Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

  At first I could not see him. Then I made out his stocky form, standing by a table at the far end of the room. He was holding up a casket and studying the contents with a contemptuous frown, his wide, narrow-lipped mouth downturned above his lantern chin. His jaw held thus made me think of a great trap that at any moment might open and swallow one whole with a casual gulp. He glanced round at me and, with one of those mercurial changes of expression that came so easily to him, smiled affably and raised a hand in welcome. I bowed as low as I could, wincing, for I was stiff after my long ride.

  ‘Matthew, come over here.’ The deep, harsh voice was welcoming. ‘You did well at Croydon; I am glad that Black Grange tangle is resolved.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’ As I approached, I noticed the shirt beneath his fur-trimmed robe was black. He caught my glance.

  ‘You’ve heard the queen is dead?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. I am sorry.’ I knew that after Anne Boleyn’s execution Lord Cromwell had hitched his fortunes to those of Jane Seymour’s family.

  He grunted. ‘The king is distracted.’

  I looked down at the table. To my surprise it was piled high with caskets of various sizes. All seemed to be of gold and silver; many were studded with jewels. Through ancient spotted glass I could see pieces of cloth and bone lying on velvet cushions. I looked at the casket he still held, and saw it contained a child’s skull. He held it up in both hands and shook it, so that some teeth that had come loose rattled inside. The vicar general smiled grimly.

  ‘These will interest you. Relics brought specially to my attention.’ He set the casket on the table and pointed to a Latin inscription on the front. ‘Look at that.’

  ‘Barbara sanctissima,’ I read. I peered at the skull. A few hairs still clung to the pate.

  ‘The skull of St Barbara,’ Cromwell said, slapping the casket with his palm. ‘A young virgin murdered by her pagan father in Roman times. From the Cluniac Priory of Leeds. A most holy relic.’ He bent and picked up a silver casket set with what looked like opals. ‘And here - the skull of St Barbara, from Boxgrove nunnery in Lancashire.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘They say there are two-headed dragons in the Indies. Well, we have two-headed saints.’

  ‘By Jesu.’ I peered in at the skulls. ‘I wonder who they were?’

  He gave another bark of laughter and clapped me soundly on the arm. ‘Ha, that’s my Matthew, always after an answer for everything. It’s that probing wit I need now. My Augmentations man in York says the gold casket is of Roman design. But it will be melted down in the Tower furnace like all the others and the skulls will go to the dunghill. Men should not worship bones.’

  ‘So many of them.’ I looked through the window, where the rain still beat down in torrents, sweeping the courtyard as the men continued unloading. Lord Cromwell crossed the room and stood looking out. I reflected that though he was now a peer, entitled to wear scarlet, he still dressed in the same style as I, the black gown and flat black cap of legal and clerical officials. The cap was silk velvet, though; the gown lined with beaver. I noticed his long brown hair had become flecked with grey.

  ‘I must have those things taken in,’ he said. ‘I need them dry. Next time I burn a papist traitor, I want to use some of that wood.’ He turned and smiled grimly at me. ‘Then people will see that using the heretic’s own images as fuel does not make him scream any the less, let alone make God strike out the fire.’ His expression changed again, became sombre. ‘Now come, sit down. We have business.’ He sat behind his desk, motioning me brusquely to a chair facing him. I winced at a spasm from my back.

  ‘You seem tired, Matthew.’ He studied me with his large brown eyes. Like his face, their expression constantly changed and now they were cold.

  ‘A little. It was a long ride.’ I glanced over his desk. It was covered in papers, some with the royal seal glinting in the candlelight. A couple of small gold caskets appeared to be in use as paperweights.

  ‘You did well to find the deeds to that woodland,’ he said. ‘Without them the matter could have dragged on in Chancery for years.’

  ‘The monastery’s ex-bursar had them. He took them when the house was dissolved. Apparently the local villagers wanted to claim the woods as common lands. Sir Richard suspected a local rival, but I started with the bursar as he would last have had the deeds.’

  ‘Good. That was logical.’

  ‘I tracked him to the village church where he had been made rector. He admitted it soon enough and gave them up.’

  ‘The villagers paid the ex-monk, no doubt. Did you have him in charge of the justice?’

  ‘He took no payment. I think he only wanted to help the villagers, their land is poor. I thought it better to make no stir.’

  Lord Cromwell’s face hardened and he leaned back in his chair. ‘He had committed a criminal act, Matthew. You should have had him in charge, as an example to others. I hope you are not becoming soft. In these times I need hard men in my service, Matthew, hard men.’ His face was suddenly full of the anger I had seen in him even when we first met ten years before. ‘This is not Thomas More’s Utopia, a nation of innocent savages waiting only for God’s word to complete their happiness. This is a violent realm, stewed in the corruption of a decadent church.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The papists will use every means to prevent us from building the Christian commonwealth, and so by God’s blood I will use every means to overcome them.’

  ‘I am sorry if my judgement erred.’

  ‘Some say you are soft, Matthew,’ he said quietly. ‘Lacking in fire and godly zeal, even perhaps in loyalty.’

  Lord Cromwell had the trick of staring fixedly at you, unblinking, until you felt compelled to drop your gaze. You would look up again to find those hard brown eyes still boring into you. I felt my heart pound. I had tried to keep my doubts, my weariness, to myself; surely I had told nobody.

  ‘My lord, I am as against papacy as I have always been.’ As I said the words I could not help thinking of all those who must have made that answer before him, under interrogation about their loyalties. A stab of fear lanced through me, and I took deep breaths to calm myself, hoping he would not notice. After a moment he nodded slowly.

  ‘I have a task for you, one suited to your talents. The future of Reform may depend on it.’

  He leaned forward and picked up a little casket, holding it up. Within, at the centre of an intricately carved silver column, lay a glass phial containing a red powder.

  ‘This,’ he said quietly, ‘is the blood of St Pantaleon, skinned alive by pagans. From Devon. On his saint’s day, it was said, the blood liquefied. Hundreds came every year to watch the miracle, crawling on their hands and knees and paying for the privilege. But look.’ He turned the casket round. ‘See that little hole in the back? There was another hole in the wall where this was set, and a monk with a pipette would push little drops of coloured water inside the phial. And lo - the holy blood, or rather burnt umber, liquefies.’

  I leaned forward, tracing the hole with my finger. ‘I have heard of such deceits.’

  ‘That is what monasticism is. Deceit, idolatry, greed, and secret loyalty to the bishop of Rome.’ He turned the relic over in his hands, tiny red flakes trickling down. ‘The monasteries are a canker in the heart of the realm and I will have it ripped out.’

  ‘A start has been made. The smaller houses are down.’

  ‘That barely scratched the surface. But they brought in some money, enough to whet the king’s appetite to take the large ones where the real wealth is. Two hundred of them, owning a sixth of the country’s wealth.’

  ‘Is it truly as much as that?’

  He nodded. ‘Oh yes. But after the rebellion last winter, with twenty thousand rebels camped on the Don demanding their monasteries back, I have to proceed carefully. The king won’t have any more forced surrenders, and he’s right. What I need, Matthew, are voluntary surrenders.’

  ‘But surely they’d never—’


  He smiled wryly. ‘There’s more than one way to kill a pig. Now listen carefully, this information is secret.’ He leaned forward, speaking quietly and intently.

  ‘When I had the monasteries inspected two years ago, I made sure everything that might damage them was carefully recorded.’ He nodded at the drawers lining the walls. ‘It’s all in there; sodomy, fornication, treasonable preaching. Assets secretly sold away. And I have more and more informers in the monasteries too.’ He smiled grimly. ‘I could have had a dozen abbots executed at Tyburn, but I have bided my time, kept up the pressure, issued strict new injunctions they have to follow. I have them terrified of me.’ He smiled again, then suddenly tossed the relic in the air, catching it and setting it down among his papers.

  ‘I have persuaded the king to let me pick a dozen houses on which I can bring particular pressures to bear. In the last two weeks I have sent out picked men, to offer the abbots the alternatives of voluntary surrender, with pensions for all and fat ones for the abbots, or prosecution. Lewes, with its treasonable preaching; Titchfield, where the prior has sent some choice information about his brethren; Peterborough. Once I’ve pressed a few into voluntary surrender, the others will realize the game is up and go quietly. I’ve been following the negotiations closely and everything was going well. Until yesterday. ’ He picked up a letter from his desk. ‘Have you ever heard of the monastery of Scarnsea?’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘No reason you should have. It’s a Benedictine house, in an old silted-up Channel port on the Kent-Sussex border. There’s a history of vice there and according to the local Justice of the Peace, who is one of us, the abbot is selling land off cheap. I sent Robin Singleton down there last week to see what he could stir up.’

  ‘I know Singleton,’ I said. ‘I’ve been against him in the courts. A forceful man.’ I hesitated. ‘Not the best lawyer, perhaps.’

  ‘No, it was his forcefulness I wanted. There was little concrete evidence, and I wanted to see what he could browbeat out of them. I gave him a canon lawyer to assist him, an old Cambridge reformer called Lawrence Goodhaps.’ He fished among his papers, and passed a letter across to me. ‘This arrived from Goodhaps yesterday morning.’

  The letter was scrawled in a crabbed hand, on a sheet of paper torn from a ledger.

  My Lord,

  I write in haste and send this letter by a boy of the town as I dare trust none in this place. My master Singleton is foully murdered in the heart of the monastery, in a most terrible manner. He was found this morning in the kitchen, in a lake of blood, his head cut clean off. Some great enemy of Your Lordship must have done this, but all here deny it. The church has been desecrated and the Great Relic of the Penitent Thief with its bloody nails is vanished away. I have told Justice Copynger and we have adjured the abbot to keep silence. We fear the consequences if this be noised abroad.

  Please send help my lord and tell me what I should do.

  Lawrence Goodhaps

  ‘A commissioner murdered?’

  ‘So it appears. The old man seems to be in terror.’

  ‘But if it was a monk, that would only ensure ruin for the monastery.’

  Cromwell nodded. ‘I know. It’s some maniac, some cloistered madman who hates us more than he fears us. But can you see the implications? I seek the surrender of these monasteries as a precedent. English laws and English ways are based on precedent.’

  ‘And this is a precedent of another sort.’

  ‘Precisely. The king’s authority struck down - literally. Old Goodhaps did the right thing to order this kept quiet. If the story got abroad, think of the notions it would give to fanatics and lunatics in every religious house in the land.’

  ‘Does the king know?’

  He stared hard at me again. ‘If I tell him, there will be an explosion. He would probably send soldiers in and hang the abbot from his steeple. And that would be the end of my strategy. I need this resolved quickly and secretly.’

  I could see where this was heading. I shifted in my seat, for my back pained me.

  ‘I want you down there, Matthew, at once. I am granting you full powers as commissioner under my authority as vicar general. Power to give any order, obtain any access.’

  ‘Would not this be a task better suited to an experienced commissioner, my lord? I have never had official dealings with the monks.’

  ‘You were educated by them. You know their ways. My commissioners are formidable men, but they’re not known for finesse and this needs delicate handling. You can trust Justice Copynger. I’ve never met him but we’ve corresponded, he is a strong reformer. But no one else in the town is to know. Fortunately Singleton had no family, so we won’t be pestered by relatives.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘What do we know of this monastery?’

  He opened a large book. I recognized a copy of the Comperta, the report of the monastic visitations two years before, whose riper parts had been read to Parliament.

  ‘It is a large Norman foundation, well endowed with lands and fine buildings. There are only thirty monks and no less than sixty servants - they do themselves well, typical Benedictines. According to the visitor the church is scandalously over-decorated, full of plaster saints, and they have - or had - what is alleged to be a relic of the Penitent Thief crucified with Our Lord. A hand nailed to a piece of wood - part of his cross, they say. Apparently people would come long distances; it was supposed to cure cripples.’ He glanced involuntarily at my twisted back, as people do when cripples are mentioned.

  ‘Presumably the relic Goodhaps referred to.’

  ‘Yes. My visitors found a nest of sodomites at Scarnsea, as happens often enough in those filthy dog-holes. The old prior, who was the chief offender, was removed. Sodomy is punishable by death under the new Act, it’s a good pressure point. I wanted Singleton to see how things stood in that regard as well as investigating the land sales Copynger wrote to me about.’

  I thought a moment. ‘Wheels within wheels. Complicated.’

  Lord Cromwell nodded. ‘It is. That’s why I need a clever man. I have had your commission sent to your house, with the relevant parts of the Comperta. I want you to set off first thing tomorrow. That letter is three days old already and it may take you another three to travel down there. The Weald can be a quagmire this time of year.’

  ‘It has been a dry autumn till today. It might be done in two.’

  ‘Good. Take no servants; tell no one except Mark Poer. He still shares your house?’

  ‘Yes. He has been looking after my affairs in my absence.’

  ‘I want him to accompany you. He has a sharp brain, I’m told, and it may be good to have a pair of strong arms at your side.’

  ‘But, my lord, there may be danger. And, to be frank, Mark has no great religious zeal - he will not understand all that is at stake.’

  ‘He does not need to. So long as he is loyal and does what you tell him. And it may help young Master Poer work his passage back to employment in the courts, after that scandal.’

  ‘Mark was a fool. He should have known someone of his rank must not become involved with a knight’s daughter.’ I sighed. ‘But he is young.’

  Lord Cromwell grunted. ‘If the king had learned what he did, he’d have had him whipped. And it showed a poor gratitude towards you, for finding him work.’

  ‘It was a family obligation, my lord; an important one.’

  ‘If he acquits himself well on this mission I may ask Rich to allow him back to his clerk’s post - the one I found him at your request,’ he added pointedly.

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  ‘Now I have to go to Hampton Court; I must try to persuade the king to attend to business. Matthew, make sure no word gets out, censor letters from the monastery.’

  He rose and, coming round the desk, put his arm round my shoulder as I got to my feet. It was a recognized sign of favour.

  ‘Find the culprit quickly, but above all quietly.’ He smiled, then reached over and ha
nded me a tiny golden box. Inside was another phial, a tiny circular one containing a gobbet of thick pale liquid that slopped against the glass. ‘What do you think of this, by the way? You might be able to work out how it’s done. I can’t.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s stood in Bilston Nunnery four hundred years. Said to be the milk of the Virgin Mary.’

  I exclaimed with disgust. Cromwell laughed.

  ‘What amazes me is how they imagined anyone would get milk from the Virgin Mary. But look, it must have been replaced recently to stay liquid like that; I was expecting to see a hole in the back like that other, but it seems quite sealed in. What do you think? See, use this.’ He passed me a jeweller’s glass and I examined the box, peering for a tiny hole, but I could see nothing. I pushed and prodded for a secret hinge, then shook my head.