“Who knows what the King’s wishes are? Do any of you gentlemen?” Harne asked, without looking up from his coin. And evidently expected no answer, for he laughed to himself for his own reply.
There is, it must be admitted, another difficulty, the matter of time. Nine o’clock of the day or not long after that the Lord Mayor and the aldermen and all their men will be arriving at Westminster. If possible the execution must be over and done with before then, and the crowd diverted. By all rights, no other choice, Ralegh must be dead, if he must die, before nine o’clock.
Not to forget that both Harne and Hammersley must change into their formal robes for the ceremonies in the Hall.
Therefore Walter Ralegh must be upon the scaffold no later than eight o’clock.
“A pretty plan, gentlemen,” Harne said. “But you make no allowance for the Fox. He has a part to play.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Hammersley asked.
And now Harne palmed his coin and looked at them, smiling, leaning his arms on the table.
“The Fox can tell the time of day,” he said. “Perhaps he will make an oration that will last until dinner time.”
He must not be allowed to speak too long, they agreed. It is the prerogative of the sheriff to limit the speaking.
“Good, then,” Harne said, rising first, returning the coin to his plain leather purse and standing over them. “If he will not stop his mouth, well stop it for him.”
Then to Hammersley, with a wink: “Until we meet again, Mr. Sheriff. I shall greet you upon the scaffold.”
He picked up his tankard of ale and left them to stare at his thin back as he walked away.
And now it is Sir Hugh Hammersley with a few of his men, carried under the stars on a small boat pulled by a pair of Southwark watermen. The only sounds are the splash of their oars. And of other oars as well. For there is traffic on the Thames already. Lights burn on both banks.
Hammersley is worried. Wondering how Harne will behave on the scaffold. And if his behavior becomes unseemly, how to manage him.
Hammersley has never been one of those men who enjoy the spectacle of public executions. At those few it has been his misfortune to witness, he has chosen to stand far back in the crowd and at the last to close his eyes.
It would be most embarrassing if the new sheriff of London and Middlesex should, on the scaffold in the presence of many, be forced to vomit.
He has taken a cordial prepared by an apothecary. But it seems to be of no virtue. The light motion of a wherry on the Thames—or is it the idea of the execution?—has his bowels turning somersaults.
For his own sake, then, he offers a prayer that the King will be merciful this morning.
Spending the night in chambers in old palace at Westminster are certain of the nobility. They must rise earlier than is their custom to be barbered, dressed, and prepared for a public appearance.
William Compton, new-made, in August, Earl of Northampton, twenty years younger than Ralegh. Here to show himself in the splendor of his title. Here, more pertinently, because he invested money in the Guiana voyage and, what with the high cost of his title and other recent expenses, he wonders if he shall have any return on that. He is hoping that Ralegh may reveal something. Perhaps a clue to what has become of vanished jewels and other valuables. He might gain favor of the King and his kinsman, the King’s present favorite, if he can give intelligence on this.
This new Earl thinks that a man about to die will not die with secrets in his heart and in the presence of a nobleman there to whom he is in debt.
There is young Henry de Vere, Earl of Oxford, well known in Court and London for drinking, brawling, whoring, and wenching, though he has only just returned from a tour of Italy. In Venice he offered to lead a band of volunteers in defense of that republic. And heard there that Sir Walter Ralegh might come to serve the Venetians as Admiral. It is reported that the Earl of Oxford has at last acquired some polish and refinement in his travels.
Greatest of the earls intending to be present is Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, proud, tall, and thin, now in his thirty-third year, though he seems stiff and grave, older than his years.
Already he has known such ups and downs of fortune as to be deeply disenchanted. His grandfather, Duke of Norfolk, was beheaded in the reign of Elizabeth in ’72. His father died in the Tower in ’95. And he lived his youth in close straits, near to poverty, seeing his own kin, the Howards, divide up estates and lands which should have been his. King James restored to him those portions which had been attained by the crown and made him Earl of Arundel. But two of his kinsmen, prodigal with his wealth and their own, remain in high office—the old Lord Admiral, now Earl of Nottingham, and the Earl of Suffolk, sitting on Council as the Lord High Treasurer.
The Earl of Arundel is a man of contradictions. He affects extreme simplicity of dress, perhaps out of the memory of times when simplicity was an enforced condition. Yet in his insistence upon ceremony, the old rules of etiquette and chivalry, in his examplary behavior, he has become, in contrast to a crude Court, the model of the ideal courtier.
James Hay has put it plainly, saying: “Here comes the Earl of Arundel in his plain stuff and trunk hose and untrimmed beard in his teeth. And yet he looks more like a nobleman than any of us.”
Arundel might be a Puritan by his appearance and rigidity, but was born a Catholic and continued steadfast in that faith until Archbishop Abbot brought him into the fold of the Church of England.
Though no one is likely to follow his style of dress, he has set one fashion—the collecting of pictures and statues from Europe, especially from Italy. Building upon the inheritance of a library and a gallery of pictures from his kinsman Lord Lumley, he has traveled the Continent in search of books and manuscripts, paintings and statues. And he keeps a network of agents there to buy for him. In travels to Italy, once in the company of Inigo Jones, together with his own company of thirty-six servants, he has brought home the strange ancient Roman statues and figures, all bare stone and unpainted, for the gardens and gallery of Arundel House. And the fashion has caught on with young Prince Charles and the rising men around him.
Arundel’s wife, less interested in such things, has brought home a Venetian gondola for her passages on the Thames.
A disenchanted Earl, but never a wicked or malicious man. Exemplary, though rigid and severe; trustworthy and a man of honor.
Honor which has brought him here to Westminster. For just before sailing off to Guiana, Walter Ralegh promised Arundel, also an investor in the venture, to return to England come what would and might. And so he did, all rumors and reports to the contrary. Returned in disgrace, but in honor. The Earl understands that paradox well. If he had not returned, he might have saved his skin. And so it behooves the Earl of Arundel to lend some measure of dignity no matter what transpires.
There is a fourth nobleman, nearby in Westminster though not at old palace, who has come to witness the events of the morning.
Older than the three earls, he is Sir Edmund Sheffield, Third Baron Sheffield. Whose mother married the Earl of Leicester in ’73. And he served under Leicester as a soldier in the Netherlands. He commanded a ship against the Armada in ’88. But he was young and only one of many in the time of the Queen. Prosperity has come in the new reign. He serves presently as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire.
Has been acquainted with Walter Ralegh, from a certain distance, and indeed has shared in some of his interests, including the future of planting colonies of Englishmen in the New World.
But it is not old acquaintanceship or mutual interest which bring him to be present, to see and to be seen. Sheffield is caught on the horns of an old dilemma. Because he is married to a Catholic, he has incurred the suspicion of some of the Protestant faction at Court. Yet his vigorous actions, enforcing law to the letter, against Catholic recusants in Yorkshire, far from clearing away doubts, have brought him troubles from the other side. The execution of a Catholic priest a little over a year a
go brought an angry complaint from the Spanish Ambassador and a reprimand, a cooling of favor from the King.
Today he is playing for both sides.
Let his presence be interpreted by the King and the Spanish faction as support of the King’s actions.
Meanwhile let the Protestants read in sympathetic concern a proof he is not allied to the other faction.
If he keeps straight face and grave countenance, it will work. For a blank mask becomes the face of comedy or tragedy according to the wishes of the beholder.
Most important, he will be seen there, and can only be less vulnerable for it.
Four noble gentlemen of England, three of high estate, are awake and preparing to be seen at the occasion (death or life) of this morning.
None of them certain which way things may go. Knowing, then, no more than Walter Ralegh.
At least, though they may not imagine it, they truly share that much—the strict uncertainty of the condemned.
A man groans in bed. Where he lies awake, having slept little.
He is Sir Sebastian Harvey, a wealthy man, member of the Guild of Ironmongers. Today is to be the most important day of his life. But he has not yet recovered from yesterday.
Yesterday, on the feast of Simon and Jude, he gathered a host of friends, servants, and aides, masters of his guild, all tricked out in new livery, the gentlemen in fine new forty-shilling gowns, and all together with horses and shiny weapons and music, with members of the watch of the wards and the trained bands of the London militia carrying pikes and halberds, with even a whiffler crying out, going with a broadsword to clear the way for the procession, just as for the King when he moves in procession through the streets, all these and many more if you count kith and kin, friends and families, strangers and dignitaries from elsewhere, and a fair number of imposters, all to be entertained with food and drink, music and shows at his considerable expense; yesterday through the streets of London winding slowly, streets bedecked with a multitude of banners and pennants and huge gay-colored cloths hanging down from the windows of houses, yesterday Sir Sebastian Harvey moved in triumphant procession to the magnificent Guildhall of London. Where in the presence of the members of all the ancient honored guilds (almost seventy now) and together with the twenty-six aldermen of each of the wards, he was given honor and authority to rule as Lord Mayor of London for a year. To rule and to represent this city and, within its walls and gates, to be second to no man living. The King himself, by ancient custom and privilege if not bald truth, being not superior to the Lord Mayor, once within the walls of London. Indeed the King must have the invitation and permission of the Lord Mayor to enter this privileged ground.
Amid pomp and ceremony was named Lord Mayor. Then the procession reformed and proceeded to the Ironmongers’ Hall on Fenchurch Street. Where he and two score odd liverymen of the guild, together with the freemen and their wives and children and a crowd of guests, sat down to a feast in honor of his election; others who could not be accommodated in the hall being served dinner at that stone house, the Elephant Tavern, nearby.
At the foot of the stairs leading up to the hall, he saluted the old wooden statue of their patron, St. Lawrence, full of sympathy for that saint’s martyrdom, as he considered the mounting costs of this day and the days to come.
Unwisely, though, he ignored the companion statue of the bird of the company, the mysterious ostrich. Which can digest iron.
But yesterday was small shakes of a lamb’s tail, a prologue to the festivities of today. Which is his day. And yesterday, with coming and going of herds of clouds—a wan and seldom sun, like a face pressed against a window, with whimsical gusts of wind and rain and, rain or no, a damp persistent chill pervading all—yesterday was as much disappointment as pleasure.
Disappointment that, due to fickle weather, crowds along the way were small, the banners and bright cloths sparse, the cheers thin, and the excitement literally dampened.
Pleasure not only in the award of the honor and power of the office, but also, he must confess in the thought that he was saving something with the much greater expense of Lord Mayor’s Day to follow. That holiday when the water conduits and fountains must run adequate wines and all of London must be his guests. And an army from the various guilds must be his guests for a feast at the Guildhall; that day, come what prosperity or trouble the year ahead may bring, will leave him a good deal leaner than he begins it. The more so because it will all be dutifully, carefully chronicled by clerks, recorded and compared against the truth and legend of the festivities of Lord Mayors’ Days, the long roll of Lord Mayors since the custom commenced, more than three centuries before Sir Sebastian Harvey. Each year becoming more expensive as prices rise, more extravagant as each man, for his honor and the honor of his guild, must outdo the last. Until he feels he must, in one short day, contend against three hundred years.
If an angel appeared at this moment to offer him the choice, he might most willingly exchange places with the knight in the gatehouse, off Tothill Road, leading into the yard at Westminster. Who can only lose, or not lose, his head on this day. Sir Sebastian Harvey’s head, following the afternoon and evening of brave toasts, is as sore and twitchy as the bare back of a carted whore, as full of fires and clanging noises as a foundry. He would gladly remove it and rest it like a hat on a peg if he could.
Today will be longer and louder by far. Perhaps, the best he can hope for, wine will stifle his pains. Perhaps, he imagines, he will become lightheaded and his head will swell up like a bubble of soap and float away forever. Leaving only his wounded, fractious bowels to contend against.
Today for his honor and the honor of his family name, in respect of his recent knighthood, dearly bought, and in and for the honor of the office of Lord Mayor of London and all the dead Lord Mayors and all those yet to come (damn their eyes, the dead and the unborn!) he must offer a day to be remembered for at least a year. Not to mention or think of the seven or perhaps more fixed days of the calendar on which he must make a procession to St. Paul’s. Or the ever increasing number of holidays, sacred and secular, where he must lend his presence.
In the morning he will go upriver on a richly decorated barge together with other barges bearing aldermen and dignitaries, and trailed by almost every piece of wood that will float on the river. Go up the river—pray be calm, be gentle to my bowels—clad in scarlet ceremonial robes. Land at the water gate of Westminster and proceed to enter the hall, where King’s Exchequer will administer the oath to him and the aldermen and the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. Then back by water again to begin the progress through the streets. There will be triumphal arches for this occasion. Like a Coronation procession. Gifts and speeches and performances at the arches and other places. All built around some appropriate theme. For which he has paid dearly enough, for the services of one Anthony Munday, poet. Who has arranged the theme to be “Sidero—Thriambus, or, Iron and Steele Triumphing.”
And after all that the procession will end at the Guildhall, where the banquet will begin.
There, by custom, the Sovereign should be his honored guest.
Except the King is in the country chasing hares.
Except that even as Harvey arrives at Westminster for the solemn oath, there may be a public execution taking place in the yard. And the crowd will press around the scaffold. For, given a choice, who would not prefer a beheading to the sight of a plump and worthy ironmonger, tricked out in scarlet, come to take an oath.
Besides which, he has been told, there will be others besides Londoners, who are becoming as thick as maggots on a dead dog or fleas on a living, drawn to see a celebrated, disgraced knight pay the penalty for old treasons and new disobedience. Drawn from the nearby shires, to be sure. And he has intelligence there are some who have come all the way from the Westcountry, rough Devon seamen and even small miners from far Cornwall who can speak a strange tongue when they please to. These can cause trouble enough. If they do not interfere with the King’s plans (God, le
t them not riot against the King!), they will likely make trouble for the city of London.
It does not take much at any time to cause riot and mayhem in London. But when the conduits are flowing wine and the streets are full of surly strangers, rubbing elbows and jostling for place with the unruly, ill-mannered Londoners, then …
Pray God in heaven my day will not go down in the chronicles as the Triumph of Broken Heads.
When he retired and tried to sleep, even his servants were drunk. And his best man, Arthur, puked his guts into the fireplace of the chamber; and that is an odor, frying vomit, which no perfume can dispel. Hearing Arthur heave, he would have joined him side by side if it had not been beneath his dignity; and then perhaps he might have slept and snored all night like Arthur, instead of tossing and turning in the rolling room like a man atop a mast. He had hoped the foul weather might continue, even to his disadvantage.
But that hope was dispelled by a cheerful gap-toothed hulking lad, ugly as a donkey’s rump and not half so symmetrical, who came staggering into his chamber with a huge armload of firewood—dropping half in an incredible rattle that waked Sir Sebastian’s wife with a cry of “Thieves! Thieves!”—to announce, an’ it pleased him, sir, that the wind had changed and the sky was clear as a bell and scoured clean of everything but stars and such, and wasn’t that a marvel, now?
A marvel indeed for a wind to change as winds will.
If that boy should labor long and study like a Cambridge scholar, he may yet become a turnspit before he dies.
So he called for lights. And sought to calm his wife. Whom he kissed and she groaned at the blast of his breath. And she rolled over like a fat fish. Pulling pillow over head and soon snored in a counterpoint with Arthur. Whom a cannon would not waken.
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