions and exposed what lay beneath, perhaps. But Geoffrey had made it clear that he no longer harbored love for me and I’d accepted that with relief, so why should I be happy to learn otherwise? I stole a glance at Hans Holbein. A smile played in the corner of his lips as he regarded us both, then an awkward silence settled on our table.
I shifted in my chair and made a show of craning my neck, as if something had caught my attention. That is when, incredibly, something did. A narrow door swung open to a side room and a servingwoman eased out. Behind her, before the door closed tight again, I glimpsed my cousin Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, sitting at a round table.
“Geoffrey, I
must speak to my cousin,” I said, rising.
“You cannot go anywhere else,” he insisted, returning to his usual form. “I can’t lose sight of you, Joanna.”
I reassured him and then made my way to the room. My gentle rapping on the door called forth a loud “Be off with you,” but I opened the door nonetheless.
“Ah, it’s you—of course it’s you,” he said. “Come. Celebrate with me. There’s enough for two.”
I’d seen only brown bread on the long tables in the main tavern, but Surrey had in front of him a board of manchet and a plate of meats, as well as an apple neatly sliced, its edges just beginning to brown. The smell of wine hung in the air—not the Spanish white we drank but a rich Rhenish red, Surrey’s favorite. A bottle of it stood in the center of the table and he poured a second goblet full with a flourish.
“It took much effort to bring down Cromwell,” I said, sliding into a chair.
“It did indeed,” he said. “Here’s to a vanquished Cromwell and a Howard queen.” He clinked my goblet in a toast before guzzling it like cheap ale.
I raised my goblet but could not bring myself to drink. As much damage as Cromwell did to the kingdom and to those I loved, I could not rejoice in his horrific death. Nor could I exult in Catherine’s marriage, for it brought me nothing but dread.
“What do you make of Cromwell’s claiming to be a Catholic at the end?” I asked.
Surrey waved his hand, dismissing the notion. “Cromwell was the most fanatical Reformer in the kingdom—those were the charges against him, not treason but sacramental heresy. He was just trying to wrangle some sort of lenient treatment for his son and nephew, who are defenseless now. Cromwell knows the kingdom will turn Catholic again with him gone and he wants to put them on the winning side.”
“Have you seen any evidence of such a change in religion?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Surrey admitted. “But it should come soon, my father and Bishop Gardiner are sure of it. Gardiner’s expecting Robert Barnes to burn at the stake before the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin. And he also expects some of the prisoners who’ve been held for years because of obedience to Rome to be freed.”
The Tapestry: A Novel Page 27