The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More

by Jean Plaidy

  “A maid who will show you, my friend, that a woman's brain is equal to a man's.” Then he would bring his smiling face close to hers. “Meg, they do not believe that you can learn your lessons. They say that because you are a girl this headpiece of yours will not be equal to the task. Meg, you must prove them wrong. If you do not, they will say that I am right named. For Mows… that is Greek for fool, Meg; and it will seem that I shall be worthy of the name if I am wrong. Meg, thou wilt not let them laugh at thy father?”

  “Nay, Father,” she said scowling at the men. “They shall not laugh at thee. We will show them who are the fools.”

  They laughed and talked to her, and she answered as best she could, with her heart beating fast for fear she should behave like a very little girl instead of a learned young woman of nearly five years old. She was determined to save her father from the mockery of his friends.

  So her lessons were more than a task to her; they were a dedication. She must master them.

  “It is not natural to sit so long with your books,” said her mother. “Come … play with Bessy.”

  But if she played with Bessy it was but to teach her; for, she thought, Father will like all his daughters to be clever. It will not do for one of us to be wise and the rest ignorant.

  Yet she hoped that Elizabeth and Cecily would not be able to learn as easily as she could, for she wished to remain the cleverest of her father's daughters.

  Thus Margaret, even at the age of four, had become an unusually learned little girl.

  One day her father brought home a girl of her own age—a shy sad little girl.

  Margaret heard his voice and rushed down to meet him; she flung her arms about his knees; then she stood solemnly regarding the little girl who stood beside him, her hand in his.

  Her father crouched down so that the three of them were all of a size. He put an arm about each of them.

  “Margaret,” he said, “I have brought a playmate for you.”

  Margaret wanted to say that she had no wish for a playmate. Her lessons absorbed her; and she had two sisters with whom she could play. If she wanted a new addition to their household it would have been a boy, so that she could have proved to those friends of her fathers how right he was when he said girls could learn as much as boys.

  But she knew that she must not make the little girl feel unwanted, for that would surely displease her father.

  “This,” he went on, “is another Margaret. Margaret is my favorite name.”

  That made Margaret smile and look with new interest at the little girl who had the same name as herself.

  “This Margaret is coming to live with us, Meg.”

  “We cannot have two Margaret's in one house,” Margaret pointed out. “If you called me she would think you called her.”

  “My wise little daughter!” His laughter was merry but she knew that he had sensed her resentment, and she blushed because she knew it must displease him.

  “One of us would have to be given a new name,” she said quickly.

  “What other names are there for Margaret?” he asked. “There is Peg. There is Daisy. There is Meg and Marget. Ah, but we already have a Meg and Marget in our own Margaret. There is Mercy. One of you will have to change her name, will she not?”

  “Yes,” said Margaret, her lips trembling slightly. She knew what he expected of her, and she knew that she could not bear to hear him call another Margaret. He knew it too; that was why he expected her to give her name to this girl.

  “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Often he had told them that. He often said: “Ah, my Meg, if only men and women would realize that it is the unselfish acts that bring most pleasure, then the world would become full of unselfish people; and perhaps the very act of unselfishness would become a selfish one.”

  She knew, with his eyes upon her, that she must make the sacrifice now.

  “I… I will be Daisy or Mercy,” she said.

  He kissed her then. “My Meg … my dearest Meg,” he said; and she thought that if that was the last time he called her by her name she would always remember his voice at that moment.

  “Mercy is a beautiful name,” he said, “for mercy is one of the most beautiful of all qualities.”

  “Do you like Mercy?” asked Margaret of the newcomer.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I will be Mercy, because this is your house first, and you were the first Margaret in it.”

  Then her father kissed them both and said: “So my Meg stays with me; and in addition I have brought Mercy into the house.”

  Her name was Mercy Gigs and she had been left an orphan. She had no fortune, he explained to Margaret, but her own sweet nature. “So, Meg, we must take her into our house. I will be Father to her; your mother will be Mother; and you will be sister to her as you are to Elizabeth and Cecily.”

  And so it was that she acquired a new sister, to learn with her and talk with her. She had the advantage of having started her lessons earlier, but she soon realized that Mercy Gigs was a rival, for she had given her devotion to the man who had taken her into his house and become her foster father, and, like Margaret, her one thought was to win his respect and approval.

  She too worked hard at her lessons and tried to startle him with her ability to learn. Now when the friends came and asked how Margaret was progressing with her lessons, there would be two little girls to confront them; and Mercy Gigs, the orphan, could confound them even more than Margaret who was, after all, the daughter of a learned man.

  “So Mercy will prove my point completely,” Thomas would say with glee. “Mercy is going to be as clever as my own children. Mercy shall be given the best tuition with my own children, and she will show you that most feminine minds are as capable of absorbing knowledge as a sponge absorbs water.”

  Then Mercy would blush and smile and be very happy.

  Later there came a period of anxiety. It began when, one day, her father took Margaret on his knee and told her that he was going away for a little while.

  She put her arms about him and bit her lips to hold back her tears.

  “But it will not be for long, Meg,” he said. “I am going into foreign lands. I am going to the universities of Paris and Louvain to see my friends who come to see me when they are here; and perhaps one day, Meg, I shall take you and your mother and your sisters there. How will you like that?”

  “I would rather stay here and that you should stay too.”

  “Well, Meg, that which we would rather have does not always come about. You will have to look after everybody in the house, will you not? And you will work hard at your lessons whilst I am gone?”

  She nodded. “But why must you go? Why must you go?”

  “I am going because quite soon I may want to take my family to France. But first I wish to go there alone, to make sure that it is the place my family would like to live in.”

  “Of course we should like to live there if you were there. There is no need for you to go first without us.”

  He kissed her and put her down.

  Her fears had started then. Not only was this due to the fact that he left for France shortly afterward, but she knew from the looks of the servants, from the voices of the people who spoke with her mother, and from her mothers worried looks, that something frightening had happened.

  He had not told her what it was; and she knew that could only be because she was too young to understand.

  She talked of this matter with Mercy. Mercy was wise and quiet; she too had noticed that something was wrong; she too was afraid.

  Once when her mother was baking bread in the kitchen, Margaret said: “Mother, when will my father come back?”

  “Soon, my child. Soon.”

  “Soon,” said Margaret, “can be a long time for something you greatly wish for. It can be quick for something you hate.”

  Jane touched the small head and marveled at this daughter of hers. Margaret was far more like Thomas than like herself; she was more like Thomas than
any of the others. Whenever she looked at the child she remembered those days soon after Margaret's birth, when Thomas had walked up and down the room with her to soothe her cries; she remembered that Thomas could soothe her as no one else could. She remembered also how Thomas had talked of what he would do for this child, how she was to be a great and noble woman, how delighted he was with his daughter, how she had charmed him as no son ever could have done.

  And it seemed that Thomas must have had preknowledge for Margaret was all that he had wished. Her cleverness astonished her mother; she had already, though not yet five, started on Latin and Greek, and seemed to find the same pleasure in it that most children would in a game of shuttlecock. Jane could feel satisfied when she surveyed her eldest daughter. Surely she had made his marriage a success when she had given him this quaint and solemn daughter.

  “Well, my dearest,” said Jane, “your father will be away for a few weeks, and I'll swear that that will seem long to all of us. But when he returns you will be all the more pleased to see him because you have missed him so much.”

  “Nothing could please me more,” said Margaret, “than to see him every day.”

  Then she went away and gravely did her lessons. Her one aspiration now was to astonish him when he came back.

  And eventually he did come back. Margaret must be the first to greet him; and when she heard his voice calling to his family, she sped into the great hall; but Mercy was there beside her.

  They stood side by side looking up at him.

  He smiled at their grave little faces and lifted them in his arms. He kissed Mercy first; but Margaret knew, and Mercy knew, that that was because he was longing to kiss Margaret more than anyone, for Margaret was his own child and he could never love any as he loved her.

  They sat at the big table—the whole household—and everyone was happy because he was home. All the servants, who sat at the table with the family, were happy; and so were those poor travelers who had called in, weary and footsore, because they knew that they could always be sure of a meal in the house of Thomas More.

  After the meal, Thomas went first to the schoolroom, and there he marveled and delighted in the progress his daughters had made. Even two-year-old Cecily had started to learn; and he was, he said, mightily pleased. “Why,” he declared, “ 'twas worth being away, for the pleasure it gives me to come back to you.”

  But a few days later he took Margaret walking in Goodman's Fields, and made her sit beside him on the grass there; and as they sat, he told her that he had made plans to leave The Barge in Bucklersbury, to leave this City, and to take his family away with him to France.

  Margaret cried: “But… Father, you say you love London, and that no other city could ever be home to you.”

  “I know, my child. And you?”

  “Yes, Father. I love it too.”

  “And which would you have—a strange land with your father, or England … London … and no father?”

  “I would rather be anywhere with you, Father, than anywhere without you.”

  “Then, Margaret, it will be no hardship for you. ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is …’, eh? And it will be a dinner of herbs, my dearest, for we shall not be rich.”

  “We shall be happy,” said Margaret. “But why must we go?”

  “Sometimes I wonder, my Margaret, whether I have made you grow up too quickly. I so long to see you bloom. I want you to be my little companion. I want to discuss all things with you. And I forget what a child you are. Well, I shall tell you this; but it is our secret. You will remember that?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Then listen. A long time ago, before you were born, before I married your mother, our King asked his Parliament for a sum of money. I was a Member—a very junior Member—of that Parliament, and I argued against the King's wishes. Partly because of the words I spoke, Margaret, the King did not get all the money for which he was asking.”

  Margaret nodded.

  “When the King is given money by the Parliament, it is the peoples money raised by taxes. You do not know what these are, and one day I will explain. But, you see, money has to be taken from the people to give to the King… a little here … a little there … to make a large sum. The cost of food is increased so that some of the money which is paid for it may go to the King. The people had already paid too many of these taxes and the King wanted them to pay more and more. I thought it wrong that he should have the money for which he asked. I thought it wrong that the people should be made even poorer. And I said so.”

  “It was wrong, Father.”

  “Ah, little Meg, do you say that because you see why it was wrong, or because I say so?”

  “Because you say so, Father.”

  He kissed her. “Do not trust me too blindly, Meg. I am a mortal man you know. I will say this: I thought what I did was right. The King thought I was wrong. And kings, like little girls … little boys … and even babies, do not like people who prevent their doing those things which they wish to do. So … the King does not like me.”

  “Everybody likes you, Father,” she said in disbelief.

  “You do,” he said with a laugh. “But everyone—alas!—has not your kind discernment. No, the King does not like me, Meg, and when a king does not like a man, he seeks to harm him in some way.”

  She stood up in alarm. She took his hand and tugged at it.

  “Whither would you take me, Meg?”

  “Let us run away now.”

  “Whither shall we run?”

  “To some foreign land where we can have a new king.”

  “That is just what I propose to do, Meg. But there is no need for you to be frightened, and there is no need for such haste. We have to take the others wth us. That is why I went abroad … to spy out the land. Very soon you, I, your mother, the girls and some of our servants are going away. I have many kind friends, as you know. One of these is a gentleman you have seen because he has visited us. He is a very important gentleman—Bishop Foxe of Winchester. He has warned me of the King's feelings against me, and he has told me that he can make the King my friend if I will admit my fault to the Parliament.”

  “Then he will make the King your friend, Father?”

  “Nay, Meg, for how can I say that I was wrong when I believe myself to have been right, when, should I be confronted with the same problem, I should do the same again?”

  “If Bishop Foxe made the King your friend, you could stay at home.”

  “That is true, Meg. I love this City. Look at it now. Let me lift you. There is no city in the world which would seem so beautiful to me as this one. When I am far from it, I shall think of it often. I shall mourn it as I should mourn the best loved of my friends. Look, Meg. Look at the great bastions of our Tower. What a mighty fortress! What miseries … what joys … have been experienced within those walls? You can see our river. How quietly, how peacefully it flows! But what did Satan say to Jesus when he showed Him the beauties of the world, Meg? That is what a small voice within me says, ‘All this can be yours,’ it says. ‘Just for a few little words.’ All I need say is that I was wrong and the King was right. All I need say is that it is right for the King to take his subjects' money, to make them poor that he may be rich. Nay, Meg, it would be wrong to say those words. And there would be no peace in saying them. This City of mine would scorn me if I said them; so I cannot, Meg; I cannot.” Then he kissed her and went on: “I burden this little head with so much talk. Come, Meg, smile for me. You and I know how to be happy wherever we are. We know the secret, do we not? What is it?”

  “Being together,” said Margaret.

  He smiled and nodded, and hand in hand they walked home by the long route. Through Milk Street they went, that he might show her the house in which he was born, for he knew she never tired of looking at it and picturing him as a child no bigger than herself; they went past the poulterers' shops in the Poultry, through Scalding Alley where the poulterers' boys were running with the birds sold by their
masters, that there in the Alley they might be plucked and scorched; the air was filled with the smell of burning feathers. And they went on into the Stocks Market with its shops filled with fish and flesh and its stalls of fruit and flowers, herbs and roots; and so home to Bucklersbury with its pleasant aromas of spices and unguents, which seemed to Margaret to have as inevitable a place in her life as the house itself.

  It was as though he looked at all these places with loving concentration, so that he might remember every detail and be able to recall them when he became an exile from the City which he loved.

  As they approached the house he said: “Meg, not a word to anyone. It would frighten the children. It would frighten your mother.”

  She pressed his hand, proud to share their secret.

  But she greatly feared that the mighty King would hurt her father before they could escape him.

  THERE WAS great excitement in the streets; and there was relief mingling with that excitement, which was felt in the house in Bucklersbury.

  The King was dead. And fear had died with him.

  A new King had come to the throne—a boy not yet eighteen. He was quite different from his father; there was nothing parsimonious about him, and the people looked forward to a great and glorious reign. The household of Thomas More need not now consider uprooting itself.

  All over the City the church bells were ringing. In the streets the people were dancing and singing. How could they regret the passing of a mean old King, when a young and handsome one was waiting to take the crown?

  Men talked of the terrible taxation demanded by the late King through his agents, Empson and Dudley. Rumors ran through the town. The new King loved his people; he loved to jest and be merry. He was not like his father, who rode in a closed carriage whenever he could, because he did not wish the people to see his ugly face. No, this King loved to ride abroad, clad in cloth of gold and velvet, sparking with jewels; he liked to show his handsome face to his subjects and receive their homage.

  “Father,” said Margaret, “what will happen now that we have a new King?”

  “We shall pass into a new age,” he said. “The old King's meanness curbed everything but the amassing of money by a few people. England will now be thrown open to scholars. Our friend Erasmus will be given a place here, and enough to keep him in comfort while he continues his studies. Avarice will be stamped out. The new King begins a new and glorious reign.”