The Traitor’s Mark (42 page)

A motley collection of some twenty or so men occupied this isparsely furnished room – lawyers, liveried retainers of great men, merchants, clergy and any others with petitions or appeals to present to the Privy Council and prepared to wait hours, or, if necessary, days for their lordships to grant them a hearing. They relieved their boredom in various ways. Some gossiped in small groups. Some lounged against the wall reading books or checking through papers, rehearsing the evidence they intended to present when their names were called. Two men sat in a window embrasure playing at dice.

At the far end was the large arched doorway to the Council chamber. Before it stood a royal guardsman, halberd in hand and beside him, at a small table, the petitioners' clerk. Cranmer walked steadily forward. What should have happened; what always happened was that the guard tapped on the door, which was opened from within by an attendant who, recognising the archbishop, stood aside to allow him to join his conciliar colleagues.

This time the guard did not move. When Cranmer stepped closer, he brought his halberd to a horizontal position, silently barring the portal. Morice turned angrily to the clerk.

‘What means this?' he demanded. ‘Have his grace admitted immediately.'

‘I'm sorry, Master Morice.' The clerk's embarrassment was obvious. ‘We have orders. His grace is.not to be received till sent for.' Scowling, Morice turned back to the archbishop.

‘This, then, is to be the way of it,' Cranmer sighed. ‘Condemned unheard.'

‘We'll see about that!' Without waiting for the archbishop's consent, Morice strode from the room.

Cranmer calmly walked across to the fireplace and engaged in conversation with the group of men warming themselves there.

Within half an hour the secretary was back. After a brief word with the archbishop, he went across to the clerk's
desk and, without comment, handed over a slip of paper. The official jumped to his feet, tapped on the door beside him and passed the note to someone inside. After a brief pause the door opened. The attendant approached Cranmer and bowed. ‘If Your Grace will be good enough, the Council will see you now.' At the door Morice said, ‘God save Your Grace.' Cranmer smiled and entered the chamber.

The tense atmosphere was immediately apparent. At the head of the table the portly figure of Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley was in the presidential chair. Beside him Bishop Gardiner sat, his hand resting on a pile of papers. Opposite him was the Duke of Norfolk. Among others present Cranmer scrutinised Sir Thomas Wriothesley who, as royal secretary, enjoyed something of the power once held by Cromwell; the Venerable Lord Russell, whose one good eye was fixed on the newcomer; and Edward Seymour. These were the men who counted. The others, Cranmer knew, would follow their lead.

What had they decided? From glances being exchanged across the table it was clear that discussion had been tense and not unanimous. Cranmer tried to gauge who had taken the initiative. Who was looking confident? Who had gained control?

He stepped forward. ‘My apologies, My Lords.' He smiled. ‘I was somewhat delayed.' He moved towards one of the empty seats.

Gardiner leaned across for a quiet word with the president. Audley nodded and said, ‘Your Grace, before you take your place you should hear something we have agreed earlier.'

Cranmer inclined his head, still smiling. ‘As Your Lordship wishes.'

All eyes were fixed on the archbishop. Some showed anger. Others nervousness. Audley glanced to his left. ‘My Lord Bishop, since you have presented your case so eloquently perhaps you will declare the Council's will.'

Gardiner looked far from pleased. He shuffled his papers. He cleared his throat. ‘Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury,' he announced solemnly, ‘it has come to the attention of his gracious majesty's Council that you and others – encouraged, supported and set on by you – have infected the whole realm with heresy.'

‘Tell me what erroneous doctrine I am guilty of spreading,' Cranmer said quietly.

Gardiner extracted a sheet from his pile. ‘Here is evidence that you said of the mass—'

‘We are not here to argue doctrine,' Norfolk interrupted. ‘We'll not listen to your damnable, foreign ideas. You'll not spread your Lutheran poison here. You will be handed over to the Captain of the Guard. He will convey you to the Tower of London. It is there that you will be examined – and condemned.'

Several heads nodded. Other councillors, including Gardiner, looked displeased at the outburst.

Cranmer moved to the bottom of the table which was untenanted. ‘My Lords, I am truly sorry that you compel me to appeal directly to the king's majesty.'

‘Too late for that!' Norfolk snapped. ‘Your evil influence over him has come to an end.' He stood and began to saunter down the room, his eyes gleaming with triumph and hatred.‘You are under arrest.'

Cranmer stood his ground. He opened the palm of his right hand and held its contents for all to see. ‘I think you all know this ring,' he said calmly. ‘It is his gracious majesty's token. Last evening he summoned me to his presence and entrusted it to me. “If my councillors lay anything to your charge,” he said, “show them this ring. Inform them that I have taken the matter into my own hands and tell them to meddle with it no further”.'

After a moment of stunned silence pandemonium broke out.

‘'Sblood! I warned you this would happen!' Russell bellowed.

‘This was your doing, Norfolk,' Wriothesley whimpered. ‘You know I wanted none of it.'

‘Who's for the Tower now?' Seymour wagged a finger at Gardiner.

Audley banged the table, demanding silence. ‘We must to his majesty straight and seek pardon for our presumption.'

Everyone rushed for the door.

The last man to leave the chamber was Cranmer. He placed the ring back in his purse, with a long sigh and a short prayer: ‘Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.'

The failure to destroy the Primate of All England had taken fewer than three minutes.

Historical Note

Readers of historical fiction have a right to know where the history ends and the fiction begins.
The Traitor's Mark
is closely based on real events. At the heart of the story there are two mysteries, two events that have never been fully explained. In the autumn of 1543, the greatest portrait painter of the age, Hans Holbein, died. Where, when and how are questions that have never been answered. Karel van Mander, the Belgian poet and painter, asserted that Holbein fell victim to plague, but he was writing sixty years after the event and was not even born when Holbein disappeared. His explanation certainly cannot be accepted without question. The other happening was the Prebendaries Plot, a sinister attempt to have Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, England's leading churchman, indicted for heresy and burned at the
stake (or, at the very least, unfrocked). Had it succeeded, it would have stopped the English Reformation in its tracks. Who were the conspirators and how close did they come to drastically changing the nation's history?

These were the major ‘headline-grabbing' events of that appalling autumn of 1543, when ungathered crops lay rotting in the sodden fields, plague flourished in the humid air and closed London down, gangs of desperate men, wandered the country and, , to cap it all, religious conflict split communities into rival camps.

In
The Traitor's Mark
I have interwoven these two momentous mysterious events to create a tapestry of plausibilities. The adventures in which Thomas Treviot and his friends became entangled did not happen – but they could have. Many real life men and women were caught up in intrigues, crimes and brutalities similar to those I have invented.

The following participants in the imaginary drama were real-life characters:

Hans Holbein, Jnr, the King's Painter

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

Ralph Morice, his Secretary

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk

Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester

Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford

Anthony Denny, Groom of the Stool

Dr William Butts, Royal Physician

Sir Thomas Moyle, MP and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations

Dr Thomas Legh, jurist and diplomat

John Marbeck, composer and Member of the Chapel Royal

Richard Turner, a Reformist Preacher

Jan van de Goes, a Flemish Goldsmith

THE TRAITOR'S MARK

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American copyright © 2015 by D.K. Wilson

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition December 2015

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