C. Sansom - Lamentation

Another magnificent room. A series of tapestries on the theme of the miracle of the loaves and fishes hung on the walls; there was more linenfold panelling, as well as vases of roses on several finely carved tables, an ornate chess set on another. There were only two people within. The Queen sat on a raised chair under a cloth of estate. She was dressed even more magnificently than her ladies, in a farthingale of crimson under a French gown in royal purple. The farthingale was covered with geometric designs; and as it caught the light I saw the intricacy of the needlework: hundreds of tiny circles and triangles and squares shot through with gold leaf. The bodice tapered to a narrow waist from which a gold pomander hung, and I caught the sharp-sweet smell of oranges. The bodice was low-cut; round the Queen’s white powdered neck jewels hung on gold chains, among them a magnificent teardrop-shaped pearl. A French hood was set far back on her auburn hair. Yet beneath the magnificence, and the white ceruse covering her fine, intelligent features, I could see strain in Catherine Parr’s face. She was thirty-four now, and for the first time since I had known her she looked her age. As I bowed deeply, I wondered what had happened to her, even as I asked myself what the other man, standing beside her, was doing here: Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the man I had heard was keeping out of trouble down in Canterbury.

I raised myself. The Queen’s eyes were downcast; she did not meet my gaze. Cranmer, however, had no such hesitation. He wore a silken cassock over a black doublet, a simple black cap over his grey hair. His large, expressive blue eyes were troubled.

‘Serjeant Shardlake,’ Cranmer said in his quiet voice. ‘Why, it must be three years since we met.’

‘And more, my Lord Archbishop.’

The Queen looked up, cast her sorrowful eyes over my face, and smiled tightly. ‘Since the time you saved my life, Matthew.’ She sighed, then blinked and turned to Lord Parr. ‘Is Elizabeth gone to sit for her portrait?’

‘Not without some swearing. She thinks it unseemly to be painted in her bedroom.’

‘So long as she went. This portrait is important.’ The Queen looked at me again, then said quietly, ‘How have you fared this last year, Matthew?’

‘Well enough, your majesty.’ I smiled. ‘I labour away at the law, as usual.’

‘And young Hugh Curteys?’

‘Well, too. Working for the clothiers in Antwerp.’

‘Excellent. I am glad some good came out of that bad business.’ She bit her lip, as though reluctant to continue.

There was a moment’s silence, then Cranmer spoke. ‘As the Queen remarked, once you saved her life.’

‘It was my privilege.’

‘Would you save it again?’

I looked at the Queen. Her eyes were cast down once more. This subdued figure was not the Catherine Parr I knew. I asked quietly, ‘Has it come to that?’

‘I fear it may,’ Cranmer answered.

The Queen pressed her hands together. ‘It is all my fault. My vanity, my forwardness-’

Lord Parr interrupted, his voice authoritative. ‘I think it best we start at the beginning and tell Serjeant Shardlake all that has happened since the spring.’

The Queen nodded. ‘Fetch chairs, all of you.’ She sighed. ‘It is no simple tale.’

We obeyed, sitting in a semi-circle before the throne. She turned to her uncle. ‘Tell it all, tell it straight. Begin with what the King said in March.’

Lord Parr looked at me hard. ‘You will be only the fifth person to know this story.’

I sat still, trying to keep my hands unclenched on my knees. I realized that I had truly launched myself into a deep well this time. The Queen was looking at me with a sort of desperation, toying with the pearl at her neck.

‘The King was very ill in the spring,’ Lord Parr began. ‘He did not leave his rooms for many weeks. He would call the Queen to him for company; her presence much comforted him. The talk turned often to matters of religion, as it does with the King. At that time, though, Bishop Gardiner had just returned from abroad, in high feather from his success in negotiating his new treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles.’

‘And then I made my great mistake,’ the Queen said, quietly and sadly. ‘I have ridden high for three years, always careful in everything I have said. But I was overcome by the sin of vanity, and forgot I am a mere woman.’ She looked down again, lifting the pearl on the end of its golden chain and staring at it. ‘I argued with the King too forcefully, trying to persuade him to lift the ban on those of low rank reading the Bible. I told him that all need access to Christ’s Word if they are to be saved. .’

‘Sadly,’ Lord Parr said, ‘her majesty went too far, and annoyed the King — ’

The Queen calmed herself, letting the pearl drop. ‘My greatest foolishness was to talk in such manner to the King once in the presence of Bishop Gardiner. After I left, the King told Gardiner — ’ she hesitated — ‘“So women are become clerks, and I am to be lectured by my wife in my old days.”’ I saw tears prick the corners of her eyes.

Cranmer explained. ‘We know this from one of the King’s body-servants who was present. And we know that Gardiner, like the ravening wolf he is, told the King that the Queen and her ladies were heretics; they had had men to preach in the Queen’s chambers during Lent who denied the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ in the Mass, and who discussed forbidden books with them. Gardiner said such people were no better than Anabaptists, who would destroy royal rule.’

The Queen bowed her head. Lord Parr glanced at her, then continued. ‘But the King was suspicious of Gardiner. Ever since Cromwell fell, he has been wary of those who would whisper in his ear about heretic plots. And despite his anger that night, he loves the Queen; the last thing he would want is to lose her. Hold fast to that, niece, hold fast.’

‘But I have done dangerous things,’ she said. I frowned. I had always known she was a radical in religion, and wondered with a chill whether she had indeed become a sacramentarian. For a second I smelled the smoke at Smithfield again.

‘Your uncle is right,’ Cranmer said reassuringly. ‘The King loves you, for your goodness and the comfort you have brought him. Remember that, Kate, always.’ I thought, Kate? I had not known the Queen and the Archbishop were so close.

Lord Parr continued. ‘The King allowed Gardiner to search for evidence. And at the same time to order a general investigation into heresy throughout the country. He was worried already over the discontent caused by the price rises and the war — though, thanks be, God has led his majesty to see the sense of making peace.’ He looked again at his niece. ‘The Queen has loyal friends, and she was warned that searches were afoot. Any books that she or her ladies possessed, which Gardiner might twist as evidence to mean a supporter of heresy, were removed by me. And those who were questioned about discussions in the Queen’s chamber stayed loyal and said nothing incriminating.’ I wondered what those books had been. But any book with even a mildly Lutheran flavour could be used by Gardiner and his people.

The Queen spoke again. It was as though she had divined my thoughts. ‘There were no books of a heretical nature, and nothing forbidden was said in the King’s chambers. Though Gardiner set his dogs loose on my friends, my ladies, he came away empty-handed.’ So that was why they had seemed brittle, and why Lady Carew had been anxious about Duchess Frances’s mocking of Gardiner. ‘Even though the place-seekers on the Privy Council became his willing tools. Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, and a man you know well, who would be glad to see me burn: Richard Rich.’