The Woman in the Shadows: Tudor England through the eyes of an influential woman

by Carol McGrath

  Smith nodded at Meg. ‘Good to see sense in a woman,’ he said.

  I was still smiling when Barnaby looked up from his task of setting out ells of brown worsted and said, ‘Look, Mistress, Master Cromwell is here today.’ I glanced up and could not hide my delight at seeing him soon again. I had not dared to hope he would come. My mouth widened into a huge smile, a genuine one this time.

  He affectionately cuffed Barnaby and asked me how I was doing.

  ‘Very well, thank you, Master Cromwell,’ I said, feeling colour rise into my cheeks. ‘Have you come to buy cloth? You have already sent for more than enough of my fabrics. How can you take more?’

  ‘Indeed, I might take a look around at what is on sale today.’ He touched the ell of black kersey, pinching it even though he already knew its worth. ‘I shall need a new cloak, myself, soon enough.’ He lifted the cloth up to the thin December light and remarked, ‘This is a good dye, Mistress Williams. Black is difficult. You have a discerning eye.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Thank you, sir. I hope I do.’ I set the cloth aside for him.

  I thought he would move away after this, but he lingered. While Smith was engaged in conversation elsewhere, and Meg set out more trims, he leaned down and whispered, ‘Toby is safe. He is already in Lincoln.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said softly, thinking of how many times I had already found it necessary to thank Thomas Cromwell.

  ‘I wonder, if later, we could have a private moment together?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ My heart started to beat faster as I relished the thought of moments alone with him. ‘We can walk in the courtyard but Meg must accompany me, otherwise there will be talk amongst the Company.’ I glanced around at the other drapers busily setting out their cloth and watching eagle-eyed for customers. One or two had looked our way, their eyebrows raised.

  ‘Later then, Elizabeth. I know many of the merchants here, and would like to introduce you to those who belong to the Merchant Adventurers.’

  ‘You are well-connected, Master Cromwell.’

  ‘I am busy with legal work for the company as well as selling cloth.’

  ‘You are most considerate.’

  ‘And you need connections. Connections are everything in this world.’

  I nodded my agreement with this, a fact I knew from my father and had seen for myself while Tom Williams lived. The better connected drapers were, the more successful they were too, so I was grateful that he was interested in me. Thomas Cromwell was not just helping me. He genuinely cared about what I wanted to achieve.

  ‘Leave the selling to Smith and come with me,’ he said.

  As he led me about the hall, I realised that he knew everybody. Searchers, weight-checkers and foreign merchants bowed low to us, addressing him reverently by name as they passed. No searcher dared question me this time, I realised, remembering the comments they had tossed my way when I sold cloth on Cheape Street. The Merchant-Taylors’ searchers, who in stern-faced manner approached my stall to examine the trims Meg had laid out, spoke with Thomas about his last journey to Antwerp. Without hesitation, Thomas smiled, made conversation and encouraged them to select fox fur, velvet and satin pieces. They made purchases. These would soon adorn the Christmas jackets and cloaks of their clients. ‘Excellent quality,’ they approved, nodding enthusiastically as they allowed silk ribbons to slither through their fingers and moved their hands in caresses over velvets.

  I felt vindicated after Mistress Argent’s unkind remark. As for that harridan, she was selling little and was already packing up her cloth to leave. She hurried past me, her four servants carrying her cloth, and in a bustling manner, swept from the hall as if she had more important business to conduct elsewhere.

  With Thomas’ introductions to merchants from the Adventurers, I sold all of the fabrics that he had not ear-marked for himself. I found myself glowing with satisfaction, thinking he had forgotten that he had wanted to speak privately with me, and not minding too much because I was so pleased with my sales. But once the church bells pealed the midday Angelus and the crowd began to thin, he whispered, ‘Come out into the garden with me.’

  I called over to Meg to leave the ribbons to the apprentices. ‘Meg, Master Cromwell has important business to speak of with me in private. Please accompany us.’

  Meg nodded and set aside the green and yellow ribbons she was plaiting to sell as purse decorations.

  We left Smith and the apprentices showing the last ells of cloth to a lingering Hollander, and exited by a side door into the courtyard. We sought a quiet bench under a patch of grey sky, while Meg discreetly took a turn about the rectangular garden path. My heart sang with absolute joy, because there, in that peaceful spot, just after the Angelus bells stopped peeling, Thomas Cromwell gently took my hands, folding them into his own and asked me to allow him to seek my father’s permission for our betrothal.

  I glanced up at him, my eyes growing soft with desire. How I longed to discover what it was like to be desired by the man I wanted with all my being. For a moment I was shocked by my own musing. Could I be so fallen as to discover such carnal needs lay secretly amongst my thoughts?

  I looked down at our clasped hands. ‘I am my own mistress and can decide whom I wish to wed,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Then, Elizabeth, there is no hope for me?’

  ‘Of course, I mean yes, there is every hope. I am a widow. You do not need my father’s permission to marry me.’

  ‘No, Elizabeth, I do not need his permission.’ he turned my hands over and lifted my left palm to his lips. The sensation of the delicate touch floated through my hand, my body and slid into my heart. ‘Yet your father should bless our union and I do need his goodwill. Let us do this properly,’ he said. ‘Will you accept me? I know the answer but I need to hear you say it.’

  ‘I accept you with all my heart, but, if my father should refuse?’ An image of another merchant flitted through my head, one whom I had so recently refused, one to whom my father had clearly made promises concerning my future.

  Thomas frowned. ‘No one refuses me, and Elizabeth, know this, I love you with all my heart.’ Although, he was not smiling, his eyes seemed to reflect my own deep longings, and I believed that he spoke with sincerity. Thomas Cromwell, persuasive and charming, would always make people see his point of view. Father might attempt to discuss other suitors’ interest, men he considered were wealthier and better connected, but the result was a foregone conclusion. Thomas Cromwell would marry me because he willed it, because he loved me and because I loved him back.

  I looked far into his penetrating grey eyes and discerned determination. ‘I love you too, Thomas,’ I said a moment later. ‘It is my wish that we are betrothed.’ I took a deep breath. ‘However, there is something I have not told you, something important about my first marriage, and if we are to wed there should be no secrets between man and wife.’ I felt choked, ‘Something that could make you change your mind.’

  ‘Not now, not here, Elizabeth.’ He placed his finger on my lips. ‘We shall not speak of it today. Nothing will deter me though I think I already know what you would say. Tom Williams is the past. Today is where a happier future begins; it will be yours and mine.’

  The face that looked down on mine was inscrutable. Either he did not want to hear it from me today, or he thought it unwise that I speak of it. We sat quietly for a minute, happy in each other’s company, holding hands, savouring the moment as if it were about to be snatched away. A robin hopped amongst the fallen beech leaves that piled up by our bench and swiftly flew off again as if it was carrying our news far beyond the garden. A blackbird glossy and sleek strutted about my feet, jerking like a puppet dangling onto a miniature stage. He looked at me through his yellow eyes and seemed to incline his tiny head quizzically before hopping away to disappear behind a holly bush.

  ‘Will you be in Antwerp often after we are married?’ I asked breaking the silence, knowing that I would miss his absences much more than I had m
issed Tom Williams’ odd and mysterious departures. Just like the blackbird, my first husband had been here one moment and gone the next, to hide behind a prickly cover.

  ‘Sometimes, I shall be away sometimes, but, more often, I hope that I am here with you. I must remain in London working on legal matters. We shall set up our home in a different ward. It will be a new beginning, a larger house, where I can practice the law as well as continuing to send cloth abroad with agents. We can rent a warehouse by St Catherine’s Dock. I have the space already and can increase it.’

  It was all happening so quickly, but it did not take longer than the quiver of a butterfly wing for me to agree. ‘I would like to move away from Wood Street. The lease on my house is up for renewal next summer. My mother wants me to return to Putney and join my business with Father’s enterprises.’ I looked up, filled with realisation, ‘Thomas, maybe we still could join with him.’ I felt myself smiling at him. With Thomas by my side, Father could not bully me.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it will be a legal agreement. You have a brother in Surrey, so it’s wise to protect your future interests.’ He rose from the bench. ‘Shall we go into the hall, my dear, dear Elizabeth, otherwise Gerard Smith will think I have abducted you.’

  ‘I would not mind at all if you had,’ I said allowing myself a giggle. Meg turned again and glanced over at us quizzically. How things of great significance been decided in the time it had taken Meg to walk twice about the paths. I called her over. I longed to confide my news in her, but decided not to, not before my family knew our intention.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SINCE FATHER WAS TO have his rebellious daughter safely wed after all, he was delighted. He insisted that we must be betrothed at Christmas and married by Midsummer. I think he thought that I might change my mind. Little did he know that I was in love! Changing my mind was now impossible. Thomas and I were destined for each other, and, I thought joyfully, by Christmastide, I could put away my widow’s white wimple and leave off my mourning for Tom Williams.

  Thomas eased himself down on his knees to receive my father’s blessing, his cloak sweeping the rush matting of Father’s closet. I knelt beside him, Guinevere to Tom’s Launcelot, and felt pride in this eloquent yet humble man who had just asked my father for my hand.

  ‘Thomas,’ Father said, after we had both risen. ‘Do you think that St Stephen’s Day would be a suitable day to proclaim your betrothal?’

  ‘The great Christmas pie, the wassail, the boy bishop, the mummers, the musicians. Your sisters and their husbands must come.’ My mother said breathlessly as she clasped my hands, her utter joy unbridled. ‘A summer wedding? What do you think, Lizzy?’

  ‘Thomas sails to the Low Countries after Christmastide for business reasons. I think he must decide.

  ‘Mistress Wykes, I would marry your daughter on the morrow, but summer it is.’ Thomas took my hand in his own. We stood smiling, delighted with each other.

  My mother clasped her hands together. ‘It is decided, and from now on, Master Cromwell, you must call me Mercy, for that is how I am named, and I shall call you Thomas.’ She gave us her lovely smile and Father called for wine and almond biscuits to be served. ‘We must send news to Surrey at once. Joan loves weddings.’

  ‘Joan must be my maiden again,’ I said.

  ‘And you must meet my sisters,’ Thomas said. He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘It is only two weeks away. I must tell them. They will be pleased. And, I must tell my poor foolish father.’

  Before dinner hour on St Stephen’s Day, Meg, Alice my sister-in-law, Joan my sister and I gathered by the great fireplace in our hall to await our guests. Mother appeared smiling through the arched kitchen doorway, flushed from supervising the slow baking of the great pie; a goose with a quail, pigeon and small hen squeezed inside each other, within a huge pastry coffin. I could smell spice from small sweet pies and as I inhaled the rich, deep scent of the wassail cup, I was reminded of my childhood Christmases. It was a joyful occasion, celebrated fully in my Wood Street house, though never as great an occasion as in my childhood home. As ever, despite the heat in the kitchen and the cooking, my mother remained as serene and unruffled as the Virgin depicted on our Church windows.

  She wore her best gown, a blue wool overdress cut to reveal a paler kirtle with blue and rose sleeves which she had embroidered with golden acanthus leaves. Her cap sat daintily on neatly plaited hair that was as dark and glossy as a magpie’s coat. My own waving, silver hair flowed loose, cascading to my waist in shining, silvery ringlets. For modesty’s sake, I wore a small blue and silver-embroidered cap tied with thin velvet ribbons under my chin. ‘Will he like it?’ I thought again and again, hardly able to contain my excitement, longing to see Thomas. Joan, always one to enjoy a celebration, wore creamy ribbons threaded through her dark plaits. One day, not so long off, I thought, Joan will have a husband and a gaggle of giggling babies. In Surrey she contentedly kept watch over my brother’s children and she was happier than she had been at our parents’ manor house.

  ‘You look as lovely as the day you were betrothed to Tom Williams,’ Mother remarked, kissing me on both of my cheeks. She held me back and nodded approvingly. ‘Now, I wonder what surprises your father has arranged for us today.’ I laughed, for Mother always said this exact thing on St Stephen’s Day.

  At our manor house, the day was always celebrated with mischief and fun. My eyes searched about the hall for Father but he had vanished with my brother after Mass that morning and had not yet returned. Behind us, the Yule log in the fireplace spluttered then glowed red, and the cauldron suspended from its hook above it smelled of roasted apples, beer, nutmeg, ginger and sugar. Joan peered into it and glanced up with mischievous dark eyes.

  ‘Why don’t we just taste the brew now?’

  ‘You will wait until our guests arrive,’ my mother said firmly.

  My brother’s four enthusiastic children came darting into the hall. Joan called them to her and they gathered about her, tugging her to the large mullioned window that looked towards the lane. I followed.

  ‘Listen,’ cried out nine-year-old Will. ‘I hear bells and music coming up the lane. I saw Grandfather from the gallery window. You can’t see from here, Joan. The boy bishop is leading Grandfather and my papa and Father Christopher.’

  We hurried from the window to the door and peered out into the crisp snow. The sound of the wassailers drifted closer and closer, swirling around the great oaks that grew about the house. I could see the figures clearly now. Our guests were accompanied by musicians, my father and the boy bishop who was a chorister from the Church of All Saints in Fulham. I peered out at the procession but I could not see Thomas, nor could I see his two sisters. A small anxiety caught at me. What if he never came?

  The crowd burst into the porch, shaking off snow from their boots. Gradually, they came in small groups into the hall. We greeted whom we could but were swept back by the great number of guests soon pressing towards the fire place and the great cauldron. The hall was full of laughter and music. More revellers arrived, kicking snow from their boots. The maids were kept busy, dipping into the cauldron with huge wooden dippers as they filled pewter cups with the frothy wassail punch we called lambs-wool and handed them out to the guests.

  ‘About time,’ Joan said with a toss of her beribboned dark plait. She chivvied the children over to an alcove saying, ‘I promised them games, and they have a little performance to rehearse-for later.’

  ‘Excellent lambs-wool, Mistress Wykes,’ I heard our neighbours and relatives say to Mother as they sipped the hot foaming punch.

  Moments later I felt Thomas at my side. He bowed over my hand and kissed it. He gestured behind him, to where a kindly-faced woman of around thirty years stood with a boy and her tall black-haired husband. ‘Elizabeth, Mercy, meet my sister Cat, her husband, Morgan - Richard, my nephew,’ he was saying.

  I had last seen Catherine at the Corpus Christi procession in May four years earlier, though
we had never been formally introduced as we were today.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you at last, Elizabeth.’ She extended her hands and took both of mine in hers. I noticed how soft they were, so soft she might have slept with chicken-skin gloves covering them and maybe did. She spoke quietly to my mother who enthusiastically welcomed the family, her new relatives in waiting, into her hall.

  ‘How is he, your father?’ Mother enquired.

  ‘Not well at all, I fear. He has a nurse all the time, day and night. He is slipping in and out of consciousness.’ Cat crossed herself. ‘I think, like St Edward, Confessor, he will depart this world before Epiphany. You must forgive us, Mistress Wykes, if we do not stay late.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear of his illness. Perhaps we should have delayed the betrothal.’

  ‘No, Mistress Wykes, not at all, for it is as well now as ever it would be. Father has given Thomas his blessing.’

  Morgan Williams immediately stepped forward and, lightening the mood, said, ‘Mistress Wykes, my brother-in-law is fortunate to be connected to your family, and -‘ He looked over at me and bowed, ‘to be betrothed to one as fair of face as Mistress Elizabeth.’

  I thanked him for his compliment and added that it was I who was fortunate to be betrothed to Master Thomas.

  Morgan Williams bowed low again, his cloak swirling about his knees, ‘May I be excused as I must speak with your father, Mistress Elizabeth?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Allow me to bring you to him.’ Mother said. ‘I think he is speaking to Father Christopher. Come with me.’

  Once my mother and Morgan Williams had mingled with the other guests, Cat took my hands. ‘My thanks for such a warm greeting, Elizabeth, and soon, I hope you will be welcoming me as a sister to your own home, yours and Tom’s. How fortunate we are that Tom will settle down with one as well-connected and as lovely as you.’

  I knew then that Cat and I were to be firm friends. I loved her already. ‘Thank you, Cat, and who is this?’ I said, turning to the boy patiently standing by her side. He had the large family nose and grey eyes like both his mother and uncle. I guessed him to be around ten years of age. Morgan was a lawyer, Thomas was practising law. It occurred to me that this watching, quiet boy would also enter the profession.