A Brood of Vipers

took from Maria as a token so many, many years ago in that beautiful warm garden in the Villa Albrizzi. I hold it against my cheek and smell the fragrant perfume. Poor Maria! Poor Shallot! Who shall grieve for the both of us? Oh, I went to see old Vicar Doggerell. I emptied my silver box and arranged for a specially cut stone to be laid in the chancel before the altar. It bore the following inscription:

TO MARIA THE BELOVED FROM THE ONION-EATER.
    Nevertheless, I take some comfort. Maria's ghost and those of the Albrizzi household must have cried to God for vengeance. Oh, Wolsey, Henry and Cardinal Giulio had their way. Within a year Pope Adrian VI was dead, suddenly and mysteriously. A conclave was held and Giulio de' Medici was elected, assuming the name and title of Pope Clement VII. How they must have laughed. Yet, though the mills of God grind exceedingly slowly they do grind exceedingly small. In 1527, four years after his election, Rome was stormed and sacked by the German troops of Emperor Charles V, Catherine of Aragon's kinsman. Pope Clement became his. prisoner and Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon was cut to tatters. Oh, the king's rage! Wolsey's fury! Pope Clement's complete helplessness! The king, like the viper he was, struck swiftly and fatally. Wolsey fell from power and Henry broke from the Church of Rome. Now all are gone! All are only shadows in old Shallot's mind. But still, when summer comes and I feel the sun strong on my face, I think of Florence, of Benjamin and Maria and all those poor victims of bloody-handed murder.

Author's Note
    Readers often ask how accurate are the journals of Roger Shallot? What can I say? By his own confession he is a born liar, a story-teller. Nevertheless, this tale has more than a thread of truth of it. Henry VII died in mysterious circumstances, estranged from both his son and the ambitious young clerk Thomas Wolsey, and is said to have kept a diary which was torn up and eaten by a pet monkey. Giulio de Medici and Cardinal Wolsey were firm friends and looked to each other for support. Henry really did believe that Pope Clement would deliver a quick divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Clement's fall from power at the hands of Charles V is an established fact, as is Henry's terrible rage against both Wolsey and the papacy. Finally, in an old church outside Ipswich is a memorial stone bearing the inscription: TO MARIA THE BELOVED FROM THE ONION-EATER. Perhaps Shallot is not the liar he constantly makes himself out to be!