Martin Stephen - The Conscience of the King

And do you think you could sneak poison past my defences, even in this, your holding-house for the damned? Thought Gresham. Kill me you might well have done. Yet you would have had to have done it by the axe and in the open air, where a man could at least breathe a deep breath at his final moment and not face a dingy reckoning in a darkened room.

The two men sat in silence. Gresham had no idea how long it lasted. Finally, James spoke. 'You tell me the truth, I believe, Sir Henry Gresham.' There was moodiness, self-pity in his tone. 'And there are few such men around me. You will work for me now. Not Sir Edward Coke, nor for… others. You are a free man, Sir Henry. You may leave. There are two conditions to your freedom. You will accept my commission to ascertain the truth of my son's death. You will tell me that truth. And should that truth need action, you will act on my behalf to make that action take place.'

Gresham jumped up and bowed deeply. James too stood up, unsteadily. He looked at the gold goblet in his hand and raised it to drain the dregs.

'You might care to know that a certain man in my care and custody

… a man with a sore knife wound in his arm… escaped that custody three days ago. He had agreed to make certain other papers available to me. Not the letters you know of, Sir Henry. Other papers.'

'Would these "other papers" be connected to the theatre, Your Majesty?' That flicker again in his eyes, of amusement or pain, it was difficult to say. James looked at the door. It was firmly shut, the servants out of earshot.

'Aye, that they would.' He poured another dollop of wine into the golden goblet and drank it back in one huge swig. 'The second condition is this. You will meet, tomorrow night, in my Palace of Whitehall with two men who must needs speak with you. They will tell you of the second task I have set you. ‘Tis better it come from them. Six o'clock, Sir Henry. Ye'll have had good time by then to take your wife in your arms, aye, and do more than hold her, I'll be bound.'

The King's lewdness, his fascination for other people's sexuality, was notorious. He gazed lugubriously at the pure gold in his hand, empty now, and weighted it. Then, unexpectedly, he tossed it to Gresham. Calling in a servant, he nodded at the man, who bowed deeply to Gresham and gave him a folded warrant.

'There, a present to your fine wife. The pair of them, this goblet and the one you are holding. Though I do not doubt it is the paper she will value more than the gold.'

With that, James stumbled out of the room, calling for his servants. Back, no doubt, to Whitehall, and a confused Court and a wailing wife and current beyond current of intrigue, suspicion and gossip. The environment, in fact, in which kings live all their lives.

As well as a pre-written warrant for his release, Gresham wondered, had James also brought along a warrant for his death?

11th November, 1612 The House, London

Gresham went straight from The Tower, taking King James at his word. It was locked for the night, but the King's warrant was sufficient, with much grumbling, to have three huge doors squeakily unbolted and raspingly drawn back. Horses were summoned, hooves clattering on the greasy cobbles, and with two of the servants the King had allowed him Gresham rode through the gateway. He tensed as the final shadow of the Lion Tower fell over him, waiting for the call back, the clash of arms. Nothing came. He was free.

He had already banished Mannion, worried about Jane and her safety at The House and feeling infinitely more relaxed knowing that Mannion was guarding her. He sent no messenger ahead, and it was in the pitch dark that he raced past the darkened bulk of St Paul's and up the length of The Strand. He pulled up the poor, panting beast that was all The Tower had been able to provide, hurled its reins to a startled doorkeeper and rushed into The House.

Jane was sitting in her parlour, the private room Gresham hardly ever entered. Even now he did not cross its threshold, but simply flung open the door. She turned, startled, towards him. She had been crying, he saw. She would do that — cry at night, when the children and the servants would neither see nor hear. Except Mannion, whose bed was positioned by the outside of the door. It was a campaign mattress, Gresham noted: rough canvas stuffed with straw.

He noted the expression of alarm and terror in her eyes and cursed himself for not putting himself into her mind.

'No,' he said, cutting in to her worst thoughts and disarming them. 'I've not broken out of The Tower, nor started a rebellion, nor come here three horse-lengths ahead of the executioner. Which would you like first? Two fine gold goblets that the King has gifted you — or his warrant freeing his good and noble servant Sir Henry Gresham from any taint of treachery?' He held the goblets out in one hand, the warrant in the other.

She looked for a brief moment, and then crashed into him with such force that goblets and warrant went flying and he, caught unawares, was cannoned into the back wall, pinned there.

'Are you really, truly free?' she said, stepping back to look at him, hardly able to breathe, her colour up in her face.

'As free as we've ever been. Which means, free until some monarch decides to lock us up, or a syphilitic maniac tries to kill us, or-'

'Do shut up,' she said, taking his face and holding it, looking into his eyes as though they were a marvellous, undiscovered country, 'and talk sense, for once.'

Mannion had stepped smartly aside as his master and mistress had rocketed from doorway to back wall. Ever practical, he had managed to catch both gold goblets as they went flying, and looked at them appreciatively before setting them down carefully on the floor on the tiny ante-room. Casually, he picked up the warrant from the King and read it, assuming that the pair of them would be cooing and doving for hours and not need him there at all. In fact, he was already making to leave the room when his eye was caught by some wording on the paper.

Mannion could read, very fluently. He just preferred people to think he was illiterate, believing reading to be rather foppish and unmanly. This time, whatever it was that had caught his eye made his face light up with a grin that was almost evil.

'Forgive me for interrupting, Your Lordship,' he said loudly, doing just that. 'But I thought I'd better check with His Lordship if His Lordship required my poor and humble services any more before I leave His Lordship and Her Ladyship-'

'What on earth are you prattling on about?' Gresham asked, confused. Jane addressed Gresham as 'my lord', a familiar title between women and men, but one the House of Lords had no trace of.

'You should read what the King writes for you,' said Mannion, grinning even more widely. 'Read it through to the end, I mean. According to this, you're not only a free man, you're also very shortly to be Henry Gresham, First Baron Granville. Congratulations, my lord.'

Gresham looked nonplussed. 'But two hours ago I was locked up in The Tower… I don't understand…'

'I think,' said Jane, the light dancing in her eyes, 'that the King has decided to trust you at last.'

13th November, 1612 Whitehall Palace, London

If there was insanity in the world, it all met and focused on the Palace of Whitehall. With so many candles, lamps and lanterns blazing fruitlessly into the cold November night, it was as if the Palace was on fire, lit from within, a funeral pyre to the finances of the monarch. So many were fed each day and night at the King's expense that a scurrilous broadsheet had christened it the Hospital of Whitehall. Even the servants seemed to have servants at Whitehall, yet it took ten minutes to find one servile enough to take their horses.