The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  She had heard people talk of being angry and seeing red; she could not recall it ever happening to her, but at that moment, it did. She always kept Philip’s life-size portrait with her, wherever she went. She turned to it now; the handsome face, with its slightly discontented expression, stared back at her. From somewhere she heard a mighty shriek; she seized the jeweled dagger that she had used to pry up Philip’s seal and, weeping and now screaming in rage, thrust the knife across the canvas. Again and again she slashed and stabbed until there was nothing left but shreds.

  Her ladies, having heard her cries and thinking that murder was being done, stood transfixed in the doorway.

  No one dared utter a word.

  When she was finished, breathless, her hair awry, Mary calmly laid down the dagger and picked up Cranmer’s death warrant from where it had lain on the floor since she had swept it off the writing table. She also retrieved the quill and the inkpot, in which some of the viscous black liquid still remained.

  The only sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and the sound of the quill scratching across the smooth vellum.

  Oxford, March 1556

  So this was the end. This was where the long path from an obscure village in Nottinghamshire had led him after all these years, after all he had seen, all he had experienced in his life, all that he had done, all that he had accomplished. He was resigned; it was over and there was nothing he could do about it. But that did not stop him from being seized with a fear such as he had never known existed. He only hoped that now that the worst was upon him, he would die like a man. Latimer and Ridley had done so; he hoped that he should be able do no less.

  What struck him to the quick was the unfairness of it all. He had belittled himself for months, doing all that was asked, writing recantation after recantation, each one more detailed than the last, and finally touching upon every point of doctrine from which his beliefs diverged from the Catholic faith. It had been a humbling, demeaning experience, and it had all been done to save his miserable life.

  But now he had been informed that it had all been for nothing. Worse, it had been a trick, a lie. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, he still would not be spared the flames.

  The flames! The very thought of it made his bowels feel as if he had drunk a tun of ice water. His nerves were shattered. He had somehow been able to get through the rest of the winter without a fire in his grate, or a candle at his bedside; he simply could no longer abide the sight of fire. And now he was to be consumed by it. On the morrow he would be taken to St. Mary’s Church where, one by one, he would be made to read aloud all seven of his recantations, and then he would be dragged to the stake and burned.

  It had well-nigh broken his heart to write his first recantation. In that one he had renounced the seminal beliefs of the Reformed faith; he had written, with his most unworthy right hand, that the Miracle of Transubstantiation was indeed real, and that the wine and the wafer really did, by some mystical alchemy, transform into the actual Body and Blood of Christ at the moment of the Elevation of the Host in the priest’s hands; and he had stated unequivocally that there was no salvation to be had for any man but through the Catholic Church, and that the Reformed belief that salvation could be achieved simply by one’s faith alone was patently untrue. He had wept then.

  He had been led to believe that by denying his life’s work that he was saving his life. He had not stopped to think what that would mean; perpetual imprisonment? Banishment to the Continent? He knew not, he cared not; all he did know was that the terrible fates of Latimer and Ridley would not be his.

  And then they had come to him a second time. Now he must write, in his own hand, a paper that said that he believed absolutely in the authority of the pope, Christ’s Vicar on Earth, and that he denied utterly the principle of the Royal Supremacy, or that the sovereign had sole jurisdiction over religious matters within his own realm, by virtue of being anointed with the holy oil of coronation.

  It did not stop there. Again they came, with their threat of the flames, compelling him to deny every last tenet of the Reformed faith: that Purgatory was indeed real; that all priests must be celibate; that prayers of supplication and salvation could be bought from the Church for goods or money.

  But the worst day of all was when they had come to him, forced him once again to don his full archbishop’s regalia, and had taken him into the church at Christchurch and formally defrocked him. They had forced him to kneel before all and then had read out the pope’s bull of excommunication. As the priest droned out the words that would make him simply an ordinary man again, the humiliating ritual of depriving him of his Holy Orders proceeded. Bishops Bonner and Thirlby taunted him all the while they stripped him of his vestments, shaved his head to remove his tonsure, and scraped his fingers until they bled to symbolically remove the holy oils that had ordained him.

  But still, if it saved his life, no disgrace was too humiliating to endure.

  And now this. He was to die anyway.

  The weather had turned warm; spring was nigh and he no longer missed having a fire in his grate. It was full dark but he simply could not, even in his extremity, bring himself to light a candle. And tomorrow he would be the candle. Despite himself, he laughed. He had heard that Latimer had told Ridley from the very stake, to which they had been tied together, that on that day they would make such a candle that the light of the Reformed Faith should never be put out in England. Their deaths had inspired many. But his death would not inspire anyone; he would simply be remembered as a coward who had denied his faith and burned for it anyway, not with joy, as he had heard that some did, but with fear and regret.

  On that thought he slept, and for the first time since his whole ordeal began, he slept dreamlessly.

  # # #

  Cranmer stood at the pulpit looking out over the sea of expectant faces. It felt strange to be standing in such a place and not wearing his archbishop’s robes. He stood there in the plain hose and tunic of a common townsman; instead of his elaborate bishop’s miter, a woolen cap covered his now bristly pate. He had been Archbishop of Canterbury for more than twenty years; indeed, he remembered as if it were yesterday when God had called him to lead the people out of darkness and into the light.

  He had always dreamed of church reform, but how could an obscure cleric from Nottinghamshire ever accomplish such a thing? He had lived his life believing that the Catholic Church had taken the wrong path; from pluralism to simony, to the sale of indulgences, and many other questionable practices, something had gone terribly wrong in his opinion since Christ Himself had walked the earth and his disciples had recorded his words and actions. He had been twenty-eight when Martin Luther had had the temerity to nail his Ninety-Five Theses to the wooden door of All Saints’ Church at Wittenberg. He had rejoiced, but his enthusiasm ended there. Had not his own king, Henry, the eighth of that name, utterly denounced Luther as Antichrist in his Defense of the Seven Sacraments, the tome that had won him his title from the pope himself of Defender of the Faith? What hope was there of encouraging Reform in England?

  And then an answer to his earnest prayers had come in the form of a mere slip of a girl, a dark-haired, olive-skinned lass who with her unusual looks had enchanted the king. At last the path to righteousness had lain clear before him. The king’s great desire was to annul his marriage to a royal princess of Spain in order to wed a common wench, one of his own subjects. He understood that call quite clearly; early on in his career he had, despite his plans to become a priest, married a wife. It had cost him his fellowship at Cambridge. Then Joan had died in childbirth and he was reinstated. So he understood the siren call of matrimony, and the bliss of married life. How could such a thing not be sanctioned by God, especially if it were fruitful?

  Yes, he had answered God’s call; he had spearheaded Reform in England. Nay, not just in England, but in all of Christendom. He had given the faith his Book of Common Prayer, a missive that had removed from church practice all of
the superstitious idolatry of ancient Catholicism. He searched his conscience, but he just could not see what had he done wrong that God had forsaken him now.

  My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

  And then suddenly he experienced such a revelation as he had never known before. It was as if a great flash of light had exploded in his brain.

  He stood at the pulpit, the stacks of paper that were his seven recantations in front of him, waiting to be read to the expectant crowd. The church was full; he could see that the doors were open and there were people standing even on the steps out front. He scanned the first few rows of pews; all of his enemies were there to gloat at his downfall. Bishop Bonner, Bishop Thirlby, who had taken such childish pleasure in his defrocking; and many others who had bowed to the queen’s desire to reinstate the Catholic faith in England. After more than twenty years of living in the light, these men thought to lead everyone back into the darkness.

  He had thought the night before, in his deep despair, that he had abandoned his faith to save his life, that he would die a meaningless, ignominious death, and that there was nothing he could do about it. But he saw now, oh, so clearly! …that it was not so. There was something that he could do. And only he could do it. If the queen and the cardinal felt so strongly that he must recant, how much more powerful would it be if he now recanted his recantations? He was to die, even though the Church clearly said that if a heretic recanted, then he would be spared the flames to become a living symbol God’s truth and forgiveness. But he was to burn anyway, despite his recantations. This he had accepted; about that, to be sure, there was nothing he could do. They might think to destroy him, but they would not destroy his life’s work.

  The crowd was becoming restive; he must begin. The ink on the parchment was clear before him. He was to read the words that said, “I, Thomas Cranmer, doctor in divinity, do submit myself to the Holy Catholic Church, and to the Pope…” But instead he said, in the clear, booming voice that had served him so well all these years, “And now I come to the great thing, that so much troubleth my conscience more than any thing that ever I did or said in my whole life; and that is the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the truth: which now I here renounce and refuse as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written only for fear of death, and only to save my life; and for such writing contrary to my heart, my right hand shall first be punished therefore!” He held up his right hand, that hand that he could not bear to hold in the flame of the candle for even a moment, and looked at it as if it were an evil thing. “And therefore, when I come to the fire, it shall be burnt first! As for the Pope, I refuse him utterly as Christ’s enemy and as Antichrist, yea, with all of his false doctrines!”

  There was, for just a moment, a stunned silence; this was not what they had expected to hear! And then all was pandemonium. He felt angry hands pulling him from the pulpit; he was being dragged unceremoniously through the church towards the door. He could see the faint light in the distance. It was a cloudy morning, this last day of his life; that seemed appropriate.

  He could see the stake now. It came up suddenly before him, dark and ominous, but strangely, he was no longer afraid. He had accomplished his purpose; all now knew that he abandoned neither his faith nor his followers. He was ready to die, for now he would die as Latimer and Ridley had done, joyfully, despite the pain, and with a clear conscience. Instead of the meaningless, ignominious death that he had feared, he would die a martyr to God’s glory.

  He felt the iron chain make him fast to the stake, but there was no need for it; he would not try to flee. He could hear the roar of the flames now, and began rapidly to feel their heat. He had been afraid that the lowering clouds above might prove to rain, which could serve to squelch the fire, but it was not so…there was no rain and the fire burned brightly. As soon as the crackling blaze met his eyes, he cried, “Unworthy right hand!” and thrust it willingly into the flames. It was the last thing he remembered doing on this earth.

  Chapter 45

  “When these with violence were burned to death, we wished for our Elizabeth.”

  – A popular rhyme of the day

  Greenwich Palace, March 1556

  Cardinal Pole sat in the little chapel of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. It was dark and very quiet; the hours between Vespers and Compline found the little church deserted. It was an excellent place to simply sit and think.

  At last he had realized his greatest ambition; Canterbury was his. Cranmer was burned and with his bull of excommunication had also come Reginald’s nomination from Pope Paul IV to the See of Canterbury. He had been worried and had known some bad moments; the pope was at odds with King Philip and had been heard to say, according to Mary’s envoy at the Vatican, that the pope held the Queen of England in the same great contempt in which His Holiness held all the Hapsburgs. She was, after all, married to one. But the nomination had come, all was well, and the morrow would see him on his way south and east to be consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. He would spend the night at his London residence, lavish Lambeth Palace (finally his!) and from there he would be on his way to claim his great prize in the name of God.

  A whisper of sound caught his attention. He looked around and at the entrance to the dimly lit chapel he saw the shape of a man. He had been a churchman almost all his life; he recognized the hesitant step of the unsure penitent. He also knew that patience was required; if the man was seeking religious consolation in the chapel of his own accord, he would come forth when he was ready. Reginald sat in the pew with his eyes closed and waited.

  Thomas White stood in the shadows, cautious and uncertain. He was not a religious man; he went to Mass, he complied with holy days of obligation and other church mandates by rote, as a matter of course. He had no deep feelings about it all one way or the other. To him the idea of burning for one’s religious beliefs, as the Reformers were doing, was absurd.

  But he had lived in London since he was a boy, and he was very used to the sight, as he went about his business, of the heads in various stages of decay that bristled on pikes upon London Bridge. He saw them every time he spirited away to his secret hiding place the money he had stolen from the Exchequer to help finance Sir Henry Dudley’s conspiracy to depose the Queen’s Grace. The heads, he knew, belonged to men who had been named traitors, but never before had they seemed like real people to him; never, until recently, had he sensed any connection with them to himself.

  But now he did, and had done ever since news of the truce that had been signed at Vaucelles had reached him and his fellow conspirators from the Continent. It was no mere rumor, it was true; an accord had been reached between King Philip of Spain and King Henri of France. The shock of it had awakened him as if from a dream. The support of the king of France for their plan was essential in his mind, vital to their success. Without it, he was not at all certain that they would be able to accomplish their goal of sending Queen Mary out of the country to her Spanish husband and placing their Good Elizabeth on the throne. Since reaching an accord with his adversary, who was the queen’s own husband, Henri had withdrawn his support of Sir Henry Dudley’s conspiracy.

  Thomas was also concerned that far too many people were now privy to the plot; it was becoming unwieldy and dangerous. Worse, the scales had finally been lifted from his eyes and he now saw his own part in the conspiracy for exactly what it was: the theft of crown silver from queen and country for what could only be viewed by the authorities as nefarious purposes. If he had been frightened before, when his biggest concern was spiriting the money away from the Exchequer rooms without being discovered, he was petrified now that he realized that exposure would mean certain death. He would be tried for treason and hung, drawn and quartered. His head would join those already gracing London Bridge, on its very own pike. Not if he could prevent it! To Hell with Dudley and his ill-conceived plot. He must look to himself!

  Reginald opened his eyes. This one was taking a very lon
g time. Some encouragement, perhaps…

  He said softly in his musical voice, “It is all right, my son. Whatever it is that you have done, God will forgive you.”

  It was all that Thomas could do to stop himself from snorting his derision. It was not God’s forgiveness that he needed, but the queen’s! He had been at the royal court since he was a boy; he had purposely sought out the cardinal. Reginald Pole was the queen’s cousin, and had her ear. There must be no middle men to muddle things up. He must come straight to the point. And he would have to be very convincing, or he was lost.

  Thomas stepped forward out of the shadows, cap in hand, and said in a firm, clear voice, “I have a confession to make.” At least he had meant his voice to sound firm and sure; but instead it sounded to his own ears like that of a bleating sheep caught in a hedgerow.

  Reginald was a little taken aback; this was not the usual dialog. He shifted over on the pew and held out his hand, bidding Thomas sit. “How long has it been since your last confession, my son?”

  Thomas grunted, placed his hat on the pew and sat down next to the cardinal. “Begging your pardon, Your Eminence, but it is not that manner of confession!”

  “Oh?” replied Reginald, somewhat surprised. “Then of what help might I be to you?”

  Thomas explained; he told Reginald all. All except the truth! “And so you see, Your Eminence, I had to play my part. Doing so has enabled me to come to you with the names of all involved. But now, Your Eminence, this plot has gone far enough. We must act against the plotters without delay if we are to foil their plan to remove Her Grace from the throne of England.” Was it working? His eyes searched Pole’s.