7 sheets. 2 pillows. 1 bolster.
2 platters, 4 dishes, 2 saucers.
One small basin, weight 12lbs @ 4d the pound; my Lady Prioress has it, paid 4 shillings.He turns the paper over, trying to find its origin. He sees that he is looking at the inventory of Elizabeth Barton's goods, left behind at her nunnery. All this is forfeit to the king, the personal property of a traitor: a piece of plank which serves as a table, three pillowcases, two candlesticks, a coat valued at five shillings. An old mantle has been given in charity to the youngest nun in her convent. Another nun, a Dame Alice, has received a bed-cover.He had said to More, prophecy didn't make her rich. He makes a memorandum to himself: ‘Dame Elizabeth Barton to have money to fee the hangman.’ She has five days to live. The last person she will see as she climbs the ladder is her executioner, holding out his paw. If she cannot pay her way at the last, she may suffer longer than she needs. She had imagined how long it takes to burn, but not how long it takes to choke at the end of a rope. In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck.Thomas More's family has taken the oath. He has seen them himself, and Alice has left him in no doubt that she holds him personally responsible for failing to talk her husband into conformity. ‘Ask him what in the name of God he's about. Ask him, is it clever, does he think it is, to leave his wife without company, his son without advice, his daughters without protection, and all of us at the mercy of a man like Thomas Cromwell?’‘That's you told,’ Meg had murmured, with half a smile. Head bowed, she had taken his hand between her own. ‘My father has spoken very warmly of you. Of how you have been courteous to him and how you have been vehement – which he accounts no less a favour. He says he believes you understand him. As he understands you.’‘Meg? Surely you can look at me?’Another face bowed under the weight of a gable hood: Meg twitches her veils about her, as if she were out in a gale and they would provide protection.‘I can hold the king off for a day or two. I don't believe he wishes to see your father in the Tower, every moment he looks for some sign of …’‘Surrender?’‘Support. And then … no honour would be too high.’‘I doubt the king can offer the sort of honour he cares for,’ Will Roper says. ‘Unfortunately. Come on, Meg, let's go home. We need to get your mother on the river before she starts a brawl.’ Roper holds out his hand. ‘We know you are not vengeful, sir. Though God knows, he has never been a friend to your friends.’‘There was a time you were a Bible man yourself.’‘Men may change opinions.’‘I agree entirely. Tell your father-in-law that.’It was a sour note to part on. I shall not indulge More, he thinks, or his family, in any illusion that they
understand me. How could that be, when my workings are hidden from myself?He makes a note: Richard Cromwell to present himself to the Abbot of Westminster, to escort Sir Thomas More, prisoner, to the Tower.Why do I hesitate?Let's give him one more day.It is 15 April 1534. He calls in a clerk to tidy and file his papers, ready for tomorrow, and lingers by the fire, chatting; it is midnight, and the candles are burned down. He takes one and goes upstairs; Christophe, snoring, sprawls across the foot of his wide and lonely bed. Dear God, he thinks, my life is ridiculous. ‘Wake up,’ he says, but in a whisper; when Christophe does not respond, he lays hands on him and rolls him up and down, as if he were the lid for a pie, till the boy wakes up, expostulating in gutter French. ‘Oh by the hairy balls of Jesus.’ He blinks violently. ‘My good master, I didn't know it was you, I was dreaming I was a pastry. Forgive me, I am completely drunk, we have been celebrating the conjunction of the beautiful Helen with the fortunate Rafe.’ He raises a forearm, curls up his fist, makes a gesture of the utmost lewdness; his arm falls limp across his body, his eyelids slide ineluctably towards his cheeks, and with a final hiccup he subsides into sleep.He hauls the boy to his pallet. Christophe is heavy now, a rotund bulldog pup; he grunts, he mutters, but he does not wake again.He lays aside his clothes and says his prayers. He puts his head on the pillow: 7 sheets 2 pillows 1 bolster. He sleeps as soon as the candle is out. But his daughter Anne comes to him in a dream. She holds up her left hand, sorrowful, to show him she wears no wedding ring. She twists up her long hair and wraps it around her neck like a noose.