The Conscience of the King

If there was insanity in the world, it all met and focused on the Palace of Whitehall. With so many candles, lamps and lanterns blazing fruitlessly into the cold November night, it was as if the Palace was on fire, lit from within, a funeral pyre to the finances of the monarch. So many were fed each day and night at the King's expense that a scurrilous broadsheet had christened it the Hospital of Whitehall. Even the servants seemed to have servants at Whitehall, yet it took ten minutes to find one servile enough to take their horses.

Gresham and Mannion were ushered through endless corridors. The two younger servants that had accompanied Sir Henry gazed open-eyed at the bacchanalia around them. What stories they would tell on their return! Even at that time, just before six in the evening, they passed two or three men clearly drunk, slumped in corners. A woman, clearly gentry, ran out of a door, giggling uncontrollably. One breast was out of her gown, the other bursting against its rich material, one gasp away from freedom. She ran into Mannion. Rebounding, she arched eyebrows at him, giggled again and ran off.

Interesting, thought Gresham. The King had made available to them the private dining room Robert Cecil had long employed at Whitehall, with the huge length of table and finely carved oak chairs that Cecil had used to intimidate his guests. But it would not be Cecil who revealed himself as the door swung open — it was Bacon, and Andrewes.

Both men rose as Gresham and Mannion entered, and both extended their hands. 'Congratulations on your release, my lord,' said Sir Francis Bacon, with what appeared to be a genuine smile on his face.

'Congratulations on your honour,' said Bishop Lancelot Andrewes. He appeared genuinely pleased that Sir Henry Gresham was now First Baron Granville.

Andrewes and Bacon were seated on either side of the head of the table. Bacon, seemingly more at ease in the royal palace, pointed to Gresham's place. At the head of the table. It was the seat Cecil had squatted in, radiating malevolence on so many evenings. Bacon had arguably the best brain in the kingdom. Andrewes was the only bishop Gresham had ever respected.

‘I think not, Sir Francis,' Gresham said, 'with your permission. The seat at the head of this particular table is tainted for me. This evening is one where I'd hope to be treated as a third — an exact third — among equals.

With that, he sat alongside Andrewes. It allowed him the better view of Bacon's face. Of the two, Bacon would reveal his real thoughts and feelings far more vibrantly than Andrewes. Bacon smiled, and called out. His own servant was there, Gresham noticed, the grumpy, complaining old man Gresham had always associated with Bacon. Andrewes had no servant with him.

Those who ushered in the food were strangers to both hosts, looking around with interest as they brought in steaming dishes.

Expecting to be asked to wait on the three men, they were surprised, and rather offended, when they were waved away.

'I suggest we dine and talk at the same time,' said Bacon, ever courteous. 'There's much to cover. Will your man agree with mine to serve us?'

Gresham looked at Mannion, who nodded.

'I would like the truth,' said Gresham. 'I've been shot at with a crossbow, been subject to a mass assault, nearly died in two separate parts of holy ground and been locked up in The Tower. Normal enough, you understand,' he reached out to put some fish on his plate. 'But it's always nice to know why it is you're being assaulted, killed or locked up. What are these "theatrical papers" about which there's been so much fuss?'

'There are three sets of them, to be precise,' said Bacon, sipping appreciatively at his wine. His servant fussed over him, offering him dish after dish. They were all cold, Gresham noted. After his master, the old man took the dishes with a show of deference and offered them to Andrewes. Following that, he looked with scorn on Gresham, and dumped the dishes within his arms' reach.

I hope to God Bacon doesn't ask me to sink a whole bottle before he will talk to me, thought Gresham. His prayer was answered.

'The first of these "theatrical papers" is a complete script of a play. A rather bad play, to tell the truth. Well, actually, if we are telling the truth, an execrable play. Publicly deemed to have been written, among others, by one William Shakespeare. All Is True, or Henry VIII as it is sometimes known. Written, as it happens, by King James I. Incidentally, Shakespeare had even less of a hand in it than normal. It was so dire that when he got it he had a fair copy made and sent it off to Fletcher, to see if he could make anything of it. He couldn't.'

Well now, thought Gresham. The King had tried his hand at a play for the common players. That would be news. Very powerful news.

'Also in this batch of papers are two plays, again both thought to have been written by Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, as I believe the older one has come to be called, and The Tempest. Both about magic. Both actually written by my lord the Bishop of Ely, Lancelot Andrewes.'

Bacon nodded to his companion, who waved a tired, sad hand back at him.

'Finally, these "theatrical papers" also include manuscripts of Love's Labours Lost and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Written, in part at least, by myself. With a little help from my friends.'

Bacon sat back and transferred some meat into his mouth, before turning to Gresham again. Tt wouldn't be good for the author and prime mover of King James's fine new Bible to be seen as combining that part of his career with writing for actors and the public theatre, my lord.'

Something of a shock went through Gresham's system at the still unfamiliar mode of address.

'Nor would it be a good thing for it to be shown that such an eminent member of the clergy wrote a play dealing with a man whose ruling power is based on magic. Any more than it would be good for the country's leading lawyer to be known as a play-maker, an associate of theatrical scum.'

Bacon and Andrewes gazed at Gresham.

'As for the King,' continued Bacon, 'God knows what laughter would be provoked were it known he had secretly penned a work for the theatre. Particularly work as bad as his play appears to be.'

It was revenge, Gresham thought. Divine revenge for his asking Shakespeare to cope with so much new information in so little time. Picking one single item of debris from the maelstrom hurling around his brain, he asked one question.

‘I can understand easily enough why you, Sir Francis, would try your hand at a play. A new medium. One with immense power to inflame the heart, the mind and the imagination. But why would the King write a play? And, my lord Bishop, aren't there sermons enough without your feeling the urge to write words for actors to make a meal of?"

'There are three answers for three different authors. I won't presume to speak for the second. As for the third, he's here and able to explain for himself. I can speak a little for the first.'

Bacon was picking at his food. A log fell in the hearth, and a cloud of fiery, red sparks shot up the vast chimney, for a moment giving Bacon's face a hellish tinge.

'Cecil started it. He saw how the theatre could inflame the popular heart and mind. Yet, as was always his way, instead of seeking to destroy it, he sought instead to control it. He was young then, in his father's shadow, a part cripple. He found out — God knows how — what few others knew, that this man Shakespeare was simply a front for Marlowe. Set up by Marlowe on his own, in the first instance. A country bumpkin who was a poet of sorts — a man with enough of a way with words not to be wholly unconvincing, but poor enough to be bought and to stay malleable. Richard II was Marlowe's. Along with Julius Caesar, and most of the plays that had a reigning monarch killed on stage. Marlowe liked to see monarchs die.'

'And you, Sir Francis? Your mind unable to resist the urge to write in this new manner, this writing that could reach three thousand souls at a sitting-'

'Ha! What power was there! It was shortly after Marlowe's supposed first death. A performance of Richard III, I believe, one of Marlowe's first offerings from the grave. It was a private showing. We entertained the actors afterwards. I fell to talking with this man Shakespeare. The wine flowed. We both had too much, I suspect. Did I ask him if a man such as myself might try his hand at a play? Or did he suggest to me that for a consideration — hefty consideration — such an opportunity might present itself? To be frank, I simply can't remember. And in any event, it matters little. A group of us emerged — myself, Rutland, Oxford, Derby. And did we have fun!' An expression of almost boyish enthusiasm filled Bacon's face.

'They were heady days, weren't they?' said Gresham, remembering the wild, mad and bad 1590s when everything had seemed possible.

'Heady indeed. We all thought we were destined to be the Queen's chief minister. We were all conspirators, vowed to secrecy in case our various political ambitions were threatened by involvement with the theatre. Yet in our heart of hearts, I believe we all looked forward to a moment when we would reveal our authorship, when we could bask in the notoriety and fame like adolescents allowed to walk up the aisle at their own funeral.'

'And Cecil spoiled it?' asked Gresham.

'How did you guess?' answered Bacon. 'He found out about the group, as he'd found out about Marlowe. Very gently, he started to blackmail us.'

'How so?' asked Gresham, intrigued. 'He'd no need of money, and while those you mention had power and wealth enough — you, Oxford and the rest — you weren't the prime shakers and movers of your day, with respect.'

'No, but we were all public figures, and Cecil loved to have hold over anyone in public life, or anyone who might become important.'

How true, Gresham thought. He had battled for years against the secret knowledge Cecil held on him.

'But it was more than that, if I may speak?' replied Andrewes. 'I was one of those early recruits, though only for one play initially, before good sense took hold of me again, and before I succumbed once more in dotage. In the last three years or so of the old century, Cecil began to build his true power base. There was no direct heir to Elizabeth, no issue from her loins. A king from Scotland, from our own nobility, from Spain or even from France — all these had huge potential for civil unrest, for disobedience, for civil war.

So Cecil began to force members of the group to write plays that would reinforce the absolute authority of kings.'

'Which created one or two rather lovely problems in its own right,' said Bacon. 'Henry IV was meant to show the triumph of monarchy over the Lord of Misrule. But the great unwashed decided they preferred the Lord of Misrule in the form of Falstaff! Cecil was livid!'

Gresham thought briefly. 'I can see why you, my lord Bishop, a bright, intelligent man with a skill in and love of words, and a need to speak to an audience as you do so well in your sermons — I can see why you were tempted to experiment. But why in God's name would the King of England want to write a play?'

Bacon answered. 'Because he believes himself a writer and an intellectual, and because he cannot bear to think that he's not more skilful than others. And because Robert Carr suggested it to him, before the King or Carr knew about the convenient service Shakespeare provided for others. Andrewes here picked up wind of it and panicked, inasmuch as my lord Bishop knows the meaning of the word. He persuaded James out of publishing a play under his own name and told him of the service Shakespeare offered.'

'In doing so, I had to reveal my own involvement in the whole business.'

'James's reaction?'

'Initially amusement, rising to apoplectic anger. He is more proud of his Bible, believing that it will be his spiritual monument to future generations, than of anything else except his hunting skills. He persuaded himself that if it were known I had written for the actors it would devalue the whole work. Indeed, the King took steps to reduce my involvement dramatically as far as the public awareness went. I was — I am — the final editor of the King James Bible. The credit will go to another, for all history in probability.'

'And it lost you the Archbishopric of Canterbury?' asked Gresham.

'Indeed,' said Andrewes. 'A fair reward for youthful vanity. The King made it clear that he viewed the existence of this play as a sword of Damocles hanging over me were I to gain Canterbury. Or was he told so by Carr and Overbury? I don't know which.'

'And Marlowe?'

'He came to the King — via Coke — wounded. He said he knew the whereabouts of the manuscripts in the King's hand and in mine. In exchange for money and a free passage back to Europe, he guaranteed to provide them. James threatened to torture him. Marlowe laughed in his face. Asked if the King knew what pain he was in already. Laughed and said how much he would welcome death. Threatened, 1 believe, that if he, Marlowe, were to die then the manuscripts would be released anyway.' It was Andrewes speaking. Interesting to note, thought Gresham, that it was Andrewes who still had the ear of the King, not Bacon.

'And the King agreed?'

'Yes,' said Andrewes, 'but for the wrong reasons. He has a morbid fear of death, as you know. He fled to the countryside when Prince Henry was dying. It's likely he won't be at the funeral. In some way Marlowe made himself a symbol of death for James. A symbol of his own death.'

'So where do we stand now?' said Gresham.

'Marlowe's gone off, God knows where,' said Bacon. 'The man may be mad, but his capacity to vanish at will is exceptionally sane. Shakespeare hasn't been seen since Wade grabbed you and your wife from his apartments. The letters between James and Carr still haven't been found…' The eyes of both Bacon and Andrewes swivelled round to focus on Gresham. He met their combined gaze, unflinching, that infuriating half-smile on his lips. 'A group of people could be exposed at any minute as having written plays claimed by someone else. Some of those who wrote Shakespeare's plays want it kept secret, and will be seriously damaged if the truth comes out. There are others who want nothing more than for their genius to be recognised. It is, to be frank, a total mess…'

'And,' said Gresham, 'the rumours are already starting that Prince Henry was poisoned, a point to which I have to make an answer to the King.'

That brought silence.

'Was he poisoned?' Gresham looked straight at Bacon.

‘I don't know,' he replied simply, after a few moments. 'But I doubt it. The only possible reason would be if Overbury felt Henry was threatening Carr's position, and hence Overbury's power. Yet there was no sign of it. James didn't listen to Henry. He thought his son was a prig, and Henry considered his father decadent.'

'So who are the coterie who wrote Shakespeare's plays for him?' asked Gresham.

Bacon and Andrewes exchanged glances.

'Do you really want to know?' said Bacon. 'You may find yourself hurt by the knowledge, mentally as well as physically.'

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Gresham felt he could guess what was coming. 'Tell me,' he said. ‘I need the truth.'

'Well,' said Bacon, 'myself and Andrewes here, obviously. The King. The Earls of Oxford, Rutland and Derby, in differing measures — and remember that sometimes two or even three of us worked on the same idea. Marlowe. And the Dowager Countess of Pembroke, who, by the way, is ruffling the most feathers by insisting that her authorship of two plays — As You Like It and Twelfth Night — is acknowledged.'

'Her son, the present Pembroke, knows the actors. Correction. He's besotted by them. He knows the truth and he hates his mother. He's keeping her silent by threatening to take all her money away from her. He tells Shakespeare it's to help him, but it isn't. It's because he can't bear the thought of his mother being seen as good at anything,' said Andrewes, with feeling. Pembrokeiana, as she was known, had made a favourite of Andrewes, a situation from which few men emerged alive. 'And there is one more,' said Bacon.

Gresham knew what was coming. He had felt it in his bones. 'Sir Walter Raleigh,' he said flatly. 'Yes,' said Bacon.

His saviour and his hero. The man Gresham had named his eldest son after. The man he had visited, supported and sustained all these years past while he was imprisoned in that very same Tower Gresham had so recently left. The man who had seen fit to keep this a secret from his younger friend. The man who had chosen to do so despite knowing that Gresham's life was at risk from the moment he became entangled in the thorns and briars of these damned plays and their authorship.

As they road back to The House, their escort all around them, Mannion was clearly troubled. He spat down on to the roadside and turned his head to Gresham.

'He didn't give you your freedom, those goblets or a baronetcy for nothing. He's going to want results. And sooner rather than later.'

'I know,' said Gresham. 'I work it out as seven separate issues.'

'Well', said Mannion, 'I can see most of them. First, decide what to do with those letters. I agree with Her Ladyship.' He used the word without irony. 'Pretend you've found them. Get rid of them, and tell the King. Or, better, give them back to him. Then, second, sort out whether Prince popped 'is clogs from God or from that bastard Overbury. Third, give Marlowe his third and final departure from this earth.'

'Four, five and six are just as easy,' said Gresham. 'Find Shakespeare, neutralise Overbury and locate these manuscripts.'

'Fair enough,' said Mannion. 'What's number seven?'

'See Raleigh, and ask why he never told me this conspiracy with Shakespeare was going on.'

'I can help you on the first six,' said Mannion. 'I can't help you with the seventh.'

No, thought Gresham, no one else can do that. The anger started to rise within him.

'And you've left out Poke,' said Mannion. 'Not like you to let someone get away with it, especially when they've had you locked up for weeks.'

'Oh,' said Gresham, a sudden, fierce grin on his face, 'I've got plans for Sir Edward.'