Page 239 of A Column of Fire

Roger’s attitude to Ned was, naturally, quite casual. Ned was a friend of his mother’s, and Roger regarded him as an unofficial uncle. Ned could not display his affection except by listening carefully to the boy, taking him seriously and replying thoughtfully to what he said; and perhaps that was why Roger occasionally confided in him – something that gave Ned great joy.

Now Roger said: ‘Sir Ned, you know the queen. Why does she hate Catholics?’

Ned had not expected that, though perhaps he should have. Roger knew that his parents were Catholics in a Protestant country, and he had just become old enough to wonder why.

Ned played for time by saying: ‘The queen doesn’t hate Catholics.’

‘She makes my father pay a fine for not going to church.’

Roger was quick-thinking, Ned saw, and the little flush of pleasure he felt was accompanied by a painful stab of regret that he had to conceal his pride, most especially from the boy himself.

Ned said to Roger what he said to everyone: ‘When she was young, Princess Elizabeth told me that if she became queen, no Englishman would die for his religion.’

‘She hasn’t kept that promise,’ Roger said quickly.

‘She has tried.’ Ned searched for words that would explain the complexities of politics to a twelve-year-old. ‘On the one hand, she has Puritans in Parliament telling her every day that she’s too soft, and she should be burning Catholics to death, just as her predecessor Queen Mary Tudor burned Protestants. On the other hand, she has to deal with Catholic traitors such as the duke of Norfolk who want to kill her.’

Roger argued stubbornly: ‘Priests are executed just for bringing people back to the Catholic faith, aren’t they?’

Roger had been saving up these questions, Ned realized. He was probably afraid to challenge his parents about such matters. Ned was pleased the boy trusted him enough to share his worries. But why was Roger so concerned? Ned guessed that Stephen Lincoln was still living more or less clandestinely at New Castle. He would be tutor to Bartlet and Roger, and almost certainly said Mass regularly for the family. Roger was worried that his teacher might be found out and executed.

There were many more such priests than there had been. Stephen was one of the old diehards left over after Queen Elizabeth’s religious revolution, but there were dozens of new priests, perhaps hundreds. Ned and Walsingham had caught seventeen of them. All had been executed for treason.

Ned had questioned most of the seventeen before they died. He had not learned as much as he wished, partly because they had been trained to resist interrogation, but mainly because they did not know much. Their organizer worked under the obvious pseudonym of Jean Langlais and gave them only the absolute minimum of information about the operation of which they were part. They did not know exactly where on the coast they had landed, nor the names of the shadowy people who welcomed them and set them on the road to their destinations.

Ned said: ‘These priests are trained abroad and smuggled into England illegally. They owe allegiance to the Pope, not to our queen. Some of them belong to a hard-line ultra-Catholic group called the Jesuits. Elizabeth fears they may conspire to overthrow her.’

‘And do they conspire?’ Roger asked.

If Ned had been arguing with an adult, he would have responded disputatiously to these questions. He might have scorned the naivety of anyone who supposed that clandestine priests were innocent of treachery. But he had no wish to win an argument with his son. He just wanted the boy to know the truth.

The priests all believed that Elizabeth was illegitimate, and that the true queen of England was Mary Stuart, the queen of the Scots; but none of them had actually done anything about it – so far, at least. They had not tried to contact Mary Stuart in her prison, they had not called together groups of discontented Catholic noblemen, they had not plotted to murder Elizabeth.

‘No,’ he said to Roger. ‘As far as I know, they don’t conspire against Elizabeth.’

‘So they are executed just for being Catholic priests.’

‘You are right, morally speaking,’ Ned said. ‘And it is a great sadness to me that Elizabeth has not been able to keep her youthful vow. But politically it is quite impossible for her to tolerate, within her kingdom, a network of men who are loyal to a foreign potentate – the Pope – who has declared himself her enemy. No monarch on earth would put up with that.’

‘And if you hide a priest in your house, the penalty is death.’

So that was the thought at the heart of Roger’s worry. If Stephen Lincoln were caught saying Mass, or even proved to keep sacramental objects at New Castle, then both Bart and Margery could be executed.

Ned, too, was fearful for Margery. He might not be able to protect her from the wrath of the law.

He said: ‘I believe we should all worship God in the way we think right, and not worry about what other people do. I don’t hate Catholics. I’ve been friends with your mother – and father – all my life. I don’t think Christians should kill each other over theology.’

‘It’s not just Catholics who burn people. The Protestants in Geneva burned Michel Servet.’

Ned thought of saying that the name of Servet was known all over Europe precisely because it was so unusual for Protestants to burn people to death; but he decided not to take that argumentative line with Roger. Instead he said: ‘That’s true, and it will be a stain on the name of John Calvin until the day of judgement. But there are a few people – on both sides – who struggle for tolerance. Queen Caterina, the mother of the king of France, is one, and she’s Catholic. Queen Elizabeth is another.’

‘But they both kill people!’

‘Neither woman is a saint. There’s something you must try to understand, Roger. There are no saints in politics. But imperfect people can still change the world for the better.’

Ned had done his best, but Roger looked dissatisfied. He did not want to be told that life was complicated. He was twelve years old, and he sought ringing certainties. He would have to learn slowly, like everyone else.

The conversation was interrupted when Alfo walked in. Roger immediately clammed up, and a few moments later politely took his leave.