The Courier's Tale

by Peter Walker

  But after Gardiner was gone, the penal fires continued. Bishop Bonner – the same who once demanded Brancetor’s arrest in France – was now the leading light, if I can use the phrase, of the persecution.

  ‘The great cockatrice is dead but his chicks live on,’ said my visitors, now speaking more mournfully.

  Many of the English in Italy were exiles, leaning towards Luther or Calvin or Zwingli, and, since I had left England as well, they assumed I was sympathetic and they spoke frankly to me. Among them was young Edward Courtenay. This was the Marquis of Exeter’s son, Pole’s cousin, who had spent his youth in the Tower. He was now a fine, handsome man of twenty-five or so. Unfortunately, what the Emperor once said of him – that being brought up in prison rendered him unfit to wear a crown – was true. In fact, he was hardly fit for life beyond the prison gates. On reaching Venice, he soon found himself in grave trouble and sent a message begging me for help.

  I rode over at once and found him in a state of terror. Certain agents and courtiers of the King of England were seeking his life. Assassins had been hired to kill him.

  This was not something Courtenay had imagined. Arrests had been made in Venice and confessions obtained.

  ‘I am not safe anywhere,’ he said, staring all round. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Calm down,’ I said to him. ‘This Republic will protect you. The Signory has a long arm, it takes hares by cartloads. These lords do not like to see their noble visitors murdered on the doorstep.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said, brightening. ‘They have just sent me a present of the finest wine and jams. They understand my importance.’ Then he began – as the phrase goes – to magnify himself. ‘I will require you to purchase me some horses,’ he said, ‘noble animals, good for both ménage and beauty. A man in my position cannot be seen on one of the wretched beasts the Paduans try to sell me, and at three times their value.’

  Courtenay was convinced that, one way or another, through French plotting or marriage to Elizabeth, he would one day sit on the English throne.

  I sighed to myself. He was a moth to the flame. Yet I was fond of him; in fact, I loved him like a son – it was not his fault that he had been fatherless since he was a boy and had been brought up by prison guards instead. And, although unfit for the world, he was highly intelligent. In prison, while hardly more than a child, he had translated a book that had been written by Flamminio when we were living in Viterbo. Courtenay still knew the book by heart. His Italian had a strange theological ring to it: he couldn’t ask you to pass the butter, but could discourse easily on the free gift of God’s grace and the benefit of Christ’s sacrifice.

  How Flamminio’s book had come into his hands in prison in England I do not know, but when I looked at him I thought of Marc’Antonio and me roaming high in the hills in the summer, the silver Tiber glinting far away below us. It made me think that we must all be bound together in some way, perhaps too close to see.

  I tried to talk some sense into Courtenay.

  ‘Take up the study of the law, here at Padua. Nothing can be more steadying. Look what it did for me. And at all costs stay away from Ferrara. It’s swarming with French who would love to draw you into another plot against the Queen. And this time, England would go to war with France.’

  I should explain that as soon as he had been freed from the Tower Courtenay had rushed from one folly to another. All the prettiest girls flocked around like butterflies and he quickly made up there for lost time. The Queen made him Earl of Devon, which only increased his vanity. She and he quarrelled over whether he might wear blue velvet at her Coronation. He enraged her by calling her ‘Mother’ or perhaps it was ‘Aunt’ – I forget exactly which term of abuse was employed. At the same time, he was said to have a liaison with the Princess Elizabeth. This he denied so vehemently there was probably something in it. He was then involved in a plot hatched by various young men to kill Mary and put Elizabeth on the throne. All the conspirators lost their heads as a result, except my own nephew, Nicholas, who was too clever to be caught, and Courtenay, protected by Gardiner, who had taken a great fancy to him when they were both in the Tower.

  Nevertheless, he was sent back to prison again, where, like a tame bird that dreads the open cage door, he was probably happiest.

  A year later he was sent abroad, first to Brussels and then here to Italy, ostensibly to keep him out of harm’s way, but in fact to be rid of him. He might be safe, I thought, if he behaved wisely, but otherwise . . .

  Of course he took no notice, and his story turned into a very sad one. But in the meantime I tried to look after him as best I could. The following morning in Venice I took him across the lagoon to an island where I used to go to fly my hawk in solitude, when I too had been a young man trapped in that great city, with no idea of what the future held.

  Chapter 7

  Crossing the lagoon that morning, Courtenay was more sensible and more forthcoming than the night before. There were just the two of us, with our hawks, on a skiff steered by a black Venetian who never uttered a word all day long. Courtenay’s pride dropped away. He began to talk openly. His mother was a lady of the Queen’s bedchamber and Courtenay had all the inside information about the English Court. The state of affairs there was appalling. The Queen was hysterical with grief and rage. Her husband, who had gone to Brussels, kept promising to return but every day one or two more of his household slipped away to join him. She wrote to him every hour. He replied occasionally, mentioning the burdens of his work and his fragile health. But her own spies informed her of everything. Philip went out masked every night, even in the worst weather, and often returned at dawn.

  ‘You know the sort of big, fat girls he likes,’ said Courtenay. ‘They cheer him up, he has these great debauches and eats bacon fat by the handful. The Queen knows all about it. My mother has seen her fly at his portrait and attack it with her nails. Then she falls weeping on the floor. Then, perhaps after an hour, the storm passes. She sits up again. She smiles: she remembers the dream of love. She calls for the musicians to play that song of Heywood’s, who is always hanging around:

  She said she did love me and would love me still

  She swore above all men I had her good will.

  ‘She listens, and remembers anew the sweet hours with her husband. He was always kind to her, you see. He hid the fact that he was dying to get away – every hour with her was like a thousand years for him. He was frightened of her as well, what with her terrible temper. She has no idea of his true feelings. So she smiles with grief, and with love. Her anger departs. But then a new frown appears. It is not her fault that he has left. It is her subjects who are to blame! They have rejected her prince of love. Some of them hate him because he is a Catholic. They, especially, must be punished. Thus she turns a mauvais visage on her people and prepares to fill the realm with smoke and blood. Truly, she is just like Dido who set her city on fire when her prince of love sailed away.’

  Courtenay had grown agitated as he spoke. His face was red. For weeks he had had no one to talk to frankly about these things. It was late in the morning – the heat of the sun came through the black awning and the gusts of wind fanning the water did nothing to cool us.

  ‘It is horrible,’ said Courtenay, bursting out as if he could no longer contain himself. ‘I don’t think you realise what is happening, Michael. There is no one to protect the little people from the law – the weavers and tallow-chandlers and butchers and widows. And the blind! I don’t know how many blind folk have been sent into the flames in the last year. I suppose they are the easiest to catch; officers of the law are always lazy, they prefer to hunt down the easiest prey.’

  He proceeded to tell me ugly stories of burning limbs, of three, four, five people all consumed in one fire – ‘to save on wood’ – of the great crowds that flocked to see the charbonnades in market squares or in the gravel pits outside town where cherry-sellers sold cherries by the horse-load.

  During this exordium
I began to feel very uncomfortable. I told myself it was the heat, but in fact it was Courtenay’s voice drilling on and on. It is unpleasant to be lectured by a youth for whose powers of judgement you have felt only pity. I wished the voyage would end but we were not even halfway across – the red towers of the city and S. Giorgio Maggiore were clear and sharp behind us, and the island we were going to was still only a line on the horizon.

  ‘There is nothing you are telling me that I don’t know,’ I said. ‘In any case, what can be done? After all, Pole is there. Imagine how much worse things would be if he were not. Look at the Netherlands. How many have died there? Thousands. And in England? A handful. Fifty. Eighty.’

  ‘Pole!’ said Courtenay. ‘No doubt Pole speaks to the Queen in private, urging moderation. But on this matter she does not listen to him. His leniency makes him suspect. So he gives up and says no more. Yet it is his responsibility. None of this could happen without him. He is the legate. If he was not there – if you had not worked so hard to get him there – how could these people be burnt?’

  ‘Me?’ I said in amazement. ‘This is not what I foresaw. It was your patron, Gardiner, who led us down this path.’

  ‘Well, perhaps Pole is not wholly to blame,’ said Courtenay. ‘It is a terrible thing to be in the favour of the great. The Queen clings to him – with the King gone, she won’t let him out of her sight. She adores him, and takes no notice of him, which is something only a woman could do. Yet he allows her to get away with it. Here is the man famous for telling kings the truth, and now he devotes himself to church problems – finances and liturgy and so on. He is like a priest performing a wedding who refuses to see the Angel of Death is also in the aisle.’

  ‘But what can he do?’ I said. ‘The laws are in place. He is forbidden from interfering. In any case, how can he save these people? They are not hunted down. They huddle together and then come forward to declare themselves openly. They go to the justices and proclaim their opinions. They walk into the fires joyfully. In fact, they choose their own deaths.’

  When I heard myself say that, I was reminded of something I could not quite place, a voice from long ago which had once seemed terrible to me.

  ‘They choose their own deaths!’ said Courtenay, looking at me in amazement. Then he proceeded to tell me a long story about a tailor from Clerkenwell who had been denounced by his wife as a heretic as he would not go to mass. He was arrested and taken to the Lollards’ Tower and held there a fortnight.

  His son, a boy of eight, then went to Bishop Bonner’s house to look for him. One of the Bishop’s chaplains met him and asked what he wanted.

  ‘I want to see my father,’ he said.

  ‘And who is your father?’

  The boy pointed towards the Lollards’ Tower across the river and said his father was in there.

  ‘Why, your father is a heretic!’ cried the priest.

  ‘He is no heretic,’ said the child. ‘You are a heretic, for you have Balaam’s mark.’ Balaam was the false prophet who went to curse Israel and the way was barred by an angel. At that, the priest took the child by the hand and led him into the house where he was whipped until he was bloody. After he was whipped, the boy was taken by the summoner over the river to the Lollards’ Tower.

  Seeing the boy covered in blood, the father cried: ‘Alas, Will, who has done this to you?’

  ‘A priest with Balaam’s mark,’ said the boy. Then the summoner seized the boy and carried him back to the Bishop’s house, where he was kept three days. Fearing that his servants had gone too far, Bonner let both father and son go, but the boy died a few days later.

  ‘And did he choose his own death?’ said Courtenay. ‘And remember: the Lollards’ Tower is at Lambeth. It is a part of Pole’s own palace. This cruelty took place almost under his own roof. I know he is hardly ever there for the Queen keeps him by her side, yet how can he avoid responsibility for such a crime? A child, whipped to death . . .’

  This conversation made me most uncomfortable. I had that unpleasant sensation which everyone tries to avoid: a guilty conscience. The fact was, I had been hearing such stories for many months, but I had put them out of my mind or minimised the cruelty or justified them in one way or another. In short, I had become cold-hearted. I had lost my human sympathy.

  And that, in my view, means one is something less than a man. My conscience could see this – I did not want to see it myself. And that was the state of affairs as we scudded into calm water and the prow touched sand.

  The boatman set us down and immediately lay down to sleep under his awning. Courtenay and I went ashore. That island is really only a sand-bar between the lagoon and the sea – a few miles long, half a mile wide, a great solitude except for a few parched vineyards at one end. There is never much game; a few teal are sometimes seen on rainwater ponds in the centre, and here and there the footprints of a hare might be noticed. We went on inland and climbed to the highest point, a dune where a single tree grows, which they call a parasol pine, and we set up camp in its shade. The sun by then was high in the sky and you could hear the boom of the waves from the open sea.

  We let the birds sit barefaced for a while, then went out and sent them up. Courtenay was singing the Heywood song he claimed he disliked: All a green willow, a willow, a willow. His hawk liked the boisterous weather – she was a well-mettled bird, but ‘hard of hearing’, as we say, and uneasy at being reclaimed. Mine were more loving but less venturous.

  After a few flights I brought my birds in and went back to the shade of the pine. I ate some bread and cheese and drank a little wine, and began to feel sleepy, which was unusual for me in the middle of the day. I watched Courtenay’s hawk hover and stoop and I heard his cry ‘Hey gar gar’ becoming fainter and fainter. And then, just as I was falling asleep, I saw that only a few yards away there was a walled courtyard that I had not noticed before. Curious about this, I got up and walked to the entrance and looked in.

  There I saw a seated figure with his back turned to me. I took a step into the court. At that the figure seemed to wake, he stood up, he came towards me and walked straight past. I had only a brief glimpse of the face of this stranger, yet it was a very remarkable one, as far as I was concerned. Although younger, and more resolute, and in fact more noble in appearance in every way, he was identical to myself.

  He went off out into the world without a glance, while I took his place on the chair and fell asleep. Some time later I woke up, still – of course – lying under the shade of the pine.

  Chapter 8

  Circulating in Venice that summer was a remarkable letter, so absurd and painful at the same time that no one knew whether to laugh over it or cry. It had been sent from Poland to a Venetian gentleman with high connections, begging for his help. The sender was a certain Lewis Lippomano, who had been sent as papal legate to Vienna and Poland.

  This Lippomano, seeing religious controversies erupt in those places, had advised the Emperor and his brother, the King of the Romans, who ruled in Vienna, and, then, similarly, the King of Poland, to seize the Lutheran leaders and chop off their heads:

  I, according to instructions, gave counsel to the Emperor and his most noble brother, the King of the Romans, that they should cause these men’s heads to be openly cut off as the ringleaders and maintainers of heretics.

  For by this means, and with this terror, an end should have been made of all heresy in Germany. But their Majesties thought it best not to follow such counsel.

  And, having the like commission from our most Holy Father Pope Paul IV, I have often given counsel to this most noble King of Poland exhorting him that he would cause to be cut off the heads of the chief of those that go about to stir up the doctrine of the Lutherians.

  Now such a matter of so great importance, which should have been kept a secret as ever any one was, lest it should have bred envy and hatred of the most holy vicars of Christ’s church – such a matter, I say, I fear has been disclosed and opened abroad in every corner .
. .

  Consider how I stand . . . What think you they will do to me if I remain in their sight? I can look for no other than to be cursed, railed, cried out upon . . . And they will go about and spread horrible tales abroad against our Holy Father’s Holiness, and they say that these be the counsels that His Holiness will make, and that is with chopping off of heads and other such like violence: yea, I understand they speak it already and wonderfully blow it abroad . . . All men are against me, none will hear me, all minds are alienated from me, and I cannot tell where to save my life, they speak such evil against me.

  All over Venice, as I say, people were shaking their heads over this performance, firstly, because Lippomano was a Venetian and it was feared he might have damaged Polish–Venetian trade; and, secondly, for its manifest absurdity. Lippomano wept over the tales being told about him, having just stated they were true.

  When a copy of the letter came into my hands I was already brooding over what Courtenay had told me about events in England. I could not get rid of the thought of Pole and the charges against him that Courtenay had made – namely, that he averted his eyes from great cruelty and bloodshed. I was very unhappy. There is nothing so captious, I suppose, as a newly wakened conscience. But I could see no course of action to take. I had no one even to talk to about these things. Agnes is a poor antagonist, she tends to agree with whatever I say. Portaleone has no interest in the disputes amongst those of our religion.

  Having no one to talk to, I therefore found myself in want of solitude and for the first time since coming to live in Mantua I went in search of it. But this is difficult to find in the neighbourhood. The woods are not deep, the fields are flat, open and busy. Still, there is good hunting in the marshes, and I went out with my dog and an arquebus, taking a little boat into the deepest recesses of the reeds, with these thoughts in my mind.