The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  ‘It was difficult to see anything, Your Grace, because of wearing those masks with our names scrolled on to them.’ Thomas Seymour spoke up from his place on the bench. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Francis? I had Malebouche written across mine and Francis had Straungenes.’

  ‘That’s right, Tom. It kept slipping over my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing.’ Francis was a sincere type of boy.

  ‘And you, Edward, Your Grace?’ The cardinal addressed the Earl of Derby with his usual gentle amusement at using the title of this rather grubby-looking boy. ‘And George Vernon,’ he went on without waiting for an answer. ‘None of you saw anything amiss?’

  ‘No, Your Grace.’ They chorused their reply with an air of relief. Boys of that age, I had noticed when instructing at law school, have a poor grip on truth and like to be sure what their elders want of them before vouchsafing any information. They might tell a different story to a different form of interrogation, but now it was out said in front of all. They had seen nothing untoward.

  ‘So it appears that only Harry Percy and Mistress Anne Boleyn saw this arrow in the hands of James Butler,’ mused the cardinal. He had, I noticed, not asked any public questions of Gilbert nor of Thomas Arundel. I was glad of that. The younger boys would be more carefree in their answers. Gilbert was a worrier and might well have hesitated and stammered over his answer. And from what James had said, both Gilbert and Thomas were involved in bribing the dead man. I looked across at the cardinal and he lifted his head, raised his hands and spoke directly to the king’s serjeant.

  ‘Is there anything you wish to say, Master Gibson?’ he enquired. ‘Well, we must let you make your enquiries. Goodness, you and Master Rushe will be busy! Thank you all for coming, and I hope you enjoy your afternoon, Tennis, tilting, archery, cards, books, chess, boards, balliards, all that my poor house can offer is at your disposal. Master Cavendish, you will look after our guests,’ he said to George, raising his voice so that everyone, crowded into his room could hear him and George immediately went and opened the door and waited there like an eager sheepdog ready to usher them out. The king’s serjeant, though, stood stolidly by the table and did not move and John Rushe, the cardinal’s man hovered uneasily beside him.

  ‘We have your permission to take statements, Your Grace.’ This was in response to a sharp look from the king’s serjeant.

  Cardinal Wolsey patted him on the upper arm of his black velvet doublet.

  ‘Not just my permission, John, my orders. Summon who you will. I look forward to reading your script. I’m sure that you will both find the truth.’

  ‘And Master James Butler.’ Now the king’s sergeant pushed forward.

  It was time for me to play a part. I didn’t have to act. Even I could hear the edge of anger in my voice.

  ‘Your Grace, my client, James Butler utterly denies having anything to do with the unfortunate death of the instructor of the wards, Edmund Pace. He denies having in his possession on that night a wooden arrow, bodkin-tipped, the arrow which caused the death, he believes it to be one which he lost last week when aiming at a duck flying across the moat. That is all that my client wishes to say about the affair, at this moment.’

  ‘You will let the serjeants have that statement in writing, won’t you, Hugh? Well, thank you, everyone, you may go now.’

  James was the first to leave. His lame leg went unevenly down the passageway outside and then George ushered out the crowd, all of them merrily clamouring for cards, and for balliard balls and other amusements. I glanced through one of the five-paned windows that were set high above the wooden panelling. The sky was a leaden grey and small crisp flakes of snow floated down. George would be kept busy finding indoor occupations for the guests.

  Alice, to my amusement, had not left with the others. She put down her embroidery carefully on a bench and came over to the cardinal’s side. He shook his head at her indulgently, but pulled a seat forward so that she could sit with us. His manner to Alice was paternal, but I often thought that if, like the Irish bishops, it had been the norm to have a consort, she would have made an excellent wife for him. As his ward, she played a part in entertaining his guests and kept him amused by her sharp wit.

  ‘James was in a hurry,’ she observed to me, ‘do you think that he wants to be first in line for Mistress Boleyn’s favours?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I replied. ‘Not if she is trying to get him hanged. I’m not an expert on love affairs, but that doesn’t seem to me to be too friendly.’

  ‘Are you a married man, yourself, Hugh?’ asked the cardinal.

  ‘Divorced, Your Grace,’ I said cheerfully.

  He shuddered and Alice laughed. ‘Don’t let the king hear you say something like that,’ he said. ‘He’s very pious, our prince. He believes in the sanctity of the church laws and marriage, you know, is one of its sacraments.’

  ‘Well, we’re a bit different in Ireland. Our law grants divorce very easily.’ I said the words casually and as he seemed to want to postpone the discussion about James’s possible guilt, I continued in the same light tone: ‘I’ve written it into the marriage contract and if that stands and Mistress Anne gets tired of our James she can walk away with all that she brought to marriage and at least half of the goods which she has helped to make, half the value of the wool that has been carded and spun by her even though sheared by her husband …’

  ‘Ancient laws!’ The cardinal chuckled. ‘I don’t see that lady out tending her sheep, or carding and spinning wool. Perhaps a little embroidery.’

  ‘And, of course, she can sign bonds and can divorce him if he fails to give her a child.’

  ‘Hush!’ The cardinal looked around uneasily as if the king were lurking behind the arras, or had his ear clapped to the keyhole of the door. ‘Tell me,’ he said hastily, ‘why did you divorce your wife?’

  ‘It was the other way around, Your Grace. She divorced me.’

  The cardinal’s eyebrows asked a question.

  ‘She suspected that I loved someone else,’ I explained. ‘She thought we were not suited and she was right. We divided everything up according to the law. She’s happily married to someone else now. She has two little daughters and adores them. I am godfather to one of them, just as Your Grace is godfather to Bessie Blount’s son, little Henry Fitzroy.’

  ‘And you, you must marry again, a handsome fellow like you. You must have a son. Or perhaps,’ said the cardinal, carefully steering the conversation away from the king’s illegitimate boy, ‘you do have a son that we don’t know about. Strange things happen in Ireland, do they not? Stephen Gardiner says that it is a godless place.’

  ‘If you say so, Your Grace.’ I didn’t want to talk about Stephen Gardiner. I didn’t like the man much. ‘Now about this matter,’ I continued. ‘Is James under suspicion purely on the word of Harry Percy and of the lady? If so, I think that is on shaky grounds. It’s obvious from the way that they look at each other, that pair, that this is a love at first sight, for the boy, anyway.’

  ‘As Boccaccio says: Love with his darts dwelt within the rays of those lovely eyes. He wants her for those beautiful black eyes,’ put in Alice.

  ‘And she?’ queried the cardinal.

  ‘I’d say that she sees his vast acres of estates when she looks into his eyes,’ Alice suggested demurely, and the cardinal chuckled.

  ‘He seems very in love with her,’ I put in.

  ‘You’re not thinking that Harry Percy planned to kill my instructor of the wards, just in order to free Mistress Boleyn of the Butler match are you, Hugh?’

  ‘Not planned,’ I said slowly, ‘but perhaps on the spur of the moment, the notion came to him. That was an opportunist murder, Your Grace, it could not have been planned. No one could have known that the man would position himself just behind the arras cloth and no one could have foretold that he would fall dead without attracting the notice of any of the hundred or so people in the hall. You were there, yourself, Your Grace. As well as the king and his courtiers
, the ladies-in-waiting and the pages, there were also the servants, the musicians, the gentlemen ushers, the yeoman, the marshals and perhaps some of the kitchen staff. It was an amazing matter that a man could be shot, fall down dead and not a single one of all those people would notice.’

  ‘An act of desperation, perhaps,’ suggested Alice thoughtfully.

  ‘Desperation,’ mused the cardinal. ‘I’m not sure that I know the meaning of the word. There is always something to be done, is there not? Of course, boys are a bit different, aren’t they? God bless my soul, I must by now have had dozens of boys go through my hands, and the strange thing is that many, many of them did quite unpredictable things, things that were incredibly dangerous, incredibly foolish and … and, well, just incredible.’ The cardinal sighed, shook his head and held the ring he wore on his fourth finger up to the light. It was of gold and the stone, an oval-shaped turquoise stone, held by small golden clasps, was big enough to cover the entire lower end of his finger.

  ‘Why should James wish to kill the instructor of the wards?’ I asked the question abruptly. I didn’t like the direction that the conversation was taking.

  Alice and the cardinal looked at each other.

  ‘I did mention to you that there was a rumour that the instructor of the wards was blackmailing some of the boys. The matter was investigated by my sergeant-at-arms, but was found not to have substance, at the time,’ added the cardinal and he looked at me meaningfully. John Rushe, good fellow that he was, would be no match for the cunning instructor of the wards. I was worrying, though, that others knew of the dead man’s reputation as a blackmailer.

  I recovered my senses and presented a blank face to him. ‘Nothing much in it, Your Grace. The odd crown to keep the man silent about a few boyish escapades. If he had any real worries, James would have confided in me. I have been part of his household since I was a young boy. My father was Brehon to the Ormonds in Kilkenny Castle. If James had been in any trouble when I arrived he would have immediately looked to me to sort it out for him. I knew James in his cradle.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The cardinal sounded sceptical but, as he often said, he never argued with lawyers or Irishmen. It was one of his favourite jokes when I was present. He got to his feet. ‘Now I must visit the queen. I’ll leave you to sort out this affair.’ He ambled gently towards the door. There would be something else to come; I knew him well enough for that. The cardinal always kept his important messages for the last. A little piece of information, just thrown over his shoulder …

  ‘Have a word with George,’ he invited. ‘He’s a young man himself. He would be able to tell you what went on after the banquet. All that sugar, all that marchpane – makes me want to drop off to sleep, but it seems to give energy to the young. And, Hugh, I can’t afford to delay too long in this business. A murder committed probably in the presence of the king himself. Luckily he will be busy with the ambassador and his train this week, but by next week, say by next Monday, I will need to be seen to have taken some action. I have the affair of the Bishop of Carlisle to see to, also. But that gives you five days.’

  And then he was gone, closing the door softly behind him. He was a man of his word. I would have this time – these remaining five days with as little interference as he could manage, but after that there would be no saving of James, unless I could come up with another name, could make a good legal case for another person to have fired that fatal arrow.

  ‘Come down to my room,’ said Alice when the noise of his footsteps had died away. ‘We’ll be more private there.

  I followed her out of the room and strolled by her side.

  ‘My little Lily hears me,’ she said as she opened the door and an excited squeal of barking hit our ears. The small dog shot from the arms of a lady-in-waiting and she picked it up, stroking the soft white fur and gently pulling at the pure gold ears. ‘White and gold; I had to name her Lily,’ she had said to me when Lily and I first made friends.

  ‘James is in bad trouble, Hugh,’ she said when we were alone.

  ‘He didn’t do it. It would have been a crazy thing to do. James is not like that. Kill a man on the spur of the moment by firing an arrow in the presence of the king and the nobility. That’s the act of an irrational man and James is not that. I’ll get him out of it,’ I said confidently.

  ‘The king’s serjeant will want to prove that he did it.’ Her voice had sunk to a low murmur, but it held a warning note and Lily gave a small quiet growl and then wagged a responsive tail as her mistress told her to be quiet.

  ‘Why on earth should he want to do that?’ I asked.

  She fondled the dog for a minute.

  ‘Because he is bribed or intimidated by St Leger,’ she replied. ‘I saw them together, just before you came in. They had their heads together. You mark my words, a proposal has been made and has been accepted.’

  I thought about this for a moment. Alice was a sharp observer. She had a habit of sitting quietly in the background, seemingly immersed in her needlework, but in reality taking in all the nuances of words spoken and unspoken, and absorbing all of the expressions. It was one of the reasons, I often thought, why the cardinal was reluctant to part with her, was happy to allow her to reject possible marriage offers.

  ‘And, of course, if James is convicted of a murder, then his father’s claim to the earldom of Ormond is very much weakened.’ I could see the significance of a link between St Leger and king’s serjeant.

  ‘And St Leger’s is very much strengthened,’ pointed out Alice. ‘After all, he is the son of the elder daughter of the late earl. Thomas Boleyn is the son of the younger of the two. He only came into the picture because, in the first place, he is the king’s ambassador and King Henry likes to reward those who are in his eye. And secondly, unlike St Leger, the Boleyns still had an unmarried daughter and Cardinal Wolsey thought it a good idea to settle the matter peacefully.’

  It was a shrewd analysis and I thought about it. Alice always knew the intricacies of every line of nobility. What she did not say, but what I knew well, was that the cardinal was fond of James and thought the match with young Anne Boleyn would be a way of giving the boy an earldom.

  ‘As long as the matter does not end in James dangling from a noose,’ I said grimly. But that was a futile remark. I needed to concentrate my mind on this murder.

  ‘That was a strange way to murder anyone, wasn’t it, Alice?’

  ‘Almost like a piece of stagecraft, wasn’t it?’ Alice had read my thoughts. ‘You don’t think that our Mr Cavendish, George, the gentleman usher, had anything to do with it, do you, Hugh?’

  ‘It’s a tempting thought,’ Despite the seriousness of the matter I could not help smiling. ‘The ultimate in entertainment for the king. After all the Romans entertained their emperors by flinging Christians to the lions, didn’t they?’

  On another occasion Alice and I would have had fun with this notion, but now I had not the heart to pursue it. This talk of St Leger was worrying me. I gnawed the knuckle of my middle finger and thought about it. This murder just did not make sense. I wished that I had been present when the body was found.

  ‘Shall I send for John? I think we need to know what’s going on.’ She was always responsive to what was not said. At my nod, she tinkled a small silver bell and the little dog barked vigorously until a lady-in-waiting appeared at the door. The household, including Alice’s brother, took their attitude to her from the cardinal’s manner and I was not surprised when John appeared within minutes. Alice fixed her eyes on the fire, stroked Lily and left her brother to stand facing me.

  ‘John, where’s the body? I want to see it.’ I asked sharply. The more I thought about it, the stranger I found this arrow business.

  ‘The king’s serjeant is looking after it.’ There was a note of evasion in his voice

  ‘Looking after it!’ I repeated. ‘What do you mean?’’

  Alice’s hand ceased stroking the little dog. Her eyes were fixed on her brother and her e
yebrows rose. He looked at her hastily and then back at me.

  ‘Master Gibson has taken over this matter; you have to understand that, Hugh.’

  ‘Although this is Hampton Court, not one of the royal palaces. What does the cardinal have to say to that?’ I said. I was beginning to get angry.

  ‘You know what he would say, Hugh. Everything that I have comes from the king.’ Alice’s voice had a note of warning. She would not allow anything to be said against Cardinal Wolsey and so I changed my tack.

  ‘This is a very strange affair, John. Can’t you see that? If James wanted to send an arrow through Edmund Pace’s heart, then why not shoot him from a window, or out in the Wildernesse one day. It must have been sheer chance and a most unlikely thing that it was not instantly noticed that a man fell down dead in front of a hundred people.’

  ‘But he did.’ John was stubborn.

  ‘It appears that he did, John. There’s a difference.’ Alice placed the little dog on the floor beside her skirts and took up her embroidery. ‘I agree with Hugh. It seems most unlikely that he was shot in front of the king, his court, and almost the whole of the cardinal’s court. Hugh, why don’t you go and have a word with George, as the cardinal suggested.’

  I went at her bidding. John would be stubborn with me, but would be acquiescent to his sister. She had a better chance with him.

  3

  George was carrying a box filled with twelve glistening balls of ivory when I met him. I took it firmly from him, opened the door of the Balliards Room and deposited it into the hands of Tom Seymour. I had a quick glance into the room. No sign of James, though the room was full of young men. And one lady. Anne Boleyn was draped gracefully across the window seat, her long fingers sliding up and down a silver-tipped balliards stick, as though gently caressing it. And beside her stood Harry Percy.