Vyner-brooks - The Heretic

Landscape architect, property developer, and pastor, Henrys career was diverse before cancer struck in 2006. Theres nothing like an open coffin to make a man rethink his priorities . On the day of his surgery, Henry started to write a novel for his sons, expressing the deep things that he might never get to show them. He did not know then that he would survive, or that from his hospital bed a new career had been born. He now works as an author, speaker, and recording artist, pursuing his love of history, philosophy, and the arts. Following the publication of his first novel, The Heretic , Henry is now researching a prequel called The Knight , set in the Renaissance courts of Italy.

Henry and his wife Ruth live deep among the mountains and lakes of northwest Cumbria, in a barn they rebuilt to contain their expanding family and goat herd. Three feet thick walls are ideal when you have five lively children! Their favourite hobbies include mountain expeditions, swimming in the lakes and rivers, films, reading copiously, and making an awful din with various musical instruments.

A gentle man of God who has faced lifes great mountains. Bear Grylls

Text copyright 2014 Henry Vyner-Brooks
This edition copyright 2014 Lion Hudson

The right of Henry Vyner-Brooks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Lion Fiction
an imprint of
Lion Hudson plc
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road,
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/fiction

ISBN 978 1 78264 095 0
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 096 7

First edition 2014

Acknowledgments

Page 14: Artists reconstruction of Saint Benets; used by kind permission of Sue Walker White

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image: Mike Kipling Photography/Alamy

To my father, for teaching me to love history and art.

To my mother, for showing me how to love people.

To my wife, for loving me.

To the 200 million Christians who still suffer for their faith.

To my children, that you may learn to love & endure as they do.

CONTENTS

The first duty of a man
is the seeking after
and the investigation of truth.

CICERO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is the great privilege and joy of the historical fiction writer to be able to spend long hours in research, which of course usually means plundering the riches of other peoples hard labours. So, at the outset, I must acknowledge with profound gratitude the work of historians and academic writers like Eamon Duffy, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Leonard Verduin, Alister McGrath, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton to name only the few that come immediately to mind. You have been like many friends in my mind these last years, like Virgil guiding Dante through the underworld! But let me not leave out those who contribute to web resources like Wikipedia, and then also the great fiction writers most notably Hilary Mantel in my case who have brought this period to life for so many. My wife and five children deserve awards too, for bearing with me on grizzly days, sharing my research and keeping me caffeinated! Also, I must thank and praise my agents Pieter and Elria at Piquant for bearing with me, pushing good books my way and believing in this project. And then, I suppose, doubly so Tony Collins and the team at Lion for believing in this book enough to invest so much in it, and giving me such an experienced novelist-editor in Penelope Wilcock; sincerely, my thanks to you all. The world merely sees the author, but we authors know that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and only some are listed above.

CHARACTER LIST

THE FENTONS

Master Fenton (father and stepfather)

Elizabeth (mother)

Beth (daughter)

Richard (son)

Piers (son)

Samuel (son)

James (son)

ANABAPTISTS

Pieter (Eel-catcher)

Sarah (Pieters sister)

Christopher Burgh (Cambridge scholar/reformer)

THE ABBEY

William Rugge (Abbot & Bishop)

Robert Stoneham (Prior)

Brother William Beccles (Cellarer)

Brother Aloysius (Librarian)

Brother Almoner

Brother Porter

Brother Gerard (Herbalist)

Brother John (Infirmarian)

Brother Pacificus (formerly Sir Hugh Erpingham)

Mark (Novice)

Simon (leper, formerly Sir Cecil Erpingham)

FROM BINHAM PRIORY

Wulfric (Prior)

Bede (deceased)

Aelfric

Anthony

Benedict

Sigismund

FROM HICKLING PRIORY (AUGUSTINIAN)

Prior Robert Aeyns

8 other canons

AT COURT

Henry (King of England and France)

Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk)

Henry Howard (Dukes son and Earl of Surrey)

Charles Brandon (Duke of Suffolk, Kings friend and brother-in-law)

Thomas Cromwell (Kings Secretary, Lord Privy Seal, Master of the

Rolls, Chancellor of Cambridge University, Vicar General of the Kings new Church of England)

John Blount (captain of the kings bodyguard)

Catherine Howard (the Dukes niece and future Queen)

Eustace Chapuys (Ambassador to Emperor)

Thomas Wyatt (English nobleman, ambassador and lyric poet)

Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury)

Sir Geoffrey de Hastings (retired ambassador)

Lady Maria de Hastings (Sir Geoffreys niece)

THE DEAD

Richard Nykke (Bishop of Norwich)

Brother Bede (novice of Binham Abbey)

Catherine of Aragon (Kings wife)

Anne Boleyn (Kings second wife)

Sir Thomas Erpingham (Hughs heroic, Lollard forebear)

NORTHERN REBELS

Thomas Moyne (Lincolnshire lawyer)

Robert Aske (Yorkshire lawyer)

Harry Percy (Earl of Northumberland)

Thomas Percy (Harrys brother)

Thomas Darcy (First Baron Darcy of Temple Hurst)

Maddison and Heneag (the Lincoln envoys to London)

and all northern nobles, clergy and a third of the realm

SAINT BENETS: AN ARTISTS
RECONSTRUCTION