Shaking the Throne

by Caroline Angus Baker

  The two men looked at one another for a long moment, friends now pitted against one another. Once, not so many years ago, all these men would sit at dinner at Austin Friars and talk as friends and colleagues. Now, Henry’s marriage to Anne had separated them to spill blood. Nicòla looked to Cromwell, who nodded to her. What they did today would last for the ages.

  ‘The bishops, the nobles and the commoners of this realm have sworn the Oath, Sir Thomas. Do you presume to put yourself above them all?’ Audley asked.

  ‘The numbers are material, Lord Chancellor. I fear for you, though, as you have this farce forever connected to your name!’ More screamed, spittle on his chin. ‘My conscience is one of the highest learning and I know, in my heart and soul that only the Pope can rule the Church in England. England is but one part of Christendom, and no man can claim to control any part of God’s lands! Rome has ruled the laws of God for one thousand years and no man, no Cromwell, can think to change those laws now!’

  Nicòla felt shaky, perchance from the air of the court, of the yelling, or from the burden placed upon her shoulders. She put out one hand to steady herself, only to find nothing close by to hold.

  ‘Faint, are you, Frescobaldi?’ More questioned. ‘Weak, yet it is I kept in a cell for over twelve months past. You are dining with the King in lavish comfort while I sit with rats, and yet you dare to be faint in the court? You have nothing but the heart and stomach of a woman. The mind of a woman. How can the court place any trust in one so feminine and unnatural?’

  Nicòla felt someone come up behind her; a gentle turn showed it to be Ralph close at hand, who could sweep Nicòla away in one motion, his firm hand so steady Nicòla’s feet barely touched the ground as he moved her away. The onlookers of the court found Nicòla to be entertainment.

  Nicòla sat on a stone bench outside the court, the summer air going some way to easing her panic of the filled courtroom. The yelling and screaming continued among the men of the court as she sat in a far corner alone, hidden politely from view. In the panic and confusion of such an ambitious case, no one would remember More almost telling Nicòla’s great secret to the world. Oh, how she had failed Cromwell today when he depended upon her the most! Had the judges, lawyers and courtiers not been told what decision they had to reach in advance, Nicòla could not be certain they would win this case. More was right; how could a king change the laws and rule a religion? Because he has a Cromwell, that was how. A man smart enough to change every part of every law, thus changing what every man and woman in England had to think and feel and obey.

  Cromwell appeared weary when he appeared from the court in search of Nicòla. He rushed to her side on the quiet stone bench, his hand close to hers on the stone, as close as they could be in public.

  ‘What be this?’ he asked, his golden eyes searching her face with worry. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I must confess, after seeing the killing of Fisher, seeing his fear in the moment of death, to stand but a week later to condemn another man is more than I can manage,’ Nicòla said with a weak smile. ‘If we are to have Sir Thomas More killed, all of Europe will cry in outrage, and it will be my words that caused it all.’

  ‘We can keep your name from the paperwork as much as possible, but I fear you are, to some degree, right,’ Cromwell sighed. ‘The trial is over, and the jury has retired to make their decision. I am the man who changed the laws of a country to give a king such powers over the Church, but I never thought I would take part in seeing men killed to uphold these laws. I thought we could be better. I never wanted men to die when we enacted this Oath upon the people.’

  ‘I know this, Tomassito.’ Nicòla brushed the edge of her hand against his upon the bench. ‘None shall take enjoyment from this trial, not even Henry himself. He shall have to condemn his own lifelong friend because of his love for Queen Anne.’

  ‘Such is the folly of men.’

  ‘Promise me that you shall never change laws or make ill decisions based upon notions for me,’ Nicòla said, her voice now as serious as she felt. ‘For I am faint today in the heat, but I am not weak as More wishes. And I never wish to be what makes a great man like you weak.’

  The rush of panicked footsteps tore their eyes from one another, to see Ralph rushing in their direction. ‘Secretary Cromwell,’ he panted, ‘the jury has announced they are to come back and deliver the verdict to Audley now.’

  ‘But they have been in private just fifteen minutes!’ Cromwell cried. ‘Are they to resolve all so soon?’

  ‘You told them what the verdict had to be before the trial,’ Ralph replied. ‘Come, for this is a moment we cannot miss for all the world.’

  Nicòla stood in the crowd of men urgent to see the result. Cromwell stood near the front of the court, close to the bench of judges. Nicòla noticed that the Earl of Wiltshire, Thomas Boleyn, and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, had come close, after being hidden away for the trial. More pulled himself from his seat to hear the verdict brought down upon him by his friend, Audley.

  The Lord Chancellor rose from his chair and Nicòla could almost feel the breath being held by every man in the room. There were no secrets in what the verdict would be, but fears of More’s execution were about to become true, like a nightmare come to life.

  ‘Sir Thomas More, you are charged with high treason, for refusing to accept the King’s marriage to Queen Anne, for conspiring with Bishop Fisher while in the Tower of London, for malicious talk against His Majesty King Henry, and for your failure to swear the Oath over the Act of Supremacy. The jury of your peers finds you guilty.’

  The court fell into a state of disbelief, but Nicòla could only look at Cromwell, who stood stiff, his eyes upon More. The two men, together through times of good and bad for so many years in the English court, looked to another as all around, men talked and shook their heads. There was no way out of this situation, for Cromwell had made the choice to make Henry happy, and More would never stop his hatred over Henry’s supremacy.

  Audley waited until the men of the room composed themselves. ‘Sir Thomas More shall be carried back to the Tower of London, by Sheriff William Kingston, then taken on a hurdle to Tyburn, there to be hanged till he should be half dead; then he should be cut down alive, his privy parts cut off, his belly ripped, his bowels burnt, his four quarters set up over four gates of the city, and his head upon London Bridge.’

  More stood defiant against the words imposed upon him, and Cromwell’s eyes drifted from More to Nicòla. He had the same look of resignation when Fisher got beheaded; either More lost his head, or Cromwell did. Nicòla knew those words to be the truth. In the laws Cromwell had made, either you agreed with King Henry, or you died. There were no more choices to be made.

  ~~~

  Five long days passed before Henry commuted More’s sentence, and only on July 6 did Henry have More beheaded at Tower Hill. Nicòla could not attend such an occasion, not when her own words helped to condemn the man, a man who stood for the Catholic faith as Nicòla did before she met Cromwell. More hugged his precious daughter Margaret one last time before his execution, so weak he could barely climb the stairs to face the axe. Cromwell told Nicòla later that More recited the Miser Psalm with great devotion as he kneeled before the block.

  Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offence. O wash me more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. My offences truly I know them; my sin is always before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned; what evil in your sight I have done?

  Nicòla chose those same words for her nightly prayer, for those who sinned against More on the day of July 6, who were as condemned as More. A single swing of the axe took More’s life, a man devoted to his faith and his king.

  C

  Chapter 27 – July 1535

  sumetymes the trouth is uglier than lyes

  Austin Friars, London

  Windsor sat thirty miles from London where Cromwell watched More’s head leave his body, yet Windsor yielded an ai
r of another world, so needed by Henry. For the King could not talk of More’s ending, and nothing could be discussed in Henry’s presence, as he was to set off on progress, three months of visiting estates around the west and south of London, a chance to relax, let his people see their great King and Queen, and, as Cromwell prayed, for Anne to become pregnant again. A child had not stirred in Anne’s belly for some four months now, and the King needed a son, to distract him from the desire to see men’s heads on spikes.

  Back at Austin Friars, they redesigned Cromwell’s private office and the library; now he had double doors which opened out into his gardens. This meant the wide opening doors could stay open, the summer air breezing to his desk, much like the palaces of Florence. The only sound in the house came from the servants, only around 200 people, with many clerks now working from Cromwell’s Master of the Rolls offices a few streets away. But the building at Austin Friars continued, men expected to work even in the heat, especially with plague not running rampant in the city this season. King Henry and the court had left from Windsor Castle a week prior, away on progress for three glorious months of peace.

  ‘Do you worry for Ralph?’

  Cromwell turned his heavy chair to Nicòla who sat across the room at a desk of her own, dressed in only hose and a linen shirt due to the heat. She appeared as a woman, but only Cromwell’s eyes were in the room.

  ‘No, why do you ask?’

  ‘Because you have sent Ralph in your place on the King’s progress, and now you are staring out of the window, which you do in times of worry.’

  ‘I trust Ralph, everyone trusts Ralph. The King wants to think nothing of the agonies of past months, only of relaxing, of seeing his people and being with his wife.’

  ‘I hear Henry Norris got rid of Henry’s mistress, Lady Margaret.’

  ‘Margaret Shelton has been sent back to her parents. Elizabeth Somerset, Lady Worcester, has offered to take Lady Margaret’s place, but for now, the King needs to centre his lust on Anne.’

  ‘What a horrid notion,’ Nicòla shivered.

  ‘That is treason, Nicò.’

  Nicòla looked up from her desk with a light laugh and Cromwell wondered how long it had been since he heard such a sound. Even a smile seemed months ago.

  ‘Before Ralph left on progress, he made sure there was ample marzipan sent to Dewhurst,’ Cromwell told her.

  ‘Good, for my daughter deserves her favourite treat for her birthday,’ Nicòla replied and went back to reading at her desk.

  Cromwell sat back in his seat and watched her eyes skimming over a letter. The chest of mail had been dry of late. After the events of the past months, everything seemed dull. At least their daughter’s fifth birthday, which they would celebrate at their estate in Dewhurst was a happy occasion and excuse to celebrate.

  ‘I have a bill hither,’ Nicòla said, breaking Cromwell’s dreaming. ‘Gregory has spent £67 on clothing this month.’

  ‘God’s blood!’ Cromwell exclaimed and sat up straight once more. ‘I must put that boy to work. Or find him a wife and estate to manage.’

  ‘He is but fifteen years. And not for women.’

  ‘Sir Richard Southwell has a place in his household, at Woodrising Manor in Norfolk. Gregory could do well there, much time for hawking and work on his longbow. He could learn statecraft from a Privy Councillor.’

  ‘Southwell lives 100 miles from London! Could we bear having him so far away for months at a time?’

  Cromwell smiled; it was not only him who would miss Gregory; Nicòla took him into her heart too. ‘When we return from Dewhurst, I shall see about that appointment for Gregory. London is no place to be at present.’

  ‘If only we could go on progress.’

  Cromwell raised his eyebrows in agreement but paused when a knock echoed from the door to the library. A gentleman-usher appeared just as Nicòla stepped behind one of the bookshelves, not dressed well enough for any person’s eyes.

  Men brought a mail sack and placed it on the carpets and Cromwell sighed. There was so much work in there that two men carried it. ‘What is all this?’ he asked.

  ‘It comes direct from Richard Layton, Secretary Cromwell,’ one of the men said. ‘All from the monasteries where he has completed his inspections.’

  With a double click of his fingers, the men left again as Nicòla walked over to join him on the carpets. She sat down at Cromwell’s feet and untied the rope on the bag. ‘Perchance in here lies gossip for us,’ she teased.

  ‘Nothing good could come from that bag,’ Cromwell said as she handed him a pile of papers. ‘Inspection of Syon Abbey,’ he read.

  ‘I saw one of their monks cut into pieces on the scaffold two months past; I dare say you shall not find much to delight you in those words,’ Nicòla mused as she looked through the piles in her hands.

  ‘Many of the prioresses are daughters from noble families. We must tread lightly at Syon Abbey, all must be perfect, for it is one of the wealthiest abbeys in England.’

  Cromwell fell into reading the papers, Nicòla still on the floor with the bag. ‘Do you know of the Cluniac Priory of St. Pancras?’ Nicòla asked as she read.

  ‘In Lewes?’

  ‘The inspection has turned up the most debauched things I have heard, and I have lived in amongst the Medicis.’

  ‘What do the inspectors claim?’

  ‘The inspection found that homosexuality is rampant among the monks. The Abbot stood and preached that he is “the authority of God the Almighty, the authority of the King and the… the authority of Master Thomas Cromwella”…’ Nicòla stopped and looked up to him across his desk.

  ‘This is why I have these inspections, to find these men and turn them out of the Church.’ Cromwell knew everyone beyond Austin Friars’ walls hated him, but to hear his name used directly still hurt.

  ‘Abbot Thomas Corton of the Benedictine order in Cerne Abbey in Dorset is keeping mistresses in the cellar,’ Nicòla said, picking up more papers from the floor. ‘He is using monestary funds to marry off his natural children. He has a healthy son to a woman named Alice Roberts who may have been married when she became his whore. At the inspection, they found the Abbot at dinner, with his mistresses at the table ready to be fed.’

  ‘I have a letter from the inspection of the Augustinian St. Mary and St. Lazarus house at Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire,’ Cromwell almost cried in reply. ‘The Abbot has six children, but says he has a licence from the Pope to keep a whore, due to his “natures” and believes he is forgiven as he only seduces maidens, never married women!’

  ‘They found the Abbot from the Premonstratensian Abbey of London in bed at eleven in the morning, naked with a whore!’ Nicòla exclaimed as she read.

  ‘You should not be reading such things,’ Cromwell told her. ‘As if I need you corrupted by such notions.’

  ‘This is in pursuit of God’s Church,’ Nicòla said. ‘And none of this startles me. The Gilbertine House of nuns and canons in Chicksands have two pregnant nuns, both meddled with by a canon himself.’

  ‘There is a nun living with the Augustinian canonesses in Harrold who has given to birth to “two fair children of her own making”, so this paper says.’

  ‘Prior Edmund Streatham of the Crossed Friars hither in London has whores everywhere; he meddles with them in the daytime and procures women for the others in the priory. They found him naked with a woman and bribed one of your men to be quiet.’

  ‘Did the inspector take the money?’

  ‘He did, and reported the Prior,’ Nicòla replied.

  Cromwell laughed. ‘If men are to profit from these inspections, who am I to judge?’

  ‘You are the judge, Tomassito,’ Nicòla replied with a stern brow. ‘There are not just these lewd acts you must punish. It is also large reports on the dilapidation of the monasteries, of huge running costs, of places not making profits, yet having inventories such as gold and silver chalices, yet no room for the poor.’

  ‘King Henry ha
s never set aside alms for the monasteries, ever since he took the throne. He put the money towards houses of learning and almshouses. Twas a wise decision.’

  ‘Yet now these monasteries are huge costs on enormous swathes of untended land, a big area of this realm, all sitting idle while men meddle with women when they are not gambling.’

  ‘Gambling is a sin none of us can avoid.’

  ‘Whoring can also be difficult to avoid, from all I have seen of men,’ Nicòla replied. ‘That does not mean we should permit it in monasteries.’

  ‘I need to set up the ecclesiastical court and deal with all of this.’ Cromwell put his hands over his face, his elbows on his desk for a moment. ‘As Vicar-general, I must oversee all of this. I am the authority over the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, so it all falls on my shoulders.’

  ‘Both Cranmer and Rowland Lee are your men.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder if Lee dislikes the Oath of Supremacy.’

  ‘Lee submitted and now will have to change the churches in the north on your behalf, or he shall be the next Cardinal Fisher. You must oversee every crime; Cranmer will aid you. You could close those smaller monasteries, and their wealth could go to the King.’

  ‘And take their profitable lands.’

  ‘And put them in the King’s hands, or whoever you wish to behest the lands to on the King’s behalf. Henry has no mind or stomach for the work involved, but monastery lands could make wonderful bribes.’

  ‘I will be the one to control the Church in England.’

  Nicòla slowly got up off the floor as she nodded. In the sunlight, Cromwell could see her skin through her linen shirt, which moved from the breeze blowing in the doors. ‘You could attack their wealth by punishing all these abuses. Why else would you inspect all these monasteries? We want to stop the abuses, but you shall have to stop taking bribes from clergy who run monasteries and abbeys. The profits from the dissolution of monasteries are bottomless.’