by Mike Voyce
Penshurst and Thornbury.
I didn’t know who these people were. You shouldn’t think it was easy to learn even this. I was amazed at it; and excited too. But beyond this was a sense of foreboding, about the year 1497. I should have left it there, but I had to know, were these people real? Had they lived at the time my meditation said they did?
‘Channelling’ information from meditation is all very well. How do you know if it’s true? You check it. In public records offices we have nothing short of free historians. The coincidence of the name ‘de Stafford’ with my hometown of Stafford seemed made-up and fantastical, but it was easy to check, I could phone the Staffordshire county archivist. Eventually, a little reluctantly, I made the call.
The idea of phoning interrupted my thoughts all morning, as I dithered; what if it were true, if these people were real? What if they weren’t?
I got through immediately, to a very friendly, helpful man. He was pleased someone took an interest in his love of the past. Trying not to sound foolish, I told him what I wanted, holding my breath against my worst fear, that the archivist couldn’t help.
We couldn’t trace Thomas or Aletia, Eadie or Abigail. Parish records only go back to the 1530s and they were all dead by then. We couldn’t even trace the birth of Abigail. I gave Edward’s name with my fingers crossed.
“Oh, you mean the third duke.”
The archivist took it quite for granted I knew what I was talking about.
“The third duke?”
“Yes. The de Staffords were dukes of Buckingham. Edward was the third and last of that family. They had, of course, earlier been the earls of Stafford and the family kept that title too, but Earl Edmund married a princess and their son was made a duke. Of course that was well before Edward’s time.”
I’d already given the dates for the others, now I gave Edward’s dates, still taken aback by talk of “the third duke”.
“Well, you know I can’t say anything for the others, but for the Duke, let me see…”
There was a pause for several minutes.
“Hello, are you there... Yes you’re quite right. He was born at Brecon Castle in 1478. Died… Yes died… He was executed for treason in 1521: there are records of property for confiscation, made by the king’s surveyors under an Act of Attainder. They’re quite lengthy.”
The archivist chatted away cheerfully.
“There are some records for Penshurst Place. It’s a manor in Kent. Kent County Council might help you more, they may have some papers in the archives there; though we’ve been most fortunate, we inherited...”
The archivist babbled on for several minutes.
Edward existed!
It was quite a thrill.
Smile, if you will, at the vision of me dancing round my office. No one could see, and an awful lot of effort had gone into that meditation. It had worked!
Now I would need no one else to prompt visions for me, I could do it for myself.
***
