He put Grafton’s book back on the shelf and pulled down the adjacent volume, a slightly older Bible in Englysh. There was no name on the cover but he knew that this too was Richard Grafton’s work, as a printer, rather than a historian. He shook his head; Grafton claiming other chroniclers’ work as his own was akin to him claiming the work of ancient writers as his own too—even the writers of the Bible. He was not at liberty to claim the work of the Church Fathers as his own, so why should he be allowed to claim that of his contemporaries? He put the Bible back also. Still Sir William had not come, so he pulled down the next volume. This was The Castel of Memorie: wherein is conteyned the restoring, augmenting, and conseruing of the Memorye and Remembraunce, with the safest remedies and best preceptes therevnto in any wise apperteyning: Made by Gulielmus Gratarolus Bergomaris Doctor of Artes and Physicke. Englished by Willyam Fulwod. Clarenceux was impressed: Grafton, Grafton, Gratarolus—Sir William had arranged his books in alphabetical order of printer or author. Curious, he started reading the first section of Gratarolus:
Memorie is by the whiche the mynde repeateth things that are past. Or it is a stedfast perceivyng in the mynde of the disposition of things and words. Or (as Aristotle supposeth) it is an imagination, that remaineth of such things as the sense had conceyved. Also by the sentence of Plato, Memorie is a sense & a safetie (or a safe reteining of things): for the soule obtaineth by the office of the senses whatsoever things chaunce under the sense, and therefore it is the beginnings of an opinion. But by the mynde itselfe it considereth intellectuall thynges, & so is it become intelligence.
He put his finger on the words “Aristotle supposeth” and read that sentence again. “Memory is an imagination.” If that is so, he reasoned, then all recorded memory is merely fable. And the document I guard, which speaks of the marriage of Lord Percy to Anne Boleyn, is also nothing more than fable. The illegitimacy of the queen herself thus becomes untrue.
But the truth is the truth, and always will be; so the truth of the past is unchangeable even if God alone knows it.
The door to the library opened and Sir William entered hastily in his robe. He was much older now than his picture, only two years younger than Clarenceux. His beard was heavily gray, with just a little reddish-brown in the mustache. His graying hair was concealed beneath a black cap and his doublet was made of black velvet with gold trimmings and pearl buttons. The effect of the black robe over the whole black and jeweled ensemble was strikingly rich and dramatic.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting, William,” said Cecil. “I was with her majesty this morning—and she thrust a bundle of petitions at me and asked me to look through them. I tried to give my apologies but, well, you know what she is like in a bad mood. Looking through them took me an hour—thus detaining me longer than I expected at the palace.”
Clarenceux put the book back in the press. “Does your wife ever see you these days?”
Cecil smiled at Clarenceux. “It is the secret of our beautiful marriage,” he said as he took off the robe and placed it on a bench by the wall. “I am never a burden on my wife. Wine?”
Clarenceux shook his head. “No. It has lost its savor somewhat these days. Inebriation makes me feel vulnerable.”
“Then only drink a little,” said Cecil as he poured himself a glass. “That at least should embolden you against your enemies.”
“I have too many enemies.”
Cecil nodded. “I hear you attend sword practice these days at the Belle Savage?”
“Who told you?”
“Walsingham, of course.” Cecil sipped his wine. “I always thought you were too proud to admit that you might need lessons in anything, swordsmanship especially. Scholars who can defend themselves with real weapons as well as wit are few on the ground. Most think wit is enough and only find out too late that it has its limitations.”
“Why did you summon me?”
“I did not summon you. I invited you. And you know why. I must have the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement. The time has come for you to hand it over to me.”
“Last year you were happy for me to keep hold of it. The year before that too. What has changed?”
“The Scottish marriage. Charles James Stuart. The queen herself admits that she cannot pretend anyone has a better claim—at least, not until she herself has children. It is ironic: her majesty has forbidden anyone from discussing the succession and yet precisely for that reason we do little else but discuss it. Walsingham thinks she will never marry because she sees the monarchy as indivisible from herself, alone and ethereal, like an angel of England. I disagree. I think she will marry—not for the sake of company nor even for the sake of her father’s dynasty but for the sake of religion. If she does not, the Catholic boy in Scotland will inherit the throne of England.”
Clarenceux disagreed. “If you have not persuaded her to share power with a husband yet, you never will.”
“But the Catholics have a champion in that boy, and he has a powerful protector in his father. Remove Elizabeth now and a Catholic will inherit—there is no doubt about that. The document you hold used to be just a curiosity—something that your London revolutionary friends toyed with. Certainly it was dangerous; it inspired their imaginations and made them feel important. They could have done much damage with it. But they were never sufficiently well connected to wield its true power. In Lord Henry Stewart’s hands, however, it becomes the means to persuade foreign powers to assist the Catholic cause. That is why I must ask you to surrender it.”
Clarenceux looked at the fire. It was burning low. He walked to it, crouched down, and picked up a log from the pile. He tossed it onto the flames. He did the same with a second log. Still looking at the flames, he replied, “I cannot do that.”
Cecil lifted his wine glass to his mouth. “I trust you will explain.”
Clarenceux remained looking into the flames. “I have had a long time to think about that document and I have come to realize certain things. If we were to have an open meeting—in the Guildhall, for instance—and if at that meeting I was formally invited to hand the marriage agreement over to her majesty, or you, or anyone, and did so in the presence of the leading Catholics of the realm, then I would gladly do so. But you cannot allow that to happen. If you, the queen’s secretary, were even to acknowledge that that document exists—that it ever existed—you would start a civil war. Its very creation renders the legitimate line of old King Henry extinct and Mary of Scotland the rightful queen of England.”
“Something could be arranged. A private gathering, perhaps.”
Clarenceux put another log on the fire, and then a fourth. “No. Not even Elizabeth herself would be able to assure me that I will be allowed publicly to hand over that document. It is no good the handover taking place in secret, for the followers of the old religion will be left in the dark as to where it is, and never have anything official to show it existed. For it is knowledge of the truth that you must deny. In some respects Aristotle was wrong to say that memory is imagination; our consciences are not the same as our imaginations. But in the matter of politics he was quite right. You can claim that we do not remember the circumstances of our queen’s parentage; we merely imagine it. Political leaders have a tendency to turn memory into imagination.”
Cecil approached the fireplace and crouched down beside Clarenceux. “I do not disagree,” he said. “Only I word it differently. ‘Politics is the art of purposeful lies’ is how I put it. But that is the point. They are purposeful. Anyone can tell the truth. If governing the country was just a matter of telling the truth, then we would have no secrets. We could leave it to a machine—like a water wheel or a mill. Telling the right lie at the right time, or concealing a particular truth at the most necessary moment—these are things that a machine cannot do.”
“You can tell the truth if you believe the truth is God’s will.”
Cecil picked up a stick and adjuste
d the position of one of the burning logs, then threw the stick onto the fire. “William, you have to choose sides, you know. You cannot remain alone, defiant of the State and in defiance of the Catholic cause. If you choose to follow your faith, you will become a traitor.”
Clarenceux looked into the flames, which were now rising higher. “I am not alone. I have God on my side. I do not believe that God is on your side simply because Elizabeth is queen now. Nor do I believe that God is on the side of those who would overthrow her. But I do believe He is on my side, for I follow His direction. So, Sir William, while you think I am outnumbered, the truth is that you are.”
He got up and walked away from the fire. Cecil slowly also got to his feet.
“You understand how dangerous your way is. You know there can be no return, no path of redemption. You and your family will always be watched. Pursued. Threatened.”
“Why has Walsingham increased the guard on my house?”
“You’ll have to ask him. I know he has you watched. In doing so he is only following my orders. It is for your safety.”
“And the safety of the document?”
Cecil said nothing.
Clarenceux poured himself a glass of wine. “I’ll drink this because I am in good company,” he said, raising the glass. “I know you are a remarkable man, Sir William. One day the chronicles will be filled with descriptions of your deeds. But I cannot give you the marriage agreement. It is not that I do not trust you—it is that I know you will prove wholly loyal to her majesty, not me. One day the time will come for me either to use it or destroy it.” He drank again. “And maybe I will destroy myself too. In this I will perform the will of God, not the will of her majesty.”
“Elizabeth does not even know the document exists,” muttered Cecil. He walked over to the bottle of wine and poured another glass. “William, do not sacrifice your life.”
“The thought is not entirely unwelcome, if thereby I can end my worries, frustrate the rebels, and guarantee my family’s safety.”
“You love them that much?”
“Just as you do your family.”
“True.” Cecil drank. “However, I would feel an obligation to put her majesty and the State before my family. God knows I love my wife and children, but I know my capacity for loyalty is greater than my capacity for love. I pray that I am never again forced to choose.”
“Never again?” asked Clarenceux.
Cecil walked over to the door. He opened it and called out, “Mr. Tasker, more wine up here, please—a quart of the Rumney, if there is any left.” He shut the door again. “We will wait a moment; I do not wish to be overheard.” Then he added, as if a little inebriated, “Do you like the wine?”
Clarenceux nodded. “It is strong. Strong is good.” He lifted his glass—but he did not drink, not this time.
When Mr. Tasker had supplied the flask and left, and glasses had been refilled, Sir William Cecil dragged a bench close to the fire, which was now burning heartily. He drank half of his glass in one go and began his story.
“Where were you when the king died? King Edward, not the old king.”
“I was Norroy herald in those days. Where was I? All over London—it took a long time, his death. I remember leaving Skinners Hall and walking down to the river to pick up a wherry. A stranger told me that the king was dead. I was not sure whether to believe him, so I went back to the river and asked the boatmen there. The news had already circulated among them. It was then I began to believe it, at the riverside, watching the swans.”
Cecil shook his head. “When he lay dying, Edward decided that the most important thing for England was that it remain a Protestant kingdom. To that end he decreed that he could alter his father’s Succession Act. Normally he would have been quite right: a king can alter his predecessor’s orders, even with regard to the order of succession. The problem was that his father was very shrewd and had had his orders for the succession enshrined in law, by Parliament. Edward left it too late; there was not enough time to summon Parliament to reverse the Succession Act. But the young king would not be deterred: he drew up his ‘device’ declaring Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate and making Lady Jane Grey his heir. That was the point at which we were forced to step onto the whale’s back of the law.”
Clarenceux had often wondered how Cecil, who had signed the declaration that Mary and Elizabeth were illegitimate, had not only managed to survive but had risen under both queens.
Cecil drank from his glass. “Who really governs this realm? Is it the monarch alone? Or the monarch in alliance with her people, the major householders of the kingdom? In truth, it is a two-way thing: the making of laws and the implementation of them. But the making of them is a matter for the monarch alone. So when the poor boy was dying and so insistent that his Protestant cousin should inherit, there was nothing we could do. You know what happened. You know what I did. The only reason I am alive today is that I insisted I was merely signing as a witness of the king’s will and on the advice of his chief ministers.”
Clarenceux lifted his glass to his lips. This time he too drank.
Cecil looked directly at him. “There will come a time when you know that your life is in the balance, and you will write to your wife for the last time, as I did in June 1553. Not to sign the device, the king told us, would be considered treason and we would be made examples of; we would be executed. Realizing what lay ahead of me, I went to my study, picked up my pen, and began a letter: ‘Dear Mildred.’ In that letter I bade her look after my children by her and also my firstborn son, Thomas, by my first wife.”
Cecil curled his knuckles and bit them, looking away from Clarenceux. “I gave that letter to Sir Nicholas Bacon, my brother-in-law. I would like to be able to say that I prepared for death then, but all I remember from those hours is that one cannot prepare for death. Death is nothing to prepare for. How does a lamb prepare for the slaughter? It can only carry on being a lamb.”
Clarenceux said nothing for a long while. Then he said: “Sir William, you committed yourself to the Protestant cause—even facing death. You gambled and won, for now. But I am not a gambling man. I have no need to be.”
Cecil smiled and sighed a little. “I would like to get drunk with you—properly drunk—but I know that if I suggested that, you would simply think I was trying one of my Protestant tricks on you. I don’t want that.” Cecil’s smile passed, and he became solemn. “You and I are like brothers at war—we have no hatred for each other, but we are not on the same sides. The most likely reason why Mr. Walsingham has increased the watch on your house is because Lady Percy’s sister is dead. She died in the Tower on the twenty-eighth of November.”
Clarenceux set his glass down on the table. “I must go. Tomorrow I have a long journey. I am preparing for a visitation of Oxfordshire. And you know I have to make certain other provisions beforehand, for the safety of my family.”
Cecil nodded. “As I said, the time will come, William, when you too write a letter to your wife, asking her to look after your children. And you will hand that letter over to your last true friend in this world, the person you trust most to stand in your stead and face your enemies after you are gone.”
Clarenceux ran his fingers through his hair, holding his head. “I know.” He looked back up at the portrait of Cecil as a thirty-two year old. “If you were thirty-two…That was the year, was it not? The year the king died?”
“The painting was done a few months before, when I was riding high in the king’s favor and he was expected to live for many years.”
Clarenceux bowed to Cecil. “When I write that letter, I will entrust it to you.”
19
Friday, December 27
Clarenceux lay awake in the darkness. Through the gaps between the shutters he could see the full moon. It was cold enough for a frost. That was good; for if ever the guards opposite were likely to close their shut
ters, it was when it was very cold. He knew now where he needed to place the marriage agreement, and that meant going to fetch it from where it was hidden: in a barn near Wargrave in Berkshire.
He had placed it there two years earlier. Under the pretext of visiting Awdrey’s sister in Devon he had made a long journey westward, taking every opportunity to stray off the road and visit a nobleman or an armigerous gentleman. In Berkshire he had heard of what he wanted: a modest cottage in a remote yet easily accessible place. He had purchased the property together with some land and had let the smallholding to a local man, John Beard, and his wife, Agnes. There he had hidden the document. John was an unquestioning soul who could be trusted not to take a flame into the barn under any conditions, as Clarenceux had stipulated. He also could be trusted to keep the hayloft loaded with hay and to keep watch for anyone suspicious paying attention to the barn.
He carefully clambered out of bed in his shirt, making sure not to shift his weight too suddenly off the ropes beneath the mattress. Awdrey did not stir. He crept around the bottom of the bed to find the jug and basin, pouring a little water onto his left hand to rinse his face and wake himself completely. He felt in the darkness for his clothes, pulled on his hosen, and held his shoes, doublet, and breeches close to his chest as he crept out of the room. The back stairs creaked terribly as he made his way down. He paused outside the door through to the hall but he heard nothing. Thomas, it seemed, was still asleep. There on the back landing, he hurriedly put on his doublet and breeches. He descended the next set of stairs just as carefully, carrying his shoes in one hand and feeling his way with the other. He paused; still there was no sound. At the bottom he walked across the flagstones past the buttery and into the kitchen. Here a little light from the fire was still playing across the floor, illuminating the ragged edges of the canvas-covered mattress on which Nick was sleeping. He shook him awake.
The Final Sacrament Page 11
