Edward - Interactive

by Mike Voyce

  Chapter 25 – Endings

  After all this, I just couldn’t get into the tragedy of 1497. No matter how I tried, even after Lincoln and that last channelling. Through Angharad’s encouragement, in the end, I found a way. She was there as I channelled it and I very much needed the whisky she offered me when it was finally done.

  What happened at Penshurst was never far from Edward’s mind, towards the end of his life I caught him reminiscing to himself. By now he was a man in his forties, increasingly under pressure and threatened by a king ever more out of control. The king was Henry VIII, whose tyrannies were to become more famous than those of any other ruler in English history. This is the only way to give you the fate of Eadie; it shows how it affected Edward, even after more than twenty years had passed.

  Words came to me as if Edward had spoken them aloud.

  (Past)

  “I should love this place, for the whole of Thornbury is my own work. It was Mother’s home with Jasper, you could feel their presence in it; too mean for the glory of a duke. Now that’s all gone and what stands in its stead is of my own grace and for the glory of Stafford.

  It will be the greatest house, working palace, if needs be, armed citadel of any private family in the land. The very centre of prestige and power. People shall see the power and nobility of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. Whatever the King may do, or Thomas Wolsey, England shall know there is still a private order and service, and it is magnificent. Let it be so, unless God wills otherwise.

  I never knew what work it would be, building this great house, still unfinished and I wonder if it ever shall be finished. Every vista must be splendid, every capacity ample, every need met and more than met so none shall doubt de Stafford piety and purpose.

  I never knew what loneliness there could be in this great building. Alianore hates it; she doesn’t like to be here. The children are married and gone and this winter is no season for entertaining. The passages and staterooms echo to my tread. It sets me to thinking of those days, oh so long ago, with Eadie and the other children, a world away at Lady Margaret’s house. Then everywhere would echo to our laughter. We cared nothing for anyone’s rank. We’d rather play with the scullion than my brother Henry for Henry was a cry-baby and spoilsport. Yes, I may smile at that memory, now I’m dread lord of all I see. More powerful, here, even than the King.

  Who, in my household shies from me as I did from poor Henry; who would sport with me as Eadie did? And whom should I trust, or should I trust, as my father did, only to be betrayed?

  I never knew what effort there could be in building perfection, and how hollow it may seem. This great house, but great for whom? Who can fill its great space?

  I grow old and tired. Am I just in awe of the splendour of my own position? There’s nothing I can do for I am who I am. Need my life lead me to these arid lands, having known the sunlight? A chill runs through me, there, for no reason.

  Oh, for music, for distraction. A little ditty keeps running through my mind, about my father..

  ‘The plain old duke his life to save,

  Did of his own man succour crave...’

  It keeps running round my head and I worry why.

  My father’s lands were confiscated when I was five years old. Restored indeed, but when I came into them, when I was just twenty, there was such disorder, titles missing, my guardian lax, stewards dishonest, all in chaos. Recovering Duke Henry’s domains absorbed me like the labours of Hercules. Of course I’ve devised strategies, of course discipline, of course Law suit against the lazy and corrupt. I had to, to protect the estates. I’m not always popular. Does anyone understand these things? Does no one see the work, on top of service to an ungrateful Crown? The King used to be like a nephew to me, where did it go wrong?

  Am I not fair? Am I not pious? Do I not support the poor clergy from my own pocket? Is there any one of my tenants, servants, friends who can say I use them dishonourably, any worse even than their merits? The Lord shall judge whether I’ve been generous but I stand on my life I have always been just! God help me but I’ve tried to be a Christian.

  So why am I so tired and lonely?

  Why do I feel defeat hanging round me like a cloak?

  The King, I know, no longer loves me as I might expect he should. Maybe I speak my mind strongly but as the leader of the lords is this more than my duty? I know the King’s mind is turned against me by the Great Cardinal. You see! Even to myself, I cure myself of what I used to call him, ‘the butcher’s boy’; for so he was no matter what great heights he reaches. I did wrong to remind him so often. Perhaps, if he but thought, I have more cause to envy him than he me.

  If only Wolsey knew how, as a boy, I wished to be Eadie’s equal, not her better. What would I not have given for his humble beginnings? My poor Eadie, she was dead before anyone heard of the Great Cardinal - that wretched Wolsey.

  The fire sparks and I drift this winter’s afternoon away. In this chair, in my own great hall in my own great house; all folded up by these winter snows. It’s unhealthy to be mewed up. It should be good to go hunting. To see the keen breath freeze before your face, to hear the brittleness of wood snap in the cold, to have the deer start and the warmth of the chase. Yet I know the real thrill is to have your lady welcome home the hunter with admiring words and warm arms and looks full of promise.

  I haven’t the stomach for the hunt when it means a return to this. So I sit still, my boots on the fire irons, my soul in my boots and my sick heart in my mouth.”

  The fire basket is large, as becomes the room. The fire breast is grand, all decoration, and inside, as Edward sat musing, all cleanly dressed light stone. The near white was a symbol of purity. The truth is it repeated inside the sterility of the snows without. Oh, it was clean and well swept, as if no hand ever touched it.

  The logs burned hot and bright, their flames leaping up into the darkness of the chimney. They draw your eye and the warmth of the fire lulls you as it did Edward, dreaming in front of it. Further and further he sank into the depths of the chair and the depths of his reverie, eyes open but not seeing.

  “There is Eadie in my mind’s eye; young and willowy and beckoning, smiling.

  I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there!

  I should have been.

  I see it now, I dream it as it must have been. As if I was God looking down on this mortal, sinful world. A tear shaken from His eye at de Stafford stupidity.

  I was on my way from fighting the Cornish. I had persuaded my betters I wasn’t needed; better a show of loyalty in Kent. I could go home to Eadie. If I’d not been delayed by celebration and flattery and paying court, if I pressed to go earlier, I would have been there in time. I had a premonition to hurry.

  Damn Mother Megg! Why did she have to die? Leaving my poor little Eadie to take over, all unprepared, all unready.

  Brave girl she tried. Keeping secret to herself her doubts and uncertainties, smiling at Aletia, yet another of her patients. Every cure a minor miracle, every new patient a new chore, a new worry.

  No one to confide in, no one to talk to save young Abby, who would hardly understand. I was never there, what a grief it must have been, and when I was, puffed up with my own increasing position.

  And lurking in the alehouse, Malice on two legs, with a sack of gold. Always someone to criticise, to pour scorn on success, resentment on disappointment. To cry witch!

  Was he an agent of Northumberland, that dark figure in the alehouse, which I and my agents searched for so long? Agent of Alianore, or perhaps of Lady Margaret? The Tudors did not use me well, though I thought they did at the time. ‘T is still hard to believe the villainy I received from Lady Margaret; she put her own son before all honour justice and Law, and with all her piety beguiled me as she did to all the World, may God protect us all against such a good Christian.

  Was it Alianore, truly who killed a rival? She could do such things.

  I think first of one and then the other and still I don’t know, I d
on’t know!

  But I see that figure of discontent, a dark cloud over my dear little Eadie.

  So, they said the day came when a patient died. Witchcraft was rumoured and it couldn’t be silenced. The people inexorably turned; hope and petition turning to distrust and hate. Eadie shocked and not understanding, retreated, unable to answer.

  Rumours that Eadie should be taken in charge, the Sessions or even Assize. The stirring of the mob that her ‘high friends’ not be let help her cheat justice.

  Oh, horror!

  I see it as if I were there.

  The alehouse I knew. I see seated at the furthest corner of the darkly lit room, tankard before him purse always at his hand, the agent. For so I must call him, I don’t know his name. Truly, he can have no name, never part of any act, always behind those who do act; strong in conversation but absent when the strength of blame is to fall, like drunken courage in the light of next day.

  I searched for that man long. After Eadie’s death I combed the county. Alianore laughed at my efforts, perhaps because I never thought to search her household. No one knew his name nor from whence he came nor his calling. The villagers thought him a traveller. I guessed him a local man with a grievance against Eadie or Mother Megg.

  Tall and thin with quick, long white fingers on the one hand God had left to him. He had long hair held in a queue, roughly shaven and dressed like a clerk. Even now, though he may be long dead, if I ever see him he shall feel my steel.

  I see the alehouse filled, faces eager with excitement and beer.

  “Why did the woman die if not by the witch?”

  “‘T is true she ailed nothing before.”

  When some kind soul ventured to speak for my Eadie,

  “All the worse if she had no reason; she that pretends to cure.

  Which of us shall be next?”

  I see the alehouse empty. ‘T is still light and they head for Penshurst over the fields. ‘T is still light yet some of them carry torches.

  The march cooled their ardour; some were as shameful as they should have been, when they finally arrived at the door. Their appearance was foolish and unsure, the agent close to defeat. Thomas was away but Eadie was in safety behind a stout oak door. The household determined. The mob should not have her.

  Some of the villagers called for Eadie to come out but the contemptuous rudeness of the housekeeper sent them away. Dispirited, they go, they’re actually on their way back when they find Abigail! All innocence, she was playing by the pond. No one thought she would be in danger. Nor would she have been from simple villagers. Someone, the curs’d agent, stopped them and cajoled them and harangued them to take her for ransom for Eadie. They took her, my pretty innocent, calling out for her mother.

  What a home coming for Thomas.

  When Eadie heard about dear, sweet Abby she rushed out. There was nothing Aletia could do though she tried all she could; made strong by her fear.

  Eadie rushed down the lane, over the bridge by the stream where Abby so often played, calling out Abby’s name in desperation. By this time there was no one there. She rushed on through the now silent fields, calling, always calling about her for our dear daughter, hoping against certainty for a tearful Abby to come rushing to her. Exhausted, she came to the edge of the village, still no one there, she sank down and wept.

  Thomas returned to find Eadie and Abby gone and Aletia distraught. He heard the story and I can picture his serious face turning white with fear and anger. Out to his tired horse, still in saddle, I can see him setting spur for the village.

  Had he been there before Eadie all could still have been stopped and saved. If any man of his own strength and wit could have saved that day Thomas was the man.

  Eadie, courageous girl that she was, didn’t wait. As soon as she was a little recovered she made straight for the centre of the village, looking for our child, no longer calling out, still proud and erect. I think she gave Thomas no thought at all, only Abby and her own duty. Faces peered from doorways as she walked down the centre of the street, she didn’t go unnoticed, but none would acknowledge her or come out to her as she walked the length of the village. She went directly to the alehouse, towards the sound of raised voices.

  Inside was indeed a noise and press of bodies arguing over poor Abby. Some sanity prevailing argued the kidnap was wrong and, too, there could be no answer for the high wrath at taking de Stafford’s daughter - for so she was always acknowledged to be. All the while the landlord’s wife held a tearful Abby in restraint. Shame to the whole company for the pity of her cries.

  When Eadie entered, the room fell silent. Eadie held the moment, till it was lost by Abby breaking free and rushing to her. As they held each other the room returned to itself.

  “There she is! How dare she mock us in this house!”

  Both were taken into restraint.

  As the triumphant villagers made their plans for death, Abby’s joy turned to fear. As her young mind began to understand the grown-ups’ talk - terror.

  They talked of burning but the villagers were not as eager as they’d been before. Many held the next day would do. Others that it was wrong to do more than take Eadie in charge and it was wrong to keep the child,

  “Let the courts do their job, ‘t is not our work.”

  The agent held delay put them all in danger. He needed quick action, a swift end made here so none could go back, to take thought for pity or any soft feeling. The soft tears of Eadie and Abby’s reproach could quench any man’s resentment.

  Many said they feared the Countess and de Stafford as well as the Law. The agent grew desperate.

  Were they cowards?

  Were they fools?

  “What spell has the witch cast to hold Sir Edward in her hand. Besides, he’s fighting for the King.

  ‘T is service to Edward and the Countess to do God’s will.”

  Mutterings or no, it stood undecided when Thomas came.

  The door flew open. By some sixth sense the agent moved, as if like lightening. By the time Thomas’s eyes adjusted to the dim light he was at Eadie’s side with a dagger at her throat.

  “Come near and the witch dies.”

  It was enough to stop Thomas and the agent saw it.

  “Now Master Lewkenor, unbuckle your weapons and hand them to the landlord.”

  Thomas saw no choice.

  There were further instructions and another man tied him securely to the rooftree. It wasn’t till all this was done the agent relaxed; his visible tension, betrayed by a throbbing vein at his temple, subsided. Then a smile came to his lips and then something new, which hadn’t been there before, the swagger of victory.

  “How now Master Lewkenor? Come to watch our judgement?”

  “You’ll pay my friend. Release my daughter and her child, meet me on the green or these people will hang with you.”

  “Gag him.”

  But it wasn’t so easy to gag Thomas Lewkenor, even when tied as he was. The agent left Eadie and came over to where the struggle was, up to Thomas.

  “Farewell my fine soldier.”

  And with that he slipped his dagger between Thomas’s ribs and into his heart.

  The room was stunned as Thomas slumped in his bonds. Eadie cried out in her loss and despair.

  “You’re committed now. You’re with me and the witch has made us kill. We must be absolved, we must kill her.”

  The dagger was still in his hand and the look of the Devil in his eyes. There was no more argument.

  It was falling dark when the torch was set to the tinder piled high round Eadie. She had been tied to a stake planted in the centre of the village green and the while this was going on the ale-house had served freely, so those who took part would remember little after.

  Some few of the villagers cried out against it. Answering the pleas of the curate, they tried to stop it. They were knocked down or pushed out of the way and threatened to silence.

  As Eadie’s execution drew nearer, poor Abby’s sc
reams grew more hysterical. As the torch was set she could be restrained no longer. She rushed to her mother clambering up the wood. Eadie, in horror, tried everything to send her away but could not. Soon poor little Abby, aged just four, was trapped by the flames.

  They watched throughout, those villagers, they raised not a finger, not even at the last, at mother and daughter’s death screams. They hung their heads and went their way. The agent had gone long before.”