London (89 page)

“And did you see any miraculous cures performed by these relics?” Thomas asked with a trace of mischief in his voice.

“Yes. A woman was cured at Assisi,” he answered quietly.

They sat a long time at table, talking easily on such cheerful topics. Despite what the cynics at court or the secret heretics might do, Peter would have words of calm and wisdom; and suddenly, even the king and his misfortunes and her anguish about the Supremacy seemed less important. These things would pass. The faith would remain. This was the comforting message Peter would bring. She was sure of it.

But as the February afternoon grew dark and the children left to play upstairs, Peter turned quietly to Thomas and, with a faint glint of reproach in his eyes, enquired: “So Thomas, is the rumour we hear at the Charterhouse true?” And seeing that Susan and Rowland did not understand, he gently explained: “The king and Secretary Cromwell are planning to take a special interest in us.”

It was, it had to be confessed, a logical step. Peter himself explained it very simply. “Henry wants to ensure that he is absolute master in his own house. His Supremacy Act has been passed by Parliament and accepted by his bishops – many of whom, of course, are his own men. But there are still a few thorns in his side which irritate him. There are More, Fisher and Wilson. But there are also the sterner religious houses, such as the Charterhouse and some of the friars, who took the oath only with reluctance in the spring. Since any dissent is now treason, Henry has just had the bright idea of frightening all these tiresome people into taking an oath of some kind – we haven’t seen it yet – which presumably will admit all his claims to Supremacy. Then he’ll have proved his point.” He paused and looked sternly at his brother. “Have I got that right, Thomas?”

“It’s a new idea,” Thomas said. “It’s only the people you mention who’ll be asked for an oath. The rest of us,” he glanced at Rowland, “will be left alone.”

“We are honoured to be singled out,” Peter said drily.

Susan saw Rowland frown. “What will you do, Peter?” he asked.

“I shall do what the prior tells me to. That is my duty since I have joined the order.”

“And what will that be?”

“I don’t know. He’s going to meet the heads of the other Carthusian houses. I imagine he’ll consult the brethren too. That would be proper.”

For a moment nobody spoke. Then Rowland quietly asked: “If you were prior, Peter, what would you decide?”

“Me?” He did not even hesitate. “I should refuse.”

Susan went cold. “You can’t mean that!” she cried. “It would be treason!”

“No,” he said quite coolly, “not really. Parliament can decide many things. It can decide the succession, certainly. But Parliament is not competent to alter Man’s relationship to God. If they insist on calling it treason, I can’t help it. As for me, don’t forget that I took vows to a higher authority long ago.” He looked at her kindly and his tone was matter-of-fact. “There’s no getting round it, you know. Henry’s trying to become the spiritual authority and he can’t. I’m sorry. And as for this Cromwell business, this Vicegerent,” he pronounced the word with mild contempt as he gazed steadily at Thomas. “The Church spiritual to be run by the king’s lackey? Obscene. Of course I can’t accept it.”

“You would court death?” Thomas asked in surprise.

But his brother only shrugged with a trace of impatience. “Court it? No. Why should I court it? But what would you have me do? Swear to this nonsense?” He turned to Susan and Rowland. “This is the trouble with being in power, like Thomas here. It’s very difficult, you see. They want to get things done and sooner or later they always forget their principles.” He turned back to Thomas. “Either something is right, or it’s wrong, my friend.”

“So what,” Rowland said very quietly, “should a man like me do?”

Susan looked at Peter in anguish. He saw and understood, but his expression did not change as he surveyed the two of them calmly. “I think,” he said, with consideration, “that there’s no necessity for the laity to intervene. It’s the monks who are being challenged, and it’s up to us to respond.”

“But if it’s wrong,” Rowland began, “surely any Christian . . .” His voice trailed off.

“We are warned not to seek martyrdom,” Peter replied gently. “It’s a spiritual error.” He smiled. “A family man like you, with those God-given responsibilities –” He reached across and placed his hand over Rowland’s. “I should leave it to the monks. That’s what we’re there for.”

Susan sighed with relief.

“What if I were asked to take an oath?” Rowland asked. “You won’t be,” she cut in. But Rowland was not satisfied. He looked uncertainly at Peter. Please God, Susan thought, let him give the right answer.

Peter gazed at him thoughtfully. “You have a wife and children,” he said gently. “I cannot tell you what to do.”

It was not enough. She waited, in vain, for more. And now, looking with terror at the two men, so alike, she almost cried aloud: oh, why, Peter, why did you have to come back?

The two men were standing in the Great Hall at Hampton Court and Carpenter was proudly showing Dan Dogget his handiwork. It was an extraordinary structure. The palace at Hampton had originally been built by Wolsey and it was large then, but Henry seemed to make it huger every year; and of all his additions, none was more splendid than the hall. It took up the entire side of one courtyard and was three storeys high. At one end, a vast window, like one of the great curtains of glass in a Perpendicular church, let in a pleasant light through its stained glass. The outside brickwork was painted and even the mortar between the bricks was picked out in grey. The floor was of red tile, the walls hung with great heraldic tapestries. But most spectacular of all was the mighty hammerbeam roof. And it was to this now that Carpenter was proudly pointing.

The English hammerbeam was not just a roof, it was an institution. Invented in the Middle Ages, this useful piece of engineering had proved so pleasing to everyone that it was to last, even when not really needed structurally, for centuries. Soaring, yet sturdy, elaborately carved and painted, yet massively solid, it was everything the English liked. There was the great early hammerbeam in Westminster Hall. Every London guild or livery company that could afford a hall would want one; Oxford and Cambridge colleges boasted sumptuous examples.

The wooden hammerbeam roof was simply a series of partial arches – exactly like wall brackets – arranged one on top of, and jutting out from, another. By building a line of these brackets out from each side of a wide hall, and joining them above with a great beam, a big space could easily be crossed and a heavy roof supported.

It was, indeed, magnificent. There were eight of these mighty oak hammerbeam arrangements down the length of the hall, dividing the roof space into seven compartments. At the foot of each was a huge wooden corbel; from the end of each bracket a heavy wooden pendant hung in the space overhead. And all these, together with many of the other details, were elaborately carved in gleaming, oaken magnificence.

“I did some of those,” Carpenter said.

So perfectly were the accounts of the works at Hampton Court kept that every scrap of painting, carpentry and masonry carried out during those years was detailed with the name of the craftsman and what he was paid. Carpenter was thus already, as perhaps all men are, immortal without knowing it.

“So what news of your father?” the craftsman asked his brother-in-law, as they left the Hall together. “Has he kept to quarters?”

And now Dan was able to surprise him. “It seems,” he said, “he’s reformed.”

It was Father Peter Meredith’s arrival in the Charterhouse that seemed to be the cause of this miracle. No one could say quite how he had done it: perhaps it was his spiritual influence, or perhaps he just kept the old man company; but within a week Will Dogget had attached himself to the priest. “As long as Father Peter’s around the old man seems perfectly happy,” Dan said. “It’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Better hope the priest stays there,” said Carpenter.

Outside Newgate and a little way westward across the Holborn there was a modest stone church dedicated to St Etheldreda, a saintly Anglo-Saxon princess in the island’s early Christian days nearly a thousand years before. During the Middle Ages, the bishops of Ely had built their London mansion beside it, surrounding the whole with a big walled enclosure and using the church as their chapel; but it was still open to any of the faithful who chose to venture for spiritual refreshment within its old grey walls.

On a bright day early in March Rowland Bull, coming from the Charterhouse and intending to walk down Chancery Lane on his way to Westminster, caught sight of the roof of St Etheldreda’s over the bishop’s wall and, on a sudden impulse, decided to go in.

Spring was in the air as he passed through the gateway. The first green buds were on the trees; beside the path to the chapel were little clumps of white and violet crocuses; and on a grassy bank, some yellow daffodils. There was a faint, sharp smell of freshly turned earth in the damp air. St Etheldreda’s consisted of two parts: the upper, raised well above ground level was a handsome chapel with a fine window taking up much of its western wall; the lower, called the crypt, was only a few steps down and, though smaller than the chapel above, was often used for services. Finding this lower space empty, Rowland went in.

The crypt was a quiet place. On his left was a small altar beside which, in the shadow, he could see the tiny red glow of the Host. At the far end, on his right, set in the upper part of the wall, was a window of green glass which provided the crypt’s soft illumination. Just below it was an old stone font with Saxon carving. In the middle of the floor were some benches and kneeling pads, where Rowland knelt down to pray.

There were so many things troubling his mind. His meeting with Peter had brought him no comfort. The Charterhouse monks were praying for guidance. The prior was going to ask Cromwell to let them take a less objectionable oath. “But he’ll refuse,” Peter had predicted. “He’s got to break us.” Either the Carthusians would yield to Henry’s will, or be found guilty of treason. Even now he found it hard to believe: the saintly Charterhouse monks, going like criminals to execution? The idea was so outlandish it seemed unreal. Could King Henry really do such a thing? “Certainly,” Peter had said. “Who will stop him?” But a traitor’s death? That was a fearful thing: the lucky few went to the block, but most died by the harsh old medieval way – hanged first, taken down still conscious, their bowels cut out and their limbs hacked off before their eyes. He pictured the nerve-searing horror of it and shuddered.

Trying to escape the vision, he allowed his eyes to wander round the crypt, and caught sight of the Host, glowing in the shadows. Christian faith can lead to martyrdom, the little red light seemed to be silently reminding him. Wasn’t the religion he held so dear founded upon exactly such sacrifice?

And after the horror, after death – what then? Eternal peace, said the red flame. Salvation. He hoped so. He believed with all his heart it must be so. Yet even for the most devout, there is nearly always the awful doubt. What if it were not so after all? What if a man lost the only life he had, and went into eternal night for nothing? Looking away from that pinpoint of light, his eyes came to rest upon the old font at the other end of the crypt. How peaceful it looked, bathed in the greenish beams from the window; how quietly it seemed to speak of the spring day outside. He thought of his little house at Chelsea, his library, his wife and children. How precious they were. With a sudden vividness, he knew how much he desired life.

For long minutes he remained there on his knees, and once or twice looked upwards and murmured: “Lord: show me the way.”

At last, when he received his answer, it was no flash of illumination that came, nor even a silent whisper from the altar. It was the memory of Peter’s words that day they had first discussed the question in the little house at Chelsea: “Either something is right, or it’s wrong, my friend.”

It was not even his lawyer’s mind but something much more instinctive in him that finally understood what he must do. A thing was either true or false, right or wrong, black or white. It was not the religious scholar, it was the generations of Anglo-Saxon Bulls in him that knew it. The king’s claim was a lie. There was nothing more to say. He was either a Christian believer or he wasn’t. That was it. He felt relieved.

But there remained Susan and the children and his moral obligation there. Now his lawyer’s mind interposed. That too was a claim that must be satisfied.

As he quietly left St Etheldreda’s and walked out through the walled garden Rowland knew what he must do.

Susan stared at Rowland; at first she could hardly speak. It was dark outside, the children were in bed and they were alone. As much to give herself time to think as anything, she went over it carefully: “You think that the Charterhouse monks will refuse the oath?” He nodded. “But you believe that the king, even now, means to require the oath only from those, like the monks, who opposed him?”

“I think so.”

“You do not suppose he would require it of you.”

“I took it before. Why should he trouble me?”

“But if, by chance, the king altered his mind, and asked for the oath again . . .”

“We must decide what I should do.”

“So you have come to me, because you owe a duty to me as your wife, and to your children.” She nodded thoughtfully, and then, looking up, quietly spoke the terrible proposition he had made. “You are asking my permission to refuse the oath? You are asking if you may go to execution?”

And returning her gaze with affection he calmly answered: “Yes.”

From almost any other man, she supposed, it would have been a lie, an excuse. Tell me I must not go, he would have been saying. Let me be a coward with dignity. And, at that moment, she almost wished she had married a lesser man. But she knew that Rowland really meant it.

This was her dilemma. In her innermost heart, she knew that Rowland and Peter were right. Yet here, also, was her pain: to know that, for the sake of the God they shared, he would rather leave her all alone. And worse yet, her knowledge as a wife, that if, to save her family, she refused her consent, he would accept it but, very likely never in his life forgive her.