The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  He stopped there and waited. He wondered if he had said enough. Master Aske’s eye was bent on the ground, his mouth was hard. The Duke thought, ‘Does he doubt me? Is he taking the measure of his danger? Or does he believe that it is as I say?’

  Aske lifted his head. He had hardly heard the Duke’s last words. He had indeed been taking the measure – not of the danger, for that he thought he knew – but of his own strength.

  He said – ‘My Lord, do you say that I can serve the King by telling the truth to His Grace, and serve too in clearing unjust suspicions from my Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable and others?’

  ‘I do. I do.’

  ‘And that I should, to that end, repair to His Grace?’

  ‘You cannot speak so freely, Master Aske, by letter. It is when you speak to the King as you have spoken to me, face to face, and openly, that His Grace will be convinced of your truth and loyalty.’

  ‘Will you—’ said Aske, omitting any title of courtesy, because the words that he was about to speak had to be driven out by force – ‘Will you give me licence to go up to London to the King’s Grace?’

  ‘I will, most surely.’ The Duke clapped him on the shoulder. ‘And I will write letters in your favour to the King and to my Lord Privy Seal.’

  Aske thanked him, and when the Duke stood up he knew that he might go away.

  As soon as the Duke was alone he called for Master Appleyard.

  ‘It is done, Hal!’ he said, most cheerfully.’ ‘I have by policy brought him to desire of me licence to ride to London. I shall write him letters, and other letters that will show His Grace and my Lord Privy Seal in what sort to take my commendations of him.’

  He went away to the table, and lifting the jar of daffodils, sniffed at the fresh sweetness of spring in them.

  ‘I shall,’ he said, ‘counsel His Grace to use him with fair words, as if he had great trust in him, so that the fellow may cough out all that he knows about those other two traitors, Darcy and Constable.’ He put down the flowers, and looked at Appleyard, with something like a smile on his face. ‘So well he loves them he must always be speaking of them, justifying them in their treasons. It will go hard if the King’s Grace and my Lord Privy Seal cannot pick out something from it all that will be to the purpose.’

  March 23

  The Archbishop’s officer and his men started off in the chill of a mist-choked dawn to bring the Marrick Priory serving-woman from the house of the Archbishop, where she had been examined, to the Benedictine Priory of St. Helen’s in Bishopgate Street, where her mistress the Prioress lay, and where the woman should be set free.

  If, however, on such a raw, nipping morning, a man should meet a friend and turn in to drink with him, it is but nature. And if a man’s servant turn in too, it is but nature again, for what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And if, while they sit drinking, and talking neither of profanity nor wantonness, but of sober and godly matters, the woman and her brat, who had been told to sit still on the bench outside, wander away and are lost, what can a man and his servant do to find them, in all the streets and lanes of London? The Archbishop’s officer and his servant spent an hour searching, then gave it up. It was twenty to one that any would inquire what had happened to the wench, who could besides ask her own way, having a tongue in her head, though the lad was dumb.

  *

  Later that morning, but still early, Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, came to visit Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Palace of Lambeth.

  The remains of the Archbishop’s breakfast still lay upon the table with a book open beside the plate; so the two of them stood tog-ether in an oriel. Beyond the little leaded quarrels of the window lay the river; the blown glass dipped all the outside world into a dim, watery green, and across its concentric flaws the passing wherries seemed to wriggle and bend like so many caterpillars. The sun was beginning to shine through the mist, though palely, and the tide was at the full.

  Cromwell took from his pouch a little silver and enamel box, and offered it to the Archbishop; there were dried French plums in it. The Archbishop would not take one; this was a foreign habit which Privy Seal had picked up abroad; every autumn his agent bought these dried and sugared French plums for him at Antwerp and sent them to London. While Cromwell bent his head over the box, daintily choosing his fruit, and while he popped it into his mouth, the Archbishop continued to hold forth upon the necessity there was for a new Great Bible in English. Cromwell, consuming the plum with pouted lips and critical deliberation, listened, bowing his head from time to time without interrupting the Archbishop’s eloquence.

  ‘But,’ said the Archbishop, ‘it must be fairly printed, large and plain and not so costly neither that all may not buy.’

  Cromwell saw that his advice was now required. The Archbishop would concern himself with the spiritual benefits of a new Bible, and judge between the merits of the translations – old versions of Wycliffe, new versions of Master Tyndale and Master Coverdale but when it came to matters of business, then it was time for Privy Seal.

  ‘Then,’ said he, ‘I have the very man for you, one Grafton. And if it shall be well printed, it must be printed abroad. Paris it shall be, for there they have the best printers, and the fairest paper.’ And he, in his turn, favoured the Archbishop with a discourse on that subject.

  But, when he had finished, and had opened his little silver box again, and again taken out a plum, he held it between his fingers, looking keenly and yet a little smiling into the Archbishop’s face.

  ‘Mass!’ said he, ‘and I had forgotten what brought me here.’

  Thomas Cranmer shook his head, so that his soft cheeks quivered a little; he too smiled, as if to indicate that he was not so simple as to suppose that there was anything that Privy Seal ever forgot.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Cromwell, ‘whether ye have commoned with that woman from Swaledale that I wrote you of?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Well, is there treason in her sayings?’ He was watching the Archbishop, but not now smiling at all.

  ‘There was none.’

  ‘None, you mean, that you could discern.’

  ‘None at all,’ said the Archbishop, who could occasionally be obstinate.

  ‘Not when a woman declares she has seen a king in Swaledale, coming to take his kingdom?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Then,’ Cromwell scoffed, ‘her visions are from God.’

  ‘Nor that neither,’ said the Archbishop placidly, ‘but from a distempered wit. Yet that there is nothing unhonest in the poor creature I am assured by certain words she spoke.’

  Cromwell did not ask what the words were, but, reaching past the Archbishop, opened the window, so letting into the close still room fresh air and many sounds – the voices of men, wailing and laughter of the gulls, the creak of a well-wheel, and through all, the soft, insistent lapping of the tide.

  ‘Those words,’ said the Archbishop, when his slight pause exacted no question, ‘were these: “Of the increase of his government and peace shall be no end.”’

  Cromwell, looking out of the window, observed – ‘Well, that has a loyal sound.’

  The Archbishop smiled with indulgent superiority. ‘She spoke not of the King’s Grace. But those very words are written in the English Scriptures, and therefore I say there is no treason in her. For, surely if any man hath taught the poor creature to speak these things, that man is no papist, but one who knows the New Learning and the very Gospel of Christ.’

  ‘That is sure proof of loyalty?’

  ‘Sure proof,’ the Archbishop said, with the same bland smile.

  ‘Then Sir Francis Bigod is either no traitor or ignorant of the English Scriptures.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the Archbishop, and his smile died.

  ‘I shall,’ said Cromwell, ‘myself examine the woman.’

  He put his hand to his cap and moved towards the door.

  ‘I have set her free,’ the Archbishop t
old him in a voice that he tried to make confident.

  ‘You – you have set her free?’

  ‘Or rather,’ the Archbishop maintained his dignity with an effort, ‘or rather by now she is free. For I gave orders to take her this morning to her mistress, the Prioress of Marrick. Who lies,’ he added, ‘at the Priory of St. Helen’s in Bishopgate Street.’

  ‘I know that,’ Cromwell snapped at him, and went out quickly.

  *

  From daybreak to close on noon, except when he went down to church to sing Mass, Gib taught the boys that came to the Chantry for their schooling. Except for what small reward he received from Lord Privy Seal for his writings, this Chantry and school were all Gib’s living. He owed them to Friar Laurence’s good offices, and knew that he should be grateful. But to teach the children was a hair shirt upon his shoulders.

  To-day was no worse for Gib than other days. The red-haired boy he birched three times, and the squinting boy twice. Someone slung ink at someone else, but the offender was not to be discovered, even though Gib threatened to flog all; he began to carry out his threat, but while he dealt with the second victim one behind his back threw his English Testament across the room. He plunged to rescue it, and as he stooped heard a scuffling and giggling behind him. When he stood up he saw that they had all fled – he who had been under the birch went last of all, with his bare behind showing pink between his shirt and the hosen which he huddled up about him as well as he could.

  So there was Gib, left standing alone in the little dusty room, hearing their scurrying footsteps, laughter, and derisive hooting die away down the stairs. With raging disgust in his heart he looked round at the empty benches and all the mess and litter of their childish heedlessness. There were some marbles under one bench end; he picked them up and threw them through the window. Sticking out of the pages of Stanbridge’s Accidens there was a coloured paper; when he looked closer he saw that it was one of those painted woodcut pictures of saints which devout persons buy at pilgrimage places, and afterwards give away to their friends. This was a picture of the Rood angels, with skirts curled up like the tails of mermaids, hovered to receive into a chalice the blood which poured from the wounded side of the Christ. Gib tore the paper into four pieces and stamped on it. Before he shut the book his eye caught sight of the picture on the title page; eight well-groomed attentive scholars, disposed in two orderly regular lines, waited upon the instruction of their master; the effect of serenity and seemliness was a little weakened by a big slobber of dried brown blood which had probably been spilt from someone’s nose after combat, but even so it was cruelly far from the truth, and Gib slapped the book down upon the bench. However, when he had for a while gnawed his knuckles, the extremity of his irritation passed, and he decided that he might as well make the most of his freedom. He unlocked a cupboard, took out a packet of writings, pulled on his hood and began to go downstairs; if he went out at this hour he would miss his dinner here, but he would be able to hang about the kitchen door of Lord Privy Seal’s house, and in this way he might more than make up for what he lost at home.

  When he came down to the lower room he found that the old Kat had been drinking already and was very quarrelsome. She lurched towards him as he went through, and he thought that if she could have lifted from the hook the pot where white puddings were boiling she would have soused him with it. As it was she followed him to the door and stood screeching after him down the street.

  But when a couple of hours later, he came away from Lord Privy Seal’s house in Throgmorton Street, he had money in his pouch and even a word of commendation from that Chaplain of my Lord who had scanned through his writing against the Papist superstition of pilgrimages. He had also herring, bread, and beer in his belly. So he went more cheerfully; it pleased him that the porter wagged his head as he passed and gave him good-day. ‘Here,’ he thought, ‘I have a place. Here they know me for what I am.’ It warmed him against the cold east wind that had kept the day huddled in a November-seeming murk. He thought, ‘Perhaps when my Lord reads more of what I write he will have me into his Household.’ He saw himself a chaplain there, well fed, warm, with a little room to study in, having in it a curtained bed, a desk, a shelf of books, as that chaplain had before whom he had stood to-day. Then, even as he went through the street, he raised his fist and struck himself on the breast, horrified at himself because, for those writings of his which should have been only to advance God’s Kingdom, he hoped to receive worldly reward.

  And, in the meantime, he must go back to the Chantry and to old Kat, by now most likely sodden and snoring.

  He came to Cornhill and stood hesitating while a dray piled with a brewer’s hogsheads went by. He decided not to go home yet, so he crossed the street and went on down Birchin Lane, meaning to fetch a compass and return by Lombard Street.

  He had already turned under the low archway leading to St. Edmund’s Church, when he found that a crowd filled the way. There was a scaffolding up against the church, and workmen standing on it, not working, but looking down. The crowd too was looking the same way, at a place below the scaffolding.

  Gib did not care what they stared at, and walked more slowly so that he should not have to shoulder his way through them. As he drew near people began to move away.

  ‘Marry!’ said a fat woman as she came past Gib, ‘I marvel the poor wench was not killed.’

  ‘That fellow that let so heavy a stone fall into the street should taste of a rope’s end,’ said the man.

  ‘Poor soul!’ said another. ‘It were a charity to bring her to her home, wherever it may be. I myself am in haste, or...’ and he passed on.

  So now Gib had come to that part of the street where the crowd had been, which now had melted away, and there was Malle, the poor foolish wench from Marrick, sitting with her head cast back against the wall of St. Edmund’s porch, and Wat, his son, fondling and fumbling at her, and making strange noises in his throat.

  Gib thought – ‘If I had gone the shorter way—’ He thought also – ‘She does not know me,’ and Wat never looked his way.

  Gib went three steps or four, with a skulking glance back over his shoulder. His heart gave a great jump. Malle turned her face towards him. He wrenched his head round, and went on, stepping softly, listening for her voice. At the corner of the street he did not look back.

  March 24

  There was a north-east wind blowing down the length of Broad Street as Gib went towards Lord Privy Seal’s house. He tucked his hands into his sleeves to keep them warm, but, whether he would or no, instead of putting his head down into the wind he must keep it up to peer about, looking for – he would not let himself know what. Instead he muttered under his breath, ‘Whew! Winter’s come again. Early spring is never sure,’ and he tried to think of fire and supper waiting for him when he went back. Old Kat might natter at him, but she would go out sooner or later to the ale-house, and then he could read by the fire-light, or if he chose could go out to one that he knew, and talk with him of the coming reformation of all things – a heartening subject, for not only did New Jerusalem gleam before them, very pleasant and lovely, but also there was the enemy to be thought of, and his downfall, the enemy who was not only Satan, but also such Bishops as Winchester, such nobles as Exeter, as well as the great part of Monks and Nuns, all such in fact as with malicious perversity would not look up to see the heavenly city descending upon them.

  He came opposite the gate of a woodyard, and heard a dog begin to bark wildly there. ‘Some naughty thief,’ he thought. ‘There’s none honesty in these days.’ He paused to watch the fellow bolted out, saying to himself that he should, if occasion served, speak a word to him of rebuke and of salvation.

  But instead of some rough fellow a woman and a lad came out of the yard and trailed away along the street in front of him. They had not seen Gib. He could easily, by turning back, or simply by waiting a while, avoid their notice.

  But when he knew them, after a bump of his heart, and a gr
eat perturbation of mind, peace came to him. Like a full bucket dropping back into the well with a dizzy whirring of the winch, and a heavy plop and splash – like that, all in a second, he knew that here was mercy, here was forgiveness, here was his chance of salvation offered to him once more by the unimaginable patience of God.

  He overtook the two of them.

  ‘Pax vobiscum,’ he said, standing in their way.

  Wat stepped behind Malle; she faced him, but there was no look of recognition in her face.

  He said: ‘You know me.’

  She only mumbled something about darkness.

  ‘What? Are you blind?’

  She shook her head, but said again that it was dark.

  ‘Where do you live?’ he asked her.

  She said: ‘We do not know where to go.’

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I shall take you where I live – till I can provide better. Come on.’ When she did not move he said again, ‘Come on,’ and at the sound of his own voice his heart sank and trembled. To attain salvation he must love these two, as the Samaritan loved the traveller. Yet already he heard in his tone sharp exasperation at her stupidity.

  March 26

  Aske waited till the greyness of the new day was in the room. Then he got up and wakened Ned Acroyd. Ned lit a candle, and stifling huge yawns, began to dress his master. Being so sleepy he was, for once, silent, and Aske was glad of it; like a physical pain this day’s departure from Aughton bounded and consumed all his thoughts; he did not so much remember as feel in himself all the other days of summer, winter, spring – upon which he had stood in this same room. Those days, and the little room, and all Aughton, were, it seemed, lodged somewhere in his body, and they were being plucked away from him with a long, sore wrench. He thought, ‘If only I were taking Will with me instead of this lad—!’ And on the thought Will Wall came in.