h. f. m. prescott

The Man on a Donkey

part 2Introduction by Jim Campbell

l o y o l a c l a s s i c s

v

Contents

Introduction by Jim Campbell vii

Author’s Note 4Gilbert Dawe, Priest 5The End and the Beginning 545

Historical Note 553Plan of Marrick Priory 556Questions for Reflection and Discussion 559About the Author 567

5

Gilbert Dawe, Priest

1536

January 7

At Kimbolton Castle the groom of the chamber and the candle maker heard the clock strike eleven as they finished the worst part of their work, and washed their hands, letting the water run over their forearms, till the basin looked as if it was full of raspberry juice. Then, having tidied up the mess, and set aside the earthen jar in which were enclosed the heart and entrails, they kicked the bloody cloths out of the way of their feet, and set to work to cere the body, wrapping it in fold after fold of waxed linen cloth, with handfuls of spices laid on, till the sickly smell of blood was overlaid by the sharp scents of cinnamon and myrrh. By the time they were done it was close on midnight, and all at Kimbolton asleep except those who waited to watch beside the bier till day. The groom of the chamber unlocked the door, and he and the other went out, leaving alone the body of Katherine who had been Queen. It lay now stiff as wood, and bulked out to unnatural rotundity by the folds of the cerecloth; only the face showed, wax white and sharp in the light of the

6 The Man on a Donkey, Part 2 1536

candle flames which shivered when the wind whined through the shutters.

Outside on the dark stair the groom of the chamber let out a great sigh, and said that “By Cock! he had a sore thirst.” As the chandler had the same they went off together to shake up one of the buttery lads. When he had found ale and bread for them, they blew up the cinders of the fire in the almoner’s room, and sat down to warm their feet and drink their ale. A big tabby cat, dislodged from the cushion of the settle, stretched and yawned, showing teeth curved and sharp as thorns, but milk white; then it leapt, light as a leaf, on the lap of the chandler and at once fell asleep again.

Not till their cans were half empty did either of the two men speak, and even then the groom of the chamber was spar-ing of words. But the chandler became garrulous. He said it was a pity to see the good Queen lie dead, and no harm now to call her Queen for that Queen she had been and now was no more, nor was anything anymore, God have mercy on her soul. “And,” said he, “all her ladies saying that since the Emperor’s ambassador came to see her on New Year’s Day, that she fared the better for it, and would recover. Aye and surely it must have given the poor soul comfort to speak to one of the Emperor’s people once more.”

The groom of the chamber grunted. He was a lean, sharp, worried man, never talkative, and now he would not raise his eyes from the fire. The chandler went on:

“That fat man of the imperial ambassador, the one that spoke English, told me the poor lady took heart so from his master

1536 H. F. M. Prescott 7

coming, that he heard her, when they were talking, laugh, and more than once.”

“Did she laugh?” the groom muttered, but it was less a ques-tion than a sort of sour comment.

“Aye—that she did. And asked for the fat man—you know what a merry talker he was—to make her sport that evening.”

After a silence the chandler shifted a little on the seat to look at the groom of the chamber.

“Even last night the women were saying that she was so much better that she called for a comb and dressed and tied her hair for herself.”

The groom of the chamber twitched his thin nose, frowned, squinted into the can that he held on his knee, and said nothing.

“And tonight,” said the chandler, fondling the cat with one hand, but keeping his eyes on the groom, “tonight—there she lies, dead.” As he lifted his chin toward the painted beams of the ceiling they both thought of the little close room above, of the reek of the blood, and of the dismal work they had accom-plished on the shrunken body of the gray- haired woman that had come to England nearly thirty years before, a young girl, plump and merry, afraid a little, yet hoping more than fearing, because of the ignorance and potency of youth.

“Why,” the chandler leaned along the settle and spoke softly, “why did you cut through the heart when it was forth of the body?”

The groom’s eyes came quickly to his in a sharp look. But all he said was, “Because so it should be done.”

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“Perdy, I never saw it so done before.”The groom of the chamber got up. He said he was for bed,

and went away. But before he went to bed he found the dead woman’s chaplain, the bishop of Llandaff, who, with others, was watching about the body, and told him, very secretly, a dread-ful thing—how that the heart of Dame Katherine, Princess Dowager, was black and hideous all through, and to the surface of it clung a small black globule. The groom of the chamber knew just so much of surgery as to be very positive. He told the bishop, who was a Spaniard, that from the state of the heart he knew that the Princess Dowager had been poisoned. The bishop wrote a letter that night to Master Chapuys, telling him what the groom had said. “And if it is poison,” he wrote, “surely none other but the Concubine hath devised it.”

January 8

Not only the Queen Anne but the King himself joined in the dancing this night, and both showed very good cheer. Many remarked it, and thought, if they did not whisper, of the mes-senger who had come that morning from Kimbolton, announc-ing the Princess Dowager’s death. At last, quite late, the King clapped his hands to quiet the musicians and bring the galliard to an end. Then he called for wine and candles, and for his gentlemen to put him to bed. The Queen and her ladies, having curtseyed to the King, withdrew to her apartments.

In the King’s bedchamber the gentlemen on duty took off the King’s rings, and chain, the dagger in a crimson velvet sheath the hilt of which was frosty with small diamonds. One of them

1536 H. F. M. Prescott 9

laid by his yellow satin cap with a white feather, and a sapphire brooch to hold the feather. Two others helped him to take off the yellow satin doublet. The King whistled softly a tune that they had danced to just now; he yawned, whistled again, and smiled privately to himself.

They had put on him by now his nightshirt, and the gold embroidered nightcap; when he had slipped his arms into a green and white velvet nightgown he spread them out in a great luxurious stretch, yawning again, wide as a cat, so that all his fine teeth showed, and his pink tongue.

He kept Norris behind when the others had gone, talking with him of the buck hounds, and of a new goldsmith out of Germany, a very skillful craftsman; but at last he got into bed and lay there with his eyes shut, and his face, with the fine sharp beaked nose, turned up to the celure of the bed, while Norris drew the curtains softly, and thought, with a sort of start in his mind, how the King would one day—one day—lie just so, with face composed and eyes shut; but on that day the eyes would not open again.

They opened now and met Norris’s, and Norris felt his heart quicken, as though the King could read his thought.

“How,” the King asked, “goes this business of your marriage?”

“But lamely,” said Norris, and asked himself, “Can one have told him that I wait to stand in his shoes?”

“You should make haste,” said the King, closing his eyes again, yet smiling with his mouth. “And how think you,” he asked, “should a man choose a wife? For wit, or for beauty, or for what other quality in her?”

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Norris, because he had been for a moment afraid, now became pert. He said that himself he favored a plump dower.

But the King, frowning a little, went on, as if he had not spoken. “Of all things,” said he, “let her be meek,” adding hast-ily, “given virtue, of course, given virtue.”

Norris agreed, “Of course.” And then, since Katherine, Queen or Princess Dowager, was tonight, though unnamed, in the minds of all, he began to say that though Her Highness had been virtuous, meek she had not been. But he stopped short, having remembered the awkward fact that it was not for him to consider her as the King’s wife at all.

Yet the King only smiled at Norris’s stumbling. “No mat-ter—no matter. She is dead.” He crossed his breast under the sheet and murmured, “Deus misereatur . . .”

“God be praised,” he said aloud. “Now am I free from any threat of war with the Emperor. Now I shall have peace.”

After Norris had left him the King humped himself more comfortably into the warmth of the bed, drowsily watching where a dimly luminous glow in the curtains showed that the great candle burned outside. “Peace with the Emperor,” he thought, “peace at home.”

“My little fair sweetheart,” he murmured, and thought—“Meek as a dove, and as a lamb innocent.”

January 18

It was Dame Margery Conyers who was the first to see the King’s visitors. She was up in the Vine Chamber in the dorter which she shared with Dame Joan Barningham and Dame Eleanor

h. f. m. prescott

The Man on a Donkey

part 2Introduction by Jim Campbell

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The Man on a Donkey part 2

prescott

l o y o l ac l a s s i c s

The Man on a Donkey is an enthralling, panoramic

historical novel that brings to life one of the most tumultuous times in British

history—the reign of King Henry VIII.

In Part 1, readers are introduced to the world of the Tudors through

the lives of five individuals. In Part 2—as King Henry VIII continues his

arrogant rule, Thomas Cromwell closes the monasteries, and rebellion breaks

out in the North of England—readers discover the destiny of these five

people and, through their stories, learn that God’s love is felt only by those

whose hearts are open to mystery and grace.

“The almost perfect historical novel.”

—The New York Times

H. F. M. Prescott (1896–1972) studied history at Oxford and began writ-ing in the mid-1920s. She is best known for her historical novels, including The Man on a Donkey and Son of Dust, and for her biography of Mary Tudor.