The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More (14 page)

“Your Excellency …”

“You do not want them, I know. But you want to live. You want to go home to your clever children and your wife, do you not? You want to go on conversing with your learned friends. Oh, life is sweet, Master More, when it brings as much to a man as it has brought to you. But think of this: A child plays his games and he loves his toys; but if a toy displeases him, what does he do? He smashes it. Master More, when you played the honorable lawyer this day, you took a great risk. But the boy liked his playlet; he liked his new role. Perhaps he has heard his praises sung too consistently of late. Who shall say? But you pleased him. You played your part so well that the principal actor was able to outshine us all. Now, the King will not be pleased if you do not continue to make him feel pleased with
himself
, if you do not allow him to show the world what a beneficent monarch he is.”

“You are very bold, Cardinal.”

“You were bold this afternoon, Master More. But you cannot afford to risk offending the King twice in one day. Great good luck has attended you; you could not expect that to be repeated. This King of ours is a mighty lion who does not yet know his strength. He is caged… but he does not see the bars. I am his keeper. If he felt his strength, if he knew his power, then we might begin to tremble. I believe he would risk his kingdom to satisfy his appetites. That is why he must be fed carefully. It is the duty of men like yourself… like myself… who wish to serve our country—some because of honor, some because of ambition; what matters it if we serve our country well?—it is the duty of such men to suppress their personal desires. And if we do not, we may find that the King's frown, instead of his smile, is turned upon us.”

“Are you sure that if I refused to come to Court I should find myself persecuted?”

“I believe this would certainly come to pass. Remember, my friend—and I mean ‘my friend’, for I will be yours if you will be mine—I know him. I served his father as I now serve him; and I have watched him grow up.”

“But I have no wish to come to Court.”

“Master More, you have no choice. I remember, when I served his father, that you were in disfavor. You are a man who cannot fail to attract attention. You would not be here in England at this moment had his father lived, unless you now lay under the earth. The young King is not the old King; but, Master More, he is none the less dangerous for that.”

“I wish to live in peace and quietude with my family.”

“If you wish to live at all, Master More, you will not reject the King's honors.” The Cardinal was smiling quizzically. “Go now, my friend. There is nothing more to say at this stage. I will tell the King I have talked with you, and that the honor he is about to heap on you has overwhelmed you, robbed you of your native wit. I will tell him that I believe our country is fortunate in the learned honesty of Thomas More … and the clemency and astonishing wisdom of its King.”

MARGARET FLUNG
herself into his arms when he came home.

“Father!”

He kissed her warmly.

“Why these sad looks? This is a time for rejoicing. The King honors me. He sent for me to congratulate me … to tell me of his regard.”

Margaret, her arms about his neck, leaned backward to look searchingly into his face.

“But you are disturbed.”

“Disturbed! My dearest, you will see your father a courtier yet. I met the great Cardinal, and he also honors me with his friendship. Meg, I am weighed down with honors.”

But she continued to look at him uneasily. The others were surrounding him now.

“What is this nonsense?” demanded Alice.

“The King sent for me to tell me he is pleased with me.”

“Pleased with you for losing him his ship?”

“The Pope's ship, madam!”

“Pleased with you. Pleased! Is this another of your jokes?”

“ 'Tis no joke,” said Thomas slowly. “The King liked what I did this day, and he honors me. I am to go to Court. I am to work with Cardinal Wolsey. When I left this house, Alice, I was a humble lawyer; now I am … I know not what.”

Alice cried: “ 'Tis a marvelous thing and great good luck, though you have done little to deserve it. Come to the table. Tell us more of this. A place at Court! Tilly valley! I was never so excited in my life.”

How strange, thought Margaret, that the same piece of news could be so differently received by members of the same family. Here was her stepmother already looking ahead to a rosy future, to rich marriages for the young members of the family; and here was her father looking ahead—smiling for their sakes, trying to be pleased with advancement, yet unable to hide from his beloved daughter the foreboding which showed in his eyes.

THAT SUMMER
was hot and dry, and the sweating sickness appeared in the City.

Thomas was to begin his service to the King by going on an embassy to Flanders. His life had changed; he must be often at the Palace and he spent much time with the Cardinal. The first trouble which his elevation brought were his absences from home.

“I wish we were a humble family,” said Margaret passionately to Mercy. “Then we might stay together and attract no attention to ourselves.”

“We should have no education,” Mercy reminded her. “And can you imagine Father as a man of no education? No, as he says, there is good and bad in life; and there is bad in the good and
good in the bad; and the only way to live is to accept the one with the other. Enjoy one; endure the other.”

“How wise you are, Mercy!”

“It is borrowed wisdom … borrowed from Father.”

Mercy was happy that year in spite of the pending departure of Thomas, and the reason was that there was a new member of this ever-growing household. This was John Clement, a protégé of the Cardinal's, a young man in his late teens who was to accompany Thomas as his secretary and attendant on the mission to Flanders.

John Clement was a serious and very learned person—a young man after Thomas's own heart—and a warm welcome was given him in the house of his new master. Young Clement quickly became a member of that happy family group, but he found that she who interested him most was not one of the Mores, but Mercy Gigs.

He sought every opportunity of talking with her. He was several years older than she was, but it seemed to him that he had never met a girl of her age so solemnly self-contained; and if she was not quite so learned as Margaret, her scholarship lay in that subject which most interested him.

He never forgot the rapt expression in her eyes when he told her that he had studied medicine at Oxford.

“You are interested in medicine, Mistress Mercy?” he asked.

“In nothing so much.”

Now they had a subject which they could discuss together; Thomas watched them with pleasure. My little Mercy is growing up, he thought. They are all growing up. In two or three years it will be necessary to find husbands for Mercy and Margaret—and Ailie too, though she will doubtless find one for herself.

It was a dream materializing, an ideal becoming palpable. When he had decided on giving up the monk's life for that of a family man, he had visualized a household very like the one which was now his. Had he ever imagined such love as he had for Margaret? Nay, the reality was greater than he had foreseen. And when
she marries she must never leave me, he thought, for without Margaret I would not wish to live. And Mercy here is as dear to me as are my own children. Did ever a man possess such a learned and aflectionate daughter as Margaret, such charming children as those who made up his household? And Alice herself, she was neither a pearl nor a girl, but he was fond of her; and he knew that her sharp words often hid kindly motives. Where could he find a better housekeeper? And surely she was the best of mothers to his children, for it was well to have a touch of spice in the sweetest dish. There might be times when his beloved children were in need of chastisement, and how could
he
administer a whipping? He was a coward where such matters were concerned. What could he whip his children with but a peacocks feather? Yet Mistress Alice shirked not the task.

He was a lucky man. He must not complain that his life away from his family was not all that he could wish. So many men craved the King's favor; so many would have been honored to call the Cardinal their friend. He wanted too much of life. He must make the best of his new honors; he must steal away from them as often as he could, to be with his books and his family; and he must be grateful to God for the good life which was his.

Was ever man so loved? Very few, he believed. Only yesterday, when the children were talking together of what they wished for most, he had wandered by and heard their talk. Mercy had said: “If I could wish for something, I would wish I were Fathers true daughter.”

And when he had found her alone, he had said to her: “Mercy, you have no need to wish for what is already yours. To me you are exactly as though you are my true daughter.”

She had blushed and faltered and said: “Father, I meant that I wished I were your daughter as Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily are.”

“That matters not at all, Mercy, my child. I see you as my daughter—my true daughter—as much as any of the others. You are as dear to me.”

“I know it, Father,” she said. “But…”

“But, Mercy, if that love which is between us two is as strong as the love which is between me and the daughters of my own body, what difference can there be! You delight me, Mercy. You are all that I could wish for in a daughter. You must not wish for something which is already yours … in all that matters. I remember when you were a little girl and I took you to task for some small fault, your distress hurt me as much as the distress of any of the others would have done.”

She caught his hand and kissed it. “In those days,” she said, “I sometimes committed those faults that you might talk to me alone … even though it was to reprimand me.”

“Poor little Mercy! You felt you were left out then? You were the foster child? You wished to have attention … even if, to gain it, you must seem at fault?”

“It was that,” she answered. “But it was also that I might have the pleasure of standing before you and that you should be thinking of me … me … alone. Me … by myself, without Margaret.”

“Oh, Mercy … Mercy … you must not have such a high opinion of me. We must not set up gods on Earth, you know.”

She said: “I have set up nothing. I have lifted up my eyes and seen.”

He laughed. “Now to talk sense. Your wish was that you could be my true daughter. Now that you know there was no need for such a wish, what other wish have you, my child? Suppose I were a king with all the wealth in the world at my disposal, and I said I would grant you a favor, what would you say?”

She did not hesitate. “I would ask for a big house to which I could bring the sick and care for them, and gradually learn more and more, that I should know not only how to cure but prevent disease.”

“That's a noble wish, Mercy. Would I were a king… solely that I might grant it.”

So he watched her with John Clement, and his heart warmed toward them both; for he wished his girls to marry and have families. That was the happiest life, he was sure; he had proved it. And
while Thomas was preparing to depart on his embassy, Mercy and John Clement were often together, and they talked of the terrible sickness which had taken a hold of the City.

“ 'Tis a marvelous thing,” said Mercy, “that there is not a single case of sickness here in Bucklersbury.”

“I have a theory on that matter,” said John Clement eagerly. “This street lacks the maleficent odors of other streets. Here we do not smell unpleasantness, but sweetness … the smell of musk, the smell of spices and perfumes and unguents.”

“Do you think, then, that the sickness comes from evil smells?”

“I believe this may be so; and if this street, as I believe has been the case in past epidemics, has not a single sufferer of the sweat while scarce a house in the rest of the City escapes, then might there not be something in the theory?”

Mercy was excited.

“Why,” she cried, “when Erasmus was here he condemned our houses. He did not like them at all. He said the rooms were built in such a way as to allow no ventilation. Our casements let in light, but not air; and the houses are so drafty. He said our custom of covering our floors with clay on which we laid rushes was a harmful one—particularly as in the poor cottages those rushes are not changed for twenty years. I know how angry Mother used to be when he complained about our rushes, although they were changed once a week. He said we should have windows that opened wide. He said that we ate too much—too many salted meats. He said our streets were filthy and a disgrace to a country that called itself civilized.”

“He sounds a very fierce gentleman.”

“He was … in some ways. In others he was mild. But I think there may be something in what he said about our houses, do you not, Master Clement?”

“I do indeed.”

“I am terrified that the sickness will come to this house. But I am glad that Father is leaving the country just now. He at least will get away from these pestiferous streets. You also, Master
Clement…. But… it would be terrible if anything happened here … while he is gone. What should I do if any take die sickness?”

“You can do nothing about the drafts and the lack of good air in the house, of course. But I believe more frequent sweetening would prevent the disease coming here. Here is a good mixture for any afflicted: marigold, endive, sowthistle and nightshade—three handfuls of all; seethe them in conduit water—a quart of this; strain into a vessel with a little sugar. This will remove the sourness. Let the patient drink it. The patient should keep warm and lie in his bed when first the sweat takes him. If he is dressed, keep him dressed; and if he is undressed let him stay undressed, but cover up the bed… cover it well. I have known men and women recover when so treated.”

“Marigold, endive, nightshade and sowthistle. I will remember that.”

“I will tell you how to make the philosophers egg. Now, that is an excellent remedy for the sweat. It can be prepared in advance and you can keep it for years. In fact, it improves with keeping.”