and he has interviewed the disaffected members of the community and set them to work against their brethren. It is all to no avail. Their response is, go away, go away and leave me to my sanctified death.
If they think that they will maintain to the end the equanimity of their prayer-lives, they are wrong, because the law demands the full traitor's penalty, the short spin in the wind and the conscious public disembowelling, a brazier alight for human entrails. It is the most horrible of all deaths, pain and rage and humiliation swallowed to the dregs, the fear so great that the strongest rebel is unmanned before the executioner with his knife can do the job; before each one dies he watches his fellows and, cut down from the rope, he crawls like an animal round and round on the bloody boards.
Wiltshire and George Boleyn are to represent the king at the spectacle, and Norfolk, who, grumbling, has been dragged up from the country and told to prepare for an embassy to France. Henry thinks of going himself to see the monks die, for the court will wear masks, edging on their high-stepping horses among the city officials and the ragged populace, who turn out by the hundred to see any such show. But the king's build makes it difficult to disguise him, and he fears there may be demonstrations in favour of Katherine, still a favourite with the more verminous portion of every crowd. Young Richmond shall stand in for me, his father decides; one day he may have to defend, in battle, his half-sister's title, so it becomes him to learn the sights and sounds of slaughter.
The boy comes to him at night, as the deaths are scheduled next day: ‘Good Master Secretary, take my place.’
‘Will you take mine, at my morning meeting with the king? Think of it like this,’ he says, firm and pleasant. ‘If you plead sickness, or fall off your horse tomorrow or vomit in front of your father-in-law, he'll never let you forget it. If you want him to let you into your bride's bed, prove yourself a man. Keep your eyes on the duke, and pattern your conduct on his.’
But Norfolk himself comes to him, when it is over, and says, Cromwell, I swear upon my life that one of the monks spoke when his heart was out. Jesus, he called, Jesus save us, poor Englishmen.
‘No, my lord. It is not possible he should do so.’
‘Do you know that for a fact?’
‘I know it from experience.’
The duke quails. Let him think it, that his past deeds have included the pulling out of hearts. ‘I dare say you're right.’ Norfolk crosses himself. ‘It must have been a voice from the crowd.’
The night before the monks met their end, he had signed a pass for Margaret Roper, the first in months. Surely, he thinks, for Meg to be with her father when traitors are being led out to their deaths; surely she will turn from her resolve, she will say to her father, come now, the king is in his killing vein, you must take the oath as I have done. Make a mental reservation, cross your fingers behind your back; only ask for Cromwell or any officer of the king, say the words, come home.
But his tactic fails. She and her father stood dry-eyed at a window as the traitors were brought out, still in their habits, and launched on their journey to Tyburn. I always forget, he thinks, how More neither pities himself nor takes pity on others. Because I would have protected my own girls from such a sight, I think he would too. But he uses Meg to harden his resolve. If she will not give way, he cannot; and she will not give way.
The following day he goes in to see More himself. The rain splashes and hisses from the stones underfoot; walls and water are indistinguishable, and around small corners a wind moans like a winter wind. When he has struggled out of his wet outer layers he stands chatting to the turnkey Martin, getting the news of his wife and new baby. How shall I find him, he asks at last and Martin says, have you ever noticed how he has one shoulder up and the other down?
It comes from overmuch writing, he says. One elbow on the desk, the other shoulder dropped. Well, whatever, Martin says: he looks like a little carved hunchback on a bench end.
More has grown his beard; he looks as one imagines the prophets of Munster to look, though he would abhor the comparison. ‘Master Secretary, how does the king take the news from abroad? They say the Emperor's troops are on the move.’
‘Yes, but to Tunis, I think.’ He casts a glance at the rain. ‘If you were the Emperor, wouldn't you pick Tunis, rather than London? Look, I haven't come to quarrel with you. Just to see if you are comfortable.’
More says, ‘I hear you have sworn my fool, Henry Pattinson.’ He laughs.
‘Whereas the men who died yesterday had followed your example, and refused to swear.’
‘Let me be clear. I am no example. I am just myself, alone. I say nothing against the act. I say nothing against the men that made it. I say nothing against the oath, or against any man that swears it.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he sits down on the chest where More keeps his possessions, ‘but all this saying nothing, it won't do for a jury, you know. Should it come to a jury.’
‘You have come to threaten me.’
‘The Emperor's feats of arms shorten the king's temper. He means to send you a commission, who will want a straight answer as to his title.’
‘Oh I'm sure your friends will be too good for me. Lord Audley? And Richard Riche? Listen. Ever since I came here I have been preparing for my death, at your hands – yes, yours – or at the hands of nature. All I require is peace and silence for my prayers.’
‘You want to be a martyr.’
‘No, what I want is to go home. I am weak, Thomas. I am weak as we all are. I want the king to take me as his servant, his loving subject, as I have never ceased to be.’
‘I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter.’
‘Christ drew it.’
‘You don't see anything wrong with the comparison?’
Silence. The loud, contentious, quality of More's silence. It's bouncing off the walls. More says he loves England, and he fears all England will be damned. He is offering some kind of bargain to his God, his God who loves slaughter: ‘It is expedient that one man shall die for the people.’ Well, I tell you, he says to himself. Bargain all you like. Consign yourself to the hangman if you must. The people don't give a fourpenny fuck. Today is 5 May. In two days' time the commission will visit you. We will ask you to sit, you will decline. You will stand before us looking like a desert father, and we snugly wrapped against the summer chill. I will say what I say. You will say what you say. And maybe I will concede you have won. I will walk away and leave you, the king's good subject if you say so, till your beard grows down to your knees and the spiders weave webs across your eyes.
Well, that's his plan. Events overtake it. He says to Richard, has any damnable bishop of Rome in the history of his pox-ridden jurisdiction ever done anything so stupidly ill-timed as this? Farnese has announced England is to have a new cardinal: Bishop Fisher. Henry is enraged. He swears he will send Fisher's head across the sea to meet his hat.
The third of June: himself to the Tower, with Wiltshire for the Boleyn interest, and Charles Brandon, looking as if he would as soon be fishing. Riche to make notes; Audley to make jokes. It's wet again, and Brandon says, this must be the worst summer ever, eh? Yes, he says, good thing His Majesty isn't superstitious. They laugh: Suffolk, a little uncertainly.
Some said the world would end in 1533. Last year had its adherents too. Why not this year? There is always somebody ready to claim that these are the end times, and nominate his neighbour as the Antichrist. The news from Munster is that the skies are falling fast. The besiegers are demanding unconditional surrender; the besieged are threatening mass suicide.
He leads the way. ‘Christ, what a place,’ Brandon says. Drips are spoiling his hat. ‘Doesn't it oppress you?’
‘Oh, we're always here.’ Riche shrugs. ‘One thing or another. Master Secretary is wanted at the Mint or the jewel house.’
Martin lets them in. More's head jerks up as they enter.
‘It's yes or no today,’ he says.
‘Not even good day and how do you.’ Somebody has given More a comb for his beard. ‘Well, what do I hear from Antwerp? Do I hear Tyndale is taken?’
‘That is not to the point,’ the Lord Chancellor says. ‘Answer to the oath. Answer to the statute. Is it a lawfully made statute?’
