Thomas More refused the oath also, and I think of the warm brown eyes and his joke about filial obedience and his pity for me when Arthur went missing. I wish that I had stood beside him when he told them, like the scholar he is, that he would sign a rewritten version of the oath, that he did not disagree with much of it, but that he could not sign it exactly as it stands.
I think of the sweetness of his spirit that led him on to say that he did not blame those who had drawn up the oath, nor did he have one word of criticism for those who had signed it; but for the sake of his own soul—just his—he could not sign.
The king had faithfully promised his friend Thomas that he would never put him to the test on this. But the king does not keep his word to the man that he loved, that we all love.
BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, SUMMER 1534
I go back to Bisham, Geoffrey to Lordington. I have a bad taste in my mouth every day on waking and I think it is the odor of cowardice. I am glad to get away from London, where my friend John Fisher and Thomas More are held in the Tower, and where Elizabeth Barton’s honest eyes stare from a spike on London Bridge until the ravens and the buzzards peck them away.
They create a new law, one that we never needed before. It is called the Treason Act, and it rules that anyone who wishes for the king’s death, or wills it, or desires it in either speech or writing or craft, or who promises any bodily harm to the king or his heirs, or who names him as a tyrant, is guilty of treason and will be done to death. When my cousin Henry Courtenay writes to me that this act has been passed and we must take great care in everything we commit to paper, I think that he need not warn me to burn his letter; burning writing is nothing, now we have to learn to forget our thoughts. I must never think that the king is a tyrant, I must forget the words his own mother said when she and his grandmother Queen Elizabeth wished for the end of his line.
Montague travels with the king as he goes on a long progress with his riding court of friends, and Thomas Cromwell sends out his own progress: a handful of his trusted men to discover the value of every religious house in England, of every size and order. Nobody knows exactly why the Lord Chancellor would want to know this; but nobody thinks that it bodes well for the rich, peaceful monasteries.
My poor princess hides in her bedroom at the palace of Hatfield, trying to avoid the bullying of Princess Elizabeth’s household. The queen has been moved again. Now she is imprisoned in a castle, Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire, a newly built tower with only one way in and out. Her governors, they might as well call them jailers, live on one side of the courtyard, the queen and her women and small household on the other side. They tell me she is ill.
The woman who calls herself queen stays at Greenwich Palace for the birth of her child, in the same royal apartments where Katherine and I endured her labors, hoping for a boy.
Apparently, they are certain that this one will be a son and heir. They have had physicians and astrologers and prophecies and they all say that a strong little boy baby is waiting to be born. They are so confident that the queen’s apartments at Eltham Palace have been converted into a grand nursery for the expected prince. A cradle of solid silver has been forged for him, and the maids-in-waiting are embroidering his linen with gold thread. He is to be called Henry, after his all-conquering father; he is to be born in the autumn and his christening will prove that the king is blessed by God and the woman who calls herself queen is right to do so.
My chaplain and confessor, John Helyar, comes to me as they are getting the harvest in. The great stacks are being built in the fields so that we will have hay for the winter; the corn is being brought by the wagonload to the granaries. I am standing at the granary door, my heart lifting with every load that pours down from the cart like golden rain. This will feed my people through the winter, this will make a profit for my estate. This material comfort is so great to me that it feels like the sin of gluttony.
John Helyar does not share my joy; his face is troubled as he begs me for a private word. “I can’t take the oath,” he says. “They’ve come to Bisham church, but I can’t bring myself to do it.”
“Geoffrey did,” I say. “And Montague. And me. We were the first to be called in. We did it. Now it is your turn.”
“Do you believe, in your hearts, that the king is the true head of the Church?” he asks me very quietly.
They are singing as the wagons come up the lane, the big oxen pulling in harness now as in spring they pulled the plow.
“I confessed to you the lie that I told,” I say quietly. “You know the sin that I undertook when I signed the oath. You know that I betrayed God and my queen and my beloved goddaughter the princess. And I failed my friends John Fisher and Thomas More. I repent of it every day of my life. Every day.”
“I know,” he says earnestly. “And I believe that God knows too, and that He forgives you.”
“But I had to do it. I can’t walk towards my death as John Fisher is doing,” I say piteously. “I can’t go willingly to the Tower. I have spent my life trying to keep out of the Tower. I can’t do it.”
“Neither can I,” he agrees. “So, with your permission, I’m going to leave England.”
I am so shocked that I turn and catch his hands. Some bawdy fool of a laborer whistles and someone else cuffs him. “We can’t talk here,” I say impatiently. “Come into the garden.”
We walk away from the noise of the granary yard, through the gate to the garden. There is a stone bench set into the wall, late roses still growing fat around it and dropping their scented petals. I sweep them off with my hand and sit down. He stands before me as if he thinks I am going to scold him. “Oh, sit down!”
He does as he is ordered and then is silent for a moment as if he is praying. “Truly, I cannot take the oath and I am too afraid of death. I am going to go abroad and I am asking you if there is any way that I can serve you.”
“In what way?”
He chooses his words carefully. “I can carry messages, for your sons. I can go to your kinsmen in Calais. I can travel to Rome to see the papal court and speak to them of the princess. I can go to the emperor and speak to him of his aunt the queen. I can discover what the English ambassadors are saying about us, and send you reports.”
“You are offering to be my spy,” I say flatly. “You are presuming that I want or need a spy and a courier. When you, of all people, know that I took the oath to be a loyal subject to the king and Queen Anne, and their heirs.”
He does not say anything. If he had protested that he was only making an offer to keep me in touch with my son, I would have known him as a spy from Cromwell, sent to lead us into danger. But he says nothing. He just bows his head and says: “As you wish, my lady.”
“Will you go anyway, without a commission from me?”
“If you cannot use me in this work, then I will try to find someone who can. Lord Thomas Darcy, Lord John Hussey, your kinsmen? I know there are many who have taken the oath against their wills. I will go to the Spanish ambassador and ask him if there is anything I can do. I believe that there are many lords who would want to know what Reginald is thinking and doing, what the Pope plans, what the emperor plans. I will serve the interests of the queen and the princess, whoever is my master.”
I pick a soft-petaled rose, a white rose, and I give it to him. “There’s your answer,” I say. “That’s your badge. Go to Geoffrey’s friend, his old steward, Hugh Holland, he will get you safely across the narrow seas. Then go to Reginald, tell him how things are with us, and then serve him and the princess as one. Tell him that the oath is too much for us all, that England is ready to rise, and he must tell us when.”