The Abbey Close

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘My friends,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘It is good to see you after such a space. You do well, I trust?’ Martin looked at Danforth, willing him to speak first. Danforth could sense that the Cardinal’s appearance also shook his friend.

  ‘Very well, your Grace.’ The Cardinal held out his hand – the steady one – to them, and each bent in turn to kiss the sparkling amethyst on his finger. This was no ring denoting mere arms, as Dunbar had worn, but a pontifical ring, the symbol of the great authority invested in him by the Pope. ‘We are come out of Glasgow, your Grace.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I wrote you in Paisley some time back.’ Beaton wrinkled his forehead as though trying to remember how long ago it had been. ‘That seems a long time now. You were engaged in that business in Glasgow. Did you find the fellows who defamed my name?’ Martin swallowed nervously. He had given all the papers into the custody of Danforth, who silently brought the Glasgow libels out of his pockets and passed them over. Beaton’s eyes passed over them, his lips moving silently. As he read his pallor changed. ‘There are men of evil minds in this world.’

  ‘There are, your Grace. And these men are closer than you might suspect, as Mr Martin here has discovered.’ He produced the scrap of letter written by Archbishop Dunbar’s secretary. ‘Please, look upon this and note the hand that put these words to paper.’

  Beaton held the last of the slanderous bills in one hand and the scrap of paper in the other. His eyes slid back and forward between both. ‘Whose hand is this? From whence did it come?’ An edge had come into his voice.

  ‘It is so,’ Martin confirmed, finding his voice. ‘I took this from the man’s desk myself, directly outside the Privy Chamber of his Grace the Archbishop.’

  ‘And now I employ thieves?’ asked Beaton, but his tone was light and carried in it a little of his old energy.

  ‘This is proof, your Grace,’ said Danforth, ‘that the Archbishop’s man, his secretary, is the one who has slandered you in the most wicked way possible. His actions are contrary to the laws of man and God, to the laws of this realm. You might take this before the king, to prove that those who condemn your Grace’s name and pour filth on your reputation are minions of the Archbishop. If they attack you now for what has happened on the border, they will be given no credit for it and the king will lend no ear to it. Further, I doubt the Archbishop will carry on long as Chancellor.’

  ‘Dunbar is Chancellor no longer.’

  Danforth and Martin looked at each other, thrown into confusion. Surely this was good news. ‘Yet you might go further, your Grace. You have the libels and you now have this letter. The hand which wrote them is undeniably the same. You will once again be in the king’s favour, as his unjustly dishonoured friend.’

  ‘The king is dead,’ said the Cardinal. His secretaries paled. The sight seemed to rouse him a little, but hysteria had crept into his voice as he repeated, ‘dead, dead, the king is dead!’

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Martin. ‘His Grace wasn’t at the battle, wasn’t wounded. Poison? Murder?’

  ‘No gentlemen. He was ailing even before the battle, and the news of the girl-child hastened his decline. He has lain abed here these last days, since the news of the queen’s delivery. On receiving it he turned his face to the wall and died.’

  ‘No,’ said Danforth, as though he could will the news to be false. A logical, reasonable part of his mind proclaimed that it must be so; it railed against it. ‘That cannot be. Men do not turn their faces to the wall and expire, your Grace. I know death. It does not visit in that fashion.’ Even Danforth’s own father had taken time to pine away, refusing food, slowly settling his affairs before taking his leave of the world. ‘Not unless there is some evil art in it.’

  ‘Ever the English coroner-in-waiting,’ said Beaton, attempting and failing to smile. ‘I am afraid it is so. If he was broken before, the queen’s delivery finished him. He believes–’ he corrected himself, ‘he began to believe that every man both rich and poor had set their face against him, as had God. The Stewart kings began with a lass, quoth he – that lass as was delivered of her bairn in the Abbey of Paisley – and it might end with a lass – her born scarcely a week since.’ Danforth shivered. The king’s words had the ring of prophecy about them, and he feared that repeating them might make them come true. His hand wandered to his St Adelaide. Martin’s mind had turned backwards, to the disorderly cry of ‘murder’, and the discovery of Agnes Blackwood’s corpse. That had heralded the latest series of misfortunes that had befallen the kingdom. It had begun with a lass.

  ‘I am undone,’ said Beaton. ‘We are all undone. The king’s death will be blamed on the battle, and the battle laid at my door. Arran will now claim the regency unless ... unless I can think of some other indication the king might have made.’

  ‘Arran? That Hamilton boy? Sputtered Danforth, forgetting his place and Arran’s. He and Martin had just come from the west, from where an absent Hamilton had owned the lands, only to find that soon the whole country would be ruled by one of that greedy clan. ‘Why, he is a heretic. He calls the Holy Father a petty bishop.’

  ‘And a very evil bishop at that. Yes, the Hamilton boy, half-brother to Paisley’s absent Abbot, my own wretched kinsman. If he shows himself hot for reform then the Archbishop and I might have to unite in the face of a common threat. You see, gentlemen, how something bigger and more terrible than even the Archbishop’s games can sweep the chessboard clean? James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and little older than you, young Mr Martin. But what else is there, now that our king has been recalled to heaven leaving only a new-born bairn? Gentlemen, minorities can be troublesome enough, as generations of Scots can confirm. Now we have a regency in right of a six-day-old girl-child. Hail Mary, Queen of Scots.’ Hysteria threatened again.

  ‘Is all lost, your Grace?’ asked Martin, his voice surprisingly cool.

  ‘It might be; it might not be. If Hamilton assumes the regency, well ... he is but a young man. He might be glad of my experience and friendship. We can take nothing for granted. Presently I no longer trust looking further than tomorrow. But whatever falls, I shall see that you loyal gentlemen are not slighted, nor harried in the broils that are sure to come. There will always be a place for men of your faith and skill.’

  ‘Can we do anything, your Grace? Can we be of service?’ Danforth very much wanted to do something that might put some life back into his master.

  ‘No. Thank you. You might leave me the letter. It might be of use, in some fashion. I would have it.’ Danforth produced the papers from Dunbar’s secretary and placed them on the little desk. Beaton did not bother to look down at them. ‘Stay close, my friends,’ he said. ‘I might have need of good hearts and strong writing hands in the coming days. For now, you may go. Say nothing for the moment.’ Danforth and Martin bowed, replaced their hats, and began to leave the chamber. Beaton caught them. ‘Pray halt, gentlemen. Forgive me for being an oaf. I have not asked, Mr Danforth, how did you find the Abbey of Paisley? Did you complete the pilgrimage that has been on your mind these past years?’ The pair looked at one another, Beaton giving them a bemused glance as he noted the strange silence.

  ‘Your Grace, I thank you for allowing me leave to go. I found the Abbey a beautiful place. My pilgrimage is now complete: I have seen the best of Scotland, and all its holy places. I have found my peace.’

  ‘Then it was worth giving you leave, sir. Mr Martin wrote me when I was at Haddington that you had fallen ill. Forgive me for not asking your health. Yet I find you looking in better sort than when last I saw you. You have lost that drawn look that you once had. Good day to you, gentlemen. God bless you.’ They strode out of the flickering room, leaving the Cardinal to stare back into the fire. He held his trembling hand by the wrist, and began slowly twisting his ring with a thumb.

  On wavering legs Danforth followed Martin to another window casement, this one boasting a cushioned settle. Few servants moved around, most of them attending to their own masters, the royal
household likely being gathered together to be told the news. Martin blew out a long, shuddering breath. ‘The king dead,’ he said. ‘Another James to be buried, leaving a child to take the crown and others to rule.’ Danforth could think of nothing to say. Eventually, he hazarded, ‘well, Arnaud, we shall find out one thing at least.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘We shall discover whether the Scots will accept a girl as their queen regnant, to rule them in place of a man.’

  ‘And I don’t doubt that we’ll see blood spilled as minds are made up. No brothers for the little princess now, no prince to succeed.’

  ‘No. The only prince now is England’s Edward, and he shall be in want of a wife, and his father eager to give him one.’

  ‘A worrying thought.’

  ‘It is that. The times have been full of them of late.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Martin, turning to look at him. ‘For all we’ve lost a king, we’ve yet gained a queen. The earth has not been rent, and we can pray that neither will Scotland. Across that courtyard life still goes on for hundreds. Across the country it goes on for hundreds of thousands. His Grace was wrong to say that the board’s been swept clean. The king’s gone, but the queen and the rest remain in play, a bonny new queen carved and set amongst them. But you’ll have a friend to face it with. From an ocean of troubles might spring a little happiness and still more life.’

  ‘As Pegasus and Chrysador sprang forth from the blood of a gorgon. That is pleasing, Arnaud. Thank you. Let us go. I am beginning to think that death stalks me as though he were Lelantos and I his mark.’

  ‘You know,’ said Martin, ‘I may have to retract my friendship unless you learn to bridle your tongue.’ Danforth turned to the animated, intense face, gave him an aggrieved look and then his own wan smile.

  They rose from the cushioned window casement and began to make their way back to the servants’ quarters, into bright, tapestried rooms where life hummed, buzzed and sang.

  Author’s Note

  Though Simon Danforth and Arnaud Martin are not real, the world they inhabit is. One of the pleasures in writing this book was in researching it. Too often popular attention is focussed in this period on the antics of Henry VIII in England (at this time Henry had recently lopped off the head of the unfortunate Katherine Howard, and was about to embark on military adventures in France and a largely one-sided romance with Katherine Parr). However, north of the border, events were tumbling into chaos, with the weak-willed but artistically-minded James V losing control of his magnates and leaning heavily on the clergy, both financially and politically. For interested readers, I recommend following up any threads in The Abbey Close with a selection of the interesting and informative works I was lucky enough to consult.

  Central to writing this book was developing an understanding the personalities and events of the period. Although he remains off-stage, James V is an important figure in the novel. By far the most readable biography is Caroline Bingham’s James V, King of Scots (1971, Harper Collins). Bingham offers not only an insight into the half-Tudor king’s personality, politics and personal life, but a snapshot of the Scotland he inhabited, replete with lowland bourgeois wives decked out in copies of the splendour of the nobility.

  In terms of the politics of 1540s Anglo-Scottish relations, Marcus Merriman’s lively and frequently hilarious The Rough Wooings of Mary Queen of Scots (2000, Tuckwell Press) is invaluable reading. Merriman unpicks the complex politics, blasts apart many of the myths, and offers fair assessments of the key players. His book was crucial in painting as realistic a picture as possible of who knew what when. His book also helpfully acknowledged the phenomena of English exiles fleeing north of the border in the period after the Henrician Reformation. Useful also is Linda Porter’s Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots (2013, Macmillan), which offers an overview of events before, during and after those depicted in The Abbey Close. Finally, J. D. Mackie’s ‘Henry VIII and Scotland’ in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Volume 29, 1947, pp.93-114) remains the standard short study of the infamous English king’s aggressive, though inconsistent, policy towards the northern kingdom.

  Although a staggering number of popular books exist regarding the everyday lives, beliefs and behaviours of those living in Tudor London (and Tudor-era England more widely), there is an unfortunate dearth of work on the everyday life of the sixteenth-century Scot. For that reason, Madeleine Bingham’s Scotland Under Mary Stuart (1971, Allen & Unwin) proved extremely helpful in providing a general outline of how society functioned, from the administration of justice to the role of burgh baillies. For elements of Danforth’s faith and superstitious belief system, Gordon Donaldson’s The Faith of the Scots (1990, Batsford Ltd) was a great help.

  Despite having grown up in Paisley, which reached the apogee of its fame during the industrial revolution, I knew very little about the importance of its Abbey in the early modern period. Here William M. Metcalfe’sA History of Paisley 600-1908 (2004, The Grimsay Press) provided a goldmine. The Abbey’s great spire, mentioned in the novel, collapsed in the 1550s, and the building itself fell into ruin after the Reformation. However, thanks to the efforts of the gothic-minded Victorians, it was reconstructed and remains, today, a parish Church of Scotland church. The underground tunnels, or ‘great drain’ were excavated in the 1990s, and remain a haunting reminder of mediaeval life.

  The rivalry between Cardinal Beaton and Archbishop Dunbar was real, although the latter’s campaign of libelling was my own invention. Nevertheless, I consider it plausible. In the early modern period, throughout Europe, political figures were subject to verse libels: pithy little poems attacking the famous, often nailed up in public places. For those interested in how these operated, I recommend James Daybell and Andrew Gordon’s Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain (2016, University of Pennsylvania Press) and Steven May and Alan Bryson’s Verse Libel in Renaissance England and Scotland (2016, Oxford University Press).

  Cardinal Beaton, like his near-contemporary, Cardinal Wolsey, is a figure about whom few have had much good to say. If it counts at all in his favour he was, however, an implacable enemy of Henry VIII. In her definitive, though densely-academic, Cardinal of Scotland (2001, Donald), Margaret Sanderson paints a complex portrait of a tempestuous, bloodthirsty man, generous to his servants and possessed, at his height, of a power greater even than Wolsey enjoyed in England. To date, no popular biography of this urbane, slippery figure exists. Someone ought to write one.

  Giving your time to a book, especially from a first-time author, is a generous thing to do. Thank you to everyone reading this, and please feel free to get in touch via Twitter, where I waste time occasionally under the handle @ScrutinEye (a special thank you to anyone who gets the dated 90s reference). If you enjoyed The Abbey Close, you might be interested in the continuing adventures of Simon Danforth. In the upcoming The Royal Burgh, he will fall from the Cardinal’s favour but find himself enjoying family life in Stirling. Unfortunately, it is to be interrupted by murder, as Scotland’s criminal underbelly emerges in the wake of the king’s death...