The Courier's Tale

by Peter Walker

  I hardly liked to look at his face, for happiness and fear showed there equally. The unspoken dread was that for the last two years his mother had been in the dungeon with only the clothes she had been arrested in. But we could not dwell on that. The main thing was that Master Scut’s bill proved not only that the Lady of Sarum was still alive, but that the King intended that she should continue to live. One thing was certain: he was not a man to spend £11.16.4 on an old woman he intended should die. And if she was not to die, why should she not soon be freed? The departure of Cromwell and the presence of the new queen at Henry’s side made anything seem possible.

  This was in late spring in 1541.

  From my point of view, the best thing about Capranica was its size. It was so small that no stranger could arrive and take up a post there – as assassin, for instance – without at once being known. As well as that, all the roads into the place were easily watched. The whole hilltop town was its own watchtower, and I was the sentinel. Even when I went out early in the morning into the country to fly my hawk I could, from several places, look up and down the length of the road and see whoever was coming.

  One such morning, on one of the hills above the hanging woods, I noticed in the distance two figures riding towards the town from the south. For some reason, I thought of Brancetor, but I dismissed the idea. He had joined us in Rome the previous month but remained there when we left. He was planning to get a commission to fight the Turks who were then battering the gates of Budapest and, having a great interest in war, he had decided to stay and watch Lord Ascanio’s argument with the Pope. But when I got back to the house an hour later I found Brancetor installed in the kitchen, eating eggs and bread, and surrounded by servants, who wore grave expressions.

  ‘Robert!’ I said, ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Pity,’ he said.

  ‘Pity?’

  Brancetor often spoke tersely, but you always got there in the end for he was not a man of mystery.

  ‘With news more worthy of compassion than anything else,’ he said.

  This was true. The Lady of Sarum was dead.

  The news came in the usual form, a copy of an ambassador’s letter sent from London:

  I must now report the strange and lamentable execution of the Countess of Salisbury who was beheaded yesterday at seven in the morning. When she was told that she was about to die, she could not believe it; she knew of no crime of which she was accused, nor how a sentence had been passed. But at last, seeing there was no remedy, she went out of the dungeon where she had been held for so long and walked to the middle of the space where there was no scaffold, nothing but a small block.

  She commended her soul to her creator and prayed for the King and Queen and the Princess and the Prince. The ordinary executioner was absent. In his place a wretched and blundering youth was given the job, who hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in a most pitiable fashion.

  There was nothing to say. We all gazed at one another, Brancetor and I and the servants. Il Signor had been given the news, they told me, and had taken it very calmly. He had retired to the oratory by his chamber and when he came out after half an hour or so his face was devoid of grief. And so, strangely, were the faces around me in the kitchen.

  To someone waiting in his room – I think it was his secretary, Beccatelli – Pole said that a far greater honour than noble birth had come to him: he could now say he was the son of a martyr. But he also said that he must understand it that way, being otherwise beyond all human consolation.

  For our part, in the kitchen below, we had no words. For years we had stood like this, in rooms in different houses and countries, and looked at one another in amazement at the latest deed of the King. We had become used to it: it was the part given us to play. But then there always followed some emotion – anger or sorrow – and speculation as to his next move. This time it was different. The murder of a woman closely allied to him by blood, aged and growing feeble, renowned for her virtue, not only innocent but without any charge against her, ended all thought of Henry as a man living among fellow men. From him there was now nothing to expect or hope for.

  I went away and set my hawk down in her cage, spreading out her tawny wing through my fingers, and then went to see my master.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Heaven is high, the earth is deep, but a king’s heart is unsearchable’, which I’m sure is true, and I only wish I knew who said it, in order to commend him to you. And yet even unsearchable hearts have their reasons. Kings look at the clock and the calendar like everyone else and then make their calculations. In this case, we would never understand why the Lady of Sarum had been killed just then and not earlier and not later. I have always been puzzled, for instance, by the tailor’s bill. Over the next few days, Brancetor and I talked this over several times, out on the roof of the house or walking over the fields. He gave me one explanation for the old lady’s death, and here it is, for what it is worth.

  You will remember that after we left Provence, Brancetor went to Paris to deliver Pole’s long letter to the Emperor. His arrival there was immediately noticed. Wyatt, who had reappeared as ambassador to the Emperor’s court and was then in Paris, sent a message commanding him to come to his house. This Brancetor ignored.

  Wyatt then went to the French authorities to complain that a sort of beggarly renegade was in town, an English traitor, a man of low degree, a merchant’s clerk who had once robbed his master. He demanded that he be handed over in accordance with the treaties. The French saw no reason to refuse. Orders were given to the provost to make the arrest.

  This was on the seventh day of Christmas. That night, as evening fell, Brancetor came back to his lodgings and had just lit a candle and blown the fire aflame in the hearth when the door burst open and an unknown figure rushed into the room, fell over a stool and then, with a groan, called out from the floor.

  ‘Since you would not visit me, I have come to visit you.’

  Naturally Brancetor at first assumed this was a horrible demon which had come up from hell, but then he looked more closely and recognised the English ambassador. Instantly he threw some papers he was reading onto the fire. Wyatt, although half dead with pain – he had hurt himself badly falling over the stool – scrambled across the floor and snatched the papers out of the flames, singeing his fingertips as he did so.

  The two men then began to grapple and dance madly to and fro, snatching the document from each other’s hands.

  Meanwhile several other men came into the room, one of whom cried out: ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, be good to each other, I beg you!’

  This was the French provost who had been sent to assist in the arrest. The two Englishmen both turned on him and began to shout.

  ‘Here is the traitor – pinion his arms,’ cried Wyatt.

  ‘I am a servant of the Emperor, and in his train,’ shouted Brancetor. ‘He will defend my right.’

  And taking more papers from a cerecloth he kept in his bosom, he thrust them into the provost’s hands.

  ‘Those are the property of the King of England,’ said Wyatt, snatching them from the provost.

  ‘Remember the honour of the Emperor, a guest in your city,’ said Brancetor.

  Astounded at the onset of these great personages in the quarrel, the provost stood gaping. Then he separated the two men, put Brancetor under guard, and taking all the papers with him, went to the chancellor for advice.

  Wyatt and Brancetor remained there, puffing and glaring at each other like game-cocks. But the provost was away for a long time and after a while they began to talk.

  ‘Come back to your King,’ said Wyatt. ‘He is altogether loving and merciful. He will forgive you.’

  ‘He cannot forgive me as I have done him no wrong.’

  ‘You have helped his enemy, and thus became one yourself. And yet your offences are not too great to pardon.’

  ‘This king pardons people, then hangs them in chains. I believe I will stick to the Emperor.’


  ‘You will not be pardoned for that. Remember, the King has a long arm.’

  ‘In Toledo you once said to me: “Kings have long arms, but God has longer.” ’

  ‘The King’s arm, and God’s,’ said Wyatt, ‘are joined together – what length does that make?’

  ‘It is an ill figure – a horrid figure – for a poet,’ said Brancetor.

  Wyatt, who was known to write verses, frowned and then they both fell silent, gazing at the floor. After some time the provost returned and, with many apologies, told Wyatt that he could not have Brancetor or the papers, and told Brancetor that he must lose his liberty for the meantime. He and his documents were to be held by the French, pending further enquiries.

  The next morning Wyatt hurried to see the imperial prime minister, Granvelle, and demanded an audience with the Emperor. But it was not until Twelfth Night that Wyatt was admitted to the imperial presence. He knew the Emperor well and did not beat about the bush.

  ‘A rebel of my King seems to hang about your court,’ he said, ‘a low man, much disliked by your ministers.’

  ‘Who is this nasty person?’ asked the Emperor.

  ‘His name is Brancetor.’

  ‘Ah,’ quoth the Emperor, ‘Robert.’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘I shall tell you, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,’ said the Emperor, ‘it is he who was in Persia.’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘No, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, it is true. I know it by good tokens. I sent a knight of Rhodes with a message to the King of the Persians, and on the way, on Mt Sinai, he fell ill, and Robert, knowing the great love that exists between your king and myself, looked after him, and when the knight, whose name was Balbi, saw that he was going to die he opened his heart to Robert and told him what a great service he would do to me and to all Christendom if he would undertake the mission. And so Robert went to Persia in his place, and it is certain that he did so, for the Sophy soon after invaded the Turkish dominions, and afterwards Robert came home by the new route, by the sailing of the Portingales from the gates of Hormuz, and brought me sure tokens given him by M. Balbi.

  ‘Now this,’ the Emperor went on, ‘was no small service he did. And I have had him follow me for years in all my voyages in Africa, in Provence, in Italy. And in all that time, I do not see how he can have offended the King of England, unless it be by going with Cardinal Pole, who asked for him because he spoke the language in Spain.’

  ‘He’s a rebel and that’s all there is to it,’ said Wyatt. ‘To ask more is to sickle-scythe another man’s corn. His long absence from England and his service to your Majesty do not excuse treason. He has been condemned by parliament.’

  ‘Well, we shall look into it,’ said the Emperor. ‘And yet I hear that you have already tried to seize him here in Paris, at which I marvel, for you knew he was a follower of my court. I promise you, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, that was evilly done. In fact, I am not disposed to give him up, on that account alone.’

  ‘It is not you who has to give him up, but the King of France,’ said Wyatt. ‘We ask nothing of you.’

  ‘What?’ cried the Emperor. ‘You would have me stand aside and allow such discourtesy to a man who follows me and whom I have not yet rewarded? I assure you that if I go to the Levant, I may want to take him with me. No, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, I tell you now plainly: I will speak for his freedom, both to the King of France and to the Constable, and I trust they will not do me such dishonour as to allow one of mine to suffer damage. Let me be frank: even if your master had me in his Tower, I would not change my honour and conscience. I will stop at nothing to set Robert at liberty.’

  ‘Have you no gratitude?’ said Wyatt.

  ‘Stop!’ said the Emperor, flying into a fury. ‘Whom do you charge with ingratitude?’

  ‘Both your Majesties, I fear,’ said Wyatt, ‘your own and that of France.’

  ‘Impossible!’ said the Emperor. ‘No doubt the king of France can answer for himself, but as for ourselves, we owe your master nothing. In any case, the term “ingratitude” cannot be used of a superior by an inferior.’

  ‘That is absurd,’ said Wyatt. ‘A greater may be ungrateful to a lesser.’

  ‘I think I know the meaning of the word,’ said the Emperor coldly. ‘I cannot believe your master, the King of England, would use it here.’

  ‘It is exactly what he would use,’ said Wyatt. ‘He is of that opinion at this very moment.’

  ‘I am not convinced that all your master’s opinions are good ones.’

  ‘They are all wonderfully good,’ said Wyatt, ‘and most profitable to himself and his State.’

  ‘Your opinion on that is perhaps not the best,’ retorted the Emperor. ‘Do you really think it reasonable for me to deliver up Brancetor to the hangman, without knowing why?’

  ‘Do you call my master a hangman?’ said Wyatt, going pale.

  ‘Well,’ said the Emperor, ‘I am not so ill bred as not to know that princes are not spoken of in such a way. Yet I do know that the process against Brancetor is complete, the sentence has been decided, and nothing remains but to chop off his head. Perhaps I do not say “hangman” – but how can I avoid the term “cruel prince”?’

  At that, Wyatt stared and then put his finger to his forehead and tapped it, indicating that the Emperor was fantastical. Upon which he was dismissed and, hobbling from the room, he well-nigh fell in a heap outside the door, for the Emperor had never invited him to sit down, in spite of his injury.

  The next morning Brancetor was set free and returned to his lodgings. Soon the news of Wyatt’s audacity – tapping his forehead in front of the Emperor – was all over Paris, spread by the Emperor himself who was amazed, as he had never seen this gesture before, or at least not directed at himself.

  Now the English envoys turned their attention to the French. The ambassador to the court of France, Bishop Bonner, hurried through the woods to see the King in the castle at La Fère to complain that Brancetor had been released.

  ‘It is infamous, unjust, and contrary to the treaties,’ he told the King. ‘In this you act against reason, against God and against your duty.’

  At that, Francis started up from his seat, going white with rage, and ordered Bonner to leave his sight.

  Later that day, when the King went hunting with the Queen and her ladies, and again when he came back again at night, he refused even to look up at Bonner’s window or acknowledge his many eager salutes.

  ‘You would think he might look more cheerful in public,’ Bonner reported to London. ‘He was wearing a crimson cloak but was deathly pale – whatever can be troubling him?’

  Now this whole affair had profound effects. Henry was enraged. He had been called ‘cruel prince’. Two of his ambassadors had been repelled, one of them, Bonner, sent home in disgrace. Henry’s attempts to drive a wedge between France and the Emperor had failed. He had not a single friend on the stage except certain German princes and dukes. And just at that time he found himself married to the sister of one them, an innocent maid whom, unfortunately, he could not bear to embrace. This was blamed on Cromwell. Shortly afterwards, Cromwell lost his life.

  The story did not end there. It seems that the French, who had eagerly read Brancetor’s papers, informed Henry that among them was a letter from one of his ambassadors, Richard Pate. Pate had a reputation as one of Henry’s most loyal servants, and was most vehement against the Pope. But Henry’s suspicions were easily roused and Pate was ordered home.

  On the way, he stopped at Cologne to go and see the cathedral, and there, waking in the middle of the night and taking his coffer and one manservant, he stole away from his entourage and fled to Rome to join Pole.

  At this point the French, charmed with their success, may have played a further game with the King and told him that Pate was not alone – his other envoys were suspect as well. In any case, all English diplomats abroad were ordered home and thrust into prison. Wyatt himself was marched into the To
wer, his wrists pinioned, surrounded by twenty-four archers. Everyone accused everyone else of secretly supporting Pole.

  ‘Never have I seen these people so crestfallen,’ wrote the French ambassador happily. ‘They do not know whom to trust, and the King, having offended so many people, mistrusts everyone . . . And in his irresolution and despondency, he goes on dipping his hands in blood wherever he conceives the least suspicion.’

  That winter, out of sympathy for the trials of his brother-sovereign, the King of France sent Henry six great venison pasties. Henry was delighted and sent a message to say he had tasted them all and found them all marvellously good.

  ‘We rejoice that you liked our pasties,’ replied Francis, ‘especially since we and our sister, Queen of Navarre, were present at the seasoning and tasting thereof.’

  At the French court, many jokes were then heard: ‘Poor man – he lost his Pate, so we sent him six pâtés of ours. One could do no less.’

  That above all was something Henry could never bear: the sound of laughter from across the Channel.

  He realised he had been outsmarted. He had been made a fool of. He had arrested his own diplomatic corps. His equals, the Emperor and the King of France, held him in low esteem. It was then, said Brancetor, that Henry’s mind turned to Pole. Pole was the source of his mortifications. It was Pole whom Brancetor preferred. It was to Pole that Pate fled. And at the same time, all that winter and early spring, the King was in agony with his ulcerated leg. Even that affliction seemed to be connected to Pole. The ulcer had opened at the same time that Pole, his own flesh and blood, first came towards his kingdom with the title of Roman legate. There was even a joke about that. ‘An ulcer ate his leg, but a legate his soul.’

  Now the King, brooding over his setbacks, wanted vengeance. Pole was far away in Italy and all plans to kill him had so far failed. There remained one sure way to punish him.