The Puritan influence in Cambridge was certainly growing. Riding in, I had observed shoals of sober, solemn, surly young men walking slowly with heads bowed, their gowns wrapped about them like so many beetles. In my day, which was only ten years before, scholars were more boisterous and often far from sober. ‘Not like this. But you are not against the true religion, surely?’
He hesitated. ‘How could I be?’ His tone was playful and I had the impression he had considered a different reply.
‘It is the Puritans you dislike?’
‘Evangelists, I dislike all evangelists and all evangelising.’
‘Even those who evangelise what you yourself believe?’
‘I’ve never met anyone who believes what I believe.’
I did not then ask what that was. In those years Puritans and other dissenters were vigorously pursued by Archbishop Whitgift. He hanged a couple of Christopher’s Cambridge contemporaries because they would not accept the settlement under Queen Elizabeth. Mr Secretary also vigorously pursued dissenters and extremists, despite himself being an evangelist of the Protestant cause. His target was anyone who threatened the security of the state, Protestant or Catholic or free-thinker. If he asked me what Christopher believed, as he had of others whose loyalty he probed, I should have been compelled to tell him that I did not know but that Christopher sometimes appeared to reject all religion. Better therefore that I really did not know, so I didn’t push Christopher to explain. But I wanted to know. This wasn’t the first time we had had this kind of conversation but I had never known him so explicit. I fingered the papers on his table. ‘So this is your Devil play?’
‘Notes and sketches, small beer. A German scholar sells his soul to the Devil for worldly riches and triumphs. Hell awaits but he cannot bring himself to repent. Not a new story but mine will be like no other.’
‘Prodigal of ink and paper.’
‘They’ll pay for themselves.’
‘Not heretical, is it? If you write of heresies you’ll be accused of believing them.’
‘In which case I shall simply ensure that the heretics in my plays are woefully punished.’
‘I hear your Tamburlaine is a fine and bloody play. Much spoken of in London.’
He told me he had a new manner of writing verse for players and enthused about the ancients, particularly Ovid. He always came back to Ovid or Lucan, mainly Ovid. I encouraged such talk because it brought out another side of him, a side I liked, a fine disinterested passion. Christopher’s usual manner was quiet, often distant, sometimes mocking and disdainful, or coldly scornful when provoked. But when it came to Ovid and the ancients his speech gained in pace and warmth as if they were close friends. I think they were; for him, all literature was contemporary. He delighted in anyone who showed interest, his brown eyes moistening and brightening. Showing interest was all I could do, sadly, having forgotten most of what I learned of the ancients in favour of my own passion for numbers and symbols. But he would ask about that and I would try to convey the purity of their appeal, their cleanliness, logic and mystery, uncontaminated by the detritus of humanity. I confessed I could never read slowly enough to relish poetry.
It was no bar between us. He could imagine, he said, the beauty of number, the delight of an elegant solution. He speculated that his new way of writing verse with few rhymes resembled the mathematic in that he made patterns from the music and rhythm of words. We were talking thus when the bell rang for dinner. He pulled his gown about him. ‘Thank you again for your help. Please pass on my gratitude and respect to Sir Francis.’
‘Shall you return to London after the ceremony on Tuesday? We might have more work for you if you are not too taken up with your plays.’ I had in mind fresh evidence of Spanish invasion plans I had recently decrypted. Already busy, we were about to become much busier.
He took my hand. ‘Thomas, you are an unlikely agent of the Devil. All the more effective for it.’
‘You think our work is the work of the Devil?’
‘Possibly, but without your knowing it.’
‘You are a Papist after all, then?’ I did not mean that seriously.
‘Worse, worse than that. Worse than you think.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I heard enough from Huguenots who fled to Canterbury to render me proof against Papism. If Her Majesty calls me to arms again, of course I should respond. You will find me in Shoreditch. Just ask among the players.’
When later Christopher was accused of free-thinking I recalled these remarks without realising I had remembered them. Around the time of his death, lines from his plays were quoted as evidence of atheistical free-thinking and Machiavellism but while he was still in Cambridge most of those lines had not then been written. However, public display of such sentiments was dangerous and I cautioned him against it, though I now think the danger was partly what attracted him. What I did not know then was the effect he would have on my own beliefs.
Could this be the reason for the King’s interest in him, sir? Of course, you cannot say, I accept that. But it would be an understandable interest. I hear His Majesty’s proper fear and love of God does not preclude him from exploring the minds of men?
Anyway, there was a more immediate sequel to that conversation. It occurred after chapel the following morning. I attended the Corpus Christi service rather than my own old college’s or the Vice Chancellor’s, partly to impress on Dr Norgate that the eye of the state was upon him and partly because
