Historical Miniatures Part 43

"All have lied to you, liar. And your four thousand victims whom you have had executed...."

"They were not victims; they were criminals."

"Those four thousand slaughtered will witness it the judgment seat against you."

"Lengthen my life; then I will reform myself."

"Liberate the Milanese."

"Never!"

"Then go to perdition--and quickly. Your pulse is so feeble that your hours are numbered."

The King jumped up, fell on his knees before the physician, and prayed, "Lengthen my life."

"No! I should like to abbreviate it, were you not the anointed of the Lord. You ought to have rat-poison."

"Mercy! I confess that I have acted from bad motives; that I have only thought of myself; that I have never loved the people, but used them in order to put down the n.o.bles; I grant that I made agreements and treaties with the deliberate purpose of breaking them; that I ... Yes, I am a poor sinful man, and my name will be forgotten; all that I have done will be obliterated...."

A stranger now appeared in the open door. It was a young man in the garb of the Minorites.

"Murderer!" screamed the King, and sprang up.

"No," answered the monk, "I am he whom you called Vincent of Paula."

"My deliverer! say a word--a single word of comfort."

"Sire," answered Vincent, "I have heard your confession, and will give you absolution in virtue of my office."

"Speak."

"Very well. Your motives were not pure, as you yourself confess, but your work will not perish, for He who guides the destinies of men and nations uses all and each for His purposes. Not long ago it was a pure virgin who saved France; now it is not quite so blameless a man. But your work, sire, was in its result of greater importance than that of the Maid, for you have completed what the Roman Caesar began. The hundred-year war with England is over, the Armagnacs and Burgundians quarrel no more, the Jacquerie war has ceased, and the peasants have returned to their ploughs. You have united eleven provinces, France has become one land, one people, and will now take the place of Rome, which will disappear and be forgotten for centuries, perhaps some day to rise again. France will guide the destinies of Europe, and be great among the crowned heads, so long as it does not aim at empire like the Rome of the Caesars, for then it will be all over with it. Thank G.o.d that you have been able to be of service, though in ignorance of the will and purposes of your Lord, when you thought you were only going your own way!"

"Montjoie Saint Denis!" exclaimed the King. "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace."

"But not here," broke in the Doctor, who was tired of the whole business. "Travel back to Tours, take the priest with you, and leave me in peace!"

The King returned to Plessis-les-Tours, where he ended his days after severe sufferings. He did not obtain peace, but he did obtain death.

"Now the rod is thrown into the fire," said Doctor Coctier, "let it burn; the children have grown up, and can look after themselves.

Executioners also have their uses, as Tristan L'Ermite and his master Louis XI know. Peace be with them."

OLD MERRY ENGLAND

Cardinal Wolsey's oared galley pushed off from the Tower Bridge, below the iron gateway. It gleamed with red and gold; flags and sails flapped lazily in a gentle breeze. The Cardinal sat on the stern-deck surrounded by his little court; most of his attendants he had left at home in York Palace, later known as Whitehall. His face was red both from the reflection of his red dress as from the wine which he had been drinking at noon with King Henry VIII in the Tower, and also from the new French sickness, which was very fashionable, as everything French was.

He was in a cheerful mood, for he had just received fresh proofs of the King's favour.

At his side stood the King's secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Both were parvenus. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, Cromwell the son of a smith, and that was probably one of the causes of their friendship, although the Cardinal was by twenty years the elder of the two.

"This is a happy day," said Wolsey joyfully, and cast a glance up at the Tower, which was still a royal residence, though it was soon to cease to be one. "I have obtained the head of Buckingham, that fool who believed he had a right of succession to the crown."

"Who has the right of succession," asked Cromwell, "since there is no male heir, and none is expected?"

"I will soon see to that! Katherine of Aragon is weak and old, but the King is young and strong."

"Remember Buckingham," said Cromwell; "it is dangerous to meddle with the succession to the throne."

"Nonsense! I have guided England's destiny hitherto, and will guide it further."

Cromwell saw that it was time to change the topic.

"It is a good thing that the King is leaving the Tower. It must be depressing for him to have only a wall between himself and the prisoners, and to see the scaffold from his windows."

"Don't talk against our Tower! It is a Biblia Pauperum, an ill.u.s.trated English History comprising the Romans, King Alfred, William the Conqueror, and the Wars of the Roses. I was fourteen years old when England found its completion at the battle of Bosworth, and the thirty years' War of the Roses came to an end with the marriage between York and Lancaster...."

"My father used to talk of the hundred years' war with France, which ended in the same year in which Constantinople was taken by the Turks--_i.e._ 1453."

"Yes, all countries are baptized in blood; that is the sacrament of circ.u.mcision, and see what fertility follows this manuring with blood!

You don't know that apple-trees bear most fruit after a blood-bath."

"Yes I do; my father always used to bury offal from butchers' shops at the root of fruit-trees."

Here he stopped and coloured, for he had made a slip with his tongue. In the Cardinal's presence no one dared to speak of slaughter or the like, for he was hated by the people, and often called "The Butcher."

Cromwell, however, was above suspicion, and the Cardinal did not take his remark ill, but saved the situation.

"Moreover," he continued, "my present was well received by the King; Hampton Court is also a treasure, and has the advantage of being near Richmond and Windsor, but can naturally not bear comparison with York Place."

The galley was rowed up the river, on whose banks stood the most stately edifices which existed at the time. They pa.s.sed by customhouses and warehouses, fishmarkets, and fishers' landing-places; the pinnacles of the Guildhall or Council House; the Convent of Blackfriars, the old Church of St. Paul's; the Temple, formerly inhabited by the Templars, now a court of justice; the Hospital of St. James, subsequently appropriated by Henry VIII and made a palace. Finally they reached York Place (Whitehall) by Westminster, where Wolsey, the Cardinal and Papal Legate, Archbishop of York and Keeper of the Great Seal, dwelt with his court, comprising about eight hundred persons, including court ladies.

Then they disembarked after conversing on ordinary topics; for the Cardinal preferred discussing trifles when he had great schemes in hand, and that which occupied him especially just now was his candidature for the papacy.

Sir Thomas More, the King's Treasurer and Privy Councillor, sat in his garden at Chelsea above Westminster. He was correcting proofs, for he was a great scholar, and wrote on all the controversial questions of the day, religious and political, though he was essentially a man of peace, living in this suburb an idyllic life with his family.

He wore his best attire, although in the house and at work. He also showed signs of disquietude, looking now and then towards the door, for at an early hour of the day no one less than the King had sent an intimation of his intention to pay him a visit. He knew from experience how dangerous it was to be on intimate terms with the King and to share his secrets. His sovereign had the bad habit of asking for advice which he did not follow, and of imparting secrets the knowledge of which often cost his confidants their heads. The most dangerous thing of all was to undertake to act as intermediary between Henry and anyone else, for then one fell between two millstones.

With a mind prepared for the worst, More tried to quiet himself by reading his proofs, but his efforts were vain. He rose and began to walk up and down the garden path, went over in his mind all possible causes of the King's coming, rehea.r.s.ed answers to objections, refutations of arguments, and ways of modifying the King's too strong views without causing offence.

Henry was certainly a learned man, who had a respect for knowledge, but he had a savage nature which he tried to tame with the scourge of religion, though without success.

The clank of armour and tramp of horses was now audible, and the Treasurer hastened, cap in hand, to the garden gate.

The King had already dismounted from his horse, and hastened towards his friend, carrying a portfolio in his hand.