by Mike Voyce
(Past)
The scene was a garden and its focus was an oak tree. Under the tree was what looked like a wooden seat. There was a man standing by it, a man answering the description of the Agent but in different clothes, he seemed to be a gardener. There was a woman also, simply but richly dressed, not tall, not strong, and no longer young. Angharad thought there might be a castle nearby, or some great house with heavy stone walls.
The lady wanted the seat moved, it was obviously difficult, the seat was very heavy. Despite his one arm the gardener was instructed to bring it indoors. Angharad and I were perplexed. It was then we realised with excitement, it wasn’t a seat we were looking at, but a very strong, very large, very plain wooden box.
I was disappointed when Angharad found the gardener; I’d asked her to look for the Agent, yet she insisted this was the scene we should look at, now we had the Box.
With straining expectations Angharad looked inside it. What she saw was stunning. The things Edward found at Stafford were still there, excepting only the Cup, and besides these were family jewels, the Marbles, the Bible and the rose Eadie had given him that Christmas and, on top of all these, was poor little Abigail’s shoe.
I was in tears. It was a very emotional find.
The Cup had been taken away within hours of our seeing the Box. There was something of the Agent about the gardener after all, it was he who had taken it. That single loss was to make a terrible difference as you shall see. The lady never even knew the Cup existed.
Quickly we made an inventory in case anything else should disappear. What we found was bizarre. Somehow it all made more of an impression now, with Angharad, than when I first saw these things through Edward’s eyes. Maybe it was just so hard for me to believe what I had seen.
There was the Spear. It was very old and broken so that it naturally fell into two pieces. Yet, oddly the point was covered in red blood, it was wrapped in a cloth and the blood on the cloth was dried, brown and old. It was a puzzle young Edward hadn’t seen, for he never unwrapped the spear in the Tower Room. I don’t know what a Roman spear would look like, maybe this was the very spear Longinus used to plunge into the side of Christ, that Malory has Sir Balin use to strike King Pellam the ‘dolorous stroke’ in ‘Le Morte D’Arthur’. If so, the constant fresh blood was just as Malory described.
There was a seven-branched candlestick, gold or gilt, it was hard to say. Angharad criticised me for calling it Jewish, though the candleholders were all in a straight line, the centre one was slightly raised above the others. She insisted this was important.
There were three scrolls bearing large, imposing seals with symbols, one was broken. We didn’t know what to make of the symbols though they weren’t heraldic, they were far too simple and bold. Although one might have been the de Stafford chevron, it’s hard to say.
Besides these, a cloth, almost an altar cloth, maybe it was. It bore motifs in the colour of the blood on the spear cloth; they were Staffordshire knots and more chevrons.
Then there was the plate, embossed and set round the edge with small jewels, each a different colour. In the middle was a geometric design, maybe the Star of David or the Legs of Man. It was the hardest to see, Angharad felt the impression of a head surrounded by blood and she turned away from it.
It was with these things the stolen cup belonged. They made us feel certain the Cup was the Grail that I saw in meditation. Surely the Cup was the same Sir Thomas Malory declared to be the Holy Grail. Could these things really be part of my meditation about Edward Stafford?
Following after these were other things of value in mere money. First were de Stafford jewels, including a great ruby Edward wore in a finger ring, I remember how he played with it, sat by the fire, recalling Eadie’s death. Besides this there was a bangle, set with black or dark blue stones, I recognised it as one worn by Alianore and there were other jewels I didn’t recognise. I guessed they all had personal meaning, today they’d be fabulously valuable.
Second were the Marbles we’ve heard so much about already. My heart was in my mouth at the sight of them. If only Edward had had them in his hands for the last chapters of this story!
The last group of things, which at first sight only had curiosity value, were the most exciting of all. You remember, the little Bible and the rose Eadie gave to Edward that Christmas, and poor little Abby’s shoe from the village green, still with the mud on it, they were there in the Box, with a journal in Edward’s own hand.
Angharad tried her very best to open the journal and read it in her mind’s eye. She knew how much it might mean to me. Have you ever tried to read an old manuscript? I have, it can be very difficult. Edward’s Gothic script and the strange abbreviations he used to make words fit on a line all made it worse. No wonder Angharad couldn’t read it.
The reason these things were so exciting was, you remember, it was Angharad who described it all. I never told her Edward kept a journal, I haven’t even told you till now. I told her about some of the other things, of course, but never in the detail she gave me. She described them so accurately, even to the colours of the fabric in Abby’s shoe. It was all so emotional; it reduced us both to tears.
These were the contents of the Box as Angharad and I looked into it, but it isn’t quite all we saw. There was a sword. It had to be the Stafford Sword, it was a little separated from the Box and Angharad described it as large and badly rusted, she made it sound like a broad-sword from an earlier time, yet we were assured it was the same Sword which came with Duke Henry’s letter. This caused me doubts, I knew what Duke Henry’s Sword looked like and it wasn’t this. Can a sword change size and shape, even if it is magical? Angharad insisted it could.
After our inventory the action began again, but with many a pause for our frequent discussions; the lady took the Sword indoors, and placed it on the grate, in a fireplace, looking down at it in despair.
We think the garden and the building were at Stafford Castle. It’s a place we both know, the ruin is now open to the public.
Who were the people of this vision, when and why did it take place and why should it come to us so unbidden? This is no detective story; I’ll tell you what further channelling brought us.
(Past)
The year was 1643, one hundred and twenty two years after Edward’s death. Stafford Castle was still in the hands of Edward’s descendants but by now the World had moved on. The English Civil war was in progress and the Royalists were doing badly. Stafford and the Stafford family were loyal to the King but the Royal cause was stretched very thin, there was no proper garrison and there was all too little Royalist force to come to Stafford’s aid.
The woman was Lady Isobel Stafford, who commanded the town and such forces as there were when the news came. A large, well-equipped force, an entire Parliamentary army, was moving against them. It would be servants and farmers with pitchforks against soldiers in armour with artillery at their back.
Imagine the despair of that courageous woman. What could she do? It’s in these circumstances she called on the Box, barely hours before we found it. How she knew of it, or where she found it, neither Angharad nor I could say. But our meditation went on to show what befell when the aid of the Box was called on.
Isobel could hardly lift the Sword let alone fight with it. Perhaps the Parliamentarians could be won over by Justice, perhaps by Love. Yet, to save Stafford by Love would have needed the Cup that had been stolen by the one armed man.
Lady Isobel prayed for help. She prayed kneeling with her arms on the Box and when she finished she kissed the Sword. She put both away, hiding them so no Parliamentary soldier would ever find them. The pain we found in our meditation almost expanded from this point, as if it were a shriek of anguish as something was torn from its rightful place. It made me retreat into works of local history to find much of the rest of the story.
A Royalist army did come to the defence of Stafford. It was a large force, making up for lack of the Roundheads’ terrible discipline with confidence an
d enthusiasm. It was led by the earl of Northampton and I remember a snatch of what he said to Lady Stafford.
“Have no fear lady. As long as I live you may be safe here and all the town with you.”
Isobel believed him, fear visibly falling from her shoulders.
When the Roundheads finally arrived there was a mad scramble to get soldiers billeted on the wrong side of town mustered and ready, finally they made it. The two armies came together at the battle of Hopton Heath. The Royalists fought well, their enthusiasm driving down and putting to flight the King’s enemies. But in their joy came neglect and disaster; where the Earl was engaged there was a large rabbit warren, the Earl’s horse put a foot in a rabbit whole and broke a leg. On foot, the Earl was surrounded by Roundheads; they called on him to surrender but he refused. With the honour of a knight of the Grail he fought on to the death.
The victorious Royalists, now in mourning, negotiated the return of the Earl’s body and sent him home for burial. Lady Isobel’s joy at the victory vanished as she heard of his lordship’s death, remembering his words of comfort; that now filled her with foreboding.
Without the Earl, the Royalists protected the town badly. Capable soldiers were needed elsewhere and those that remained grew lax. Although the people of Stafford were loyal to the King, other parts of Staffordshire were not. The town was taken by surprise, by a small group of Roundheads, led by a turncoat Royalist who’d known its defences. Lady Isobel was besieged in the castle; retreating Royalist soldiers came to her rescue and, it is said, persuaded her to leave before a larger Roundhead army could get there.
The castle fortifications were demolished by solemn order of the rebels and the castle keep was blown to bits. To this day there is instability in the castle mound from that vengeful force of Parliament. The town had always been too weak to defend itself, the damage and demolition done there was to open fields of fire against a Royalist counter-attack that never came.
What became of the Box? Perhaps in the castle mound, smashed under thousands of tons of rubble. Perhaps removed to a new place of safety, perhaps to the old. There, I’ve told you of another failure and yet I didn’t mean to. What we found in the Box was something much more stunning.
When I looked into the Tower room the date was 1494, when we saw the Box again, in Lady Isobel’s garden, the year was 1643. You’d expect to see signs of ageing. There were none. Even Abigail’s shoe was as fresh as the day I saw it on the village green. How could this be?
I thought of the letter Duke Henry sent his son, the letter Edward received nine years later with the Sword. If Duke Henry was right the Sword was 282 years old, at least, when Edward got it. If Father John’s tale was true it was much, very much, older. It looked modern, undamaged and serviceable when it came to Edward.
At last I began to understand, it was the state of the Sword itself which was the magic Edward looked for and failed to find, when first he held it, sitting on his bed, reading his father’s letter in Lady Margaret’s house. When it came to Isobel it looked as you’d expect it to be. Why else had it not rusted for Edward yet turned to rust for Isobel?
Edward hadn’t put the Sword in the Box, he’d buried it separately; that’s why it had aged when the other things had not. Is that why Lady Isobel’s prayer for help in arms succeeded only so partially?
The Shoe came off little Abigail’s foot 148 years before Lady Isobel’s time. For most of that time it was buried in a box in damp earth. It was a silk shoe yet its colours and fabric were still fresh, still bearing the mud for which Abby would have been scolded in happier times. The Book, the Rose, all the perishable things were intact and unaged, as we saw them in Lady Isobel’s garden.
The Box will preserve whatever is in it from the corruption of reality. How else could these things be so?
Since it came to light, under Isobel’s hand, the Box has haunted Angharad and I. At times we’ve even thought we could pluck it out of thin air. At times we’ve even tried it, to pluck substance out of insubstance.
Perhaps this was just reaching too far. Should we have known better than to pursue myth and mysticism? Certainly this channelling was unlike any which had gone before. I said as much.
“I believe what we found when I can verify it from history, I believe it when it’s plausible. But you can’t verify magic, all this is doing is making me doubt what I know is true.”
Angharad’s feelings were hurt.
“After all the time I spent going through this with you!
Why do you think I did it?”
She paused. Whether it was for effect or whether she was in danger of saying too much, I waited.
“Well?”
I still waited.
“You know Sarah thought you were after her, I don’t think she believed in your project. I think she might have wanted you to be interested in her, not your precious procedures. We talked about it before you met that psychologist from London, do you remember? In the end we decided it was more likely you were after me. It’s me you talked to, not her.”
I think the colour must have drained from my face.
Angharad has a fierce independence and it never occurred to me she would be attracted to me except as a friend. It hadn’t occurred to me that Sarah would be either.
“Don’t worry, I’m not after your body.
Don’t you understand!”
I didn’t understand. And my face showed it.
“You’re the Grail knight!”
This was all making matters much worse.
“Why do you think you’ve been shown all this?
And I’ve tried to help you but it’s up to you to see it for yourself.”
I moved to comfort her, to be honest I was stunned, it all made matters very much worse. Angharad hadn’t finished.
“Eadie and everybody else are dead. I don’t know what more there is for you to see in Edward. I know it’s high time you looked at your own life.
Will you do that?”
“Ah.”
My life was indeed in a mess. There were a great many practical things I should have done over these last few months.
“Will you meditate?”
“You mean about me and the Grail?”
Angharad nodded.
After she’d gone I thought through this remarkable outburst. I pulled a half empty packet of cigarettes from my pocket and set myself to resolve the problem by the time I finished them. I spent the time walking up and down, smoking furiously.
I’d seen many factual events from Edward’s life confirmed from history books and learned things that proved to be true, even though they were difficult to find from books.
Mixed in with this, the Marbles, the Sword and the Holy Grail. While any of these might be real they are also undoubtedly mythical.
On top of this I had seen things which plainly couldn’t be real.
The situation with Sarah and now Angharad seemed to be tangled with emotions I couldn’t begin to fathom.
I sat down.
I got up and tried again; and again.
On the last cigarette I came to a certain conclusion. I should have to meditate again. If this was about the Grail I would go to the source; to Joseph of Arimathaea. Angharad had persuaded me that any spirit could be reached in channelling and I conjured in my mind the figure I’d seen on the hilltop, the figure administering the sacraments in the Land of the Dead. In my candlelit office, at dead of night, he came and stood before me.
“Tell me the reality of the Grail.”
“It is as you have seen it, as many others have seen it. Why do you doubt?”
And the Sword?”
“It was a gift of love even before me.”
“And the Marbles?”
“They belong to the Land. Did you not see and hear?”
A strange question came into my mind, one I had not thought to ask,
“Who is Edward Stafford?”
“Had you not better ask these.”
Joseph motioned
behind him and for the first time I caught sight of a number of figures standing there.
“The Nine Worthies.”
This was not what I expected and my thoughts raced to catch up. One of these shadowy figures seemed to stand forward for a moment.
“Edward is of us and we of him.”
“But you changed the World, what has Edward ever done?”
“Did we change the World?”
Another figure spoke,
“Has he not changed the World?”
Yet another came forward.
“Each of us changes the World to the limit of our wish.”
“What became of the Sword?”
“It belonged in the Box. Edward should have put it there.”
Yet another stepped forward.
“Once there nothing leaves. There is no time for the Box.”
The shadowy figures faded, having settled nothing. Only Joseph remained.
“You have not asked about yourself.”
With that he, too, faded and I was left alone.
I was simply at a loss.
Edward put the symbols of his great love in the Box. That’s how his love could come to me these centuries later. Edward and his true feelings are preserved as living things. They’re not in ordinary, three dimensional space, obeying the Entropy Angharad’s John so believes in. According to John anything you can’t see or touch doesn’t exist and all Creation is bound by Entropy. I was right those months ago, there are higher dimensions; these are the dimensions of the Box.
I needed another cigarette.
What an irony John should insist there’s nothing beyond the limits of Physics. Yet, there is a higher science, one known to the ancients, transcending all the dimensions, one on which John and all his colleagues long ago turned their backs. In this science things have different meanings at different levels, often contradictory; you can sail in different directions on different planes, like a balloon high in the air, and get lost in the welter of correspondences. Its very name rings with magic, deception and trickery, holding great promises and driving men mad in pursuit of them, its name is Alchemy. For thousands of years, and still after Edward’s death, ‘the great work’ was the study of Alchemy. It’s no surprise Edward possessed alchemic talismans.
That the Marbles were alchemic there is no doubt. By moving between the levels of dimensions is exactly how they work and why they belong in the Box. But it’s not enough to leave it there.
Did Edward understand all this, enough to add his own symbols? How stunning that the childish gift of Eadie’s rose, and Abby’s shoe, could be placed alongside the Holy Grail! That Edward could hold the Box, that he could use it to raise his own loves towards Eternity.
How the Box came to be in the Stafford Tower Room I don’t know. I only know it came to Edward not he to it, just as it came, those years later, to Lady Isobel. Maybe, one day, it will come to me.
Was Angharad right to call me a Grail knight?
I remembered those words in the cathedral,
“Do My Will, Do Your Own.”
Why had the Nine Worthies linked with Joseph in that last meditation?
I wondered if the power of Edward’s emotions would have rung down the ages without the power of the Box. Under its influence I’ve been compelled to suspend my ordinary life to write this story. In the dimensions of the Box the power of those feelings go on unabated. The love and compassion are overwhelming; for it is compassion, that Angharad has so much of in herself that she gave to me throughout the unfolding of Edward.
At last I thought of the Butterfly Effect, leaving the words hanging in the air,
“Be the right Butterfly.”
Writing this book has been a catharsis. I never did reach a conclusion from the meditation following that last cigarette, and this story has never ceased to haunt me. Perhaps now I shall be able to make up my mind.
I see the Duke stood by my side, he’s nodding, he seems pleased, but I seem to hear him say,
“But not, by all buts, the end of my story, it’s yet but the beginning.”
Here endeth the first book of Edward.
If you have enjoyed it,
If it has provoked questions or feelings,
Please leave a comment at www.edwardstafford.co.uk
With my best wishes and regards,
Mike Voyce
