The story so far…
Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance
John Lambert was born John Nicholson. An ordained priest, ‘his path crossed every dangerous path.’ He was questioned by Archbishop Warham before Warham died. A case of heresy was dropped. But it has been taken up again, Cromwell suspects at the prompting of Stephen Gardiner.
Barnes, Cranmer and Cromwell try to make him be silent. ‘You will ruin us all,’ says Robert Barnes. Barnes insists that none of them will protect him. Lambert says he will put his case to the king himself.
Henry agrees to a meeting at Westminster. The king wears white and Lambert kneels. He sticks to his beliefs and the king sticks to his own. ‘The king is magisterial. He is nimble, he is trenchant; he is, at times, humble. He does not want to kill Lambert, that is of no interest to him.’
But kill him he does, and he gets Cromwell to read the sentence.
Cromwell sends food and drink to him in the Tower, but he knows they are no consolation for his silence. Lambert’s death is ‘a grand occasion’ at Smithfield. ‘The day is a fiesta of pain. He has never seen a man suffer so.’