The Popish Midwife: A tale of high treason, prejudice and betrayal

by Annelisa Christensen

  ‘Your name is not nonsensical and false. You are overly known to too many.’ Pierre was not often wry, but he was well aware of my reputation around the city. There were those who respected me and those who did not. I gazed down at my words and remembered the Atterbury woman and her husband punching and kicking me.

  Pierre’s clothes whispered as he stood, put his book on the warmth of his seat and came over from the fireplace to place his shrunken hands on my shoulders. I took my eyes up from the ink I had so recently blotted, barely visible now in the midsummer twilight, and tipped my head over to rest my cheek on his bony fingers. Over my shoulder I caught sight of the greying town outside the window.

  Though the day had been hot, the window was closed to the smell of the street that was always there, winter or summer. The stink was worse now in the summer; waste sat on the roads, unwashed by rain. In that waste a rat or two would be racing from gutter to fallen cabbage stalk while, inside, bluebottle flies buzzed ceaselessly against the windows trying to get back to their egg-laying.

  Not much else went on in the streets at this late hour. Most horses were stabled and few carts trundled past. Even those persons that had filled public houses until late had finished making drunken noises as they found their way home. Only the occasional footsteps of a man going about some late night business, that maybe he had no business going about, hurried past.

  I could barely see the roofs of the buildings opposite, dirty from the soot of fourteen years and a thousand burning winter fires. I did not need to see them to know from the many times I returned home at dusk that the bottom of the walls were painted by the dried on slurry of mud and dung splattered up by carts on many wet London days.

  My eyes might be on the world outside the window, but my thoughts were on my husband’s body touching the back of my head. The memory of him punching Dangerfield onto the ground would forever chase away thoughts of him being old. He was more my hero than any romantic highwayman could ever be. He had saved me as often as every day, and made me a respected woman. His hands pulled me closer still.

  ‘My Lizzie, you have been busy I see.’ I knew he referred to the stack of paper on the writing table.

  ‘Would you rather I was busy with you, my turtle? I am finished here for tonight.’

  There was a smile in his voice as he said, ‘There is nothing I would like better.’ His hands left my shoulders and slipped round them until his arms crossed in front of my chest and pulled me close against him.

  ‘Maggie found a beetle this morning,’ I said. The conversation came slow and with long pauses as I leaned my head against his belly and we soaked in the moment of warmth and companionship, and his hands caressed my bodice. ‘She carried it around with her all day.’

  ‘For what purpose?’ That was always a relevant question where little Maggie was concerned. Sometimes her curiosity brought her to simply watch, other times she would physically examine those living things in such a way it was not good for them.

  ‘To race it, I believe. She says it will win against all of the others she has collected. She keeps them in the pearl box wherein she keeps her other special possessions.’

  I allowed a smile to wipe the weariness of the day from my face. Our little girl, now five, took her younger brother, Peter, into all sorts of mischief. It pleased me when Pierre told me she took after me.

  ‘It appears she had an interesting day. And what did the day bring you?’ Pierre’s hands stilled and his arms tightened around me.

  ‘Mrs Bell had her eighth brat without any hardship. I did not take payment; I did so little.’

  ‘Did you take time to visit the Palace of Horrors?’ That was what Pierre oftentimes called Newgate.

  ‘Yes. They are always glad of some relief from hunger. Mary tells me they are ever in my debt for the air I bring them from outside.’

  ‘‘Tis the same air, is it not?’

  ‘Not for those inside the cages. I speak not only of the sweet scent of free air. Concealed beneath my cloak I bring wind of the goings on around town, a thing they are agog to hear.’ I remembered how, if I placed the desire for news of my family, of the trials and other events, into a balance, they would so often outweigh my physical deterioration and worsening health.

  ‘It would be prudent for you to stay away from there for a while. Your bond with the place is too strong and should be loosened.’

  ‘I grasp the needs of those inside better than most and will not desert them now.’

  ‘You are a good woman, Lizzie. Those who say otherwise cannot know your heart as I do.’

  ‘And you are a good man, Pierre. Without you to stand by me, I would have faltered in my resolve many times.’

  ‘If I was more of a husband, I would not let you be so foolhardy and throw yourself into trouble as you do.’

  ‘That is not so, Pierre. You know what I do is right. You said it yourself. It is only the punishment for it that is wrong.’

  ‘‘Tis true. Would that a person could speak truth without punishment, then I would not be against doing so at all. But the truth is not wanted here in this city, nor in this kingdom, this bed of charm. Rather, they would believe lies only keep company in different religions and different countries.’

  The unspeakable terror of the screams that came from that poor man, Prance, even now pierced my night dreams and would wake me so that Pierre must hold me until I stopped shaking, proving false the common-held belief that torture was long banished from our shores.

  ‘But, as I have oft said, and you have agreed, if none will tell the truth, the lie will thrive and live in all places from the street to the castle. It may be that no person believes my story, but if I do not tell it, then the truth will hide silent in the darkness. It takes only one to change what passes.’

  ‘I know, I know, but why must that one be you? Will you not leave it to some other that leaves no widower and orphans desolate?’

  ‘Sincerely, my love, I fear that myself, but should I allow fear to sway me from my course? Should I turn my face from those bodily suffering, even as I speak, and every day, for the sakes of my husband and children, who would suffer only in the heart. They will die in gaol of starvation and will never see their loved ones again. And while they die, their bodies are mutilated by the weight of irons that bind their legs and wrists and damage them wholly, completely and without respite. We have every comfort. We want for nothing. Our religion prevents us from doing nothing to help them. We must aid them in every way we can, even if we achieve only our own deaths.’

  ‘I would lief it was another’s death. Is there none other that would take up your fight?’

  ‘Knowing how fickle people are, Pierre, you ask this of me? We have been betrayed by too many to trust any other. You know this, yet you can quiz me so?’

  I pulled from his close arms and he released me so I could stand and face him. Every time we had this argument, and he did not uphold me fully, it was as if I stood alone.

  ‘Will you stand by me, Pierre?’ I said. ‘Will you do more than allow me speak out, but also stand proud beside me when I do it? I must know your heart beats together with mine.’

  My husband turned from me and I immediately missed him, missed his loving eyes. But it told me what I wished to know: though he would not stop me, he would never approve of what I did.

  ‘You know I am all for speaking the truth, my love, but you place the words on paper, the proof of which will not disappear into the air the moment the words are spoken. This book you write will hold you accountable to any who hold it. Your words hold fast to your name on the cover. They cannot slip away and hide once you have inked them to paper. Your words are outlawed in this land. You know that. The court can, and will, clasp those words in their hands and make you pay for them with your life. Mark well the wisdom of my words, though they not be ink!’

  ‘If the truth is only in the spoken word
, it may always hide in the air,’ I countered. ‘Words may be passed as rumour from one place to the next by those who capture them, but they will never be given substance. Tittle-tattle may be enjoyed and passed on, and may even be believed, but no one will be prepared to act on it, for it disappears the moment it is in another person’s ears.’

  Pierre, still turned from me, said, ‘You have said this to me ere now, and may say so again, but, and again I say, I would lief it was not you that plucked the words from the air and put them on paper.’

  ‘I am not plucking the words from the air,’ I said, as the images I wrote of filled my head.

  Pierre turned back and grabbed me hard by the shoulders, the old man’s hands still strong and his eyes unexpectedly damp. ‘I know, Lizzie. I know. But I cannot bear to imagine you back in that dreadful place! If I could only have taken the cell in your stead, I would gladly have done so! ‘Tis my fault you had to be in that dreadful place at all, let alone so long, and I cannot stand to let you be taken there again without a fight!’

  ‘Why do you take blame on yourself?’ I asked, not pulling from the strong hands that dug into the tops of my arms. ‘You played no part in any of it. I placed myself there by my own foolish trust in a man who was not worthy of it, though it was God’s will that I did so.’ His fingers clenched and bruised me, but I would take so much more than bruises from this man who had nursed me from death.

  ‘We were both taken in by that fox. But I knew you were becoming involved with My Lady Powys and her husband, though I knew them unsafe. Their reputation as meddling Catholics is known by all, but if they want to draw eyes to themselves and die for it, that is their choice. They should play a quieter part as I do. They should never have drawn you into their web. You are a good woman and they played on that. It was my place to stop you.’

  ‘That you did try, Pierre. Do you not remember?’ Not for the first time, I was saddened by Pierre’s worsening memory. ‘You warned me and I heeded your warnings. I am ever careful to hide how close Lord and Lady Powys are to me. You are wrong to think they played me. They are good people and only try to defend their own lives.

  I searched Pierre’s face for understanding. I would have him laud my efforts rather than condemn them. If I did not have solid foundation to build my confidence at home, then how fast would the walls of my confrontation with the guilty ones crumble! I continued talking, trying to reach him.

  ‘I would never have known the darkness of prison that no one sees or cares about. There are some in there whose only crime is their debt, and yet they are treated as the worst murderers. Someone must speak for them. There are Catholics in there who have done nothing but pray in the wrong fashion. They have not seen their wives or husbands for many months and are then tortured into naming others. Who will speak for them?’

  I paused for breath. The tears in Pierre’s eyes hung pooled between the lids, but he did not shed them. I did not know if to stay silent, my words being too much, or finish my thoughts. It seemed that, now I had begun, I could not stop myself telling him what I had told him time and again.

  ‘The keepers have no respect for life. Look at poor Mary White. She lost her child at birth after those monsters shackled her ankles and wrists in those wicked bilboes, though she was big with child, and stapled her to the floor without respite. Who will speak out for Mary and her poor lost soul, may he rest in peace? Who? If you had stopped me before, I would not have known so much of this, and I would not be positioned to do something now.’

  Pierre knew the truth of this, though he would rather not. He knew that the Almighty God had shown me this path so I might do something for those miserable folk and many others.

  He did not speak, but wrapped his arms firmly round me once more and pulled me close to him so that my healed ribs protested. His breathing was deep and ragged, and I knew better than to speak further. Knowing the truth and living with it were two very different things. To do what I had to do, and for him to allow me to, we must draw strength from each other. I held him tight as he held me, imagining my resolve strengthening his backbone, even whilst I took courage from his love.

  What fortune to find such a decent man so late in my life. In eleven years of marriage I never doubted him; I trusted him implicitly with every detail of my life. My good husband would stand by me, no matter how much he desired I did not do what I must do.

  We did not speak more on my book and the consequences of writing it, but went to our bed and took each other as if the law would take me away that very morning.

  23

  11th day of September, 1680

  Had Pierre’s wisdom been written in ink on my heart, he could not have better predicted my fate.

  And so it came to pass that I was arrested and imprisoned for the writing of my book, for I was not as quiet about selling my book as I should have been. Now I stood once more before the court. My only hope was that I might rescue myself as before, for this time I had the assistance of counsel, though he pronounced himself wholly against me when first we met at my indictment mere hours before.

  The Counsellor for the Crown standing before the court had the arrogant stance of a roost-cock that knew he was king only as long as others gave credence to his crow. ‘Mrs Cellier, I warn you to think before you speak. Remember, any Challenges you make will reflect upon you. It is this jury, once sworn in, who will pass their verdict on you.’

  ‘Am I being tried for my life?’ I said. If they needed a scapegoat I would not be one, not if I kept my head.

  ‘No,’ the court clerk replied, and then, perhaps wary I did not understand the gravity of my case if my life was not forfeit, or perhaps that my reputation preceded me, added, ‘but think before you make any Challenges.’

  My old friend, the Lord Mayor, dominated the court in his carved wood seat on a dais at the front of the room. In the case that I still misunderstood my position, he raised his leather spectacles and held the round windows to his nose. ‘Just watch how you challenge anything, Mrs Cellier.’ He dropped his usual familiarity of the bench chambers for the sake of the court. ‘If and when you challenge, it must be for a reason.’

  He did not fool me with his severity. His eyes were lit with anticipation that I would not only challenge, but challenge often. Why should he wish me to oil proceedings with timidity when every coffee house was full of his commissioned court transcripts, and none wished to read a dull account? Aware the scribes were most ardently scribbling every word, I merely nodded. They would have their story no matter if I did say nothing.

  The clerk took the Lord Mayor’s words as the sign to swear in the jury.

  Each man stood before the clerk was perhaps a tradesman, merchant or labourer and fidgeted with the awkwardness of a person in an unfamiliar role or, perhaps, in a task that did not need him to use his hands as he was used to.

  I did not doubt they would sooner pass this time earning a living in their own trade, but they would surely profit today by repeating every word against me to any that would listen. ‘I was one bought in to condemn the Papist whore, but she was too quick to catch,’ they would say.

  Mindful of where I was, I fast hid the smile that crept upon my face from the men that purported to be my peers. In the usual order of things, the jurors were not truly my peers for they were all of them men, and none of them Catholic.

  That was not to say the fairer sex, so named with wisdom but more so with wit, would judge me fairer. They might as soon nail me to a cross and place thorns on my crown, for midwives, though essential to childbirth, were often unfairly blamed for the pain of it. As well, some women despised that the midwife was oft used to catch those trying to out-wit the law by pretending to be with child, if that midwife could not be bought.

  Nay, I would have no sympathy from one of my own. It was well the judges and jury were men. With little to spur them against me, I might succeed by taking the part of a ‘poor hen, pecked in
to writing my book against my own weak-will’. A more assorted band of men, though, could not be imagined.

  The first to be sworn was John Ainger. I could see nothing to either admire or despise. No eye contact. He disregarded me as I would him. The next one was another matter; his eyes stabbed me with hate that curled my insides.

  Even as the clerk said his name, ‘Swear Richard Boyce,’ I raised my arm over the top of the wooden bar and pointed at the man, who had not yet taken his eyes off me. It was there in his eyes, the hate I saw in so many eyes, of both Catholics and Presbyterians, that wariness and distrust of something they not only did not understand, but did not wish nor strive to understand.

  ‘I challenge him!’ I said.

  The clerk, uncertain what to do, looked not to me, but to the Lord Mayor, who explained, ‘Mrs Cellier, as I told you, you must be prepared to explain your challenge.’

  As a child I had then been on the wrong side. Then, it was between Protestant Roundheads that wanted an unlawful government and Royalists, the Cavaliers, that wanted the rightful rule of the king. Self-professed ‘good’ Protestants often pillaged my strong Royalist family home. This same look was in their eyes as they beat my brother and my father, and treated my mother as a whore. As now, the source of hate then was ignorance and fear.

  If I only said I did not like the way the man looked at me I would forfeit my right to challenge, but what else could I say?

  ‘I did not know that, My Lord.’

  There was little reason to aggravate one I might need later as an ally. The Lord Major asked me to repeat what I said because he could not hear me over the noise of the still rowdy court audience.

  Then my counsel, Mr Collins that, when he did visit me before in gaol, told me he did not wish to speak for such an infamous Papist as myself, said, ‘You cannot challenge anyone unless you have a cause.’