The house of the wizard

Lord Raby was arrested in June, and at the time there seemed to be an immediate prospect of a trial, and he looked forward to it with the earnest hope of establishing his innocence. But he was doomed to a far different fate; he and his fellow prisoner, the wizard, were held while Cromwell slowly unravelled the threads of a great conspiracy, which had been only partially indicated by the papers in the mysterious packet. It was not good policy to seize at once upon men whose names figured in the documents, some of them the foremost in the land, and the privy seal played the waiting game, in which he was an adept. The slow months of the summer passed, and with Michaelmas came the rising in the northern counties, ostensibly provoked by the visitation of the monasteries, but really the outgrowth of many grievances, and the full fruit of a long-planned conspiracy. The Pilgrimage of Grace doomed Lord Raby to a long confinement. With this example of the result of treasonable machinations before his eyes, Cromwell had less mercy for those accused of direct complicity in it. As the rebels, under Robert Aske, advanced to Doncaster, threatening to overwhelm the king’s small army, the prisoners in the Tower were subjected to closer confinement. One of the avowed purposes of the insurgents was the fall of Cromwell, and it was not probable that he would be lenient to such offenders as were within his reach. It was, however, an inconvenient time for trial of the prisoners, and Raby and Sanders remained in suspense.

Sir William Carew could not forgive the doubt of his packet expressed by Simon, and he turned a deaf ear to Betty’s entreaties. He would not move a finger in the cause. In fact, the stout-hearted gentleman doubted Lord Raby. The evidence was so plain, as Cromwell unfolded it, Simon’s accusation of Sir William’s documents so childish, the outbreak of the insurrection so convincing, that Carew felt certain that the nobleman had been led into dabbling with conspiracy and had committed himself to the cause of Mary Tudor and the papists.

Mistress Betty, indignant at her uncle, distressed for Lord Raby, and helpless to combat the course of events, remained with Lady Crabtree. She was unable even to see the king in regard to the matter. Having been one of Anne Boleyn’s maids, she was unacceptable to Queen Jane, and her petitions to the king remained unanswered. She lived in seclusion at Wildrick, having no heart for the festivities at Hampton Court, where Jane held her court, and being unwelcome, she stayed away. She could not even obtain leave to see her lover; after the outbreak of the rebellion, she was denied access to him; he was kept in solitary confinement and under rigorous military discipline. The suspense told on the young girl’s nerves, and before winter was over she was pale and thin; but her eyes gained in beauty as her color faded, and her striking face drew many a glance of admiration when she went upon her pilgrimages to Cromwell’s house. Lady Crabtree, though sharing some of Carew’s doubts of Raby’s innocence, had a warm regard for him, and was ever Mistress Betty’s companion, her untiring energy accomplishing as much as the young girl’s devotion. The two figures, so strangely contrasted,—the gaunt old woman, with her long stride, and the graceful girl,—were familiar in Cromwell’s anterooms, but their efforts to win better treatment or an open trial for Lord Raby were alike in vain. The privy seal, conscious that in the magician he had a master traitor, saw in Raby a probable accomplice. There was one also, always about Cromwell, whose offices boded ill for Simon. Sir Barton Henge was active in working for the government, tireless upon the scent of traitors, a conspicuously zealous loyalist. Yet, though he and the two women, old Madam and Betty, travelled often upon the same errand, they never met. The sting of Mistress Carew’s whip was still upon his face although the mark had faded, and he watched his opportunity with that feline patience which belongs to the panther tribe, whether walking on two legs or four, for the kinship to the beast is strong in some human beings.

There were many anxious hearts in England through that long year of trouble, and the enemies of the king rejoiced. On Christmas Eve, at the great mass at St. Peter’s, the darkness of the church was illumined by a thousand tapers, while the marvellous cap and sword were laid upon the altar, consecrated for James of Scotland to unite the enemies of the faith. And in Flanders, Cardinal Pole looked eagerly for the opportunity to overthrow Henry VIII., and for the return of the supremacy of Rome. Across the Channel, plot and counter-plot were hatched, took their course, and died fruitless; while in England, the one man with an iron will, the privy seal, held on his even course, though the waves of popular fury, beating on the ship of state, threatened to overwhelm the pilot. Norfolk, whose heart was doubtless more with the rebels than with the king, was driven against them. The unhappy Northumberland died faithful to Henry, although the fate of Anne Boleyn had prostrated him. The great rebellion spent itself; one after another of its leaders were brought to the Tower. The unfortunate Darcy died, charging it all on Cromwell, and at last, in July, Robert Aske suffered a felon’s death. The Pilgrimage of Grace was over; it had ended in a futile loss of life to the cause of the old religion. “Twice the children of Israel went up against Benjamin,” wrote Cardinal Pole, “and twice they were put to confusion.”

In the midst of trials and executions, Raby yet lingered in the Tower untried. Either overlooked in the great pressure of trouble, or held for stronger proof, he and the wizard languished, each in solitary confinement. The king’s officers had taken possession of the strange house on the Thames and searched it, finding many curious contrivances for the execution of the mummeries which had confused the imagination of the magician’s clients. Yet, so exuberant was the superstition of the times, that the exposure of paltry methods of deceit failed to destroy the dread of the small man who had held such sway there. Even the royal officers shrank from their duty, and no one occupied the house; the official seal was affixed to the doors and it remained empty. The shutters, taken down to admit the light for the search, remained so, and the windows blinked in the afternoon sun like evil eyes suddenly unveiled. No man ventured near it after sundown, and many who passed it, even at high noon, made the sign of the cross. A baleful influence seemed to issue from it; the vine that tried to climb up the door-post hung blasted in midsummer, and the grass did not grow, although no footsteps wore the ground about it. There was not an old wife in the neighborhood who had not a tale of how the wizard visited it every night, and how the smoke came from the chimney of his laboratory at the very hour when he had been in the habit of brewing the devil’s tea.

Summer passed; Michaelmas came and went; all England waited in hope and fear for news of the birth of an heir to the throne, and on the twelfth of October, the vigil of Saint Edward’s day, the bells rang out in wild peals of joy, the bonfires blazed from Land’s End to the Tweed, the guns were fired. A prince was born; the hope of England lived.