The Archer Prism: reflecting Sir John Harington

By Will Coe

This historical novel is a fictionalised account of the influence of Sir John Harington during the last part of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. He was a courtier, wit, inventor, reluctant soldier and favourite Godson of the Queen who, in his day, was better known for his writings than Shakespeare.
The novel takes the form of an autobiography. From his 400 year old grave, Sir John Harington looks back at his impetuous relationships with his wife; his Queen and Godmother; his mother-in-law; his black shadow, Richard Topcliffe; his patron, the Earl of Essex; his bête noire, Walter Raleigh, and his neighbours, William and Robert Cecil, principal ministers of England.
To understand better the up and downs of his life in the turbulent age of Elizabeth I, he compares what happened to him with the remarkable literary and political career of Jeffrey Archer, bestselling author, convict and peer of England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Coe
• Release date: Nov 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9780957002500

Will Coe

Editor and Publisher of Egopendium, an online magazine featuring artcles by historical figures about current personalities who share their talents or experiences. Author of 'The Archer Prism', a fictional autobiography of Elizabethan writer-soldier-spy, Sir John Harington

Book preview

THE ARCHER PRISM

reflecting Sir John Harington

A modern light on an Elizabethan life

by Will Coe

Prism, from Medieval Latin prisma.

Used figuratively, a medium that distorts, slants or colours whatever is viewed through it.

THE ARCHER PRISM

by Will Coe

Published in Great Britain 2011

by Wilcooperative Publishing at Smashwords

59 Crow Lane

Husborne Crawley

Bedford

MK43 0XA

UK

The Archer Prism

ISBN 978-0-9570025-0-0

Copyright © Will Coe 2011

The right of Will Coe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

THE ARCHER PRISM

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Mothers

Chapter 2: Wife

Chapter 3: Misfortune

Chapter 4: Enemy

Chapter 5: Author

Chapter 6: Weathervanes

Chapter 7: Class

Chapter 8: Patrons

Chapter 9: Liaisons

Chapter 10: Talents

Chapter 11: Plots

Chapter 12: Fountains

Chapter 13: Flush

Chapter 14: Theatre

Chapter 15: Majesty

Chapter 16: Books

Chapter 17: Soldiering

Chapter 18: Reporting

Chapter 19: Madness

Chapter 20: Arraignment

Chapter 21: King

Author's note

This novel is a work of fiction rooted in fact. The relationships, actions and opinions of its central character have been imagined from a wealth of reliable sources, not least Sir John Harington's own works. Others featured in the novel lived or are living. Most have been portrayed with an eye on historical accuracy although liberties have been taken regarding their interaction with the protagonist.

Edward Seymour, the son of the 1st Earl of Hertford, is an exception. There is no basis for the part he plays in the book to be found in the real life of Viscount Beauchamp. Edward's involvement aside, the narrative is consistent with recorded historical events.

However, the interpretation and timing of those events, both historical and contemporary, are a result of the author's imagination and may not reflect the real actions or opinions of any person, living or dead. I have also sited Sir John's famous invention inside the manor house of Kelston when it was actually constructed as an outbuilding (the ruins of which can still be seen in a private Somerset garden).

Chapter 1: Mothers

THE ARCHER PRISM

Few people are indifferent to Jeffrey Archer, best selling author, convict and peer of the realm.

He is a man of extravagant accomplishments and failures.

His ship of life has never managed an even keel.

Although I was only knighted rather than ennobled, the same could have been said about me. I don't know whether that's a boast or a confession.

To make up my mind which it is, I intend to use what I know about Jeffrey Archer and relate it to my life's journey. My writings and controversial personality were as emblematic a feature of Elizabethan England as his are today. He is the mirror which can help me see my face more clearly. You may think it's a bit late for me to judge myself since I can undo nothing. If you feel that way, you have no soul.

Let's start with the parents. Our mothers in particular.

Lola Archer, nee Cook, gave birth to Jeffrey Howard in 1940. It was the second child of her union with William Archer but the first, born out of wedlock, was given away for adoption. By the time Jeffrey arrived, William had agreed to marry Lola. He was a penniless but charming recidivist, almost forty years older than her. He had little to do with their son's upbringing and was a vacuum which Jeffrey has filled with lies

To maintain the family with little help from her feckless husband, Lola published a 'What's-on in Weston-super-Mare' leaflet and also waitressed and nursed. In 1949, she became the first female journalist on the Weston Mercury, responsible for 'Over the tea cups' on the women's page. What 'Tuppence' (her nickname for her son) did was a frequent subject of her articles. Jeffrey revelled in his local celebrity and discovered un unquenchable taste for the limelight. Lola was clearly responsible for his later interest in writing as a way to make a massive amount of money quickly.

She devoted herself to giving Jeffrey the best possible start in life. Poor as she was, she managed, with the help of a scholarship, to send Jeffrey to a minor public school. He was to teach Physical Education at similar schools before going up to Brasenose College, Oxford, to study for a Diploma in Education. There he made all the connections that his mother's family had never brought him.

Although he refused to help her publish her own book, Jeffrey remained grateful to, and respectful of, his mother.

Lola died when Jeffrey, now a Lord, was into his sixties and about to be sent to prison.

My mum's turn. In more detail.

1579

The last time I saw my mother was the day that I determined to become a writer. I had come to London to watch men having their hands cut off. My upbringing was unlike Jeffrey's.

The ride down from King’s College was long and challenging, since flat roads had become a Roman memory long ago. I had come with my student bedfellow, a Seymour, and arrived at my parent's London house in St Katharine’s Court unheralded. My mother was drawn and pale in her bed, hardly aware that her only son had come to see her. My father was pleased that the filial bond was strong enough to tempt me to ride through a thunderous November night, especially without checking whether my parents had decamped back to Kelston Manor after the first bloodletting. Which they would usually do at the first sign of poor health. Somerset air was a more trusted remedy than London mountebanks.

I fear for her, John. She is in God's good hands now. It is right that you are here but a surprise nevertheless. How did you know we were still in London?

I heard from a cousin that mother was too ill to travel.

It was one of those lies that does more good than the truth. It was not well told and my father cocked his head slightly and stared hard at me before leaving it unchallenged. How could any cousin have known either? Honesty was a Harington trait and circumstances hardly ever diverted us from it. In this instance, my father let it pass because he knew that the lie warmed my mother.

Jeffrey's father did not have the same respect for veracity as mine did. He was most happy living a lie and he seems to have passed this habit onto his son. I was lucky with my father and, unlike Jeffrey, I did not feel the need to exaggerate or fabricate his achievements. The influence of our mothers was also quite different. They were both extremely strong minded but the bodily strength of my mother was no match for Lola's.

Isabell, my mother, lay uncomfortably straight in her bed as though already parcelled for the next life.

Mother, it's John. I came as soon as I heard, I said, building shamelessly on my lie. I've brought my friend, Edward Seymour. You remember Edward.

I should have kissed her brow, asked how she was feeling but the answer was obvious. Instead, I pushed Edward in front of me. In my defence, emotions were choking me, not an experience I was equipped to handle well. Her eyes struggled to recognise Seymour but his mere name brought a flutter of colour to her cheeks.

Edward, Edward Seymour? she mouthed rather than asked. Edward bowed and moved forward to touch her hand. It was the natural kind of thing he would do and I would not.

Mistress Harington, I am sorry to see you so low in spirits. John's presence will help revive you. As will the prayers of my family.

It was the right thing to say. She knew that prayers were all that lay between her and her Maker. My mother was a fearsomely religious Protestant. I could recall many a family quarrel at the Stepney house of my grandfather which testified to the loneliness of her zeal. The Seymours had a more self-serving approach to religion. They were rampantly political Protestants. Or unswervingly political Catholics, however the mood took them. Unfortunately for them, their grasp of politics was no firmer than their commitment to the 39 Articles or the catechism. The only advantage of fatally misjudging the moment was that they were recognised as true gentlemen, especially when they travelled abroad. By contrast, we Somerset Haringtons could only aspire to the title by blustering about Bosworth and the royal blood line of our senior branch. In my times, the definition of a gentle English family was unequivocal. Unless someone senior had bloodied the executioner’s apron; had their testicles and entrails showily removed; had their heads parboiled in salt water and cumin at Jack Ketch’s kitchen, and then affixed decoratively to the battlements of London Bridge, you were strictly second rank whatever your noble prefix. Previous Seymours gave young Edward an impeccability of pedigree that Lord Burleigh and Lord Chancellor Hatton drooled about in their beds every night. The social superiority of Edward - the fact that his Aunty Jane had been mother to our recent king, that uncle Edward was Elizabeth’s first sexual adventure and that his family’s claim to the throne caused him to be officially classified as a bastard - troubled me not a jot. HDQ was not something I sought after my name, nor that of any close relative.

Enough background. I'm trying to compare the influences on my life with Jeffrey's, not give history lessons. This visit to London is why I became one of the most celebrated writers in Tudor England. You may not know the name of John Harington but I can assure you all England did in my time. 'What happened?' is the question I'm asking as well as you.

London was as significant in my time as it is for Jeffrey today. Much of our lives revolved around it. Our houses in London were important to us, though I suspect my place in the country meant more to me than Jeffrey's old vicarage in Grantchester does to him. So the parallel is not precise. Other areas of our island were more significant than they are now. The seat of government was wherever Queen Elizabeth sat and, for a variety of reasons, she moved around a lot. Then there was Scotland, a much nastier thistle in our side than nowadays (believe me in that!). We didn't rule it and its King was soon to govern us. Yes, London loomed large for me but let's put a perspective on it. The entire population of Elizabethan London would not fill Wembley stadium much more than three times over.

If I didn't know my mother was on her deathbed, what was my real reason for being in London with my cock of the morning companion? It will come as no surprise that a Cambridge student's life was not academically fixated, even back in 1579. Most of us felt we had learnt more than enough in our much younger days, when we were browbeaten at Eaton – and frequently beaten about more sensitive parts – into an impeccable command of Latin and Greek, and a mindless familiarity with the musings of Horace and Petrarch. So at King's we never heard the midnight chimes while a candle flickered over our ink-stained translations from Latin into Greek and back again. Don’t be naïve, we heard them fresh from the smell of the less clean parts of a laundress or as the moon lit up our stumblings back from the ordinary (the pub, you would call it today).

Edward and I were close. Born within months of each other, we died the same, still firm friends. Being forced to share a college bed with him set that closeness. Think of ale-fuelled farts congealing under the bedspreads; Edward was famous throughout college for those. Think of simultaneous wet dreams and competing adolescent cocks aroused at daybreak not by the promise of same-sex passion but the promiscuous clutches of Morpheus. You couldn’t not feel close. We amused the laundresses equally with our crustily obvious waste of semen. Fortunately, we had other connections too. We were brothers in God, part of a very select band that eventually grew to one hundred and two. Yes, we had the same gossip. A gossip was the Elizabethan synonym for a Godmother and no pejoratives were implied way back then. And what a gossip we had, what a God squad we belonged to!

My family, my mother in particular, had served Princess Elizabeth well. Once her Boleyn taint had faded under her Tudor crown, Elizabeth was happy to acknowledge that service by agreeing to be my Godmother. A lot of my life is explained by the fact that she liked having me for an unruly Godson. Standing as Godmother to my friend Edward, was an altogether different matter for the Queen. Politics not sentiment motivated that decision and explains why much of his life was dictated by her dislike of a Godson with a claim to the throne. Her preference for heirlessness meant that families of the royal bloodline like the Seymours had to be kept sweet in small ways until they could all be executed – difficult in their case since they were so numerous. Which all goes to show that God was a small consideration in the practice of Godparenting. Being a Godchild of the Queen meant only one thing. You were connected and everybody knew it. That's why we were in London that November.

At fourteen while at Eaton, I had considered and considerate letters from Burleigh, the principal minister of England, not because he was a caring or predatory man but because he knew the Queen corresponded with me far more frequently and openly than any of her other Godchildren. He wrote to me kindly so that he could use me one day. He was a consummate politician who took the long view on life. Leicester and Walsingham cultivated Edward in the same way for the same reason. When we were at King’s together they decided to put us to good political use. As they did with quite a few other people from all walks of life. Ranting clerics and patronage-seeking writers like John Stubbs were as grist to the mill of public opinion as well-connected young men of King's College. Used carefully, we could all influence public sentiment towards the Queen's proposed marriage and in that way unnerve her hand. For once, Burleigh, Leicester and Walsingham were of one mind about the Queen marrying. And of dissuading her from her chosen course without any of them losing their heads.

The Queen must take a husband but, God's breath, not the Frog. Leicester is right, affirmed Edward forcefully when we both realised we had been chosen for small roles in the political theatre of England.

I didn’t actually like ‘Sweet Robin’ Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Timeworn rumours of him athletically servicing my Godmother and her continued and patent lascivious longings were simply too disgusting even in my most prurient years. In concert with most of England I saw Leicester as ‘the Gypsy’ and capable of very little that was right, but in that moment I agreed with Edward and added, Everything that Stubbs has said in his pamphlet makes sense. Lord Burleigh has intimated his own agreement with it even though he dares not claim so in Council. Stubbs shouldn’t suffer for putting in words what is best for the country. You say Walsingham is of the same view and wants our aid?

It was heady stuff, talking politics from an informed position and hardly nineteen. I hadn’t actually read Stubbs’ ‘Gaping gulf’ pamphlet but I was certain I had the gist. Because I definitely had read Spenser’s 'The Shephards’ Calendar', which I was sure made similar points about the wrongness of the Queen's intentions more poetically.

He’s entirely with Burleigh, as you’d expect. I’m sure he doesn’t want to let Stubbs’s punishment pass as an everyday spectacle. None of them does. Though, you're right, they wouldn’t say as much in her presence. After Sidney’s letter, Leicester thinks the Queen is already suspicious of all three of them - she knows their minds too well. Have you thought of this, Jack? Maybe they told Stubbs what to write. I see a cleverer hand than his own behind Stubbs' words. I don’t know it for sure. All that's certain is that they won’t speak up for him or his publisher on the day. It’s too dangerous.

Will we? Is it down to us to put a wind behind England's mind?

I tried to be sardonic but it came out all of a tremble. It had occurred to me that dicing with death could be a Seymour family trait. I’d already seen evidence of that possibility in the tiltyard where Edward sought to relive the glories of his famous ancestor, William Marshal. William had jousted for England as no other before or since and had become the most important man in the kingdom from the back of a warhorse or two. Edward, in his illusioned youth, saw no reason why he couldn’t repeat the ancestral feat. He grinned at me, his eyes infected with the sparkle of devilry.

No, we’ll just be there. So will others. We’ll roar our disapproval but make sure our voices are lost in the crowd. We’ll be doing a favour for the three wise men who are trying to run England properly in spite of our Godmother.

I chose not to cavil at the wisdom imputed to Leicester as part of the triumvirate and asked,

How do you know the crowd will be on our side?

Edward looked at me in pretend disbelief.

Walsingham wouldn’t let it happen any other way. He's too careful. Besides the whole court is sickened by Simier, the bogslimed little grenouille, let alone Alencon. Or Anjou, whatever the garlicky arsehole calls himself now. God's truth, hardly anyone at court thinks that Stubbs, let alone Page, deserves such a fate.

Yes, but it’s not the court who’ll be there. London will be there and London isn’t best known for thinking or acting courtly. All the noise will be apprentices out for blood and ale. Anybody’s blood, anybody’s ale.

Shame on you, Jack, you’ve shared the best fencing master my family could afford – not that I begrudge you, or would normally mention it, of course – and a bluejacket sends you into quivers.

One doesn’t, a bunch might, whether I’ve got my quiver to hand or not, I admitted, reaching for the nearest pun as always.

Seymour wasn’t London hardened. He was born a Somerset man, unlike me who had been uprooted to there. The city was a crowdy place. St Pauls’ Cross set the tone. A rabble in search of a rousing went there almost daily to take instruction. No doubt the impending fate of Stubbs and Page had been loudly proclaimed there to thousands. It was where you took the temperature of a forthcoming event and we hadn’t been there to know if the Stubbs affair was blowing hot southwesterly or cold northeasterly. Had the Queen commanded her bishops to rail against any opposition to political stability and personal happiness? Or had Burleigh and Walsingham risked finding their voice through some cleric ranting at the Cross now that Sidney’s letter seemed to have failed to dowse regal passions? Which way had the crowd moved? We didn’t know and Edward, for his part, clearly didn’t care.

~~~~

The morning of our tramp to Westminster was crisply bright, clearing the dampness of the night before, but heightening the smells of the streets to such an extent that the pigpens back in Kelston became an almost fragrant memory. The kites were in raucous flight, scavenging the thoroughfares with commendably civic dedication, even swooping low over the odd pig that challenged them for rancid treasures. We’d breakfasted like trenchermen and found the pissing post in Cookham Street a welcome relief. So in need of it was I that the ruff pins kept in my codpiece drew blood from my over eager hands. As an apprentice gentleman, I would never piss in the street where places were not appointed, but I would always forego the privies along the Thames because they made me retch. This amused Edward, who took pride not shame in his malodorously renowned natural functions.

They’re shitholes, Jack. They do what they are supposed to do and they smell like they are supposed to smell. When a bung up the arse does their job for them, they’ll disappear. Till then stay downwind of me, stick to nosegays and be known for a bugger.

So I had consciously not shit myself before arriving at our destination, confident that what I was about to see would not stress my bowels. The thing about a scaffold is that it’s like pepper on strawberries. You don’t quite know how it makes you feel. Reason butts its head into the stomach of emotion, causing the one to reel and the other to churn. Two things fascinated me as I approached. How many were there in Westminster marketplace and how many were women. From my Greek and Roman history, I understood the value of gratuitously violent and visible punishment to political cohesion. Conform or suffer was the message loudly being trumpeted by our masters. But the crowd hadn’t been coerced and their personal motivations were harder to fathom. Attendance at church was under pain of penury or worse but still many stayed away from them. There was no penalty for not watching the dolorous fate of Stubbs and Page but Edward and I could hardly see them through the crush of thousands. We knew why we were there – for the good of England leavened with a personal interest in keeping powerful patrons happy. But was everybody else as politically engaged? Or was it basic animal cruelty, blood lust, and another unfathomable side to femininity? Seeing Edward’s face I had an insight into something else. He was alive with being part of something. It wasn’t seeing the spectacle, it was being in the spectacle that was thrilling his blood. A crowd has a reason for gathering but loses all reason when it does.

This was London theatre in the 1570s. The London theatre that Jeffrey Archer was to know and play his part in was still very early in its infancy. As we struggled to get nearer the action, it occurred to me that a block is a far easier-to-set-up centrepiece for a temporary scaffold than a gibbet. I made a mental note to check whether Machiavelli had already passed on that princely advice. Edward was straining to recognise someone. Anyone. He was ready to lock eyes and rub shoulders with all around in affirmation of his membership of the crowd. I elbowed him viciously.

For fucksake keep your wits about you, Edward. Half the bastards here are after your money, your jewels or your pecker – I told you you were a fool to wear those rings. The other half would be happy with your blood. Don’t think I’m going to beat them off if they’re mobhanded. Just quietly blend.

Whenever have I done that, Jack? Anyway, I won’t need you unless there are more than a dozen.

Women or men?

Now that’s a question. A bunch of apprentices, vagabonds, blackamoors, Egypcians, they’re all within my capabilities. But multiple women, you have me there, Jack. I might need help. Second time around, of course, and you’d be the first I’d ...

He broke off suddenly.

That’s Topcliffe. Vicious cunt, of course he’d be here.

Even then, the name concentrated my mind. I didn’t recognise him because I hadn’t met him. If it was the same Topcliffe, my mother would have known the face. She’d spent weeks in Topcliffian care while being ‘cured’ of her Protestant heresy during Mary’s blood red reign. Whether it was the identical Topcliffe before us now, I wasn’t sure. My father, though not her husband then, was committed to the Tower at the same time but probably suffered far less. The Topcliffe name had not exactly been bandied around the family table, certainly not when I was around, but on the few occasions that it was mentioned, the sack seemed to freeze in my parents’ goblets. As I was to learn, the particular Topcliffe in front of us had a shark’s sense for any current heresy and his moral compass was no wider. Because he was the dark cloud that followed me throughout most of my life, I can only conclude that he was the very man who had been my mother's jailer.

Where is he? What do you know about him?

There must have been an urgency to the question that caught Seymour’s attention. His eyes switched from the scaffold to me.

If you don’t know him, why do you want to know how I know him?

Family history.

It was an answer Edward understood and he probed no further. Neither did he explain his own interest in the man. Given his family’s affection for imprisonable actions, particularly secret marriages that could rock the throne, there was little need. He pointed way over the head of the crowd.

Third from the right.

Richard Topcliffe stood in the middle of the small party, on the stage a little behind the block. Close to the blood, where he liked to be. Judging not the victim but the axeman. He was gauntly featured, hood eyed and imposingly thickset although slightly bowed. He looked old, which from my youthful perspective, meant he was well into his forties. So it could have been the same Topcliffe even though my mother’s imprisonment had been twenty five years before. (I knew I’d never ask her outright whether it was the same man, the harm the memory would bring would be too great in her declining hours.) Topcliffe watched the prisoners closely as they were escorted up the steps. Stubbs and Page offered no resistance, their heads held high, their gazes firmly forward, challenging the crowd. But perhaps it wasn’t a challenge because Topcliffe was very intent on watching not just them but who they were looking at.

Page was fighting his fear the better of the two - standing stock still, with an air of defiance. Then suddenly he gave an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgement to someone in the crowd. I couldn’t be sure who it was, we were too far back. Topcliffe could though. He urgently beckoned to below. In an instant, a coarse featured young man was at his ear taking instructions before jumping off the raised stage into the watchers. The commotion rippled back to where we were standing, clearing a path before it. Like a diseased salmon struggling upriver to spawn, a small, thin man urged through the crowd. As he ran, the channel closed behind him and Topcliffe’s poursuivant was forced down different streams. With benefit of hindsight, I think it was Pooley or Parrot because Sledd must have been on a Netherlands mission, but I can’t be sure. The target lost himself in a group to our left. His pursuer was on tiptoes well to the right, swivelling angry stalk eyes in every direction and becoming aware that the nearer to the rear of the crowd he reached, the fewer friends he had. Instead of the jostler, he was becoming the jostled and he abandoned his search. I didn’t envy him the wrath of Topcliffe.

The presiding official - probably Fleetwood, the Recorder with a penchant for summary justice, but I was unaware of London roles and responsibilities at the time – ranted on, his words falling between a rousing battle cry for a new Protestant League and an hysterical defence of the Queen’s right to choose her own marital and political partner. The politically placed front rows responded vociferously to this bagpipe of patriotism but the bulk of the crowd was ominously sullen. They would need no urging from us to question their Queen. Inside their heads, xenophobia rammed against the impeccably divine judgment of their Queen, and it hurt. Not quite so much as it hurt Page.

He was brought forward first for butchering, his crime the lesser. Publish and be damned had rung true for him. (Print and be considerably less damned had been the fate of Hugh Singleton, his printer with pitiable old age on his side.) My later, class-betraying fascination with the trades of printing and publishing owed everything to the way Page spoke at the block. Well assembled thoughts, evocatively couched, clearly voiced in the midst of trauma. No fear, no recrimination in them.

The appointed butcher, for that was his day job, gave Page space to speak, concentrating his own eyes on his axe.

This hand did I put to the plough, and got my living by it many years. If it would have pleased her Highness to have pardoned it, and to have taken my left hand or my life, she had dealt more favourably with me, for now I have no means to live; but God, which is the father of us all, will provide for me.

Then, as Page blessed Queen Elizabeth, the executioner raised his head and stared at his victim as though he hadn’t heard the last part properly. His thought process was clear - ‘I wouldn’t be blessing her if she’d - begging your pardon, your gracious Majesty - done this to me.’ Which confirmed in my young mind that publishing was a far nobler trade than butchery and one in which I could dabble. Page was facing the lessening of his ability to dabble in anything with equanimity. The crowd gelled as his speech ended, the politically placed muttering angrily in unison with the politically interested, with neither group being sure whether it was the man or the Queen they were loudly affirming. Then as silence settled sullenly again, it might have been Topcliffe, but it was certainly someone in his group, who hastened the action. Page was pushed forward, his clothing peeled back by his own hand and the centre of the block located. For a moment, the settling of the cleaver and the subsequent double thump of the mallet on it were the only noises. The silence continued as Page, minus his right hand, stood up and spoke.

I have left there a true Englishman’s hand.

Then the bubbling mess of his arm was seared with a red hot iron. I was a long way away but silence still suffocated the crowd and I’m sure he didn’t make a sound. He raised his cauterised stump and with his other arm pushed away the yeoman who came to assist him down the steps of the scaffold and on to prison. By the second steady step I had lost sight of him.

Even Edward was impressed.

Good man, was his short but loaded tribute.

Damn her eyes, was another half-swallowed response, just to the left of me, and one which garnered much surreptitious approval. Walsingham hadn’t needed to pack this crowd. The mood was swinging his way without interference. The Anjou pecker was being distanced from his chosen Queen’s petticoat. And that was before Act 2.

Did Page’s bravery make it easier for Stubbs? I doubt it. Page was a publisher but Stubbs was a writer - a man of Trinity whose quill was soon to be drowned in his own blood. How much Stubbs had written, how much Walsingham had dictated, I was never to know. Regardless of the singularity of the ownership of the pamphlet catchily entitled, ‘The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed by another French Marriage if the Lord forbid not the Banes by letting her Majesty see the Sin and Punishment thereof’, Stubbs had an energetic mind, and imagination is no friend in the shadow of the block.

I didn’t grasp it at that moment but this spectacle wasn’t about a pamphlet, however contentious its content, it was about the uncontrollable nature of writing itself. The groups of players who were there, the Admiral’s Men among them, knew it and watched glumly. They were downcast not so much by having to abandon the afternoon’s performance at the Curtain in the face of competition from a stage with real blood on it but by the implied threat from their Queen. This was official correction at its most corrective. It should have curbed my writing instincts more. Had it, my life would have been less rocky.

Stubbs was brought forward now. As erect as his co-criminal but perhaps paler after what he had just seen. They hadn’t even removed Page’s hand or wiped the bloody gristle off the block and his eyes flitted there before engaging with the crowd. He was raw-boned for a Cambridge man, big in body and heart and that came through in the commanding way he spoke.

What a grief it is to the body to lose one of his members you all know. I am come hither to receive my punishment according to the law. I pray you all to pray with me, that God will strengthen me to endure and abide the pain that I am to suffer, and grant me this grace, that the loss of this hand do not withdraw any part of my duty and affection toward her Majesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it is uncertain how they may be stayed and what will be the event thereof.

His dignity enthralled the watchers, quelling any bloodlust (Topcliffe apart, no doubt). Was there ever a time in England when our Queen was so uniformly despised by so many? At that moment even favoured Godchildren were chilled by how she was trying to cow us all.

Pray for me, now that my calamity is at hand, were the final words of a brave and patriotic man before the cleaver bit its edge into his stout wrist.

Till this day, I don’t know how that didn’t cure me of punning because the first mallet blow severed nothing beyond the executioner’s reputation. To add to Stubbs’ calamity, half of his wrist was still attached. As with Page, the mallet, or beetle as it was known then, came down yet again on the cleaver. The wild swing of the mallet achieved little more than an increase in the quiet anger infusing the crowd. Even the Queen’s men felt the injustice of it. However ill-advised it was to lecture so proud a Queen, Stubbs did not deserve a weak wristed butcher as the instrument of his fate. The crowd took in its obligatory single breath as the mallet thumped a third time and cleaver blade kissed wooden block.

His right hand having finally been cut off, Stubbs removed his hat with his left, and cried God Save the Queen! before fainting.

It was almost perfect comedy timing. A pratfall on a stage in front of thousands but I don’t think even Topcliffe laughed as a lifeless Stubbs was cauterised and hauled away. The executioner beat a hasty retreat in a small hail of hate-filled phlegm with the shadow of his Queen somehow dripping in his wake. Londoners who had turned out in near winter to express disapproval of what the Queen seemed about to do – bed and wed not only a Frenchman but one with the stain of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre on his Catholic coat – now concentrated its ire on the regal body itself. I know, because never had I, and never would I, feel so much antipathy towards my royal protector. A glance at Edward confirmed similar discomfort and no little bewilderment. He was happy to be Leicester’s tool but to deter not to deny our Queen. Something had changed today, or at least become clearer. Even the cleaver seemed to have flinched at what was being asked of it. Elizabethan justice had always been peremptory, harsh and enticing to watch. Humiliation, mutilation or death awaited any transgressor of England’s all-encompassing and frequently petty criminal laws. It was a known fact of life and not one that even the freest of thinkers would quarrel with. But the idea that the axeman cast the final vote in political debate stuck in all England’s craw. Even the savage Scots had let John Knox rant on unpunished in the very faces of Mary and James, while a loyal and proud subject of the English crown had suffered cruelly for putting into fine words what half of Elizabeth’s ministers and more than half the country thought.

For me, it was a defining moment and I had enough youthful nous to realise it. You could call it an epiphany which set me on the road to becoming a famous writer. I'd be surprised if Jeffrey had any similar moment, necessity was the mother of his narrative inventions. I felt that the truth of this day couldn’t be allowed to seep out of my consciousness. I suddenly became fixated not on remembering what had happened but on retaining what had been said. Truth, in this instance, was in the words not in the deeds. The crowd was turning in on itself, breaking into groups but not breaking up, enjoying its own anger and little disposed to let it go. Except for one individual, way to my left, who was stealing away from Westminster through the gaps in the crowd. I was sure it was the man Page had nodded at. The man Pooley or Parrot had chased. I yanked at my companion’s arm.

I’m going after him, I whispered hoarsely, or maybe horsely since in my excitement my words seemed to hiss through my nose.

Who? Why? Go piss by yourself then, was not an insensible response considering the confused circumstances. Edward had found new friends in the crowd; two fawning young men pretending gentlehood and their companion whose bosomly womanhood was clearly far from pretence.

Cozeners, Edward, I warned still tugging at this arm. He fended me off brusquely and I shrugged him to his fate.

The small man who had sparked Topcliffe’s interest, having dropped some papers and struggled to retrieve them from beneath the feet of animated onlookers, hadn’t gone far. He shot glances in every direction and was determined not to be followed, but in a careful not a fearful way. As the crowd thinned, he soon saw me and appraised my callow youthfulness without obvious concern. I chose against making a detour on the grounds that it would arouse not allay suspicion and kept a steady pace after him towards St Pauls. Whether or not this alarmed him, he stopped outside one of the many business premises in the churchyard for no apparent reason. As I passed him, I caught sight of the sign of the Tiger’s Head over one establishment a few doors down and dived inside. His body had tensed when I got near him but I was sure it relaxed when I entered Christopher Barker’s shop.

I was half looking back out of the door and half facing the man inside who was wiping heavily blackened hands with a rag.