Below M. Chapuys’ chambers were the workshops, as well as the kitchens, hall, and shop of his host. When his door was open he could hear the gasp and roar of the furnace as the bellows governed it; but the stammering tap of the goldsmiths’ hammers came to him all day long, whether the door were shut or open. So now for the noise they made he did not hear the footsteps of one coming up the stairs outside. At a knock on the door he turned quickly.
‘Ah!’ he said to himself, and more loudly, ‘Enter!’ and the man he was waiting for came into the room, and straight across to the table. Chapuys met him there.
‘Did you see him?’
‘Yes, M. l’Ambassadeur.’
Chapuys said, ‘A moment,’ and opening the door, shouted for Gilles. There was a muffled answer. Chapuys said in a low but clear voice, ‘Gilles, I wish to be private.’ When he came back into the room he was smiling.
‘From the sound of Gilles’ voice,’ he observed, ‘I judge that he had his face in a pint pot. Being a Fleming he takes kindly to this barbarity they call beer.’
He sat down at the table, resting his elbows on the letter which lay there, and became at once serious and intent.
‘You can speak freely now.’
The man, who was tall, pale and bald, shifted his feet among the rushes, and paused a moment before he said: ‘I saw him.’
‘Lord Darcy himself?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘Secretly?’
‘Very secretly.’
‘Where?’
‘In a privy chamber. His steward brought me there. Only my Lord and he go in.’
‘Did he know you, this steward?’
‘Yes, Monsieur. But he is safe.’
‘And my Lord? Is that true which Lord Hussey said of him? He’ll do more than talk?’
‘He said he would.’
Chapuys said ‘Tchk!’ under his breath. To get news out of this Burgundian was like pressing a cheese. Screw. A dribble. Screw. Another dribble. Screw. A little flow of whey. Yet if he had not been so discreet he would not have been so useful.
‘Tell me all he said to you.’
‘First he made me swear to be secret, or it might be death to him. He said not even his sons must know.’
‘God forbid they should. One stands so well with Cromwell that he hath lately made him captain of one of those islands...’
‘Jersey,’ said the Burgundian, who always had his facts clear.
Chapuys stretched out his hand suddenly, and jabbed the table under the other’s nose with his finger.
‘Tell me. Have you heard any say that it was my Lord himself who asked this favour, the captaincy of this isle Jersey, from Cromwell?’
‘I have. It is true.’
‘But—’ cried Chapuys. ‘Then is Darcy playing with us?’
The Burgundian shook his head.
‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I was once at Etaples in France and there I heard the Bishop of Meaux read in French from the Bible. It was not forbidden then.’
Chapuys nodded. ‘I know.’
‘He read a story of how the people of Israel came out of Egypt. That day they left they took from the people of Egypt jewels – rings, brooches, collars.’
Chapuys waited. After a while he said persuasively, ‘Yes?’
‘My Lord Darcy wishes very much, Monsieur, to go back to Yorkshire.’ Chapuys chuckled. ‘Out of Egypt.’
‘And before he goes he would spoil the Egyptians.’ The Burgundian allowed himself a faint smile. He took his finger-tips from the table, and spreading his hands under his eyes, seemed interested in the trimming of his nails. ‘I think—’ he began.
Chapuys did not move.
‘I think, Monsieur, that my Lord remembers the time of the wars, when there were two kings in England.’
‘He’s past seventy. Yes, he must remember.’
‘I think he remembers it well.’
‘But what of that?’ Chapuys asked.
‘Kings were cheaper then. He thinks of kings not as men think now, but as a man of those past days.’
‘I see.’ Chapuys tapped with the tips of his fingers on his teeth.
‘Yes. I see,’ he repeated.
‘And there is yet another thing, Monsieur. It may be the greatest thing.’
Chapuys did not interrupt by a question. He only lifted his eye-brows.
‘My Lord said that in this quarrel he would raise the banner of the Crucifix beside the Emperor’s banner. He said those very words.’
Chapuys’ face lit with excitement and then became appropriately solemn.
‘It’s true. This King is nothing but a heretic.’ He added quickly, ‘Did he say what force he could raise?’
‘Sixteen hundred Northern men. He said, Monsieur, that I should tell you this – that he is more loyal to his Prince than most men, in matters that go not against his conscience and honour, but seeing that things are done here contrary to reason and hateful to God, he cannot be consenting thereto, neither as an honest man nor a good Christian.’
Chapuys bowed his head. ‘I count it myself,’ he said, and crossed himself, ‘even as a Crusade.’ He struck the table with his fist and laughed. ‘And what a stroke at the throat of France if we could pull down this King and set up the Princess Mary.’
When the Burgundian had gone Chapuys turned again to his letter, writing out first in rough and then fairly what the man had said. When it was done he sent Gilles for a taper, sealed the letter, and shoved it inside the breast of his doublet. The rough copy he held to the flame of the taper till it blazed, then threw it on the hearth, and watched while the paper writhed, and blackened, and lay still, making the tiniest sharp ticking sounds. When he had broken the frail thing down to finest black ash his caution was satisfied.
November 6
At Chapter the Prioress told the Ladies that the King’s Commissioner would be at Marrick this morning to take the oath of each one of them to the Act of Succession.
‘And of the servants too?’ Dame Anne Ladyman asked.
‘Of the servants too.’
‘Mass! How should their oaths matter?’
The Prioress was shrugging her shoulders over that when Dame Margery Conyers stood up, and said that she for one would not take the oath.
They all stared at her and someone, in a loud whisper, mentioned the Tower.
But the Prioress said, ‘Nonsense. Why should you not swear? All but a very few have sworn, throughout the whole realm. Will you be more careful of right than they?’
Dame Margery had grown very red, and shut her lips tight; she shook her head in silence, because, as usual when she was excited, tears were gathering in her eyes.
The Prioress looked at her, and then at the faces of the others. Dame Elizabeth Close was leaning forward; her hands were gripped tight together; in a moment she would be on her feet. The Prioress saw that Dame Margery’s refusal might be an infection to spread.
She said, speaking calmly, but as in a matter of grave moment: ‘Yet before you refuse consider what will fall, not only upon you, but upon the House. For to refuse is treason, and if you and others should refuse, that will happen at Marrick which has happened to the Franciscan Observants. The Priory will be suppressed.’
In the dank chill of the November morning cold shivers ran up the backs of several of the Nuns. In the minds of all what the Prioress had said was a blast of bleak wind, not to be endured.
Dame Margery sat down, then stood up again.
‘Madame,’ she said rather grandly, ‘then I discharge my conscience and I charge yours.’
The Prioress bowed her head. Her conscience was ready to bear the charge.
That afternoon in the old Frater, they took the oath tendered them by the Commissioner, a portly, cheerful man, who before the business began had talked over wine and wafers of his little girls at home, and the first boy, the heir, still in swaddling bands. Such humanity and kindliness had greatly eased the Ladies’ minds; they could not but feel that an o
ath proffered by such an individual must be innocuous.
When they had taken it the servants came in, and after them the men from the fields. Dinner was late, but when the Ladies sat down to it, hungry but cheerful, they looked back at the day’s work with equanimity.
1535
January 1
None but his own servants gave New Year gifts to the Emperor’s Ambassador on the first morning of the New Year, for his friends and his kin were not here, and the English Lords knew better than to make presents to one whose master was so ill a friend of their master.
But soon after dark had fallen a little grey-haired priest came to the door below, asking for Gilles the Fleming. He spoke English like a stranger himself, being in fact a Hainaulter, so there was nothing out of the way in his coming. Gilles, however, when he had brought him in, led him upstairs and into the Ambassador’s room, where M. Chapuys sat throwing dice, one hand against the other. After that Gilles sat down on the stairs outside the door.
The Priest from Hainault wished the Emperor’s Ambassador ‘A happy Christmas from my Lord’, and laid in his hands a long slim parcel lapped in leather. When Chapuys undid the wrappings he found a fine sword in a sheath of crimson leather.
‘It’s a choice gift,’ said Chapuys, ‘and I send many thanks for it to my Lord.’ His eyes were on the Priest’s face, as though he waited for something more.
‘What will be in this New Year—’ the Priest began, and then spread his hands and let them fall.
‘No man can tell,’ Chapuys ended for him. ‘But I think my Lord sends me this gift because he’d have me know that the time is near when we shall play with steel.’
The Hainault Priest shook his head heavily, and said that the times were very ill.
Chapuys slid the sword out of the scabbard, laid it to his cheek and looked along the blade. As he lowered it the firelight shone red upon the clear steel.
‘God help us to mend the times,’ said he, and the Priest said, ‘Amen.’
February 2
Lord Abergavenny murmured, ‘Bring me your ear closer,’ and the Earl of Huntingdon stooped over the brazier where they warmed their hands, so that their faces were near together.
‘In my hearing,’ said Abergavenny, ‘my Lord of Northumberland called her “the great whore”.’
Huntingdon raised his eyebrows and pulled down the corners of his mouth but made no answer.
‘So many,’ Abergavenny went on softly, ‘hate her, and what she has brought on this realm. If the King tire of her—’
He stopped because Huntingdon had whispered ‘Sh!’ at the King’s name, and they both turned from the glowing red of the charcoal to look between the crowd to where, at the far end of the Great Gallery, the King and the French Envoy, M. Palamèdes Gontier, Treasurer of Brittany, moved to and fro in front of the great hearth. A monkey with a jewelled collar slunk and gambolled inconsequently after the King at the end of a gilt chain; it chattered with rage when the chain pulled it up at every turn and it must follow whether it would or no.
The King was all in white satin, stitched with gold thread and sewn over with emeralds, in honour of the feast, and the Envoy beside him in his black velvet and grey satin looked like a long thin evening shadow. It was pretty clear to anyone who knew the King that he was growing testy; now and again he leaned upon the Frenchman’s furred shoulder, but for the most part his hands were behind his back – not clasped, but with the back of one laid flat on the other palm, and he kept clapping them together in a fidgety, impatient way.
‘The business,’ Huntingdon murmured, ‘goeth not well.’
Abergavenny took a discreet look over his shoulder at the King and the Frenchman, turning just now at the window.
Huntingdon went on, as though he spoke to the thin blue smoke of the charcoal. ‘I have heard that the French will have none of the Princess Elizabeth, but require the old treaty to be kept, and the Lady Mary to be given to the Dauphin. That will not please His Grace.’
Abergavenny turned slowly back.
‘His Grace seems to me,’ he whispered, ‘to go halt upon his left leg.’
‘Sh!’ said Huntingdon sharply, but when Abergavenny muttered ‘An ulcer?’ he nodded, and said, ‘The physician told one of my gentlemen so. There are two things I would know—’ He broke off there, and said in a different tone – ‘Ah! my Lord Duke!’ as the Duke of Norfolk, huddled to his long nose in fur, joined them beside the brazier.
‘And what be those two, my Lord?’ said he, with the frank smile that he could use when he chose.
‘One is – whence they have that fine gravel for the tilt-yard,’ said Huntingdon promptly.
‘That I can tell you,’ said the Duke, and the three began chatting lightly of such matters, now warming their hands over the brazier, now tucking them under their arms, and most of the time stepping gently with their feet among the rushes to keep the blood coursing, for the day was very cold.
*
That same afternoon Mr. Thomas Cromwell brought the French Envoy to Queen Anne. She was in one of the smaller rooms leading off the Presence Chamber, yet the room was large enough to have two fireplaces, one at each end, and for thirty or forty people to be able to divide themselves into two quite separate groups. The larger group by far was that about the King, who stood with his back to one of the fires, pulling tight his white satin trunks across his broad backside, and now and again bending slightly forward, the more exquisitely to toast his rear.
The Queen sat beside the fire at the farther end of the room with a lute on her knee, and some of her ladies and a few young gentlemen about her. The fire sent out puffs and gushes of sweetness for they had not long since scattered spices on the logs.
One of the young gentlemen near the Queen had the King’s monkey by its chain, and he and a gentlewoman were feeding it with sweetmeats while most of the rest looked on and laughed. As M. Palamèdes came near he noticed that the Queen was watching the monkey too, but with loathing; and so intently that she did not see the two gentlemen approach.
As they paused the strange creature sidled over to the Queen till it stood crouching before her. She shrank back. ‘Mother of God! I hate monkeys!’ It laid one of its long, wrinkled, dark grey hands on the strings of the lute, and with the other grabbed at a sweetmeat in the Queen’s fingers. Then it was away, with its paw at its mouth. The discordant twang of the strings under the tiny clutching fingers was echoed by a cry from the Queen, who brought her own hand up to her mouth in a gesture strangely like that of the animal.
‘Oh! He scratches!’ she said, just as M. Palamèdes bowed and went down on one knee.
Neither he nor Cromwell missed the start that the Queen gave. Cromwell glanced round at those standing near; he did no more but it was enough. The group about the fire broke up and drew away, leaving the three of them alone.
As the Queen’s hand lay upon Gontier’s and he stooped to kiss it he knew it was trembling. He lifted his head, and his eyes, caught by the shifting sparkle of jewels, rested for a second on her bosom. Her blood-red velvet gown, brocaded with gold, had an edging of pearls and small sapphires along which the firelight ran with a broken flash, quickly gone, and then running again from point to point in time with the Queen’s quick breathing. The woman, M. Palamèdes realized, was panting – no less – yet when he looked in her face she smiled, and as she spoke in French of how she had loved France, and how ill she now used his lovely French tongue, she laughed, shrilly, a laugh with as little meaning as the strained smile, while her eyes darted past his head to watch what was going on at the further end of the room.
Then, with desperate urgency, but always with that same smile on her face and with laughter that tinkled emptily, she began to press him ‘to use dispatch in this business of the marriage of my daughter the Princess Elizabeth’s Grace’. Dispatch! Dispatch! That was the word, over and over. ‘For if you do not I shall be in worse danger than before I was married. Worse danger!’ She laughed with fear looking through the
mask of her face. Her head jerked and she craned her neck to see beyond him. Gontier felt his flesh creep, and yet he knew that nothing had happened of more moment than that the musicians in the room beyond were tuning their instruments and that the King had moved away from the other hearth.
The Queen held out her hand; the Frenchman bent and kissed it again and felt her nails nip into his flesh.
‘I dare not speak longer,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I cannot tell you more. The King is watching us. Someone said I should not anger him. But if I did not he would think I am afraid.’ She seemed to choke, then said, ‘As (dear Mother of God!) I am afraid.’
She did not seem to know that she was still clutching his hand, but he freed it gently and asked if he might wait on Her Grace ano-ther day.
‘No. No. I can’t see you again – or write – or stay longer. He has gone. They are dancing already.’
She sprang up, laughing again. The room was nearly empty. Only a few of her ladies were there to follow her as she moved towards the door through which came the sound of fiddles and recorders.
February 12
When the physician had gone out Queen Katherine sat for a long time pricking with her needle at a leaf on the corporax case she was embroidering, but making no stitches. From time to time she sighed. It was hard enough to be separated from a daughter; it was worse if the child were ill; and she had been ill for months. The child – the Queen realized that the girl of fifteen whom she had last seen would be nineteen in four days’ time.
She thought, – ‘If I could go to her! If only he would go!’ meaning her physician. But he had seemed not eager to go. He had said he could not leave Her Grace, and indeed, thought the Queen, ‘I had done ill without him while I was so sick. But now – why will he not go?’
As an answer to that came into her mind she grew very still. For a minute she sat stiff in her chair, staring straight before her while her face whitened, and her mouth formed a silent ‘Oh!’ which she did not utter. Then she snatched up the little bell on the table and rang it, and went on ringing it till the door opened and two or three ladies, with scared faces, looked into the room.
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