The Cardinal's Angels Read online

  The Cardinal’s Angels

  A Red Ned Mystery

  Gregory House

  By Gregory House

  Published by Gregory House at Amazon

  Copyright 2011 Gregory House

  Discover other titles by Gregory House at www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk

  Or his Amazon Author page

  All artwork copyright Alexander House 2011

  Archaeology, Peter Wilkes and other diverse matters blogged at

  http://prognosticationsandpouting.blogspot.com

  Red Ned, the Reluctant Tudor Detective blog at

  http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com/

  Stories in the Red Ned Tudor Mysteries Series

  Amazon UK

  The Liberties of London

  The Queen’s Oranges

  The Cardinal’s Angels

  Amazon US/Australia

  The Liberties of London

  The Queen’s Oranges

  The Cardinal’s Angels

  Soon to be release in the Red Ned Series on Amazon

  The Fetter Lane Fleece

  The Smithfield Shambles

  The Trade of the Thames

  The King’s Counsel

  The first book in the Dark Devices Series a Tudor Historical Fantasy on Amazon

  Darkness Divined

  Peter Wilks Archaeological Mysteries Series on Amazon

  Terra Australis Templar

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication ma be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (mechanical, photocopying, recording of otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Please respect the author’s rights to this work.

  A Gold Angel of the reign of Henry VIII minted 1526

  Contents

  A Gold Angel of the reign of Henry VIII minted 1526

  Map of London

  Dramatis Personae

  Fictional Characters

  Historical Characters

  Tudor Coinage and values

  Tudor Names and Language.

  Tudor Terms

  Prologue: The Cardinal’s Dilemma, September 1529

  Chapter One–The Bear Garden Southwark, September

  Chapter Two–The Clink Southwark

  Chapter Three–An Uncle’s Kind Regard? St Lawrence Poor Jewry

  Chapter Four–Puir Ghostie o’ St Paul’s

  Chapter Five–The Cardinal’s Cap-London Bridge to Southwark

  Chapter Six–Discovery at Greyfriars

  Chapter Seven–The Apothecary’s Apprentice Greyfriars

  Chapter Eight–The Apothecary’s Secrets, Greyfriars

  Chapter Nine–Mont Jovis Inn

  Chapter Ten–The Byways of London

  Chapter Eleven–The Steelyard Hanse? Riverside

  Chapter Twelve–The Fallen Angels, The Steelyards

  Chapter Thirteen–Under London Bridge! The Thames

  Chapter Fourteen–The Tower

  Chapter Fifteen–Good Company in Bermondsey

  Chapter Sixteen–The Southwark Watch

  Chapter Seventeen–The Gryne Dragone, Southwark

  Chapter Eighteen–Sanctum Arcane Agryppa, Southwark

  Chapter Nineteen–A Devil’s Bargain, Southwark

  Chapter Twenty–The Fields of London

  Chapter Twenty One–The White Lamb, Moorgate

  Chapter Twenty Two–The Grafton Ride, Cosgrove Village

  Chapter Twenty Three–A Clear Road! Watling Street

  Chapter Twenty Four–A Ministering Angel? Grafton Regis

  Chapter Twenty Five–The Cardinal’s Good Servant, Grafton Regis Manor

  Chapter Twenty Six–A New Master, A Loyal Servant

  Historical Note

  Tudor Religion and thought

  Timeline

  Map of London

  Dramatis Personae

  Fictional Characters

  Edward Bedwell or as he prefers Red Ned—An apprentice lawyer and aspiring rogue at Gray’s Inn.

  Margaret or Meg Black—Apprentice apothecary and amateur surgeon. Prefers Mistress Margaret.

  Robert Black—Apprentice artificer. Prefers good works.

  Gruesome Roger Hawkins—Retainer to the Black family. Prefers to loom menacingly.

  John Smeaton—Personal servant of his eminence, the Lord Chancellor of the England, Cardinal Wolsey.—Would prefer to be alive

  Bethany—An occasional punk with a large heart and even larger bodice. Would prefer Rob Black.

  Benjamin Robinson—Clerk of the King’s Ordinance, Tower of London. Would prefer more regular pay

  Blue Brocade Doublet known as Skelton to his ‘friends’ at the Cardinals Cap—a currently unknown irritant to Ned. Would prefer if he wasn’t in the privy

  Don Juan Sebastian de Alva—a Spanish gentleman who’d prefer not to be in England.

  Dr Lewys Caerleon—a modern physician and astrologer. Would prefer if he had never met Dr Agryppa.

  Albrecht—a Hanse merchant. Would prefer if he wasn’t visited at night (unless there was a profit in it of course).

  Canting Michael—a gentleman of dubious means who would prefer to have a “talk” with Red Ned. (Red Ned would prefer for this “talk” to be indefinitely delayed.)

  Groundlings—An assortment of height challenged gaolers and ferry men would all prefer to be taller.

  Historical Characters

  Henry VIII—King of England, Ireland and in theory France. Desperately needs an annulment so that he can marry again and hopefully father a son to be his heir.

  Katherine of Aragon—Queen of England, and aunt to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. She could only provide one living daughter for the English throne. By 1528 she was past child bearing age.

  Anne Boleyn—beloved mistress of Henry and the reason for the annulment commission.

  Thomas Wolsey—Cardinal legate, Archbishop of York and the Lord Chancellor of England, the right hand of Henry as well as the solver of all the King’s problems. Despite being a member of the clergy, he is also the richest man in the kingdom.

  Thomas Howard—Duke of Norfolk. An old campaigner and conservative faction leader. Loathes new men like Wolsey and Suffolk. The uncle of Anne Boleyn.

  Charles Brandon—Duke of Suffolk. A childhood friend and jousting companion of the King. Secretly married the King’s sister, Mary Tudor, widowed Queen of France.

  Francis I—King of France and a Valois. Monarch of the strongest kingdom in Europe, and bitter rival to the Hapsburgs in Italy.

  Charles V—Holy Roman Emperor, and a Hapsburg. Lord of the largest domain in the western world, stretching from Germany to Mexico in the New World.

  Thomas Cromwell—Secretary to Cardinal Wolsey. Has served his master in Parliament and by dissolving religious houses for their assets.

  Richard Rich—Commissioner of Sewers, London. Friend of Thomas Cromwell and uncle to Ned.

  Tudor Coinage and values

  During the reign of Henry VIII, the value of coins varied wildly since coins were frequently recalled and re issued with a lower precious metal content, to aid the financing of Henry’s expenditure on war and domestic building programs. It got to such a state that the gold sovereign coins stamped with the portrait of the King were nicknamed old copper noses since frequent handling gave them a red gold colour. Rhenish florins, Thalers and Venetian florins were the period’s equivalent of US dollars and accepted all over Europe. All other coins were evaluated to their standard.

  farthing = quarter of a penny (0.25d)<
br />
  halfpenny (0.5d)

  1 penny silver coin

  Half groat silver coin worth 2 pence

  Groat silver coin worth 4 pence

  1 shilling silver coin worth 12d

  1 noble a gold coin worth 6s 8d. (80p, or 1/3 of a pound)

  1 Angel a gold coin worth 7 shillings and 6 pence

  1 pound or a sovereign gold coin worth 20 shillings, i.e. 240 pence

  1 mark was the value of 8 ounces of gold or silver; 123 4d

  For more information see the following books;

  Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England Europe by Alison Sim

  Walking Shakespeare’s London by Nicholas Robins

  Elizabeth’s London by Liza Picard

  Food and Feast in Tudor England by Alison Sim

  Tudor Names and Language.

  To all my readers as a writer of historical fiction, I strive to bring forth a contemporary understandable view of the Tudor Age, during the reign of Henry VIII. The English of the Tudor period is both maddeningly close and frustratingly different to our modern usages. For instance a number of placenames, titles and phrases may appear different since they’ve been written in their earlier Tudor forms. To aid the story flow and provide a period flavour I’ve made some efforts to render dialects and phrasing into more modern standards to take account of the many regional and class differences in accent and pronunciation. Hopefully this will give the reader a taste of Tudor English without sounding like a player at a Ren Fair. At this time there was nothing like standard English in speech or spelling which only gained prominence in the 1800’s after universal education and dictionaries. For any one who would like to look a little deeper into where our language came from I can highly recommend Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue, an extremely amusing account of accent, eccentricity and English. Finally apart from a good tale of adventure, as a historian and researcher I’m trying to give the reader as accurate portrayal of Tudor life, culture and attitudes as possible based on the surviving records and accounts.

  Regards Gregory House - Terra Australis

  Tudor Blogging at http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com/

  Blogging at http://prognosticationsandpouting.blogspot.com

  Look out for the rest of the series of the Red Ned ‘adventures’ at Amazon

  Tudor Terms

  Ale house: Lower in social scale and quality than a tavern. Usually a room with a few benches and a brew house out the back. In theory, they had to be licensed. These were considered by the city officials as the breeding ground of mischief and crime.

  Tavern: Equivalent to a modern British Pub or American Bar usually serving reasonable quality food and ale.

  Inn: These establishments were the Sheratons or Hiltons of their age, large buildings with a courtyard and stables used to catering to gentry and nobility.

  Stew: A brothel or a region of disreputable activities.

  Sack: A sweet fortified wine similar to sherry drunk at any occasion sometimes further sweetened with sugar.

  Cony catching: A common term for any manner of con trick or swindle.

  Cozener or cross biter: Swindlers, fraudsters tricksters etc.

  Nip: A young pickpocket.

  Foister: One of the nicknames of a fraudster or pickpocket, commonly a cozener’s offsider.

  Punk: A common name for a part time prostitute.

  Justice: The local judge or Royal official charged with keeping the peace.

  The Common Watch: Sort of acted as a police force and occasional fire brigade. Regarded by the Tudor citizens as next to useless and dumber than a bag of hammers.

  Constables: These are the usual law enforcement officers for the city of London and its wards and parishes. While in some places they were competent, most of them were considered worse than the Common Watch.

  Ward Muster Company: Citizen militia of reasonable quality and equipment, usually recruited from the better classes of Londoners.

  The Liberties: Areas of the city of London and Southwark under the jurisdiction of the Church and exempt from interference by city or county officials. Usually swarming with punks, cony catchers, thieves, murderers and forgers.

  Manchet loaf: Best quality white bread usually for the well off.

  Ravel loaf: Coarser quality bread usually eaten by tradesmen and others.

  Wherry: A small boat with one to four rowers, used for transport on the Thames, the taxi of its day.

  Prologue: The Cardinal’s Dilemma, September 1529

  The changing colour of the trees, from shading green to red and finally a crumpled brown, was enough of a hint of the passing of summer’s bounty for any to heed, in this the year of Our Lord, fifteen hundred and twenty nine, the twentieth year of the reign of Our Sovereign Lord, King Henry VIII. Now that the colder winds of autumn were at hand, forewarning of winter’s chill and dearth, crossroad prophets warned of the nearing edge of Death’s dark scythe and railed for the repenting of sins. Considering the recent fickleness of the seasons and poor harvests, the prudent farmer or goodwife would look to the state of their stores and give a heartfelt prayer for a short winter and perhaps an offering at their parish church, to avert the ill omens. The cannier of them would, in the dark of the lengthening nights, also slip off to secretly consult the local hedge witch on their predictions for the season. As an added precaution, maybe also procuring a talisman to avert the dreaded ‘sweats’ that had recently ravaged the country, carrying off thousands in its grim tally. Others, clustered around the crackling tavern fires and made reckless by strong ale, growled of the exorbitant tithes demanded by the clergy, and shared dangerous complaints. The most common of these was that the damned priests and bishops had no God–given right to the rewards of men’s labour. The bolder amongst them stood up and with tankard held high, pledged to the coming day, when the mightiest of the church prelates, bloated by greed and with his Cardinal’s robes dyed red with the blood of murdered yeoman, would fall to the hand of a commoner. At that cry the tavern audience would cautiously nod agreement, while keeping a suspicious watch for the church’s pursuivants, sniffers of sedition and heresy. So far it was just a whisper amongst the market crowds, elusive, secret and deadly.

  Treason was the usual charge for overheard slanderous public utterances regarding Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor of the England, the excuse being that such claims defamed the sovereignty of His Majesty, Henry VIII. So as a precaution against unnatural pretensions the punishment was harsh, bloody and public. It was a long painful death by hanging, drawing and quartering on Tower Hill—spectacle, entertainment and warning for the commons, Parliament and gentry of London. For the past twenty years it had served as a useful choke on wayward treasonous tongues—that was until this season. Now it was openly spoken that the Cardinal’s power was wilting as fast as the fading leaves. Last week, according to a rumour sweeping the Spitalfield Market, the Abbot of Wigmore threw out Wolsey’s pursuivant, telling the retainer to go hang. The abbot, according to a friar who claimed to have seen it, had stood at his gate as the Cardinal’s servant was thrown into the mire of the road and screamed out he needn’t bend knee to some grasping upstart butcher’s brat from Ipswich. An indrawn gasp of shock and glee greeted the tale and the folk of London gathered around the parish wells and fountains gossiping and betting as to the probable rewards for the abbot’s impudence.

  In Hertfordshire at the former royal estate of Manor of the Moor, by the village of Rickmansworth, one man was wracked by the recent waning of respect. Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York was deeply worried. His position and power should be unassailable. He was the King’s right hand, holding the royal seal as Lord Chancellor, as well as the unique position of a lifetime legatine commission of Cardinal, trumping the usual head of the English church, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Across the realms of western Christendom, monarchs and princes were accustomed to placing all matters of peace and war into his skilled hands for counsel and deliberation. Wasn’t he called the ‘Great Arbiter of Europe�
�� by Emperor Charles V, the master of half of the Christian world as well as the new lands across the Atlantic? Francis, the King of France, also held him in high esteem, hosting sumptuous banquets in his honour and clasping him by the hand and proclaiming him a loyal friend, rewarding him with a bishopric for his favour. Then his own sovereign, Henry Tudor, had also been unstinting, bestowing unlimited favours and wealth, entrusting him with the high affairs of the kingdom. As for the Holy Father in Rome, Clement’s retention of the papal throne was owed to Wolsey’s own blend of bargaining, negotiation, and threats.