London (92 page)

And so, with the butchering of these, the first of the Christian martyrs who denied the king’s supremacy, Henry’s Church of England proclaimed its new authority.

Peter attended the executions, then made his way back to the monastery. When he reached it he felt very tired.

Shortly afterwards some of the king’s servants arrived with a small package rolled up in a cloth. When it was unwrapped, the monks saw that it was their prior’s severed arm. The king’s men nailed it to the monastery gate.

It was a little after noon that the commissioners came to the Charterhouse to demand the oath from the community. The monks were all gathered together. The commissioners, who included a number of churchmen, explained to them the propriety and the manifold wisdom of loyal obedience to their king. But all the monks refused. Except for one.

To their great astonishment, looking tired and ill and having, after the horrors of the morning, it seemed, lost heart, the most recent arrival, Father Peter Meredith, stepped forward and, alone of all their number took the oath.

Secretary Cromwell himself informed young Thomas Meredith what had happened; and Thomas should have been glad. “Not only does he live,” Cromwell remarked, “but it does you some good: I’ve already told the king that the only loyal fellow there was your brother.” He grimaced. “He himself may not be long for this world though. They tell me he seems very sick.”

And so, indeed, Thomas found him when he visited the Charterhouse a few hours later. For while the rest of the community was being subjected to a barrage of threats and persuasion in the chapel and in the refectory, Peter had withdrawn to his cell where he was being tended by old Will Dogget. He seemed now to have difficulty even rising from his bed, and after a few words, Thomas left him.

But it was the other visit he had to make that he dreaded. For a long time he hesitated outside the house at Chelsea, and it was only when one of the children happened to run out and spot him that he was obliged to enter. Even then, he made every excuse to play with the children and avoid the subject before, at last finding himself alone with Susan, he had to break the news.

“Peter has taken the oath.”

At first, she did not believe it. “I have been to the Charterhouse and seen him,” he told her. “It is true.” For long moments she was silent.

“You mean,” she finally said, in a low voice, “that after leading Rowland to certain death, he himself has now deserted. He is leaving Rowland to die alone? He led him there,” she spread her hands, “for nothing?”

“He is very sick. I think he is very tired.”

“And Rowland? He is well, but about to die.”

“I think Peter is not just sick. Ashamed. I try to understand.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “That is not enough.” After another long pause, with a grief in her voice that almost made him double up with pain, she quietly said: “I do not wish to see Peter again.”

And he knew that Peter had taken away everything in which she trusted, that she would never change her mind, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

Dan Dogget glanced up at the sky. He did not often say a prayer but now, surreptitiously, he did so. There was one good thing: his debt to Meredith would be discharged when this strange business was over. “Just let it be soon,” he prayed.

It was nearly sunset when they set out. Father Peter had not felt well enough to attempt the journey in the afternoon; but an hour ago he had seemed to gather strength and, on young Thomas’s orders, Dan had brought the little cart round to the monastery gate.

The atmosphere in the Charterhouse had been tense. Since the executions the previous morning, Henry’s churchmen had subjected the monks to a continuous series of tirades. Earlier, three of the most senior monks had been taken, not to the Tower but to the common jail. “The king is determined to break at least some of them down,” he was told. As for Father Peter, his position was strange. Since he was ill, he kept apart in his cell anyway; but it was clear to Dan that the other monks had effectively disowned him. Even the king’s men had rather lost interest in him. “He only just arrived,” one of the other old lodgers remarked to him. “He was never really one of them, you know.” Yet whatever his disgrace within the community, and even though, as they passed through the courtyard, the monks looked the other way, Dan noticed how his father still treated the former priest with reverence and, when Peter prepared to climb into the cart, knelt down and kissed his hand.

Slowly he conveyed the two Meredith brothers across the city on their melancholy mission. They were going to the Tower to see poor Rowland.

They gained admittance easily at the Tower’s outer gate: Thomas was immediately recognized as Secretary Cromwell’s man. But the cart had to be left outside and it was now that Dan realized how much they needed him. For during the journey, Father Peter’s strength appeared to have ebbed away again. Getting down from the cart with difficulty, he seemed hardly able to walk and though in recent months the monk had lost considerable weight, it took both Dan and Thomas, one on each side, to help him along the cobbled lane between the high stone walls; and Peter was clearly short of breath by the time they reached the Bloody Tower. After Thomas identified himself to the respectful guard, they made their way slowly up the spiral stairway to Rowland’s cell.

Rowland Bull was sitting quietly on a bench when they entered. The last red glow of sunset was coming through the narrow window. Some of yesterday’s calm had worn off. He had been sick again that morning, but only once. Now he just looked pale as Peter slowly sank down beside him. He was clearly glad to see them nonetheless.

As the two of them talked in low tones, Dan found himself watching them with interest. Brother Peter he had come to know a little, Rowland he hardly knew at all. Seeing them side by side now, he observed with surprise how like each other the two men were; Peter’s illness had not only caused him to lose weight but made his face thinner too, so that he and Rowland might have been brothers. It was funny, he thought, but if he hadn’t known otherwise, he would have guessed that the former parish priest was the family man, and the lawyer, with his ascetic, almost ethereal expression, was the monk. Perhaps they lived their lives the wrong way round, he mused.

They had been there several minutes before Peter broke the news. “I have taken the oath.”

Rowland had not known. He had seen no one except a guard with some food in the last two days. Yet, shocked though he was, after seeming to droop for a moment or two, his reaction was rather unexpected. Gazing earnestly at Peter he said gently: “Was it so terrible for you, too?”

“Do you wish to do the same?” Thomas asked him. “I do not think it can save you, but,” glancing at Peter, “with Peter here having done so too, it might soften the king’s mood. I could try.”

Though he paused for thought, Rowland did not do so for long. “No,” he said at last. “I could not take it then; I cannot now.”

Peter drew out from under his cassock a little flask of wine and then, with a smile, three little beakers. A little shakily he poured out wine, fumbling slightly with one of the beakers. Managing to control his shaking hand well enough he passed them to Rowland and Thomas.

“In my state of health,” he said gently, “I am not sure that we shall meet again on earth, Rowland. So let us drink together one last time.” He looked carefully at Rowland, then. “Remember in your hour of agony,” he said softly, “you who are more to me than even a brother, it was you, not I, who truly earned a martyr’s crown.”

They drank, and waited a while, saying nothing more. Then Peter and Thomas Meredith rose up, and did what they had come to do.

Darkness had fallen by the time Dan and Thomas departed with the monk. It was not only sickness but the emotion of this final parting that had suddenly overcome him, for now, unable even to walk properly, he was practically a dead weight between them as they made their way back, very slowly, towards the gate. Seeing Thomas, the guards not only opened the gate but helped them get the monk up into the cart. Once this was done, assuring Thomas that he could manage, Dan drove slowly away to return to the Charterhouse, while the courtier turned round.

“A sad night,” he remarked to the yeoman warder in charge of the gate, who nodded his head in quiet agreement. “I shall return and sit with poor Bull a little longer,” Thomas told him. “He looks almost as ill as the monk.” And he walked slowly and thoughtfully back.

All was still in the Tower that night. Prisoners, custodians, even the ravens were asleep. The grey stone walls and turrets loomed blankly out of the shadows, apparently sightless in the starlight – except for a single faint glow, from the window of one cell, dimly lit by a candle, where two men still remained, keeping watch together. When once the guard looked in, he saw that Thomas was sitting gloomily on the bench while the lawyer, kneeling by the window, was softly murmuring his prayers.

Thomas did not interrupt, though the prayers were long. As he waited, he went over his conversation with his brother three days before. How brave and yet how uncertain the priest had been, in what agony of spirit. “I am denying the Church two martyrs,” he had confessed, “if we do this thing. Perhaps,” he had sadly remarked, “I shall lose my soul.”

Yet surely, Thomas thought, Rowland had offered himself for martyrdom: wasn’t that the same? As for Peter, what name did one give the sacrifice, he wondered, of a man prepared to lay down not only his life, but even his immortal soul for his friend?

But now the figure by the window rose from his knees and, with a nod to Thomas, lay on the bed. It was the moment Thomas had dreaded, the thing he had said he could not do.

“You must,” the figure on the bed said softly. “We have to be sure.”

Taking a blanket, therefore, Thomas went across to the bed, put the blanket over the other’s face, and began to press down.

All his life he accounted it a proof of God’s mercy that another hand, at that moment, intervened.

There was no doubt what was happening when the courtier summoned the guard. A few minutes later, two sleepy yeomen warders joined them to witness the scene.

The lawyer on the bed was having a massive apoplexy. He was gasping for breath; his face was discoloured; even while they watched he started to sit up, then fell back, mouth open, face strangely sagging. One of the yeomen went over, then turned to Thomas. “He’s gone.” Then, more softly: “Better this than what he had coming.”

Thomas nodded.

The yeoman turned. “Nothing you can do, sir,” he said kindly to Thomas. “We’ll inform the lieutenant.” He ushered the others out, tactfully leaving Thomas alone for a moment.

So that nobody heard Thomas, as he touched the corpse, whisper: “God bless you, Peter.”

It was dawn when Rowland Bull awoke. He found consciousness slowly; his head felt strangely heavy. Thomas was still there. The last thing he remembered was the two of them talking with Peter. And then he frowned. Why was he wearing a monk’s habit? He glanced round. Where was he?

“You’re in the Charterhouse,” Thomas said quietly. “I think I’d better explain.”

It had not been difficult really. The sleeping draught Peter had given him had worked even faster than they had expected. Changing his clothes with Peter’s had been the work of a couple of minutes. Nor had there been any difficulty taking him out of the Tower. “I’m Cromwell’s trusted man, you see,” Thomas said. The only problem, which they had anticipated, was getting an unconscious man into the Charterhouse; and for that short journey, Daniel Dogget had simply carried him, bodily, in his mighty arms.

“You’d be amazed how like you Peter looked once he was in your clothes,” Thomas continued. “And when a man dies, you see, his looks change anyway.”

“Peter is dead? How?”

“I was to kill him. We were going to make it seem he had died in his sleep. It was helpful that they already believed you were ill. But then, just as I began . . .” Thomas looked down for a moment. “I thank God the Lord took him instead. An apoplexy. He had been ill for so long, as you know.”

“But what about me? What am I to do?”

“Ah.” Thomas paused. “That is the message I have for you from Peter. He dared not write it of course: so I am to tell you. He wants you to live. Your family needs you. He reminds you of what he said: you have already earned the martyr’s crown because you were ready to die. By doing this, however, he has prevented you.”

“His taking the oath, then . . .?”

“Was part of the plan. Father Peter Meredith is spared and you must now become him. It will not be too difficult. No one will trouble you here. To the monks you are an outcast. They will avoid you. The king’s commissioners are not interested in you; and besides, you are believed to be very sick. Remain in this cell, therefore, Old Will Dogget will look after you. In a little while, I can probably arrange for you to go to another place.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then,” Thomas made a face, “both I and the two Doggets, father and son, will accompany you to a terrible death and your wife will not have even me to protect her. Peter hoped you would not do that.”

“And Susan? The children?”

“You must be patient,” Thomas answered. “For your safety, and for her own, she must believe, truly, that you are dead. Later,” he continued, “we will see what can be done. But not yet.”

“You have thought of everything.”

“Peter did.”

“It seems,” he said sadly, “that I should thank you all. You risked your lives.”

“I felt guilty.” Thomas shrugged. “Will Dogget did it because Peter asked, and the old man loved him.” He smiled wryly. “Simple souls are nobler, aren’t they? As for Daniel,” he grinned. “Let’s say he owed me a favour.”

Rowland sighed. “I suppose I have no choice.”

“There was one other message from Peter,” Thomas added. “It’s a little strange. He said: ‘Tell him he may only be a monk for a time. Then he must return to his wife.’ I’d have thought that was obvious. Does it make sense to you?”

“Yes,” Rowland said slowly. “Oh, yes. It does.”

Of all the horrors which marked the birth of Henry’s new English Church, one single execution in June that year truly shocked his people.