your work will not perish, for He who guides the destinies of men and
nations uses all and each for His purposes. Not long ago it was a pure
virgin who saved France; now it is not quite so blameless a man. But
your work, sire, was in its result of greater importance than that
of the Maid, for you have completed what the Roman Caesar began. The
hundred-year war with England is over, the Armagnacs and Burgundians
quarrel no more, the Jacquerie war has ceased, and the peasants have
returned to their ploughs. You have united eleven provinces, France has
become one land, one people, and will now take the place of Rome, which
will disappear and be forgotten for centuries, perhaps some day to rise
again. France will guide the destinies of Europe, and be great among the
crowned heads, so long as it does not aim at empire like the Rome of the
Caesars, for then it will be all over with it. Thank God that you have
been able to be of service, though in ignorance of the will and purposes
of your Lord, when you thought you were only going your own way!”
“Montjoie Saint Denis!” exclaimed the King. “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy
servant depart in peace.”
“But not here,” broke in the Doctor, who was tired of the whole
business. “Travel back to Tours, take the priest with you, and leave me
in peace!”
The King returned to Plessis-les-Tours, where he ended his days after
severe sufferings. He did not obtain peace, but he did obtain death.
“Now the rod is thrown into the fire,” said Doctor Coctier, “let
it burn; the children have grown up, and can look after themselves.
Executioners also have their uses, as Tristan L’Ermite and his master
Louis XI know. Peace be with them.”
OLD MERRY ENGLAND
Cardinal Wolsey’s oared galley pushed off from the Tower Bridge, below
the iron gateway. It gleamed with red and gold; flags and sails flapped
lazily in a gentle breeze. The Cardinal sat on the stern-deck surrounded
by his little court; most of his attendants he had left at home in
York Palace, later known as Whitehall. His face was red both from the
reflection of his red dress as from the wine which he had been drinking
at noon with King Henry VIII in the Tower, and also from the new French
sickness, which was very fashionable, as everything French was.
He was in a cheerful mood, for he had just received fresh proofs of the
King’s favour.
At his side stood the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Both were
parvenus. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, Cromwell the son of a smith,
and that was probably one of the causes of their friendship, although
the Cardinal was by twenty years the elder of the two.
“This is a happy day,” said Wolsey joyfully, and cast a glance up at the
Tower, which was still a royal residence, though it was soon to cease to
be one. “I have obtained the head of Buckingham, that fool who believed
he had a right of succession to the crown.”
“Who has the right of succession,” asked Cromwell, “since there is no
male heir, and none is expected?”
“I will soon see to that! Katherine of Aragon is weak and old, but the
King is young and strong.”
“Remember Buckingham,” said Cromwell; “it is dangerous to meddle with
the succession to the throne.”
“Nonsense! I have guided England’s destiny hitherto, and will guide it
further.”
Cromwell saw that it was time to change the topic.
“It is a good thing that the King is leaving the Tower. It must
be depressing for him to have only a wall between himself and the
prisoners, and to see the scaffold from his windows.”
“Don’t talk against our Tower! It is a Biblia Pauperum, an illustrated
English History comprising the Romans, King Alfred, William the
Conqueror, and the Wars of the Roses. I was fourteen years old when
England found its completion at the battle of Bosworth, and the thirty
years’ War of the Roses came to an end with the marriage between York
and Lancaster....”
“My father used to talk of the hundred years’ war with France, which
ended in the same year in which Constantinople was taken by the
Turks--_i.e._ 1453.”
“Yes, all countries are baptized in blood; that is the sacrament of
circumcision, and see what fertility follows this manuring with blood!
You don’t know that apple-trees bear most fruit after a blood-bath.”
“Yes I do; my father always used to bury offal from butchers’ shops at
the root of fruit-trees.”
Here he stopped and coloured, for he had made a slip with his tongue. In
the Cardinal’s presence no one dared to speak of slaughter or the
like, for he was hated by the people, and often called “The Butcher.”
Cromwell, however, was above suspicion, and the Cardinal did not take
his remark ill, but saved the situation.
“Moreover,” he continued, “my present was well received by the King;
Hampton Court is also a treasure, and has the advantage of being near
Richmond and Windsor, but can naturally not bear comparison with York
Place.”
The galley was rowed up the river, on whose banks stood the most stately
edifices which existed at the time. They passed by customhouses and
warehouses, fishmarkets, and fishers’ landing-places; the pinnacles
of the Guildhall or Council House; the Convent of Blackfriars, the old
Church of St. Paul’s; the Temple, formerly inhabited by the Templars,
now a court of justice; the Hospital of St. James, subsequently
appropriated by Henry VIII and made a palace. Finally they reached York
Place (Whitehall) by Westminster, where Wolsey, the Cardinal and Papal
Legate, Archbishop of York and Keeper of the Great Seal, dwelt with his
court, comprising about eight hundred persons, including court ladies.
Then they disembarked after conversing on ordinary topics; for the
Cardinal preferred discussing trifles when he had great schemes in hand,
and that which occupied him especially just now was his candidature for
the papacy.
* * * * *
Sir Thomas More, the King’s Treasurer and Privy Councillor, sat in his
garden at Chelsea above Westminster. He was correcting proofs, for he
was a great scholar, and wrote on all the controversial questions of the
day, religious and political, though he was essentially a man of peace,
living in this suburb an idyllic life with his family.
He wore his best attire, although in the house and at work. He also
showed signs of disquietude, looking now and then towards the door,
for at an early hour of the day no one less than the King had sent an
intimation of his intention to pay him a visit. He knew from experience
how dangerous it was to be on intimate terms with the King and to share
his secrets. His sovereign had the bad habit of asking for advice which
he did not follow, and of imparting secrets the knowledge of which often
cost his confidants their heads. The most dangerous thing of all was to
undertake to act as intermediary between Henry and anyone else, for then
one fell between two millstones.
With a mind prepared for the worst, More tried to quiet himself by
reading his proofs, but his efforts were vain. He rose and began to walk
up and down the garden path, went over in his mind all possible causes
of the King’s coming, rehearsed answers to objections, refutations of
arguments, and ways of modifying the King’s too strong views without
causing offence.
Henry was certainly a learned man, who had a respect for knowledge,
but he had a savage nature which he tried to tame with the scourge of
religion, though without success.
The clank of armour and tramp of horses was now audible, and the
Treasurer hastened, cap in hand, to the garden gate.
The King had already dismounted from his horse, and hastened towards his
friend, carrying a portfolio in his hand.
“Thomas,” he said without any preface, “take and read! He has answered
me! Who? Luther, of course! He--the man whose mind reeks like carrion,
and whose practices are damnable--has answered my book, _The Babylonish
Captivity_. Take and read what he says, and tell me if you have ever
seen anything like it.”
He gave the Treasurer a printed pamphlet. “And then this devil of a liar
says I have not written my book myself. Take and read it, and give me
your advice.”
More began to read Luther’s answer to Henry’s attack. He read it to
himself, and often found it hard to remain serious, although the King
kept his eyes fixed on his face in order to read his thoughts.
Among other things, Luther had written: “It matters nothing to me
whether King Heinz or Kunz, the Devil or Hell itself, has composed this
book. He who lies is a liar--therefore I fear him not. It seems to me
that King Henry has provided an ell or two of coarse stuff for this
mantle, and that the poisonous fellow Leus (Leo X), who wrote against
Erasmus, or someone of his sort, has cut and lined the hood. But I will
help them--please God--by ironing it and attaching bells to it.”
More felt that he must say something or lose his head, so he said: “That
is monstrous! That is quite monstrous!”
“Go on!” exclaimed Henry.
After saying that he postponed the discussion of the other six
sacraments, Luther added: “I am busy in translating the Bible into
German, and cannot stir up Heinz’s dirt any more.”
The Treasurer was nearly choking with suppressed laughter, but he felt
the sword suspended over his head, and continued: “But I will give the
poisonous liar and blasphemer, King Heinz, once for all, a complete
answer, and stop his mouth.... Therefore he thinks to hang on to the
Pope and play the hypocrite before him.... Therefore they mutually
caress and tickle each other like a pair of mule’s ears....”
“No, sire,” More broke off, “I cannot go on; it is high treason to read
it.”
“I will read,” said the King, and took the pamphlet from him:
“‘I conquer and defy Papists, Thomists, Henrys, Sophists, and all the
swine of hell!’ He calls us swine!”
“He is a madman who ought to be beaten to death with iron bars or hunted
in a forest with bloodhounds.”
“Yes, he ought! But imagine!--this scoundrel gives himself out for a
prophet and servant of Christ. And he has married a nun. That is incest!
But he has been punished for it. The Kurfürst of Saxony has abandoned
him, and none of his so-called friends went to the wedding....”
“What is his object? What is his new teaching? Justification through
faith. If one only believes, one may live like a swine!”
“And his doctrine about the Communion. The Church says the Elements are
changed by consecration, but this materialist says they actually _are_
Christ’s Body and Blood. Then the corn in the field and the grapes in
the vineyard are already Christ’s Body and Blood! He is an ass! And the
world is mad.”
“And the consequence,--sin with impunity! Sire, allow me to read some
lines, which I have written as an answer, not to these but to his other
follies--only some lines which I hope to add to.”
“Read! I listen when you speak, for I have learnt to listen, and,
through that, I know something.”
The King sat down astride on a chair, as though he would ride against
his formidable foe.
“Honourable brother,” read More, “father, drinker runaway from the
Augustinian Order, clumsy tipsy reveller of the worldly and spiritual
kingdoms, ignorant teacher of sacred theology.”
“Good, Thomas; he knows no theology!”
“And this is the way he composed his book against King Henry, the
Defender of Our Faith: he collected his stable-companions, and
commissioned them to collect all manner of abuse and bad language, each
in his own department. One of them among carters and boatmen; another
in baths and gaming-houses; a third in barbers’ shops and restaurants;
a fourth in mills and brothels. They wrote down in their note-books
the most daring, dirtiest, and vulgarest expressions which they heard,
brought home all that was coarse and nasty, and emptied it into a
disgusting drain, called Luther’s soul.”
“Good! Very good! But what shall we do now?”
“Burn the rubbish, sire, and make an end of the matter.”
“Yes, I will have his heresies burnt to-morrow at St. Paul’s Cross in
the City.”
* * * * *
In the great library of the Temple sat the King and Cardinal Wolsey,
examining collections of laws and precedents. Outside in the garden the
Queen was walking with some of the court ladies. This garden--really
a large rose-garden--had been preserved as a promenade for the royal
personages who could not sleep in the Tower, because it was haunted, and
did not retain their health in the insignificant Bride-well in the City;
it was also preserved as a place of historical interest, for here the
adherents of Lancaster and York were said to have plucked the red and
white roses as their respective badges.
Queen Katherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the
patrons of Christopher Columbus, had now, after twenty years’ marriage
with Henry VIII, reached a certain age. She had borne him several sons,
but all had died: only one, a daughter, lived, known later on as Queen,
under the title “Bloody Mary.” Katherine had aged early, and sought
comfort in religion; she used to rise at night and attend mass in the
garb of a Franciscan nun. She knew of the King’s unfaithfulness, but
accepted it quietly; she had heard the name of Elizabeth Blunt, but
ignored it.
Now she sat on a seat, and watched her young attendants playing, while
she turned over the pages of her prayer book. One pair especially her
eyes followed with pleasure--the uncommonly beautiful Anna of Norfolk
and young Henry Algernon Percy of Northumberland, Hotspur’s descendant.
The pair were playing with roses; the youth had an armful of white and
the girl an armful of red roses, which they threw at each other, singing
as they lid so.
It was a beautiful sight, but the Queen became sad: “Don’t play like
that, children,” she said; “it awakens memories which ought to sleep in
the Tower, where Only the dead can sleep quietly. Besides, the King, and
consequently the Cardinal, will be vexed; they sit there in the library.
Play something else!”
The two young people seemed not to understand. Accordingly the Queen
continued: “The Wars of the Roses, children, did not end altogether at
Bosworth but--in the Tower happened much that is best forgotten. Take a
book and read something.”
“We have been reading all the morning,” answered Anne surnamed Boleyn or
Bullen.
“What are you reading then?
“Chaucer.”
“_The Canterbury Tales_? Those are not for children: Chaucer was a
jester. You had better take my book. It has beautiful pictures.” The
young Percy took the little breviary, and, going down the path as though
they sought the shade, they both quietly disappeared from the Queen’s
eyes.
But from the library four eyes had followed them, those of the King and
the Cardinal, while they turned over the folios.
The King was uneasy, and spoke more for the sake of speaking than
because he had something to say, and so did the Cardinal.
“You ought to aim at the Papacy, Cardinal, as Hadrian’s successor.”
“Yes, so they say.”
“What about the votes?”
“They are controlled by the Emperor Charles V and King Francis I.”
“How can one bring such a discordant pair into harmony?”
“That is just what requires diplomatic skill, sire.”
“You cannot stand on good terms with both.”
“Who knows? The Emperor has taken Rome, and placed the Pope in the
Castle of St. Angelo ... that was a droll stroke! Then the soldiers in
jest, under the windows of the Castle, called out for Martin Luther as
Pope.”
“Name not his cursed name,” growled the King, but more in anger at what
he saw in the rose-garden than at the mention of Luther.
The Cardinal understood him. “I do not like a union between
Northumberland and Norfolk,” he said.
“What do you say?” asked the King. He was angry that Wolsey had read his
thoughts, but did not wish to betray himself.
“Anne is really too good for a Percy, and I find it improper of the
Queen to act as a match-maker, and let them go alone in the shrubbery.
No, that must have an end!”
“Sire, it is already at an end; I have written to Anne’s father to call
her home to Hever.”
“You did well in that, by heaven! Two such families, who both aim at the
succession, ought not to unite.”
“Who is there that does _not_ aim at the throne? Just now it was
Buckingham, now it is Northumberland, and only because there is no
proper heir. Sire, you must consider the country, and your people, and
name a successor.”
“No! I will not have anyone waiting for my decease.”
“Then we shall have the Wars of the Roses again, which cost England a
million men and eighty of our noblest families.”
The King smiled. “Our noblest!” Then he rose and stepped to the window:
“I must now accompany the Queen home,” he said. “She has gone to sleep
outside, and this damp is not good for her in her weak condition.”
“At her Majesty’s age one must be very careful,” replied the Cardinal.
He emphasized the word _age_, for Katherine was forty, and gave no more
hopes of an heir to the throne. Her daughter Mary might certainly be
married, but one did not know to whom.
“Sire,” he continued, “do not be angry, but I have just now opened the
Holy Scripture.... It may be an accident--will you listen?”
“Speak.”
“In the third Book of Moses, the twentieth and twenty-first chapters, I
read the following--but you will not be angry with your servant?”
“Read.”
“These are the Lord’s solemn words: ‘If any man take his brother’s wife,
it is evil; they shall be childless.’”
The King was excited, and approached the Cardinal.
“Is that there? Yes, truly! God has punished me by taking my sons one
after the other. What a wonderful book, in which everything is written!
That is the reason then! But what says Thomas Aquinas, the ‘Angel’ of
the Schoolmen?”
“Yes, sire, if you wish the matter elucidated, we must consult the
learned.”
“Let us do so,--but quietly and cautiously. The Queen is blameless, and
nothing evil must happen to her. Quietly and cautiously, Wolsey! But I
must know the truth.”
* * * * *
In a room near the “Bloody Tower,” the Cardinal and More were carrying
on a lively conversation.
“What is happening now in Germany?” asked the Cardinal.
“While Luther was in the Wartburg, his pupil Karlstadt came to
Wittenberg, and turned everything upside down. Citing the prohibition
of images in the Old Testament, he stirred up students and the rabble to
attack the churches and throw all sacred objects outside.”
“That’s the result of the Bible! To give it into the hands of the
unlearned means letting hell loose.”
“Then....”
“What did Luther say to that?”
“He hurried down from the Wartburg and denounced Karlstadt and his
followers, but I cannot say that he confuted them. A councillor quoted
the book of Moses, ‘Thou shalt not make to thee any image nor likeness.’
And a shoemaker answered, ‘I have often taken off my hat before images
in a room or in the street; but that is idolatry, and robs God of the
glory which belongs to Him alone.’”
“What did Luther say?”
“That then, on account of occasional misuse, one must kill all the
women, and pour all the wine into the streets.”
“That was a stupid saying; but that is the result of disputing with
shoemakers. Besides, it is degrading to compare women to wine! He is a
coarse fellow who sets his wife on the same level with a beer-barrel.”
“Logic is not his strong point, and his comparisons halt on crutches. In
his answer to the Pope’s excommunication, he writes, among other things:
‘If a hay-cart must move out of the way of a drunken man, how much more
must Peter and Jesus Christ keep out of the way of the Pope?’”
“That is a pretty simile! Let us return to James Bainham.”
“But let me tell you a little more about the fanatics in Germany.
Besides Karlstadt and his followers, other enthusiasts, quoting the
Bible and Luther, have had themselves rebaptized; their leader has taken
ten wives, supporting his action by the example of David, Solomon, and
even Abraham.”
“The Bible again!--Call in Bainham, and then we will hear how the matter
stands! He was a lawyer in the Temple, you say, and has been spreading
Luther’s teaching. Have we not had enough of Wycliffe and the
Lollards? Must we have the same thing again, grunted out by this German
plagiariser?”
“I am not an intolerant man,” said More, “but a State must be
homogeneous, or it will fall to pieces. Ignoramuses and lunatics must
not come forward and sniff at the State religion, be it better or
worse.”
“Let Bainham come, and we will hear him.”
More went to a door which was guarded on the outside by soldiers, and
gave an order.
“You examine him, and I will listen,” said the Cardinal.
After a time Bainham was brought into the room in chains.
More sat at the end of a table, and commenced.
“James Bainham, can you declare your belief in a few words?”
“I believe in God’s Word--_i.e._ the whole of Holy Scripture.”
“Do you really--in the Old as well as the New Testament?”
“In both.”
“In the Old also?”
“In both.”
“Very well, then, you believe in the Old Testament. Now, you have had
yourself baptized again, for the Bible says, ‘Go, and teach all nations
and baptize them.’ Good. But have you had yourself circumcised, as the
Bible commands?”
Bainham looked confounded, and the Cardinal had to turn his head, in
order not to smile.
“I am not an Israelite,” answered Bainham.
“No! but Nathanael, who sought our Saviour and believed on him, was
called by John ‘an Israelite indeed.’ If you are not an ‘Israelite
indeed,’ you are not a Christian.”
“I cannot answer that.”
“No, you cannot answer, but you can preach and talk rubbish. Are you a
Lutheran?”
“Yes.”
“But Luther is against the Anabaptists; therefore he is against you, and
he has asked the princes to kill the Anabaptists like wild dogs. Are you
still a Lutheran?”
“Yes, according to his early teaching.”
“You mean justification by faith. What do you believe?”
“I believe in God the Father....”
“Who is the Father? In Luther’s catechism it is written, ‘Thou shalt
have none other Gods but me.’ But that is the Law of Moses, and it is
Jehovah who is intended there. If you believe in Jehovah, then you are a
Jew, are you not?”
“I believe also on Christ the Son of God.”
“Then you are a Jew-Christian! So you have admitted that you are a
Lutheran, Anabaptist, Jew, and Christian--all this together. You are a
fool, and you don’t know what you are. But that may be passed over, if
you do not seduce others.”
“Give him a flogging,” said the Cardinal, who did not like the turn the
conversation had taken, especially the challenging of the Bible, which
just now he wished to use for his own purposes.
“He has already had that,” answered More, “but besides his doctrine,
this conceited man, who wants to make himself popular, belongs to a
society which circulates a bad translation of the Bible.” “You see
yourself,” he continued, turning to Bainham, “what Bible reading leads
to, and I demand that you give up the names of your fellow-criminals.”
“That I will never do! The just shall live by his faith.”
“Will you call yourself just, when there is no one just? Read the Book
of Job, and you will see. And your belief is really too eccentric to be
counted to you for righteousness.”
“Send him down in the cellar to Master Mats! Must one listen to such
nonsense! Away with him!”
More pointed to the door, and Bainham went out.
“Yes,” said Wolsey, “what is there in front of us? Schisms,
sectarianism, struggles. If we only had an heir to the throne.”
“We cannot get the King divorced.”
“You yourself have spoken the word. There is no need for divorce,
because his marriage is null.”
“Is it? How do you prove that?”
“From the third book of Moses, the twentieth and twenty-first chapters:
‘If any one taketh his brother’s wife, it is evil.’”
“Yes, but in the fifth book of Moses, five and twentieth chapter, fifth
verse, it is commanded.”
“What, in Christ’s name, are you saying?”
“Certainly it is: ‘If brothers dwell together, and one die without
children, his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed to his
brother.”
“Damnation! This cursed book.”
“Moreover: Abraham married his half-sister; Jacob married two sisters:
Moses’ father married his aunt.”
“That is the Bible, is it? Thank you! Then I prefer the Decretals and
the Councils. The Pope must dissolve the marriage.”
“Is it then to be dissolved?”
“Didn’t you know? Yes, it is. If Julius II could grant a dispensation,
Clement VII can grant an absolution.”
“It is not just towards the Queen.”
“The country demands it--the kingdom--the nation! The King’s
conscience....”
“Oh! is it the fair Anne?”
“No, not she!”
“Is it....”
“Don’t ask any more.”
“Then I answer, Margaret of Valois.”
“I give no answer at all, but I am not responsible for your life, if you
talk out of season! The Bible won’t help you there.”
“It would be a useful reform, if we could cancel the Old Testament as a
Jewish book.”