I pray you, Master Treviot, indicate by the present bearer if it might please you to give me welcome, as I trust it shall.
Fare you well and the Holy Trinity have you in safe keeping.
Gabriel Donne †
From Westminster, this thirteenth day of January, 1536*
I sent word back inviting Donne to dine the following day. I also despatched a letter to Ned, asking him to join us. He would, I thought, enjoy meeting a fellow monastic and he might be able to help me understand Abbot Donne’s point of view.
The kitchens were pressed to provide a good table for my honoured guest. As it was a Friday and, therefore, a fast day, I had my cook scour the stalls in Fishmongers’ Row. The result was that I was able to set before my visitors oysters, stuffed trout, pike in a pastry crust and a supply of my best Rhenish. Ned, always a stickler for punctuality, arrived just as Paul’s clock was striking noon but he was soon followed by the abbot, attended by two of his cowled acolytes. Donne was a tall spare man whose bald head provided little evidence of the tonsure that had once surmounted it. When we were seated at table in the parlour and the servants had withdrawn, my guests made relaxed conversation about life in the cloister. Only when Ned introduced that subject which, as I knew, was dear to his heart did Donne betray hesitation.
‘Does His Majesty intend to close all the remaining houses?’ Ned asked.
‘Well, he is restoring some of the abbeys closed in the North, at the request of good Christian men there,’ Donne replied, ‘so I hardly think he is intent on putting an end to the religious life.’
‘Is that not merely a bone thrown to the rebels to quiet them?’ I asked.
‘I prefer to think better of my king than that,’ the abbot said, in a tone of mild reproof. ‘There is no doubt that the system is in need of overhaul. Much of the rigour has gone out of cloister life. Numbers have fallen. Standards have dropped. Discipline wavers. You must have seen this, Brother Ned — I shall insist on calling you “Brother” — else would Farnfield not have closed voluntarily.’
Ned stabbed with his knife at a morsel of pastry. ‘’Tis a hard road, I grant you. Some embark upon it who lack the stamina. Others of us, I think, are placed there to test our faith.’ He stared down at his trencher. ‘We are called to love God only and we take the cowl because that is what we dearly wish. If our love is ever diverted from God to… others, then we cannot sustain our high calling.’
‘And that was the case at Farnfield?’ Donne probed.
‘Perhaps. To my mind, Master Secretary’s visitors collected a little mud and built with it a tower of bricks.’
Time, I felt, to change the subject. Turning to Donne, I said, ‘It was kind of you to visit Margaret Packington. She was a devoted wife. I fear it will take long for the wounds to heal.’
‘A shocking business,’ the abbot stated gravely. ‘Such a good man. Uncomplicated. I knew him only a few weeks — we travelled together from Antwerp — and yet I felt that we became quite close. Being on narrow shipboard together sometimes turns acquaintances into friends.’
‘People tell me that he was in a state of some distress over the fate of William Tyndale.’
Donne shook his head wistfully. ‘Poor Tyndale. Such a scholar. He is a great loss.’
‘Yet,’ I persisted, ‘Robert surely had no need to blame himself for Tyndale’s incarceration, and certainly not his death.’
‘He confided in me that he was devastated that he could not persuade Tyndale to change his mind but, as I tried to impress upon him, no arguments would ever have moved Tyndale.’
I was puzzled. ‘Change his mind about what?’ I asked.
‘Why, about the divorce.’ The abbot spoke as though what he was stating was obvious.
Ned clearly shared my surprise. ‘Do you mean that Master Packington was sent over to induce Tyndale to accept the king’s rejection of Queen Catherine in favour of the Frenchified whore?’
A faint smile hovered over Donne’s lips. ‘I would not put it quite like that, Brother. Tyndale based his rejection of His Majesty’s proceedings on his interpretation of Scripture. His Majesty was gracious enough to pardon his presumption and welcome him back on condition that he would admit that his exegesis had been wrong. Now, in my opinion, Tyndale was wrong, both on his reading of the Bible and his defiance of the king. He should have accepted the olive branch His Majesty was graciously offering. Sadly, he was too stubborn, too proud to admit his error. Nothing I or Robert or any of his other friends could say would sway him.’
By this point I was really confused. ‘My Lord Abbot, are you saying that you were in Louvain acting on Tyndale’s behalf? I thought — ’
‘That I was in alliance with that repulsive Phillips scoundrel?’ Donne’s smile was superior, indulgent. ‘That is what Phillips and his backers and any other observers were meant to think. In fact, I was acting on confidential instructions from Lord Cromwell to learn all I could about the opposition to Tyndale.’
‘So, you and Robert were employed on the same mission,’ I suggested.
‘Similar,’ Donne agreed, ‘though we did not realise it until we sailed together.’
I struggled to rearrange my thoughts. ‘Then, Cromwell was eager to bring Tyndale back to England?’
Donne sat back in his chair. ‘Lord Cromwell was — and is — eager to have an English Bible. This can now be stated quite openly. He said as much only yesterday to the Grand Council. He has persuaded His Majesty that a new translation will put an end to dissension. Tyndale would have been useful, not only as a translator, but as a skilled writer, producing books and pamphlets to confound the enemies of vernacular Scripture. Such a pity that he refused to be reconciled to the king. Accepting the royal divorce would have been a small price to pay for seeing his Bible placed in every English church.’
Ned had sat scowling and silent during Donne’s explanation. Now he spoke, obviously choosing his words carefully. ‘My Lord Abbot, are we to understand that you are in favour of all this New Learning?’
‘Not at all, Brother, but I have yet to be convinced that the Church is best defended by burning books and people who read books. I am not afraid of the Bible. Devoutly read and properly taught, it can only do good.’
‘Even if it tells people to pull down abbeys?’ Ned persisted.
‘In point of fact, Brother, it says nothing of the sort, as any who read it will discover.’
Once again it was time to divert the conversation into a smoother path, not beset with rocks and ruts. I asked the abbot about his journey up from Devon and from this we moved to other non-contentious matters until it was time for my guests to leave. I accompanied them out to the stables and saw Donne mounted upon his horse. When he and his companions had left, Ned also climbed into his saddle. As I stood close by his stirrup he leaned forward. ‘Mary and all the saints preserve us from men who don’t know whether they are monks or politicians,’ he muttered.
By this time my plan was well formed. It was bizarre, even grotesque, but I was determined to pursue it. I knew it would be risky but by now my anger was so great that I waved aside such considerations. In truth, the only thing that might have blunted my resolve was failure to recruit the accomplices I needed. I was still calculating how best to approach the men I had in mind when fate played into my hand.
On Sunday morning I was returning from mass at the Goldsmiths’ Chapel with the rest of the household when I felt a tug at my sleeve. Bart was walking beside me and looking miserable. He had become almost a fixture in my house of late and my first thought was that he looked disconsolate because he had fallen out with Lizzie. I could not have been more wrong.
‘Master Thomas, may I speak with you’ — he looked around at the group of servants following us — ‘in private?’