by D. K. Wilson
COPYRIGHT
Published by Sphere
978-1-4055-1887-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Derek Wilson 2013
The right of Derek Wilson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
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The First Horseman
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
Dedication
Epigraph
Excerpt
Friday 19 May, 1536
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Historical Endnote
For Suzannah, a real Tudor gal
And I saw, and behold there was a white horse,
and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown
was given unto him, and he went forth
conquering and for to overcome.
– The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, in the 1534 translation by William Tyndale
In this year, Robert Packington, mercer of London, a man of great substance, yet not so rich as discreet and honest, dwelled in Cheapside and used daily at five of the clock, winter and summer, to go to prayer at a church then called Saint Thomas of Acres, but now named Mercers’ Chapel. And one morning amongst all other, being a great misty morning such as hath seldom been seen, even as he was crossing the street from his house to the church, he was suddenly murdered with a gun, which of the neighbours was plainly heard and by a great number of labourers there standing at Sopers Lane end.
He was both seen [to] go forth of his house, and the clap of the gun was heard, but the deed doer was never espied nor known.
– John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of the Christian Religion, 1563
Friday 19 May, 1536
Someone was shaking me.
‘Master Thomas, Master Thomas, rouse yourself!’
Master Thomas had not the slightest intention of rousing himself.
‘Sod off, Will!’ I thrust my throbbing head deeper into the pillow.
I only half heard another voice. ‘Stand aside, Will. Give me that bowl.’
The wave of icy water that crashed over my head brought me, gasping and coughing, into the garish daylight. The shutters had been thrown open and Robert Packington’s thin, grave, disapproving countenance seemed etched on parchment. He bent over me.
‘Jesu, but you stink! Have you brought the Stews home with you? At least you were too drunk to undress. That will save us time.’
‘Leave me alone.’ I rolled over to face the undrawn curtain on the far side of the bed.
Robert grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into a sitting position. ‘You’ve an appointment at the Tower and I’m going to make sure you keep it – though the Lord knows why I bother.’
I struggled but there was little strength in my arms and legs. Aided by my servant, Robert had little difficulty getting me on my feet. As I swayed, half-conscious, he tackled my unfastened doublet, doing up the points. ‘Will, fetch his best livery gown,’ he ordered. ‘We have to cover up these disgusting stains.’
‘Why all the fuss?’ My tongue seemed swollen to twice its size in my dry mouth.
‘You know why – we’ve been nominated to be among those representing the City companies. Fortunately it’s been postponed to a later hour. That’s more luck than you deserve. Don’t press it any further.’
Slowly, grindingly, my memory’s clockwork whirred into action as the two of them wrapped my blue goldsmith’s gown around me. I recalled what ‘it’ was.
I scrabbled for an excuse. ‘The king won’t —’
‘The king certainly won’t be there. But his eyes and ears will be. Your absence would be noted. There will be many who’d happily put their own interpretation on it in order to make trouble for you with your superiors. You’re already in bad odour in the Goldsmiths’ Company because of your recent behaviour. Any suggestion that Thomas Treviot was sympathetic to her —’
‘That’s absurd,’ I protested.
‘We live in times when many absurd things happen,’ Robert muttered bitterly. He stepped back as Will fastened the clasp of my gown and set a cap on my head. ‘Jesu, what a sight. It’s a mercy your father isn’t here to see you thus. Come on.’
He half-steered, half-propelled me through the doorway and down the broad stairs to the shop, then out into Goldsmith’s Row. Our horses were waiting and with a shove from Will I scrambled aboard Dickon, my grey gelding. West Cheap was alive with its usual hubbub, the stalls already set out and people and horses moving along the paved thoroughfare. Despite the crowds, Robert insisted on leading the way at a bustling trot that jarred all my bones and rattled my still aching head. We must have completed the journey in a fast time, though it seemed to me as long as purgatory.
I was certainly unwilling to arrive at our destination. Anyone hungover, melancholy or otherwise out of sorts should keep away from the Tower of London. I suppose my nurse must have planted the seed of fear in me. The threat ‘I’ll take you to the Tower’ was her standard way of dealing with naughtiness and it was usually effective. It was all too easy to believe that anything could and did happen within the walls of this monstrous soaring pile that crouched like a malevolent stone beast, keeping watch on the capital.
My stomach churned as we emerged from Tower Street and jogged along the well-worn track across the green. We joined a file of other travellers on foot and horseback, most of whom attached themselves to a small crowd that surrounded the Bulwark Gate. I looked about as we pressed our way through. My bleary gaze passed over the mixed throng – a quiet, expectant blob of humanity. A hag thrust a grubby kerchief at me. ‘Fetch me some of the blood, Master,’ she screeched.
We paused at the gate to have our credentials checked and were waved on to cross the causeway. We were stopped again by guards at the Middle Tower and the Byward Gate and I swear that if my hands had not been trembling on the reins I would have turned Dickon’s head and fled from the ordeal. Never before had I come this
far within the concentric cordons of the fortress. Occasionally business took me to the Royal Mint but that was situated within the outer wall. As we dismounted I inadvertently cringed away from the uprearing stonework. It seemed to sway, as if about to crumble on top of us. Robert grasped my arm and urged me briskly forward. We entered the inner ward through yet another gateway and followed a path beside the White Tower – its pallid complexion pockmarked where the paint was flaking. And so to the green, the theatre where the tragedy was to be performed.
An arena had been created in front of St Peter’s Chapel, Tiered staging arranged on three sides of the black-draped platform. The seats were already almost full. Prime positions were occupied by courtiers and government men. The upper levels were for prominent citizens, like ourselves. We clambered up and found two spaces at one end of the topmost bench. An elderly alderman grunted and grumbled as he made room for us. Clamped between him and Robert, my stomach still churning, I wanted it all to be over. Wanted to be back in the warm anonymity of my own bed.
‘Have you ever seen the new man, Cromwell?’ Robert asked, pointing to a thickset councillor seated next to the familiar figure of Lord Chancellor Audley.
‘No.’
‘Well, take a good look and remember what you see. Cromwell’s the future. He has more brains than all the rest of the king’s council put together. He’s climbing fast to the top. You’d do well to cultivate him.’
I was scarcely listening. ‘How long is it going to be? Much longer and I’ll throw up.’
But the waiting was over. The buzz of conversation stopped and all eyes turned towards a gateway beside the White Tower. It was a small procession: two pikemen, four female attendants, then the Constable, Sir William Kingston, and beside him a woman, small but walking very erect, in an ermine mantle over a grey gown, her face framed by a gable hood. Queen Anne of England, going to her death.
She was helped on to the platform and spent some minutes talking with her ladies, two of whom seemed on the point of collapse with grief. One was on her knees clutching the queen’s gown and had to be pulled aside by a guard. Anne turned away and came to the edge of the dais. Not a flicker of movement from her audience as she lifted her head to speak. I leaned forward, focused on the slight figure. My head seemed suddenly clear.
‘No priest, Tom,’ Robert muttered in my ear. ‘No priest. Mark that.’
It was a brief speech but I don’t recall all the details. I know what she did not say – the silence all London was abuzz with for days after. She did not confess her adulteries. She bade us pray for the king and for herself. Then the women helped her remove her cape and her headdress. Her long hair gleamed in the sunlight before she tucked it into a little cap. As she was composing herself, a tall figure stepped on to the stage behind her.
I turned to Robert. ‘Who —’
‘The executioner. Brought specially from France. They say he’s very good. Pray God it may be so.’
One of the ladies came forward with a blindfold. Before it was fastened, the queen looked around the ranks of men happy or content or indifferent to witness her destruction. As her gaze reached the end of the line, it rested on me for a long moment – or so it seemed. I could not tear my eyes away from the slight figure, who now knelt, her head bent slightly forward, her lips moving in silent prayer. Up to that moment the performance had proceeded at a slow, almost stately pace, like a sinister pavane. But now the Frog took a stride forward, swinging his large sword as he did so. It flashed down in a wide arc. The capped head fell to the floor, bounced and rolled a few feet. The body, fountaining blood, remained upright for several seconds before tumbling sideways.
That was when I threw up all over the smart black gown of the man sitting in front of me.
Chapter 1
The nauseating scene I was obliged to witness that May morning was the first in a series of violent acts that would change England for ever and involve a very reluctant twenty-two-year-old merchant in that revolution. The sequence of events would rob me of my truest friend, turn my life inside out and, in very fact, almost bring it to a precipitate end – and that more than once. Of course, I could not know that at the time. The queen’s death had no relevance to me, Thomas Treviot, freeman goldsmith of the City of London. I had no interest in the affairs of the royal court. For all I cared, Lecher Harry could have been a Musselman with a dozen wives and decapitated every one of them. I had problems enough of my own. Grief enough and to spare.
A mere eight months before Queen Anne’s execution I had been one of the most fortunate young men in London. And I knew it. I was the only son (in fact, the only surviving child) of Thomas Treviot Senior and his wife, Isabel. My father was one of the leading City goldsmiths and, at the age of ten, I was apprenticed to him. Nine years later, having served two years as a journeyman, I was admitted a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths of the City of London. I worked beside my father to build upon an already flourishing business. My life lay before me like the map of a familiar land. There were no spaces marked ‘Terra Incognita’ or peopled with speculative monsters, such as one sees on new charts of Africa or America. One day I would take over the business operating from the sign of the Swan in Goldsmith’s Row, continue running it on the lines laid down by my father, assume my place among the mercantile nobility of the City, grow into an old and respected member of the Worshipful Company and eventually be laid to rest with others of my peers in the Church of St John Zachary, next to our company hall. Life became even more agreeable a year later when, in May 1534, I married Jane Coutray, a daughter of one of the London aldermen. It was in every way a suitable match. Suitable, not only because it greatly pleased our families, but also because we were very much in love. Jane, with her flowing fair hair and heart-melting smile, was everything a successful young businessman could want in a wife. She kept house immaculately and presided with charm and wit over our table when we entertained. There was only one thing we lacked – children. But we were young and time was on our side. Or so, in the careless arrogance of youth, we thought.
It was in December 1534 that Jane became pregnant. Any parent will know the joy and excitement that filled us over the following months. Yet no one was happier than my father. The prospect of a new generation to carry on the business delighted him. He dismissed as nonsense our protests that the baby might be a girl. He was right, but would never know it. The following summer he fell victim, like hundreds of others, to an outbreak of quotidian fever. Suddenly I was left alone, shouldering all the responsibilities of running the business, supporting my grieving mother and ensuring that Jane had everything necessary to bring her to term successfully. Her time came in early September of 1535. She was delivered of a healthy boy. Three days after the birth my lovely Jane was dead of the fever that kills many new mothers.
Everyone was very kind. John Fink – my journeyman apprentice, who had been with the firm as long as I could remember and knew the business as well as I, if not better – eagerly took on fresh responsibilities – I knew I could leave much of the day-to-day running in his hands. I could also rely on the Goldsmiths’ Company’s excellent record of looking after distressed members. For several months brother craftsmen kept an eye on the workshop and supervised my accounts. Neighbours were sympathetic. But sympathy is a flower that soon fades and grief is a much hardier plant. Perhaps I might have come to terms with it more rapidly had I not had so much support. If I had thrown myself into supervising the workshop, the heat and din of precious metals being melted, hammered and fashioned into jewellery and table plate might have driven other thoughts from my mind for much of the working day. Discussing their needs with clergy commissioning chalices, patens and altar furniture, with courtiers wanting to impress the king with the New Year gift of an embossed cup and cover, with newly rich merchants wishing to adorn their tables and court cupboards with silver plates and dishes or young gentlemen seeking expensive love pledges would have kept me in the world that goes on despite all our personal tra
gedies. But I was left much to my own memories and they were unbearable.
