Christmas, when it caught up with us in the year of God 1484, was as doleful a season as I could ever remember. I was confined to the Palace of Westminster. Four days before Christmas Day, on the feast of St Thomas, in the middle of the night, the Queen suffered her first haemorrhage from the lungs. It weakened her, though with rest it might not have occurred again until the end. But she refused to rest. I attempted to forbid it, but she insisted on appearing in public at every stage of the festival from Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, until the dancing, disguising and boar’s head bearing on the eve of Epiphany. In her stubbornness she openly defied me, astonishing me with a freezing, hard-chinned look that quite altered her face; it was her father to the life. She said that the King should not be left to go through this wretched twelve days of feasting alone.
Consequently, on the twelfth night, after sitting for hours in the heat and glare of the White Hall, weighed down by ermine and white cloth-of-gold, wearing her crown, a winter queen, she haemorrhaged again. As she left the hall the night frost cut into her lungs, and she collapsed in the snow by St Stephen’s Chapel, leaving a stain like some delicate white hare, caught and disembowelled by a hawk. Someone fetched the King. It was a scene that should have belonged to a disguising. A King in a fiery crown of gold, kneeling in the snow, his purple velvet spread in a great lake about him, holding in his arms a white Queen, blood upon her face; a strange pietà, lit by the pitiless flare of torchlight.
I began to pray that the sickness might take her quickly. But my prayer was not answered for more than two months. In mid-January, because the weather was mild, the King took the Queen to Windsor, clutching at a last straw of hope that she might do better in the country air. However, the change induced no improvement; everywhere that winter was too wet. She grew weaker, and the length of time she left her bed, daily shorter. I noticed she would always contrive, however bad she felt, to be up and dressed whenever the King visited her, and insisted that her rooms should be cleared of any of the clutter of sickness. Her women burnt storax and candles perfumed with spikenard. Sometimes she would play chess with her husband. I thought that Friis would have a fit if he saw them sitting only a table’s width apart, but said nothing. Soon she was content to sit still, while the King read to her. She seemed to take much pleasure and comfort in this, especially from the old-fashioned English of John Wycliffe’s New Testament.
While at Windsor, I was amazed to discover that St George’s Chapel had become a place of pilgrimage, of thanksgiving for miraculous healing. All done by invoking King Henry VI, poor, dotty Henry of Lancaster, who was appearing on this earth to his suppliants with more frequency than does our Lady. Pilgrims were coming to Windsor, barefoot, bent pennies in hand, to offer in gratitude at Henry’s grave. On the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in September last past, no less a person than the Abbess of Burnham, near Windsor, had come to give thanks for the preservation of the life of her page, who’d fallen out of a tree and smashed his skull. Humbly following her on the same day had come Henry Walter of Guildford, who had received a cannon-shot wound in his belly during a sea fight against the French last June, when serving on one of the King’s ships under Sir Thomas Everingham. Though seeming certain to die, he’d been healed, he said, by King Henry, who had appeared wearing a crown (restored since his deposition!) and the familiar blue gown. Walter had shown his fearful scar to anyone who’d look; he’d take off his shirt for the price of a jug of ale. A dozen other pilgrims had come since. Most of the cases seemed to have been the victims of childish accidents: one hanged itself with the cord of its rattle, another tried to swallow a pilgrim badge, and one adult was astonished when the bean he had poked into his ear as a baby, fell out thirty-seven years later!
It is nothing new, of course, to venerate King Henry, but this raised him almost to sainthood. A saint? No, I’ll admit, in his lucid spells, he’d been a pious, unworldly, monkish sort of man, who would hesitate to tread on a beetle, but at times he was undoubtedly Bedlam-mad. At this rate, they’d soon be selling latten hat badges at Windsor, like those of St Thomas at Canterbury and Our Lady of Walsingham. Did King Richard know what went on? It could hardly escape his notice. As Kendal, his Secretary, had been heard to observe, one might think the King had eyes in the back of his head sometimes, and too many people were anxious to act as his ears. Kendal said he’d ventured a remark on holy Henry’s cures to the King, who had answered gently that who was he to deny what had been testified by sworn depositions? ‘Let it alone,’ he had said, ‘the healed are so often children, and the parents’ gratitude does me no harm.’ This from the King, who’d been accused of murdering Henry in the Tower in ’71!
Time did not allow me to ponder on pilgrimages to King Henry. Soon after our return to Westminster, I began to feel myself caught up in a waking nightmare. The first inkling I had that the City of London was humming with nastiness as a dunghill does with flies, came from my sister Katherine. I had gone down from Westminster one frosty evening during the second week of February, to take her a belated New Year gift. I obtained a bolt of fine murrey chamlet cheap from Master Appleby, Keeper of the Wardrobe. Better to be on the safe side with gifts for women. One year I bought a tiny ape from a sailor on a Genoese carrack, thinking she would be taken with its tricks. So she was, until on the third day it did an indecent thing in front of the parish priest!
Since she was widowed, Katherine has lived in a comfortable house off Thames Street. It has a small court paved with flagstones and bordered by mulberry and medlar trees; a vine is trained to grow along the sunnier wall. There one may forget the street, which though wide, is foul and unpaved, and that fishy odours waft across from Billingsgate.
Katherine took me firmly by the arm and led me to a chair in her solar, plumping up the cushion as if I were an old man of infirm arse. She poured good Rhenish wine from a silver flagon, and offered me figs preserved in sugar, and her own almond cakes, to which I am partial, then sat herself down upon the linen chest. I could see I was in for an instalment of local gossip. Possibly another episode in the scandal of Mistress Rose Williamson, who in her way is as much a success as Shore’s wife at court. Men fought for her, abandoned their livelihood and put their souls in jeopardy for her. She is a whore who serves priests in various London parishes; no other men, only priests. As my sister whispered, immorality had taken place before the very altar… After saying this, Katherine knelt under her little image of St Anne and said a whole decade of her rosary for recounting such a sinful thing.
‘Now, William,’ she said darkly, ‘will you kindly explain to me what is going on at Westminster.’ This foxed me for a moment. She always hopes for more court gossip than I am prepared to divulge.
‘Well,’ I said, helping myself to another cake, ‘the Queen, not to beat about the bush, is dying. There was the usual great banquet at Epiphany, more than usually unenjoyable. The Lord of Misrule offended my Lord Stanley…’
‘William!’ She cut in on me tetchily. ‘Either you are being deliberately mutton-headed, or you live such a monkish life you have not been in a tavern or stood in a crowd outside Westminster Hall, and heard the talk.’
‘Kate,’ I protested mildly, ‘I’ve had a hard two weeks. As I’ve told you, Queen Anne is very ill. I’ve either been with her or waiting to be called to her almost daily. I haven’t dined out in a tavern since before Christmas. What talk?’ I reached for another cake.
‘If you’ll stop stuffing yourself with my almond cakes and listen, I’ll tell you.’ She got up, went to the door, opening it suddenly as if expecting to find someone with an ear to the keyhole, then peered out of the windows into the pitch-black yard. ‘You came alone from the palace?’
‘Yes, except for Will, who is in your kitchen eating eel pie and onions. What is this secrecy? I’ll have you know I’m sufficiently trusted not to have watchers creeping after me into the City. Who’s talking?’
‘All London by the sound of it. And it’s downright treasonable.’ This made me attend to
her seriously. She continued, ‘About the Lady Elizabeth.’
‘Which Lady Elizabeth?’
‘God’s Blood, man! Let me finish. The Lady Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King Edward, of course. I’ll tell you what I heard from my neighbour, whose husband was master cook at that great cook-shop in East Cheap, at the sign of the Coney.
‘She said, “Your brother’ll no longer be needed at Westminster when the Queen dies — he’ll be giving place to a midwife!” So I said, “What in the name of the Holy Mother of God do you mean?” “They say,” she had the impudence to repeat in my house, “that the King wishes to marry the Lady Elizabeth his niece, and will do when he is free of the poor sick Queen. Helped on her way to the Almighty, I daresay, poor soul. It’s said he dances with her in public — the Lady Elizabeth — and a different sort of dance in private! Your William, the royal physician, will be keeping mum about a swelling belly before he can say Dominus providebit!”’
I was appalled. ‘What is this — filth — the leaking of a London jakes? That my sister should give credence to such stews gossip…!’
‘It’s none of my business to heed dirty tales,’ she said tartly, ‘but someone should heed this one. The King’s name joined in adultery with his own brother’s daughter. Why, it’s incest!’
Stunned, I said, ‘But the Queen is dying — the King suffers greatly. He sees nothing beyond his trouble and his duty. Salome herself could dance for him and he’d go on talking about the next audit of crown revenues. Besides, he has slept alone, on my orders, for three months or more.’
‘Rumour knows that, and has the answer: three months to lie at night between a lady’s legs…’
‘Katherine!’ I had heard enough.
‘You don’t think I believe it, I hope!’ To give her credit, I doubt if she did, but, like all women of her age, she is not above a little salacious speculation. The seriousness of the whole foul, fungous crop of lies alarmed me. If stories were circulating so freely in the City, then they must surely be buzzing in the palace of Westminster, where a new rumour is baptized before it is even given birth. Lies so wicked are the Devil’s work, put to use by the King’s enemies, and spewed out by them into the London gutters. At the idea of the Queen learning of the tales, I crossed myself; it would be too cruel.
Adultery and incest were now added to accusations of murder. Ever since the Lord Harry of Buckingham had rebelled, it had been common speculation that King Edward’s sons were dead — murdered, by the King’s order. This news was stale as last week’s loaf, but still chewed over in the London taverns. Folk had been quick to pronounce the King’s own son’s death as a visitation of God’s judgement on the father. But, in my view, God does not always judge in this life, and the child was taken by a sudden sickness, no more. I was careful not to mention all three children to Katherine, who would burst into the copious tears she reserved for the misfortunes of other people’s children. Her own family had never aroused such a deluge of sentiment.
‘Mary of the Sorrows!’ she wailed. ‘All this on top of us not knowing what’s become of those two innocent boys.’
‘Those who stick their noses too far into what is not their concern, get them bitten off,’ I snapped. ‘The children have been put well out of reach of dangerous meddlers.’ This, I realized, might be interpreted in two ways. She burst into tears. ‘In the country,’ I said, as if instructing a dull child, ‘a nice healthy manor house, no London dirt. There’s no call for you to cry.’ She blew her nose on my handkerchief, and was soon restored to her usual good sense.
‘But, William,’ she said, ‘how can you be so certain?’ To this I had no answer. One can be certain of very little in this life, but King Edward’s sons were alive and safe; I’d stake my Hippocratic oath on it.
‘I won’t sit here and talk treason. If you take my advice, Kate, you’ll keep your mouth and ears closed. You can be certain measures will be taken against the scandal-mongers. If it goes as far as the pinning up of lewd rhymes in public places, well, remember Collingbourne’s fate.’ I took my leave, kissed her, and went with my servant to St Botolph’s watergate, where he obtained a decent boat with two oarsmen, by yelling over-generous terms.
We were rowed back to Westminster, lanterns bobbing in the bows and stem, frost gleaming white along the gunwales. Near Temple Stairs we were rolled about by the wash of a six-oared barge, that passed us in gilded opulence, lit up by many lanterns, and the streaming torches of servants. It was painted all over with the device of a white hart’s head, smothered in gold fringing and piled with cushions. I knew both it and its occupants; Sir William Stanley owns a barge fine enough for an Earl. His loud, north-country voice carried over the water — an unpleasant, ostentatious man. His brother, Lord Stanley, was with him, perhaps on the way back from his house in the City. Sir William was laughing in a jeering way, that made me suspect some unfortunate was the butt of his entertainment. They left us behind, and by the time I alighted at Palace Stairs they had disappeared.
I now felt it my duty to pass on what I had been told to some discreet person high in the confidence of the King. The obvious choice was the Duke of Norfolk, a man approaching my own age, for whom I had long had a deep regard. King Edward had many good servants, but John Howard was one of the best of them. Luckily, he had not yet taken barge down river to his own house for the night. Though it was late, he willingly granted me an interview, as an old friend.
The first thing that struck me upon entering his rooms was the atmosphere of warmth, light and comfort. The furniture was of painted wood and polished oak, the arras of fine quality; some solid plate was displayed on a cupboard, though all seemed remarkably unostentatious for a newly created Duke. Candles and firewood were not stinted, for he is a man without a grain of meanness, though a determined enemy of waste and untidiness. He sat bareheaded near a fragrant fire, on which juniper twigs burned, his feet in lambskin slippers, wearing a long gown of violet damask reversing to miniver, over a doublet of tawny velvet sewn with pearls. He had a chain of gold worked in suns and roses, with a pendant boar, around his shoulders. In front of him on a small table was an open book — accounts by the look of it, in which he was writing. That he acted as comptroller and auditor in his own household fitted with my measure of the man.
He greeted me with his usual broad smile, that creased his weather-beaten face into as many lines as some leathery old fisherman’s. On board ship, in jack and sea-boots, he would pass for the skipper of a sailing barge. He still had most of his front teeth, and a good deal more hair left than myself, iron-grey and vigorous looking. His eyes are remarkable, large and dark grey also, their gaze disarmingly direct, but full of shrewd intelligence. When he stood up, he was about my height, and like me sturdy and square. He could have been ten years younger than he was.
‘William,’ he said, motioning his page to draw up a chair for me, ‘I’m glad to see you here. What can I do for you?’
‘Sir John, your Grace, I make no secret, I’ve come on a distasteful errand. After I’ve told you, I’ll feel like washing my mouth out with one of my own potions.’ He nodded, not taking his eyes from me. I looked at his firm-set mouth and jaw, and took confidence.
However, the presence of the page made me hesitate, which he observed, and said, ‘Take no notice of Tutsyn, he has cloth ears and a glued mouth.’ The little man grinned, winked and made the gestures of ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’.
When I told Howard all I had heard from my sister, his face lost its geniality and acquired the jowly pugnacity of a grizzled hound. I could see why he had been such a formidable man to oppose across a council table, especially if you were a Frenchman.
‘I had hoped,’ he said, ‘that we would be able to spare the King this at such a time. Hobbes, I’ve been aware of this tale for several weeks, but you have enlightened me on its cruder side.
‘You are a discreet man, I may as well tell you that behind this smoke-screen of brimstone, there is a little uneasy fire. T
his iniquitous idea of marriage has been dreamed up by the Lady Elizabeth herself, with the connivance of Lady Grey, her mother. The first declares herself to be in love, the second wishes to see a crown on her daughter’s head at any price, as a salve for her own dispossession. Well, this price is too high. The Pope may have given dispensations to uncle and niece in foreign parts, but England is a civilized country; incest, even to secure the royal succession, will not be tolerated. As for the King himself, he is about as aware of the rumours implicating him as a blind, deaf and dumb man might be.
‘To put it plainly, the Lady Elizabeth is knocking her head against a stone wall. A pity she has not knocked any sense into it. I’m sorry for the girl, I’ve always been fond of her, but if she were one of my daughters, she would have to see reason. A husband must be found for her as quickly as possible.
‘The sooner all this waiting is over and the Queen, poor young lady, dies, the easier I shall be in my mind, brutal though it may sound. Her lingering is harrowing for everyone; it’s become painful to see her. After a decent interval, the King will marry some suitable foreign woman, get himself an heir and all this scandal will be forgotten.’ As usual, Howard spoke sound, practical sense.
‘How long,’ I asked, ‘can this be concealed from the King?’
‘Not much longer, I’m afraid. His name is damaged further each day. Most people never see anything in such a tale but a wronged woman, and there’s nothing your busy-tongued Londoner likes better than a wronged woman!
Some Touch of Pity Page 21