The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More (37 page)

“Oh, God help me,” prayed Ailie, more fervently than she had ever prayed before. “Help me to do this.”

Lord Audley could help her, she believed. But had he the power? He was the Lord Chancellor, and when her father had been Chancellor many had brought their petitions to him.

Ailie could not bear to think of the house in Chelsea now. Margaret wrote to her often; so did Mercy. But the feigned cheerfulness of their letters only served to tell her how changed everything was. Would this dreary summer never pass?

She heard the huntsmen's horns and looked in the polished Venetian mirror her husband had given her and of which she had once been so proud. Her eyes were hard and bright; her cheeks were flushed; she looked at her trembling, twitching mouth.

Then, composing herself, she ran down to greet the returning huntsmen.

Audley was talking excitedly about the deer he had killed in the park. What could it matter? There was only one thing that mattered now.

Giles was smiling at her tenderly, full of understanding. He led the way to the stables, where the grooms rushed forth to take the horses. Ailie was walking with Lord Audley, and Giles saw that they were left alone.

“ 'Twas a good day's sport, I trust, Lord Audley?”

“It was, Lady Allington. Your husband is fortunate to have such happy hunting grounds at his disposal.”

“You must come often to hunt with us.”

“That I will.”

Ailie laid a hand on the arm of the Lord Chancellor and smiled up at him.

“My lord, you are a man of great influence at Court.”

Lord Audley smiled his pleasure.

“You could do something for me as you wished.”

“Lady Allington, I would willingly do anything in my power to please you.”

“You are gracious, my lord. It is of my father, I would speak.”

Lord Audley gave a quick, rather harsh laugh. “Why, Lady Allington, he has all the means at his disposal to help himself.”

“That is not so.”

“I beg of you, forgive the contradiction, but it is so. He has but to sign the Oath of Supremacy, and he would be a free man tomorrow.”

“But that he cannot do.”

“Cannot! Cannot sign his name!” Lord Audley laughed. (He was proud of saying, “I am no scholar!” which meant he had a certain contempt for those who were.) “But we have always heard that he is such a learned man!” he went on.

“My lord, he feels this to be a matter of conscience.”

“Then he should reason with his conscience. My dear lady, I would do as much for your father as I would for my own… for your sake; but what can I do? The remedy lies with him. I marvel that he should be so obstinate in his conceit.”

“Could you not persuade the King that, in my fathers case, this matter of the Oath could be waived?”

“My dear lady, you know the ways of Parliament.”

Then the Chancellor began to tell Ailie one of Æsop's fables.

“This,” he said, “you, being the daughter of such a learned man, have doubtless heard before.” It was the fable of the few wise
men who tried to rule the multitude of fools. The few were flogged by the many. “Were they such wise men after all, Lady Allington? Were they, I wonder.”

Ailie looked into the cold, proud face beside her, and her heart felt leaden.

They had reached the house, and she stepped on ahead of him. Giles came forth and, seeing her state, engaged their guest in conversation so that she was free to run upstairs to her bedroom.

This she did, with the tears flowing down her cheeks, and her face set in a mask of utter hopelessness.

THERE WERE
no more visits to the Tower, and the months were dragging on. Christmas came; and it was last spring when he had been taken from home.

What a different Christmas was this from that which they usually spent! They were all together, but how could they be happy without him?

They lived for the letters they received from him. They were allowed to send a servant to the Tower to take letters to him and receive his. The faithful Dorothy Colly made the journey, for she was almost one of the family, and Thomas was fond of her. She would come back and tell them everything he had said.

“He wishes to know what you are doing, how you spend your days. No little detail is too small. It pleases him much to hear these things. He must have news of the latest sayings of the children.”

To Margaret, when they were alone, she said: “He kissed me when I left. And I was to tell you, he said, that he loves me as one of the family. He said: ‘Have you married John Harris yet, Dorothy? You should. Tell Margaret. She will help you to arrange it, for marriage is a good thing; and if two people grow together in love and comradeship, there is no happier state in the world.’”

Margaret kissed her maid. She knew that John Harris loved her; and she knew that her father meant: “Be happy. Do not
continue to grieve. Go about your ordinary business. If there is a wedding among you, rejoice and celebrate. Your father is with you in all you do.”

“I must see him soon, Dorothy,” she said. “We cannot go on like this.”

HE HAD
changed very much since his imprisonment; he was thin and ill. He had his books with him, and they brought him much comfort. He was writing what he called
A Dialogue of Comfort.
This was a conversation between two Hungarians, an aged man Antonio and his nephew Vincent. These two discussed the coming invasion of the Turks. The allegory was easily understood by Margaret— for he sent his writings to her.

“I cannot read this to you,” he wrote, “but I need your opinions as I ever did.”

Margaret guessed who the Great Turk was meant to be, for Thomas wrote: “There is no born Turk so cruel to Christian folk as is the false Christian that falleth from his faith. Oh, Margaret, my beloved daughter, I am a prisoner in a foul place, yet I am happy when I take up my pen to write to you, and I would rather be Margaret's father than the ruler of an Empire.”

Rich, the Solicitor-General, paid him many visits. Thomas understood the purpose of these visits; they were to entrap him. Now they were trying to make him
deny
the King's supremacy; but Thomas was too learned in the ways of the law to do this. He was fully aware that he could not be condemned merely for refusing to sign the Oath. If he preserved silence on his views, he must be guiltless. There was no law under which it was possible to punish a man because he refused to sign an oath.

In vain did Rich seek to entrap him; Cromwell, Norfolk, Audley, the whole Council did their best to please the King by making a case against him; but Thomas was the greatest lawyer of them all. Not one of them—even Cranmer—could lure him to say that which would condemn him.

He knew that his friend Bishop Fisher was in the Tower.
Fisher was a brave man, but he was no lawyer. Thomas wrote notes to him, and Fisher answered him; their servants found means of exchanging these notes, for the jailers were willing to make the incarceration of two such saintly men as Fisher and More as comfortable as was possible.

“Have great care, my friend,” Thomas begged the Bishop. “Be on your guard against the questions which are put to you. Take great care that you do not fall into the dangers of the Statutes. You will not sign the Oath. That is not a crime in itself. But guard your tongue well. If any ask you, be sure that you say not a word of the King's affairs.”

The Bishop was a very sick man and his imprisonment had greatly affected his health.

One day Richard Rich came to the Bishop and, smiling in a friendly fashion, assured him that this was not an official visit; he came, not as the King's Solicitor-General, but as a friend.

The Bishop, worn out with sickness, suffering acutely from the closeness of his confinement, from heat and from cold, bade the Solicitor-General welcome. The latter talked about the pity of this affair, the sorrow it was causing many people because such men, so admired and respected as were Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, must lie in prison on account of a matter such as this.

“I talked to the King of you but yesterday,” said Rich, “and he said that it grieved him to think of you in prison. He said that he respected you greatly, and that his conscience worried him concerning you. He fears that he may not have been right in what he has done. And indeed, where is the son that God would have given him had He approved the new marriage? He has but a daughter— a healthy child, it is true, but a daughter! The King's conscience disturbs him, and you could lighten it, my lord Bishop. The King has promised absolute secrecy, but he wishes to know your mind. He says that what you say—as a holy man of the Church—will be carefully considered by him. Now, my lord Fisher, if I swear to you that what you say is between you, myself and the King, will you open your mind to me?”

Fisher answered: “By the law of God, the King is not, nor could be Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England.” Rich nodded and smiled: he was well pleased with himself Fisher had answered exactly as he had hoped he would.

THERE WERE
others in the Tower for the same reason as were those two brave men.

The Carthusians had been asked to sign the Oath of Supremacy. This they had found they could not do in good conscience, and the Prior of the London Charterhouse, with those of Lincoln and Nottinghamshire, was very soon lodged in the Tower. Others quickly followed them there.

The King was growing more and more angry, and when he was angry he turned his wrath on Cromwell.

“By God's Body,” roared the King. “It is this man More who stiffens their resistance. We must make him understand what happens to those who disobey the King.”

“Sire, we have done all we can to bring a charge against him, but he is as wily as a fox in this matter of the law.”

“I know, I know,” said the King testily, “that he is a clever man in some ways and that I am surrounded by fools. I know that you have tried in many ways to bring charges against him, but every time he has foiled you. He is a traitor. Remember that. But I have no wish to see him suffer. My wish is that he shall end his folly, give us his signature and stop working malice among those who so admire him. These monks would relent if he did. But, no … no. These fools about me can in no way foil him. It is Master More who turns their arguments against them and snaps his fingers at us all. Let him be reminded of the death a traitor suffers. Ask him whether or not that is the law of the land. Ask him what clever lawyer can save a man from a traitors death if he is guilty of treason.”

Cromwell visited Thomas in his cell.

“Ah, Sir Thomas,” he said, “the King grieves for you. He
wishes you well in spite of all the trouble you are causing him. He would be merciful. He would take you to a more comfortable place; he would see you abroad in the world again.”

“I have no wish, Master Cromwell, to meddle in the affairs of the world.”

“The King would feel more inclined toward you if you did not help others to resist him. There are these monks, now lodged in this Tower. The King feels that if you would but be his good friend you could persuade these monks to cease their folly.”

“I am the King's true and faithful subject and I do nobody harm. I say none harm; I think none harm; and I wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive and in good faith I long not to live. Therefore is my poor body at the King's pleasure.”

“I repeat that the King wishes you well. He would do a favor unto you. Yet you would not accept this favor.”

“There is one I would accept. If I could see my daughter, Margaret Roper, there is little else I would ask of the King.”

Cromwell smiled. “I will do what can be done. I doubt not that the request will soon be granted.”

And it was.

She came on that May day, a year after his imprisonment, when the four monks were to pay the terrible penalty, which had been deemed their due.

This was as the King and Cromwell would have it; for, said Cromwell, the bravest of men would flinch when they considered the death accorded to these monks. It was the traitor's death; and there was no reason why a Bishop and an ex-Chancellor should not die the same horrible death as did these monks. Only the King in his clemency could change that dread sentence to death by the axe.

Let Master More reflect on that; and let him reflect upon it in the company of his daughter, for she might aid the King's ministers with her pleas.

So she was with him while preparations were being made
immediately outside his prison. He and Margaret heard these and knew what they meant. The hurdles were brought into the courtyard below the window; and they knew that those four brave men were being tied to them and that they would be dragged to Tyburn on those hurdles, and there hanged, cut down and disemboweled while still alive.

To face such death required more than an ordinary man's courage, though that man be a brave one.

Margaret stood before him tight-lipped.

“I cannot bear it, Father. Do you not hear? Do you not know what they are doing to those brave monks?”

And he answered: “Lo, Meg, dost thou not see that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage?”

But she turned from him weeping, swooning to the floor; and it was he who must comfort her.

MERCY SAID
to her husband: “I must do something. Inactivity is killing me. I have a tight pain in my throat, so that I feel it will close up altogether. Think, John. For a year we have suffered this agony. Oh, was there ever such exquisite torture as slow torture? Does the King know this? Is that why he raises our hopes and all but kills them before he seems to bid us hope again?”

“Mercy, it is not like you to give way, you… who are always so calm.”

“I cannot go on being calm. I dream of him as he was years ago when he first brought me to the house … when I would stand before him while he explained some small fault to me. I think of him when he told me that I was truly his daughter. I am his daughter. That is why I must do something. And you must help me, John.”

“I would do anything in the world for you, Mercy. You know that well.”