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

by Carol McGrath

  I supervised most of packing for our removal from Fenchurch Street, the tapestries, linens, valuable Italian paintings, the globe of the world, two mechanical clocks, a set of gilded Italian chairs and stools, benches clad with velvet padding, embroidered velvet cushions, silver and pewter, and strangely, the relic in its delicate and beautiful crystal case, an almost invisible St Thomas’ finger nail, which Tom said amused him. I sent for a great number of carts to transport our goods. Thomas was involved with work for the Cardinal, closing monasteries to furnish the new colleges, his stewardship, a new post in Middlesex and his legal business, so it fell to me to organise many things.

  We planned a goodbye supper. I carried my portable desk into the hall where I drew up a list of those I wanted to come and set out invitations.

  ‘Don’t forget young Wyatt,’ Tom said, on discovering me seated by the fire on his best chair in the almost empty hall, intently scratching with charcoal on a scrap of parchment.

  ‘I wish Cat could be with us,’ I laid the charcoal aside and sighed. I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I dabbed at it with an end of my kerchief. Cat was unwell. Richard, who carried reports to us of his mother’s illness, would be with us for the last supper party at Fenchurch Street. His sister and father would remain at home.

  Thomas sank down on a cushioned bench, one of several still remaining in the Fenchurch Street house, leaned over and took my hand. There was nothing to be done, nothing more to be said. She had not long to live and it broke both of our hearts. We sat still for a moment holding hands. I was glad of the reassuring warmth of his great hand holding my tiny one and the pressure in my breast lessened.

  ‘Perhaps she will make a miraculous recovery.’

  ‘I think not. Be prepared, Lizzy. She won’t last the spring.’ After a few moments he said, ‘Still, do invite Thomas Wyatt. His father has asked me to watch over his son. It is time to introduce young Wyatt to our household.’

  ‘That will be an honour,’ I said, looking up at him, tears for Cat still clouding my eyes. I blinked them away. ‘The supper is on Saturday next.’

  I added young Wyatt’s name to my list and wrote out the invitation on a small sheet of Italian paper that was edged with gilding.

  During the evenings of the previous summer when Parliament sat, Thomas had entertained others in our house or he was entertained in theirs. He did legal work for Henry Wyatt, the boy’s father, and, as requested, had taken this clever but unhappy young man, Thomas Wyatt, under his wing. My husband was already like an uncle to him, and he had visited us. I liked this courtier because he wrote poetry of such beauty that tears came into our eyes.

  The house was swept. The supper evening arrived. A great fire crackled in the hall’s hearth. Guests were seated and fed with fish and pastries, jellies and custards, cheeses and soft white bread, for it was the Lenten season and we did not eat meat. Thomas’ friends took their leave by nine of the clock but my family lingered, as did young Thomas Wyatt.

  Just as, long ago, my mother had told us tales that had been carried from a cousin close to the court, Thomas Wyatt now brought us stories of the lady who was, he declared, the most intelligent of the Queen’s ladies.

  ‘Alas, her engagement to an Irish lord has long been broken,’ he said as we sat crowded around the trestle, the remains of our feast before us. ‘She has another admirer. He is Lord Percy and none can compete with him. She will have him without a doubt, though I think Lord Percy will not be permitted her attentions for much longer.’ He lowered his voice. ‘He is engaged to Mary Talbot and his father will not have La Boleyn. They are above her.’ He picked at his nails. ‘And, though, it is not common knowledge, the King likes her.’

  ‘I thought her sister was his mistress,’ I said.

  ‘Not any more. She is with child again.’

  ‘Whose? The King’s?’ I asked.

  ‘No, probably her husband’s. The King has not looked at her since last April.’

  I remembered the conversation I had overheard back in the summer. The King had sent Anne Boleyn a gift, not her sister. I said nothing of it because Thomas never smiled and I gathered from his lack of comment that he knew something of this business and was not prepared to reveal what he knew. After all, young Percy was in the Cardinal’s household.

  My sister raised an eyebrow. Joan enjoyed gossip, the tastier the better. My mother, who liked very much any tales of Court, tut-tutted and smiled. She looked glorious in burgundy wool trimmed with velvet and with fashionably wide sleeves. Her dark hair shone where it peeped out from her French hood. She had remarried some years before and was ecstatically happy.

  Sir John Pryor, her cheerful and plump new husband, laughed and remarked, ‘So the King will be piqued by young Percy.’

  The candle flickered as he spoke. I reached up to steady it.

  At that moment, my girls ran into the hall. On seeing Sir Thomas with a plum half way to his mouth, they curtsied. Annie loved to dress up in a tall steeple hat that she had made for St George’s Day and to play ladies and knights. Grace was her companion in this game and she, too, wore a tall pointed hat which sat enchantingly askew on her long pale curls.

  Thomas Wyatt made a small bow to the two delighted girls.

  With a whoop, Gregory galloped up to our supper table on a hobby horse, shaking his sword in the air. We all laughed. To complete the chaotic tableaux, their nurse bustled after them, complaining at the noise they made, insisting that it was time they were in bed. She swept them up out of the hall and back through the house. We listened for a moment to her scolding and their answering squeals of laughter.

  ‘They are beautiful children and of such a charming nature. Ah, now, what was I saying?’

  ‘Lady Anne?’ Mother said.

  Wyatt finished his plum and wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘Henry Percy will be sent up north and married off to Mary Talbot. Alas, Lady Anne is impoverished in comparison. She may be clever and have beautiful black eyes but she is not of the highest nobility in the land. The Percys are proud people.’

  ‘I think perhaps you love the lady yourself,’ I said in a teasing manner, seeing longing in his wistful eyes.

  He pulled a long face. ‘Nay, not love. Admire perhaps, but then I have known her for quite a long time. Our estates in Kent adjoin, you see. And, Mistress Cromwell, the lady is untouchable.’ He dramatically placed a long delicate hand across his heart. ‘I, unlike Lord Percy, would never place my heart in such danger. Besides, I have a wife, though she dislikes Court. She stays in the country.’ He looked sad.

  ‘Percy is in Cardinal Wolsey’s care. I suspect the Cardinal has already summoned his father,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Then, Master Cromwell, they will make Percy marry that rich heiress without doubt,’ Thomas Wyatt remarked. ‘Another miserable marriage, I would say.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ my husband said quietly.

  ‘Mother, we still have the lute here. Will you play for us,’ I said, changing the conversation to something happier.

  Mother shifted in her chair and I fetched the instrument. ‘Will you sing for us, Sir Thomas,’ she said.

  ‘It would be a pleasure.’ He rose and bowed.

  Their voices mingled as my mother played a ballad and then another. They were happy songs, songs of the countryside, of knights and ladies, of wooing and weddings, of March hares dancing and of swans mating on quiet, shaded rivers.

  ‘They mate for life, my sweet Elizabeth,’ Thomas whispered into my ear below the strains of the melody.

  ‘They do,’ I whispered back. ‘As shall we, my love.’ My jealousy and frustrated anger of the previous summer had finally faded.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  1524

  OUR MOVING DAY DAWNED with drips of rain hanging like tear drops in the hedgerows. They dropped with splashes from the empty branches of the pear tree that stretched its arms across the wall and tunnelled down the roof tiles. It was as if everything, even the plants in the garden, was saying �
��goodbye’. Rooms were emptied as if waiting for ghosts to move in, rather than a master tailor’s family. My footsteps echoed in a lonely manner, as I crossed the tiled floors. In the nursery Grace had shared with her brother and sister, I scooped one of her poppets from the floor. It had dropped from the basket we had filled this morning with the children’s playthings, chalk sticks and slates.

  I would not linger. I wanted to be away, for I felt like an intruder in the silent house that had once bustled with activity. There would be another garden to love and plant; another house to make my own.

  Barnaby and Wilfrid stood waiting for me in the yard beside a horse and cart. I had stowed a huge basket of laundry, my own clothing chests and my needlework in it. I tucked the poppet into the cart beside a box of toys and treasures.

  ‘Ah my horse is waiting, I see,’ I said and climbed into the saddle.

  ‘Can we go now, Mistress?’ Wilfrid asked.

  I nodded and my apprentices, now cloth men in their own right, took their places on the seat in front of the cart and flicked the palfrey’s reins. It plodded forward clattering over the cobbles. The watchman waited to padlock the gate behind me for the final time as I sat erect on my mare and followed the rattling cart out of the gates.

  Half an hour later, I rode in through the gates of Austin Friars, a house built of stone, and gave over my palfrey, Sapphire, to Wilfrid. The young men would stable the cart and horse and then go to the property in Cornhill. Barnaby and Wilfrid were already living betwixt and between Cornhill and Fenchurch Street. They had completed their apprenticeships but stayed on as journeymen. I would miss them but we had new apprentices training to be Thomas’ legal assistants, two of whom were Ralph and Richard. One day, Thomas had said, Ralph Sadler would be my secretary.

  Meg welcomed me, sweeping me into the kitchen where Cook was now preparing our dinner. The delicious smells of a broiled salmon and green herb sauce floated from the handsome new brick oven set into an outer wall and close to the fireplace. Something sweet-smelling bubbled in a cauldron over the fire. I went over and dipped the stirring spoon in. Cook had concocted a delicious spicy barley stew filled with vegetables and dried fruits.

  ‘Lenten food, but delicious,’ I said, replacing the spoon on its hook by the fireplace.

  ‘How do you like your new kitchen?’

  ‘Very well, Mistress.’ He grinned, obviously pleased with this move. ‘I am still arranging it. We shall need more spit-turners.’

  ‘We’ll employ them.’

  ‘We have the parlour set for dinner,’ Meg said. ‘The maids have set the table. It has benches enough and the two cupboards, the one from Fenchurch Street and the new one Master Thomas has just purchased.’

  ‘I look forward to unpacking and placing our silver on it,’ I said. ‘Meg, where are the children?’ We were walking through an airy corridor towards the parlour.

  ‘Exploring. They can come to no harm and there is much to explore.’

  ‘Is Thomas in his study?’

  ‘Yes. Dinner will be ready.’

  ‘I have so much to do afterwards. Will you stay Meg, for another few days?’

  ‘Until Friday. Gerard is going to Antwerp. I must be back in Cornhill by then.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I hugged her, for I was grateful for her help.

  I hurried away to look for Thomas, leaving Meg to oversee the last of the unpacking in the grand tiled hall, a hall in which to receive visitors rather than the hurly-burly of everyday living.

  I discovered Thomas sorting out his new study, a spacious room on the first floor. He was supervising a table he had ordered to be placed where the light would be most advantageous, looking out towards the garden. A secretary was stacking his books into shelves. Thomas turned around to instruct him where each should be placed, and saw me watching him from the doorway.

  ‘Come in, Lizzy, and look out of the window.’

  I crossed to a huge diamond-paned window and looked out into our new garden. The clouds had cleared and a rainbow hung in the sky. ‘Thomas,’ I said with delight, ‘the sun is casting a rainbow over the garden. It’s a good omen.’

  ‘This will be our home for the rest of our lives,’ he said, coming to stand beside me. ‘Never shall we move house again, though I do have my eye on a new property in the country. I bought the land owned by Master Watt when I gave his mother a pension.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘He paid off his debt and didn’t need the land; his mother has a pension and I can see it would be to our advantage to build a house on it.’

  ‘We are to become property owners as well as leasing this house?’

  ‘Land is the best asset we can have for Gregory to inherit.’ He put his hand on my shoulders. ‘And for you and for our daughters as well. One day, they will want dowries.’

  ‘I like it well,’ I said looking up at him. His face was caught in the setting sun’s rosy glow. I reached up and plucked out a grey hair. He smiled down on me and on the stiff grey hair I held between finger and thumb.

  ‘And Lizzy, this is a new beginning for us. Ghosts are laid to rest, do we agree?’

  ‘Yes, we agree.’

  He leaned down and laid a kiss on my head. I glanced behind me in case the servant was listening, but we were now alone in the study. The desk was in place. The books were in their shelves and the secretary had slipped out, leaving us to ourselves.

  ‘Have you seen our bedchamber?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Go and look before dinner.’

  The servants would have chambers of their own at the top of our new house. No one would ever have to sleep in the hall again other than a watchman. And, as well as the servants’ attic rooms, the house had five bedchambers.

  A new Turkey carpet was spread over the wooden boards of our bed chamber. My slippers sank into its deep pile. It was thicker than those we had hung on the chamber’s walls. Thomas had purchased new cushions and a bench of pale wood that leaned against the foot of our great canopied bed. I touched the fresh bed curtains that Meg and my maids had carefully hung. They had been beaten of dust and, to my pleasure, the whole bed chamber smelled of roses. I had chosen the bed’s new hangings myself the previous year before having had them made from a damask mix, burgundy with a pattern of creamy lilies through the weave. I had not used them and now hung in this gracious chamber they looked handsome. It was truly a new beginning.

  I glanced around the spacious bed chamber and saw that the painting of the Virgin and child had already been placed on an alcove wall. Empty spaces by the other walls waited for clothing coffers. I opened the great cupboards on the wall to the left of the bed. We would never have enough garments to fill them. Softly closing these, I ran to the window. I could see beyond the courtyard into a second garden. This time, I saw trees, quince and pear, cleverly trained along the side wall separating the far garden from that of the Austin Friars.

  Once we were settled in, I would visit the Friary and ask for Prior Lawrence. I would ask if could I see the library and I considered that I might procure a Latin tutor from the Friary for our daughters. Full of joyful thoughts, I descended the stairway to join my family in the parlour.

  The dinner bell resounded throughout the house. I heard footsteps running towards the parlour.

  ‘Stop running, children,’ their nurse scolded.

  The children were seated demurely around the table with their nurse, Bessie and Meg. Thomas took his place at the head of the table and we were served our first dinner in Austin Friars.

  A week later, a breathless Toby came to visit us with news. We hurried him into Thomas’ study where he told us that a man - he was sure it was the one who had been with those two who had attacked my Wood Street warehouse, the man with the scar on his face - had been arrested for attacking a King’s guard.

  ‘I saw him, Mistress Elizabeth. He was one of the Spanish monks. I think he was following me. He mistook another guard for me. He cut him and left him for dead in St Gabriel’s
churchyard.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Thomas said.

  ‘My friend survived to tell the tale.’

  ‘What was his tale?’ I said anxiously.

  ‘When he was attacked, it was my name the monk spoke. He gabbled a load of nonsense about heretics and how I had escaped God’s wrath once but I would not this time.’

  ‘How did they find the attacker?’ My fears were not laid to rest by the monk’s arrest. I still feared the Church’s judgement all these years later.

  Toby smiled. ‘The monk had made the mistake of saying that he was a member of the Benedictines of Grace Church Street. It was not difficult to locate him.’

  ‘Will his accusations hold?’ I said anxiously.

  ‘No one likes those particular Benedictines. They smack of Spain’s cruelty. He will be sent back to whence he came.’

  Thomas laid a hand on my arm and said, ‘Lizzy there is no danger that the monk will dare to make further mischief. I’ll see that he is sent back to Spain.’

  ‘But Queen Catherine is from Spain,’ I remarked.

  ‘Yes, and, thankfully, she doesn’t subscribe to their ruthless methods. Besides, she has her own concerns these days and those are at court. Times are set to change,’ Thomas said.

  ‘How?’ I said.

  ‘There’s talk that the King wants to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine and that he’s consulting with Wolsey over it. He claims it was no true marriage.’

  ‘Don’t let the Cardinal draw you in.’

  ‘I’m involved in legal issues only, not the affairs of the great ladies and gentlemen of the court; mostly property. This is what brings us our wealth. I’m not drawn into the King’s marital issues.’

  Not yet, I thought.

  And there the discussion rested. Toby hurried off to seek out Bessie, and we, not wanting to worry further that evening about the Spanish monk and his mischief-making, began discussing what we would plant in the garden this spring.