Ken Follett: A Column of Fire

The dancing finished, and the earl’s staff brought in boards and trestles to make a T-shaped table, the crosspiece at one end and the tail stretching the full length of the room; then they began to lay the table. They went about their work in a somewhat careless spirit, Rollo thought, tossing pottery cups and loaves of bread onto the white tablecloth haphazardly. That would be because there was no woman in charge of the household: the countess had died two years ago, and Swithin had not yet remarried.

A servant spoke to Rollo. ‘Your father summons you, Master Fitzgerald. He’s in the earl’s parlour.’

The man led Rollo into a side room with a writing table and a shelf of ledgers, evidently the place where Earl Swithin conducted business.

Swithin sat on a huge chair that was almost a throne. He was tall and handsome, like Bart, though many years of eating well and drinking plenty had thickened his waist and reddened his nose. Four years ago he had lost most of the fingers of his left hand in the battle of Hartley Wood. He made no attempt to conceal the deficiency — in fact, he seemed proud of his wound.

Rollo’s father, Sir Reginald, sat next to Swithin, lean and freckled, a leopard beside a bear.

Bart Shiring was there, too, and to Rollo’s consternation so were Alice and Ned Willard.

William Cecil was on a low stool in front of the six local people but, despite the symbolism of the seating, it looked to Rollo as if Cecil was in charge of the meeting.

Reginald said to Cecil: ‘You won’t mind my son joining us? He has been to Oxford University, and studied law at the Inns of Court in London.’

‘I’m glad to have the younger generation here,’ Cecil said amiably. ‘I include my own son in meetings, even though he’s only sixteen — the earlier they begin, the faster they learn.’

Studying Cecil, Rollo noticed that there were three warts on his right cheek, and his brown beard was beginning to turn grey. He had been a powerful courtier during the reign of Edward VI, while still in his twenties, and although he was not yet forty years old he had an air of confident wisdom that might have belonged to a much older man.

Earl Swithin shifted impatiently. ‘I have a hundred guests in the hall, Sir William. You’d better tell me what you have to say that is important enough to take me away from my own party.’

‘At once, my lord,’ Cecil said. ‘The queen is not pregnant.’

Rollo let out a grunt of surprise and dismay.

Queen Mary and King Felipe were desperate for heirs to their two crowns, England and Spain. But they spent hardly any time together, being so busy ruling their widely separated kingdoms. So there had been rejoicing in both countries when Mary had announced that she was expecting a baby next March. Obviously something had gone wrong.

Rollo’s father, Sir Reginald, said grimly: ‘This has happened before.’

Cecil nodded. ‘It is her second false pregnancy.’

Swithin looked bewildered. ‘False?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There has been no miscarriage,’ Cecil said solemnly.

Reginald explained: ‘She wants a baby so badly, she convinces herself that she’s expecting when she’s not.’

‘I see,’ said Swithin. ‘Female stupidity.’

Alice Willard gave a contemptuous snort at this remark, but Swithin was oblivious.

Cecil said: ‘We must now face the likelihood that our queen will never give birth to a child.’

Rollo’s mind was awhirl with the consequences. The longed-for child of the ultra-Catholic Queen Mary and the equally devout King of Spain would have been raised strictly Catholic, and could have been relied upon to favour families such as the Fitzgeralds. But if Mary should die without an heir, all bets were off.

Cecil had figured this out long ago, Rollo assumed. Cecil said: ‘The transition to a new monarch is a time of danger for any country.’

Rollo had to suppress a feeling of panic. England could return to Protestantism — and everything the Fitzgerald family had achieved in the last five years could be wiped out.

‘I want to plan for a smooth succession, with no bloodshed,’ Cecil said in a tone of reasonableness. ‘I’m here to speak to you three powerful provincial leaders — the earl of the county, the mayor of Kingsbridge, and the town’s leading merchant — and to ask you to help me.’

He sounded deceptively like a diligent servant making careful plans, but Rollo could already see that he was, in fact, a dangerous revolutionary.

Swithin said: ‘And how would we help you?’

‘By pledging support for my mistress, Elizabeth.’

Swithin said challengingly: ‘You assume that Elizabeth is heir to the throne?’

‘Henry the Eighth left three children,’ Cecil said pedantically, stating the obvious. ‘His son, Edward the Sixth, the boy king, died before he could produce an heir, so Henry’s elder daughter, Mary Tudor, became queen. The logic is inescapable. If Queen Mary dies childless, as King Edward did, the next in line to the throne is clearly Henry’s other daughter, Elizabeth Tudor.’

Rollo decided it was time to speak. This dangerous nonsense could not be allowed to pass unchallenged, and he was the only lawyer in the room. He tried to speak as quietly and as rationally as Cecil but, despite the effort, he could hear the note of alarm in his own voice. ‘Elizabeth is illegitimate!’ he said. ‘Henry was never truly married to her mother. His divorce from his previous wife was disallowed by the Pope.’

Swithin added: ‘Bastards cannot inherit property or titles — everyone knows that.’

Rollo winced. Calling Elizabeth a bastard was unnecessary rudeness to her counsellor. Coarse manners were typical of Swithin, unfortunately. But it was rash, Rollo felt, to antagonize the self-possessed Cecil. The man might be out of favour, but still he had an air of quiet potency.

Cecil overlooked the incivility. ‘The divorce was ratified by the English parliament,’ he said with polite insistence.

Swithin said: ‘I hear she has Protestant leanings.’

That was the heart of it, Rollo thought.

Cecil smiled. ‘She has told me, many times, that if she should become queen, it is her dearest wish that no Englishman should lose his life for the sake of his beliefs.’

Ned Willard spoke up. ‘That’s a good sign,’ he said. ‘No one wants to see more people burned at the stake.’

That was typical of the Willards, Rollo thought: anything for a quiet life.

Earl Swithin was equally irritated by the equivocation. ‘Catholic or Protestant?’ he said. ‘She must be one or the other.’

‘On the contrary,’ Cecil said, ‘her creed is tolerance.’

Swithin was indignant. ‘Tolerance?’ he said scornfully. ‘Of heresy? Blasphemy? Godlessness?’

Swithin’s outrage was justified, in Rollo’s opinion, but it was no substitute for legal argument. The Catholic Church had its own view on who should be the next ruler of England. ‘In the eyes of the world, the true heir to the throne is the other Mary, the queen of the Scots.’

‘Surely not,’ Cecil argued, clearly having expected this. ‘Mary Stuart is no more than the grand-niece of King Henry VIII, whereas Elizabeth Tudor is his daughter.’

‘His illegitimate daughter.’

Ned Willard spoke again. ‘I saw Mary Stuart when I went to Paris,’ he said. ‘I didn’t talk to her, but I was in one of the outer rooms of the Louvre Palace when she passed through. She is tall and beautiful.’

Rollo said impatiently: ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Ned persisted. ‘She’s fifteen years old.’ He looked hard at Rollo. ‘The same age as your sister, Margery.’

‘That’s not the point—’

Ned raised his voice to override the interruption. ‘Some people think a girl of fifteen is too young to choose a husband, let alone rule a country.’