Richard Rich

Excerpt:  Joan’s Diary – 4th April 1567

We had a fine dinner today with a thick mutton stew and a posset curd that Rich ate with gusto.  His appetite is no longer hearty and while he’s always been very trim, he’s become too thin.  Perhaps the morning’s anger stirred his old taste for some of life’s pleasures.

Robert left after the meal to do his best to drive off, with his vile temper, the plasterers, who are trying to complete their work in the Great Hall.

Rich and I chose a sunny spot in the Long Gallery to talk.  It has been inordinately bright this spring and the early flowers were a delight to our eyes as we spoke.

“I’ve always regretted that Holbein died before he completed work on the portraits of your mother and me.  This hall would have been just the place to hang them.”  He pointed to the walls flanking what will be the entrance to the Great Hall.  “So, what has Roper written about me?  The others you mentioned are of no importance but Roper is still the Clerk of the Pleas of the Court of King’s Bench, is he not?”

“Yes he is.  He is no longer in Parliament, though, and spends his time on his estates at Eltham or St. Dunstan’s.  He refused to let me copy any of his writings but I wrote down as much as I could recall as soon as I left his quarters.”

Rich smiled, “Your memory is legendary in the family.  Tell me.”

I read from the notes I’d brought from my room, “Roper wrote of your encounter in the Tower, when you, Sir Richard Southwell and Master Palmer were instructed to take away More’s books.  You pretended a friendly talk with More away from the other two.  You praised More for being both wise and educated in the laws of the realm and those of the greater world.  Then you asked him if an act of parliament should declare you king would he not take you for king.  He replied, ‘Yes, I would.’ You then asked if there were an act of parliament that you should be taken as Pope.  He replied that parliament could meddle with the state of temporal princes, but then turned the question to you that if parliament decreed that God is not God, would you agree? Roper reports that you replied that you would not as no parliament could make any such law.

“Roper also records your later testimony that More said no parliament could make the King the Head of the Church.  Roper writes that you reported More’s words as ‘maliciously, traitorously, and diabolically spoken’.  He states that it was only upon your report that More was indicted for high treason.”

Rich sat tight-lipped, his eyes never straying from the fields beyond the hall.  “Go on,” he whispered.

“Roper’s recollection moves to the trial at Westminster Hall where More openly told the judges that his spoken denial of the King’s supremacy was untrue and that if your words ‘maliciously, traitorously and diabolically’ were removed there would be no charge against him.  You were then called to give evidence against him and did so under oath.  Here I remember, and wrote as soon as I was alone, ‘And if this oath of yours, Master Rich, be true, then I pray that I never see God in the face, which I would not say, were it otherwise, to win the whole world.’  Roper goes on with More’s version of your conversation in the Tower, and again I recorded, ‘In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for my own peril, and you shall understand that neither I nor no other man to my knowledge,  . . .’”

Suddenly Rich began to recite, “. . . ever took you to be a man of such credit as in any matter of importance that I, or any other, would at any time consent to communicate with you.  And I, as you know, have long been acquainted with you, have known you from your youth.  Our families lived near each other in one parish.  Even then (I am sorry you compel me so to say) you were esteemed light of your tongue, a great dicer, and of no commendable fame.  In the Middle Temple, where you’ve been educated, your reputation was the sa