Henry laughed and threw the cue down on the table. “What murderer doesn’t say that?”
“I believe him, Henry. He doesn’t have guilt written in his face. Just go look into his eyes. You’ll see honesty there and truth.”
“Honesty and truth,” he said, pondering the words. “Honesty and truth,” he repeated slowly. “We need more of both in England. But I can’t interfere.”
“Well, you can do one thing.”
“What is that?”
“You can ask Sir Thomas More to defend him.”
Henry’s eyes opened and he stroked his chin. “Why, I hadn’t thought of that. I can certainly do that. More will do it for me. He’s the best lawyer in England and anywhere else for that matter. But tell me, Catherine. Why are you really interested in this young man?”
She ignored his tone of innuendo. “He has a kind spirit, Henry. I think there’s something good in him that needs to be saved.”
Henry lifted his chin. “I’ll have it done. Now, you see I’m gracious to you when I can be.”
“Thank you, Henry,” she said, and exited gracefully.
“Why, Your Majesty!”
“No ceremony, Thomas! No ceremony!” The king had sent for Thomas More, and now stood before him with a slight smile. “You’re wondering why I sent for you.”
More, probably the most able man in England in the courtroom or out, smiled. “Yes, Your Majesty, I certainly am. I hope it’s not to get me to write another book.”
“No, write all the books you want or as few. I want you to defend a man for me.”
Surprise washed across More’s face. “What man is that?”
“Oh, you heard about it. A royal messenger was murdered. A young man named Stuart Winslow has been accused. He’s been a member of the court here, keeper of the birds. The queen believes him innocent.”
“And you believe …”
“It’s neither here nor there. Get him off, if you can, Thomas. Make Catherine happy. As a matter of fact, it’d make me happy too to have him back. He’s awfully good with the birds. We can’t afford to lose a man that can fly a hawk as he can.”
“That seems like a trivial reason to save a man’s life,” More said.
“Thomas, Thomas! You never cease to amuse me. I would think if you ask Winslow, he would tell you he will grab at any excuse to escape the noose.”
“I didn’t know you had such compassion. I’m glad to see it in you.”
For a moment Henry was offended. He never liked any criticism of any kind. But his admiration for Sir Thomas More was boundless. He laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Go on, now. See that you get the boy off.”
Stuart leaped to his feet. He knew Sir Thomas More, of course. Everybody did. He was the best lawyer in England, a man of culture, and his book Utopia had captivated every learned person in the country. “Sir Thomas,” he said almost breathlessly, “you honor me.”
“As the king says, no ceremony.” He saw the shock on Stuart’s face. “I make a little fun of the king from time to time—when he’s not around, of course. Sit down.”
“Yes, sir.”
More drew up the other chair and put his hands on his knees. “Now, you tell me everything about this crime that you can. Start as far back as you want. Don’t leave out anything.”
“Yes, Sir Thomas. I was with a group of young men who liked to go out and play tricks and pranks, and sometimes their tricks would get out of hand. They kept asking me to go with them, and I would refuse them. But this time for some reason I agreed.”
When he finished his tale, More had listened to Stuart for over forty-five minutes. He had asked a few questions, and finally, when Stuart fell silent, he said, “Is that all?”
“Yes, Sir Thomas.”
“You did not draw a weapon on the man?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Very well. I will represent you in court.”
“Oh, thank you, Sir Thomas.”
“Thank our gracious Majesty, King Henry.”
Stuart smiled. “I think he was persuaded by our gracious Queen Catherine.”
“Whatever or whoever brought the change, I’m always happy to see a good instinct in Henry.”
More left without another word.
Hope began to grow in Stuart. “Maybe I won’t die,” he said.
19
The door opened, and a tall man was shoved in by a guard.
“You got company, Winslow,” the guard called out loudly. “He’s going to hang, so be nice to him.” He stepped back and slammed the door with a loud clang.
Stuart studied the newcomer. He had an aesthetic face and a pair of deep-set brown eyes, which were now fixed on him.
“My name is Jan Dekker.”
“I’m Stuart Winslow.”
“Stuart Winslow. I’ve heard of you.”
Dekker stretched his arms out, arched his back, and said, “This is really a very pleasant cell compared to some I’ve been in.”
“Yes, the one I was in before was rotten, but this isn’t bad as cells go. What are you charged with, Dekker?”
“Preaching the Gospel.”
“Why, I wasn’t aware that was against the law.”
“It will always be against some man’s law. The Lord Jesus said that if the world hated him, it would hate his disciples.” Dekker walked over to the window and looked out. He was very still. Finally he turned around, and with a smile said, “I have enemies, and I’ve been charged with heresy and treason.”
“Are you a heretic?”
“According to some. I preach that there is no salvation in any other than Jesus the Christ.”
Stuart stared at him. “I don’t see anything heretical about that.”
“The world will always find something heretical when the name of Jesus is mentioned. Have you ever noticed, Master Winslow, that you can mention the name of any religious leader in any company, and there will be very little reaction. You can mention the name of Buddha. No one would get excited about that or charge you with heresy because you have not followed the tenets of Buddha down to the letter. But you mention the name of Jesus, and that name has a strange power. It arouses the fury of hell, and if a man has hell within him, the Devil will use it to destroy the truth of salvation.”
“Have you been tried?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll be executed in three days. I don’t know why they delay. Mind if I sit?”
“Of course.”
Dekker sat down loosely in the chair, apparently as calm and collected as any man Stuart had ever seen. Stuart studied Dekker. In three days his heart will not be beating anymore. Perhaps his hair and fingernails will still grow, if the old women are right. But he won’t be here. He will be in eternity. He will be with God.
“Ah, Mr. Winslow, you have a Bible, I see.”
“Yes, the queen was kind enough to send me one.”
“Oh, you know the queen?”
“Yes, I have been an admirer of hers for some time.”
“Poor woman! She’s married to a man who has no moral code. He is like a ship without a compass. Henry goes left, goes right. He would go up and down if he could. His only key to life itself is ‘What can I get out of it for me?’”
Stuart looked nervously at the door. Even in the privacy of his cell, such talk was not safe. “How do you know I won’t repeat what you’ve said, Mr. Dekker?”
“Just call me Jan. It would make little difference. But what do you fear? Do you not think I speak the truth? Or do you doubt the truth of the Lord Jesus?”
“I don’t know what the truth is. My father and my mother are Christians, and I’ve known others, but I’m not a man of faith myself.”
“I hope that you will become so.”
Dekker’s calm spirit surprised Stuart, and he sat listening as Dekker read passages from a Latin Bible and spoke eagerly of the truth of the Scripture. After he went to bed that night, Dekker began to sing hymns. “I’m not a great singer,” he said. “I trust
my singing won’t bother you.”
“Of course not.”
“I love to sing of praise to my Savior. There was a time when I couldn’t do that, but now I can’t wait to get before the presence of the King.”
“Maybe you won’t die. Maybe God will set you free.”
“No, I must die for Jesus. Many others have done so before, and he has told me I am to do the same.”
Stuart shifted uncomfortably. Dekker was amiable enough, but the shadow of death was on him. And yet it did not show in his smile or in his eyes. It seemed that the more Stuart tried to give him hope of finding freedom in this world the more Dekker insisted that he was looking forward to meeting Jesus.
Why, he’s really happy! Stuart thought. You can feel his happiness and joy.
Seeing this in Dekker had the reverse effect on Stuart. While Dekker was totally convinced that the moment life left his body he would be standing in the presence of God and of the holy angels, Stuart knew that in the same condition, he would have nothing with which to plead to God for his excuses for not serving him.
For the next three days, he heard Dekker singing the hymns of faith. He heard him speaking of the glories of Jesus and of heaven and how he yearned to be there, and the more he heard, the more fear grew in him. He became almost consumed with fear. He kept this concealed from the jailers and from Dekker himself.
Jan spoke often of what life in Jesus was like. “God is life,” he said. He was lying flat on his back, his hands locked beneath his head, and speaking easily. “God is life. All else is a funeral.”
“But what of love? Isn’t that life? Isn’t that a taste of the eternal?”
“Well, we love others, but if we are saved and they are lost, why, my friend, they are lost to us forever. Only in Jesus do we find true eternity. The truest of loves.”
It was this truth that Dekker managed to get across to Stuart in the three days before he was to die. On the last night, they talked for a while, and Stuart could not find a way to say what was in his heart. The fear that had grown in him had become an agony, and he watched with envy as Jan knelt beside his bed, prayed a cheerful prayer, committed his soul to Jesus, then lay down. To Stuart’s consternation, he fell asleep almost at once.
How can he do that? The hangman arrives at sunup! The thought pounded at Stuart’s mind, and the more he thought of it, the worse he felt. The night wore on. Time was running out, but Dekker slept better than the fattest babe. Stuart fell into a restless sleep and saw himself standing before a throne, but he was not able to see clearly who was upon it. He heard a voice saying, “Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Stuart awakened with a start and sat up. He’d always considered himself a man of courage, had more courage than most, perhaps, but his courage had abandoned him. He got up and tried to pace the floor, but his legs seemed to have turned to water. They would not hold him up. He barely made it to his cot, sat down, and saw that his hands were trembling. He covered his face with them and tried to drown out the voice that kept saying, “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire.”
Without realizing it, Stuart had been drawing deep breaths as if he were drowning, gasping like a swimmer too far from shore, now sinking beneath the waves.
“My friend, you need God.”
Stuart straightened. He had almost forgotten Dekker, and now he saw that his cellmate had swung his feet over the side of his cot and was staring at him. The candle guttered and cast its yellow beams across Dekker’s face, which was filled with so much compassion and love that Stuart crumbled. “I’m lost, Jan! I’m lost!”
“Yes, you’re lost, but Jesus knows exactly where you are. Jesus said that when a man has a hundred sheep, if one of them is lost, he will leave the ninety-nine and go find that one. And he’ll put it on his shoulders, and he’ll bring it back to safety, and he will cry out with joy, ‘I have found my sheep that was lost.’ That’s what the Lord Jesus is longing to do for you, my friend.”
The words flowed from Jan’s lips, words of encouragement. The gospel that Stuart had heard for many years from his father and his mother and from others, from William Tyndale himself, now seemed to be written on his heart with a white-hot iron. He was unworthy. Never had his parents, Tyndale, even Dekker done the things he’d done.
“There’s no hope for me, Jan!”
Jan came over and sat down. He put his arm around Stuart and held him tight. “Yes, there is hope for you. Christ Jesus died to save sinners, and the apostle Paul said he was the chiefest of sinners. It is by his blood that we are saved. He is the Lamb of God, slain on our behalf, and when his blood washes us, we are clean as Christ himself. He becomes our righteousness.”
On and on Jan spoke with scriptures pouring from his lips, and the more he spoke, the worse Stuart felt. But finally he cried out, “I’m just a sinner, Jan!”
“That is good!”
Stuart stared at him. It took him a moment to speak. “How can that be good?”
“Because Jesus said that he was the friend of sinners, so you have a friend that has died, lain in the grave for three days, and come forth resurrected and now is at the right hand of God. He pleads for his friends, the sinners, you and me, Stuart, anyone who comes with broken hearts.”
As the two of them sat together, Stuart felt the fear coming in great waves, and then Jan would give him a scripture and encourage him with the promises of God, and the fear would slip away. It always came back, however.
Finally Jan said, “It’s time. Look, the sun is coming up. I shall be gone soon. But I cannot go to my Father’s world without seeing you become the man of God that you should be.”
“I don’t know what to do, Jan.”
“It is not what you do. Haven’t you been listening? It is what Jesus has done. He came to this earth and lived a perfect life. He became the Lamb of God, and on Calvary he died, and his blood washes away every sin of every guilty human being who looks to him as that thief did.”
Stuart began to tremble, and Jan quickly said, “Let’s kneel, brother, and we will find our way to the throne of God.”
Forever after Stuart remembered how he began to cry out, at first in a muffled voice, and then as Jan continued to pray in a strident tone, more loudly, “Oh, God, I’m a sinner! Forgive all my sins and wash me in the blood of Jesus!”
They were still on their knees when the guards came in. Two of them, burly men. “Well, come along, Dekker.”
Dekker got to his feet and smiled. “Is it time?”
“Time for you to meet the hangman.”
“I will see you one day,” Dekker said. “My dear friend, Stuart, God has entered your heart this morn. See to it that you serve him forever, and when you get to heaven”—he smiled then— “I’ll be there to greet you. Good-bye, dear brother.”
“Good-bye, Jan.” Stuart’s throat was thick. He could not say another word, and when the door closed, he found he could hardly stand. He leaned against the wall and tried to think of Jan Dekker leaving this world. Then once again he fell on his knees. “Oh, God,” he said, “I have not been a faithful man or a true man or a good man, and I still do not feel worthy. But whatever it is that you want me to do, I will do it. May thy will be done in Stuart Winslow as it is done in heaven!”
The day of the trial had come, and Stuart was allowed to dress himself in fresh clothes. “You can’t go before the judge looking like a scarecrow,” the chief guard, Gatlin, said. He studied Winslow carefully. “Are you afraid?”
“Not anymore.”
“How can you not be afraid? Every man fears death.”
“Jan Dekker wasn’t afraid.”
“No, he wasn’t. I’ll give you that. He went to his death with a smile on his lips, and the last words he said were, ‘Glory to Jesus.’ I’ll never forget it.”
“I hope you’ll let that be your cry, Mr. Gatlin. Glory to Jesus. That’s going to be mine.”
The two guards took him into a lar
ge room. There were three judges and a handful of spectators. His eyes swept the courtroom, and he saw Sir Thomas More sitting at a table. More motioned him over, and he went and sat down beside him.
More smiled. “Are you afraid, my boy?”
“No, not now.”
“How is it you’re not afraid?”
“I called upon the Lord, and I’m putting my faith and my trust in him. Live or die, I’m God’s man.”
“Good man! Good man!”
Almost immediately the trial began. The prosecutor, tall and gaunt, with the strange name of Friday, was a savage man. At the judge’s instruction he marshaled the evidence. He stood before the judge and said, “This man was part of the gang that held up a royal messenger. There’s no question about that.” Then he called witnesses, all of them men that had come upon Winslow as he stood over the bleeding body. “They’ll all testify to that.”
The lawyer sat down, and the judge said, “What do you have to say, Sir Thomas?”
Sir Thomas rose. He was calm, the calmest man in the room, perhaps. He looked at the judge and smiled benevolently. “I have only one witness, sir.”
“Only one?”
“Yes. Bring in Peter Morton.”
Peter Morton was brought in and, after Morton took the oath, More asked, “Did Stuart Winslow murder the king’s messenger?”
“No, sir. I did.”
“You confess to the crime of murder? You know you can be executed for such a crime.”
“I’ve already confessed to another murder, for which I am sentenced to die. What possible use would it be for me to lie about this? Stuart Winslow was the one innocent man among us. He had no idea at all, sir, that there would be even a robbery.”
“And that is the final fact I wish to note,” Sir Thomas said. “Stuart Winslow is charged with armed robbery and murder, and yet not one of the king’s gold sovereigns was found upon him. Am I right?”
No one answered him. He looked to the leader of the palace guard, sitting in the front row of the gallery. The man shifted, uncomfortable under his intense gaze.
“Of course, I’m right,” Sir Thomas said at last. “Because the messenger’s parcel and the king’s gold was where, Morton?”
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