Stephen Gardiner is shifting in his seat. While Cranmer makes his case he keeps up a buzz of commentary, no doubt too low for the king to hear. Bishop Shaxton shushes him. Hugh Latimer glares at him. Stephen ignores them, and even before Cranmer has finished he is on his feet.
Cuthbert Tunstall says, ‘My lord of Winchester, I believe I am listed to speak next?’
Gardiner bares his teeth.
Tunstall looks about for help. ‘Gentlemen?’
Cranmer slumps in his chair. Hugh Latimer says, ‘Perhaps the Vicegerent is next?’
He, Cromwell, holds up a palm: not I.
Bishop Shaxton is waving the list. ‘You are number six, Gardiner. Sit down!’
The Bishop of Winchester takes no notice at all. He just carries on, talking a man to death, tripping him and goading him into the flames where he will scream and bleed.
Two o’clock. The king is magisterial. He is nimble, he is trenchant; he is, at times, humble. He does not want to kill Lambert, that is of no interest to him. He wants to out-reason him: so that in the end, Lambert will crumple and confess: ‘Sire, you are the better theologian: I am instructed, enlightened and saved by you.’
You would not hear François engage with a subject in close debate, nor would he be capable of it. You would not find the Emperor fighting to save the life of a miserable subject. They would bring in their Inquisitors, and break Lambert in the torture room.
He, Cromwell, thinks of the tournament, the score sheet, the record of each atteint: broken on the body. Each time the king collects his horse and couches his lance, he pauses, makes Lambert some kind of offer. A prospect of mercy. Your life – if you withdraw, concede, and then beg. Asked if he believes in Purgatory, Lambert says, ‘I believe in tribulation. One may go through Purgatory in this world.’
‘It is a trick,’ Hugh Latimer mutters. ‘The king does not believe in Purgatory himself.’
‘Well, not today,’ Gardiner says.
Three o’clock: piss break. Origen cited, St Jerome, Chrysostom, the prophet Isaiah. Outside, Gardiner says, ‘I cannot think why the old charges against Lambert were ever dropped. A change of archbishop is no excuse. You should have been on top of that, Cromwell.’
Stokesley says, ‘You don’t seem to be taking much interest in the case, my lord Privy Seal.’
‘I wonder why,’ Gardiner says. He spies Latimer. ‘What about you, are you profiting from the king’s learning?’
Hugh growls like a terrier before a bull.
It takes some time for all the spectators to file to their places, to cease coughing and settle. Then all eyes turn to him, the king’s Vicegerent. He lurches to his feet. ‘Majesty, having heard your reasoning, and that of the bishops, I have nothing to add, and I do not think anything is wanting.’
‘What?’ Gardiner says behind him. ‘Nothing is wanting? Go on, Cromwell, reason on the case. You think no one wants to hear you? I want to hear you.’
The king glares. Gardiner throws up his hands, as if in apology.
It is Lambert’s turn to speak. And turns are observed – except by Stephen. Lambert has negotiated himself from his knees to his feet, but four hours have gone by and nobody has offered him a chair. Twilight: his shoulders sag. The torches come in. As their light plays over the faces of the bishops, the king says, ‘It is time, Lambert. You have heard all these learned men. So now, what do you think? Have we persuaded you? Will you live or die?’
Lambert says, ‘I commend my soul into God’s hands. My body, into your Majesty’s. I submit to your judgement. I rest in your clemency.’
Don’t, he thinks. Not there.
Henry says, ‘You hold the sacrament of the altar to be a puppet show.’
‘No,’ Lambert says.
The king holds up a hand. ‘You say it is an illusion. That it is an image only, or figure. You are confounded by one text, the words of Jesus: Hoc est corpus meum. It is the plainest text of all. I will not be a patron to heretics. My lord Cromwell, read the sentence against this man.’
He picks up the documents. In such cases they are prepared in advance. Stokesley says he alone has burned fifty heretics, and even if he is just bragging, there is a form for the next part of the procedure that is well-rehearsed. He stands.
‘Give it good and loud,’ Stokesley says. ‘Let us hear you at last, my lord Cromwell. Leave the wretch in no doubt as to his fate.’
After the edict is read, the guards take Lambert out. The king inclines his head to his audience, with the sober piety of a churchman: which, for this afternoon, he has been. When he lifts his chin, his expression is exalted.
At a signal, the trumpeters step into the hall. They blow a fanfare to see the king out. Six trumpeters. Sixteen pence each. Eight shillings for the treasury to find. The king is thinking of forming a new guard, called the Gentlemen Spears, with new livery. The way he’s going, he’ll want trumpeters every hour.
Barely six o’clock, but black night outside. The winter has taken its iron grip. ‘That was grim,’ Rafe says.
He agrees. ‘Poor fellow.’
Rafe says, ‘I did not mean Lambert. He brought it on himself.’
‘I believe Gardiner brought it on him.’ He is angry. ‘He sets his claws back on English soil and this occurs. I think he has been to the king behind my back. I think he has been pulling at his sleeve – telling him how the French are disgusted at our reformation, how the Emperor is appalled – how he must prove himself a good Roman at heart. As if his great cause is some silly quarrel that can be patched within a fortnight, and seven years’ work dismissed –’
‘It is too late now for a speech,’ Rafe says.
His household guard is here, ready to take him home. The crowds are dispersing. The fanfares are done, the trumpeters are strolling away. He calls them over, reaches in his pocket to give them some drinking money. They touch their caps to him. He turns back to Rafe. ‘I hope it does not seem I disdained the king’s efforts. I did not. He reasoned very well.’
Rafe says, ‘It appeared that you did not know what to do.’
He thinks, I did know. But I didn’t do it. I could have given my voice for Lambert. Or at least walked out.
‘Barnes played the hypocrite,’ he says. ‘But for the grace of God he would be standing there himself, accused.’
Rafe says, ‘Rob has done himself no harm today.’
Rafe leaves the rest unsaid. They go out into the cold. He thinks, I could have quoted, I could have cited. What has all my reading been for?
He puts his arm across Rafe’s shoulders. Rafe never fleshes; he is no hunter nor tennis-player, he is meagre as a boy, breakable. ‘Never fear,’ he says. ‘We shall prosper, son.’ The cold stings their faces.
It is not many days till the burning. He sends to Lambert food and drink, words of consolation and pity, but he asks himself, how can these be received? He knows I did not speak for him. I sat in the cockpit among those eager hard-eyed men, with the taste of blood in their mouths, and I did not lift a finger. Or raise my voice, except to read the sentence. But if the king would not consult me, what could I do? In all of The Book Called Henry, there is no precedent for it.
John Lambert’s end is a grand occasion. At Smithfield there are stands for the dignitaries, hung with the emblems of England, furnished with plush cushions. Every councillor is on parade, who is not actually sick in bed: each man hung with his chains of office, and the Garter badge for the elite. Seats with the best view are reserved for the principal ambassadors, for Castillon and Chapuys.
The day is a fiesta of pain. He has never seen a man suffer so. A spectator cannot make his eyes blind. He can only close them for moments together. He thinks, thank God that Gregory is safe down in Sussex. He could not look when Anne Boleyn died, and that was but a heartbeat: less.