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

by Jean Plaidy

  Cecily enjoyed listening to the stories.

  She would urge Ailie to continue, while she plied her with eager questions. “And what is the girl like? Is she very beautiful?”

  “I would not say that. But she has something… something that men like. She is plump and full of fun and laughter… and the King has loved her for a long time … a long time, that is, for him.” Then Ailie would stifle her laughter. “We must not let Margaret hear such talk. Dear Margaret. She likes to think everyone is as pure and noble as she is herself. And the King, my dear, has heaped titles on Mary's father. He is the Steward of Tonbridge, Keeper of the Manor of Penshurst… and I don't know what else. And George … the brother … is not forgotten. George is very attractive. Oh, very handsome! And such poetry he writes! And he has such a way of making the revels successful. The King likes him, as he likes all those who amuse him.”

  “As much as he likes Father?” asked Cecily.

  “Oh, quite different! With Father he is solemn. Father is a statesman-courtier. George Boleyn is a courtier-statesman.”

  “Yet they are both poets.”

  “I wish you could see him, Cecily. You would fall in love with him. George, I mean. Oh, assuredly you would.”

  And the frivolous creature would go on to describe the balls and banquets, the dresses and jewels, so that it was clear that, although at times she missed her home, Ailie was enjoying life.

  And Margaret? She also was happy, but her happiness was tinged with uneasiness. Always she was afraid that discord would flare up between Will and her father. She read with Will; she fortified herself with reasoning which, should the need arise, she could put before her father. She would also be ready with her father's reasoning to set before Will.

  And who was right? She, who for Will's and her father's sake had studied both points of view, could not say.

  There came a day when Will did not return to the house. She knew that he had set out that afternoon to visit some of his friends. These were mostly merchants in the City, some English, some German traders from the Hanseatic ports. It was Will's custom to visit one of die houses of these merchants where they would agree to congregate, and there to read and discuss the Lutheran doctrines.

  Supper was eaten; yet Will had not come home.

  To the inquiries of the family, Margaret said: “He has some business in the City, which I knew must keep him.”

  But she was frightened; she was always frightened on such occasions, for she knew that since the King had become “Defender of the Faith,” heresy in England was looked upon as a crime.

  She went to that bedroom she now shared with Will, and she sat at the window all through the night. But he did not come home.

  THOMAS ENTERED the small private closet that adjoined the splendid Council Chamber of the Cardinal.

  Wolsey was looking grave. “I am concerned about your son-in-law,” he said.

  Thomas was astonished. How could the Cardinal be interested in insignificant Will Roper or Giles Allington?

  “Your son-in-law Roper,” explained Wolsey. “He has been caught with some heretics in the house of a London merchant.”

  “What! Will Roper … with heretics!”

  “So it would seem. And bold withal. He declares that he holds the beliefs of these people and that, had he the chance, he would proclaim his beliefs from a pulpit.”

  “But… I can scarcely believe this. You … you are sure?”

  Wolsey nodded grimly. “It is a sad affair. A heretic—the son-in-law of a member of the King's Council! We cannot have that said, Master More.”

  “My lord Cardinal, I do not understand. It seems impossible to believe this. Where is he now?”

  “Doubtless he will be in your house, whither I sent him. His friends will be punished… severely. But as regards your son-in-law … I sent him home and bade him have a care in future.”

  “You mean… that he is as guilty of heresy as these others?”

  Wolsey nodded.

  “Then, my lord, should he not be judged with them?”

  The Chancellor-Cardinal, that master of nepotism whose illegitimate sons held offices which, at their tender age, they could not possibly administer, smiled tolerantly at his assistant.

  “The son-in-law of the Under-Treasurer! Indeed not!”

  “So, because he is my son-in-law, he will go unpunished while the others suffer?”

  “Oh, come, come, Master More. We will hush up this matter. But, I beg of you, see that nothing of this nature occurs again.”

  Thomas was pacing up and down the apartment. Will… a heretic! Margaret's husband! And he knew nothing of it. Did Margaret know?

  A new emotion had come into his life since his wordy battle with Martin Luther; he had not known that he could feel such fierce hatred as he felt for that monk and the people who followed him. Margaret was as astonished as he was by the depth of his feelings. Why did he feel thus? She was right to remind him that he had said with Erasmus that there were anomalies in the Church, which must be stamped out; she had been right to remind him that, in a perfect state, he had visualized freedom of opinion. Why, then, had he changed so suddenly, lost that meekness, that understanding of others who did not share his views? Did he really believe that Martin Luther, the monk who had risked his life, who had given his burning energy to reforming the old religion into a new one, was a rogue?

  When he had written Utopia he had imagined a state governed by wise men. But when he visualized the future, he was certain that drastic change, such as Luther advocated, could mean nothing but misery and bloodshed, the smashing of an institution which, while it was not ideal, had its roots in righteousness. The man Luther, it seemed, would smash the Catholic Church, and in so doing he would destroy all those who were as equally determined as he was; then would he set in its place another edifice, as yet untried, which would, Thomas did not doubt, grow up with all the frailty which now beset the Catholic Church.

  How could such a disaster be prevented? Only by stamping out the heretic, by making sure that the change did not take place. For the sake of the many who would be bound to suffer cruelly in a mighty war of religion, the few upstarts must be made to suffer. They must be punished as a warning to the people. Those who considered following them must be made to fear the consequences.

  Death—torture even—of the few, was a small price to pay for the death and torture of many, for the chaos which, as he saw it, must surely come to the world if the movement was tolerated and allowed to grow.

  Thomas had believed when he wrote Utopia that in an ideal state freedom of religious thought was essential; but before such freedom could be given, there must be the ideal state.

  He himself suffered physical torture daily. His body was tormented perpetually by his hair shirt, and at this time he had taken to whipping it with knotted cords; in the small chamber which he occupied as his sleeping apartment, he lay with a piece of wood for a pillow. The afflictions of the body, he believed, were as nothing to the triumph of the spirit. If he believed that heretics must be punished, he must punish himself. He believed that those who declared they gave their lives to a spiritual cause would care no more than he did for the torments of the body.

  These ideas, he felt, came to him as a divine inspiration. He must do all in his power to preserve the Holy Catholic Faith, which had its roots in Rome; for this reason he had exercised all his talents in his writing against Luther. He saw himself as one of those who must lead the fight. He was no Erasmus, who, having thrown the stone that shattered the glass of orthodox thought, must run and hide himself lest he should be hurt by the splinters.

  And now… one of those whom he must fight was his own son-in-law; moreover, he was the husband of her whom he loved more than anyone on Earth.

  Wolsey watched the man with some amusement. They were growing further and further apart—he and the Under-Treasurer. More disapproved of the Cardinal's policy, and did not hesitate to say so. A brave man, this, thought Wolsey, but a misguid
ed one; he is a man whose talents would take him far, but whose emotions will hold him back and doubtless ruin him, for in the political arena there is no time for a man to serve anything but his ambition. And of Wolsey, Thomas often thought: A clever man, a shrewd and wise and greatly talented man, but a man who puts his own glory before honor, who will serve his ambition rather than his God.

  And now, mused the Cardinal, he is turning over in his mind whether or not this man Roper should be spared the consequences of his action merely because he has a father-in-law in a high place. To what depth of folly will this man's idealism carry him?

  Wolsey shrugged his shoulders. He had done what he considered his duty toward a friend and fellow councillor by covering up the misdemeanors of a near relative. Now he washed his hands of the matter. His mind was occupied with affairs of greater moment that were pending in Europe. Pope Leo was sick. How long could he last? And when the new Pope was sought among the Cardinals, who would that man be?

  What a splendid climb it would be from Ipswich to Rome, from a humble tutor to a mighty Pope. A Pope was a prince even as was a king, and the Pope stood equal to Charles of Spain, Francis of France and Henry of England.

  Why should his new Holiness not be Cardinal Wolsey?

  And since his mind was occupied with such great matters, how could he give more than the lightest attention to the consideration of the King's philandering or to this matter of the foolish son-in-law of Sir Thomas More?

  THOMAS SHUT himself into that small private room in which he tortured his body. He leaned against the locked door.

  What could he do? Love and duty stood before him. Which was he to obey? His duty, he knew, was to refuse the intervention of the Cardinal, to send Roper from his house, to say: “This man is a heretic. He is one of those who would undermine the Church and bring bloodshed to the land.”

  But love involved his daughter Margaret, and only now did he know fully what she meant to him. She loved Roper, and he could not think of this matter without imagining Margaret tormented and tortured, turning from him to her husband or from her husband to him. But if he were strong enough to torture himself he could not bear to hurt Margaret.

  Yet it was wrong, was it not, that some guilty ones suffered whilst others went free?

  But… his own son-in-law … and Margaret's husband!

  He must speak to Margaret first.

  He called one of the servants and asked that Margaret should be told that he wished to speak with her. She would know, of course, what was wrong, because Will had been detained for a day and night, and he would have told her why he had been allowed to come home. Therefore she would know that the news of his arrest must have reached Thomas's ears.

  Moreover, when Thomas had arrived at the house, Margaret had not been at hand to greet him; doubtless she was in the bedroom which she shared with Will, talking to him. Was she trying to make him accept her fathers views? Or was she … but this he shuddered to contemplate … was she too a heretic?

  At length she came and stood before him; her face was pale and there were dark shadows under her eyes; and as she stood there with the marks of anxiety and suffering on her face, he knew that his love for his daughter was so strong that it would turn him from his duty.

  “Well, Margaret,” he said, “so your husband is a heretic.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You knew of this?”

  “I did.”

  He ought to ask her that further question: And you, Margaret? But he could not ask it; he was afraid of the answer.

  “Why did you not tell me? You and I have always shared everything, have we not?” Almost immediately he was contrite. “But he is your husband…. A husbands place is before a fathers…. You were right in what you did. Of course you were right.”

  He saw the tears in her eyes now. She came to him and put her arms about him. He rested his cheek against her hair.

  “Oh, Margaret… my dearest daughter.”

  “Father,” she said, “how can anyone mean more to me than you do?”

  “Hush, my daughter. You must not say that.” All his resolutions were crumbling. He saw himself as weak as other men. He understood the Cardinal's gross action in bestowing favors on his beloved sons. How could he, who so loved his daughter, blame the Cardinal for loving his sons?

  “We must be truthful, Father. We always have been. I knew before I married Will that he was leaning toward the new faith. I must tell you everything that is in my mind. I knew your mind and I knew his … and, strangely, because they were different and because I feared a quarrel between you, it was then that I knew I loved him even as I love you, and that what I cared for more than anything in the world was to guard the peace between you. So I married Will, and I have known that he was meeting these merchants … and I knew what books he has been reading… and I know how his thoughts run.”

  “He has made his thoughts … your thoughts?”

  “Father, you have always said that I was your clever daughter. You have said that my mind equals that of any man you know.”

  “I believe that to be true, Meg.”

  “Yet in this matter my mind is so clouded that I fear you are mistaken in me. When I listen to Will I see there is reason in what he says; and I think that is perhaps because I love him. Then I know your mind, and I see reason in your beliefs; perhaps that is because I love you. Father, I do not believe it is important whether men follow Luther or the Pope… as long as they obey Christ's commandments. I have tabled the differences and pondered them. Are they real differences? Neither creed excludes love; and love is surely the whole meaning of good in life, is it not? Father, I know your thoughts. You think that these differences of opinion will eventually bring bloodshed, and you are doubtless right. In fact, is it not already happening in some degree? It would be a terrible tragedy. So in all you do and in all you say there is reason, there is love of your fellow men. Will believes that these questions raised by Martin Luther must be examined; and if Luther is right, his way must be followed… no matter what the cost. In a way he is right. You see, I am swayed… this way and that. And I know that the most important thing in the world is that men should live in amity together and love, not hate each other. I know that the two I love best must assuredly do that, and that I will do all in my power—for this seems the most important thing in the world to me—to make them.”

  “That is women's reasoning, Meg,” he said.

  “I know it. You have said that there should be no differences between the education of men and women. Might it not be that a woman's reasoning on certain matters could be more clear, more precise, more true than that of a man?”

  “That could be so, Meg.”

  “Oh, Father, you must try to understand Will.”

  “Margaret, we must try to turn him from his folly. But for the fact that I have a high place at the Court, he would not be with us now.”

  “I know. He would be in some prison awaiting his sentence.”

  “He has broken the laws of the country as well—as I see it— as the law of God.”

  “Will thinks that if he keeps the law of God as he understands it, it matters not if he breaks the law of the country.”

  “We should refuse to accept this concession, Margaret. If he has stated such views, he should be ready to defend them.”

  “He is ready, Father. He is not lacking in courage.”

  “That is true. It is I who am the coward.”

  “You?”

  “Because, Meg, I love you so much that I could not bear to refuse to accept this favor. There are some things I have not learned to bear. Once I wished to be a monk, yet I could not resist my dreams of a family life. Now I wish to be an honest statesman, and I cannot be that if it will bring suffering to my beloved daughter.”

  She smiled. “Oh, Father, do not be a saint. Do not torture your body with whips and this hair shirt. You are yourself. You are our beloved father. We do not want a saint. And if your love makes you weak… then that is
yourself… far more lovable than any saint. Father, if you could only be less determined to do what you think is right! If only you could be more like other men! You have written your replies to Luther for the King. Any statesman might have done it, were he blessed with your gift for writing. Cannot it be left at that? What have heresies and religious opinions to do with our happy home?”

  “They are part of the world about us, Meg. They are here with us, like the sun and the light. You may shut your doors, but the light will find some way of penetrating. Will you help me to recall your husband from his heresy?”

  “As to that I cannot say,” she answered. “There is one thing I wish to do, and that is to foster love between you, to bring you back to that state which you once enjoyed. I cannot help it, Father. Perhaps it is because I am a woman. But I want you and Will to love each other. I want us all to be happy. I know that is right for us.”

  He embraced her tenderly. He said: “I shall talk with your husband, and I shall pray for him. I trust ere long I shall call him home.”

  “Father, I too shall pray for him and for you. I shall pray that all may be well between you, and that he who is right shall call the other home, so that you may be together—the two whom I love— in friendship, amity and devotion.”

  And when Margaret left him, Thomas fell on his knees and prayed for the soul of William Roper, and that his daughters wishes should be granted.

  FOLLOWING THAT, there were disputes and arguments between Thomas and Will. In these Will waxed hot, and Thomas was always calm, which meant that Will must come out the worse from the dispute.

  With his wide knowledge of the world and men, with his skill with words, Thomas's arguments must seem the more sound. Thomas was a practiced lawyer; Will was a very young and inexperienced one. Will became, quite naturally, a little less sure of his ideas.