The Traitor's Wife

by Susan Higginbotham

  “Yes. But at least he is lying in peace and quiet now, away from all those dreadful people gawking at him. And I shall have a lovely tomb built.”

  Lady Hastings, trailed by her children, their spouses, and a youth Eleanor did not know, joined them. “It is good to see how many people came to pay their respects to Hugh.” It was indeed a good-sized gathering: Hugh's relatives, Eleanor's half brothers Thomas and Edward de Monthermer (Sir Thomas and Sir Edward now, Eleanor reminded herself), her half sister Joan (a nun at Amesbury), some of William's own family, retainers and friends of Hugh and his father, Hugh the elder's relatives, William and Eleanor's household and councilors…

  Eleanor smiled. “To think that if all of us had been together just four months ago, we would probably have been arrested for plotting. But Bella, where is Amie?”

  “With the queen as one of her damsels, isn't that good news? After Mortimer fell, I wrote to the queen and told her who Amie was and asked if she would give her a place in her household. She agreed and Amie has been there for a couple of weeks now. I shall miss her, but I live very quietly now, and she is too pretty and outgoing for that sort of a life. She will meet a good husband at court, I hope.” Bella gestured toward the young stranger proudly. “But you have not met Nicholas, my brother.”

  From his horse, Nicholas nodded at Eleanor in a manner so like that of his father that Eleanor's heart ached for a moment. “I didn't see my brother Hugh more than a few times, Lady Despenser, but I was fond of him.”

  “And he must have been fond of you, Nicholas. I hope you shall come stay with us for a while soon.”

  “Is it true that you have plans to renovate the choir of Tewkesbury Abbey?”

  This was such an unlooked-for question that Eleanor looked in confusion at her sister-in-law. Bella laughed. “Nicholas's passion is architecture, Nelly. He was staring at the ceiling the whole time mass was being said for poor Hugh, wondering how it could be improved!”

  Nicholas blushed. “I meant no disrespect, Lady Despenser, but it has such potential.”

  “I quite agree with you. Now that things are different the monks will be able to make the improvements they wanted, and I will give them whatever help they require.”

  Nicholas was still going on excitedly about the abbey when the funeral party arrived at Tewkesbury manor, where a meal had been prepared for the mourners and a large group of poor people. Eleanor, presiding at the high table with William, was half-ashamed as chief mourner to be talking so animatedly with those around her, but after running off with William she could hardly call herself an inconsolable widow. Tomorrow, though, she would return to Hugh's grave with its constantly burning candles and spend some time alone with him. She would pray for him and remind him that she would love him forever.

  In any case, Eleanor saw as the meal ended and the guests were preparing to go their varying ways, no one else in the room, including those who had loved Hugh dearly, was particularly gloomy either. It had been, after all, so long since Hugh had died, and so long since many of them had seen each other. Edward, who had left his brother for a couple of days to attend the funeral, was chatting with his cousins, looking more relaxed than Eleanor had seen him in years. Mary, who had seldom ventured from Amesbury during the Mortimer reign, was laughing with Hugh's sister and daughters. Ingelram Berenger and William were talking horses. Eleanor could not see precisely what the little ones were up to, but Lord Zouche the dog ambled by licking his lips very complacently.

  “My lady?”

  In looking around for her youngest children, Eleanor had not noticed the messenger approaching her. She opened the parchment he gave her—nearby, William was opening a similar parchment—and gasped, “Mother of God!”

  “Why, what is it?” said Lady Hastings.

  “The whoreson!”

  “Nelly?”

  Eleanor looked at William, who was staring open-mouthed at his own letter. “It is John de Grey. We are being summoned to Canterbury on his petition.”

  “Sir John?” Lady Hastings said, puzzled. “Why?”

  “He is claiming me as his wife.”

  Standing before the official of Canterbury, John de Grey was the model of a wronged husband, bearing his loss with dignity and stoic calm. Eleanor would have felt almost sorry for him had she not been the bride he was claiming.

  “As you know, sir, I had many times asked the Bishop of Lincoln to do justice in this matter, but he had curtly refused me, probably out of fear of offending Roger Mortimer. I thank you for granting me this hearing now.” Briefly, he looked wistfully at Eleanor with his blue eyes.

  “On what grounds do you claim this lady?”

  “It is a delicate matter, sir. I apologize to the lady for speaking frankly. When she is home with me as she belongs, I shall make amends. On the day after Christmas, I visited Lady Despenser at Hanley Castle. That night, we had sexual relations. It was my intent in coming there from the start to marry the lady, and the next morning, she did agree to marry me in the future. We had sexual relations again.”

  “A promise to marry in the future, followed by sexual relations. Under canon law that makes you husband and wife, if the lady does not dispute your tale. My lady?”

  Eleanor said, “I will not perjure myself and deny that I had sexual relations with Sir John. I do deny promising to marry him. There was discussion, but no promise. Lord Zouche is my husband. I married him before a priest, with witnesses.”

  “Do you have witnesses to prove your story, Sir John? If not, there is no point in continuing with this matter.”

  Eleanor sighed with relief. Then John said, “Yes, sir. I have witnesses. My squire, who saw and heard us in—er—the act. Another squire, who heard me say good-bye to Lady Despenser as my wife.”

  Eleanor's jaw dropped. Forgetting about the official, she stammered, “My lord, you had us watched while—”

  “Of course not,” said John, smiling at Eleanor indulgently in a husbandly manner. “My squire had come to fetch me urgently—you do remember him doing so, my lady—and he was waiting for the right moment to do so. While he waited, he saw and overheard things he should not have. You may be assured that I cuffed him soundly when I found out.”

  Eleanor sagged against William's arm. William said, “By God, man, you shall pay for dragging my wife through this.”

  “She is my wife, Lord Zouche, and nothing hurts me more than her having to be here today. If you cede her to me, as you should as a man of honor, I shall make all up to her, as I have said. She shall be loved and cherished.”

  “I'll see you damned before you take her from me, you lying dog.”

  “Gentlemen!” said the official. “Carry on in this manner and I shall have the bishop's men seize you both. You must settle this under the law. From what Sir John tells me, he may have a valid case. It is his right to prove it if he can. He may do so before the Bishop of Worchester's court.”

  “Worcester!” said Eleanor, lifting her head from William's sleeve. “That is Bishop Orleton's bishopric now! He will give me no justice, sir. He hated my first husband and my uncle the king, and he will hate me because of them.”

  The official shook his head. “As you were taken from Hanley Castle, Worcester it shall be.”

  “I heard that John de Grey had claimed that I married him. I heard it from Roger Mortimer when I was arrested.”

  “And then?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “I was imprisoned, and then after I got out, my husband was arrested. John de Grey was the furthest thing from my mind. I heard nothing from him until I was summoned to Canterbury. Of course, now that I have my lands back, he has resumed his interest in me. The whoreson!”

  Master Geoffrey Preston, the young proctor hired by Eleanor and William to represent them before the official at Worcester, shifted gloomily in his seat. This was about the twentieth time Eleanor had called John de Grey a whoreson in as many minutes.

  Fresh from Oxford, Geoffrey could dispute the finest points of canon law f
or hours upon hours. He could expound upon its development from Roman times. He could back up any point he made with a reference, however obscure. He was prepared, in short, for any argument that might be thrown at him. But he was rather ill prepared for Eleanor, because living, breathing clients, as opposed to abstractions, were rather new to Master Preston.

  His patroness, Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, who had helped place him at Oxford and subsidized his bills, had recommended him to Eleanor. She had told him, “I urged my sister Eleanor to remarry the last time I saw her, but it seems she took my advice a bit too much to heart and got married twice. Do your best for her and Lord Zouche.”

  Now remembering the great appreciation he had for Elizabeth de Burgh, he rallied and said, “I think you have sufficiently expressed your opinion of Sir John, Lady Despenser. Let us move on.”

  Eleanor, rather grateful that her juvenile proctor was showing some command, nodded.

  Master Preston said unhappily, “I suppose I must start with the most delicate question first. Did you have sexual intercourse with Sir John?”

  “I did.”

  “And did you promise to marry him beforehand?”

  “No. I lay with him at night and on the morning of the next day. He did ask me to marry him that morning. I told him I would have an answer later. He started to make love to me again and I allowed it. There was love-talk going on between us at that time, and I suppose he might have construed something of that as a consent.”

  Master Preston said hopefully, “Had you been drinking excessively, my lady? If you were incapable of consent…”

  “No. Though on the first occasion I met Sir John I did have too much wine to drink. But nothing went on between us then. I seem to have the rare gift of acting most stupidly when I am quite sober.”

  “Are you and Sir John related in a prohibited degree of consanguinity?”

  “I seem to be related to half of England somehow, but sadly I cannot count Sir John among my near relations.”

  “He was widowed, and you were a widow yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “You had not taken a vow of chastity?”

  “No.”

  Master Preston said gloomily, “So there would be no impediment to your marrying Sir John.”

  “Save that I did not.”

  “Sir John has a witness to your conversation, I understand?”

  “Yes, and our lovemaking as well. I was unaware that we were putting on such a show. Assuming, of course, his squire actually heard and saw us.”

  “I understood from Lady Elizabeth de Burgh that you were imprisoned twice in the Tower. What for?”

  “The first time because I was Lord Despenser's loving wife. The second because I was accused of thieving jewels from the Tower during my first imprisonment. And because the Earl of March was unhappy about my marriage to Lord Zouche and wanted my lands.”

  “Did you take the jewels?”

  “Yes.”

  Master Preston visibly sagged.

  “I took them after my youngest three girls—my little Lizzie was not born at the time—were packed off to convents and forced to take the veil, even though the eldest was no more than ten years old. After my husband, whom I loved dearly, had died a cruel death. I took them for spite of that whore of a queen, Isabella.”

  “My,” said Master Preston weakly. He took some notes as he gathered his courage for the next round of questioning. “Speaking of the queen, your lady sister said that you had superintended her household at one time. Is that true? It might help your credibility if it was.”

  “It is true, but as I have also been accused of being a spy for my husband at the time, I am not sure it would.”

  “And did you spy on the queen?”

  “Not well enough. No, Master Preston, I was being flippant. I could not have spied on her if I wanted to, for she did not trust me. I managed her household affairs, kept her seal, screened her incoming and outgoing correspondence with her knowledge. It was at the king's request, and my husband's. She resented it.” Eleanor shook her head. “It doesn't look very good, does it, Master Preston? A thief, a spy, and a whore. And yet when I was young I used to be regarded as quite priggish.”

  “I know you are none of those things, Lady Despenser.”

  He sounded a bit dubious, Eleanor thought. And she hadn't even told

  him about her uncle. That was probably a matter best kept to herself,

  she reflected.

  By July 1331, all of the testimony had been taken down and copied, and Master Preston brought his copy to Caerphilly Castle for Eleanor and William to read. As he spread the parchments out over the table in William and Eleanor's chamber, Eleanor was once again glad that her oldest children were not living with her. Edward was still with Hugh at Bristol, Gilbert was learning knightly skills in the young Earl of Warwick's household, and Isabel was in one of the Arundel manors. After Richard Fitz Alan had received his estates back— it was thought that he would soon have his father's earldom too—Eleanor's attorney had written to him, demanding that Isabel and Edmund be supported in a style befitting their estate. Richard had grudgingly agreed, and now Isabel had a great household of her own. She saw her husband only intermittently. Eleanor missed having all of them at home, but at least there was no chance of them wandering in as Master Preston, translating from the Latin, read the examiner's summation of the testimony to her.

  He started with the testimony of John's young squire, Henry. The brat, having been ordered out of John's chamber very peremptorily by his lord the night he brought Eleanor into it, had spent the night dozing in the great hall, where he had gossiped with several of his fellow squires about his lord's probable doings. The next morning, having received an urgent letter for his master, which he later learned was a command to join the king immediately, he had searched for him and had seen him enter a storage area with the lady of the castle. Guessing what his master was up to, and worrying that he might take an interruption ill, but not wanting to delay overmuch in getting his message to him, he had peeked through the door and had seen his master kissing and talking to Lady Despenser. He had heard Sir John ask Eleanor if she would marry him, and sundry other questions, and had heard Eleanor mumble “yes” repeatedly. All the while, Sir John had been fumbling with his drawers and with Eleanor's skirts, and he and she had lain down on some sacks of grain and known each other carnally. (The least the churl could have done, Eleanor thought sourly, was to have left the sacks out of it.) Henry had then hurried away, so as to make a show of coming back calling his master's name. Sir John, looking rather rumpled, had emerged from the building alone, but Henry had seen Eleanor exit later, wrapped in a cloak and with her hair much awry.

  Both Henry and Fulk, Sir John's second squire, had witnessed Sir John say good-bye to Lady Despenser before he hastened off to join the king. Sir John had not taken leave of the lady with a great show of affection, probably out of consideration for her privacy in front of her household standing nearby, but he had kissed Eleanor on the cheek in a chivalrous manner and told her that he would be back straightaway. Fulk had heard him whisper, “My sweet wife,” to Eleanor as he mounted his horse. Lady Despenser had not murmured any similar marital endearments, but had smiled (rather forcedly, probably out of grief from parting from her new husband) and wished him a safe journey.

  What had he whispered? Eleanor thought it had been, “You will soon be my sweet wife.”

  Gladys, Eleanor's chief witness, had found her lady several hours later, lying sobbing on her bed. Lady Despenser had confessed to her that she had wickedly lain with Sir John and that she saw no choice but to marry him if he returned, as he surely would. Nothing Lady Despenser had told Gladys had led her to believe that Eleanor had already agreed to marry Sir John; if she did believe such, she would have never assisted her to marry Lord Zouche, for she was a pious woman, and so was her lady. Why, then, had her lady acted so wantonly? She had been grievously upset at the bad news about her son, and in a fury at her late
husband, who was quite beyond any other type of punishment, had offered Sir John her bed. Yes, her lady did act impulsively and thoughtlessly at times. There was the time she had stolen the crown's jewels…

  The rest of Eleanor's witnesses testified to nothing more than that Lady Despenser had married Lord Zouche on a barge, in a ceremony performed by a priest and witnessed by several bargemen as well as Eleanor's own family. Master Preston, having finished reading the testimony to his clients, was going on happily about the arguments he would be making; clearly, he at least was beginning to enjoy himself. A woman consumed by passion was not a rational creature, certainly not one who could consent to the holy sacrament of marriage. And even if Eleanor had been in her right mind, how could it be proven that she had answered “yes” to John's proposal of marriage, when John's own witness testified that several questions had been asked? And could the simple word “yes,” if it did indeed correspond to the marriage proposal, be taken as a sufficient consent to marriage? And could the squires be credible as witnesses, being dependent on Sir John for their livelihood and for their advancement? And could—

  “Master Preston. What if the official simply decides to believe Sir John over me because he is a man and I a woman? Because I was Hugh le Despenser's wife and his bishop despised Hugh? He can couch his decision in any lawyer's jargon he wishes, but what if that is what he does?”

  Master Preston suddenly wondered whether it was too late to enter his brother-in-law's corn business.

  Soon afterward, Master Preston went to argue the case of Grey v. Zouche before the official at Worcester. A week after that, Eleanor, William, and John gathered at Worcester Cathedral to hear his decision.

  “In Dei nominee amen. Auditis et intellectis meritis cause matrimonialis,” said the official sonorously. His face was unreadable. Master Preston had warned them that he would give no basis for his decision, but simply announce it after first going through a stream of form verbiage to get there. Eleanor closed her eyes as more Latin followed. “This court passes sentence in favor of Sir John de Grey.”