The Vavasour Macbeth

by Bart Casey

  “Very good,” said Stephen. “I’ll try to come out of the weeds for that one, too. I can’t think of another good example of a trove like this one. Closest would be the surviving commonplace books. A lady called Anne Cornwallis had one with the earliest transcript of a Shakespeare poem, I remember, from about this time.”

  “Crikey, don’t tell me Shakespeare is about to get into this?” Margaret laughed.

  “No, I don’t think so. But all of this was exactly at his time, you know—and in some sense, they probably all knew about

  one another.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” Stephen explained, “I mean, it was a very small community. On one side there was this tiny group of people who needed things written: courtiers for grand speeches, theater owners or the people putting on shows for the Queen at court or when she went around on her ‘progresses into the realm,’ and the few aristocrats who had playing troupes under their patronage as a kind of hobby—like Essex, Oxford, Leicester, and so on. And on the other side, watching them, and looking for jobs, was an equally tiny group of writers, all desperate to pay the rent, like Marlowe, Shakespeare, Middleton, and so on. So in that sense, they all knew, or at least knew of, one another.”

  “Hmmm. Very interesting,” mused Margaret as she thought that over. “What do you think about the possible value of what we have?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t think Professor Rowe will be up on ‘value’ as far as the market prices today, if you eventually want to insure or sell them. Although I suppose he might be. But that’s why I think we could send the same copies to Soames Bliforth as a next step perhaps. He was also studying with Rowe in our year and, with his used book shop in London, he should be up on the prices these days. After our meeting, we can decide if you want to do that.

  “Well, this should be interesting. I’ll be on my best behavior,” said Margaret.

  ~

  The village of Horton-cum-Studley, with its quaint name, sits just a few miles northeast of Oxford and is the beneficiary of an almost maniacal historic preservation. The main attraction has always been Studley Priory, a former Benedictine monastery, hotel, and sometime private home that retains all the details of its medieval and renaissance glory. Just down the road from the priory, Professor Rowe’s home was an ancient white stucco cottage, replete with thatched roof, sheltering hedges, and luxuriant gardens. An elderly lady—presumably his housekeeper—met them at the front door and ushered them toward the professor’s study facing the back garden, where the great man was enthroned in a leather wing chair, bathed in the best reading light, backed up against windows overlooking the terrace. Apparently many pilgrims came to call, seeking enlightenment, for the housekeeper gestured toward two smaller leather chairs and muttered, “He’ll be wanting you in those little ones.” As he sat down, Stephen noticed the guest seating was not only smaller than the professor’s, but lower as well.

  “Stephen, is it, Mister White? Yes, I do remember you, but this is not the same gel I used to see you with, is it?” He smiled expectantly at Margaret. “I think you’ve made quite an improvement on that score.”

  “Professor Rowe, may I introduce Miss Margaret Hamilton. Margaret was also in my year, but at Brasenose studying English and the modern languages at the time.”

  “Yes, French, actually,” said Margaret standing up and walking over to the seated professor, extending her hand. The old man’s hand was surprisingly small, cool, delicate, and smooth. Lots of hand moisturizer there, thought Margaret.

  “You do seem somehow familiar, my dear,” the professor said, continuing to look at her intently.

  “Professor, you may have seen Margaret on the news,” Stephen responded. “She’s a journalist with the BBC and on television sometimes now. And, most important, she is the owner of all the papers I’ve been going through. They had been inside an Elizabethan tomb of one of her ancestors over in our village.”

  “Really? Well, that’s fascinating, my dear. I’m very pleased to meet you. I’ve done some work with the BBC myself, you know, interviews about our history here and there—that’s my game.”

  “Yes, professor. Stephen’s been telling me. It’s very nice to meet you—and very nice of you to let us come visit,” said Margaret completing the niceties.

  “This was a family tomb?”

  “Yes, professor. My relative was named Anne Vavasour and her monument is dated 1654.”

  “Oh my dear, not the Anne Vavasour, surely?”

  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve heard of her, professor,” said Margaret. “My mother only told me she had been the black sheep of our family.”

  “Black sheep? My gel, the colors would be more like ‘scarlet woman’ rather than ‘black sheep.’ The Vavasours were a large and prominent family at court closely connected to the Knyvets, and they placed several gels named Anne—as well as Frances and Margaret. Catholics from the north, I believe.”

  “Yes, the origins were around Copmanthorpe, in Yorkshire.”

  “Well if this was the Anne Vavasour, the lady was perhaps the most sought after courtesan of the age, I’m sorry to tell you. She came to court as a Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber—fittingly enough, I might say—and then was disgraced when she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy in the maidens’ chamber. The scoundrel father was Edward de Vere, they said—the Earl of Oxford. And it was particularly awkward for William Cecil, Lord Burghley, because Oxford was married at the time to his daughter, who was also named Anne—Anne Cecil. The Queen sent both of the proud parents to the Tower. And a few years later, it seems the Earl of Leicester offered Mistress Vavasour money and a fortune in jewels to be set up as his mistress, but I think she declined.”

  “Good lord,” said Margaret, hearing all of that for the first time—and from this smarmy old man, who clearly relished seeing her blush.

  “Of course, she was just a teenager from the country, poor gel, albeit a pretty and well-educated one. She did rather recover, I believe. In fact, she ended up as the de facto wife of old Sir Henry Lee, the Queen’s champion at the jousts. His own wife, Anne Paget, died just as he retired from court around age fifty-five or sixty, I believe, and then he and Miss Vavasour remained an item for over twenty years. It would have been salvation for her, since he was immensely wealthy and of impeccable character, and I believe they were, as they say today, ‘meant for each other.’ She had another child or two, and outlived old Sir Henry for another several decades. The old knight achieved a remarkable old age. I think he was eighty when he died. But the old drab, your ancestor, beat even that. I don’t believe anyone has reported the exact details, but the rumor was that she lived to ninety years old—and that was completely unheard-of at that time. Perhaps you have her genes, dear? Though, I trust, not her inclinations.”

  Margaret was dumbstruck at this history. She never thought their interview would become so personal with this old git. Stephen quickly jumped in.

  “Professor, I have just got hold of the Henry Lee book by Sir Edmund Chambers, so we’re just on the path of discovering all of these details now. But we’re not quite there yet,” he said.

  “Good, Stephen. The details aren’t well-known—that’s for sure. Old Sir Edmund wanted there to be a proper biography about one of the great yeoman gentry characters so important to Elizabeth. Not the earls and dukes and so forth, but the true gentlemen of the realm whom the Queen would count on to raise a troop of fifty men on horseback to go patrol the northern borders, for example. He chose very well with Sir Henry Lee, who was splendid in that role. Aubrey even reported he could have been a bastard son of Henry VIII.”

  “Aubrey?” asked Margaret.

  “John Aubrey was a gossip reporter of the mid-1600s,” the professor explained, “an amateur historian and provocateur. If he had been a reporter like you today, he would have written a column in one of the tabloids, my dear. Some of his reports were true, but most were probably rubbish. For example, he interviewed Shakespeare’s neighb
ors years after the bard’s death and reported Shakespeare was remembered as a butcher when a young man and always made a fine speech before slaughtering whatever poor animal he had hold of. I suppose one might say the same thing about most of the fourth estate today...with the exception of the BBC, of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed Margaret, temporarily on her back foot.

  “In any event, if Sir Henry was the King’s progeny, that would have made him half brother to Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. There were a lot of those so-called natural children by King Henry and the boys were all normally named Henry. That might explain how he got along so well through it all.” The professor paused and then continued, “I wouldn’t think too badly of poor Anne, my dear—”

  “Well, no, I don’t,” interrupted Margaret. “Those were tough times to be a woman—like today can be—and I think she did a bloody good job fighting her corner. And believe me, I try to do the same.”

  “Yes indeed. She did that more than all the other gels, for certain. That’s true,” said the professor, noticing that Margaret was no pushover. “Everyone may have played at courtly love under the frigid glare of the Virgin Queen, but there were plenty of what we’d call sexual predators there as well, like the Earl of Oxford, who were just toying with newcomers as a way to pass the interminable time lounging around awaiting the Queen’s pleasure. Anne was a victim—but the wags delighted to make it the scandal of the decade when it happened. That’s why I said Anne’s connection to Sir Henry was a salvation for her—and for him as well, I imagine, living on his country estates or his fine apartment on the river in London. Most of the time they were just down the road here. Henry was the Ranger of Woodstock on the Oxford road just northwest of the city—on the land where Blenheim Palace stands today.”

  “At least they were in a grand part of the country,” said Stephen, who struggled to hold back a smile, thinking about how wonderful Margaret was at holding her own, too.

  “Well,” said the professor, “let me ring for Mrs. Wells and have her get us a pot of tea to calm ourselves after resurrecting Mistress Vavasour. Why don’t I show you my Elizabethan garden here while she fixes the tea, and then I can give you come comments on those papers you sent me?”

  ~

  Margaret, Stephen, and the professor stepped through the swinging doors of the terrace as the housekeeper was summoned and then retired inside to her duties in the kitchen. Stepping down onto the lush grass of the garden, the professor led them over behind a neatly trimmed shoulder-height hedgerow, revealing a small landscaped field divided into four quarters of decorative plantings behind tiny two-foot-high hedges, separated by carefully linked gravel walkways. A miniature version of the gardens at Versailles or Blenheim, Margaret thought, more scaled down to the size of garden gnomes instead of princes.

  “This is a classic Elizabethan garden,” the professor explained. “The clipped hedges make ‘a curious-knotted garden,’ as Shakespeare describes it in act one, scene one, of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Inside, sweet-smelling herbs such as chamomile, thyme, or mint are planted with flower beds of hearty perennials. Through the year, there are primroses in spring, crocuses, daffodils, wild hyacinths, and so on—and of course roses, whether red or white for Lancaster or York. I love to sit out here on that bench over there on a certain sort of day, thinking back to the familiar scenes of hundreds of years before. Clears my mind wonderfully, you know. I recommend it.”

  “This was a lot of work, professor. It’s beautiful,” said Stephen, following on the paths behind the professor and briefly taking Margaret’s hand to buck her up.

  “I’m afraid I cheated, Stephen,” Rowe said, putting his arm around Stephen’s shoulders as Margaret shuddered. “Used slave labor by my students. Had them all out here bending over and sweating in front of me. Marvelous, one of the few perks of

  my office.”

  The professor smiled as they completed the tour and turned back to go inside.

  ~

  Mrs. Wells had left a classic tray of tea and biscuits after their twenty minutes in the garden. The professor played host. “Milk or sugar, Margaret?” he asked.

  “Both, please,” she replied.

  “As bad as that?” Rowe gloated. “Stephen?

  “Just plain, sir. Thanks.” How quickly I’ve become the great man’s student again, Stephen noted. They sipped their tea for a minute or two—it was indeed comforting and restorative.

  Now let’s see what the old boy thinks, thought Stephen, opening round two of the discussions. “Did you have any thoughts about those papers I sent you, professor? It was just a random selection to show the range.”

  “Yes, I made a few notes here. Let’s see.”

  Professor Rowe sat back in his chair, put his teacup to the side, and placed a pair of reading glasses low upon his nose.

  “Well, there was the letter from Lord Burghley. A very good signature, in his own hand as opposed to the secretary’s. He was a very good friend of Sir Henry and, as noted, Lee had sent him a side of venison from the country. Probably a Christmas gift. Lee made quite extravagant presents for the Queen each year. I believe you’ll find a list of them in the Chambers book when you get to it. So it’s a very nice letter. But, as you can imagine, there were a lot of gentlemen sending venison to Burghley, so I think this would be something to display framed in your drawing room, Miss Hamilton—not something for a museum.”

  “Of course,” said Margaret, making a note and regain-ing her footing as he started giving them really useful information.

  “Then I find the pages from the commonplace books next. This first one must be Anne’s. She wrote in the most wonderful italic hand—things Italian were all the rage just then—and it’s impressive that she seems to have been on the Ascham curriculum, with her Latin and Greek, not the second-rate program they gave to most girls. The Knyvets had high hopes for her with Elizabeth, no doubt. The second one seems a more manly tome—probably either Sir Henry’s own, or more likely some kind of gift book she had put together for him: a scrapbook of readings he liked. There’s a passage by Sir Philip Sidney, who was one of Lee’s friends and jousting partners. In Sidney’s work Arcadia, there’s the famous Ionian jousting scene between two knights: Philipus—that’s Sidney; and Laelius—that’s Lee. They were great chums. Sidney would have sent Lee his writings, and have had a scribe copy them out for him.

  “And there’s also a formal courtly speech inserted on the edge of the page, possibly from one of his tilts. Each of the knights at Elizabeth’s tournaments would have speeches written by some academic. Then a page would climb up the stairs near the Queen and her ladies and deliver the speech while the knight waited on his horse below before riding against his opponent. I wouldn’t mind seeing more pages like these. Both the commonplace books would be real ‘museum pieces,’ I would say.”

  “Anne’s pages are from a book, quite finely decorated with embroidered covers, by the way,” said Stephen.

  “All the better. Sewing—and dancing—were essential skills for the ladies at the time,” nodded the professor. “And then another photocopy seems to be a view of speeches from a masque. It doesn’t seem to be a play—more of a court performance of the old school. Men with ruffled collars parading around and giving speeches about courtly love. There’s a reference to an ‘old knight,’ for example. Sir Henry entertained the court at his estate down the road from here in 1592—they were all very happy to be out here in the country because the plague was raging in the city. He put on quite a show over two days in September, I believe. It’s written up in John Nichols’s books about the progresses of Elizabeth into her realm, and I believe Lord Dillon, Lee’s descendant, gave a partial manuscript of the event to the British Museum just before the last war. This could be another copy of that.”

  Rowe continued, “The sheet in Latin is from a court case. In fact, it looks like it’s a contested matter between Anne and her erstwhile husband John Finch. The ecclesiastical courts handled marital issues
, so that’s why it’s all in Latin. Finch is probably trying to get his hands on the money Sir Henry left Anne, but I imagine Sir Henry tied it up pretty tightly so she could

  keep control.

  “Finally,” the professor said, winding down, “I didn’t quite get the nature of the last thing you sent. Seems a mishmash of quotations with various reference letters and numbers separating them. Might be some kind of homemade singing sheet, I suppose. I mean, Anne and Sir Henry had lots of free time in the country. They probably created all sorts of diversions to stay sane away from court and the city. Singing would have been one of them. Might have lined up the servants into a choir, and so on. Had to do something else besides pounding away with each other at bedtime.”

  Well, he didn’t have to finish it like that, thought Margaret. He’s just trying to get a rise out of me and I will not do it.

  “Yes, that last one’s a bit of a mystery,” said Stephen. “It’s actually a copy of part of a long scroll, of all things.”

  “A scroll? Really,” said Rowe, in such an affected way that he seemed to be questioning Stephen’s basic intelligence. “That’s a mystery indeed. Maybe I can have a look at it myself sometime, if you like.”

  “Yes—probably so,” said Margaret, feeling it was time to get the hell out of there. Time for her to throw him her question. “Professor, Stephen has mentioned it was rare for anyone to hold on to a trove of papers like this at the time. Do you have any idea why Anne might have done that?”

  Rowe pushed back a bit in his chair and raised his eyes to the ceiling, thinking. “Well, my dear, I suppose she might have been sentimental about old Sir Henry. After he died, at the start of her widow-like condition, she probably just left everything in the library at one of his houses. But after that, you’re right: it is odd she would have kept them—and even been buried with them. I know the heirs of Sir Henry were in hot pursuit of her, trying to get the money. That Latin legal document is probably part of all that. Perhaps she was keeping the collection as a kind of proof that she was his soul mate, and thus entitled to the money he left her. I don’t know. I’ll keep thinking about that one for you—it’s a good question. Shows that BBC training.”