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

by Carol McGrath

  My walk home was pleasant. I even had time to stop at our parish church of St Gabriel. Kneeling at the statue to the Virgin, I prayed to her for guidance. Surely it was not wrong to purchase an indulgence since the money went to the Church. How could our parish help its beggars and its poor and pay to feed its priests if we did not buy God’s pardon? But the beggars I saw that morning had not been helped by the Parish. The priests ate well, even on fast days. They wore fine woollen habits provided by merchants such as us, while others had nothing.

  The thought occurred to me that you can purchase a pardon but can you really be sure of God’s forgiveness? It was a dangerous thought, and I, who had once lived with danger, could not afford to risk my life or my soul again. I decided to boldly walk back inside through the front gate and found that I had returned in time for dinner.

  ‘Just look at the dust on your best slippers, Elizabeth. Where have you been?’ Thomas was puzzled as we sat down in our hall to eat. I had not been at home on his return from the Appeal Court.

  ‘I did not think you would return for dinner today.’ Lowering my voice to a whisper, I said, ‘I found the passport for the man who is travelling with the Antwerp cloth on Thursday where you left it lying on the parlour table.’

  ‘I wondered where it was. I had meant to deliver it this evening. You did what with it?’ Thomas replaced his eating knife and stared at me. ‘Where is it? Where have you been? Not…’

  ‘Yes, you had forgotten to take it. Since I needed thread and I was going that way to Threadneedle Street, I thought you would be pleased if it was delivered.’

  ‘What,’ he repeated, all colour draining from his face. ‘You could send a servant out for thread. As for the pass -’

  ‘I wished to save you an unnecessary journey.’

  ‘Were you followed?’

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘I think I was not.’

  ‘Elizabeth, you do not know what you are doing. You are meddling. I shall speak with you later, not now.’ His grey, hazel-rimmed eyes looked angry.

  We had kept our voices very low. Thomas looked down the board. Many of our household had joined us for dinner that afternoon and I could see by their downcast faces that they knew all was not well. Once the maids had served us, I lifted my knife and spoon and tried to eat. Thomas spoke not another word to me. My appetite was gone.

  After the dinner hour he pushed back his chair, threw on his cloak, ignored young Ralph, whom he always reminded about his learning, and marched out of the hall door without waiting for the fruit and cheese that he usually enjoyed after our midday meal.

  That night, Thomas returned home beyond the third hour after midnight. I had gone to bed early feeling extremely unwell but couldn’t sleep. Eventually I drifted into an uneasy dreaming long after the midnight angelus bells had sounded. A day that had started so well had ended badly.

  I woke up of a sudden. He stood in the bedchamber, by the bed looking down on me. I felt his anger descend upon me like a cannon shot crushing me. Sitting up, I pushed back the embroidered counterpane. ‘What is it? Northleach or Tyndale?’ I said bravely, I thought.

  ‘It has taken me all night to undo what you did today, Elizabeth. You were followed by Edward Northleach’s man. He had been watching this house. And, moreover, he worked out that you had visited what he has described as an evangelical. He questioned Mistress Marion after you left and easily squeezed Tyndale’s name from her, she was so frightened. How could you say it in the street? He heard you, and wanted to make sure before he carried it to his masters that he had heard correctly. That was fortunate because Marion, out of self-preservation, had the sense you lack. She hid Tyndale in her washing shed.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He is on his way to Flanders on a different wool ship.’

  ‘Which.’

  ‘I think it best that you don’t know. We’ll have a visit from the parish warden once it gets out that I helped an evangelical leave the country, and that I sheltered him in Cousin Robert’s house. If we do receive a visit from the priests or from anyone else interested in heretics, you will not be here. Get up now, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You, Meg, Annie and her nurse, are off to your father’s tonight. I have a cart and horse waiting in the yard. Pack all you need for a three-week stay. I don’t want you here while I finish this business. This is for your own safety. Smith will escort you to Putney. You should arrive by morning.’

  I wanted more explanation, to know what he was planning and, above all, I wanted his forgiveness. He said, ‘Hurry. You have an hour. By the cock’s crow, you will be with Henry and Mercy.’

  ‘And not by the early river boat?’

  ‘Smith has a hidden route to follow. You will sit amongst bails of wool where you must remain as silent when he dives the wagon through Aldgate. On no account can you look out. Annie, too, must be quiet. Meg can ride up front with Smith.’

  With that Thomas turned his back on me. He spoke nothing more that night. Meg came in and gently helped me to dress. Sleepily, Annie clutched her poppet. She was already dressed. Her nurse, Lucy, a plump, obedient and very capable girl of twelve years, helped me to pack our essentials into a travelling bag. Thomas told her that he had heard a rumour that a new plague was about to assault the City. His pregnant wife was going to her parents just in case of danger to her and the child she carried. Lucy was glad to leave Fenchurch Street and hurried about gathering up mine and Annie’s belongings.

  He reminded Annie that she was not to say a word. Annie, thumb in mouth, solemnly nodded as Thomas knelt down in the yard, took her in his arms and kissed her. We all crawled to the back of the wagon, where we were concealed by the bails of wool. Once we had settled into a corner of the wagon, I sheltered Annie in my arms. Leaning on my travelling case, I wept silent tears as the cart rumbled over the cobbles through our gate and we left Fenchurch Street behind.

  Thomas did not bid me farewell.

  Chapter Thirty

  MOTHER OPENED THE PORCH door herself that morning. She was pale, exhausted and anxious. ‘You have come so quickly, Lizzy. Thank the Lord.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ I asked.

  My mother was wringing her hands and crying. She made no sense; her distress was clear.

  ‘Your father. He is ill, dying,’ she managed at last.

  I threw off my cloak and sent a very shocked Lucy with Annie to the kitchen. ‘Find Annie something to eat,’ I said.

  Meg took Mother and sat her by the fire in the parlour. She sent a maid for an egg posset, Meg’s cure for everything.

  ‘Tell me all, Mother,’ I said as she sipped the warm drink.

  The manor house was in a pass of profound disquiet. My father had been ill since his return from Oxfordshire. Mother had called a physician in and she had sent for me early that morning. I had been packed off to Putney before her messenger had arrived at Fenchurch Street, unaware that Father was ailing.

  The physician’s diagnosis followed later that day. Father’s heart was weak. He was exhausted. He had spent too long tramping around weaving villages that past summer. His meeting with Northleach had tormented him, my mother whispered to me after the physician left.

  ‘I am so glad that you are here, Lizzy. You can have your old chamber and Meg and Lucy can have Joan’s chamber. And Annie…’

  ‘Annie will share my bed until Meg returns to Fenchurch Street,’ I said firmly.

  Meg returned to the City with a report on Father’s ailing health. However, Father was cheered to see me and, with bed rest, he made a brief recovery, but it was clear to us all that he was not fit to return to the business. He had developed an ailment in his lungs.

  ‘Rest in bed until you recover, Father. Smith is more than competent,’ I reassured him.

  ‘And that rogue, Northleach?’ Father grunted from his pillows.

  ‘Thomas will see to that business,’ I said, not confessing that I was, in fact, here with such haste because Thomas had sent me away
. It was a small deception because I did not want to worry him, nor did I want to mar the joy my parents took in having Annie and myself to cheer their sad household.

  We passed quiet days during November. Trees became denuded and spiders spun their dripping yet taut silvery webs between fence posts. We brewed ale and hung cheeses made from sheep’s milk in the dairy. A pig was slaughtered and Mother and I supervised the preserving and pickling that followed. Father slept much of the month away exhausted by his weak heart and hacking cough. Daily, he grew thinner and thinner, his face collapsed and pale; he was now a shadow father, not my determined father of old. His will to live was leaking away. Mother grew more and more anxious.

  In early December, Thomas came to see us. We greeted each other affectionately. I was relieved to see him. Annie hugged his legs and had to be unwound from him. She insisted her father greeted her new kitten, named Spike, on account of his fur that stood up straight every time he encountered one of the family hunting dogs.

  He had been working hard in the courts and for the Cardinal, his time stolen from him by others. He had travelled north in November on business, he said. Was all truly well between my husband and myself? Something was not as it had been and I felt that it was more than what had happened with the pass for Master Tyndale. Thomas seemed abstracted after he mentioned his journey north.

  ‘What were you doing in the north?’ I asked.

  ‘Legal work,’ he said, but would not meet my eye.

  ‘What legal work?’

  ‘Land transfers. Do not concern yourself with it, Lizzy. It is lucrative and that is all you need to know. You must not worry about my travels.’

  ‘Yes, you are right,’ I said. I wanted to ask him about Tyndale but Thomas was not forthcoming so I waited. I ignored my suspicions that Thomas was not as affectionate towards me as before, thinking that perhaps he was still angry with me.

  Our concerns those days were for Father’s hopeful recovery, though he seemed little recovered once he saw Thomas. Thomas was reassuring to my mother, calm as was his way, even though it was clear he concealed his anxiety for my father’s recovery.

  We shared my bed, but when on his last night, I broached the subject of my return to Fenchurch Street, Thomas said wearily, ‘Not now, Elizabeth, it is best you remain here, help Mercy and do not fret. Your father may not have long left on this earth. Give him what comfort you can. Do not fret.’

  He failed to trust me and I felt empty. He turned on his side and fell into an exhausted slumber. How could I not fret when my father was ill, my mother out of her mind with worry, and when I did not know if Northleach was still plotting?

  When Father asked about the merchant, Thomas said, ‘Northleach is long gone, Henry. Forget him.’

  When I asked, Thomas told me nothing. ‘Forget he ever existed.’

  The morning of Thomas’ return to the City came too soon. We walked through the apple orchard, a short cut to the river, Thomas carrying his tiny leather travelling bag, a reminder of how brief his visit had been. I wanted to know about Northleach. I could not ignore it as Thomas wished Father to.

  ‘He has gone and that is all you need to know, Lizzy,’ Thomas said, and looked straight ahead into the dripping trees.

  I was sure he was concealing the truth.

  I grabbed his arm. ‘Tell me or I’ll have no peace of mind. Is he alive or dead? He harassed Father all of September. Northleach had me followed. If he found out about the preacher Tyndale, that is my fault, too, so I must know.’ I folded my arms across my chest, leaned against a wet gnarled tree and said stubbornly, ‘Tell me. So much for honesty between man and wife.’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘It is not about honesty between us. There have been repercussions.’ His tone was chilly at my accusation. He had, in the past, prided himself on openness between us. ‘Stay here. Mercy needs you.’

  ‘What repercussions?’

  He shook his head and sat his travelling bag down and opened the orchard gate. I swept past him, feeling miserable as we walked silently along the river bank. All I could hear were rustlings in the winter trees and the swish of oars on the river.

  With each day that passed, Father was sickening and weakened. His heart was giving out and my only consolation was that I had been here in Putney for Mother. I stared over the grey water that stretched far into the distance. There was a mist that morning. It hovered over the water so that I could not even see the opposite bank. A fleet of starlings cut through the fog, dark specks in formation in the gloomy sky flying south. I still heard the plash of a boatman’s oars.

  ‘He is dying,’ I said.

  ‘Do not lose hope,’ Thomas said thoughtfully, taking my gloved hands in his. ‘Henry may yet recover.’ He looked down on me sternly. ‘Stay safely here until the baby is born.’

  I said, ‘There is another thing, Thomas. Meg is to marry Smith this month. I don’t think we should postpone it or she might change her mind and that would disappoint him.’ I pulled my hand away. ‘Meg and I have known each other since she was a child, but I won’t be there for her wedding if I must remain here.’

  ‘Lizzy. Return to us for a few days; after that your mother will need you. And remain cheerful, it will help your father recover more quickly.’

  I did not hear hope for Father’s recovery in Thomas’ voice, which was as flat and dreary as winter. I watched him watching the starlings fly along the river to be lost in fog. I whispered, ‘Tyndale? What repercussions, Thomas.’

  After a few moments he said, ‘The preacher is safely in Antwerp. I was questioned and was able to satisfy all the questions I faced from Wolsey’s questioners on the matter of a certain pass for an evangelical travelling on a wool ship with our cloth.’ He dropped my hands and looked studiously at me. I noted concern in his eyes. ‘We do not have dealings with evangelicals, Elizabeth. You said it, yourself. You were right, my dear, when you said it was dangerous talk.’ He took a breath and exhaled. ‘I was rash.’

  ‘You were rash and so was I.’

  ‘The preacher had sailed with our cloth on one of Cardinal Wolsey’s own ships; the King’s ship. Unfortunately, his pass was for the Juniper.’ Thomas frowned. ‘You should never have taken the document to him. There were many, many difficult questions about that - who, how and why sorts of questions. I said that he was my agent and needed in Antwerp, and that I had paid well for the cloth transport on the King’s vessel which we had already agreed would make money carrying wool transports over the channel. I claimed that the pass mistakenly said the Jupiter.’

  His voice hardened. ‘Understand this, it was a very difficult business. You were not questioned because I said you were in Putney with your family because your father was unwell. The Cardinal’s questioners were satisfied and Tyndale travelled to the Low Countries.’

  ‘On King Henry’s old ship.’ I laughed at that and shook my head. ‘I am sorry. It is just ironic. Will you pass Christmas with us if I return here after Meg’s wedding, which I must?’

  He smiled at me. ‘I shall join you for Christ’s Day and St Stephen’s Day.’

  ‘And you won’t say what happened to Edward Northleach,’ I ventured.

  ‘It is better that you don’t know.’

  I had to accept this answer or open up bad feeling between us again, so I let it lie. I nodded. ‘I trust we are safe. You can tell me this.’

  ‘You are safe.’

  He climbed aboard the wherry for the City, the only passenger that day. As the boatman pushed off from the small wharf, Thomas waved back to me. ‘Take care, Elizabeth. Take care of our unborn child and watch over Annie. I shall send Smith for you next week. After their wedding I go north again.’

  ‘Go safely, my love,’ I called into the misty fog, hoping he was my love.

  As I watched, his boat became smaller and smaller. The wherry merged with other river traffic and was gone, disappearing into the still river mist. My heart was heavy, for our quarrel, in part, remained unresolved. Thomas kept secrets c
lose and I must accept it. That cold December morning, I had learned that my husband did not forgive easily and I could not forgive myself for the impulsive action that had nearly cost him his livelihood. I instinctively touched my belly and, feeling alone, turned back along the river track.

  I returned to Fenchurch Street briefly for Meg’s marriage and supervised the wedding supper. Two days later we were back in Putney. Thomas and I were not as happy as we had once been. Our levity had gone to sea with Northleach and Tyndale, and he was overburdened with work.

  Thomas took on Father’s cloth business, as well as other calls on his time including legal work for Cardinal Wolsey and help with the King and Queen’s Christmas celebrations. In between he made his visit north to Chester, on the Cardinal’s land evaluation, he said.

  ‘If all fails with the Cardinal, there is still the cloth and legal work for the Adventurers,’ he said pragmatically.

  ‘I am glad to know it,’ I said. ‘Must you keep travelling north?’

  ‘If the Cardinal needs land transfers, I must.’ His lips were pursed. His eyebrows heavy, his eyes inscrutable. His tone was edgy. Once again, I felt a distance between us.

  My husband placed a band of underlings in charge of our joint cloth trade, all of them directed by Smith. Since he was now married, it was only natural that Smith would look to his own future. My journeyman would be a cloth man and, after all, he understood the English markets more than any of us. He and Meg would, in time, have their own household to care about and possibly, God willing, children. For now, Smith would continue as our cloth man and Thomas increased his wage.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  JOAN AND JOHN WILLIAMSON and their son came up the river to Putney a few days before Christmas Eve and Harry visited with Alice and the children. Joan greeted them with her old affection for her nieces and nephews. It did not change the fact that Father was dying. Ours would be a solitary and private family Christmastide.