Chapter Eight

WE HEADED BACK TO the Minster, walking quickly for we were very late for Master Wrenne.

‘Perhaps I should take a message to Maleverer at St Mary’s now,’ Barak suggested. ‘About the boy looking at the spot on the wall.’

I hesitated. ‘No, I need you to help with the petitions, the summaries must be ready for tomorrow morning. We will leave as soon as we can, go straight back to St Mary’s. Besides, they’ve probably scared whatever he knows out of that unfortunate boy.’

Arriving at the Minster, I showed my papers again at the gate and we passed inside once more.

Just then a shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds that were gathering, shining on the huge windows of the great church and making a riot of colour.

‘Why is York Minster allowed to keep its stained glass,’ Barak asked, ‘while the monasteries have it all torn out as idolatrous?’

‘There are reformers who would pull the coloured glass from all churches, have only plain windows. But the King’s limited himself to the monasteries. For now.’

‘It makes no sense.’

‘It’s part of the compromise with the traditional party. You can’t expect politics to make sense.’

‘You’re right there.’

The old housekeeper answered Wrenne’s door, her look as cheerless as ever. The old man sat reading in the candlelit hall, where a good fire blazed in the central hearth. I saw an effort at cleaning had been made since the day before, for the books had been tidied and the green and yellow floor-tiles shone. The peregrine falcon still stood on its perch by the fire; the bell on its leg tinkled as it turned to stare at us. A fine cloth with a design of white roses had been put on the table, where three large stacks of paper stood. Master Wrenne rose slowly to his feet, laying down his book.

‘Brother Shardlake. And young Barak, good.’

‘I am sorry we are late,’ I said. ‘You had my note?’

‘Yes. Some urgent business, you said?’

Again I told the story of the glazier falling into his cart, leaving out the subsequent events. Wrenne frowned thoughtfully.

‘Peter Oldroyd. Yes, I knew him; I have done legal work for the glaziers’ guild, he was chairman one year. A quiet, respectable fellow; lost his family in the plague in ’38. It is sad.’ Wrenne was silent for a long moment, then said, ‘You catch me at my books. Sir Thomas More, his history of Richard III. A man of rare invective, was he not?’

‘Yes, he was not the gentle saint some people paint him.’

‘But he had a good turn of phrase. I have been reading what he said about the Wars between the Roses last century. “These matters be Kings’ games, as it were stage plays, and for the most part played upon scaffolds.” ’

‘So they were. Upon bloody fields of battle too.’

‘Indeed. But sit; take some wine before we begin. You look as though it has been a hard morning.’

‘Thank you.’ As I took a cup my eye strayed to the piles of books. ‘You have a most rare collection, sir.’

‘Yes, I have many old monkish books. They are not theological works, that would have me under surveillance from the Council of the North, but I have saved some valuable works of history and philosophy. For their interest, and their beauty too. I am something of an antiquarian, you see. It has been an interest all my life.’

‘That is a worthy task, sir. There was much wrong with the monasteries, but so much learning and beauty has gone to the fire. I have seen pages written with care hundreds of years ago used to wipe down horses.’

Wrenne nodded. ‘I thought we would be of like mind, brother. I can tell a scholar. There has been a great cull of monastic libraries in York these last three years. St Clement’s, Holy Trinity, above all St Mary’s.’ He smiled. ‘The antiquarian John Leland was here in the spring. He was most interested in the library I have collected upstairs. Even a little jealous, I think.’

‘Perhaps I may see it some time.’

‘Indeed.’ Wrenne nodded his leonine head. ‘But I fear we must study some lesser documents today. The petitions to the King.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Where do you practise, Brother Shardlake?’

‘Lincoln’s Inn. I am lucky, I have a house hard by in Chancery Lane.’

‘I studied at Gray’s Inn. Many years ago.’ Wrenne smiled. ‘It was 1486 when I came to London. The King’s father had not been on the throne a year.’

I did a quick calculation in my head: fifty-five years ago, he must be well over seventy. ‘But you returned to practise in York?’ I asked.

‘Ay, I was never at ease in the south.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I have a nephew at Gray’s Inn, the son of my late wife’s sister. He went down there and stayed. Perhaps you may have heard of him.’ He looked at me keenly. ‘Martin Dakin. He would be near your age now, a little older. Just past forty.’

‘No, I do not know him. But there are hundreds of barristers in London.’

Wrenne looked uncomfortable. ‘There was a bad fratch, a family quarrel, and we lost touch.’ He sighed. ‘I would like to see him again before I die. He is my only family now, you see. His parents died in the plague three years ago.’

‘Many seem to have died then.’

He shook his head. ‘York has had a terrible time these last five years. The rebellion in 1536, then in 1538 the plague. It returned in 1539 and again last year, though mercifully this year we have been spared.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Otherwise the King would not have come. His harbingers have been around the hospitals all summer, making sure there have been no cases. Instead this year we have had the new conspiracy. Troubled times.’

‘Well, let us hope for a better future now. And I would gladly take a message to your nephew in London, sir. If you wished.’

‘Thank you.’ Wrenne nodded slowly. ‘I will think on that. I had a son, who I dreamed would follow me in the law, but he died when he was five, poor nobbin.’ Wrenne looked into the fire, then shrugged and smiled. ‘Forgive an old man’s gloomy talk. I am the last of my line and some days it weighs on me.’

I felt a catch at my throat, for his words made me think of my father; I too was the last of my line.

‘We have noticed, sir,’ Barak said, ‘that security in the city seems very great. We saw some Scotch turned away at Bootham Bar.’

‘Yes, and all the stout vagabonds are being cleared from the city. The beggars will be gone from the Minster tomorrow. Poor caitiffs. Security is tight.’ Wrenne hesitated, then added, ‘You must know, sir, the King is not popular up here. Not among the gentry, though now they bow and scrape, and even less among the common people.’

I remembered Cranmer’s scathing words about northern papists. ‘Because of the religious changes, that caused the rebellion?’

‘Ay.’ Wrenne clasped his hands round his goblet. ‘I remember the rebellion. The King’s agents were closing the small monasteries and assessing church property. Then suddenly the commons erupted all over Yorkshire. It was like a wildfire.’ He waved a large, square hand where a fine emerald ring glinted. ‘They elected Robert Aske leader and within a week he had marched into York at the head of five thousand men. The City Council and the Minster authorities were terrified. This was an explosive crowd of rough peasants who had turned themselves into an army. So they agreed to obey Aske; the church authorities held a celebratory Mass for him in the Minster.’ He nodded at the window. ‘I watched the rebels processing into the Mass from there; thousands of them, all with swords and pikes.’

I nodded reflectively. ‘And they thought they could make the King agree to reverse the religious changes.’

‘Robert Aske was a naïve man for a lawyer. But if the King had not tricked them into disbanding his army I believe they could have taken the whole country.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘The discontent in the north goes back a very long way. To the Striving between the Two Roses last century. The north was loyal to King Richard III and the Tudors have never been popular. The rebellion was about more than religion, too. The Dalesmen sent round tracts by a “Captain Poverty” full of complaints about high rents and tithes. When the religious changes came –’ he spread his big hands – ‘it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.’

‘King Richard?’ Barak asked. ‘Yet he seized the throne, and murdered the rightful heirs. The Princes in the Tower.’

‘There are those who say it was the King’s father that killed them.’ He paused. ‘I was a boy when King Richard processed through York after his coronation. You should have seen the city then. People hung their best carpets from the windows all along the way, petals were showered on him as he rode by. It is different today. The common folk are reluctant even to lay gravel before their doors to smooth King Henry’s way, for all the council have ordered it.’

‘But the quarrels of the Two Roses can hardly have meaning today,’ I said. ‘The Tudors have been on the throne near sixty years.’

‘No?’ Wrenne inclined his head. ‘They say after the conspiracy was uncovered this spring, the old Countess of Salisbury and her son were executed in the Tower.’

I recalled the story of the aged countess’s dreadful death; it had circulated in London that summer. Imprisoned without charge, she had been led to the block where an inexperienced boy had hacked at her head and shoulders; the King’s executioner had been busy in York, despatching the conspirators.

‘She was the last Yorkist heir,’ Wrenne said quietly. ‘Was that not done because the King still fears the name Plantagenet?’

I sat back. ‘But surely the conspiracy this year was mainly about religion, like the Pilgrimage of Grace?’

‘Old loyalties played their part too. The King killed the countess and her son to make sure.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And they say his young children have disappeared into the Tower?’

‘No one knows.’

‘More Princes in the Tower.’

I nodded slowly. I remembered Cranmer saying, ‘This time they called him tyrant; many meant to overthrow him.’

‘I see more clearly now why there is such tight security for this visit,’ I said. ‘And yet, the house of Tudor has brought safety and security to England. No one can deny that.’

‘Very true.’ Wrenne leaned back in his chair with a sigh. ‘And for the King to come and set his stamp on the north is an intelligent plan. I only say, sir, do not underestimate the currents that run here.’

I looked at the old man, wondering where his sympathies lay. I guessed that like many an aged student of the world’s affairs, he was past feeling any great passion. I changed the subject.

‘It seems we will be present at the King’s reception on Friday. Sir William Maleverer confirmed it to me yesterday at St Mary’s. We are to hand over the petitions.’

‘Yes, I have had a message. We are to take the petitions to the Office of the Great Chamberlain tomorrow. He will see us at nine and take us through our paces for the meeting with the King. He wants me to bring the petitions and the summary half an hour early so he can go through them. So I will start early for St Mary’s, and see you there at nine.’

‘I hope we will be properly rehearsed.’

‘I am sure we will. The Council will want everything to go with perfect smoothness.’ Wrenne smiled and shook his head. ‘By Jesu, to see the King at my age. That will be a strange thing.’

‘I confess I am not looking forward to it.’

‘We have only to perform our little duty. The King will barely notice us. But to see him. And that wondrous train of wagons a mile long. They’ve been bringing in hay to feed the horses from as far as Carlisle.’

‘It is very well organized. They even have a girl going round the town buying sweet doucets for the Queen.’ I told him of our encounter with Tamasin Reedbourne. Wrenne winked at Barak.

‘Pretty, was she?’

‘Fine enough, sir.’

Something struck me then. I remembered the girl had told me she had given her servant leave to choose some cloth for a new doublet from a shop. Yet he had come back empty-handed. I put the thought aside.

‘Well,’ Wrenne said, ‘we should begin work. The summaries need only be brief. We can start now and go on till we finish.’

‘Yes. I would not like to annoy the Chamberlain’s office. Nor Sir William Maleverer.’

Wrenne frowned. ‘Maleverer is a boor, for all he comes of an old Yorkshire family. He is like many of those appointed to the Council of the North since the Pilgrimage of Grace. Gentry who did not join the rebellion and now proclaim their loyalty to reform, but have no real religion beyond their own advancement. Ruthless and ambitious men. But tell me, sir, what did you see of the building at St Mary’s?’

‘It is extraordinary. Hundreds of carpenters and artists, building great pavilions. By the way, when was the monastery put down?’

‘Two years since. Abbot Thornton wrote to Cromwell asking for the monastery to be saved, or if it could not that he be granted lands and a pension. Which he was.’ The old man laughed cynically.

‘The abbots of the large houses were corrupt and greedy men.’

‘And now St Mary’s is the King’s, the abbot’s house renamed King’s Manor.’ Wrenne rubbed his hand across his cheek thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps we shall have an announcement the Queen is with child.’

‘The King would certainly welcome a second son.’

‘The royal succession.’ He smiled. ‘The bloodline of God’s anointed rolling down the ages. The head and soul of the realm, the peak of the chain of degree that binds man to man and keeps all safe.’

‘And where we lawyers hang somewhere in the middle, hoping to rise and fearing to fall.’

‘Ay.’ Wrenne laughed and waved a hand round the room. ‘See my table on its dais, nearest the fire, so that when the household servants lay their own table to dine they are lower down and further from the heat. All part of the great chain of earthly rank, this world’s great theatre. Well, so it must be, or we should have chaos.’ He winked conspiratorially. ‘Though I allow Madge to sit close to the fire, that she may warm her old bones.’

WE SPENT THE REST OF the day going through the petitions, breaking only for a dish of old Madge’s bland pottage. Some petitions were in elegant calligraphy, impressed with heavy wax seals, others mere scrawls on poor scraps of paper. Barak prepared brief summaries of the points at issue in each case at dictation from myself and Wrenne. The old man proved quick and decisive, ruthlessly separating the wheat from the chaff. Most were relatively trifling complaints against minor officials. We worked companionably, candles lit against the dull afternoon; the only sounds the falcon’s bell as it stirred on its perch and the occasional boom of the Minster bells.

Late in the afternoon Wrenne handed me a paper filled with a laboured scrawl. ‘This is interesting,’ he said.

The petition was from a farmer in the parish of Towton, outside the city. He had changed the use of his land from pasture to growing vegetables for the city, and his ploughmen kept digging up human bones which the church authorities commanded he deliver to the local churchyard for burial. He asked for the cost of his travelling to and fro, and time lost, to be defrayed.

‘Towton,’ I said. ‘There was a battle there, was there not?’

‘The greatest battle of the Wars between the Roses. 1461. There were thirty thousand dead in that bloody meadow. And now this farmer goes to law to be paid for delivering their bones for burial. What do you think we should do with the farmer’s claim?’

‘It is surely outside our jurisdiction. It is a church matter, it should go to the Minster dean.’

‘But the church is hardly likely to rule against its own interest and pay the man, is it?’ Barak interjected. ‘He should at least have representation.’

Wrenne took the petition back, smiling ruefully. ‘Yet Brother Shardlake is right, as a matter of canon law it falls outside the remit of petitions to the King. Church jurisdiction is a sensitive issue these days. The King would not wish to raise a storm on such a trifling issue. No, we must refer the farmer to the dean.’

‘I agree,’ I said.

Wrenne gave his wry smile again. ‘We must all be politicians now. And recognize the law has its limits. You must not expect too much of it, Master Barak.’

BY FIVE O’CLOCK we had all the petitions briefly summarized. It was getting dark, and I heard rain pattering on the windows. Wrenne looked over the summaries. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think that is all clear.’

‘Good. And now, we must get back. We have some business at King’s Manor.’

Wrenne looked out of the window. ‘Let me lend you a coat, it is raining hard, pewling down as we say. Wait there a moment.’ He left us in the hall. We went and stood again by the fire.

‘He is a good old fellow,’ Barak said.

‘Ay.’ I stretched out my hands to warm them. ‘Lonely, I would guess. No one in the world but his old housekeeper and that bird.’ I nodded at the falcon, which had gone to sleep on its perch. Wrenne returned, bearing a coat, good and heavy but far too large for me, the hem nearly scraping the floor. I promised to return it on the morrow. We set off into the rain, to find out if poor young Green had said anything about a hiding place in Oldroyd’s wall.