‘Doctor Underhill was formerly the Earl of Leicester’s own chaplain, as he has no doubt boasted to you already,’ added Slythurst. ‘He could not have pardoned Allen and kept his own position.’
‘Yet Allen hoped for a pardon,’ Coverdale interjected. ‘And for better loyalty from his friends. In that he was badly disappointed.’
‘I think the rector did his duty with a heavy heart, James,’ Godwyn said, with a meaningful look at Coverdale. ‘Indeed it grieved all of us to have to bear public witness to his errors.’
‘Roger Mercer gave his testimony quickly enough,’ said Coverdale, glancing with barely concealed anger down the table to where Mercer was laughing merrily with Florio. I saw Slythurst roll his eyes, as if he had heard this grievance many times before. ‘And he was supposed to be Allen’s closest friend. Still, he got his thirty pieces of silver, did he not?’
‘Silver?’ I asked.
‘His testimony was crucial to condemning Allen, and for that he was given Allen’s position when he was deprived,’ Coverdale said bitterly.
‘Perhaps I should clarify for Doctor Bruno that, traditionally, it is the proctor who succeeds as sub-rector, just as the sub-rector goes on to become rector,’ Godwyn explained. ‘This is the way it has always been done – there is a congregation of the Fellows, of course, but the vote is really a formal seal of approval on the established succession.’
‘But since the present rector was placed here by the Earl of Leicester, to do his bidding,’ Coverdale hissed, hunching down in his seat so that he would not be heard, ‘he shows scant regard for tradition and appoints those he finds most pliable. And we all know why Leicester forced through Underhill’s election,’ he added significantly.
‘James,’ said Slythurst, a warning in his voice.
‘I understood it was to enforce propriety in religion,’ I said. ‘Cut out the canker of popery.’
‘Oh, that is the official reason.’ Coverdale waved a dismissive hand. ‘But the college owns substantial manors and parcels of profitable farmland in Oxfordshire, you understand – many of which are now leased at a most advantageous rate to friends of Leicester, are they not, Master Bursar?’
‘You forget yourself, James,’ Slythurst said smoothly. ‘Doctor Bruno here is a friend of the Earl of Leicester.’
‘Indeed, I have never met him,’ I said hastily. ‘I merely travel with his nephew.’
‘In any case,’ Coverdale continued, warming to his theme, ‘the college loses valuable profit and must struggle to make ends meet by admitting legions of these so-called gentlemen commoners – paying students who have neither the inclination nor the talent to be scholars and gad about the town wenching and gambling and bringing the university into disrepute.’
‘This is not an appropriate subject for the supper table,’ said Slythurst, in a voice thick with cold anger, bringing down his palm flat against the board just firmly enough to signal his displeasure. ‘There is nothing improper about those leases, moreover the disbursal of college funds can be of no interest to our guest. A little discretion, if you please, gentlemen.’
The Fellows looked down, embarrassed; an uncomfortable silence loomed.
‘Doctor Coverdale,’ I said, turning to the proctor with a diplomatic smile, ‘you were telling me about the trial of Edmund Allen – please do go on.’
Coverdale exchanged a look with Slythurst that I could not read, then folded his hands together.
‘I was saying only that Mercer’s testimony against Allen carried great weight in the trial, not least because he was Allen’s closest confidant. The rector needed Mercer’s cooperation, and in return he was given Allen’s position.’
‘Which should have been yours,’ I prompted.
Coverdale placed a plump hand on his breast and assumed a face of unconvincing modesty.
‘It is not for my own merits that I say an injustice has been done, Doctor Bruno,’ he said, ‘but for the violation to tradition. This university is founded on tradition, and if individuals feel that they are not obliged to respect it because their personal patronage carries more weight, the fabric of our community will crumble.’
‘Edmund was friend to many of us,’ Godwyn said, with an air of regret. A sombre mood had fallen on our group as once again I heard Sophia, Florio and Mercer erupt into laughter. ‘He was greatly liked by the undergraduates, too – it was a pity that he could not in his heart renounce the errors of his old beliefs.’
‘Exile seems a harsh punishment for owning a few books,’ I ventured, helping myself to more beef and onions.
‘He was lucky to leave England with his guts still inside his belly,’ said Slythurst dispassionately. ‘Less favoured men have had harder punishments for less. You of all people, Doctor Bruno, should know that heterodoxy in religion is a most grave sin, against God and the established order.’ He looked at me pointedly.
‘It was not just the books,’ Godwyn interrupted, in a confidential tone. ‘He was suspected of being a courier for his cousin, William Allen, at the English seminary in Rheims. They took him to London and questioned him under cruel torture, but he never said a word and in the end they sent him abroad. Poor Edmund.’ He shook his head sadly and drained his cup.
‘I met his son today,’ I remarked, tearing another piece of bread.
Coverdale rolled his eyes.
‘Then I pity you,’ he said. ‘No doubt he was begging you to carry pleas to the court for his father’s pardon?’ Without waiting for an answer, he clicked his tongue angrily. ‘That boy should never have been allowed to stay on after his father’s disgrace. Thomas Allen holds dangerous beliefs, mark my words. Though I could not persuade the rector to act on my advice – he is too soft-hearted with that boy.’
I could not help thinking that if the rector’s treatment of Thomas Allen was evidence of soft-heartedness, the boy’s life must be harsh indeed.
‘Once again, it behoves me to say that I do not think our eminent guest has travelled all the way here to listen to us griping about college matters,’ Slythurst interrupted in a voice smooth as ice. He tucked a limp strand of hair behind his ear and turned to me, smiling with his teeth. ‘Tell us, Doctor Bruno, something of your travels in Europe. I understand you have taught at many of the famous academies across the continent. How do you find Oxford by comparison?’
Returning his smile with equal insincerity, for the remainder of that course, and the almond custard and jellied fruits that followed, I told them of my wandering years as the candles burned lower, leaving out what I thought politic and subtly flattering my new companions with what they wanted to hear – namely, that none of the European universities could hold a candle to the great scholarship and wisdom of the men of Oxford.
‘How long do you stay in Oxford, Doctor Bruno?’ asked Coverdale, sitting back in his chair and wiping his lips as the servants cleared away the last plates and cups.
‘I believe the palatine, in whose party I travel, intends to stay a week,’ I said.
‘Then I hope you will attend chapel with us here in the college. The rector is delivering a most erudite series of sermons on John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, are you familiar with it?’
‘The Book of Martyrs? Naturally,’ I replied, suspecting that this was some sort of test. ‘Many consider it a most inspiring work.’
‘Doctor Bruno is not genuine