Mary Shelton must be tolerated, kept sweet even. It's safest to keep the king among cousins, if no sister is on hand. Where is Mary Boleyn? Down in the country, perhaps longing like him for warmer weather.
And the summer arrives, with no intermission for spring, promptly on a Monday morning, like a new servant with a shining face: 13 April. They are at Lambeth – Audley, himself, the archbishop – the sun shining strongly through the windows. He stands looking down at the palace gardens. This is how the book Utopia begins: friends, talking in a garden. On the paths below, Hugh Latimer and some of the king's chaplains are play-fighting, pulling each other around like schoolboys, Hugh hanging around the necks of two of his clerical fellows so his feet swing off the floor. All they need is a football to make a proper holiday of it. ‘Master More,’ he says, ‘why don't you go out and enjoy the sunshine? And we'll call for you again in half an hour, and put the oath to you again: and you'll give us a different answer, yes?’
He hears More's joints snap as he stands. ‘Thomas Howard went on his knees for you!’ he says. That seems like weeks ago. Late-night sittings and a fresh row every day have tired him, but sharpened his senses too, so he is aware that in the room behind him Cranmer is working himself into a terrible anxiety, and he wants More out of the room before the dam breaks.
‘I don't know what you think a half-hour will do for me,’ More says. His tone is easy, bantering. ‘Of course, it might do something for you.’
More had asked to see a copy of the Act of Succession. Now Audley unrolls it; pointedly, he bends his head and begins reading, though he has read it a dozen times. ‘Very well,’ More says. ‘But I trust I have made myself clear. I cannot swear, but I will not speak against your oath, and I will not try to dissuade anyone else from it.’
‘That is not enough. And you know it is not.’
More nods. He meanders towards the door, careering first into the corner of the table, making Cranmer flinch, his arm darting out to steady the ink. The door closes after him.
‘So?’
Audley rolls up the statute. Gently he taps it on the table, looking at the place where More had stood. Cranmer says, ‘Look, this is my idea. What if we let him swear in secret? He swears, but we offer not to tell anybody? Or if he cannot take this oath, we ask him what oath he can take?’
He laughs.
‘That would hardly meet the king's purpose,’ Audley sighs. Tap, tap, tap. ‘After all we did for him, and for Fisher. His name taken out of the attainder, Fisher fined instead of locked up for life, what more could they ask for? Our efforts flung back at us.’
‘Oh well. Blessed are the peacemakers,’ he says. He wants to strangle somebody.
Cranmer says, ‘We will try again with More. At least, if he refuses, he should give his reasons.’
He swears under his breath, turns from the window. ‘We know his reasons. All Europe knows them. He is against the divorce. He does not believe the king can be head of the church. But will he say that? Not he. I know him. Do you know what I hate? I hate to be part of this play, which is entirely devised by him. I hate the time it will take that could be better spent, I hate it that minds could be better employed, I hate to see our lives going by, because depend upon it, we will all be feeling our age before this pageant is played out. And what I hate most of all is that Master More sits in the audience and sniggers when I trip over my lines, for he has written all the parts. And written them these many years.’
Cranmer, like a waiting-boy, pours him a cup of wine, edges towards him. ‘Here.’
In the archbishop's hand, the cup cannot help a sacramental character: not watered wine, but some equivocal mixture, this is my blood, this is like my blood, this is more or less somewhat like my blood, do this in commemoration of me. He hands the cup back. The north Germans make a strong liquor, aquavitae: a shot of that would be more use. ‘Get More back,’ he says.
A moment, and More stands in the doorway, sneezing gently. ‘Come now,’ Audley says, smiling, ‘that's not how a hero arrives.’
‘I assure you, I intend in no wise to be a hero,’ More says. ‘They have been cutting the grass.’ He pinches his nose on another sneeze, and shambles towards them, hitching his gown on to his shoulder; he takes the chair placed for him. Before, he had refused to sit down.
‘That's better,’ Audley says. ‘I knew the air would do you good.’ He glances up, in invitation; but he, Cromwell, signals he will stay where he is, leaning by the window. ‘I don't know,’ Audley says, good-humoured. ‘First one won't sit. Then t'other won't sit. Look,’ he pushes a piece of paper towards More, ‘these are the names of the priests we have seen today, who have sworn to the act, and set you an example. And you know all the members of Parliament are conformable. So why not you?’
More glances up, from under his eyebrows. ‘This is not a comfortable place for any of us.’
‘More comfortable than where you're going,’ he says.
‘Not Hell,’ More says, smiling. ‘I trust not.’
‘So if taking the oath would damn you, what about all these?’ He launches himself forward from the wall. He snatches the list of names from Audley, rolls it up and slaps it on to More's shoulder. ‘Are they all damned?’
‘I cannot speak for their consciences, only for my own. I know that, if I took your oath, I should be damned.’
‘There are those who would envy your insight,’ he says, ‘into the workings of grace. But then, you and God have always been on familiar terms, not so? I wonder how you dare. You talk about your maker as if he were some neighbour you went fishing with on a Sunday afternoon.’
Audley leans forward. ‘Let us be clear. You will not take the oath because your conscience advises you against it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you be a little more comprehensive in your answers?’
‘No.’
‘You object but you won't say why?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it the matter of the statute you object to, or the form of the oath, or the business of oath-taking in itself?’
‘I would rather not say.’
Cranmer ventures, ‘Where it is a question of conscience, there must always be some doubt …’
‘Oh, but this is no whim. I have made long and diligent consultation with myself. And in this matter I hear the voice of my conscience clearly.’ He puts his head on one side, smiling. ‘It is not so with you, my lord?’
‘None the less, there must be some perplexity? For you must ask yourself, as you are a scholar and accustomed to controversy, to debate, how can so many learned men think on the one side, and I on the other? But one thing is certain, and it is that you owe a natural obedience to your king, as every subject does. Also, when you entered the king's council, long ago, you took a most particular oath, to obey him. So will not you do so?’ Cranmer blinks. ‘Set your doubts against that certainty, and swear.’
Audley sits back in his chair. Eyes closed. As if to say, we're not going to do better than that.
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