Yes, it was fair to say the Marshalsea had not the squalor of the Fleet – none that could be seen, anyway. Established to confine maritime offenders, it now also housed debtors and those convicted of political crimes… and thrived upon a strong foundation of corruption. Prisoners with money could buy good meals and wine, and others without money were allowed out by day to earn some to hand over to their gaolers.
For Edmund Bonner, it was a life of no conspicuous discomfort. He’d expressed joy at my visit, offering to entertain me in the cellar where wine was served. But there were too many of his fellow prisoners in there, some with their wives who came and went unchallenged, especially if they brought money. Impossible for us to talk with confidence here so, taking with us a jug of wine, we’d gone upstairs to his cell.
There was a stool for me to sit on, while Bonner, clad in the robe of a humble Franciscan monk, poured wine for us.
‘I was told’ – eyes aglint with mischief as he stoppered the jug – ‘that after the demise of Dudley’s poor, wretched little wife had become known, the Queen would be seen around the court all in black attire—’
‘As was everyone at court.’
‘—with a dance in her step and a lovely, joyful smile upon her face that remained immovable for days. Is it still there?’
His own face – which, with his history, you might imagine moulded into a permanent rictus of hate – was, as ever, plump and benign as he handed me a cup and lowered his bulk to the edge of his pallet.
‘I understand that the smile,’ I said, ‘is now a little strained.’
He nodded, looking me steadily in the eyes.
‘I also heard that, some days before your friend Dudley was widowed, the Queen confided to the esteemed Spanish ambassador, Bishop La Quadra, that Lady Dudley would very soon be departing this life. Have you heard that, too?’
Yes, and wished I hadn’t.
‘When it first came to my notice,’ Bonner said, ‘I couldn’t help but wonder if it was you who’d happened to see this impending tragedy in the stars.’
I considered this unworthy of reply, but it didn’t stop him.
‘Because, as you must see, John, the only other possible explanation of the Queen’s foreknowledge of the death of Amy Dudley is that she was, herself, party to the disposal of the woman preventing marriage to her childhood sweetheart.’
‘There are many explanations,’ I said firmly, ‘and one is that the Spanish Ambassador is lying.’
‘A bishop of the Roman Church?’
‘As part of his campaign to win the English queen for the Spanish king – again.’
‘Well yes.’ Bonner nodded. ‘Indeed, it was my hope too that she’d see what God wanted of her and choose Philip of Spain for herself.’
‘Her sister’s widower? Was that ever truly on the cards?’
‘Was for him. And think of the benefits – we’d be back with Rome before the year’s end, and I’d be brought out of here in glory and made Archbishop of Canterbury.’
For a moment he looked almost serious and then a belch of laughter made his body rock.
‘In truth, I suppose I’ll die within these walls. Never mind.’ He took a slow sip of wine. ‘But methinks you didn’t come here to discuss the arrangements for my funeral.’
‘Or the marriage prospects of the Queen.’
‘Then what?’
I sipped some prison wine, which proved better than ours at home.
‘Wigmore Abbey,’ I said.
‘Where’s that?’
‘In the Welsh Marches. Not far from where my father was born.’
‘Ah yes. Of course it is. Or was. Is it was?’
‘So I believe.’
‘Never went there, John. Horrible journey, I hear. Best thing your father did, getting out of that wilderness, or you’d’ve been born into a life of penury and ignorance.’
He sat for some moments peering into his cup, then looked up and beamed.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It’s come to me, now. John Smart.’
I waited, guessing it had not come to him at all. It had ever been there, in the catacombs of his impressive mind.
‘Last Abbot of Wigmore. Got himself reported to Tom Cromwell, on a list of charges as long as my cock.’
‘What charges?’
‘As I recall… simony on a grand scale. Smart was littering the place with new-made priests. While also growing rich on the sale of abbey treasure. What a rogue the man was. Hunting and hawking with his canons. Poking maids and goodwives over quite a wide area. Ah… I see your ears are already awaggle.’
‘Abbey treasure? Gold? Plate?’
‘Doubtless.’
‘What else? Precious stones?’
Bonner frowned.
‘Methinks, before we travel further down this road, it would be as well for you to enlighten me as to our destination.’
I was hesitant. Bonner drained his cup and placed it on the board at his bedside.
‘John, I may have blood and ashes on my hands but I’m not known for breaking confidence.’
I nodded. What was there to lose? I took my wine over to the window, with its view, between bars, of the river, and told him what I knew about the shewstone of Wigmore Abbey.
I admit to being captivated by what I’d been told about this wondrous crystal with its history of miracles and healing. But talking to a cynic like Bonner could sometimes bring you sharply to your senses.
And the more I heard about the last Abbot of Wigmore, the more I wondered if he and the scryer, Brother Elias, were not, as Jack Simm had suspected, working together. Abbot Smart, an Oxford graduate, had been appointed Abbot of Wigmore by Cardinal Wolsey. Although there were rumours, Bonner said, that he’d paid for it. His rise had been rapid. In the years before the Reform he was also become suffragen Bishop of Hereford and accumulating endless money, most of it directly into his purse, by appointing over fifty candidates to Holy Orders.
‘Ho, ho,’ Bonner said. ‘What a holy knave the man was. Many attempts were made to unseat him, of course, but he always wriggled away, with the help of a small coterie of thoroughly reprehensible followers. While the abbey, both physically and morally, was rotting around him.’
‘But he escaped the dissolution with his life,’ I said.
‘And with a pension, for heaven’s sake! But then… who knows what favours he did for Lord Cromwell? A man who’d bend the law to have you hanged for stealing a spoon and sprung from a murderer’s death-cell if you were a friend he could use.’
If the shewstone was amongst his treasures, it seemed more than likely that he knew Elias and that both were well connected.
And well informed. In the right atmosphere, and with a good foundation, the power of insinuation is near limitless and may take on a life of its own. What had happened during our time in Glastonbury was surely talked about over a wide area of the west and beyond. It was not unlikely that Elias’s path had crossed with that of some fellow priest – even the garrulous Welsh vicar of Glastonbury – who had known of my passing association with Benlow the boneman. Unlikely, but not impossible.
‘You truly believe,’ Bonner said, ‘as a philosopher and a man of science, that it’s possible to achieve communion with the angelic hosts by means of a reflective stone?’
‘By means of celestial rays and the human spirit. There’s a long tradition of it.’