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By Root 3764 0

for a streak of laziness in his youth, he might have been a fine scholar. His parish of St Lawrence Silversleeves was not a place for an ambitious man. Yet he was content. He had restored the little church with its dark rood screen, and under his wardenship, it had gained two fine new stained glass windows. He knew the name of every child in his parish; the women liked his bonhomie because they knew he observed his vows of celibacy; he could drink with the men but keep a genial dignity. After giving the last rites, he would always hold the dying person’s hand until they were safely gone. His sermons were simple, his conversation matter-of-fact. He was a solid Catholic priest.

Only the previous year he had fallen sick, quite seriously so, and after a time announced: “I can’t keep up the pastoral work any more.” He had chosen to retire to the great Charterhouse monastery in London; but before doing so had decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome. “See Rome and die,” he had cheerfully remarked, “though I shan’t die yet, I dare say.” He was still there now. And she had had to write to him for guidance about this business today. For the twentieth time, that morning, she had read his reply.

I can only tell you to follow your conscience. Your religion is strong. Pray therefore, and you will know what to do.

She had prayed. Then she had come here.

Somewhere in the great labyrinth of Hampton Court was her dear husband Rowland. It was an hour since Thomas had led him in there – to what they both knew would be the most important meeting of his life. She had never seen him so on edge. For three days he had repeatedly been sick and looked so deathly pale that, if she had not been used to his intense and nervous constitution, Susan might have thought that he was really ill. He was doing it for her and the children, but for himself too. Perhaps that was why she wanted him to succeed so much.

Peter’s greatest gift of all to her had been her husband. It was Peter who had found Rowland, Peter who had quietly sent him to her with a message: This is the one. “Damn it, they even look the same,” Thomas had complained. For it was true that Peter and her husband with their stout build and prematurely balding heads did look rather similar. But despite this superficial resemblance there was an important difference. Even if the monk was the older and wiser of the two, gentle Rowland had a quiet ambition which, she knew, Peter lacked. “I couldn’t have married a man without ambition,” she confessed.

As for the physical side of their marriage, that too, she felt confident, could hardly be bettered. Yet she smiled when she thought of the early days. How devout, how hesitant they had been! How seriously they had both tried to follow the rules and make their intimacy a sacrament. It was she, after a short while, who had decided to take charge.

“But you are wanton,” he had said, looking rather surprised.

“I need something to confess,” she had replied. And many times since then their own priest, with a smile they did not see, had given them each a little penance and a kindly absolution.

Now Rowland had his chance. If the interview which Thomas had arranged was successful, there was no denying what it might mean. An outlet for his talents; a respite from their endless worries over money; perhaps even modest riches one day. When she thought of the children she told herself: it must be right.

There was one other consolation. Whatever she might think of courts, she knew they were a necessary evil, the courtiers only servants. Behind them lay the all-important figure whose cause they would really be serving. Her father’s friend; her brother’s benefactor; the man she had been brought up to love and trust all her life.

Good King Henry, England’s pious king, head of the house of Tudor.

The Plantagenet dynasty had collapsed in that terrible series of family feuds between John of Gaunt’s House of Lancaster and its rival the House of York, known as the Wars of the Roses. So many royal princes had been killed, that an obscure Welsh family, married by chance