by Tony Riches
When the weather improved I decided to keep busy creating a garden in the inner court. It would never match the wonderful gardens at my home in Greenwich but the soil was good and high stone walls provided shelter from the wind, even in winter. Sir Ralph allowed me to have his men dig over the rough lawn and I sent servants out with some of the silver coins from my purse to buy fruit trees and the herbs I needed. It took a whole summer but I was slowly turning what was once a patch of grass and stones into a place of beauty.
In the spring my maidservant Martha suggested purchasing some laying hens, so we could have fresh eggs and the occasional chicken to eat whenever we wished. I liked her idea, so I gave her some money and she rode off to town in the horse-drawn cart. She returned with half a dozen healthy looking young pullets and a scrawny cockerel, which promptly began to wake us at dawn each day with his raucous crowing.
Martha was of course a city woman and had never tended after laying hens before. She gave them all names, calling the strutting cockerel ‘Sir Ralph’ after my often absent jailor. The chickens soon grew fat and ran wild, spending their day foraging for food in my gardens, scratching the ground looking for insects and seeds. They were in danger of ruining all my hard work until we found a way to pen them in.
Life settled into a simple routine, walking in my garden, caring for our little flock of chickens and playing my lute music. Martha had always observed her place most diligently, yet now I asked her to take her meals with me and we became good friends. In an unspoken pact we never discussed or mentioned what had happened at Bella Court and I almost started to forget why we were even at Kenilworth.
I also decided to improve my French by reading the old books I found in the state apartments. I doubted I would ever need to appreciate the finer points of manners and etiquette in the French court, although I was intrigued to wonder who left the leather bound books for me to discover. One was embossed with the red, blue and gold of the Royal Arms of England.
As I turned the pages of this precious old book I wondered if it belonged to Duke Humphrey’s brother King Henry V, who once lived at Kenilworth Castle and wished so dearly to be King of France as well as England. Henry also had his own stepmother imprisoned after he accused her of using witchcraft to try to poison him. There was no need to curse Humphrey’s elder brother. By all accounts he died a miserable, inglorious death.
Relentless rain kept me in my apartments on the day I began to feel unwell, so I retired to my bed early, a dull ache spreading through my bones. I lay awake for hours before I was able to sleep, then woke in a sweating fever. At first I felt so cold I huddled under the blankets of thick wool, my whole body shivering as if my bed was made of ice. I called for Martha to bring me more blankets and build up the fire in my room, yet as soon as she did so I had a raging thirst and began to sweat as if I was burning up.
I could eat little of the food brought for me and Martha became my constant companion, making cold compresses of elderberry and rosemary as I had told her. Despite her best efforts my fever became worse, so that I could hardly tell if it was night or day. I began to have delirious dreams. I called out to my friend Margery Jourdemayne for help and she appeared before me, not as I had known her but blackened and burned.
It may have been my fevered mind but I welcomed the somehow familiar hooded figure of death that now beckoned me to follow. I dreamt I was back at St Paul’s Cathedral, carrying a lit candle up the long aisle. All the people I had ever known were seated in the pews to each side of me, even those who were now departed. I recognised the frowning John, Duke of Bedford, with his first wife Anne of Burgundy, her face disfigured with the plague, to one side and the self-satisfied young Jacquetta of Luxembourg to the other.
Countess Jacqueline cradled her dead baby in her arms and smiled at me as I passed, seeming to forgive my disloyalty to her. I tried to explain to her it was love, not disloyalty, that brought me into the arms of her husband. The countess laughed when I told her Duke Humphrey had now abandoned me, a wild, unearthly cackle that sounded sacrilegious in such a hallowed place.
I felt compelled to continue towards the altar, where the grim-faced bishops who sentenced me to imprisonment for life waited in their finery. I looked up at them and saw Cardinal Henry Beaufort grinning in evil welcome. The black-garbed figure of death called to me again. As I came closer his black hood fell back and I could see it was my friend and mentor, Roger Bolingbroke. His eyes black holes where ravens had pecked them out.
Jolted to consciousness by the shock of my visions I found I was in my bedchamber with its gold-edged velvet curtains. A white-bearded stranger was seated at the side of my bed. Dressed in a simple black tunic with a leather belt at the waist, he was reading a Latin text by candle light. He didn’t look up and seemed unaware I was watching him as he turned the page, tracing the words with his finger, his lips moving silently as I had once done as a child.
Not sure if he was real or I was dreaming, I worried he had come to administer the last rites to me. Still a little confused, I asked if he was a monk or a priest, my voice sounding hoarse and weak. The stranger looked back at me and smiled with kindly eyes. He said he was neither, as he was a canon from the priory of St Mary. His voice was calming, with the warmth of someone experienced in caring for the sick. He marked the page in his book with a length of red ribbon and placed it on his chair.
He leaned over, placing his hand gently to my brow and nodding in approval. I told him I thought I was going to die and saw a moment of concern in his eyes. I called out for my maidservant Martha and listened for her answer from the next room, where she had been sleeping to keep close watch over me. There was no answer. The canon said my servant had sent for him when she could do no more, and he had watched and prayed over me until my fever lifted.
I asked him why he dressed like a monk and he explained the canons of the priory of St Mary live under the rule of St Augustine, taking vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Unlike a monk who lives a cloistered, contemplative life, or a priest who tends to the needs of his congregation, he had sworn to follow the example of the Apostles, preaching and giving hospitality to pilgrims and travellers, as well as tending the sick.
He said at first he thought he had been called too late, as my fever was the worst he had seen. For two days I had been close to death but it seemed I was destined to live. I asked him if he could summon my maidservant Martha and he looked serious, as if making a judgement. He said she had also contracted my fever, the day before, and was sleeping in the next room, much the worse for it.
The tone of the canon’s voice told me he did not expect her to live, so I resolved to do whatever I could for my good companion. I took turns with the canon at her bedside, yet we could see her fever was growing worse. I sent servants in search of white willow bark, which I boiled with a little honey to make a potion, just as Margery Jourdemayne had taught me so long ago. The canon placed his faith in prayer, and read aloud in his gentle voice, which seemed to calm her a little.
We will never know if it was my potion or the canon’s prayers that was the cure, but we were both greatly relieved when Martha began to slowly return to her jovial former self. I know if she had died I would have found it hard to continue alone, yet she was strong in body and spirit. I was grateful to the kind and gentle canon for helping to save us, and gave him the last of the gold coins from my purse as a donation to the priory.
Martha was in my thoughts as I made my daily walk around the inner ward in the spring sunshine at Beaumaris. Even now, after all these years, I clearly recall her humour and sense of joy in the smallest things as we found ways to pass the time at Kenilworth Castle. I barely gave it a thought at the time, but she made great sacrifices for me, never marrying and never asking to visit her only relatives in London. Her pay was meagre and Martha endured the same poor conditions in Chester crypt as myself, although she did so with much fortitude, which helped me in no small way.
I valued her loyalty above all else, when even
my husband abandoned me to my fate. It warmed my heart to know there was at least one person who dismissed the bishop’s cruel allegations. She served me, not truly as a maid but as better company than any of my ladies in waiting had at Bella Court. I loved her stories of the London taverns, a life I could have lived were it not for my father arranging my introduction to Countess Jacqueline all those years ago.
I remember how once she served a fine chicken dinner, a special treat after many weeks of mutton stew. She waited until there was not one scrap of the tasty meat left on the bones before telling me the strutting cockerel ‘Sir Ralph’ would no longer trouble our early mornings with his endless crowing. I truly miss my good friend and servant Martha and wonder what became of her.
Our three years at Kenilworth passed all too quickly. In July of 1446 I had a letter from Sir Thomas Stanley, who was still charged by the king to oversee my imprisonment. The messenger had ridden through the night and I broke the seal with a sense of deep foreboding. Sir Thomas wrote he was concerned at rumours of plans to free me, so I was to be transferred forthwith to his castle on the Isle of Man, where he could be more certain of what he called ‘my safety’. Almost as a postscript, he added at the end of the letter that he regretted to inform me my father, Sir Reynold Cobham, was dead.
I remember my tears as I sat at my favourite window in the great hall at Kenilworth, the folded letter in my hand. How had my father died? Who was behind these rumours of plans to set me free? I dreaded the prospect of returning back into the charge of the man who kept me in his dark and damp crypt, with barely the chance to walk in the fresh air. The only person I could trust was my servant Martha, so I decided she must travel to London right away, with the last of my silver coins, to find the answers for me.
May 1452
Ad undas
I resisted leaving Kenilworth Castle for as long as I could by claiming I was too unwell to make the long journey to the Isle of Man. In truth, I prayed each day for my servant Martha to return from London, where I had sent her to bring me news of rumours regarding my release, as well as to learn what she could about my father’s death. She had been gone for nearly a month and there was still no word from her. To my regret I never thought to teach Martha to read or write, so she would have had to find a scribe to send a letter to me, something I knew she would not want to risk.
Sir Thomas Stanley was a notoriously impatient man, so as June turned to July, it was with great regret I had to pack my things and prepare to leave. Although I had fled Bella Court with only what I could carry, over the years I had accumulated various possessions. My lute was wrapped in muslin cloth, as I was most concerned it could be damaged on the long journey or on the sea crossing to the Isle of Man.
We departed for Peel Castle at the first light of dawn. My vain hope was that my maidservant Martha would somehow be able to join me on the road north. I was desperate now for news and sure she would do her best. In my heart I doubted it would be easy for her to find us, although we drew attention wherever we went. I rode in a high-sided wagon, with an escort of twenty armed soldiers of the royal household in front and my remaining servants following behind. I must have looked like a queen on a royal progress.
It was with sadness that I watched the last of the towers of Kenilworth Castle disappear into the distance. It was there I had learned to put the nightmares of the past behind me a little and to live simply, for the day. Ahead of me now lay nothing but uncertainty. The only thing I could be sure of was that Sir Thomas would not treat me with the same courtesy as shown to me by Sir Ralph Boteler. The thought, nagging at my mind as we travelled north, was that my unwilling jailor would find it more convenient if I were dead.
It had been a dry summer and clouds of dust rose to the skies in our wake. We made good time on the arduous journey to the coast, travelling all hours of daylight. I kept a constant watch for Martha, although in my heart I knew there would be no sign of her. I suspected Sir Thomas had ordered the details of my transfer to be kept a closely guarded secret if there were rumours about having me freed. He might not want me as a prisoner, but he would not risk being an unwitting party to my liberation either.
My destination could scarcely be more remote and still be counted as being in England. Peel Castle is in the middle of the Irish Sea, on a small, inhospitable and rocky island connected to the Isle of Man by a narrow stone causeway. Apart from that it belonged to Sir Thomas Stanley I knew little else about the place to which I was now headed. I had never wished to visit the island and expected I would likely now die there, forgotten by everyone I knew.
Dusk was falling by the time we reached the village seaport of Whitehaven, on the Cumbrian coast. I was tired from the long journey and grateful when we rested for the night. I was given a room at the small but well-ordered Benedictine Priory of St Bees, where black-garbed, tonsured monks went about their work without speaking. Fortunately it was not a closed order and the abbot had agreed to accommodate us, although with some reluctance.
I lay awake in the darkness, unable to sleep, listening to the mournful tolling of the priory bell that ruled every moment of the monks’ lives. I wished for my comfortable bed at Kenilworth with its velvet curtains from the king. I missed the company of my maidservant Martha and knew she would never find me now, so far from London. I wondered who could be behind the rumours I was to be set free. I mourned the death of my father and cried myself to sleep.
In the morning I was expecting to sail in a high-masted galleon like Duke Humphrey used to cross the Channel from Dover. Instead, I was worried to see an ancient fishing vessel moored at the quayside, its rigging painted with black tar, the sails mended so many times they were a patchwork of canvas. The crew of rugged, bearded fishermen dressed in grimy rags and their captain leered and made some remark in their Gaelic language, his men laughing coarsely as I was ushered aboard. There was little room below decks and I found myself crammed with guards and servants, nets and wicker baskets, in the open hold which reeked to high heaven of herrings and fish guts.
A freshening breeze filled the tattered sails as we headed out into the choppy Irish Sea and cold seawater soon sluiced over the deck. Larger waves spilled into the hold, where I cowered with my servants in fear of our lives as the boat pitched in the worsening swell. Over the noise of the wind and waves I heard some of the crew complaining loudly that it was bad luck to have me on board their boat. Their captain had no time for such talk and cursed them all and swore it was merely a squall.
Then a crashing wave struck the boat violently on the side and it heeled hard over, throwing us together in the hold. One of my maidservants screamed, the shrill sound echoing eerily as our boat ploughed heavily into a second, giant wave. I tasted salt as freezing water again poured over us, soaking our clothes and stinging my eyes. There was a shudder and the sound of ropes straining dangerously against creaking wood as the helm was pushed hard to turn us into the breaking waves.
I remember preparing myself for the moment when the pounding water would fill the open hold and take us to the bottom of the sea. My mind became strangely calm in the middle of the squall, despite the desperate sounds all around me, ready to accept my fate. I recall thinking that death by drowning would be preferable to imprisonment for the rest of my life. I had never learned to swim and, even if I could, there was nowhere to swim to, no chance of rescue in the middle of this deserted sea.
Then I heard a deep-voiced cry. ‘Land ahoy!’ The Isle of Man was sighted on the horizon and almost immediately the weather began to improve as we entered its sheltered waters. I should have felt immense relief, yet I had a deep foreboding about my new island prison. I sometimes wonder if I can foretell the future, as I sensed this would be the worst place for me to be held. It was not just Sir Thomas Stanley who wished me dead. I had become an inconvenient reminder to all those who so falsely condemned me.
My new room was little more than a whitewashed cell, much as where a monk would live. I looked out through my little window, hav
ing my first real view of Peel Castle. This island fortress covers some five rugged acres, with high, embattled walls. Towers of different shapes and heights, made of the coarse grey local stone, are quoined and faced in places with red sandstone. In the middle of Peel Castle is the parish church of St German they call the ‘cathedral’ and close by a building known as ‘the lord’s palace’, neither of which deserve the name.
Much of the enclosed area was turned to a rough pasture of grass too coarse for even sheep to graze and beyond the walls I could see nothing but rocks and the cold blue-green expanse of the Irish Sea. A stone jetty reached out into the sea, providing mooring for boats when the weather permitted, although the prevailing winds meant most sought shelter on the main island. There were almost no visitors, as the people tended to avoid Peel Castle other than when bringing supplies.
My servants soon tired of the harsh remoteness of this windswept place and departed one by one, until I had only my surly guards and a well-meaning cook for company. She did her best to make something of the cod and herring, which were plentiful in the seas around the island and smoked or dried to make them keep. Sometimes she managed to obtain a ham or even a fresh rabbit, although I longed for fruit or anything sweet to eat. There was no prospect of a garden as the soil was poor and I had no money now for plants.
The main problem was I had nothing to occupy my mind, as my lute and other possessions, brought with so much care all the way from Kenilworth Castle, were gone, stolen or lost. My new servants, hard, grim-faced Manx women, were no companions, barely speaking and eyeing me warily as they worked. All I could do was follow the path around the long perimeter wall and watch the fishing boats out at sea as they fought to make a living in the island’s strong currents.