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HOUSE OF TORMENT
A Tale of the Remarkable Adventures of Mr. John Commendone
Gentleman to King Philip II of Spain at the English Court
by
C. RANGER-GULL
Author of "The Serf," etc.
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1911
Published September, 1911
The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
Rahway, N. J.
DEDICATION TO DAVID WHITELAW
SOUVENIR OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP
_My dear David,_
_Since I first met you, considerably more than a decade ago, in
a little studio high up in a great London building, we have
both seen much water flow under the bridges of our lives._
_We have all sorts of memories, have we not?_
_Late midnights and famishing morrows, in the gay hard days
when we were endeavouring to climb the ladder of our Art; a
succession of faces, a welter of experiences. Some of us fell
in the struggle; others failed and still haunt the reprobate
purlieus of Fleet Street and the Strand! There was one who
achieved a high and delicate glory before he died--"Tant va la
cruche a l'eau qu'a la fin elle se casse."_
_There is another who is slowly and surely finding his way to a
certainty of fame._
_And the rest of us have done something, if not--as yet--all we
hoped to do. At any rate, the slopes of the first hills lie
beneath us. We are in good courage and resolute for the
mountains._
_The mist eddies and is spiralled below in the valleys from
which we have come, but already we are among the deep sweet
billows of the mountain winds, and I think it is because we
have both found our "Princess Galvas" that we have got this far
upon the way._
_We may never stand upon the summit and find that tempest of
fire we call the Sun full upon us. But the pleasure of going on
is ours still--there will always be that._
_Ever your friend,
C. RANGER-GULL._
CONTENTS
I IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES
II THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY
III THE MEETING WITH JOHN HULL AT CHELMSFORD
IV PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON
V THE FINDING OF ELIZABETH
VI A KING AND A VICTIM. TWO GRIM MEN
VII HEY HO! AND A RUMBELOW!
VIII "WHY, WHO BUT YOU, JOHNNIE!"
IX "MISERICORDIA ET JUSTITIA"
X THE SILENT MEN IN BLACK
XI IN THE BOX
XII "TENDIMUS IN LATIUM"
CHAPTER I
IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES
Sir Henry Commendone sat upon an oak box clamped with bands of iron and
watched his son completing his morning toilette.
"And how like you this life of the Court, John?" he said.
The young man smoothed out the feather of his tall cone-shaped hat.
"Truly, father," he answered, "in respect of itself it seems a very good
life, but in respect that it is far from the fields and home it is
naught. But I like it very well. And I think I am likely to rise high. I
am now attached to the King Consort, by the Queen's pleasure. His
Highness has spoken frequently with me, and I have my commission duly
written out as _caballerizo_."
"I never could learn Spanish," the elder man replied, wagging his head.
"Father Chilches tried to teach me often of an afternoon when you were
hawking. What does the word mean in essence?"
"Groom of the body, father--equerry. It is doubtless because I speak
Spanish that it hath been given me."
"Very like, Johnnie. But since the Queen, God bless her, has come to the
throne, and England is reconciled to Holy Church, thou wert bound to
get a post at Court. They could not ignore our name. I wrote to the
Bishop of London myself, he placed my request before the Queen's Grace,
and hence thou art here and in high favour."
The young man smiled. "Which I shall endeavour to keep," he answered.
"And now I must soon go to the Queen's lodging. I am in attendance on
King Philip."
"And I to horse with my men at noon and so home to Kent. I am glad to
have seen thee, Johnnie, in thy new life, though I do not love London
and the Court. But tell me of the Queen's husband. The neighbours will
all want news of him. It's little enough they like the Spanish match in
Kent. Give me a picture of him."
"I have been at Court a month," John Commendone answered, "and I have
learned more than one good lesson. There is a Spanish saying that runs
this way, '_Palabras y plumas viento las Heva_' (Words and feathers are
carried far by the wind). I will tell you, father, but repeat nothing
again. Kent is not far away, and I have ambition."
Sir Henry chuckled. "Prudent lad," he said; "thou art born to be about a
palace. I'll say nothing."
"Well then, here is your man, a pedant and a fool, a stickler for little
trifles, a very child for detail. Her Grace the Queen and all the nobles
speak many languages. Every man is learned now. His Highness speaks but
Spanish, though he has a little French. Never did I see a man with so
small a mind, and yet he thinks he can see deep down into men's hearts
and motives, and knows all private and public affairs."
Sir John whistled. He plucked at one of the roses of burnt silver
embroidered upon the doublet of green tissue he was wearing--the gala
dress which he had put on for his visit to Court, a garment which was a
good many years behind the fashion, but thought most elegant by his
brother squires in Kent.
"So!" he said, "then this match will prove as bad for the country as all
the neighbours are saying. Still, he is a good Catholic, and that is
something."
John nodded carelessly. "More so," he replied, "than is thought becoming
to his rank and age by many good Catholics about the Court. He is as
regular at mass, sermons, and vespers as a monk--hath a leash of friars
to preach for his instruction, and disputes in theology with others half
the night till Her Grace hath to send one of her gentlemen to bid him
come to bed."
"Early days for that," said the Kentish gentleman, "though, in faith,
the Queen is thirty-eight and----"
John started. "Whist!" he said. "I'm setting you an evil example, sir.
Long ears abound in the Tower. I'll say no more."
"I'm mum, Johnnie," Sir Henry replied. "I'll break in upon thee no more.
Get on with thy tale."
"'Tis a bargain then, sir, and repeat nothing I tell you. I was saying
about His Highness's religion. He consults Don Diego Deza, a Dominican
who is his confessor, most minutely as to all the actions of life,
inquiring most anxiously if this or that were likely to burden his
conscience. And yet--though Her Grace suspects nothing--he is of a very
gross and licentious temper. He hath issued forth at night into the
city, disguised, and indulged himself in the common haunts of vice. I
much fear me that he will command me to go with him on some such
expedition, for he begins to notice me more than any others of the
English gentlemen in his company, and to talk with me in the Spanish
tongue...."
The elder man laughed tolerantly.
"Every man to his taste," he said; "and look you, Johnnie, a prince is
wedded for state reasons, and not for love. The ox hath his bow, the
faulcon his bells, and as pigeon's bill man hath his desire and would be
nibbling!"
John Commendone drew himself up to his full slim height and made a
motion of disgust.
"'Tis not my way," he said. "Bachelor, I hunt no fardingales, nor would
I do so wedded."
"God 'ild you, Johnnie. Hast ever taken a clean and commendable view of
life, and I love thee for it. But have charity, get you charity as you
grow older. His Highness is narrow, you tell me; be not so yourself.
Thou art not a little pot and soon hot, but I think thou wilt find a
fire that will thaw thee at Court. A young man must get experience. I
would not have thee get through the streets with a bragging look nor
frequent the stews of town. But young blood must have its May-day.
Whilst can, have thy May-day, Johnnie. Have thy door shadowed with green
birches, long fennel, St. John's wort, orphine, and white lilies. Wilt
not be always young. But I babble; tell me more of King Philip."
The tall youth had stood silent while his father spoke, his grave, oval
face set in courteous attention. It was a coarse age. Henry the Eighth
was not long dead, and the scandals of his court and life influenced all
private conduct. That Queen Mary was rigid in her morals went for very
little. The Lady Elizabeth, still a young girl, was already committing
herself to a course of life which--despite the historians of the popular
textbooks--made her court in after years as licentious as ever her
father's had been. Old Sir Henry spoke after his kind, and few young men
in 1555 were so fastidious as John Commendone.
He welcomed the change in conversation. To hear his father--whom he
dearly loved--speak thus, was most distasteful to him.
"His Highness is a glutton for work," the young man went on. "I see him
daily, and he is ever busy with his pen. He hateth to converse upon
affairs of state, but will write a letter eighteen pages long when his
correspondent is in the next room, howbeit the subject is one which a
man of sense would settle in six words of the tongue. Indeed, sir, he is
truly of opinion that the world is to move upon protocols and
apostilles. Events must not be born without a preparatory course of his
obstetrical pedantry! Never will he learn that the world will not rest
on its axis while he writeth directions of the way it is to turn."
Sir Henry shook himself like a dog.
"And the Queen mad for such a husband as this!" he said.
"Aye, worships him as it were a saint in a niche. A skilled lutanist
with a touch on the strings remarkable for its science, speaking many
languages with fluency and grace, Latin in especial, Her Grace yet
thinks His Highness a great statesman and of a polished easy wit."
"How blind is love, Johnnie! blinder still when it cometh late. A cap
out of fashion and ill-worn. 'Tis like one of your French withered
pears. It looks ill and eats dryly."
"I was in the Queen's closet two days gone, in waiting on His Highness.
A letter had come from Paris, narrating how a member of the Spanish
envoy's suit to that court had been assassinated. The letter ran that
the manner in which he had been killed was that a Jacobin monk had given
him a pistol-shot in the head--'_la facon que l'on dit qu'il a ette tue,
sa ette par un Jacobin qui luy a donne d'un cou de pistolle dans la
tayte_.' His Highness took up his pen and scrawled with it upon the
margin. He drew a line under one word '_pistolle_'; 'this is perhaps
some kind of knife,' quoth he; 'and as for "_tayte_," it can be nothing
else but head, which is not _tayte_, but _tete_ or _teyte_, as you very
well know.' And, father, the Queen was all smiles and much pleased with
this wonderful commentary!"
Sir Henry rose.
"I will hear no more," he said. "It is time I went. You have given me
much food for thought. Fare thee well, Johnnie. Write me letters with
thy doings when thou canst. God bless thee."
The two men stood side by side, looking at each other in silence, one
hale and hearty still, but with his life drawing to its close, the other
in the first flush of early manhood, entering upon a career which
promised a most brilliant future, with every natural and material
advantage, either his already, or at hand.
They were like and yet unlike.
The father was big, burly, iron-grey of head and beard, with hooked nose
and firm though simple eyes under thick, shaggy brows.
John was of his father's height, close on six feet. He was slim, but
with the leanness of perfect training and condition. Supple as an eel,
with a marked grace of carriage and bearing, he nevertheless suggested
enormous physical strength. The face was a pure oval with an olive tinge
in the skin, the nose hooked like his sire's, the lips curved into a
bow, but with a singular graveness and strength overlying and informing
their delicacy. The eyes, of a dark brown, were inscrutable. Steadfast
in regard, with a hint of cynicism and mockery in them, they were at the
same time instinct with alertness and a certain watchfulness. He seemed,
as he stood in his little room in the old palace of the Tower, a
singularly handsome, clever, and capable young man, but a man with
reservations, with secrets of character which no one could plumb or
divine.
He was the only son of Sir Henry Commendone and a Spanish lady of high
birth who had come to England in 1512 to take a position in the suite of
Catherine of Arragon, three years after her marriage to Henry VIII.
During the early part of Henry's reign Sir Henry Commendone was much at
Windsor and a personal friend of the King. Those were days of great
brilliancy. The King was young, courteous, and affable. His person was
handsome, he was continually engaged in martial exercises and all forms
of field sports. Sir Henry was one of the band of gay youths who tilted
and hawked or hunted in the Great Park. He fell in love with the
beautiful young Juanita de Senabria, married her with the consent and
approbation of the King and Queen, and immediately retired to his manors
in Kent. From that time forward he took absolutely no part in politics
or court affairs. He lived the life of a country squire of his day in
serene health and happiness. His wife died when John--the only issue of
the marriage--was six years old, and the boy was educated by Father
Chilches, a placid and easy-going Spanish priest, who acted as domestic
chaplain at Commendone. This man, loving ease and quiet, was
nevertheless a scholar and a gentleman. He had been at the court of
Charles V, and was an ideal tutor for Johnnie. His religion, though
sincere, sat easily upon him. The Divorce from Rome did not draw him
from his calm retreat, the oath enforcing the King's supremacy had no
terrors for him, and he died at a good old age in 1548, during the
protectorate of Somerset.
From this man Johnnie had learnt to speak Spanish, Italian, and French.
Naturally quick and intelligent, he had added something of his mother's
foreign grace and self-possession to the teachings and worldly-wisdom of
Don Chilches, while his father had delighted to train him in all manly
exercises, than whom none was more fitted to do.
Sir Henry became rich as the years went on, but lived always as a simple
squire. Most of his land was pasturage, then far more profitable than
the growing of corn. Tillage, with no knowledge of the rotation of
crops, no turnip industry to fatten sheep, miserable appliances and
entire ignorance of manures, afforded no interest on capital. But the
export of wool and broadcloth was highly profitable, and Sir Henry's
wool was paid for in good double ryals by the manufacturers and
merchants of the great towns.
John Commendone entered upon his career, therefore, with plenty of
money--far more than any one suspected--a handsome person, thoroughly
accomplished in all that was necessary for a gentleman of that day.
In addition, his education was better than the general, he was without
vices, and, in the present reign, the consistent Catholicity of his
house recommended him most strongly to the Queen and her advisers.
* * * * *
"So God 'ild ye, Johnnie. Come not down the stairs with me. Let us make
farewell here and now. I go to the Constable's to leave my duty, and
then to take a stirrup-cup with the Lieutenant. My serving-men and
horses are waiting at the south of White Tower at Coal Harbour Gate.
Farewell."
The old man put his arms in their out-moded bravery round his son and
kissed him on both cheeks. He hugged like a bear, and his beard was wiry
and strong against the smooth cheeks of his son. Then coughing a little,
he almost imperceptibly made the sign of the cross, and, turning,
clanked away, his sword ringing on the stone floor and his spurs--for he
wore riding-boots of Spanish leather--clicking in unison.
John was left alone.
He sat down upon the low wooden bed and gazed at the chest where the
knight had been sitting. The little room, with its single window looking
out upon the back offices of the palace, seemed strangely empty,
momentarily forlorn. Johnnie sighed. He thought of the woods of
Commendone, of the old Tudor house with its masses of chimneys and
deep-mullioned windows--of all that home-life so warm and pleasant; dawn
in the park with the deer cropping wet, silver grass, the whistle of the
wild duck as they flew over the lake, the garden of rosemary, St. John's
wort, and French lavender, which had been his mother's.
Then, stifling a sigh, he sprang to his feet, buckled on his sword--the
fashionable "whiffle"-shaped weapon with globular pommel and the
quillons of the guard ornamented in gold--and gave a glance at a little
mirror hung upon the wall. By no means vain, he had a very careful taste
in dress, and was already considered something of a dandy by the young
men of his set.
He wore a doublet of black satin, slashed with cloth of silver; and
black velvet trunks trussed and tagged with the same. His short cloak
was of cloth of silver lined with blue velvet pounced with his cypher,
and it fell behind him from his left shoulder.
He smoothed his small black moustache--for he wore no beard--set his
ruff of two pleats in order, and stepped gaily out of his room into a
long panelled corridor, a very proper young man, taut, trim, and _point
device_.
There were doors on each side of the corridor, some closed, some ajar. A
couple of serving-men were hastening along it with ewers of water and
towels. There was a hum and stir down the whole length of the place as
the younger gentlemen of the Court made their toilettes.
From one door a high sweet tenor voice shivered out in song--
"Filz de Venus, voz deux yeux desbendez
Et mes ecrits lisez et entendez..."
"That's Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely," Johnnie nodded to himself. "He has a
sweet voice. He sang in the sextette with Lady Bedingfield and Lady
Paget last night. A sweet voice, but a fool! Any girl--or dame either
for that matter--can do what she likes with him. He travels fastest who
travels alone. Master Ambrose will not go far, pardieu, nor travel
fast!"
He came to the stair-head--it was a narrow, open stairway leading into a
small hall, also panelled. On the right of the hall was a wide, open
door, through which he turned and entered the common-room of the
gentlemen who were lodged in this wing of the palace.
The place was very like the senior common-room of one of the more
ancient Oxford colleges, wainscoted in oak, and with large mullioned
windows on the side opposite to a high carved fire-place.
A long table ran down the centre, capable of seating thirty or forty
people, and at one end was a beaufet or side-board with an almost
astonishing array of silver plate, which reflected the sunlight that
was pouring into the big, pleasant room in a thousand twinkling points
of light.
It was an age of silver. The secretary to Francesco Capella, the
Venetian Ambassador to London, writes of the period: "There is no small
innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his
table with silver dishes and drinking cups; and no one who has not in
his house silver plate to the amount of at least L100 sterling is
considered by the English to be a person of any consequence. The most
remarkable thing in London is the quantity of wrought silver."
The gentlemen about the Queen and the King Consort had their own private
silver, which was kept in this their common messroom, and was also
supplemented from the Household stores.
Johnnie sat down at the table and looked round. At the moment, save for
two serving-men and the pantler, he was alone. Before him was the silver
plate and goblet he had brought from Commendone, stamped with his crest
and motto, "_Sapere aude et tace_." He was hungry, and his eye fell upon
a dish of perch in foyle, one of the many good things upon the table.
The pantler hastened up.
"The carpes of venison are very good this morning, sir," he said
confidentially, while one serving-man brought a great piece of manchet
bread and another filled Johnnie's flagon with ale.
"I'll try some," he answered, and fell to with a good appetite.
Various young men strolled in and stood about, talking and jesting or
whispering news of the Court, calling each other by familiar nicknames,
singing and whistling, examining a new sword, cursing the amount of
their tailors' bills--as young men have done and will do from the dawn
of civilisation to the end.
John finished his breakfast, crossed himself for grace, and, exchanging
a remark or two here and there, went out of the room and into the
morning sunshine which bathed the old palace of the Tower in splendour.
How fresh the morning air was! how brilliant the scene before him!
To his right was the Coal Harbour Gate and the huge White Tower. Two
Royal standards shook out in the breeze, the Leopards of England and
blazoned heraldry of Spain, with its tower of gold upon red for Castile,
the red and yellow bars of Arragon, the red and white checkers of
Burgundy, and the spread-eagle sable of Sicily.
To the left was that vast range of halls and galleries and gardens which
was the old palace, now utterly swept away for ever. The magnificent
pile of brick and timber known as the Queen's gallery, which was the
actual Royal lodging, was alive and astir with movement. Halberdiers of
the guard were stationed at regular distances upon the low stone terrace
of the facade, groups of officers went in and out of the doors, already
some ladies were walking in the privy garden among the parterres of
flowers, brilliant as a window of stained glass. The gilding and painted
blazonry on the great hall built by Henry III glowed like huge jewels.
On the gravel sweep before the palace grooms and men-at-arms were
holding richly caparisoned horses, and people were continually coming up
and riding away, their places to be filled by new arrivals.
It is almost impossible, in our day, to do more than faintly imagine a
scene so splendid and so debonair. The clear summer sky, its crushed
sapphire unveiled by smoke, the mass of roofs, flat, turreted,
embattled--some with stacks of warm, red chimneys splashed with the jade
green of ivy--the cupulars and tall clock towers, the crocketed
pinnacles and fantastic timbered gables, made a whole of extraordinary
beauty.
Dozens of great gilt vanes rose up into the still, bright air, the gold
seeming as if it were cunningly inlaid upon the curve of a blue bowl.
The pigeons cooed softly to each other, the jackdaws wheeled and
chuckled round the dizzy heights of the White Tower, there was a sweet
scent of wood smoke and flowers borne upon the cool breezes from the
Thames.
The clocks beat out the hour of noon, there was the boom of a gun and a
white puff of smoke from the Constable Tower, a gay fanfaronade of
trumpets shivered out, piercingly sweet and triumphant, a distant bell
began to toll somewhere over by St. John's Chapel.
John Commendone entered the great central door of the Queen's gallery.
He passed the guard of halberdiers that stood at the foot of the great
staircase, exchanging good mornings with Mr. Champneys, who was in
command, and went upwards to the gallery, which was crowded with people.
Officers of the Queen's archers, dressed in scarlet and black velvet,
with a rose and imperial crown woven in gold upon their doublets,
chatted with permanent officials of the household. There was a
considerable sprinkling of clergy, and at one end of the gallery,
nearest to the door of the Ante-room, was a little knot of Dominican
monks, dark and somewhat saturnine figures, who whispered to each other
in liquid Spanish. John went straight to the Ante-room entrance, which
was screened by heavy curtains of tapestry. He spoke a word to the
officer guarding it with a drawn sword, and was immediately admitted to
a long room hung with pictures and lit by large windows all along one
side of its length.
Here were more soldiers and several gentlemen ushers with white wands in
their hands. One of them had a list of names upon a slip of parchment,
which he was checking with a pen. He looked up as John came in.
"Give you good day, Mr. Commendone," he said. "I have you here upon this
paper. His Highness is with the Queen in her closet, and you are to be
in waiting. Lord Paget has just had audience, and the Bishop of London
is to come."
He lowered his voice, speaking confidentially. "Things are coming to a
head," he said. "I doubt me but that there will be some savage doings
anon. Now, Mr. Commendone, I wish you very well. You are certainly
marked out for high preferment. Your cake is dough on both sides. See
you keep it. And, above all, give talking a lullaby."
John nodded. He saw that the other knew something. He waited to hear
more.
"You have been observed, Mr. Commendone," the other went on, his pointed
grey beard rustling on his ruff with a sound as of whispering leaves,
and hardly louder than the voice in which he spoke. "You have had those
watching you as to your demeanours and deportments whom you did not
think. And you have been very well reported of. The King likes you and
Her Grace also. They have spoken of you, and you are to be advanced. And
if, as I very well think, you will be made privy to affairs of state and
policy, pr'ythee remember that I am always at your service, and love you
very well."
He took his watch from his doublet. "It is time you were announced," he
said, and turning, opened a door opposite the tapestry-hung portal
through which Johnnie had entered.
"Mr. Commendone," he said, "His Highness's gentleman."
An officer within called the name down a short passage to a captain who
stood in front of the door of the closet. There was a knock, a murmur
of voices, and John was beckoned to proceed.
He felt unusually excited, though at the same time quite cool. Old Sir
James Clinton at the door had not spoken for nothing. Certainly his
prospects were bright.... In another moment he had entered the Queen's
room and was kneeling upon one knee as the door closed behind him.
The room was large and cheerful. It was panelled throughout, and the
wainscoting had been painted a dull purple or liver-colour, with the
panel-beadings picked out in gold. The roof was of stone, and
waggon-headed with Welsh groins--that is to say, groins which cut into
the main arch below the apex. Two long Venice mirrors hung on one wall,
and over the fire-place was a crucifix of ivory.
In the centre of the place was a large octagonal table covered with
papers, and a massive silver ink-holder.
Seated at the table, very busy with a mass of documents, was King Philip
II of Spain. Don Diego Deza, his confessor and private chaplain, stood
by the side of the King's chair.
Seated at another and smaller table in a window embrasure Queen Mary was
bending over a large flat book. It was open at an illuminated page, and
the sunlight fell upon the gold and vermilion, the _rouge-de-fer_ and
powder-blue, so that it gleamed like a little _parterre_ of jewels.
It was the second time that John Commendone had been admitted to the
Privy Closet. He had been in waiting at supper, the Queen had spoken to
him once or twice; he was often in the King Consort's lodging, and was
already a favourite among the members of the Spanish suite. But this was
quite different. He knew it at once. He realised immediately that he was
here--present at this "domestic interior," so to speak, for some
important purpose. Had he known the expressive idiom of our day, he
would have said to himself, "I have arrived!"
Philip looked up. His small, intensely serious eyes gave a gleam of
recognition.
"Buenos dias, senor," he said.
John bowed very low.
Suddenly the room was filled with a harsh and hoarse volume of sound, a
great booming, resonant voice, like the voice of a strong, rough man.
It came from the Queen.
"Mr. Commendone, come you here. His Highness hath work to do. Art a
lutanist, Lady Paget tells me, then look at this new book of tablature
with the voice part very well writ and the painting of the initial most
skilfully done."
The young man advanced to the Queen. She held out her left hand, a
little shrivelled hand, for him to kiss. He did so, and then, rising,
bent over the wonderfully illuminated music book.
The six horizontal lines of the lute notation, each named after a
corresponding note of the instrument, were drawn in scarlet. The Arabic
numerals which indicated the frets to be used in producing the notes
were black and orange, the initial H was a wealth of flat heraldic
colour.
"His golden locks time hath to filuer turnde"
the Queen read out in her great masculine voice,--a little subdued now,
but still fierce and strong, like the purring of a panther. "What think
you of my new book of songs, Mr. Commendone?"
"A beautiful book, Madam, and fit for Your Grace's skill, who hath no
rival with the lute."
"'Tis kind of you to say so, Mr. Commendone, but you over compliment
me."
She bent her brows together, lost in serious thought for a moment, and
drummed with lean fingers upon the table.
Suddenly she looked up and her face cleared.
"I can say truly," she continued, "that I am a very skilled player. For
a woman I can fairly put myself in the first rank. But I have met others
surpassing me greatly."
She had thought it out with perfect fairness, with an almost pedantic
precision. Woman-like, she was pleased with what the young courtier had
said, but she weighed truth in grains and scruples--tithe of mint and
cummin, the very word and article of bald fact; always her way.
"And here, Mr. Commendone," she continued, "is my new virginal. It hath
come from Firenze, and was made by Nicolo Pedrini himself. My Lord Mayor
begged Our acceptance of it."
The virginal was a fine instrument--spinet it came to be called in
Elizabeth's reign, from the spines or crow-quills which were attached to
the "jacks" and plucked at the strings.
The case was made of cypress wood, inlaid with whorls of thin silver and
enamels of various colours.
"We were pleased at the Lord Mayor's courtesy," the Queen concluded, and
the change in pronoun showed John that the interview was over in its
personal sense, and that he had been very highly honoured.
He bowed, with a murmur of assent, and drew aside to the wall of the
room, waiting easily there, a fresh and gallant figure, for any further
commands.
Nor did it escape him that the Queen had given him a look of prim, but
quite marked approval--as an old maid may look upon a handsome and
well-mannered boy.
The Queen pressed down the levers of the spinet once or twice, and the
thin, sweet chords like the ghost of a harp rang out into the room.
John watched her from the wall.
The divine right of monarchs was a doctrine very firmly implanted in his
mind by his upbringing and the time in which he lived. The absolutism of
Henry VIII had had an extraordinary influence on public thought.
To a man such as John Commendone the monarch of England was rather more
than human.
At the same time his cool and clever brain was busily at work, drinking
in details, criticising, appraising, wondering.
The Queen wore a robe of claret-coloured velvet, fringed with gold
thread and furred with powdered ermine. Over her rather thin hair,
already turning very grey, she wore the simple caul of the period, a
head-dress which was half bonnet, half skull-cap, made of cloth of
tinsel set with pearls.
Small, lean, sickly, painfully near-sighted, yet with an eye full of
fierceness and fire--your true Tudor-tiger eye--she was yet singularly
feminine. As she sat there, her face wrinkled by care and evil passions
even more than by time, touching the keys of her spinet, picking up a
piece of embroidery, and frequently glancing at her husband with quick,
hungry looks of fretful and even suspicious affection, she was far more
woman than queen.
The great booming voice which terrified strong men, coming from this
frail and sinister figure, was silent now. There was pathos even in her
attitude. A submissive wife of Philip with her woman's gear.
The King of Spain went on writing, coldly, carefully, and with
concentrated attention, and John's eyes fell upon him also, his new
master, the most powerful man in the world of that day. King of Spain,
Naples, Sicily, Duke of Milan, Lord of Franche Comte and the
Netherlands, Ruler of Tunis and the Barbary coast, the Canaries, Cape de
Verd Islands, Philippines and Spice Islands, the huge West Indian
colonies, and the vast territories of Mexico and Peru--an almost
unthinkable power was in the hands of this man.
As it all came to him, Johnnie shuddered for a moment. His nerves were
tense, his imagination at work, it seemed difficult to breathe the same
air as these two super-normal beings in the still, warm chamber.
From outside came the snarling of trumpets, the stir and noise of
soldiery--here, warm silence, the scratching of a pen upon parchment,
the echo of a voice which rolled like a kettle-drum....
Suddenly the King laid down his pen and rose to his feet, a tall, lean,
sombre-faced man in black and gold. He spoke a few words to Father Diego
Deza and then went up to the Queen in the window.
The monk went on arranging papers in orderly bundles, and tying some of
them with cords of green silk, which he drew from a silver box.
John saw the Queen's face. It lit up and became almost beautiful for a
second as Philip approached. Then as husband and wife conversed in low
voices, the equerry saw yet another change come over Mary's twitching
and expressive countenance. It hardened and froze, the thin lips
tightened to a line of dull pink, the eyes grew bitter bright, the head
nodded emphatically several times, as if in agreement at something the
King was saying.
Then John felt some one touch his arm, and found that the Dominican had
come to him noiselessly, and was smiling into his face with a flash of
white teeth and steady, watchful eyes.
He started violently and turned his head from the Royal couple in some
confusion. He felt as though he had been detected in some breach of
manners, of espionage almost.
"Buenos dias, senor, como anda usted?" Don Diego asked in a low voice.
"Thank you, I am very well," Johnnie answered in Spanish.
"Como esta su padre?"
"My father is very well also. He has just left me to ride home to Kent,"
John replied, wondering how in the world this foreign priest knew of the
old knight's visit.
It was true, then, what Sir James Clinton had said! He was being
carefully watched. Even in the Royal Closet his movements were known.
"A loyal gentleman and a good son of the Church," said the priest, "we
have excellent reports of him, and of you also, senor," he concluded,
with another smile.
John bowed.
"_Los negocios del politica_--affairs of state," the chaplain whispered
with a half-glance at the couple in the window. "There are great times
coming for England, senor. And if you prove yourself a loyal servant and
good Catholic, you are destined to go far. His Most Catholic Majesty has
need of an English gentleman such as you in his suite, of good birth,
of the true religion, with Spanish blood in his veins, and speaking
Spanish."
Again the young man bowed. He knew very well that these words were
inspired. This suave ecclesiastic was the power behind the throne. He
held the King's conscience, was his confessor, more powerful than any
great lord or Minister--the secret, unofficial director of world-wide
policies.
His heart beat high within him. The prospects opening before him were
enough to dazzle the oldest and most experienced courtier; he was upon
the threshold of such promotion and intimacies as he, the son of a plain
country gentleman, had never dared to hope for.
It had grown very hot; he remarked upon it to the priest, noticing, as
he did so, that the room was darker than before.
The air of the closet was heavy and oppressive, and glancing at the
windows, he saw that it was no fancy of strained and excited nerves, but
that the sky over the river was darkening, and the buildings upon London
Bridge stood out with singular sharpness.
"A storm of thunder," said Don Diego indifferently, and then, with a
gleam in his eyes, "and such a storm shall presently break over England
that the air shall be cleared of heresy by the lightnings of Holy
Church--ah! here cometh His Grace of London!"
The Captain of the Guard had suddenly beaten upon the door. It was flung
open, and Sir James Clinton, who had come down the passage from the
Ante-room, preceded the Bishop, and announced him in a loud, sonorous
voice.
Johnnie instinctively drew himself up to attention, the chaplain
hastened forward, King Philip, in the window, stood upright, and the
Queen remained seated. From the wall Johnnie saw all that happened quite
distinctly. The scene was one which he never forgot.
There was the sudden stir and movement of his lordship's entrance, the
alteration and grouping of the people in the closet, the challenge of
the captain at the door, the heralding voice of Sir James--and then,
into the room, which was momentarily growing darker as the thunder
clouds advanced on London, Bishop Bonner came.
The man _pressed_ into the room, swift, sudden, assertive. In his
scarlet chimere and white rochet, with his bullet head and bristling
beard, it was as though a shell had fallen into the room.
A streak of livid light fell upon his face--set, determined, and alive
with purpose--and the man's eyes, greenish brown and very bright, caught
a baleful fire from the waning gleam.
Then, with almost indecent haste, he brushed past John Commendone and
the eager Spanish monk, and knelt before the Queen.
He kissed her hand, and the hand of the King Consort also, with some
murmured words which Johnnie could not catch. Then he rose, and the
Queen, as she had done upon her arrival from Winchester after her
marriage, knelt for his blessing.
Commendone and the chaplain knelt also; the King of Spain bowed his
head, as the rapid, breathless pattering Latin filled the place, and one
outstretched hand--two white fingers and one white thumb--quivered for a
moment and sank in the leaden light.
There was a new grouping of figures, some quick talk, and then the
Queen's great voice filled the room.
"Mr. Commendone! See that there are lights!"
Johnnie stumbled out of the closet, now dark as at late evening, strode
down the passage, burst into the Ante-room, and called out loudly,
"Bring candles, bring candles!"
Even as he said it there was a terrible crash of thunder high in the air
above the Palace, and a simultaneous flash of lightning, which lit up
the sombre Ante-room with a blinding and ghostly radiance for the
fraction of a second.
White faces immobile as pictures, tense forms of all waiting there, and
then the voice of Sir James and the hurrying of feet as the servants
rushed away....
It was soon done. While the thunder pealed and stammered overhead, the
amethyst lightning sheets flickered and cracked, the white whips of the
fork-lightning cut into the black and purple gloom, a little procession
was made, and gentlemen ushers followed Johnnie back to the Royal
Closet, carrying candles in their massive silver sconces, dozens of
twinkling orange points to illumine what was to be done.
The door was closed. The King, Queen, and the Bishop sat down at the
central table upon which all the lights were set.
Don Diego Deza stood behind Philip's chair.
The Queen turned to John.
"Stand at the door, Mr. Commendone," she said, "and with your sword
drawn. No one is to come in. We are engaged upon affairs of state."
Her voice was a second to the continuous mutter of the thunder, low,
fierce, and charged with menace. Save for the candles, the room was now
quite dark.
A furious wind had risen and blew great gouts of hot rain upon the
window-panes with a rattle as of distant artillery.
Johnnie drew his sword, held it point downwards, and stood erect,
guarding the door. He could feel the tapestry which covered it moving
behind him, bellying out and pressing gently upon his back.
He could see the faces of the people at the table very distinctly.
The King of Spain and his chaplain were in profile to him. The Queen and
the Bishop of London he saw full-face. He had not met the Bishop before,
though he had heard much about him, and it was on the prelate's
countenance that his glance of curiosity first fell.
Young as he was, Johnnie had already begun to cultivate that cool
scrutiny and estimation of character which was to stand him in such
stead during the years that were to come. He watched the face of Edmund
Bonner, or Boner, as the Bishop was more generally called at that time,
with intense interest. Boner was to the Queen what the Dominican Deza
was to her husband. The two priests ruled two monarchs.
In the yellow candle-light, an oasis of radiance in the murk and gloom
of the storm, the faces of the people round the table hid nothing. The
Bishop was bullet-headed, had protruding eyes, a bright colour, and his
moustache and beard only partially hid lips that were red and full. The
lips were red and full, there was a coarseness, and even sensuality,
about them, which was, nevertheless, oddly at war with their
determination and inflexibility. The young man, pure and fastidious
himself, immediately realised that Boner was not vicious in the ordinary
meaning of the word. One hears a good deal about "thin, cruel lips"--the
Queen had them, indeed--but there are full and blood-charged lips which
are cruel too. And these were the lips of the Bishop of London.
There was a huge force about the man. He was plebeian, common, but
strong.
Don Diego, Commendone himself, the Queen and her husband, were all
aristocrats in their different degree, bred from a line--pedigree
people.
That was the bond between them.
The Bishop was outside all this, impatient of it, indeed; but even while
the groom of the body twirled his moustache with an almost mechanical
gesture of disgust and misliking, he felt the power of the man.
And no historian has ever ventured to deny that. The natural son of the
hedge-priest, George Savage--himself a bastard--walked life with a
shield of brutal power as his armour. The blood-stained man from whom--a
few years after--Queen Elizabeth turned away with a shudder of
irrepressible horror, was the man who had dared to browbeat and bully
Pope Clement VII himself. He took a personal and undignified delight in
the details of physical and mental torture of his victims. In 1546 he
had watched with his own eyes the convulsions of Dame Anne Askew upon
the rack. He was sincere, inflexible, and remarkable for obstinacy in
everything except principle. As Ambassador to Paris in Henry's reign he
had smuggled over printed sheets of Coverdale's and Grafton's
translation of the Bible in his baggage--the personal effects of an
ambassador being then, as now, immune from prying eyes. During the
Protectorate he had lain in prison, and now the strenuous opposer of
papal claims in olden days was a bishop in full communion with Rome.
... He was speaking now, in a loud and vulgar voice, which even the
presence of their Majesties failed to soften or subdue.
--"And this, so please Your Grace, is but a sign and indication of the
spirit abroad. There is no surcease from it. We shall do well to gird us
up and scourge this heresy from England. This letter was delivered by an
unknown woman to my chaplain, Father Holmes. 'Tis a sign of the times."
He unfolded a paper and began to read.
"I see that you are set all in a rage like a ravening wolf against the
poor lambs of Christ appointed to the slaughter for the testimony of the
truth. Indeed, you are called the common cut-throat and general
slaughter-slave to all the bishops of England; and therefore 'tis wisdom
for me and all other simple sheep of the Lord to keep us out of your
butcher's stall as long as we can. The very papists themselves begin now
to abhor your blood-thirstiness, and speak shame of your tyranny. Like
tyranny, believe me, my lord, any child that can any whit speak, can
call you by your name and say, 'Bloody Boner is Bishop of London'; and
every man hath it as perfectly upon his fingers'-ends as his
Paternoster, how many you, for your part, have burned with fire and
famished in prison; they say the whole sum surmounteth to forty persons
within this three-quarters of this year. Therefore, my lord, though your
lordship believeth that there is neither heaven nor hell nor God nor
devil, yet if your lordship love your own honesty, which was lost long
agone, you were best to surcease from this cruel burning of Christian
men, and also from murdering of some in prison, for that, indeed,
offendeth men's minds most. Therefore, say not but a woman gave you
warning, if you list to take it. And as for the obtaining of your popish
purpose in suppressing the Truth, I put you out of doubt, you shall not
obtain it as long as you go to work this way as ye do; for verily I
believe that you have lost the hearts of twenty thousand that were rank
papists within this twelve months."
The Bishop put the letter down upon the table and beat upon it with his
clenched fist. His face was alight with inquiry and anger.
Every one took it in a different fashion.
Philip crossed himself and said nothing, formal, cold, and almost
uninterested. Don Diego crossed himself also. His face was stern, but
his eyes flitted hither and thither, sparkling in the light.
Then the Queen's great voice boomed out into the place, drowning the
thunder and the beating rain upon the window-panes, pressing in gouts of
sound on the hot air of the closet.
Her face was bagged and pouched like a quilt. All womanhood was wiped
out of it--lips white, eyes like ice....
"I'll stamp it out of this realm! I'll burn it out. Jesus! but we will
burn it out!"
The Bishop's face was trembling with excitement. He thrust a paper in
front of the Queen.
"Madam," he said, "this is the warrant for Doctor Rowland Taylor."
Mary caught up a pen and wrote her name at the foot of the document in
the neat separated letters of one accustomed to write in Greek, below
the signature of the Chancellor Gardiner and the Lords Montague and
Wharton, judges of the Legantine Court for the trial of heretics.
"I will make short with him," the Queen said, "and of all blasphemers
and heretics. There is the paper, my lord, with my hand to it. A black
knave this, they tell me, and withal very stubborn and lusty in
blasphemy."
"A very black knave, Madam. I performed the ceremony of degradation upon
him yestereen, and, by my troth, never did the walls of Newgate chapel
shelter such a rogue before. He would not put on the vestments which I
was to strip from him, and was then, at my order, robed by another. And
when he was thoroughly furnished therewith, he set his hands to his
sides and cried, 'How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool? How say
you, my masters, if I were in Chepe, should I not have boys enough to
laugh at these apish toys?'"
The Queen crossed herself. Her face blazed with fury. "Dog!" she cried.
"Perchance he will sing another tune to-morrow morn. But what more?"
"I took my crosier-staff to smite him on the breast," the Bishop
continued. "And upon that Mr. Holmes, that is my chaplain, said, 'Strike
him not, my lord, for he will sure strike again.' 'Yes, and by St. Peter
will I,' quoth Doctor Taylor. 'The cause is Christ's, and I were no
good Christian if I would not fight in my Master's quarrel.' So I laid
my curse on him, and struck him not."
The King's large, sombre face twisted into a cold sneer.
"_Perro labrador nunca buen mordedor_--a barking dog is never a good
fighter," he said. "I shall watch this clerk-convict to-morrow. Methinks
he will not be so lusty at his burning."
The Bishop looked up quickly with surprise in his face.
"My lord," the Queen said to him, "His Majesty, as is both just and
right, desireth to see this blasphemer's end, and will report to me on
the matter. Mr. Commendone, come here."
Johnnie advanced to the table.
"You will go to Sir John Shelton," the Queen went on, "and learn from
him all that hath been arranged for the burning of this heretic. The
King will ride with the party and you in close attendance upon His
Majesty. Only you and Sir John will know who the King is, and your life
depends upon his safety. I am weary of this business. My heart grieves
for Holy Church while these wolves are not let from their wickedness. Go
now, Mr. Commendone, upon your errand, and report to Father Deza this
afternoon."
She held out her hand. John knelt on one knee and kissed it.
As he left the closet the rain was still lashing the window-panes, and
the candles burnt yellow in the gloom.
By a sudden flash of lightning he saw the four faces looking down at the
death warrant. There was a slight smile on all of them, and the
expressions were very intent.
The great white crucifix upon the panelling gleamed like a ghost.