The Courier's Tale

by Peter Walker

  Mr Pole’s

  Book

  written

  at the command

  of the King

  From my childhood you chose me alone, out of all the nobility of England, as the one on whom to bestow your special care and attention. If I now was to repay you with lies, the name of ‘traitor’ would scarcely be enough to describe such atrocious behaviour. So I beg you to believe me when I say I mean you nothing but good.

  And yet I must oppose your opinions. If you listen patiently, my Prince, I promise you that this work, this book, is in accordance with your best interests and your deepest wishes. I may seem to be your enemy. In fact I give you my hand to save your life.

  How did you come to this opinion of yourself – that you, the only king in history to claim the title, were Vicar of Christ? There is only one conclusion possible: you have the most shameless flatterers of any king in history. They have corrupted your judgement so completely that one gives up any hope of good from you. Indeed good people now fear every evil. You have abandoned yourself to these pestilential advisors as if you were clinging to mud. You jeer at the men you have killed, whom I myself have heard you once describe as the greatest scholars in the world and the honour of your realm. You have slain those who wanted to save you from your real enemies, these obnoxious flatterers. You want to be honoured as Vicar of God but in fact you are more like the prince of pride, the man of lawlessness, of whom it was prophesied: ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of God’ . . .

  To justify your new title you cling to the argument ‘Honour the King’ like a starving lion clinging to its prey. Yet it is so futile, so lacking in erudition and eloquence, so contrary to law, custom, example or reason, it is like an obelisk which casts doubt on all that has been said. It is, in itself, a sign that you have been persuaded to seize this title, which not even Constantine aspired to, for another reason, a secret reason, which makes you hate anyone who opposes you. But why? What is the reason you hate them? Why does it not dare show itself?

  Here is the real reason which, above all, you wished to hide: you, a man of a certain age and experience, were burning miserably with love for a girl who was eager only to outdo her sister, by keeping you as her lover. She knew very well from her sister how quickly you get tired of your concubines. She required something more: the firm bond of marriage.

  You could think of no better plan than to say that divine law required you to give up your first wife – indeed, that it was a sin to keep her for an instant longer. The papal authority disagreed with this reading of the law, so it became necessary to replace the Pope with yourself. This is the origin of the narrative.

  Your flatterers then lifted their voices in support. You sent to all the universities in the world to buy false witness from doctors of law and divinity. The shameful things recounted about Julius Caesar by his licentious soldiers – that he was a bald-headed fornicator – were not enough for you. Your army of supporters was ordered to state that you had lived in abominable incest for nearly twenty years. Then you displayed their letters like the news of great victories from an army sent to conquer Asia.

  But how did those who truly loved you hear such news? I can hardly write for my tears. In your youth you were the object of so many hopes. All those who cared for England looked forward to a golden age when you reached the throne. In your first years as Prince what rays of excellence shone forth? A certain piety and, added to this, justice, mercy, generosity and wisdom, plus an innate modesty as if added by nature to guard your other virtues.

  But then you became entangled in the nets of love. Satan himself trapped you there, knowing what a pleasing spectacle you would soon become for him. You did not think about how to escape the net, but only of ways of becoming more entangled. Then at last you succeeded. You got what you wanted – and had scarcely embraced your mistress when suddenly, as if some poison struck the marrow of your bones, you burst forth with great daring and not only rescinded your previous deeds but overthrew the laws of the kingdom, of all your royal predecessors, and of Christ himself. Now nothing in human law, or divine, was held to be certain. Everything was referred to your own will, or rather to your passions and desires wherever they should carry you . . .

  All this misfortune, O England, comes from one fact: your King, although he had good advisers, listened instead to evil advisers, who whispered in his ear, ‘All things belong to the King.’ If only he had ignored these flatterers and listened instead to those who said, ‘All things belong to the Commonwealth.’

  Now, through slaughter, you have acquired the title ‘Head of the Church’. You put your faith in torture and death for anyone who resists your lies. And thus you have entered into a league with death. But remember what Isaiah said to those like you: ‘Your league of death shall be abolished . . . and shall not stand.’ The men you killed have, by their deaths, already written the truth about you in their blood. Unless you turn back, what deeds of renown might be inscribed upon your tomb? Perhaps this:

  ‘Like a raging animal, he tore to pieces the best men in his kingdom.’

  Or what about this:

  ‘He poured out immense sums to get the title ‘incestuous’ conferred upon him by the universities.’

  King Sardanaplus chose as his epitaph these words: ‘I have satisfied all my physical desires’. Aristotle said that would have been better on the tomb of a cow than of a king. You, however, should hurry to claim it for your own, in case much worse things are written there . . .

  This was only a small sample of what Pole wrote. I have selected it from the précis I made many years later when I finally read the book. And when I did, I nearly fell off my chair. This was what I, on bended knee, proffered to His Majesty? I should have been delighted when Starkey plucked it from my hands. He wanted the credit for it, you see, and in a way he got it. He was blamed, quite unfairly, for everything that was written, and for some time he was in danger of losing his life. I never saw such a change in a man.

  And yet Pole had only done what was commanded. The King had said he would rather Pole fall down dead than hide his true opinions. And thus, Pole revealed them frankly.

  He ended the book by apologising for the bitterness of the medicine and begging the King to seek forgiveness for his crimes. But I doubt if anyone read that far. The first twenty pages were enough. By then, the subject of the writing, the King, found his appetite ‘marvellously whetted’ to see his own subject, the bold writer, standing before him.

  ‘No, indeed,’ I told Pole when I got back to Italy, ‘you’d better not go back. Not if you want to live. You’ll be’ – I had to search my mind for the phrase – ‘ “a morsel amongst the choppers”.’

  Chapter 8

  This conversation took place in Venice, where Pole went to seek the advice of friends.

  We were back at M. Donato’s house; the city was sweltering, all the doors and windows were open, the room was filled with sound of traffic and voices on the water. M. Priuli was there – his brother is now the Doge – who by then had attached himself to il Signor. Pole sometimes used to roll his eyes to heaven, as if to ask that knowledgeable source why he had been sent such a relentless shadow, but he was fond of him all the same: Priuli was well meaning and high-minded, scholarly and accident-prone; in short, he was unfit for the world, and a thousand absurd things happened to him every day. I’m sure he is the only person ever to have his horse stolen while he was actually riding it. But, as he explained, he was immersed in a book at the time.

  Contarini was also there, the most able and brilliant man in Venice, a diplomat and great soother of storms. He took the view that many of mankind’s differences are smaller than they seem, and may be solved with a little goodwill and patience and, if necessary, evasive action.

  The question under consideration that afternoon was this: did a loyal subject, such as Pole, have the right ever to disobey his sovereign who orders him to come home and stand before him? At length, Contarini related this fable: ‘A great n
umber of beasts visited a sick lion, but the fox alone avoided going to see him. The lion wrote him a kind letter, telling him earnestly that he longed to see him, that a visit from him would surely revive his heart. He assured the fox there could be no danger in his coming, since he neither would hurt him if he could, nor could if he would.

  ‘The fox sent word that he would pray and supplicate the gods for the lion’s recovery, but humbly begged to be excused the visit.

  ‘In fact he insisted on it, he said, for this reason: he had seen the footprints of many animals going into the royal den, but could see no tracks going out.’

  And that was the answer I took back to England. It was framed slightly differently. Pole wrote to the King:

  As I learn from Your Grace’s letter, and more from Mr Secretary’s stirring me vehemently, but most of all from the bearer [that was me] the most fervent of all, I should repair at once to your presence. There is nothing I would rather do . . . I would rise from a sickbed, I would run though fire and water. But there is an obstacle in the way, which you have put there yourself. It is a new law we never had in England before. Since you cast your love and affection on her who never bore any love and affection to you, everyone is a traitor who will not agree to make you Head of the Church. Yet that is the whole argument of my book. If I came, this law would make me a traitor to my own life, which I am bound to keep at the Lord’s pleasure and not cast temerariously away . . . And yet here is all the difficulty for a prince. Who will tell him when he is at fault? And who has more need to hear it, with a thousand more occasions to fall?

  This letter I took back to London in August. Pole showed it to me before I left. I was rather taken with ‘temerariously’ – a very fine word, I thought. There was not, however, a syllable about sick lions and foxes.

  What then induced me to bring them up I will never know.

  There were four persons present: myself and Cromwell, behind me Morison, and, still looking somewhat abject but pleased not to be beheaded, Dr Starkey. Cromwell read over Pole’s letter to himself, then read it once aloud, then laid it down and looked at me.

  ‘So he is not coming?’ he said. It was a strange question, I thought, considering the clarity of Pole’s language. And Cromwell looked angrily at me, as though it was my fault he was not coming back – which I suppose it was, now that I think about it, but at the time I felt aggrieved at the imputation.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘there was once this fox, you know, which . . .’ and off I went. As soon as I embarked on the tale, I realised it was a mistake. I heard a faint hiss behind me. It was Morison, drawing in breath through his teeth.

  He meant me to hear this as a warning, but it was too late: I had set forth with the lion and the fox and could see no way to stop until the matter was concluded. There was deathly silence when I came to the end of the narration. By that time, you must remember, it was forbidden by law to make any criticism of the King or the new laws. Only ardent praise of Henry was deemed acceptable, and indeed was all that was heard. ‘We are the grass, you are the sun which makes us grow’; ‘You have the wisdom of Solomon, the beauty of Absalom’, that was the sort of thing which was required. And there was I, babbling about a cave, and footprints going in and none coming out . . .

  ‘And what,’ asked Cromwell, ‘do you think, Michael, of this interesting fable?’ He enunciated his words very evenly, like a lawyer.

  ‘I?’ I said as if astounded that my opinion should matter, or that I should have one at all.

  I then gave the matter some thought. ‘Well,’ I said simply, ‘I’m here.’

  Then, to my amazement, Cromwell laughed. It was not a full laugh, more a sort of brief bark, yet his teeth showed. As he himself had framed the new laws, perhaps he could observe them with more latitude than anyone else. It seemed I escaped the danger. After all, I was still useful. Nothing would be gained by chopping off my head, at least for the meantime. I was still his best connection to Pole.

  I again heard a little sound behind me. This time it was not a hiss but a puff. Morison faintly blew air out over his lips like a horse in a stall.

  After that, the mood of the meeting changed. They all became reflective: what was to be done? I was dismissed and told to return in two days. I begged for longer. I had urgent business, I said, in Gloucester.

  Why did I say that? It was to Coughton in Warwickshire that I had to go. Yet all the way back from Italy to England, I was thinking ‘Gloucester, Gloucester’ – for some reason the name of Judith’s home always had a strong effect on me, just those two syllables made some hidden wheel in my heart give a turn. By then I had decided the time had come to set all the wheels turning. In other words, I had ridden all the way back to England thinking of Judith, and marriage and no doubt the marriage bed.

  ‘You are not to leave London,’ said Cromwell.

  ‘I must,’ I said. ‘I have a most urgent business to attend to.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘I mean to take a wife.’

  ‘No,’ said the Lord Privy Seal flatly. ‘You’re not going to disappear on me a second time. You may be needed at a moment’s notice. In any case, there’s no hurry for that business you mention. No married man ever thinks he stayed single too long.’

  He meant this as a pleasantry, but at the same time shot me such a sparkle of malignity that I was shocked. It was not, I think, even intended for me personally. I always had the impression that Cromwell liked me. That sudden glare was the expression of power that will brook no opposition. I saw then why he frightened people.

  I bowed and went away, and later raged at this prohibition.

  ‘Why do I have to obey him?’ I said. ‘He is not my master as far as I know. I am in service to Pole.’

  ‘And to the King,’ said Morison. ‘We are all in service to the King. And Cromwell is the voice of the King. Be sensible. Don’t fly against the wind. Wait till things settle down. Who’s the lucky girl? If it was up to me, of course, I would let you go, but this is a high matter, a matter of State.’

  Morison was deputed to keep watch over me. This was no great hardship for we were good friends. Several times we went over to Lewisham to hunt partridges – there were still partridges there in those days though they seem to have all flown away today. So off we rode together, side by side. It was almost like old times, although of course we were not in Venice but crossing English fields, I had a gun and dog at heel and Morsion was very well dressed.

  He had been changed, I noticed, by his three months’ proximity to power. He now pursed his lips and looked up at the sky with a frown when he stepped out of doors in his fur-lined cloak. But he spoke very candidly about the situation: quite apart from the fury that Pole’s book occasioned, he said, there was great dread that he would publish it. Pole’s reputation was so high both in England and abroad that this thought haunted the King.

  ‘You don’t think he will publish, do you?’ said Morison. ‘I know you scarcely know him – you were the baby of the house, he was barely aware of your existence – but you have seen him more recently than any of us.’

  ‘I don’t think he will,’ I said. ‘He made it plain that I was to hand it only to the King.’

  ‘Then what’s all this “O, England” and “O, my native land!” in there for?’

  As I had not read a word of it I kept silent. Morison was really only speaking his thoughts out loud as we went over the fields.

  ‘It’s a worry, a great worry,’ he said. ‘And, frankly, no one has any idea what to do.’

  Chapter 9

  As soon as I saw I was trapped in London I wrote to Coughton, suggesting that my sisters come to town to see me and perhaps bring along – if she chose – our Gloucester cousin as well.

  A message came back to say they would arrive on a certain morning a few days later. I was very excited by this. Until then I had never spent a full minute in front of a looking glass, but now – this was in the old family house in town – I presented myself there and inspe
cted the wayward figure I saw. He was hard to make out: I suppose we are always in the dark on some matters – how we are seen by others, for instance – and I’m not sure how much a mirror helps us, but off I went and had my hair cropped and even bought a cap of red ormesia, thinking that such no doubt were what lovers wore, and in fact that the human race could scarcely have multiplied without them.

  The party from Warwickshire was to arrive the next day.

  That same night a message arrived from Cromwell: I was to depart for Italy the following morning. I must leave instantly and without thought of delay, as soon as several urgent letters for Mr Pole were brought to me.

  At that I was almost in despair. Everything depended on who arrived first – the party from Warwickshire or a messenger from Whitehall. I slept badly. All night I imagined something being beaten out as thin as gold wire, I could hear the hammering in my sleep. Perhaps it was my own heart I overheard. Before dawn I was up and dressed and at the window watching the street.

  Morison arrived first. About an hour after sunrise he came sliding past below me as if on a wooden horse on a rail. With him were two archers. All three were to accompany me to Dover.

  I prepared to depart. I said nothing about my private disappointment. The State, even in the shape of a man who used to wear your green breeches, has no interest in such matters. So we set out. There was no sign of the other party. For half a mile I kept willing them to appear, and then, just as we turned towards the bridge, I caught sight of them far away down Cheapside, browsing along looking left and right at the shops and the hanging signs as if there was all the time in the world. Behind them Tom Rutter’s big red face rose like the harvest moon.