In hindsight I can see that my interview with, or rather interrogation by, Bishop Gardiner was the incident that began a change in my attitude towards Thomas Cromwell and his legacy. What had begun as the curiosity of an interested outsider was developing into something more personal. At the time I was but scantily aware of what was happening. Part of me was resisting involvement – something that was evident from the detailed description of my clash with Gardiner that I wrote to the queen in the following letter and sent via Ambassador Marillac.
Serene Highness, in my youth I was put to a tutor much given to repeating old proverbs and wise saws. He made us boys commit many such to memory. Though this was tedious to me then, I have ever since had cause to bless my mentor. For as King Solomon wrote, ‘The words of the wise are as goads or staves studded with painful nails for a shepherd to drive his sheep.’* One of my old mentor’s adages was, ‘A scholar may change his mind but the foolish sluggard never will.’ Until yesterday I was the sluggard. Your Highness sent me hither to learn of Lord Cromwell’s fate. That task was soon accomplished. Our old friend is dead and, with him, all hope ended of a treaty with the Lutherans and the greater purifying of religion here. Or so I thought. Until yesterday. St Paul, writing of Abel, slain by his brother, tells us that ‘he being dead yet speaks’.† The same I believe to be true of Thomas Cromwell. People think to be rid of him. Some rejoice. Some mourn, though not openly. And some fear. Aye, fear, Highness, as though those who were against him feel his presence still and are threatened by it.
Recently you asked me whether Socrates’ death was unjust. This night just past I was a stranger to sleep and thinking, dreaming, musing on that question. The philosopher was ordered to drink the hemlock. And for what? For heresy. For daring to believe what the rulers of Athens did not believe. Was that unjust? We must conclude that it was not, for if we challenge the law we fracture the cornerstone of society. But is the law corruptible? Can it be twisted to support the ends of those in power? We know that it can and that, all too often, it has indeed been manipulated. In the case of Socrates we adjudge that the law was, for political purposes, so manipulated. But why do we so judge and by what right? The answer must lie in the verdict of history. As the years pass and the accusers have followed the accused in the mournful journey down the Styx, we discern how the ages have weighed Socrates in their balance. He has been acquitted, honoured, numbered among the immortals. Will it be the same with Thomas Cromwell? Years must pass before a final verdict can be given. Yet already I sense that neither enemies, nor his king, nor his country will be able to consign him to the world of shades.
You will ask how I can be so sure of this. The answer lies in an extraordinary conversation I have had. I must, therefore, make an end of philosophizing and tell you of it.
’Twas with Bishop Stephen Gardiner of Winchester. I was taken against my will and hastened with scant courtesy to His Grace’s palace south of the river and there jostled across courtyards, along passageways and through anterooms where clergy flitted to and fro and scores of petitioners waited on the bishop’s pleasure. Eventually I was handed in to the care of a stout priest who was apparently a mute, for he answered all my questions with a grunt. (Would that all of his kind were so afflicted!) He admitted me to a small, barely furnished chamber lit by a pair of torches, one either side of an empty, cheerless chimney place. I took the only chair in the room and my guide placed himself on a stool beside the door, as though performing the office of gaoler charged with preventing my escape. I might well have contemplated flight had I thought that I could find my way out of the labyrinthine building.
It was, perhaps, half an hour before the door re-opened to admit yet another cleric, into whose hands I was delivered for the last stage of my journey. The destination was a large, well-lit chamber, hung with splendid tapestries and warmed by a fire in a large hearth beneath a carved and painted overhang bearing the bishop’s arms of silver keys and a sword on a red ground. Oh, the overweening pride of these prelates! To the sides of the room were tables bearing piles of papers over which two secretaries fussed. A larger and grander table occupied the centre of the room. Behind it, his back to the fire, sat the bishop. He stood and silently motioned me to a chair opposite.
My first impression of Stephen Gardiner was of a man somewhat above average height with searching eyes set in an expressionless face the colour of uncooked piecrust.
‘Thank you for coming, Master Bourbon,’ he said.
I matched his sarcasm. ‘It would have been churlish to decline Your Grace’s kind invitation.’
There was the slightest flicker of his eyebrow as he resumed his seat. ‘I was curious to know why Her Majesty of Navarre should send an envoy to England at this particular time.’
‘Scarcely an envoy, Your Grace. I come to meet old friends.’
‘Which old friends?’ The bishop leaned forward, elbow on table, one hand cupping his chin.
‘My Lord, forgive me if I suggest that my travel arrangements can scarcely be of interest to someone as eminent as yourself.’
He allowed a smirk to pay his lips a fleeting visit. ‘Then permit me to explain. These are ruffled times and we – that is, His Majesty’s loyal council – have a responsibility to be well informed of foreign activity within the realm. We are, of course, delighted to welcome someone who enjoys the close confidence of the sister of His Most Christian Majesty, the King of France. We wish to make your stay as comfortable as possible, Master Bourbon, but we expect reciprocal courtesy. As far as we can discover, your arrival has taken by surprise people who know you. It seems you were not expected. That suggests that you are here on a sudden and important mission. We merely wish to know what it is.’
‘This courtesy you speak of, Your Grace’ – I tried not to let my mounting anger show – ‘does it include spying on all guests who come to your country?’
Winchester sat back in his armed chair. When he spoke, his tone had become harsher; his words frost-edged and brittle. ‘Enough of this verbal chess! I have no time for it and much less delight in it. Her Majesty of Navarre is a known harbourer and encourager of Lutheran hell-fodder. It is my belief that you are sent hither to help such pedlars of heretical plague-doctrines escape investigation by the Church.’
‘If that is truly Your Grace’s belief it can only be because you have been misinformed. Perhaps your agents should be selected with greater care.’
Gardiner took a deep breath and released it slowly. I braced myself for an angry torrent of abuse but he retained his composure. ‘For the past ten years and more this kingdom has been plagued with a heretical regime set in motion by one man – a man you were wont to call friend.’
‘Lord Cromwell?’
‘Lord?’ He sniffed. ‘He was an ill-bred, swaggering roughling who blundered into His Majesty’s trust – hell alone knows how – and wrought all manner of evil to His Majesty’s subjects. He was no scholar; he merely possessed that cunning that comes from the one our Lord called “the father of lies”. He spread his soul-plague far and wide, through preachers and books.’
Few things anger me more than the unholy union of pomposity and religion. I could not resist the temptation to attack the obvious weak point in the bishop’s argument.
‘You believe, then, that your king is too weak-headed to recognize such an obvious rogue?’
Something akin to a hiss emerged from between Gardiner’s tight-pressed lips. ‘As I said, this particular rogue was cunning and pitiless. He appeared at a time when His Majesty was in great anguish of soul. He believed – mistakenly but sincerely – that his first marriage was sinful, cursed by God. Cromwell encouraged this error and conceived a diabolical plan to help our troubled royal master to discard his wife.’
‘I see. I am grateful to Your Grace for explaining something that has always puzzled many observers from across the water.’
Gardiner’s searching gaze suggested that he was unsure whether to read sarcasm in my words. He obviously decided to take them at face value. ‘If Queen Marguerite is a true friend to this country, I trust you will explain to her what a subtle villain this churl was.’ He paused, sitting back in his chair. ‘It is easy to see how difficult it is to comprehend a man like Cromwell. There are, God be praised, very few men so subtle, so determined, so plausible that they can convince even the wary. Had he insisted that the sun goes not round the earth, but rather the earth round the sun, I doubt not that he would have found many to believe him. We know not how many were gulled by his unscholarly delusions. But God is not mocked and we were, at last, able to lift the veil from His Majesty’s eyes, so that he could see the arch-heretic for what he was. We have rid the kingdom of Master Cromwell. Yet our work has only just begun. His deluded followers are all over the land – in our pulpits, in our market-places, in hovels and major houses, even in the royal court. Finding them and bringing them to justice is a giant-like task but one we shall pursue with all the vigour and by all the means at our disposal.’
There was nothing to be served by antagonizing the prelate further. I decided that the best way to bring this disagreeable encounter to an end was to mollify him. ‘As you say, Your Grace, this Cromwell was a man high in his prince’s trust. How he could gain ascendancy over men more obviously qualified’ (I left unsaid the words ‘like yourself’) ‘is beyond understanding.’
Gardiner shrugged. ‘There is an old English saying – perhaps you have it also in France – “fair flowers may grow on dunghills”. For all his show he came from the basest stock. People say he ran away from home to escape his drunkard father. He was certainly too ashamed to speak of his origins. I doubt not he had good cause to conceal his parentage and the unscrupulous means he used to claw his way up the ladder.’
‘Yet still, Your Grace, I struggle to understand how this base-born churl could climb to the topmost rung of that ladder, remain there for several years and impose vast changes on this nation. What, in your opinion, empowered him, drove him ever upward?’
‘Ambition, Master Bourbon. Ambition.’ Gardiner’s nose wrinkled in a sneer. ‘’Tis a drug more potent than any apothecary’s potion. It takes possession of men’s senses and will not release its grasp until it has destroyed them. Cromwell strove for power and riches. He gained them and, in the process, he sacrificed his reason and the fear of God. Just think of all the houses of prayer he closed down, all the devout monks and nuns he dispossessed, all the church lands and buildings he confiscated.’
‘Channelling the proceeds into the royal treasury,’ I added quietly.
Gardiner either did not hear or chose not to hear. ‘I assure you, Master Bourbon,’ he declared, ‘there is no reason – no reason whatever – why you should do anything other than fall on your knees and thank Blessed Mary and all the saints that this lewdster is now where he belongs – in hell.’
The bishop stood up. ‘I trust that you now understand the situation here, Master Bourbon, and will report to Her Majesty accordingly. Whatever her religious beliefs, she knows that her brother, His Most Christian Majesty, has had his own difficulties in Paris, with heretics of Cromwell’s persuasion posting their damnable heresies all over the city.’
‘You mean the affair of the Placards?’
‘Indeed.’
‘That was deplorable, I agree, but it was six years ago and I scarcely think—’
‘It was monstrous and King Francis was absolutely right in hunting down those responsible.’
True Articles on the Horrible, Great and Insupportable Abuse of the Popish Mass in Direct Contradiction of the Holy Supper of Jesus Christ
What mean all these games? You play around your god of dough, toying with him like a cat with a mouse. You break him into three pieces . . . And then you put on a piteous look, as if you were very sorrowful; you beat your breasts . . . You call him the Lamb of God, and pray to him for peace. St. John showed Jesus Christ ever present, ever living all in one – an adorable truth! But you show your wafer divided into pieces, and then you eat it . . .
(Placards by the Protestant controversialist, Antoine de Marcourt, distributed around Paris in October 1534)
Gardiner continued, ‘We in England are equally vigilant in hunting down the enemies of the Church, and you would be doing a service to Queen Marguerite and to His Most Christian Majesty if you would explain the havoc caused by these Lutheran vermin here and alert them to the need for continued vigilance. We intend to rid our land of them and I counsel all rulers to do the same.’ He nodded to indicate that the interview was over.
Eager as I was to quit the bishop’s presence, I could not resist exposing a flaw in his argument. As I stood, I asked, ‘Why would someone so greedy for political power embrace seditious religious opinions that are anathema to your king?’
Gardiner made no reply. As I turned to leave, he simply said, ‘Enjoy the rest of your stay, Master Bourbon, and have a care about whom you meet. I have eyes and ears everywhere.’
I soon realized the truth of that boast. Wherever I went, whoever I spoke to, my enquiries produced only shaking heads and anxious glances. Anyone asking questions about the late minister is viewed with suspicion. Fresh reports circulate daily of people being taken in for questioning or arraigned before the magistrates or ecclesiastical law officers. I am certainly being watched. In the mornings a tall, shabbily dressed fellow regularly loiters around the door of my inn and follows at a distance when I venture forth on foot. After noon a young, stocky priest takes his place. When I go anywhere on horseback a pair of troopers in Gardiner’s livery just happen to be going in the same direction.
Yesterday morning I went to see the place where Cromwell had lived. A fine mansion close to the city wall in the heart of that part of London where foreign merchants and bankers – Italians and Flemings for the most part – have their offices. The house was once part of the Austin priory. It was an unhappy experience. The council has put guards on the place to stop acts of vandalism, but there were several broken windows and someone had scrawled the word ‘HERETIC’ in red across one wall. As I watched, royal officials were carrying out chairs, tables, chests and bundled tapestries and loading them on to wagons. One of them was meticulously checking off the items on a list. It brought back happy memories of evenings spent around Cromwell’s well-spread table, freely discussing the Bible with some of England’s finest scholars. I could not bear to watch for more than a few minutes.
Concluding that I can no longer be of service to Your Highness in this place, I shall make arrangements for my return to Nérac within the next few days.
I remain Your Highness’s sad and weary servant to command.
Nicholas Bourbon
From London, this eighth day of August 1540
I entrusted this letter to Marillac’s secretary the next day. The following morning I set out for the docks in search of a suitable vessel to convey me back across the Channel. It was as I was leaving the Sun that I became aware of a commotion in the doorway. My unwanted sentinel was caught up in a fierce argument with two ruffians who were angrily gesticulating and pointing along Cheapside in the direction of St Paul’s. As I stood watching the wrangle I felt a tug at my sleeve. A young liveried page was looking up at me, a finger to his lips. With his other hand he beckoned me to follow. He led me a few paces along the street away from the disputants, then turned down a narrow alleyway. Half walking, half running, we made our way through a labyrinth of lanes and courtyards until we reached the hind quarters of a substantial house. We entered, passed through the washroom and kitchen, and so reached a sizeable hall lit by sunlight streaming through tall windows with armorial glass panels.
Before I could question my young guide, he said, ‘I will tell Sir Richard you are here. Please refresh yourself.’ He indicated a buffet on which stood flagons and goblets. I poured myself a measure of Rhenish.
‘Ah, Master Bourbon, ’tis so good to see you. Simon assured me your departure from the Sun was undetected.’ The speaker who now entered was a man in his mid- to late thirties with a square-cut beard. He wore a black cloak over fashionable and expensive clothes that suggested court connections.
‘Your boy played his part in the conspiracy well,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘We are all conspirators these days. Plain dealing is a thing of the past. We must dissemble, say yes when we mean no, conceal our anger behind a smiling visage.’ He motioned me to where chairs stood before the hearth on which a low fire smouldered. ‘For my part there is a line I decline to cross. My chosen name is Richard Cromwell.’
‘Chosen?’
‘Aye.’ He poured a measure of wine, then seated himself on the other side of the fireplace. ‘My father’s name was Williams. He was a successful London lawyer and it was decided that I should follow his profession. I did do a few terms at Gray’s Inn, one of our London law schools, but then I became involved with unsuitable companions and . . . Well, let us just say that I was more interested in enjoying myself than in taking up my family responsibilities. Had it not been for my uncle Thomas I would probably have drunk and gambled everything away.’
‘Thomas? Was that—’
‘Yes, my mother was Katherine Cromwell – Thomas’s elder sister. When my father despaired of me, Uncle Thomas became to me father, patron, guide and friend. That is why I chose to adopt his name. It is why I defy his murderers and go about in open mourning for him.’ He indicated his black cloak.
‘Is that not risky in these days?’
He laughed. ‘You mean, do I not go in fear and trembling of Gardiner, Norfolk and their prying curs? No, they dare not touch me. I am too high in His Majesty’s favour. More than that, I have powerful friends in the City. My late wife was the daughter of a lord mayor and I dine regularly with the money men who keep most of the royal courtiers in fine clothes and the best horses.’
‘’Tis good to meet someone who fears not to speak well of Thomas Cromwell. There are many in my country who hold him in high esteem.’
‘Glad am I to hear it. My family are much in need of spokesmen like yourself, Master Bourbon, who will defend Thomas’s reputation.’
I sensed the conversation taking an unwelcome turn. ‘You have very good reason to revere your uncle’s memory,’ I said, ‘but I am at a loss to understand what service I can be to you, or why you have gone to such lengths to arrange this meeting.’
Sir Richard set down his goblet on a boarded stool beside his chair. ‘My own debt to him – and his family’s debt – is great. We owe it to his memory to ensure that the lies told about him should not go unchallenged. Most of his erstwhile friends are careful to guard their tongues. My family and I look to those beyond the reach of Gardiner’s informers to spread the truth to our friends abroad.’
‘Truth?’
‘Aye, truth.’ Sir Richard leaned forward, eyes gleaming intensely. ‘Let it be known far and wide what manner of man Thomas Cromwell was and what he has achieved. I would not have it thought abroad that the papists have won a great victory; that Thomas Cromwell’s death means the death of the Gospel in England. Please make it known there that this is not so. Over the last ten years my uncle has carefully and consistently striven to bring our politics into line with Bible truth. He rid us of the monasteries, those strongholds of papal influence. He removed from the churches objects of superstition that had held the people’s minds captive. He appointed truth-tellers as bishops, priests and preachers. He set up in every parish the Bible in our own tongue and no one will be able to lock God’s truth away in a Latin box ever again. He has placed in the court and the council many who favour the Gospel. It is impossible that all this work can be undone, but we need the support and understanding of our continental friends.’
My host’s zeal was almost as unsettling as Winchester’s hostility. The bishop used threats to demand my silence. Sir Richard appealed to my conscience to stir me to commitment. And I? What did I want?
I said, ‘I assure you that your uncle’s work is well appreciated among those who seek the truth. In many places – Strasbourg, Geneva, Languedoc and, of course, Navarre – we have marvelled to see England throw off the Roman yoke. Yet you need a better advocate than me to advance the cause. I carry no influence in high places.’
‘You can help to silence the wagging tongues – the tongues that accuse Lord Cromwell of manipulating the king, of pursuing his own greed, of hypocritically using the Gospel as a cloak for his own ambition. Tell all who will listen what manner of man Thomas Cromwell was.’
‘But,’ I protested, ‘I do not know what manner of man he was. Everyone I speak to has contrary opinions and no one, it seems, is well informed about his origins. I have been told that, of a purpose, he kept his true identity a close secret. No one I have yet met can tell me anything about your uncle’s early life. Some suggest that he was guilty of crimes that would have ruined his career had they ever come to light.’
‘Calumnies!’
‘Doubtless. Yet if they cannot be countered, suspicions will grow. To understand a man you must know his origins. That is why a close kinsman, or at least someone close to the family, will be far better placed than I—’
Sir Richard frowned and held up a hand. ‘’Tis not that simple,’ he said. He stood to prod a poker at the fire and was obviously collecting his thoughts. When he had resumed his seat, more moments passed before he spoke.
‘I did not really know my uncle before he returned from his foreign travels. That was in the first year of the king’s reign. I remember it well because Thomas threw a very extravagant family party. He had several casks of wine from Italy. He also brought back his own cook, who introduced us to Italian sweetmeats we had never tasted before.’
‘Was that in Putney?’
‘No. Thomas left his father’s house there before he went to Italy. In fact, even before that he spent much of his time with my family in London. He features quite often in my early childhood memories. He was always fun to be with. My mother often chided him for spoiling me with gifts.’
‘Why was your uncle more at home here than in Putney?’
‘There was no future there for a young man with an enquiring mind and a thirst for adventure. He could never have followed his father as a village innkeeper and small-scale sheep farmer. My mother had married a local lawyer, Morgan Williams, and they moved to London where he set up his own practice. Thomas was determined to do the same. I think there was some talk of him joining my father’s practice, but he left quite suddenly in fifteen oh-three. I was about ten at the time and did not really come to know him properly until his return seven years later. By then he was much changed.’
‘No longer good company?’
‘On the contrary. He was always very entertaining, but there was a new fervour about him.’
‘Doubtless he was working hard to build his career.’
‘Certainly that. But there was more. He was deeply studious, seldom seen without a book in his pouch. Whatever was impelling him, it was not ambition. He had become a man of intense passion – loves and hates. Thus, he deeply loathed the monastic orders but showed the other side of his ardour when he took it upon himself to rescue a wayward young fool called Richard Williams from the mess he was making of his own life. Within the space of a few months Thomas made me resume my studies, occasionally found me work in the law courts and even arranged an advantageous marriage.’
‘Was Thomas married by then?’
‘Yes, Elizabeth; a sweet lady. A childhood friend from a Thameside village close to Putney.’
‘He did not use marriage to advance his social standing?’
‘No, it was a love match – brief but very happy.’
‘Brief?’
‘Elizabeth died of the sweating sickness in fifteen twenty-nine. Their two daughters fell to the sweat in the same year.’
‘That must have been hard to bear.’
‘He never fully recovered. It is my opinion that he buried himself in work to keep memory at bay.’ Sir Richard stood to fetch the flagon from the buffet and refilled our cups.
‘I think I heard mention that Thomas had a son,’ I said. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes, poor Gregory. Of all those being close watched by his father’s enemies his position is the hardest.’
‘Why so?’
‘Thomas’s attainder meant that all his property was forfeit. The large fortune he had earned in the royal service – lands, houses, furnishings, jewellery – all gone. Gregory has no inheritance – nothing save a couple of properties made over to him by his father, which the king cannot touch – for now. Gregory is terrified that the net of suspicion will be thrown over him. He and his wife have gone to their manor in Leicestershire – virtually in hiding. They care also for Mercy Prior, Gregory’s maternal grandmother. She lived for many years with Thomas and Elizabeth. She is old and frail now. I am surprised that she survived the horror of Thomas’s arrest and death.’ He sighed. ‘So you see, Master Bourbon, how hard it is to set the record straight. How keenly we feel the need of friends.’
‘’Tis unfortunate, then, that your uncle was secretive about his past.’
‘No,’ Sir Richard shook his head, ‘the fault is not entirely his. As soon as Thomas was arrested men were sent to seize and destroy all his papers. His enemies were determined to erase all trace of him. They foolishly thought that by obliterating his memory they could destroy his legacy. And you may be sure that people who had any correspondence with him were quick to void their coffers also. I know of three people to whom Thomas had given portraits of himself. They made hasty bonfires of them. Thank God, he was too clever for them. They could not bury his achievements.’
‘Then, Sir Richard, it must be those achievements that speak for him – to our generation and generations to come. For my part, I can be of little service to you – or to him. There is no more I can do here.’ I rose to take my leave.
‘Ah, well.’ Again the sigh. ‘Perhaps you are right – for now. But things will change – sooner than you or I might think.’ He walked with me down the length of the hall. At the door to the screens passage he paused. ‘While we wait upon God’s time there is someone who was close to Thomas and would not be afeared to speak – if you were disposed to seek him out. His name is Stephen Vaughan.’
‘And where, should I be disposed, would I find him?’ I asked.
‘In Antwerp.’