The Mirror and the Light

They set great store by dreams, these families. They are always writing them down under seal and sending them to each other by fast courier. Many nights, it seems, they dream the king is dead. Sometimes they dream Jane Seymour comes in her shroud, to tell the king she hates him and he is damned.

He says, ‘You cannot go back among the Courtenays because they will not exist. When you leave here you will go to Allington.’

She looks up. ‘And what will I do there?’

‘Live and make no stir.’

‘You will bring Wyatt home?’

He nods. ‘Though I cannot say when.’

‘They say the king is not satisfied with him.’

‘He is not satisfied with any of us.’

He thinks, we do not even know that Wyatt is still alive. But I trust his skill in locating his peril and moving away from it. Or not, if stasis is best: Wyatt stood while a lioness stalked him.

Bess Darrell says, ‘Lord Montague calls England a prison. He says it has been a prison these last six years.’

‘Too kind a gaol for him to leave,’ he says. ‘They sicken me. They are cowards. If he had flown across the sea to Reginald, at least I would respect him. He would have shown himself a man, to be taken under arms.’

‘It would have made your task easier,’ Bess says. ‘No doubt of their treason then. But apart from what I have supplied, you have nothing but Geoffrey’s nonsense, and hearsay and rumour and kitchen boys’ gossip. They will not oblige you, Montague and Exeter, unless you rip their treason out of them, and you cannot do that.’

‘I am very ingenious,’ he says sadly. ‘And your testimony is a great help.’

‘But think, my lord. If you call a traitor everyone who has voiced a dislike of the king or his proceedings, who does that leave alive?’

‘Me,’ he says. Henry and Cromwell. Cromwell and Henry.

‘Exeter thinks the world will turn,’ Bess says. ‘He knows Henry is afraid of excommunication. He thinks a show of force will bring him back to Rome.’

‘He will not turn,’ he says. ‘Too much has been said and done in England. The king cannot resist change even if he would. Let me live another year or two, and I will make sure what we have done can never be undone, not by any power on earth. And even if Henry does turn, I will not turn. I will make good my cause in my own person. I am not too old to take a sword in my hand.’

‘You would take arms against Henry?’ She seems entertained, more than shocked.

‘I did not say that.’

She looks down at her hands, wearing Wyatt’s ring. ‘Oh, I think you did.’

Mid-November: with the first foul weather, you may witness a Cambridge man, a priest, committing a slow public suicide. One man, taking on the king: one puny challenger against the giant, his person small as a crumb, his weapons straw.

His name is John Lambert, though he was born Nicholson. He was ordained priest, and knew Little Bilney, who converted him to the gospel. He went to Antwerp, chaplain to the English merchants; his path crossed every dangerous path, Tyndale’s included. Thomas More, he says, tricked him back to England. Then old Archbishop Warham – Canterbury, that was – hauled him up for heresy, charging him in forty-five articles, which he rebutted. Yes, he admitted, he had studied Luther’s work, and he found himself the better man for it. He agreed with Luther that it was lawful for a priest to marry. The question of free will, he called too hard a matter for a simple man. But he believed only Christ, not priests, could forgive sin. Scripture has all we need, he said. We do not need the extra rules Rome has made up.

In the middle of the hearing, Warham died. The case was allowed to lapse. But the passage of four, five years has not made Lambert cautious. At Austin Friars – no clerks present, no record kept – Thomas Cranmer has reasoned with him. He, Thomas Cromwell, has argued with him fiercely. And Robert Barnes has stood by, his face pinched with dislike and fear: bursting out at last, ‘You – whatever you call yourself – Lambert, Nicholson – you will ruin us all.’

Cranmer had said, ‘We do not quarrel with your views –’

‘Yes, we do,’ Barnes said.

‘Well then, we do – but the chief thing is, be circumspect. Be patient.’

‘What, wait till you crawl in my direction? Play the man, Cranmer, stand up for the truth. You know it now, in your heart.’

Barnes says, ‘Lambert, you question baptism itself –’

‘There is baptism in the scriptures. But not of infants.’

‘– and you question the eucharist, the sacrament of the altar. Now, if you do that, if you do it openly, I cannot protect you and I will not, and he,’ he points to the archbishop, ‘will not, and he,’ – he points to the Lord Privy Seal – ‘he will not either.’

‘I tell you what I will do,’ Lambert says. ‘I will spare you torment. I will go over your heads. I will put my case to the king himself. He is head of the church. Let Henry judge me.’

The king – let no man be astonished – has risen to the challenge. At Whitehall he will debate with Lambert in public. ‘Cromwell, are the ambassadors coming?’