The King's Achievement - Robert Hugh Benson (good short books txt) 📗

been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the nullity of Queen Katharine's marriage with the King on the alleged ground of her consummated marriage with Henry's elder brother, and involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the time, a rejection of the Pope's authority as connected with the dispensation for Katharine's union with Henry. In May their scruples were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted "so far as it was lawful for them so to do." This actual submission, to Cromwell's mind and therefore to Ralph's, was at first of more significance than was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was modified.

It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first time of what was finally impending with regard to the King's supremacy over the Church.

He had been sitting in Cromwell's room in the Chancery all through one morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of disaffection to Henry's policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the King's adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen's tables alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.

Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.

"A moment," he said, "I have something to say. Sit down."

When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.

"You will have noticed," he began, "how hot the feeling runs in the country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It is not so much what has happened,--I mean in the matter of the marriage and of the friars,--but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand, waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness."

He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes. Then he went on.

"I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is yet one more step to take--and that is to declare the King supreme over the Church of England."

Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no sign of approval or otherwise.

"This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon," went on Cromwell, after a moment's silence. "The King of England has always been supreme, though I will acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on, and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud. There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year, to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace's rights. Do you understand me, Mr. Torridon?"

Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his fingers together.

"I understand, sir," said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.

"Well, that is all that I have to say," ended his master, still watching him. "I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter."

Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already trembling at the King's effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite perception of danger. The idea of the King's supremacy, as represented by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that previous protests had lacked.

And behind it all was the King's conscience! This was a new thought to Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph's mind a glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto--of a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a theory--in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a readjustment was needed--visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?

He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower, and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of his imprisonment, found him eager for news.

He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot; his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the warder.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon," he said, "I knew you would not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I daresay you have come to give it me again, however."

"If I thought you would take it," began Ralph.

"But I will not," said More smiling, "no more than before. Sit down, Mr. Torridon."

Ralph had come at Cromwell's suggestion, and with a very great willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to think that he could serve his master's interests from one side and his own from another by one action.

He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had taken it during the last week or two.

"I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience," observed More. "And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my daughter's sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and Master Cromwell's."

Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He gave him news of Chelsea.

"They are not very merry there," he said, "and I hardly suppose you would wish them to be."

"Why not?" cried More, with a beaming face, "I am merry enough. I would not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I have never been so happy."

He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for fear of the King's displeasure.

"But I told him," said More, "not to trouble himself that I liked his cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out of his doors."

After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a treatise called a "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation."

"It is to persuade myself," he said, "that I am no more a prisoner than I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God's prisoners."

Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good humour.

"Some prisoner of another gaol," he read, "singeth, danceth in his two fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God's prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would fall on his foot no more than a cushion."

* * * * *


Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been half touched and half enraged by More's bearing--touched by his simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad cause.

Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another; deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her