A Fine Madness

by Alan Judd

  I was working on this one summer morning when Nicholas Faunt burst into the New Library. I say ‘burst’ because Nicholas, a busy, bustling hirsute man who was one of Sir Francis’s private secretaries, never merely entered a room but immediately seemed to fill it. ‘Thomas, you are bidden with me to Barn Elms,’ he said loudly. ‘Mr Secretary has a task for you. It is urgent, we must leave now.’

  He had a boat waiting. The tide was against us and so the journey took longer than it should have, which gave more time for Nicholas to tell me what was afoot. He was not supposed to, of course, but he was one of those self-important men keen for you to know that he knew things you didn’t. He couldn’t resist hinting at them and, provided you didn’t show too much curiosity, might eventually tell you half the story unprompted. It was a serious failing in a private secretary but he was loyal, energetic and efficient, and otherwise served his master well. Thus I learned that my task involved the insertion of a spy into a group of conspirators. It had to be someone entirely unsuspected, an apparent sympathiser uncontaminated by previous involvement with us. Nicholas had himself suggested this particular spy, a man a few years younger than himself whom he had known at school in Canterbury and who was now at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where Nicholas himself had been. His name was Christopher Marlowe. He was apparently well versed in theology, familiar enough with the ways of the old faith to pass for a Catholic while remaining soundly Protestant. But he was not extremely so, he was no Puritan.

  ‘He is a scholarship boy, he needs money, as does his family, he is willing and discreet,’ said Nicholas. ‘Term has ended and the college supposes him travelling home to Canterbury, as he will after the excursion we intend for him. Mr Secretary has interviewed him and pronounced him suitable.’

  ‘Where is the excursion?’

  ‘That I am not at liberty to say.’ Nicholas compressed his lips and gazed across the rippling grey water. He was trying to imply that telling me would be a step too far but I suspected he didn’t know and didn’t like to admit it. So it proved when Sir Francis received me alone in the study of his great house at Barn Elms, overlooking the orchards towards the river. ‘Nicholas has doubtless revealed to you what you are to do.’

  ‘Only in part, sir.’

  There was almost a smile. ‘What he won’t have told you is that you are to take the young man into Berkshire, to a house sometimes called Moore Place, otherwise Lyford Grange, near Wantage, about half a day’s ride from Oxford. The owner is Francis Yate, a gentleman who is currently visiting the Tower as a guest of Her Majesty. His house has long been a hive of recusants. They hide priests and hold masses there and also house some English nuns who earlier fled to Belgium, but have now returned because of the persecutions. Our quarries, the two Jesuits Persons and Campion, are somewhere in that area and I suspect may seek temporary refuge in Lyford Grange. Not a wise choice since it is widely known for what it is, but they are not well-versed in secret ways and Campion particularly is of an open and free nature. Secrecy is not natural to him. A man called George Eliot is charged by the sheriff with security in the area and will be investigating the household. He will not know that you are in the area and you should have nothing to do with him. Apart from our young man, there will be another agent, a man called Frizer, deployed by my Lord Leicester to gain access to the house. He is Leicester’s man, nothing to do with us and you must have nothing to do with him either. Your task is to insert Master Marlowe into that household without anyone suspecting him. We need our own man there. Or woman.’

  The search for these two Jesuits had been my main concern for some weeks. They had landed at Rye in Sussex and then disappeared. How Mr Secretary should have known they were in Berkshire I had no idea, but like the fox he knew many things and no one but him was privy to all.

  ‘They were recently in Oxford or thereabouts,’ he continued. ‘Campion has written a paper, his “Ten Reasons” paper, arguing for Catholicism against Protestantism and asserting that Her Majesty has no right to occupy the throne of England. It was probably printed at Stonor, a Catholic house near Henley. Two days ago four hundred copies were left on the pews of St Mary’s church in Oxford for scholars to find when they arrived to defend their theses. It had considerable effect since there are many Catholics in Oxford, open and secret, as you know. Indeed, Campion himself was a fine Oxford scholar and like to become a great figure in our English Church until he defected to Rome.’ Mr Secretary looked down, nodding to himself. ‘It is a good paper, well-argued and powerfully seditious, as you would expect. Take it and read it.’ He handed me a copy across his desk, smiling slightly at my surprise and discomfiture. ‘You worry that it is a treasonous offence to possess such a paper, but don’t, it is permitted us. We must study our enemies, Thomas. We must know their arguments in order to fortify our own. And Father Edmund Campion is a man deserving of respect, a Godly and able man gone wrong, which is why he must be destroyed. And you must destroy this copy when you have read it. It would not do to have it bruited abroad.’

  I was to find Marlowe at an inn in Wantage and agree with him a plan of action. Before I left Mr Secretary warned me against the other agent sent to the house. ‘Ingram Frizer will be anxious to prove himself useful to the Earl of Leicester. As will George Eliot, the sheriff’s man, who will want to advance his career. The household will hate and fear them. They are rough men, unlike your scholar. Because he is gentle in manner he will have a better chance of gaining the confidence of the household, which is why it is best Eliot and Frizer know nothing of him. Nor he of them. The Earl of Leicester will anyway inform us of anything they report.’

  It was true that Christopher was quiet and usually gentle in manner but, as I was to find, he had harder rock within than Leicester’s bullies.

  I was given a horse from the Barn Elms stable – not Prince, unfortunately – and left to find my own way early the following morning. This may not seem a great matter to anyone familiar with the highways and byways to the west of London but I knew the roads to Paris better than our own and my short-sightedness means I must depend upon the directions of others, who are not always accurate or honest. Thus it took me the better part of two days to find Wantage, after spending an uncomfortable night in a hovel near Henley, persecuted by fleas. Their bites still marked me when I reached the inn, which at least looked a more respectable place. There was a boy sitting on the bench outside, reading. He stood at my approach and I asked for Master Marlowe who was lodging there.

  ‘I will send for him, sir. Meanwhile, may I show you to your room?’

  It was gratifying to find I was expected. Mr Secretary thought of everything. I gave my horse to the ostler and followed the boy up the dark twisting stairs to a light pleasant room overlooking the road. It had a bed and an undulating floor of broad polished oak planks. The boy pointed. ‘Mr Marlowe is to share the bed with you, sir.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He is here, sir.’

  It took me a second to realise as he smiled at my puzzlement. He had no trace of a beard in those days and his face was even more boyish. He wore the plain black of a scholar, which in my tired unthinking state I had taken for a servant’s livery. His hair was dark and long.

  ‘I thought you would prefer we talk here in private,’ he said.

  ‘You thought well, Master Marlowe.’ We shook hands.

  Conversation that evening was fuelled by wine and leg of lamb. I had been given money for expenses and, having seen the colour of my coin, our host was assiduous. When I asked Christopher what he knew of our task, he said, ‘To catch secret priests. That is all I have been told.’

  ‘And you are happy to do that?’

  ‘As happy to do that as anything.’

  I interpreted that as meaning anything for money. I was wrong. Of course, as a poor scholar money mattered to him and it was to prove a powerful determinant in his life, significant in his death. But it was never his prime motive for working for us, as it was for many. Precisely w
hat his motives were, I cannot say. He had no love for Popery and I am sure that he loved his country, though he would never have put it in those terms. He loved excitement, too, and was not averse to experimenting with himself.

  Anyway, I was not exploring the recesses of Christopher’s personality that first evening. I explained that his task was to penetrate Lyford Grange, reporting to me on who was there and on anything he learned. In particular, he was to listen for any hint that the two priests, Persons and Campion, were in the area. We discussed how he might present himself at the house and I was outlining various ruses when he cut me off with an assurance that might have been offensive in one so young, but for his enthusiasm.

  ‘Surely I must be a secret Catholic in search of others,’ he said. ‘And, since the truth is the best concealment, I should stick as close to it as possible. I should be a scholar at Cambridge unhappy with its Reformist sympathies, travelling to Oxford in hope of privately hearing more Catholic teaching. Some of my fellows, secret Catholics, have gone abroad to seminaries where they will become priests before returning to spread the word here, but I have not the means to travel and am less bold than they. Thus, my hosts may see me as someone who may be worked upon to aid the cause.’

  ‘And how have you found your way to Lyford Grange? Why here?’

  ‘I travelled from Cambridge to London with some fellows. I left them in London to come secretly to Oxford, following the river and hoping to call at Stonor House near Henley, having heard it is a stout Catholic stronghold. But I heard too that it is surrounded by spies and informers so I determined to continue to Oxford. I am greatly wearied and, having learned there were pious nuns at Lyford Grange, hoped I might rest for a while here. I can pay for my sustenance.’

  ‘And who are you? If you are Christopher Marlowe of Canterbury and Corpus Christi and you come under suspicion you will be a marked man for life.’

  ‘I am Robin Noakes of Rye in Sussex. He was a fellow scholar who died a week before the end of term. They will not distinguish my Kentish from a Sussex accent. You have to have been born in either to know the difference.’

  ‘You have been busy thinking.’

  ‘It is what I do.’

  He proved a natural. Most needed schooling in how to seek truth through falsehood but Christopher sprang from his chrysalis fully formed. He was never at a loss to explain himself. He could give twenty different explanations for what he was doing or where or why, often more convincing than the truth. Sometimes he would do it in jest, challenging you to guess the correct explanation and laughing at your failures.

  He was also armed with a knife, I noticed. That was not in itself unusual, of course – we all carried knives for cutting our bread and meat and to protect ourselves if necessary – but the blade in Christopher’s belt was a dagger, the long, pointed kind held in a dueller’s left hand to parry while he attacked with his rapier in his right hand. I pointed at it. ‘Devout scholars do not carry daggers like that.’

  He glanced at it almost affectionately as if it were a puppy or kitten. ‘I’ll leave it behind. I have a smaller one. I usually wear this when travelling. In case of need.’

  It was true that one had to take care when travelling, then as now, whether journeying far or walking the streets of London, but I do believe I never saw Christopher without knife or – later – sword. Except when he was killed. Even then he used a knife, though not his own.

  We set off for Lyford Grange early the following morning. It was east of Wantage and not a long walk. There was no need for me to accompany him, of course – indeed, he should not be seen with me by anyone there – but I wanted to view the place discreetly and to find some secluded spot where messages could be left or where we could meet. That was not easy because the house, a fine modern moated building, was set amid the flat lands of those parts and not overlooked from high ground. I durst not go closer than where I could see the roofs and chimneys through the trees. There was a copse just off the path, mainly ash and elm, in the middle of which we found a solitary old oak in its own small clearing. It had a dry bole near the ground about the size and depth of a man’s hand. We agreed to leave messages there, covering them with bark. I would check it at six o’clock that evening, again at eight the following morning and again at six the following evening. Christopher would meet me there if he could get away and needed to speak. When he finally left the house he would pretend to head for Oxford, about thirteen miles away, but would circle back to me at the inn. I tried to get him to go through his cover story again but he cut me short.

  ‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’

  Even as a youth he was never less than sure of himself. Perhaps too sure. I didn’t want to unsettle him when he was about to strut his piece on stage, as it were, so I merely nodded and bade him have a care.

  He walked through the trees back to the path, his leather pouch slung across his shoulder. He did not look back. He never did.

  There being no message that evening, I assumed he had gained entry and been allowed to stay. There was nothing for me to do but to enjoy a ramble through the fields and a good dinner of mutton washed down with ale. Waiting forms a large part of our work, along with patience and attention to detail, and I have known more promising cases ruined by haste and impetuosity than by any other cause. I have never minded waiting, especially in the comfort of a good inn. Having no deciphering to occupy me, I devised that evening a scheme to enhance my father’s and my own riches through our work at the custom house, where my father was collector of petty customs as well as of tonnage and poundage on exports. I thought it a fair and just scheme and it was indeed to prove lucrative, though it led ultimately to my spending years in cells such as this.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nor was there a message the following morning. I spent the day pottering, planning my new customs scheme and gossiping with mine host’s wife who bemoaned how the larger houses of the area, including the Grange, were very busy with many comings and goings and much hospitality, yet brought no business to the inn. ‘The fine ladies and gentlemen who stay there have no truck with us,’ she lamented. ‘Not even their servants, they keep theirselves to theirselves as if the rest of us had the plague.’

  I thought again it was time I found a wife of my own, some kind soul to keep house for me and comfort me at night. Someone to rear children who would look after us in our old age, as I was already beginning to do with my own father.

  ‘And what be your business here, sir?’ she asked. ‘And your young friend who was here before you? Will he be coming back?’

  ‘My nephew,’ I said. ‘He has gone to the university to find a college that will admit him next year. When he returns we will continue our journey to London where we are employed in the custom house.’

  Lying is both a natural and acquired facility which comes easier to some than to others. You must have observed this at Court, sir? It was never difficult for me. In those days I always had a cover story at hand to explain myself, except when I could proudly assert that I was on Mr Secretary Walsingham’s business. It came easily then but as I grew older I wearied of it and now I find pretence no longer a pleasure or excitement but a burden, another thing to have to remember. That is why I am unafraid to tell you truth now, sir, no matter what the consequences. But it would help to know the reason for your interest?

  No matter. I went to the oak tree that evening and scrabbled around in the bole but again found no note. I was fearing that something might have gone wrong when a voice said, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’

  Christopher was sitting above me on a bough shaped as if God had designed it for the reclining human form. He climbed down, dusting off his black breeches. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t slept here all night. But it would be more comfortable than the truckle bed I have in that house.’

  ‘They accepted you?’

  ‘They love me.’

  They had admitted him reluctantly at first, questioning his background. He had convinced them that he sm
ouldered – that was the word he used – beneath the damp Protestant cloud over Cambridge, which blocked off all light from the old faith. He had heard that Oxford was more enlightened, that there were sympathetic scholars there prepared to preach in private the truths publicly disavowed by today’s dour evangelism. He wanted to hear them. He was helped by the fact that a shoal of Oxford scholars had arrived that morning to see the nuns and to partake of the Mass with Father Campion, they said. Thus he learned that Campion had indeed been there, that he had left at dawn the day Christopher arrived, that the eight nuns present – he had their names by heart – had been so mesmerised by his preaching that they had remained on their knees long after he had urged them to rise.

  ‘So the bird has flown. Do they know where?’

  ‘They know that Father Persons had instructed him to ride to Lancashire to retrieve certain documents and then to hide with sympathisers in Norfolk. But they think he will return sooner. They have sent a rider to beg him back for one more night to preach to the multitude now gathered and longing to hear him. He is forbidden by Persons to stay longer but, it being Sunday tomorrow, they hope he will say Mass and preach a sermon before departing again. There are about sixty there, with hardly a floorboard in the house to sleep on. Some will have to sleep in the garden.’

  Apart from the nuns, the household comprised two chaplains, Mrs Yate and her staff and a number of other visitors. The influx of local Catholics and scholars had fortunately swamped Christopher’s arrival and he had found himself ignored after initial questioning. He was now simply one of many and could come and go as he pleased. He had taken the precaution of ostentatiously quizzing the scholars about Oxford.