by Mike Voyce
Chapter 21 – Meanings
It’s some time since I told you about my own life; I shall come back to it at the end of the chapter. First I must tell you more about Father Joseph and the ‘Marbles’.
I went to see Angharad early that Sunday. I told it as I’ve told you.
“Edward failed a test. He had the chance to get the Marbles back and completely failed.”
I told her everything about the meeting in Cambridge but Angharad went straight to my first point.
When I first saw the Marbles, in that strange night’s dreams in Peterborough, you remember, I felt they were important. Father Joseph offered to return them but he hadn’t handed them back.
At the end there was something really quite strange, as if Father Joseph put Edward into a trance. It really did seem that Father Joseph hypnotised him, to remember nothing.
“It doesn’t surprise me.”
I was momentarily stung, but Angharad didn’t mean to put me off. She went on,
“So, why do the Marbles matter so much?”
“You remember how Edward called them relics, the others accepted it. He talked about Louis XI, who was king of France at the time Edward IV was king of England, historians call him the architect of modern France. He did indeed become obsessed by collecting relics, as Edward said. He believed they could keep him alive.
Edward called him ‘good’ King Louis; I think that was said in irony. Louis was anything but good; he may even have murdered his own father. I think Joseph admitted it in acknowledging Louis’ impiety.”
But the Marbles aren’t Christian relics, they’re much older.
Angharad had read about ‘druid glass’ and ‘serpents’ eggs’, she’d told me the emperor Claudius, according to Pliny, once had a man killed for secretly bringing something like them into court. That was nearly two thousand years ago. But really research had let us down; I hadn’t been able to find anything in Classical descriptions that came close to ‘the Marbles’.
The very best I picked up from Edward were childish games. Yet Father Joseph made me think the Marbles were so much more.
“It seems Edward’s ancestors, and Joseph’s monks, were more assiduous collectors even than Louis XI.”
Angharad gave me a disapproving look, for the topic was not flippant. Dedicated individuals had taken it most seriously through countless generations, at least according to Father Joseph.
We could take it no further, and Angharad declared we should channel: she closed her eyes in meditated. I waited.
“Someone says Joseph of Arimathaea.”
I knew little about Joseph; just snatches of him begging the body of Christ from Pontius Pilot, of him trading with the tin miners of Cornwall and of his staff becoming the Glastonbury Thorn, flowering in winter.
I shrugged.
Angharad believed we should try again. If ever channelling were hard work, this was. I’ll draw a veil over our efforts, which were exhausting, but for this summary.
The legend is that Joseph of Arimathaea collected the blood of the crucified Christ in a cup and this is the Holy Grail, written about by Malory and by many others. It is difficult to keep such a resonant conscious image out of our heads, maybe the cup Edward found was the Grail; we thought so, but I just couldn’t trust our objectivity.
As to the Marbles, we saw Joseph receiving them from a group of holy, men on a hilltop, the wind was blowing and you could see across the countryside for miles around but neither Angharad nor I could say for certain where it was. Angharad guessed it was Wearyall Hill, near Glastonbury.
(Past)
There were a dozen or so people with Joseph, they were together all as followers of Christ, they had been granted sanctuary, here, by a British king.
The holy men were separate; they were of a different and older religion. You felt that, even then, they belonged to the past. Their flowing robes and strange language marked them as different and put me in mind of the Druids the Romans would drive from the World in the years to come.
We strained to hear their conversation. Neither of us could catch more than a few words,
“First came Julius Caesar, then the emperor Claudius, now there is you; who are still free of them.
We give you these to defend the Spirit and to defend the Land.”
Angharad looked hesitant, something unusual for her. I prompted her,
“Well?”
“It’s just the Marbles. Before now I’ve seen them through your eyes. Just now I saw them for myself, they looked simple, just glass and enamel.”
She stopped and I encouraged her to go on.
“Well, for you they’re incredible, intricate jewels, beyond price, beyond human construction. I don’t think anyone else saw them that way.”
That was right, and I waited again.
“Remember you wondered why Edward was allowed to have them as a small child? I think they protected themselves, only Father Joseph knew what they really were.”
“So you think they could look like the Druid Glass Pliny described?”
Angharad just nodded.
(Past)
The scene changed and we could see Joseph and his companions on the isle of Glastonbury, for then it was an island, cut off by marshes and limpid pools. Closer to the isle were open stretches of clear water, some of it quite deep, and currents that went out to the sea.
There were frequent fogs and rolling mists and sometimes you could see the Tor, more like a ship than an island, carried on a carpet of white, and the cry of the birds would be transmuted to a strange invitation. It was easy to be lost in the marshes, as landmarks shifted and substance merged with insubstance but the waters teemed with fish and the marsh lands with wildfowl. It was without human life till the Christians came for the British called it ‘the Land of the Dead’.
It seemed to us, the British avoided Glastonbury out of reverence. The marshes had once been crossed by roads, and people lived there, the British called them ‘the Old Ones’, but the rising waters had brought a rising spirit of strangeness, carrying the land and its memories into the past. There were many holy places in the Land of the Dead; places of great power that the Old Ones had understood. But as the World grew older the timelessness of Glastonbury almost sank into the sea. The World left this strange land behind, a place where Reality trembled so uncertainly you could see through the mist, as if through a glass, into other worlds, the World of the Old Ones, the World of the Dead and beyond. Its very strangeness touched even Joseph.
We knew we were privileged to see these visions; they made me wonder whether the holy men with Joseph were anything as ordinary as Druids. What on Earth had they to do with Edward or the Marbles?
I argued with Angharad, this was all fantasy. We were departing from anything I could allow as being about the historical Edward Stafford. Without some material proof we could not entertain it.
Was I simply echoing Edward’s disbelief? But if I was, was I not right to do so? Angharad accepted what I said, but clearly didn’t agree.
In one thing Father Joseph must have been right, how you used them decided how well the marbles worked. Edward and Eadie proved that in their childish games.
“They’re not relics at all!”
Angharad was speaking after our channelling, while we were discussing relics, and whether Edward was right to call them that. All religious relics were supposed to focus the power of faith, it’s only in modern times we see them as works of art or museum pieces.
Angharad meant the Marbles were somehow different; they were deliberately made, not just powerful because they came from a saint. They were made to do something. I simply shrugged, I could take it no further, and I was tired.
There is one nagging doubt from this channelling. Did Father Joseph know about the Grail Edward found in Stafford? When he spoke of ‘other things’ it’s easy to assume he knew, but did he? He certainly never mentioned it.
That was my conclusion from all this channelling. I was exhaust
ed from looking for any other explanation, and finally I admitted it. I’d been shown Marbles whose origin was lost in antiquity, a sword of power and the cup with Christ’s blood. Each of these had figured in Edward’s life. The Marbles were still withheld from him and the Holy Grail was locked up in Stafford Castle, all that remained to him was the Sword.
I would go home; I would meditate at my leisure in Peterborough. Only then would I channel again, and when I did it would be Duke Henry and the Marbles.
It disappointed Angharad, but she was as tired as I. She wouldn’t say it, but what concerned her was that the burden falling on me would cause me to reject these images.
I told her with a smile,
“I’ll look at them honestly, but I’ll also look with a good heart.”
(Past)
Henry kept the Marbles with him nearly always. He twined them between his fingers in the privacy of his personal chambers. It made me smile as I watched, thinking of my own habit of fiddling with things.
I tried to hold channelling to the Marbles, but no effort could take me further at this time. In the end I just relaxed, letting my channel take me where it would, hoping for the Marbles. Instead, I was given Duke Henry’s rebellion.
(Past)
I saw the Duke’s return to Brecon. After King Richard’s coronation he accompanied the new king on the first stage of his royal progress, but then he left to attend to his own affairs.
When he arrived home he was greeted by John Morton. Morton had been imprisoned in Duke Henry’s care for treason against Edward IV. If he hadn’t been a priest I think King Edward would have executed him, but, over time, he had been given a great degree of liberty within the castle walls. I wonder if Duke Henry had forgotten how dangerous Henry Tudor’s spymaster could be.
“How fare the Princes your Grace? I have been concerned for young Prince Edward. Tell me, did he seem pale at his coronation?”
“Why yes. As well he might, it was an astonishment to all of us.”
“I have concerns for him, for other causes, since he was torn from the sanctuary of Holy Church.”
Bishop Morton pursued it no further, but he came back to it the next day and the next.
There came a feast day when the Bishop was asked to bless the family meal. Almost as soon as he sat down he asked the Duke,
“Your Grace, have you received news of her ladyship’s nephews?”
Lady Katherine looked to her husband, he was by now annoyed at this pestering.
“Why, should I?”
“My agents report they are no longer to be seen in the Tower; that is all.”
“Henry.”
Lady Katherine caught hold of her husband’s arm. It was the tone Morton used, rather than his words, which made her fearful.
“You had better tell me what you know.”
“It may be nothing but it has almost been my second profession to know the minds of men even before they know themselves. For my former master I had ears everywhere. Those ears still inform me quicker than the ears of any man in England.”
Duke Henry would have made a joke of it.
“Your agents have fast horses then.”
Bishop Morton would allow no joke. He looked at the Duke for a moment in solemn silence.
“Yes my lord.”
The Duke and Duchess were about to take the bate.
There had been a Tudor attempt to take the Princes from the Tower by force. King Richard had feared it was an attempt at assassination and had ordered his nephews to stay more securely indoors. Morton painted the Tudor attack as a rescue attempt; the Princes withdrawal into hiding was painted as imprisonment. He claimed to have reports that made him believe the King would murder the Princes on his return to London.
Lady Katherine gasped in horror but Duke Henry was less credulous.
“Why should he.”
“King Richard sits on the throne by the decision of my brother, the bishop of Bath and Wells. If my other brothers in the Church persuade the Pope he was wrong what will then become of King Richard’s coronation?”
“They won’t do that!”
Morton looked at the Duke with just the right measure of condescension and confidence.
“Your Grace may know the will of the Holy See better than I.”
“Oh! Henry.”
Lady Katherine was hooked.
It took many days more to convince the Duke. Morton resorted to instructing Tudor agents to inflame certain of the Duke’s retainers and minor officials. Fighting even broke out and there were protests at the Princes’ murder. Reports reached the Duke from his own agents. When they did Morton expressed further concern.
“These are black days your Grace. It is reported to the King, by your instruction your men are stirring up feeling for the Princes. Even I cannot say the sources of these rumours but if Richard believes them he may think you a traitor.
It may be others have heard what my agents have told me. Those loyal to your household would cry out for the Princes, for they know how close you stand to the throne yourself.”
Reports were coming in daily, made up reports from Morton and genuine reports from the Duke’s own men.
Morton reminded the Duke of every hasty or violent act Richard had ever committed. He reminded Henry of Lord Hastings. He even invented,
“I cannot remember, your Grace, was the King at Tewkesbury? It is said that he killed there Edward, Prince of Wales, after the battle was finished.”
In fact Richard had fought at Tewkesbury but left before the Prince was killed, Duke Henry hadn’t been there and it’s unlikely he would have known. Strangely, Morton’s lie is still told today, in Shakespeare’s play.
What finally decided it was that the Princes did indeed disappear. The population of London became increasingly anxious about it, but Duke Henry was never to know by what contrivance they were whisked out of sight, or how close to his own home lay the cause of it. It was enough.
“Brecon is too far from London. Shall I trust your agents? Will you keep me in their confidence?”
The Duke was hooked. He was now in the hands of Tudor’s most dangerous servant.
“Your Grace, I will now confess, I still have communications with the Earl of Richmond. He is as concerned as any honest Englishman for the honour of England.”
Duke Henry suffered agonies of doubt still. It was impossible not to listen to Morton but he needed time to think. It had been his habit to toy with the crystal gems he kept when deciding almost any matter. Now he chanced not to have them, he had left them behind. He sent a servant to fetch them but it would be many days before his return. It was mere superstition, he had to decide now.
He was almost absolute ruler in the west, he could act now, by joining with Henry Tudor; the quarrel then would be the murdered princes, not Stafford claims to the throne. He had to decide, he had to move, his mind turned through all the labyrinth John Morton set for him; the Marbles were elsewhere.
Henry sent Thomas, the same Thomas of our story. His uncle was a Kentish knight and landowner and had served the Staffords in his time. Thomas had natural ability, and power of the mind such as to make it natural he should come into Duke Henry’s service, he almost grew up in the Stafford household and was singled out by the Brothers. While giving him no high office, Henry depended on young Thomas more than he would admit. It was Thomas who was sent to supervise the musters, the raising of an army from the widely scattered Stafford lands and, most important, to fetch the Marbles.
There was a hasty timetable planned, it left no room for delay. Thomas would have to fly like Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. Things started well; then the weather turned. Roads became heavy then impassable. Reluctant yeomen and knights found true difficulty in reaching the muster points. Eventually Thomas had to abandon the raising of the army to others, to get back to Henry, carrying the Marbles in a leather pouch inside his doublet.
He rode through sheets of rain, scarce able to see the way in fr
ont of him. Horses and rider went days without seeing dry shelter. Roads, thick with mud, made dangerous by disguised pot-holes, were abandoned for travel over the fields, fields made slow, heavy going by standing water. Horse after horse failed under him from cold and exhaustion. At river crossings fords were impossible. Bridges were unapproachable for the water swirling round them or else swept entirely away. Eventually Thomas heard the news, Henry had been taken, from hiding, not ten miles away. It was over, the rain stopped.
Hearing Edward wasn’t yet captured, Thomas started to search. It was dangerous with Richard’s soldiers in the area, every enquiry carrying the risk of arrest. In the end he did it, carrying the boy to safety in Brecon as you heard in chapter three. He returned only briefly to Lady Katherine before making his way to Brittany and the court of Duke Francis.
It was no accident that Thomas returned with Henry Tudor, nor that he earned the new king’s trust serving in the bodyguard which stopped King Richard’s wild charge at Bosworth, and again no accident, when Henry decided to bring Edward into his mother’s care, it was Thomas he appointed tutor. It made sure Edward would receive the Marbles. Lady Katherine needn’t have worried; there was always someone to protect her son.
Thomas was in touch with Father Joseph throughout this time. It was Father Joseph’s idea that the Marbles be given to Edward. Young as he was, he was not only the heir but they, too, would protect him.
Please believe me, at the end of this channelling I was as exhausted as Thomas at the end of his ride. I’ve never received so much, so well summed up. The next morning I overslept, I was late for work and came in to see clients with eyes still unfocussed. It took me days to recover.
What of the tide of power into Stafford hands, the power of Duke Humphrey and the sudden rise of Duke Henry when he brought King Richard to the throne? Why should such power end in Duke Henry’s abysmal failure?
I asked myself, and I asked Angharad. She said a very wise and sensible thing.
“When you’re talking about magic you have to remember the importance of the magician.
A Stradivarius will only make beautiful music in the hands of a good violinist. The Brothers hadn’t found a good enough violinist. The Marbles didn’t fail Duke Henry, he failed them.”
The question was could Edward do better? I believe he could, the childhood games with Eadie prove it. But I can’t blame Father Joseph for not believing in him.
That, in the end, is the truth about the meeting in Cambridge.
I think the Brothers worked on the Marble Edward damaged, not just to repair it but to study how it was made. It was the only one laid open for inspection and no chances could be taken with the others. Edward’s accident let the Brothers see into it. I believe the Brothers also had a problem matching materials: yet their patience lasted years, for years they sought to copy them. They were still reluctant to return the complete set when Edward came of full age.
So much has gone into this chapter already, now I’m going to add to it. In and amongst all this, Angharad and I debated that short, unhappy scene when Edward left for his mother’s wedding.
Edward wasn’t weak as Angharad insisted. Open defiance of the Tudors caused people to lose their heads. On the other hand Edward wasn’t prepared to give up; Lady Margaret was right, he wouldn’t treat Eadie as his whore, but Eadie wasn’t helping.
As Aletia’s daughter Eadie was of gentle but not noble birth. The distinction was important, but even King Edward IV had married for love, why shouldn’t Edward Stafford? He walked a fine line; if he insisted on his right to Eadie he would be prevented. If defiance went further either or both of them would be in real danger. But I don’t think even Edward realised how much money was at stake. Lady Margaret had been paid £4,000 for the marriage contract; it was the equivalent of several million pounds today and it was a payment that belonged to Lady Margaret herself, she’d very probably spent it.
The irony of the short scene between Edward and Eadie, over Lady Katherine’s wedding, was that Edward was losing her, not because of Lady Margaret but because Eadie herself understood this no better than Angharad.
Eadie’s feelings were as I told you, feelings of loss and rejection. Angharad didn’t think Eadie could expect anything better from Edward. Yet he’d promised it and he’d meant it. Eadie loved him and believed him, he was letting her down. She didn’t understand talk of danger, she didn’t see Edward was fighting to keep her, to Eadie Edward was just unfeeling, grown away from the boy she loved.
I found an extension to that little scene. When Eadie left Edward she went indoors, Thomas found her crying. He reacted first with anger and then with understanding. He could see the problem of each that neither could explain to the other. His solution was to try to breathe life back into Edward. It was this that made him finally try the visit of Father Joseph.
I promised, at the start of the chapter, to tell you some more of my own life, though that was some pages ago and so much has happened since. I’ll keep it brief.
In my life I felt the storm clouds gathering, with great forebodings for the failure of all my projects. With all this of Edward, I was gaining an almost mystical sense of things and I feared everything would now go wrong for me in my own life.
I admit I tried to tinker, Sarah could accuse me of interfering; she had a word, ‘invasive’, that’s exactly what I was. Since Sarah has real talents how could I not? I didn’t know what would happen but it was an honest effort, for her good and for others.
I used every contact I had or could make to steer Sarah toward work in our project, people interested in the reform I wanted, people in Education, grant funders and professional bodies in hypnotherapy. It wasn’t difficult to light fires of enthusiasm in these people; I aimed them all at influencing Sarah. Sarah was moving house at this time and I even talked to her mortgage broker, supporting her application for a bigger mortgage by pointing out what she could earn from my research project.
I remember the broker observed,
“It’s a pity she was so ill when she came back from France, I could have done her a much better deal at that time. Do you know what was wrong with her? It was something more than just flu.”
It was a casual remark but it stuck in my mind. I remembered Sarah saying she had the “sweating sickness”.
I looked those words up in a “Concise Oxford Dictionary”, perhaps, you might say, almost idly. Would I have put myself to any trouble if I hadn’t had a dictionary to hand?
The definition was as follows,
“Epidemic fever with sweating, prevalent in England in 15th - 16th c.”
My curiosity was aroused.
Further reading told me Henry Tudor found another enemy besides the King when he killed Richard at Bosworth.
“The attacker against the armed but helpless force was the Sweating Sickness… It made its first appearance here among Henry’s soldiers after the battle which won him the kingdom and spread so rapidly all over the country that it delayed his coronation.” - From a modern textbook on the Tudors.
The illness was and is a mystery. It was unknown, anywhere in the World, until it struck at Bosworth. It was taken by many as a visitation from God against the killing of a lawful king. There were four further outbreaks, in 1507, 1517, 1528 and 1551, the last coincident with Henry VIII’s death. With that death, the illness disappeared, as mysteriously as it had come, never to be seen again.
What was I to make of it? What was I to make of Sarah complaining of an illness that hadn’t been seen in more than 400 years?
As I could make nothing of ‘Sweating Sickness’ so I could do no good in tinkering with Sarah’s affairs. With all the mystery and magic of this chapter, how could I be so devoid of progress in my own life?
***