by Jean Plaidy
“Your Grace could not have given me a task which delights me so much. To have a pen in my hand once more and on such a composition! It is something I have wanted for a long time.”
The King’s hand came down on his shoulder; it was a heavy blow, but its very heaviness expressed not only approval, but affection. The eyes were shining with pleasure; the cheeks were flushed.
“Come, Master More. This way.”
The King threw open the door of a small room, which was richly carpeted and hung with exquisitely worked tapestry.
When Thomas saw the young woman, she was on the window seat in an ungainly attitude, her legs tucked under her skirt. Her bodice was low-cut and her dark hair fell about her bare shoulders. What astonished him in that half-second was that she did not rise when the King entered, but threw him a saucy smile.
The King stopped and stared at her. Then she must have become aware of the fact that he was not alone. She jumped to her feet and fell on her knees.
“What do you here, girl?” demanded the King.
“I crave Your Grace’s pardon. I…but…I thought…Your Grace desired my presence here.”
“Get up,” said the King.
She rose, and Thomas recognized her as Mary Boleyn, the King’s mistress. Her gaze was almost defiant as she looked at Thomas. There was in that look a certainty that the King’s displeasure could not last.
“You have our leave to retire,” said the King.
She curtsied and took two or three steps backward to the door.
Thomas noticed how the King watched her, his mouth slackening, his eyes a brighter blue.
“Come in, come in, man,” he said almost testily. “Ah, there is where you may sit. Now, look you, these notes are to be made into a great book. You understand me? A great book! You know how to write books. Well, that is what you must do for me.”
The King’s attention was straying, Thomas knew; his thoughts had left the room with that dark-haired girl.
Henry said: “If there is anything you want, ask for it. Start now. See what you can do with these notes…and later…when you have something ready, you may bring it to me.”
The King was smiling. His mood had changed; he was already away with the girl who had just left.
“Do your work well, Master More. You will not regret it. I like to reward those who please me….”
The King went out, and Thomas sat down to look at the notes.
He found it difficult to concentrate. He thought of the King and the dark-eyed girl; he thought of Surrey and Bess Holland; he thought of the sharp eyes of Suffolk, the wily ones of old Norfolk, and of Thomas Wolsey, who was cleverer than any of them.
And he longed, as he had never longed before, for the peace of his home.
ADJUSTING THE King’s notes was a pleasant task, except that it kept him more than ever away from his family. Many times he had been on the point of slipping home to Bucklersbury when a messenger had come to tell him that the King was asking why he was not in his presence.
Henry liked him. He liked the way in which the work was shaping. He read it and reread it; and he glowed with pride.
“Ah,” he would cry, “here’s the answer to Master Luther. Read it, Kate.”
The Queen would read, and she also was delighted, for she hated the German monk even more than Henry did.
“Would I had him here…that German monk!” the King would cry. “He should die…die for the insults he has heaped upon my mother. For my mother is the Church. Ha, Kate, you will see what we shall do with this trumpeter of prides, calumnies and schisms. He is a member of the Devil. He is a low-liver. Mark my words on that. Only the immoral could lose the faith of their fathers in such a way. We are bound to the See of Rome. We could not honor it too much. Anything we could do would not be too great. I swear it.”
“Your Grace will forgive me,” interjected Thomas, “but those words you have uttered would, in a court of law, be called maintaining papal jurisdiction in England.”
“What’s that? What’s that?” cried Henry.
“I was thinking, my lord King, of the Statute of Praemunire.”
“Ha!” laughed the King. “Here’s a lawyer for us, Kate. A writ issued against a King in his own realm, eh? Ha, Thomas More, they are right to call you an honest man. You do well to speak thus before your King. He likes you for it. But I say this: So do I love the Papacy that I would hold nothing back to defend it. Remember, Master More, from that See we receive our Crown Imperial.”
“I must put Your Highness in remembrance of one thing,” said Thomas. “The Pope, as Your Grace knows, is a Prince, as you are yourself, and is in league with other princes. It could fall out that Your Grace and His Holiness may at some time vary in your opinions. I think therefore that his authority might be more lightly touched upon in the book.”
“But I tell you, Master More, so are we bound to the See of Rome that we could not do too much to honor it.”
“Then it is my bounden duty to remind Your Grace again of the Statute of Praemunire.”
“Have no fear, Master More. Have no fear. We know well how to look to these matters. And continue with us as you always have been. We like your honesty.”
And as the book progressed, so did the friendship between Thomas and the King and Queen. He must sup at the King’s table; he must walk with the King on the terraces; and he must linger at the Palace until darkness fell, for the Queen had heard that he knew as much of the spheres that moved in the heavens as any man at Court; and the Queen wished him to instruct her.
“The King himself would like to be there at the instruction,” said Henry. “For while governing this kingdom here on Earth, he would like to learn something of the kingdom of the skies.”
So in the evenings Thomas would be on the balconies of the Palace, the Queen on his left hand, the King on his right, the courtiers ranged about them while he pointed out the constellations to the watching group.
“How the King favors this man!” said the courtiers. “He is next to the Cardinal himself in the King’s favor.”
They would note the Queens smile as she pointed out how brilliant Orion was that night, and humbly asked if she was right in assuming that the two brilliant points of light in the western sky were the twins, Castor and Pollux, and was that Procyon down in the west-south-west?
They would hear the loud, booming laughter of the King as he declared that the constellation called Cassiopeia did not to him look in the least like a lady in a chair; they would notice how many times the glittering hand would come down upon the somberly clad shoulder of Thomas More.
“The King seems more interested in the Pleiades than in Mary Boleyn!” it was whispered among the ladies who watched such matters, for many of them hoped that one day the royal eyes would be turned from Mary Boleyn toward them.
When the book was finished, and such learned men as Fisher, Stephen Gardiner and Wolsey himself had studied it and declared it to be of sound good sense in perfect literary style, the King was so pleased that he said he would have no more of Master More in attendance; in future it should be Sir Thomas More.
HENRY THE King was deeply gratified. The book was acclaimed throughout Europe by all those who stood against Martin Luther. It was hailed now as a work of genius. The Pope was delighted with his English champion, but he demurred a little at bestowing the title asked for; he had to consider the wrath and jealousy of Francis and Charles, of whom he lived in perpetual fear. But eventually Henry’s bribes and offers of friendship prevailed, and the King of England was known throughout the Catholic world as “Defender of the Faith.”
But Martin Luther was not the man to ignore the publication of the book; he poured scorn on it and the King of England at the same time. Henry nominated Sir Thomas More to answer Luther in the name of the King of England.
Thomas had not only his title; he was now made Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer—Norfolk himself was the Treasurer—and so had become an important member of the King’s Council.
Thus did the man in the hair shirt become one of those ministers in constant attendance upon the King.
Luther wrote scurrilous attacks on Henry; Thomas replied with equally scurrilous attacks on the German monk. And Margaret, reading those replies her father was writing in the name of the King, would often feel depressed and uneasy. It seemed to her that she had lost the father she had once known. The gentle, courteous man had become a master of invective. It made Margaret shudder to read: “Reverend brother, father, tippler, Luther, runagate of the order of St Augustine, misshapen bacchanal of either faculty, unlearned doctor of theology…” How could her gentle father have written such words? How could he have gone on to say that Luther had called his companions together and desired them to go each his own way and pick up all sorts of abuse and scurrility—one to gambling houses, another to the taverns and barbers’ shops, another to the brothels?
What is the Court doing to my father? she asked herself.
When he came home she saw the change in him. There was a fierceness of manner about him. She knew that the hair shirt, which she still washed for him, was worn more frequently; she knew that he used a piece of wood for his pillow, so that he might not find easy sleep. There was a new emotion in his life, which had never been there before; it was hatred for the heretics.
She had to talk to him.
“Father,” she said, “you have changed.”
“Nay, daughter, I am the same as ever.”
“I do not altogether understand,” she said, “for you and Erasmus at one time would talk of the wickedness in the monasteries. You planned to set certain matters right in the Church. This Martin Luther…does he not think as once you and Erasmus did?”
She thought of Erasmus, essentially a scholar. Now that the work he had started had been taken up by another, he wanted none of it; he would retire to his scholar’s desk, to the life of reflection, not of action. Margaret felt that that was the life her father should have chosen. But the King had forced him to the forefront of the fight, and it was the King’s battle; he was using words the King would have used. If he had been any other man she would have believed he did so in order to curry favor.
“A change has been wrought in these affairs, Meg,” he said. “Erasmus and I once sought to set right what was wrong. This monk seeks to destroy the Church and to set up in its place another which is founded on heresy.”
“But those words you have written of him…I…I could not believe that you had written them.”
“I have written them, Meg. Doubt not that. As I see it, we have to fight a greater evil, in those who would destroy the Church, than we had when we fought those who only abused it. Meg, the Church still stands…the Holy Catholic Church. To destroy it would bring horror to the world. Evil would break its bounds. At all costs the Church must be upheld. Oh yes, let us have evil driven from the monasteries, let us have a stricter rule for our priests if we must…but those who seek to destroy the Church must be themselves destroyed, for if we allow them to destroy the Church, then evil will prevail.”
“But this monk, Father…can you really call him a heathen?”
“I can, Meg, and I do.”
“Yet he claims to be a man of God. It is not God whom he reviles; it is the Church of Rome.”
“But the Church of Rome is the Church of our fathers. You know that, Meg.”
She looked at him and thought: For the first time in my life I doubt his wisdom. I have never known this ferocity in him before. I have never before known him show such anger as he does toward these heretics.
“Father,” she said uneasily, “the King has said that if this heathen—meaning the monk Luther—does not recant, he should be burned alive. Burned alive, Father! You cannot believe that that should be done! You used to say that we should be kind to others, treat them as we ourselves would be treated.”
“Meg, if your right hand was evil, if it was touched with a poison that would infect the rest of your body, would you not cut it off?”
She was silent, but he insisted on an answer. “Yes, Father.”
“Well, then. The suffering of the body is as naught to the eternal damnation of the soul. If, by setting the flames at the feet of this monk Luther, we could restore his soul to God, then would it not be well to burn him alive?”
“I do not know.”
“Meg, it is a glorious thing to subdue the flesh, to become indifferent to pain. What happens to these bodies cannot be of importance. And if those who deny God are to suffer eternal damnation, what can a few minutes in the fire mean to them?”
Margaret covered her face with her hands. I have lost a part of him, she thought.
He drew her hands from her face and smiled at her; all the gentleness was back in his eyes.
She saw that he was tired, that he longed to escape from the life at Court, to retire to the quietness and peace of family life.
It was a strange revelation to find that she did not entirely agree with him. Yet how she loved him! Even more, now that she believed she had detected a certain weakness in him, than she had when she had loved him for all his strength.
She almost wished that he had not educated her so thoroughly, that he had not trained her mind to be so logical. She wished that she could have gone on seeing him as perfect.
He was begging her to return to the old relationship. He wanted to laugh and be gay.
“Now you have talked to me, Margaret,” he said. “You have examined me with many questions, and you look at me quizzically, and you are turning over in your mind what I have said, and you doubt the wisdom of my words. Very well, my Meg. We will talk of this later. Now I have something to say to you. Can you guess what it is?”
“No, Father.”
“Well then, it is about Will.”
“Will Roper?”
“Who else? Do you not like him a little, Meg?”
She blushed, and he smiled to see her blush. “I like him, Father.”
“He loves you dearly. He has told me so.”
“I would rather he did not burden you with his foolish feelings.”
“Is it foolish to love you? Then, Meg, I must be the most foolish man on Earth.”
“’Tis different with us. You are my father, and it is natural that you and I should love.”
“’Tis natural that Will should also. He is good. I like him. I like him very much. There is no one I would rather see as your husband, Meg. For although he may not be as rich or handsome as our gay young Allington, although he may not make a lady or a duchess of you one day…he is none the worse for that.”
“Do you think I should care to be a lady or a duchess, Father? I am not like your wife, who has been so proud since she has become Lady More.”
He laughed. “Leave her her pleasures, Meg. They are small ones, and we understand her delight in them, do we not? But to return to Will. You are fond of him, I know.”
“As I am of the others. To me he is no more than…any of them.”
“But, Meg, he is personable and clever…a pleasant boy. What do you look for in a man?”
“He seems to me to be overyoung.”
“He is seven years your senior.”
“Still, he seems young. He lacks seriousness. He is no great scholar. If he had written something like Utopia…something that showed his ideals and…Oh, you have set us a high standard, Father. Your daughter measures all men against you, which means that she finds them sadly lacking.”
He laughed those words to scorn, but he could not help showing his pleasure.
Now he was himself again, full of laughter, enjoying every moment. This evening they would be together…all of them; they would converse in Latin as they were wont to do; and Alice would chide them, but only mildly. Her title, to her, was a bright bauble. They all smiled to see her face when the servants addressed her as “My Lady.”
It was good to have him back, to forget his fierceness against heretics, to sing and be gay as in the old days.
PERHAPS THERE is always
something good in what seems to be evil, thought Margaret. She longed for the days when her father had been a humble lawyer and Under-Sheriff of the City; she remembered with a tender pain the walks through the City; but this was not the case with all the members of the family.
Ailie was bright-eyed with happiness as she came into the schoolroom where Margaret sat with her books.
How lovely she is! thought Margaret. And more beautiful now that she is a member of this distinguished family than she was in the days of our humility.
Ailie pulled off the net which held back her golden hair from her face. That beautiful hair now fell about her shoulders and down to her waist.
“Such news, Meg! I am to be married. My Lady Allington! What do you think of that?”
“So Giles is to be your husband?”
“I shall be the first in the family to find one.”
“That does not really surprise us.”
“To tell the truth, Meg, it does not surprise me. Giles says what a good thing it is that Father has written this book with the King and become such an important person at Court. His father could not withhold his consent to a union with the stepdaughter of Sir Thomas More. Oh Meg, is it not a marvelous thing…what great happenings are set in motion by such little things? A mere book is written and I become Lady Allington!”
Margaret laughed. There was that in Ailie which amused her as it did her father. Perhaps Ailie was selfish because she saw herself as the center of the world, but it was a charming little world, and Ailie herself was so pretty and pleasant in her ways that it was impossible not to love her.
“Ailie, you will go away from us, for Giles will not live here.”
“He will certainly have his estates to attend to. But, depend upon it, I shall insist on many visits to my darling family.”
“Then I doubt not that there will be many visits, for I believe you will have your way as Lady Allington just as you have as Alice Middleton.”
“So do not fret, dearest Meg. We shall be together often. I shall bring you tales of the great world. I shall tell you what the ladies are wearing and what new dances are being danced…and all Court matters which Father never notices. Meg, it will be your turn next…yours or Mercy’s. I wonder who will first find a husband.”