‘I cannot hold much longer! They are too many,’ I shouted.
Rough voices encouraged those pulling at the doors outside, and the blinds were torn away. Arms reached in to grab us. I saw Dowdal pulled from the coach to the ground, where he struggled against punches thrown at him by a puny and dirty yellow-haired boy hardly out of britches, one that would hardly have made a mark on a milk jelly had our man not been held down by two monstrous fat oafs and a woman with yellow hair. The last was likely the boy’s mother. She screeched, ‘Go on lad, harder!’
‘Pierre, they have Dowdal!’
‘Pierre? Gads! We got ourselves a French rat in here!’ crowed the woman by my window whose talons bit into my flesh. I could not but dislike this woman with the greatest of intensity befitting the Devil himself. I braced my feet braced against the coach wall and, for a moment, the wavering door shut once more.
Pierre shouted through the window, ‘Leave the man be! He did nothing to you!’
‘Nought but carry Popish rats around the country!’ shouted one on Pierre’s side that I could not see. The man growled as if he had swallowed a dog and it spoke through him.
‘Shove over, Mrs Round. Let me ‘ave ‘er.’
Suddenly, the face of the biggest man I ever saw, a giant in this world of men, more hairy than a standing bear, appeared behind the woman. For a moment none pulled the other side of the door and it slammed shut, but it was merely the still before a terrible storm. Even with my feet strong on the wall, and both hands braced against the handle with Isabelle’s on mine, we did not give the man the slightest trouble turning it. Single-handed, he pulled it down as if it were a gale against a mere feather.
The sharpness of the pull caught me off my guard, and the door flew open taking us flying into the heart of the mob.
I hit my head on the step as I fell.
‘Leave my children!’ I moaned. ‘They are innocent!’
The giant grabbed my arm tight so it hurt and dragged me to where Dowdal still struggled against the grip of three. He was making hard work for them, and the lad’s punches were as of a mosquito, barely touching him. The giant discarded me beside him like a corn husk, and then returned to the coach. Too many surrounded me to see what happened with Pierre and the children, but soon Isabelle was flung down next to me.
‘See here, more rats!’
‘Leave them alone! Pierre, help them!’ Pierre was no doubt doing all he could, but he was, alas, an old man that could do no more than a child.
A raggedy woman with slitted eyes came from the far side of the coach and eyed me up and down. ‘Look ‘ere! It’s the infamous Popish Midwife!’
‘The Popish Midwife?’ said the dirty, yellow-haired woman.
‘Aye, with her brats and foreign husband!’
‘That’s the one that tricked ‘em out of ‘anging ‘er,’ shouted the yellow-haired woman to the crowd. ‘String her up, I say! String them all up!’
My children. My husband. This was no court and I could do nothing. I tried to stand, but felt something rock-hard hit the back of my head, and spun to the ground. I shouted, ‘Pierre!’ as I fell, but I could not move, and I could not keep my eyes from closing.
When I came to, my hands were bound together and my arms were pulling from my shoulders as I was dragged and bumped face up over rough road. I heard a slopping noise. The next moment I passed through something hot and wet. It seeped through my skirt. Horse dung. I was being dragged through the street by a horse. I tried to raise my head to find my children, but could not.
For a moment, a heavy boot stepped on my cloak and it tightened round my throat leaving me gasping. ‘She’s choking!’ cried a voice close by. Isabelle. I could not see her, but her voice wobbled as if she too was bumped as was I.
‘She aint yet started choking!’ came a laugh. ‘Sir Death is coming for her.’
I struggled to pull my hands free, but could neither see the children nor Pierre. His voice was not of those I could hear.
‘Leave my children be!’ I sounded weak even to me. ‘They have done nought to anyone.’
‘Quiet woman. If they behave, we will let them watch you swing as you should ‘ave swung eight years ago.’
‘Let us burn her as she burnt at the processions!’ said another. It was not their laughs I wished to hear, but word from Pierre. A stab of fear pierced me. Did they kill my husband, or did they show him mercy? What of the children?
My back and legs and sides were so bruised as my poor broken body was tossed over mud and stones that I would cry had I the strength. If it was summer I would have been damaged worse.
I saw familiar rooftops and black sky. It was a route I had so oft taken towards Lincoln Fields Inn and Powys House. My arms burned and would surely pull free of my shoulders if they dragged me much further. Where was Dowdal? Did they kill him? Why did they not finish me and have it over with! I did not wish to live without my family.
Isabelle. She at least lived. I must find a way free to help her escape. This was a reason to hold on.
‘Where do you take me?’ I asked, not expecting an answer.
‘To Tyburn. You are to dance the jig you should have danced long since!’
Tyburn. To hang. If that was so, the Lord had merely lent me eight years, delayed but not changed the sentence I once thought to have escaped. They took me to the Three-Legged Mare, where too many good men and women died alongside murderers.
In some strange form of escape, my mind lingered on that charming French highway thief, Du Vall, I saw hang not long before I married Pierre. Some words of the poem I wrote for him came to me now:
And Love (though know it) disdains so small a Prize,
Which makes thee bold, and glad to venture where
Thou think’st there is not the least room for fear.
This shows thy Narrow Soul, thy Little Merit,
This shows thou art all Gall, and hast no Spirit.
There was not the least room for fear.
The road was harder here and I talked no more. Every stone in the road found a mark in my back, buttocks or legs.
I tried to stand to my feet, but straight away my foot caught on the fabric of my dress and I twisted round so now I faced the ground and my knees and boots caught the bumps. My shoulders suffered more and my back near broke. Nor could I now see the rooftops or sky, only the horse’s hooves and the mud. Only my closeness to the animal prevented my face from dragging in the mud where I would have been smothered by it. I was not well pleased at my bungled handiwork.
Each time I tried to turn my face back up, I came close to claiming a foothold beneath me, but then the horse jerked forward and I lost it. After a while of trying, I turned my feet to the side to stop them catching, but the thought of my making it easy for them had me digging them back in, even if it pained me. And it did pain me.
Over the sounds of the rowdy mob, that no doubt shared a good deal of blood between them, came a thunder of horses’ hooves, not a single horse but many.
‘Ho! What passes here!’ The horse pulling me stopped and I dropped my knees in the thick mud. Though weary, and the mud slippery, and though it pained me beyond measure, I used the moment to walk my knees towards my hands then struggled to standing and looked about me.
A group of masked horsemen had stopped in the path of the mob. I now saw, by the dark mark on the back leg, I was dragged by my own horse, Thor’s Hammer, they took from the coach. They used my own animal to drag me to my death! Isabelle, with her hands tied behind her, was held at the elbow by the yellow-haired youth. I could not see Peter or Maggie.
‘Out o’ our way. This is nought to do with you!’ The man’s voice was that of the hairy ringleader that attacked our coach.
I stretched my beaten legs and pulled my back straight then, carefully, shifted round the horse’s flank to better see the horsemen.
‘The judge does his own work,’ he said. His deep welsh voice sounded familiar. Lord Powys? Had he not left for the coast? He sat tall in his seat as a country gentleman, but wore no periwig. His right hand crossed his saddle and rested on the hilt of his sword, though he did not make a move to withdraw it. ‘What wrong has this woman done you that you punish her so?’
‘If it be something, it aint nowt to you, Sir. This ‘ere is a matter intimate to ourselves and ‘er.’ One of the twin fat men pointed as he spoke trying, and failing, to sound rich and gentlemanly. I tiptoed to better see if he or the other still held Dowdal. No sign of him.
‘A judgement is a public matter, man, and a matter only for the courts. Release the woman.’ His voice held neither violence nor tyranny only calm authority. It was a voice that expected, rather than asked, to be obeyed.
‘Nay, we will not! Fortune has brought The Popish Midwife into our company this night that we might deliver her to the gallows she cheated Destiny of before. Go about your business, Sir, and let us go about ours.’
The fat man waved his under-sized rapier high in the air in a show of defiance. The horseman stayed still, and when his men came forward behind him, he held up his free hand and they stopped. His right hand did not move from his own sword. He spoke with the same commanding voice, but I sensed, rather than saw, a change in his mood.
‘The king wishes an audience with this woman at the palace.’
‘The king must not be sullied by this contagious whore’s presence. We take her to Tyburn.’ The man seemed to think the exact same threat he made to me but a short time ago was now a rescue of the king’s well-being.
‘You disobey His Majesty’s direct order?’
‘Why should the king wish an audience with this traitor?’ jeered the fat brother of the first speaker.
‘Is it for you to question His Majesty?’ With this, the masked horseman, still calm, drew his broad sword and lay it across the horse’s mane.
The act was warning enough to any person with sense, but there is rarely sense to a mob’s words or actions, nor do they closely observe the words or actions of others.
Even unbalanced that I was after my ordeal, the glint of the sword behind the horse’s ears was clear, but the fat twin did not even think to flinch as the horse galloped towards him. Steel on steel, the horseman’s blade slid along the length of the fat man’s skinny blade and twisted it neatly and skilfully from his fat hand in a masterful gambit. As stars fallen from the sky, sparks lit the dark street and the thin sword flew high over the crowd and clattered, metal against stone wall of a potter’s shop. The horseman ended the dashing move with his sword at the fat man’s throat.
His fool twin raised his sword in his defence, but another of the riders intervened and easily knocked it from his hand.
The mob acted as one, first hesitant while assessing that the men on the ground outnumbered the horsemen two to one and then confident as they rushed the riders at once. So taken up was I by the events that unravelled before me, I was not prepared for the hands that grabbed me from behind and pulled me backwards. As a midwife, I had walk the roads at night for more than thirty years, but never before had any taken a knife to my throat. The cold metal surprised me and stung my skin.
I could not turn with my hands still tied to the horse and I could not pull free for fear of having my throat cut.
I had but one advantage, and that was knowledge. Slow – slower than the receding ice of winter – so that my attacker did not squeeze that knife across my neck, I inched to the side of Thor’s Hammer. Once there, I leaned sideways, still slow, so slow I might have been mistaken in my movement and reached out my hand and touched the horse’s left flank. I could not fault the horse’s reaction. Already unsettled by the crowd, he kicked back hard as ever he did into the person that held me and, in that moment, I felt myself released and twisted out of his grip.
But it was not a man that had held me. Once again my assailant was a woman, the yellow-haired woman. Bent double on her knees, she held one hand close to her chest and the other hand with the knife far away to avoid stabbing herself. Wouldst that the knife was closer; I would cut myself free. I could do nothing. Then she tried to find her feet and, as she staggered, I did a thing I had not done since I was on my father’s knee. I stuck my leg before her and tipped her balance in my favour. She landed with a satisfying splash in the mud. I dropped beside her, placed the knife handle between my knees and ran the rope binding me to the horse back and forth along the blade until it first frayed then tore apart. I was free.
But I remained trapped in the midst of those who wished me to meet that reaper, Death, before Death was ready to greet me, and my hands were still tight bound. I could only be grateful for the chaos around me. While I tried to loose the knots around my wrists, I saw horsemen chase some of the mob down the street, but one turned back and galloped fast toward me.
‘Watch to your back, Madam!’ he cried.
I turned just as the yellow-haired woman, knife reclaimed, bore down on me. I had nothing with which to defend myself but fast action that brought me more pain. I dodged to the side. It was enough. It gave the rider time to reach me. He hung low from the side of his horse, reached out and grabbed me onto the horse in front of him as he rode away.
‘Isabelle! We must find Isabelle. She is back there somewhere.’ He seemed not to hear my shout.
We rode a street or two from that place before he slowed to a canter.
‘Isabelle is safe. She awaits you with your family at home, but your husband is in pieces over you!’
‘You know my husband?’ I asked, my earlier suspicion of his identity renewed.
‘But of course, Madam Cellier. Know you not who I am?’
Now that I was close and might study his face beneath the mask, I turned to do so.
‘Lord Powys. It is you!’
‘At your service, Madam Cellier.’
‘I believed you to have left for the coast with the Queen,’ I said, confused despite that I had suspected as such.
‘Indeed, my coach left two hours ago, when we sent word to you, but I was not in it. Lady Powys took our youngest two and rides to the port to meet with the Queen. You must go with all speed to join them. She will hold the boat for you if she can. I have unfinished work here.’
‘That is too kind of my Lady.’
‘She holds you in great affection, my dear lady, as do I,’ said Lord Powys. ‘Although I have little affection for your smell at this time,’ he said less gallantly, turning his nose away.
I remembered the horse dung and wrinkled my nose. His saddle would hold that smell after I had dismounted.
‘Many apologies, my Lord. I did not have the luxury of a bath since my recent horse ride.’
Lord Powys laughed the deep, vibrant laugh I had known since my first visit to the Tower many years ago.
‘Why did you not escape with your coach, Lord Powys?’
‘For this reason,’ he said, gesturing whence we came. ‘Since the king’s nephew and daughter have come to usurp him, mobs in every street wait as foxes for any chicken that tries to fly, and then they beat them or hang them. I fear your life was as close to the gallows as any person’s!’
‘I am forever beholden to you, My Lord,’ I said.
‘As I am to you, madam. Your service to Lady Powys, myself and my friends in the Tower will never be forgotten. Aye and your acts of kind charity in the prisons and in our homes are renown to every Roman Catholic in this city, and I will see to it they are known in France too.’
‘You have my further gratitude, Sir.’
Four other horsemen joined us then, one following behind holding the reins of Thor’s Hammer. Wouldst that I could take him with us. I would at least be sure he was well stabled before I left the country.
‘I believe you will be safe now,’ said Lord Powys as he reached our coac
h. There stood Dowdal, no less shifting and spooked than our other horse, Troy, he stood beside. The coach door opened and my husband climbed out and hurried towards us no sooner than Lord Powys set me down. Behind him came Isabelle, Maggie and little Peter, each with a bloody and bruised face.
‘Hold out thy hands, madam,’ said my rescuer, ‘that I might set you free.’ With trust, I held my hands out before me, and with the competence of a skilled swordsman he used the tip of the sword to slice between my wrists. My hands swung apart as if they repulsed each other. At last, I was free. I rubbed where the ropes had cut the skin and thanked Lord Powys once more for his kindness.
‘Lord Powys,’ said my husband. ‘I have heard your home was taken by William, and has been given to Lord Delaware to use?’
‘That is so, Monsieur Cellier.’
‘I beg you, sir, make free with our house as your home until you are ready to leave!’ continued Pierre.
‘Accept my gratitude, monsieur.’ Then, before he might answer more, the other riders shouted, ‘Long live King James!’ and rode away in the direction of his house. Lord Powys bowed his head. ‘Carry my regards to Lady Powys. Please inform her I will join her at Saint Germaine!’ And, with that, he was gone.
Immediately I turned to my husband to embrace him, but Isabelle and Margaret came and held me hard. Young Peter grabbed Pierre’s middle, then, tears in his eyes, Pierre put his arm around all of us and drew us together.
‘Come, Lizzie, children. We have not long to get to the boat. The wind is rising, and Powys tells me the boat must leave as the tide turns. We leave late already. You must reveal all that has happened, and about the part our gallant protector played as we ride.’
Whilst Pierre talked, Dowdal re-harnessed Thor’s Hammer. When he finished, I went to him and said, ‘I thank the Lord you are unharmed Dowdal. I feared for your life.’
‘I am grateful for your kindness, madam,’ he said. ‘We thought you were dead when they knocked you out. We could not prevent them taking you. ‘Twas the best of good fortune that we happened upon those gentlemen aiding another family.’
The Popish Midwife: A tale of high treason, prejudice and betrayal Page 41