by D. K. Wilson
All the way from London we had attracted attention. Men stopped to stare at the prisoner and nod knowingly to each other. Women pointed me out to their children, doubtless warning them what happened to those who wandered from the warm embrace of Mother Church. But not until we arrived at our destination did we encounter real hostility. As I was led towards a side entrance a stout kitchen woman waddled forward and spat in my face. Another called out, ‘Heretic pig!’ A passing priest muttered, ‘Burning’s too good for your sort.’ The guard room, when we reached it, was a welcome haven. Here, amidst off-duty soldiers, relaxing with tankards of ale or cleaning their weapons, I waited for my summons to the episcopal presence. And waited. And waited, anxiety mounting with every slow minute.
It was gone noon when I was marched to the chapel and thence, by a narrow stair in the wall, to a first-floor landing. My guard knocked on the only door, opened it and all but pushed me inside. It was a smallish room, comfortable and well furnished. Shelves stacked with books lined two walls. A third was almost filled with a full-length oriel window and the remaining wall was taken up by a large chimney place, which bore the bishop’s coat of arms in vivid colours above the opening. Stokesley sat at a large table, placed close to the fire and I noticed that this old man obviously felt the cold, for his cap was drawn tight over his head and a furred cape was draped round his shoulders. He was a man of florid features with bushy brows over searching eyes.
Those eyes were fastened on me as I bowed respectfully. After some moments of scrutiny, he said in a gentle tone of voice, ‘I am sorry to discover a young man of your standing and obvious promise in such a parlous situation.’
‘What situation, Your Grace?’ I asked.
Stokesley dropped the urbane pose, his eyes flashing with sudden anger. ‘Do not pretend innocence with me. I have seen too many of your sort to be taken in by such hypocrisy.’
I did not know how to respond. Should I stoutly deny all and any heresy, which would only stoke his anger further, or maintain a silence that would appear to confirm my guilt?
‘I have no time to waste on you.’ The bishop tossed a book on the table. ‘Do you deny this is yours?’
I knew, of course, what the little volume was but I picked it up and made pretence of examining it.
‘Well?’ Stokesley snapped impatiently.
‘It looks like something that was lent me by a friend a few months ago, Your Grace.’
‘You know that it is against the law to read the works of the heretic, Tyndale.’
‘I haven’t read it.’
He jumped to his feet. ‘Do you take me for a fool? This was found in your chamber, locked away in a chest to keep it hidden. How can you deny reading it?’
My heart was racing but I tried to answer calmly. I glanced around the library shelves. ‘Your Grace has an impressive collection of books. Can it be that you have read every one of them?’
‘Mother of God! Is there no end to your impertinence?’ He was shouting now.
Strangely, the bishop’s agitation had a calming effect on me. The angrier he became, the clearer my thoughts presented themselves.
He grabbed up the New Testament and flung it into the fire. ‘Come here and watch it burn,’ he ordered. ‘See it consumed by the flames, just as its wretched author was. Do you want to share the same fate? Have you ever seen a heretic burn?’
‘Once, at Smithfield, four years ago. A lawyer.’
‘James Bainham?’
‘I think that was his name.’
The cover of Tyndale’s book curled, and the pages browned, blackened and flared up. Stokesley stabbed at it with a poker. ‘Bainham was not unlike yourself – an intelligent man; an honest man, as I think – but sorely deceived. I had him here for several days. Reasoned with him. Tried to save him, just as I am trying to save you. But Satan had so clouded his mind that he could not see the truth.’
The fire was now making hard work of the tightly bound inner pages. I said, almost to myself, ‘I will always remember what Bainham called out at the stake. “I feel no pain,” he shouted. “’Tis a miracle.”’
Stokesley turned to glare at me. ‘Oh, you will feel pain, I assure you. It will be a pain that does not end when your body is consumed. You will know that pain for ever – in hell – unless you avail yourself of the mercy of the Church.’
‘I would gladly do that,’ I said, and I certainly meant it.
‘Then repent of your heresies.’
‘What heresies, My Lord?’
‘Why must you prevaricate? Why do you people always wriggle and squirm? You know you have rejected the truth the Church teaches.’
‘If Your Grace will but tell me which truths I am accused of denying, I will happily confess my error.’
He turned to the table and extracted two sheets from a pile of papers. ‘Item,’ he read, ‘Master Treviot declared that all men should read Scripture in their own language. Item: he said those who keep men from Scripture are the agents of Antichrist. Item: he said Scripture teaches that we should not worship images and therefore all paintings, statues and the like should be removed from churches. Item: he keeps a private whore for his own use and said that he was no worse than priests who do the same. Item: he said he would as soon worship his whore as the Blessed Virgin. Item: he said that priests are no better than laymen and cannot make bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood…’ He put the papers down. ‘Shall I go on?’
I felt my heart grasped by icy fingers of fear. ‘Lies!’ I gasped. ‘All lies, invented by jealous and malicious men. Who has written these things?’ I reached out a hand to snatch the papers but the bishop’s fist came down heavily on them.
‘That is not for you to know. All you have to do is recant your heresies and submit to whatever penance I impose.’
‘But, My Lord, how can I repent what I have not said and do not believe?’
‘The Church will decide what you believe and what vile errors need purging. You will be taken before my court and you would be well advised to submit to our judgement, without any more time-wasting nonsense.’
‘And if I do?’
‘Then, if the court decides that your recantation is sincere, the Church in its mercy will clasp you to its forgiving bosom – after your performance of penance.’
‘What sort of penance?’
‘That will be for the court to decide. These are serious heresies and, because of the love we bear to everyone in our diocese, we must make an example of you, so that others come not to the same condemnation. You would have to make public declaration of your sins and renounce them severally. Then you would be kept in prison so that you could receive instruction from priests trained to deal with penitent heretics.’
‘For how long?’
He shrugged. ‘That I cannot say. Months certainly, possibly more.’
‘By which time I would be utterly ruined.’
‘But you would have kept your immortal soul. As to your worldly affairs?’ He sneered. ‘Well, you should have thought of those before you allowed yourself to be influenced by that verminous hellhound, that twisted limb of Satan, Robert Packington.’
Stokesley glowered at me and I stared back at his rage-red flaccid features. The silence that followed his outburst lengthened like an opening court roll. As the moment stretched and lingered the last wisps of mist lifted from my mind. Hazy images took on a new clarity. Here was no spiritual shepherd concerned for my ‘immortal soul’. This raging prelate’s passion was not for Christian truth but for the preservation of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. He was intent on silencing me – by threats, by incarceration, by shredding my reputation or by the fire. Why? Because the truth about Robert’s death had to be suppressed. Had Stokesley authorised that death or had some over-zealous underling taken the task upon himself? The details were irrelevant. Foul murder had been done in the name of the Church and the bishop quite clearly saw his role as covering up the facts.
At last Stokesley held out his bony hands to the
flames. ‘The trial is fixed for the day after tomorrow. If you make your submission to me now I will register that and we can keep the proceedings short.’
‘With Your Grace’s leave, I would like time to consider Your Grace’s kind advice,’ I replied.
He looked at me sharply as though unsure whether there was a tone of sarcasm in my voice. ‘See you do. See you do.’ He waved a dismissive hand.
Back in my London cell that evening I felt a despair I had not known since the death of my beloved Jane. My mind was a black maze whose every twist and turn only took me deeper into itself. When my wife had died I had often contemplated following her by some desperate act of self-destruction. The same possibility occurred to me now. I stared up at the hook from which, according to the official story, Richard Hunne had hanged himself all those years before. Whether or not that version of events was true, I could easily imagine that the prisoner might have contemplated such a solution to his problems. The only glimmer of hope in my situation was that John Fink might respond to my note, repent of his betrayal and withdraw his accusation. That possibility was a faint one indeed.
Contemplating it throughout the sleepless night only prompted me to wonder why he had so far turned against me as to wish me dead. Undoubtedly the fault was partly mine. Wrapped up in my own problems, as I had been, I had pushed an unfair amount of responsibility on to him. He was of an age when he would be looking to set himself up as a freeman goldsmith in his own right and I should have taken more interest in furthering his career. Unspoken resentments had obviously built up within him and I had been too blind to recognise the signs. I was probably deluding myself if I thought that he would respond to my request for him to come to the Lollards’ Tower.
My only visitor, the next morning, was Ben Walling and I could tell from his face that the news he brought was not good. He sat down on the bench, his shoulders drooping.
‘Did you deliver my message?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I went straight to Goldsmith’s Row. Your place was in a turmoil.’
‘Why?’ I asked in alarm.
‘I’ll come to that in a moment. First you’d better read this. It’s a letter from Fink. I tried to deliver it yesterday but you had already left to see the bishop. I certainly was not going to leave it with that fat rogue of a chief jailer.’ He handed me a sheet of paper, folded over and sealed with the Treviot seal. I opened it and read the message couched in the journeyman’s formal style.
My hearty commendations unto your worship. This is to advertise to you that I sore grieve the case in which your worship finds yourself. I heartily repent me that I have been the foolish instrument to bring about your worship’s sorry plight. Never did I wish to see you in so perilous a position. I beg your worship to believe that I was gulled by an evil man and blandished with offers of betterment. I never knew what he purposed. On my knees I beseech your worship to be certain that I never sought to gain my advancement at the cost of your worship’s utter ruin or death. So take I my farewell of your worship, gratefully mindful of the many kindnesses you and your worship’s father have bestowed upon me over many years. I pray with tears that your worship may escape the fate which now threatens you and that you may live long and come to think not too unkindly of your wretched journeyman,
John Fink
I looked up at Ben with an unspoken question and handed him the letter. He scanned it quickly.
He said, ‘It was found beside him late on Thursday, the night after your arrest.’
‘What do you mean, “found beside him”?’
‘It was in his room, on the floor. He was on the bed. His throat was cut.’
The news was like a punch in the stomach. For several moments I gasped for breath. ‘Poor John,’ I muttered at last. ‘What have I done to him?’
‘What have you done to him?’ Ben responded indignantly. ‘More to the point is what he’s done to you – arsewipe Judas. Bloody death was too good for him!’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not that simple, Ben. Oh, if only I’d realised sooner…’
‘How did you work out that he was a traitor?’
‘I didn’t know until you came to see me here. You told me how very upset John Fink was and that seemed a bit out of character. Then, as you recall, we talked about how heresy proceedings worked and how the suspect was never told what he was accused of. And I said I felt like a traveller setting out not knowing that a highwayman lay in wait for him. Well, that reminded me of the attempt on my life out at Hampstead. So I asked myself what I should have asked long before: “How did the attacker know I was going to be there?” I realised that only one person had that information.’
‘Fink.’
‘Yes, before I set out that afternoon I told John where I was going.’
‘And he must have told someone else. But who, and why would Fink want to do you harm?’
‘I doubt whether he did. He was genuinely shocked when he heard about the attack.’
‘That didn’t stop him gossiping to whoever got you arrested. According to this’ – Ben brandished the letter – ‘he was “gulled by an evil man” into laying information against you.’
‘And I have a shrewd idea who that was.’
‘But what can he possibly have revealed to get you into this mess? You’re no Lollard or Lutheran.’
‘No, but if he listened at doors and noted some of the men who called to see me, he might well have drawn the wrong conclusions… and he obviously discovered my Tyndale New Testament.’
Ben’s eyes opened wide. ‘You had a copy? God’s blood, that’s a burning matter.’
‘Yes it is. Now do you see why you must put as much distance as possible between you and me? Tomorrow I shall be tried for heresy – and found guilty. My accusers will want to know all my supposedly schismatic contacts. The bishop will set his hounds on to flushing out anyone who has had dealings with me. I don’t want them coming after you. One man’s blood on my head is quite enough. Ben, get out of London – and start now.’
I went to the door and banged on it till a grumbling jailer came up the stairs to open it. Ben protested loudly but I almost pushed him out of the cell. I listened to his descending steps. Then I sat down on the bed. Alone. Very very alone.
Chapter 25
The next day I waited. And waited. And waited. I had not been given a time for my appearance before the bishop’s court. All I knew was that the hearing would take place in the cathedral’s chapterhouse. The morning passed. Sunlight began to slant in at the west-facing window. I wondered whether the delay was deliberate, intended to stretch my already taut nerves to snapping point. It was almost a relief to hear, at long last, the scrape of boots on the stone steps.
Young Harry opened the door. ‘’Ere’s a surprise, then,’ he said, before turning enigmatically and leading the way down the stairs. Outside were two mounted soldiers in royal livery leading another horse. ‘Master Treviot,’ one of them called out, ‘be so good as to come with us.’ I climbed into the saddle and, flanked by my escort, circuited the cathedral and rode out of the yard through Paul’s Gate.
Bewilderment, hope and apprehension jostled around my head. We passed Saddlers’ Hall and I wondered whether I was being escorted home. But we clattered on, leaving to our right the impressive row of goldsmiths’ premises with their gleaming paintwork and the gilded statues of mythical beasts. I stared longingly at the house with the sign of the swan. All its windows were shuttered and there was no sign of life. As we continued along Cheap a terrifying thought struck me. Were we bound for the Tower? Had Stokesley and his consortium decided that I needed to be confined more closely or, more alarmingly still, that I had information to reveal that could be dragged from me only by the repertoire of torturers who kept their array of instruments in the royal fortress.
I looked closely at my guardians. Was there any point in asking where they were taking me? Would they be just as uncommunicative as the bishop’s men who had conveyed me to Fulham Palace? While I was st
ill wondering, the question burst unbidden from my lips. ‘Where are we bound?’
The trooper to my left turned with a smile. ‘Why, did the jailer not tell you? We are going to Lord Cromwell’s house. He has sent for you.’
‘Sent for me? But why?’
