The Mirror and the Light

Robert Barnes has returned. Excuse me, lords, pardon me: blundering over their feet again. He looks sick. Perhaps he has been. Cranmer says, ‘Brother Lambert, I am going to show you some passages in scripture which I believe prove you wrong, and if you admit my texts well-founded, then I think you must concede to my opinion and the king’s. But if –’

Stephen Gardiner is shifting in his seat. While Cranmer makes his case he keeps up a buzz of commentary, no doubt too low for the king to hear. Bishop Shaxton shushes him. Hugh Latimer glares at him. Stephen ignores them, and even before Cranmer has finished he is on his feet.

Cuthbert Tunstall says, ‘My lord of Winchester, I believe I am listed to speak next?’

Gardiner bares his teeth.

Tunstall looks about for help. ‘Gentlemen?’

Cranmer slumps in his chair. Hugh Latimer says, ‘Perhaps the Vicegerent is next?’

He, Cromwell, holds up a palm: not I.

Bishop Shaxton is waving the list. ‘You are number six, Gardiner. Sit down!’

The Bishop of Winchester takes no notice at all. He just carries on, talking a man to death, tripping him and goading him into the flames where he will scream and bleed.

Two o’clock. The king is magisterial. He is nimble, he is trenchant; he is, at times, humble. He does not want to kill Lambert, that is of no interest to him. He wants to out-reason him: so that in the end, Lambert will crumple and confess: ‘Sire, you are the better theologian: I am instructed, enlightened and saved by you.’

You would not hear François engage with a subject in close debate, nor would he be capable of it. You would not find the Emperor fighting to save the life of a miserable subject. They would bring in their Inquisitors, and break Lambert in the torture room.

He, Cromwell, thinks of the tournament, the score sheet, the record of each atteint: broken on the body. Each time the king collects his horse and couches his lance, he pauses, makes Lambert some kind of offer. A prospect of mercy. Your life – if you withdraw, concede, and then beg. Asked if he believes in Purgatory, Lambert says, ‘I believe in tribulation. One may go through Purgatory in this world.’

‘It is a trick,’ Hugh Latimer mutters. ‘The king does not believe in Purgatory himself.’

‘Well, not today,’ Gardiner says.

Three o’clock: piss break. Origen cited, St Jerome, Chrysostom, the prophet Isaiah. Outside, Gardiner says, ‘I cannot think why the old charges against Lambert were ever dropped. A change of archbishop is no excuse. You should have been on top of that, Cromwell.’

Stokesley says, ‘You don’t seem to be taking much interest in the case, my lord Privy Seal.’

‘I wonder why,’ Gardiner says. He spies Latimer. ‘What about you, are you profiting from the king’s learning?’

Hugh growls like a terrier before a bull.

It takes some time for all the spectators to file to their places, to cease coughing and settle. Then all eyes turn to him, the king’s Vicegerent. He lurches to his feet. ‘Majesty, having heard your reasoning, and that of the bishops, I have nothing to add, and I do not think anything is wanting.’

‘What?’ Gardiner says behind him. ‘Nothing is wanting? Go on, Cromwell, reason on the case. You think no one wants to hear you? I want to hear you.’

The king glares. Gardiner throws up his hands, as if in apology.

It is Lambert’s turn to speak. And turns are observed – except by Stephen. Lambert has negotiated himself from his knees to his feet, but four hours have gone by and nobody has offered him a chair. Twilight: his shoulders sag. The torches come in. As their light plays over the faces of the bishops, the king says, ‘It is time, Lambert. You have heard all these learned men. So now, what do you think? Have we persuaded you? Will you live or die?’

Lambert says, ‘I commend my soul into God’s hands. My body, into your Majesty’s. I submit to your judgement. I rest in your clemency.’

Don’t, he thinks. Not there.

Henry says, ‘You hold the sacrament of the altar to be a puppet show.’

‘No,’ Lambert says.

The king holds up a hand. ‘You say it is an illusion. That it is an image only, or figure. You are confounded by one text, the words of Jesus: Hoc est corpus meum. It is the plainest text of all. I will not be a patron to heretics. My lord Cromwell, read the sentence against this man.’

He picks up the documents. In such cases they are prepared in advance. Stokesley says he alone has burned fifty heretics, and even if he is just bragging, there is a form for the next part of the procedure that is well-rehearsed. He stands.

‘Give it good and loud,’ Stokesley says. ‘Let us hear you at last, my lord Cromwell. Leave the wretch in no doubt as to his fate.’

After the edict is read, the guards take Lambert out. The king inclines his head to his audience, with the sober piety of a churchman: which, for this afternoon, he has been. When he lifts his chin, his expression is exalted.