A MERRY PRISONER
The arrest of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and their committal to
the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in
England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that
greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who
had been loud in self-assertion now grew timorous and silent.
Ralph was now in the thick of events. Besides his connection with More,
he had been present at one of the examinations of the Maid of Kent and
her admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul’s Cross when
the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr.
Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents
were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition.
Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell’s
room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been
finally present, a few days after More’s arrest, at the last scene of
the drama, when Elizabeth Barton, with six priests, suffered, under the
provisions of an act of attainder, on Tyburn gallows.
All these events were indications of the course that things were taking
in regard to greater matters. Parliament had now advanced further than
ever in the direction of a breach with Rome, and had transferred the
power of nomination to bishoprics from the Holy See to the Crown, and,
what was at least as significant, had dealt in a similar manner with the
authority over Religious houses.
On the other side, Rome had declared definitely against the annulling of
Queen Katharine’s marriage, and to this the King had retorted by turning
the pulpits against the Pope, and in the course of this had found
himself compelled to deal sharply with the Franciscans, who were at the
same time the most popular and the most papal of all preachers. In the
following out of this policy, first several notable friars were
imprisoned, and next a couple of subservient Religious, a Dominican and
an Augustinian, were appointed grand visitors of the rebellious Order.
A cloud of terror now began to brood over the Religious houses in
England, as the news of these proceedings became known, and Ralph had a
piteous letter from his father, entreating him to give some explanation
of the course of affairs so far as was compatible with loyalty to his
master, and at least his advice as to Christopher’s profession.
“We hear sad tales, dear son,” wrote Sir James, “on all sides are fears,
and no man knows what the end will be. Some even say that the Orders
will be reduced in number. And who knows what may be toward now that the
Bishop and Mr. More are in trouble. I know not what is all this that
Parliament has been doing about the Holy Father his authority; but I am
sure that it cannot be more than what other reigns have brought about in
declaring that the Prince is temporal lord of his land. But, however
that may be, what do you advise that your brother should do? He is to be
professed in August, unless it is prevented, and I dare not put out my
hand to hinder it, until I know more. I do not ask you, dear son, to
tell me what you should not; I know my duty and yours too well for that.
But I entreat you to tell me what you can, that I may not consent to
your brother’s profession if it is better that it should not take place
until affairs are quieter. Your mother would send you her dear love, I
know, if she knew I were writing, but she is in her chamber, and the
messenger must go with this. Jesu have you in His blessed keeping!”
Ralph wrote back that he knew no reason against Christopher’s
profession, except what might arise from the exposure of the Holy Maid
on whose advice he had gone to Lewes, and that if his father and brother
were satisfied on that score, he hoped that Christopher would follow
God’s leading.
At the same time that he wrote this he was engaged, under Cromwell’s
directions, in sifting the evidence offered by the grand visitors to
show that the friars refused to accept the new enactments on the subject
of the papal jurisdiction.
* * * * *
On the other hand, the Carthusians in London had proved more submissive.
There had been a struggle at first when the oath of the succession had
been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey
Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the
nullity of Queen Katharine’s marriage with the King on the alleged
ground of her consummated marriage with Henry’s elder brother, and
involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the
time, a rejection of the Pope’s authority as connected with the
dispensation for Katharine’s union with Henry. In May their scruples
were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the
whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the
pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted “so far as it
was lawful for them so to do.” This actual submission, to Cromwell’s
mind and therefore to Ralph’s, was at first of more significance than
was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which
followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was
modified.
It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first
time of what was finally impending with regard to the King’s supremacy
over the Church.
He had been sitting in Cromwell’s room in the Chancery all through one
morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of
disaffection to Henry’s policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous
charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in
from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening
dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the
King’s adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of
this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen’s tables
alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and
the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or
warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.
Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the
point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.
“A moment,” he said, “I have something to say. Sit down.”
When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell
took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.
“You will have noticed,” he began, “how hot the feeling runs in the
country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It
is not so much what has happened,--I mean in the matter of the marriage
and of the friars,--but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to
the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that
their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that
matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the
Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand,
waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember
that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness.”
He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes.
Then he went on.
“I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly
right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is
yet one more step to take--and that is to declare the King supreme over
the Church of England.”
Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no
sign of approval or otherwise.
“This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon,” went on Cromwell, after a moment’s
silence. “The King of England has always been supreme, though I will
acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that
it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid
claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be
reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As
for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on,
and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud.
There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year,
to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until
that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks
quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace’s rights. Do you
understand me, Mr. Torridon?”
Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his
fingers together.
“I understand, sir,” said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.
“Well, that is all that I have to say,” ended his master, still watching
him. “I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter.”
Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better
what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already
trembling at the King’s effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was
meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of
the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and
that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite
perception of danger. The idea of the King’s supremacy, as represented
by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar
protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following
as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and
of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the
status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that
previous protests had lacked.
And behind it all was the King’s conscience! This was a new thought to
Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a
curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an
indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph’s mind a
glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto--of
a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a
theory--in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of
Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no
finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home
authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a
readjustment was needed--visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so
quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring
was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such
accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be
arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and
pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?
He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower,
and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For
a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit
him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of
his imprisonment, found him eager for news.
He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished
with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot;
his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little
table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of
wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his
servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been
taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among
his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the
warder.
“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “I knew you would
not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I
daresay you have come to give it me again, however.”
“If I thought you would take it,” began Ralph.
“But I will not,” said More smiling, “no more than before. Sit down, Mr.
Torridon.”
Ralph had come at Cromwell’s suggestion, and with a very great
willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more
than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to
think that he could serve his master’s interests from one side and his
own from another by one action.
He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had
taken it during the last week or two.
“I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience,” observed
More. “And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my
daughter’s sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both
the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and
Master Cromwell’s.”
Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He
gave him news of Chelsea.
“They are not very merry there,” he said, “and I hardly suppose you
would wish them to be.”
“Why not?” cried More, with a beaming face, “I am merry enough. I would
not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
have never been so happy.”
He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward
Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very
gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for
fear of the King’s displeasure.
“But I told him,” said More, “not to trouble himself that I liked his
cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out
of his doors.”
After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a
treatise called a “Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation.”
“It is to persuade myself,” he said, “that I am no more a prisoner than
I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God’s
prisoners.”
Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good
humour.
“Some prisoner of another gaol,” he read, “singeth, danceth in his two
fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God’s
prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth
groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would
fall on his foot no more than a cushion.”
* * * * *
Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them
news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been
half touched and half enraged by More’s bearing--touched by his
simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad
cause.
Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for
the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the
distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another;
deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband
in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast
majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in
accepting. She left nothing unsaid.
Finally, she apologized for the plainness of her dress.
“You must think me a slattern, Mr. Torridon, but I cannot help it. I
have not the heart nor the means, now that my man is in prison, to do
better.”
And her solemn eyes filled with tears.
When he had given the news to the family he went aside from the group in
the garden to where Beatrice Atherton was sitting below the Jesu tree,
with work on her lap.
He had noticed as he talked that she was sitting there, and had raised
his voice for her benefit. He fancied, and with a pleasure at the
delicate instinct, that she did not wish to appear as intimately
interested in the news from the Tower as those who had a better right to
be. He was always detecting now faint shades in her character, as he
knew her better, that charmed and delighted him.
She was doing some mending, and only glanced up and down again without
ceasing or moving, as Ralph stood by her.
“I thought you never used the needle,” he began in a moment.
“It is never too late to mend,” she said, without the faintest movement.
Ralph felt again an odd prick of happiness. It gave him a distinct
thrill of delight that she would make such an answer and so swiftly; and
at such a time, when tragedy was round her and in her heart, for he knew
how much she loved the man from whom he had just come.
He sat down on the garden chair opposite, and watched her fingers and
the movements of her wrist as she passed the needle in and out, and
neither spoke again till the others had dispersed.
“You heard all I said?” said Ralph at last.
She bowed her head without answering.
“Shall I go and bring you news again presently?”
“If you please,” she said.
“I hope to be able to do some little things for him,” went on Ralph,
dropping his eyes, and he was conscious that she momentarily looked up.
--“But I am afraid there is not much. I shall speak for him to Master
Cromwell and the Lieutenant.”
The needle paused and then went on again.
Ralph was conscious of an extraordinary momentousness in every word that
he said. He was well aware that this girl was not to be wooed by
violence, but that he must insinuate his mind and sympathies delicately
with hers, watching for every movement and ripple of thought. He had
known ever since his talk with Margaret Roper that Beatrice was, as it
were, turned towards him and scrutinising him, and that any mistake on
his part, however slight, might finally alienate her. Even his gestures,
the tones of his voice, his manner of walking, were important elements.
He knew now that he was the kind of person who might be acceptable to
her--or rather that his personality contained one facet that pleased
her, and that he must be careful now to keep that facet turned towards
her continually at such an angle that she caught the flash. He had
sufficient sense, not to act a part, for that, he knew, she would soon
discover, but to be natural in his best way, and to use the fine
instincts that he was aware of possessing to tell him exactly how she
would wish him to express himself. It would be a long time yet, he
recognised, before he could attain his final object; in fact he was not
perfectly certain what he wanted; but meanwhile he availed himself of
every possible opportunity to get nearer, and was content with his
progress.
He was sorely tempted now to discuss Sir Thomas’s position and to
describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that
it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that
it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a
suggestion of a tremor in her voice.
“I suppose you can do nothing for him really? He must stay in the
Tower?”
Ralph threw out his hands, silently, expostulating.
“Nothing?” she said again, bending over her work.
Ralph stood up, looking down at her, but made no answer.
“I--I would do anything,” she said deliberately, “anything, I think, for
the man--” and then broke off abruptly.
* * * * *
Ralph went away from Chelsea that afternoon with a whirling head and
dancing heart. She had said no more than that, but he knew what she had
meant, and knew, too that she would not have said as much to anyone to
whom she was indifferent. Of course, it was hopeless to think of
bringing about More’s release, but he could at least pretend to try, and
Ralph was aware that to chivalrous souls a pathetic failure often
appeals more than an excellent success.
Folks turned to look after him more than once as he strode home.