The Scarlet Peacock

by Field, David

  Thomas stepped wearily down the stairs and into the chamber, where his two visitors bowed solemnly. Thomas smiled as he recognised them.

  ‘Masters Brereton and Wriothesley, you are welcome. I trust my dear friend Henry is in good health?’

  ‘Indeed, my lord,’ Brereton replied reassuringly, and Thomas made a mental note that Brereton at least, as the current wiper of the royal arse, would be well aware were he not. Thomas then stood there with an enquiring look on his face, requiring them silently to announce their business. Wriothesley had been carrying an ornate box, from which he carefully extracted a parchment from which was hanging what looked like all the seals in the realm, and handed it over for Thomas to examine.

  ‘As you can see, my lord Archbishop, it contains the hands under seal of the entire clergy and nobility of England, petitioning his Holiness the Pope to lose no further time in granting the annulment. It wants only your signature and seal, and we may finally return to London, after several months on the road.’

  ‘And I shall delay you no further than is required to add mine to the collection,’ Thomas assured them as he gestured for George to bring him some wax and a candle. In no time at all he had added his signature and seal, and the two men departed. George was alarmed to hear a cry of pain from Thomas as he clutched the edge of the table at which he had been standing.

  ‘What ails you, master?’ Thomas smiled thinly.

  ‘The usual, George. For some reason, the mere sight of those Courtly messengers has brought back my suffering. Please make me up another simple.’

  George’s face fell. ‘The apothecary was most insistent that the dose should not be consumed more than thrice a day, master.’

  ‘The apothecary does not suffer my pains, George. Please do it, and bring it to my bedside.’

  Outside, as they remounted, Brereton grinned across at Wriothesley.

  ‘Back to his Majesty without further delay. I would be home in the arms of my lady.’

  ‘But first to Norfolk,’ Wriothesley reminded him, ‘if we are to keep on his good side.’

  When the time came to move north from Southwell, it was decided that they should do so via Scroby, Welbeck, Worksop and Cawood, at all of which there were well appointed houses in which Thomas would be well received. Indeed, the further north they travelled, the more obvious it became that the good people of the northern counties were deeply devout, and so far removed from all knowledge of affairs in London, still less those of mainland Europe, that the toxic complaints of Luther against the Church of Rome had not yet been heard. They knew equally little about the affairs at Court, and for many of them Thomas was the nearest they had ever come to the King himself. This was probably why several local landowners sought to delay him in his progress by laying on hunts, all of which he politely declined as he rode slowly towards his personal Promised Land.

  They finally reached Cawood Castle, seven miles south of York, and Thomas said a loud prayer to God as he set eyes on the spires of the fine cathedral in which he would shortly be installed as the practising Primate of England, of which he had hitherto been merely the absentee overlord, enjoying its revenues. He was wondering how he would be received in the circumstances, and was therefore somewhat apprehensive when George Cavendish advised him, shortly after a modest dinner of herring and small beer, that a delegation from the Minster, led by its Dean, Doctor Higden, sought audience with him.

  There was a polite exchange of pleasantries, during which Dr Higden tactfully explained to Thomas that he had been absent from his benefice for so long that his fatherless children had slipped into their own ways, while Thomas assured him that this was no curious visit, but the start of a commitment for such of his remaining life as God might, in His infinite grace, grant to him. That being established, Dr Higden got down to the business that had brought him there.

  ‘We look forward to your final installation as orphans being adopted by loving new parents,’ he began, ‘but until that moment, it is our ancient custom that you not proceed beyond the choir door. This is for the curious, and in your case totally unlikely, reason that should God call you before your installation, you will be buried in the body of the Minster, and not above the choir.’

  ‘This I fully understand, and I shall honour your local custom with a glad heart,’ Thomas assured them. ‘Touching the matter of my installation, I would that it be conducted on the Monday following the next Sunday when, with your blessing, I shall reside in your house and shall take it upon myself to supply the wherewithal for a grand banquet at which, due to my current frailty, I will, by your leave, consume only some of the fine herring that I have discovered in this part of the country. I also add that whereas it is customary on these occasions for the object of the ceremony to enter the church along a carpet that is thereafter torn up and distributed among the poor, I would fain make the progress along bare ground and in my stockinged feet. This I will do in order to gainsay any word that may have travelled north ahead of me that I am a vain man, or guilty of the sin of pride.

  ‘It shall be as you wish, magister,’ Dr Higden assured him, as the Minster delegation took their leave.

  *

  Only one thing dampened Thomas’s joy, and feeling of a fulfilled destiny, in the days prior to his planned installation. This was a letter from Thomas Cromwell, urging him to be more circumspect and humble in his public appearances. He first enquired regarding Thomas’s continuing health, then warned him that, at Court, ‘Your charitable demeanour is misrepresented here by your enemies. Some allege you keep too great a house and are continually building. However, I think you are happy now that you are at liberty to serve God and banish all vain desires of the world which bring men nothing but trouble and anxiety.’

  The warning fell upon deaf ears, but it was accurate, and the outcome of Cromwell’s plodding, if unspectacular, activities in the service of Norfolk. From such a position he was able to monitor at least the external manifestations of the plotting that was still taking place, although had he been privy to conversations between Henry and the Lady Anne, the warning he sent to Thomas would have been even more strongly worded.

  Anne was now Hell bent on seeing Thomas brought to his total ruin and public disgrace, and it was as if the almost lifelong contempt and hatred that Norfolk felt for Thomas had become her own. The absence from Court of the expelled Katherine had left Anne as the constant companion of the increasingly frustrated Henry, and Anne was now the hostess of all Court events, as if she were Queen already. But Henry had got no further towards her bed than he had ever been, and Anne was able to employ hints of future sexual favours as a spur to further slights against Thomas, as she and her father and uncle began to draw the strings of the net tighter around the unsuspecting priest whose own sin of pride was one of the greatest weapons they possessed.

  Through the intelligence passed on to her, Anne was able to impress upon Henry the pomposity of Thomas’s progress through the north, and the adulation with which he was being hailed. London knew as little about the ways of the north as those in the north knew about affairs at Court, and it was easy to play upon Henry’s fears of that great expanse of land that was held down only thinly by his few loyal earls and knights, and its possible alliance with the treacherous Scots beyond its northern borders. Henry was soon persuaded that Thomas was a possible focal point for a popular rebellion, and was fed almost daily with a diet of tales regarding Thomas’s triumphant progress at the head of the most spectacular procession that the people ‘up there’ had ever witnessed. Subtly, this was slowly converted into a belief that in some way it was Thomas’s ambition to reinstate Katherine and align England more closely with its most powerful enemy, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.

  ‘He was ever close to Katherine,’ Anne reminded him late one evening, as she once again declined to disrobe in her bedchamber while Henry was still there. ‘He once sought to be Pope, did he not, and he has no doubt been promised by Charles that this will be his reward for delivering the nati
on into the hands of its enemies.’

  Henry waved away the argument with an impatient hand.

  ‘Thomas is a pompous, honey-tongued, self-important fool, but he loves me truly enough, and for these twenty years he has been my constant friend. I could not bring myself to believe these things you say of him.’

  ‘Would you believe them if I brought you proof?’

  ‘What proof could you possibly have that Thomas is plotting with Charles?’

  ‘There are said to be letters, dearest. One letter at least, or so my uncle warns me. He also bid me say nothing to you until the matter could be investigated further, but such is my love for you, and my desire to be your wife, that I find it impossible to keep secrets from you. Particularly those that go so directly to the security of your person and your throne.’

  ‘Bring me the letter of which you speak.’

  ‘It is with my uncle.’

  ‘Then bring your uncle, along with the letter. That is a command, Anne.’

  The following morning, Henry looked in stunned disbelief at what Norfolk had handed to him. It was in Thomas’s distinctive hand, and it invited Charles of Spain to invade England, where he would receive the loyal support of fifty thousand armed men from the north, led by the man who sought the Papal throne as his reward for his services. There was no mistaking the seal of York, although it had been broken by Norfolk’s men when they had intercepted the letter, which was alleged to have been intended for a vessel moored at Tilbury by the hand of one of Katherine’s grooms who was, unknown to her, in Norfolk’s pay.

  The colour drained from Henry’s face as he realised that there was only one course he could take.

  ‘Send a message north to Harry Percy without delay, and summon Sir William Kingston. It is time to pluck this peacock, ere he brings the entire realm into ruin.’

  *

  They came for him three days before his planned installation, while he was still at Cawood Castle, although it was some time before Thomas realised that they were there, and even then he mistook their purpose. He was in his bedchamber, trying to force down some fruit sent by a kindly well-wisher, when a large contingent of armed men, led by Henry Percy, Sixth Earl of Northumberland following the death of his war veteran father, arrived at the porter’s lodge and demanded the keys to the outer gates in the King’s name. Unwilling to take them at their word, the porter send for George Cavendish, who agreed that they could enter as far as the main hall to attend upon Thomas, but no further.

  Attracted by the noise down below, one of Thomas’s serving men tiptoed down the stairs until he reached the bend halfway down, then, goggle-eyed, raced back upstairs and advised Thomas that his hall was full of strangers. Thomas sent immediately for George Cavendish.

  ‘Who are they below, who caused Gerard such a fright?’

  ‘In truth, master, it is the Earl of Northumberland, with an armed body of his retainers.’

  ‘And you did not see fit to advise me of this earlier, when we might have entertained them more fully? Fie George, bring the Earl up here immediately, that I may offer him my apologies in person. No, on the other hand it is probably better that I do so.’

  Thomas clumped down the staircase on legs weak with his advancing years and emerged into the hall, where he hurried towards Harry Percy with open arms.

  ‘Well met, Harry, and peace be with you. It is many years since we were last together, and if my weak old eyes do not play me false, you have grown as much into a man as you have into your title. It is to be hoped that you honour the name of Northumberland as much as did your father, who was one of my dearest friends – after the King, of course.’

  Harry Percy gazed uncomfortably down at the floor, and mumbled to Thomas that he needed to speak with him privily. Thomas, still unaware of the nature of what was about to occur, beckoned with his hand for Harry to accompany him up the stairs into his chamber. Once they were there Harry closed the door gently, walked to the centre of the chamber, and with the gentlest touch of which he was capable he placed a mailed fist on Thomas’s arm and all but whispered.

  ‘In the name of the King, I arrest you for high treason.’

  Thomas’s jaw dropped at the same time that Percy seemed to run out of words. The two men stood staring at each other, each locked in their own mind to their last conversation, when the all-powerful Chancellor at the height of his popularity had banished the young page from his household because of his infatuation with a young woman who had taken the King’s fancy. The silence was broken by the noisy opening of the chamber door, as Thomas’s physician Dr Agostini was roughly shoved into the middle of the chamber by Master Walsh, a royal attendant who Thomas knew only by sight.

  ‘This one’s arrested too,’ Walsh announced, then checked himself as he became aware of Thomas glaring at him. Walsh had last seen Thomas in better days, and was unsure of the merit of what he had been sent to do, give the high regard in which Thomas had been held by the King not so long ago. It was Thomas who broke the uneasy silence.

  ‘I cannot conceive of me what grounds the King may have for having me taken up for treason, but no doubt there have been crooked tongues in his ear, and no doubt one or other of you gentlemen has a warrant under the King’s hand?’

  ‘We have such, ‘Walsh explained when Percy seemed to have been struck dumb, ‘but we may not show it to you at this time, since it contains further instructions to which you may not be allowed to become privy.’

  ‘Am I for the Tower?’ Thomas asked in a wavering voice as he sat down heavily on his bed bolster.

  ‘As I just explained,’ Walsh persevered, ‘we are not commanded to make you privy to our full instructions. For the moment, it will be sufficient if you yield up the keys to this castle, and prepare yourself and your immediate servants for travel south as soon as this may be accomplished. Your physician here will go ahead of us, under escort of course.’

  ‘I am a very sick man,’ Thomas protested, the colour all but gone from his face, ‘and I must needs have my physician about me. The King surely cannot desire my death ere we even reach St. Albans?’

  ‘Those are our orders,’ Walsh insisted. Thomas looked for confirmation to Harry Percy, who merely hung his head and nodded.

  Two hours later, George Cavendish found Thomas still sitting where he had been when Percy and Walsh had bid him a good night. His arms were folded around his stomach, and he was crying freely, the tears rolling down his face and splashing onto the collar of his night shirt.

  ‘Have the pains returned, master?’ George enquired. Thomas nodded through his tears.

  ‘But to the physical pains that in truth have never really left me, for all the apothecary’s skill, I must now add the pain of betrayal, which burns into me like no other torment. What false tongues have persuaded Henry that I – his staunchest of friends since he was a mere boy – have been guilty of treasonous behaviour? Or have I unwittingly done something, in the service of God, that has so sorely offended him that he takes it to be a threat to his throne? The good Lord knows that if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in this fashion in my grey hairs. It seems that I must become more holy if I am to avoid the wickedness of men.’

  Due to an outbreak of flux that kept Thomas on his closed stool for most of that night, and into the following day, it was decided to delay the southward journey until the Sunday morning, when Thomas would be allowed to be accompanied by George Cavendish, his chaplain, his barber and two grooms of his chamber, but no more.

  Thomas was aghast.

  ‘There are many in my household who will be left penniless and bereft of any position, and that many miles from their families, such was their loyalty in following me north. May I at least have them gathered in the main hall, that I may explain to them what has happened, and give them some words of comfort?’

  ‘They have been enclosed in your chapel, my lord,’ Percy advised him uneasily, ‘lest their lamentations at your departure should d
iscomfort you further.’

  ‘There will be no departure on my part until I have spoken to them,’ Thomas defied him with a lingering vestige of his old determination and single-mindedness. At this point, the clamour of discontent that was audible from the chapel threatened to turn into a full scale riot, and Percy relented.

  The servants filed sadly into the great hall, many of them wailing and lamenting, and all of them visibly overcome by grief. Thomas raised his hands in the air, and gave a general blessing before adding

  ‘I am no more apprised of the reason for my forced departure from here than are you, but it is my final instruction to you as your master that you think not ill of the King, who has obviously been overborne by the evil tongues of those who are my enemies. Why they are my enemies I know not, but it is my earnest command that you blame not his Majesty, who was ever my true friend, as was I to him. Rather, put your trust in Him who I serve in my holy office, as do I. God knows the merit of my case, and the King shall know of it ere long, if there be any justice left in this realm. And so I take my loving leave of you all.’

  It was necessary for Percy’s men to gently urge their horses through the loyal throng that had gathered outside the castle gate to bid Thomas a loving farewell and, to his considerable embarrassment, to call down curses upon those who had falsely accused him of treasonous acts. The first night was spent at Pontefract, much to Thomas’s discomfort, given its reputation for horrible deaths inflicted on noble prisoners, then it was on to Doncaster, where the fading afternoon light was aglow with candles held high in the air by the hundreds who had gathered at the roadside to wish him God speed and a fair trial. It was here that George Cavendish was handed a red buckram bag that Thomas had left in error at Cawood, and which a horseman had been sent back to recover. George opened it in curiosity, and was horrified to discover that it contained nothing other than three hair shirts.