Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Mary’s burnings were over, and it was time for England to find a compromise in this new world between the dangerous extremes that had destroyed so many people of conscience.

  It was fortunate for the people of the island that, at this point in their history, two people with the necessary political and spiritual talents should have appeared upon the national stage: Elizabeth I of England, and Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury.

  1580

  It was mid-afternoon and few people were about. Edward Shockley had been to the village of Downton to the south and had made his way up, past the edge of old Clarendon Forest, returning to Salisbury a little earlier than expected.

  At the corner of the street he paused, in mild surprise.

  A stranger was coming out of his house. He appeared to be an artisan of some kind. He would have hailed him, but a moment later the stranger had turned right towards the market place and Edward was too tired to follow him, Odd though. He wondered who it was.

  He went slowly down the street. It was good to be home.

  There were few more contented men in Sarum than Edward Shockley. At last he had found peace.

  For years he had lived in fear; worse, he had lied to his wife and despised himself. Now, as he looked back, it seemed to Edward Shockley that there were several causes. One, to be sure, was his own weakness. He did not deny it. But there had been another cause, too. He had not known what he believed himself. He had had a conscience, of a kind, but no cause.

  Now he had one. It was the cause espoused by the queen. It might not seem noble to his wife, or to Abigail: but to him, and to many Englishmen, it was a cause with wisdom, and one, this time, that he was prepared to stand up for.

  The cause was peace – and compromise.

  The years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, thanks to her clever diplomacy, had given her island kingdom mostly peace, so far at least.

  As for the religious settlement, to Shockley it seemed a masterpiece. It was a compromise. Copying her father, Elizabeth was Supreme Governor of the Church. The Prayer Book of Cranmer, with small changes, was restored. All people must attend church. Office holders must swear the Oath of Supremacy. The communion was taken in two kinds: bread and wine; the services were said in English. All this was Protestant, but moderate.

  And many Catholics liked the English services, which were so arranged that there was little there to offend them anyway.

  For the rest, there must be no disorder; the enforcing of the oaths could be as lax as they pleased. As for what men believed in their hearts . . . Unlike her half sister, Elizabeth had little religious feeling. She only knew the fear of persecution. She would, she said, make no window into men’s souls; let them believe what they liked: so long as they went to her church, or paid a small fine.

  And up and down the country, while strict Catholics or extreme Puritans denounced the changes, men like Edward Shockley heaved a sigh of relief.

  It was imperfect, hypocritical, cynical – and absolutely sensible.

  Around her, the new queen had gathered a number of sound advisers including Pembroke, who for the fourth reign in succession, kept himself in high favour, and that sage councillor William Cecil. They understood the value of her cautious approach, and they helped her to make wise appointments. One of these was the gentle scholar and friend of Cranmer, Matthew Parker, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury; another was the new Bishop of Salisbury, John Jewel.

  It was Jewel who transformed the Sarum diocese by his endless hard work and preaching. It was Jewel, also, who wrote one of the most important documents in the history of the Anglican Church: his Apology.

  The Apology won Edward Shockley’s mind and heart.

  “It is so simple you cannot argue against it,” he told his family with delight. “Our English Church is no new invention, no denial of authority: ’tis an exact return to the Church as it was set forth in the Scriptures – in the early centuries before Rome added its own doctrines and practices to muddy the clear waters. We celebrate Our Lord with bread and wine – as He ordained we should. We have bishops, as did the early Church; but there is nothing in the early Church concerning a pope at Rome, nor many of the Roman pomp and vanities; we have purified England of copes and altar cloths, relics, indulgences and superstition: that is all.”

  And it was Jewel who finally taught Edward Shockley to come to terms with himself. Shockley always remembered the interview.

  The bishop was such a small, slight fellow, with a sweet, thin, irregular face and gentle but hugely intelligent brown eyes. Study had made him prematurely old: his hair was thinning. But he was so wise.

  He had imbibed advanced Protestant doctrines while he was in exile on the Continent in Mary’s reign, but at Sarum he was cautious.

  “The spire was struck by lightning just before I came,” he joked to Edward, “so I took it as a warning to be careful. Here in Sarum,” he explained, “there are still many false shows from the old popish days: fine chalices, the robes of the priests, the altar cloths,” he ticked off the items that were to be found in churches all over the diocese. “In Basle or Geneva, we should have laughed at them. But now I have returned to England, I see that I must be patient, Master Shockley. Patience is my guide. I shall change these things gradually. And you, too, must learn to be patient – even with yourself. God will judge you soon enough.”

  Now that he felt he had nothing to fear, his sense of shame disappeared. He was frank with Katherine about his admiration for Jewel, but as he pointed out, as long as the family outwardly conformed, that was enough. She might teach their son and daughter what she liked on that condition.

  On this basis their marriage had continued without undue friction, ever since. Their children were married now. The girl was a secret Catholic; his son was not.

  He saw Abigail Mason marry Robert and have two children. She was still as pale as ever; but he noticed that she and her family quietly attended Elizabeth’s church services rather than pay the fine. He often thought of poor Peter with affection, and wondered whether Abigail did.

  Once or twice during these years he also saw Nellie Wilson, who had now grown into a respectable married woman at Christchurch. She became a little stout, and her husband grew so rich by his voyages that he was on a nodding acquaintance with the gentry. He never alluded to her past; indeed, there were few at Sarum besides Abigail Mason who could even remember her. As for Piers Godfrey, he died and left a little family of artisans to whom Edward sometimes gave a little work.

  There was only one storm cloud on the horizon threatening the peace he loved so much – Catholic Spain. For Philip of Spain was arming for an invasion; and already he had supported a rising in Ireland.

  The Spanish king had a Catholic rival to Elizabeth, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots – thrown out of Scotland by the dour Protestant followers of John Knox, safely confined in England, but a rallying point for every Catholic rebel.

  Philip had papal support too. Since Elizabeth had failed to return her kingdom to Rome, he had excommunicatd her and, worse, he had even secretly offered plenary indulgences – remission of their sins – to certain gentlemen who had offered to assassinate her. Subtle and determined Jesuits like Edmund Campion were even now touring the country in secret, telling good Catholics they must not attend Elizabeth’s church and stirring up all manner of trouble.

  It was all leading to a Spanish invasion.

  And this was the important subject which nowadays occupied his mind more than any other. He had been pondering it all the way from Downton and it was about this that he planned to address Salisbury council the following month.

  Katherine was surprised to see him back so soon.

  He asked her who the stranger was.

  “I hardly know him,” she told him. “A goldsmith I think, who knows John. He only came to pay his respects.” She smiled. “There is something I think would interest you more though – Thomas Forest came here two hours ago. He wants you to visit him at Avonsford.”


  And at this news Edward Shockley immediately forgot all the other matters that had been on his mind.

  What in the world, after so many years, could Forest want with him now?

  The rift between Edward Shockley and Thomas Forest had opened gradually. But for years he had supposed it was complete.

  It had begun because, for once, Forest had been wrong in a business assessment.

  Their joint cloth venture had not been a great success.

  For their main market, the Netherlands, had been sadly disrupted. The cause was Spain, which tried to impose its Catholicism and the cruel rule of the Inquisition on an unwilling population. The brutal troops of the Duke of Alva had been valiantly opposed by the Dutch forces of William of Orange. And the effect, for years, had been chaos. The great Antwerp cloth trade had suffered, and so had the cloth merchants of England.

  Shockley’s trade was hit. He fought back, finding markets for his best broadcloth, and set up business in striped kersey and lace as well.

  “But though it provides enough to keep us,” he told his family, “the profit is not nearly enough to satisfy Forest.”

  And so, a little before Bishop Jewel died, he had bought Forest out, for a modest figure. It was an arrangement that worked well. His son and John Moody ran the business now.

  He had made one other change too. Since the Antwerp business had gone, he had let the Fleming pay off the debt on easy terms, so that his family should be provided for, then he had ended their arrangement.

  While the younger men ran the day to day business, his own concern turned increasingly to the affairs of the city. Which included the poor.

  It was this that caused the rift with Forest.

  The Poor Laws of Elizabeth were not generous; but they admitted, for the first time, that the charity of individuals and the Church might not be enough to help the army of poor. Not that one should be lenient. Able-bodied vagrants were still to be whipped and a hole bored through the gristle of their right ear. Persistent vagrants could even be executed.

  There were plenty of poor in Sarum. Not only was the Sarum cloth trade in a recession, but on the land, things were worse. Spain’s decades of importing gold from the New World had brought about a huge increase in bullion that had spread inflation to every part of Europe. Corn prices rose, and the tenants on their farms had to pay more for their necessities. The fines paid on entering a tenancy went up and the peasantry were hit hard. Forest was an active landlord.

  “He’s found better seed; and he folds more sheep on his fields than ever,” Shockley conceded. “It’s his poor tenants that suffer.”

  And the problem of the poor increased.

  Elizabeth’s solution was simple and practical. She decreed that a poor rate was to be levied compulsorily to pay for the helpless; and she set up apprenticeships and workhouses for poor children and families. The whole business was managed by the Justices of the Peace.

  Forest was now a Justice of the Peace.

  “If a man’s got even one leg, Forest will say he’s fit to work,” Edward complained. There was a new workhouse in the city now, the Bridewell. “He treats the poor in there as if they were animals.”

  Edward Shockley was constantly trying to help the poor. Moody helped him. Forest once angrily complained that half their apprentices were taken from the poor house, and both Shockley and Moody had laughingly to admit that this was true.

  There was another source of good workmen though, besides the poor house. For Lord Pembroke had encouraged a number of Flemish weavers fleeing the religious persecution to settle at Wilton. Although he was a Catholic himself and they were Protestants, Moody seemed to have a natural understanding with these skilful men and employed several of them for Shockley.

  “So with our Flemings and our vagabonds,” Edward used to claim cheerfully, “we do very well.”

  It did not make him popular with Forest.

  Time and again, when Forest tried to deny the poor their aid, Shockley and his helpers raised the issue again. At first Forest had attempted to ignore them, but Shockley had grown too powerful for him. He was elected to the inner council of twenty-four – he was a man of consideration in the city.

  The result of this, by 1570, was that Forest completely avoided him. When they met, it was in strictly formal settings; and though Edward himself was affable, Forest was cold and distant.

  His favourite moment came in 1574.

  For that was the year of the visit of the queen.

  She came first to Wilton. There was a new earl now, not such a dour figure as his father, and a favourite with Elizabeth. On Friday September 30 he entertained her magnificently at his great house; on Saturday, he had prepared an elaborate banqueting house made of leaves in Clarendon Forest, but then the rains came and Elizabeth dined in the lodge. Even so, the deer were coursed with swift greyhounds, and the queen was said to be pleased.

  And then, on Monday, after the afternoon dinner, the queen and her court came to the town.

  They were magnificently dressed, the men in their tight-fitting under and over-robes, white ruffs at the collar and wrists, and short cloaks; the women with their stately, big-shouldered gowns that fanned down from a narrow waist to the ground, and huge ruffs that hugged their cheeks, rising to above the ears. But in both men and women, it was the material that made the cloth merchant gasp. Splendid silks, dazzling, heavy brocades of every colour.

  “Why,” he murmured, “they’d stand up by themselves.”

  His family were watching from a respectful distance as he stood with the other council men, dressed in their scarlet gowns, while the lesser merchants stood behind them, robed in black gowns lined with taffeta or silk, and watched the mayor solemnly present the usual offerings to a visiting monarch – a solid gold cup filled with coins to the value of twenty pounds in gold.

  She came to him.

  “No man has done more for the poor in Salisbury than Master Shockley,” the mayor kindly declared.

  She stared at him, and, for a moment, he was aware of her pale, plain face with its high cheekbones, pock-marked skin, and eyes that measured everything.

  “Good, Master Shockley.” He blushed.

  She was about to move on when she paused.

  “Who are the Justices who look after the poor?” she demanded.

  “Thomas Forest” she was told, “is one.”

  “Well, where is he?”

  Forest came forward and made a graceful bow.

  She turned to Shockley – half terrifying, half mischievous.

  “Does he perform this duty well?”

  All eyes were upon him. There was an awkward silence. He looked at Forest, who had gone a little pale.

  Then he spoke the truth.

  “No, my lady,” he answered.

  “Ha!”

  To his astonishment, she broke out into a loud, raucous laugh.

  Forest had scarcely spoken to him at all after that.

  It was a brief moment of glory. But he had met her. His family and the town had seen it.

  “The only trouble was,” he chuckled afterwards, “she almost ruined us.”

  It was not just the present to the monarch, which was usually returned as charitable gifts. It was the fees charged by her staff.

  “They’re like a plague of locusts,” he protested.

  There were bakers, littermen, footmen, musicians, porters, yeomen, the serjeant-at-arms, who took a full forty shillings; the king of heralds, who took fifty; and the trumpeters who provided the fanfares when the queen entered the city and who demanded three pounds in gold.

  “Never again, we pray!” he cried. It was not only the aristocrats in their houses who dreaded the honour of a royal visit; it was the burghers of every town in the country too.

  So what in the world, he wondered, could Forest want with him now?

  The Forests began their wooing of Edward Shockley in September 1580 with an invitation to Avonsford Manor.

  He did not hesitate about going.


  “Forest’s sure to be up to something,” he thought cheerfully. “I wonder what.”

  When he arrived, he found two surprises awaiting him.

  The first was that the Wilsons of Christchurch were staying there: not only old Jack, and his wife Nellie, but their three fine seafaring sons as well. It made him smile both with pleasure and amusement to see them: for one was the image of the father, another the male likeness of Nellie, and the third a tall, big-chested amalgam of the two.

  Nellie had not grown fat, but she had grown stout and it suited her. Her hair was grey, but her eyes still sparkled; she still favoured a doublet that laced across the front; she wore a modest ruff, and she set the whole off with a jaunty little conical brimmed hat in which she stuck a feather. Her three hearty sons, all in their twenties, obeyed her even faster than they obeyed Captain Jack.

  For a second, as they came face to face, he saw her hesitate. He understood. He bowed low.

  “Mistress Wilson.”

  If the Forests were not even aware of who she was, the secret past of Nellie Godfrey would never pass his lips. She saw it in his eyes and gave him a grateful smile.

  He had no doubt they were all there for a reason, but Forest was obviously in no hurry to enlighten them.

  He was more concerned that they meet his son.

  Giles Forest was a pleasant-looking young man of the same age as the eldest Wilson boy. But there the resemblance ended. Slim, dark, with fine, delicate features and tapering fingers, his thin legs encased in a silken hose, his hair teased into curls, he was the perfect model of the courtier. He had spent the last few years at Oxford, and so to Shockley the young man was almost a stranger. But it was clear at once that he was determined to make himself agreeable to the merchant.

  The other surprise was a change which many people might not have noticed. But Shockley did, the moment he entered the hall.

  It was the Forest coat of arms.

  He remembered it well from his youth: a proud lion in a field. Or so it had been.