Page 18 of Boleyn Traitor
SLOWLY, THE DAWNcomes earlier and earlier each morning, and the birds start to sing at seven by the church bell, and then six and then five, and the woods turn green; but still, I wait for an invitation to return to court. At church on Sunday, the sunshine streams through the stained-glass window, and when I enter, early, for mass, I find our priest working on his missal with a knife and glue like a spy on a letter. He is sticking a piece of paper over the name of the pope every time it occurs in the prayers for blessings.
‘What are you doing, Father Pierce?’
‘Obeying an instruction from my bishop.’ His pale face is flushed with irritation. ‘I am to cut out the name of the... of the Bishop of Rome...’ The title sounds oddly in this church that has prayed for our Holy Father since it was built five hundred years ago. ‘Cut it out of my prayer book! And we are no longer to pray for... him. See—’
He shows me the bishop’s letter. It says that instead of the pope and the cardinals, the prayers are to be for the whole Catholic Church and for the Catholic Church of Rome, for the king – only Supreme Head of the Catholic Church of England – for Queen Anne and the princess, Lady Elizabeth, for the whole clergy and temporality.
He looks at me, indignant. ‘What will your father say to this, Lady Rochford? What would he have me do? For my bishop commands it – but the people won’t like it, and I...’ He breaks off.
‘He’d want you to obey the law. The king’s will,’ I say firmly.
‘But is it the king’s own will?’ the vicar asks me in an undertone. ‘For it’s not what he swore at his coronation, and it’s not what I swore when I was ordained? Is it the king’s will or that of bad advisors?’
I shake my head. We both know this is Anne’s will, and the law is written at her bidding. Who but Anne would command the people of England to pray for her and order every priest to name her in royal prayers in every parish instead of the pope?
‘My father obeys the law,’ I say shortly. ‘As do we all.’
He bows his head; he turns away, as if he is disappointed in me, and he goes back to defacing his missal. We both know it is the vandalising of the books that will upset my father more than anything.
Morley Hallingbury, Norfolk, Summer
1535
JUST BEFORE MIDSUMMERday, Father is summoned to London on royal business.
‘They don’t ask for me?’ I check.
He shakes his head. ‘You don’t want to come to court this summer, Jane, and I wish I didn’t have to. It’s a bad business. The trials of Bishop Fisher and the king’s dearest friend, Thomas More.’
Mother and I stand on the great steps of the new hall to wave him goodbye, the bright oak double doors behind us, open to the summer sunshine.
‘I’ll be back in a sennight,’ my father promises dourly. ‘This won’t take long.’
I go down the steps to his horse’s head to ask him quietly, so that no one else can hear: ‘What if they plead not guilty? What if Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas refuse to swear the oath and refuse to sayanything at all? You can’t be guilty of treasonous words if you don’t speak – can you? You can’t find them guilty if won’t take the oath; but don’t say why?’
My father makes a grimace. ‘I’m not riding up to London in the heat of summer to find them not guilty,’ he says shortly. ‘This is a treason trial organised by Master Cromwell for the benefit of the Boleyns. The verdict is as secure as that man’s grasp of the law – which is to say clawlike –unguibus. I’m going to show loyalty to the king and to enforce his will – not to judge guilt or innocence.’
I bend my head for his blessing, and he puts his heavy hand on my hood.
‘Anyway,’ he says more cheerfully. ‘Cromwell has promised me the pick of the books from Thomas More’s library – I’d go for that alone. Your husband’s already got More’s lands.’
‘Before the verdict?’ I ask, shocked, though I also want to know: what lands? And how much?
‘Aye,’ my father says. ‘Before the verdict. Before us judges even arrive, before we’re sworn in. So that tells you there’s no doubt, doesn’t it? Thomas More isn’t going to go home and find his furniture gone and his books missing. He’s never going home at all.’
He wheels his horse, and his men form up around him, two before, two on either side, and two behind; the roads have become dangerous in Anne’s England. He waves to my mother and pats his pocket to show her that he has the list of things that she needs from the London merchants. He throws a salute to me, and he sets off down the long drive between the fresh green beech trees, to sentence the Bishop of Rochester and the Lord High Chancellor of England to death – because these two good men, great men, refused to obey Anne’s new law.
WHEN HE COMEShome, a pack horse behind him laden with books from Thomas More’s library, he brings the news – that is no news – that Thomas More and Bishop JohnFisher – and five holy men were all sentenced to death, for refusing to acknowledge that there is a new pope and he is Henry. Thomas More and John Fisher have gone to the scaffold, true to the faith of their childhoods.
‘There’s no greater power than the King of England in England,’ my father says shortly. ‘Ergo, the king is pope and emperor in England.’
I open my mouth to ask that – since there is only one church – if the king is pope in England, is he also pope in Italy, where the other pope sits on his throne at Rome? Is he an emperor in Spain, where the emperor is Charles?
But my father shakes his head, draws me very close, and whispers in my ear: ‘Seven better scholars than I answered that question, and they are dead for it. A wise man or woman does not ask it. A good courtier does not think it. Prepare yourself to return to court, Jane, and don’t think of things where the king has been advised, parliament has enacted, and the executioner has confirmed – most finally as only he can do.’
AFTER THE DEATHSof Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, the court goes on summer progress without a care in the world. Protestants and Papists, enemies and friends leave the crowded, diseased capital city for weeks, and Church and people are forgotten by the man who demanded complete power over them.
‘Nobody is going to invite you back to court while they are on progress.’ My mother states the obvious.
