The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More (7 page)

“Soon,” said Margaret, “can be a long time for something you greatly wish for. It can be quick for something you hate.”

Jane touched the small head and marveled at this daughter of hers. Margaret was far more like Thomas than like herself; she was more like Thomas than any of the others. Whenever she looked at the child she remembered those days soon after Margaret's birth, when Thomas had walked up and down the room with her to soothe her cries; she remembered that Thomas could soothe her as no one else could. She remembered also how Thomas had talked of what he would do for this child, how she was to be a great and noble woman, how delighted he was with his daughter, how she had charmed him as no son ever could have done.

And it seemed that Thomas must have had preknowledge for Margaret was all that he had wished. Her cleverness astonished her mother; she had already, though not yet five, started on Latin and Greek, and seemed to find the same pleasure in it that most children would in a game of shuttlecock. Jane could feel satisfied when she surveyed her eldest daughter. Surely she had made his marriage a success when she had given him this quaint and solemn daughter.

“Well, my dearest,” said Jane, “your father will be away for a few weeks, and I'll swear that that will seem long to all of us. But when he returns you will be all the more pleased to see him because you have missed him so much.”

“Nothing could please me more,” said Margaret, “than to see him every day.”

Then she went away and gravely did her lessons. Her one aspiration now was to astonish him when he came back.

And eventually he did come back. Margaret must be the first to greet him; and when she heard his voice calling to his family, she sped into the great hall; but Mercy was there beside her.

They stood side by side looking up at him.

He smiled at their grave little faces and lifted them in his arms. He kissed Mercy first; but Margaret knew, and Mercy knew, that that was because he was longing to kiss Margaret more than anyone, for Margaret was his own child and he could never love any as he loved her.

They sat at the big table—the whole household—and everyone was happy because he was home. All the servants, who sat at the table with the family, were happy; and so were those poor travelers who had called in, weary and footsore, because they knew that they could always be sure of a meal in the house of Thomas More.

After the meal, Thomas went first to the schoolroom, and there he marveled and delighted in the progress his daughters had made. Even two-year-old Cecily had started to learn; and he was, he said, mightily pleased. “Why,” he declared, “ 'twas worth being away, for the pleasure it gives me to come back to you.”

But a few days later he took Margaret walking in Goodman's Fields, and made her sit beside him on the grass there; and as they sat, he told her that he had made plans to leave The Barge in Bucklersbury, to leave this City, and to take his family away with him to France.

Margaret cried: “But… Father, you say you love London, and that no other city could ever be home to you.”

“I know, my child. And you?”

“Yes, Father. I love it too.”

“And which would you have—a strange land with your father, or England … London … and no father?”

“I would rather be anywhere with you, Father, than anywhere without you.”

“Then, Margaret, it will be no hardship for you. ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is …’, eh? And it will be a dinner of herbs, my dearest, for we shall not be rich.”

“We shall be happy,” said Margaret. “But why must we go?”

“Sometimes I wonder, my Margaret, whether I have made you
grow up too quickly. I so long to see you bloom. I want you to be my little companion. I want to discuss all things with you. And I forget what a child you are. Well, I shall tell you this; but it is our secret. You will remember that?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Then listen. A long time ago, before you were born, before I married your mother, our King asked his Parliament for a sum of money. I was a Member—a very junior Member—of that Parliament, and I argued against the King's wishes. Partly because of the words I spoke, Margaret, the King did not get all the money for which he was asking.”

Margaret nodded.

“When the King is given money by the Parliament, it is the peoples money raised by taxes. You do not know what these are, and one day I will explain. But, you see, money has to be taken from the people to give to the King… a little here … a little there … to make a large sum. The cost of food is increased so that some of the money which is paid for it may go to the King. The people had already paid too many of these taxes and the King wanted them to pay more and more. I thought it wrong that he should have the money for which he asked. I thought it wrong that the people should be made even poorer. And I said so.”

“It
was
wrong, Father.”

“Ah, little Meg, do you say that because you see why it was wrong, or because I say so?”

“Because you say so, Father.”

He kissed her. “Do not trust me too blindly, Meg. I am a mortal man you know. I will say this: I thought what I did was right. The King thought I was wrong. And kings, like little girls … little boys … and even babies, do not like people who prevent their doing those things which they wish to do. So … the King does not like me.”

“Everybody likes you, Father,” she said in disbelief.

“
You
do,” he said with a laugh. “But everyone—alas!—has not your kind discernment. No, the King does not like me, Meg,
and when a king does not like a man, he seeks to harm him in some way.”

She stood up in alarm. She took his hand and tugged at it.

“Whither would you take me, Meg?”

“Let us run away now.”

“Whither shall we run?”

“To some foreign land where we can have a new king.”

“That is just what I propose to do, Meg. But there is no need for you to be frightened, and there is no need for such haste. We have to take the others wth us. That is why I went abroad … to spy out the land. Very soon you, I, your mother, the girls and some of our servants are going away. I have many kind friends, as you know. One of these is a gentleman you have seen because he has visited us. He is a very important gentleman—Bishop Foxe of Winchester. He has warned me of the King's feelings against me, and he has told me that he can make the King my friend if I will admit my fault to the Parliament.”

“Then he will make the King your friend, Father?”

“Nay, Meg, for how can I say that I was wrong when I believe myself to have been right, when, should I be confronted with the same problem, I should do the same again?”

“If Bishop Foxe made the King your friend, you could stay at home.”

“That is true, Meg. I love this City. Look at it now. Let me lift you. There is no city in the world which would seem so beautiful to me as this one. When I am far from it, I shall think of it often. I shall mourn it as I should mourn the best loved of my friends. Look, Meg. Look at the great bastions of our Tower. What a mighty fortress! What miseries … what joys … have been experienced within those walls? You can see our river. How quietly, how peacefully it flows! But what did Satan say to Jesus when he showed Him the beauties of the world, Meg? That is what a small voice within me says, ‘All this can be yours,’ it says. ‘Just for a few little words.’ All I need say is that I was wrong and the King was right. All I need say is that it is right for the King to take his
subjects' money, to make them poor that he may be rich. Nay, Meg, it would be wrong to say those words. And there would be no peace in saying them. This City of mine would scorn me if I said them; so I cannot, Meg; I cannot.” Then he kissed her and went on: “I burden this little head with so much talk. Come, Meg, smile for me. You and I know how to be happy wherever we are. We know the secret, do we not? What is it?”

“Being together,” said Margaret.

He smiled and nodded, and hand in hand they walked home by the long route. Through Milk Street they went, that he might show her the house in which he was born, for he knew she never tired of looking at it and picturing him as a child no bigger than herself; they went past the poulterers' shops in the Poultry, through Scalding Alley where the poulterers' boys were running with the birds sold by their masters, that there in the Alley they might be plucked and scorched; the air was filled with the smell of burning feathers. And they went on into the Stocks Market with its shops filled with fish and flesh and its stalls of fruit and flowers, herbs and roots; and so home to Bucklersbury with its pleasant aromas of spices and unguents, which seemed to Margaret to have as inevitable a place in her life as the house itself.

It was as though he looked at all these places with loving concentration, so that he might remember every detail and be able to recall them when he became an exile from the City which he loved.

As they approached the house he said: “Meg, not a word to anyone. It would frighten the children. It would frighten your mother.”

She pressed his hand, proud to share their secret.

But she greatly feared that the mighty King would hurt her father before they could escape him.

THERE WAS
great excitement in the streets; and there was relief mingling with that excitement, which was felt in the house in Bucklersbury.

The King was dead. And fear had died with him.

A new King had come to the throne—a boy not yet eighteen. He was quite different from his father; there was nothing parsimonious about him, and the people looked forward to a great and glorious reign. The household of Thomas More need not now consider uprooting itself.

All over the City the church bells were ringing. In the streets the people were dancing and singing. How could they regret the passing of a mean old King, when a young and handsome one was waiting to take the crown?

Men talked of the terrible taxation demanded by the late King through his agents, Empson and Dudley. Rumors ran through the town. The new King loved his people; he loved to jest and be merry. He was not like his father, who rode in a closed carriage whenever he could, because he did not wish the people to see his ugly face. No, this King loved to ride abroad, clad in cloth of gold and velvet, sparking with jewels; he liked to show his handsome face to his subjects and receive their homage.

“Father,” said Margaret, “what will happen now that we have a new King?”

“We shall pass into a new age,” he said. “The old King's meanness curbed everything but the amassing of money by a few people. England will now be thrown open to scholars. Our friend Erasmus will be given a place here, and enough to keep him in comfort while he continues his studies. Avarice will be stamped out. The new King begins a new and glorious reign.”

“Will he give back the money his father took from the people?” asked Margaret.

Her father laid a hand on her head. “Ah, that I cannot tell you.”

“But how can he begin to please the people unless he begins by doing that?”

“Margaret, there are times when the working of your mind seems almost too great a strain for your years.”

But he kissed her to show that he was pleased with her; and
she said: “Even if he does not, there is nothing to fear, is there, Father. Satan does not whisper to you anymore: 'The cities of the world are yours.…”

“You are right, Meg,” he told her joyfully.

Dr Colet came to the house, and even he, for a time, ceased to talk of literature and theology while he discussed the new King.

“There will be a marriage of the King and the Spanish Infanta, his brothers widow,” he said. “I like that not. Nor, I gather, does my lord of Canterbury.”

Margaret listened to them; she was eager to learn everything, that she might afford her father great pleasure by her understanding when these matters were referred to.

“There will have to be dispensation from the Pope,” said Thomas. “But I doubt not that will be an easy matter.”

“Should it be granted?” asked Colet. “His brothers widow! Moreover, did he not some years ago make a solemn protest against the betrothal?”

“He did—under duress. He protested on the grounds that she was five years his senior, and he quoted the Bible, I believe. No good could come of such a marriage, he said. But it was his father who forced the protest from him. Young Henry, it seems, always had a mild fancy for the Spanish lady; and his father was pleased that this should be so, for you'll remember, only half of her magnificent dowry had fallen into his hands and he greatly longed to possess himself of the other half.”

“I know. I know. And when the old King decided he would marry Katharine's sister Juana, he felt that, if father and son married sisters, the relationship would be a complicated and unpleasant one. I doubt not that he thought it better to secure Juana's great riches than the remaining half of Katharine's dowry.”

“That was so. Therefore young Henry, whatever his private desires, must protest against his betrothal to his brothers widow.”

“Still, he made the protest,” said Colet.

“A boy of fifteen!”

“It was after the protest, so I hear, that he began to fall in love
in earnest with his brother's widow. The toy had been offered him; he thought little of it; it was only when there was an attempt to snatch it from him that he determined to hold it. And now he declares nothing will turn him from the match, for she is the woman of his fancy.”

“Well, she is a good Princess,” said Thomas, “and a comely one. She will provide England with a good Queen. That will suffice.”

“It will, my friend. It must. Do not forget it is the King's wish. There is no law in this land but the King's pleasure. And it will be well for us to remember that this King—be he ever so young and handsome—like his father, is a Tudor King.”

And Margaret, listening, wondered whether fear had entirely left her. This King—young and handsome though he was—might not give back to the people the money his father had taken from them; he wished to marry his brother's widow mainly because his father had said he should not. Would he prove to be such a good King after all? Could she be happy? Could she be reassured that her father was safe?