The Great Revolt

by Paul Doherty

  Athelstan stared around. The Tower was a narrow, strait place of winding gulleys, steep cobbled lanes, needle-thin as any coffin path: these wound up past the brooding bulwarks, soaring towers and fortifications so powerful in appearance that many thought the Tower had been built by giants. Every approach and twisted passageway was under the careful watch of bowmen whose arrows could turn such runnels into a place of bloody slaughter. Nettles led them deeper into the Tower precincts, strangely silent except for the pigs penned in their sties, from which they would be dragged out to have their throats slit. At last the maze of pathways debouched on to the cobbled bailey around the soaring white-painted keep.

  Athelstan stared up at the great four-square tower built in grey Kentish ragstone and painted white to shimmer in the sunlight. Across from this stood the gloomy Tower chapel of St Peter in Chains and the black and white timbered houses of the officials who lived and worked in the Tower. A number of people – soldiers, servants and scullions – milled about. Somewhere children played, their screams carrying on the breeze to mingle with those of the hogs being slaughtered in the killing pens. Dogs barked, animals in the menagerie answered. Majestic, sombre ravens, the so-called ‘Guardians of the Tower’, floated serenely around, glossy black wings flapping, eyes and beaks sharp for any morsel.

  A captain of hobelars in a chainmail hauberk came clattering down the outside steps of the White Tower. Nettles introduced Cranston and his two companions. The bewhiskered soldier gestured around.

  ‘Don’t you find it strange?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Athelstan answered quickly. ‘The Tower seems well garrisoned, but apart from the guards outside, people seem to be drifting aimlessly as if they know something is wrong but are not too certain.’

  ‘The King has left,’ Nettles declared. ‘He and some of his councillors have ridden to Mile End to meet the rebels. He has insisted that they gather there in ranks under their banners.’

  ‘So who is here?’ Ferrour demanded.

  The captain of hobelars stared at Ferrour. ‘Who are you? Do I know you? I am sure I do.’

  ‘John Ferrour.’

  ‘Who is here?’ Cranston repeated the question.

  ‘Archbishop Sudbury,’ the captain of hobelars replied, ‘tax assessor Legge and Hailes, Prior of the Hospitallers and Treasurer.’

  Athelstan closed his eyes and repressed a shiver. The three men just named were responsible for the hated poll tax levied on every individual in the kingdom. All three were condemned and, in the words of the Upright Men, ‘adjudged traitors to the True Commons and so worthy of death’.

  ‘You cannot go up,’ the captain of hobelars added wearily, gesturing at the outside steps to the White Tower. ‘Archbishop Sudbury is conducting what he calls, “the vespers of death”. He firmly believes, and the others with him, that they are going to die this day. He has issued strict instructions that no one else is to be admitted to the Chapel of St John. The archbishop will wait there for whatever God decides.’

  ‘Could the White Tower be defended?’ Cranston demanded.

  The captain of hobelars just shook his head. ‘Archbishop Sudbury has ordered us not to resist; there must be no bloodshed, particularly in the chapel.’

  ‘All we can do is wait,’ Ferrour explained. ‘Wait and wonder, and that is what I shall do.’ He bowed and walked off towards the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Nettles and the captain of hobelars drew away. Cranston plucked at Athelstan’s sleeve.

  ‘I promised you we could meet someone who was once involved in the business you are investigating at Blackfriars. There is time enough. Come, Brother.’

  Intrigued, Athelstan followed the coroner across the great bailey. Cranston stopped by the women busy at the washtubs. He bent down and talked to them while Athelstan gazed around. The Tower was an eerie place, a fortress and a prison yet home to many royal officials. A haunt of ghosts crammed with memories of the past, a place which had figured prominently in the vicious power struggles which had raged in both London and Westminster. ‘As it does now,’ Athelstan whispered to himself. Cranston returned and led Athelstan across to the white-plastered guest hall with chambers on all three galleries above it. They climbed the stairs to the first and Cranston knocked on a door displaying a red heart pierced with a sword.

  ‘Come in.’ The woman’s voice was strong and carrying. Cranston lifted the latch and they entered a spacious, comfortable chamber. The whitewashed walls were covered with heraldic, gaily coloured cloths as well as a Greek icon displaying the face of the crucified Christ. Soft cord matting covered the scrubbed floorboards, the furniture elegantly carved and polished to shimmering in the light pouring through the mullion glass window overlooking the square of garden beneath. An old woman, garbed in blue and white like a nun, sat in a comfortable cushioned chair next to a narrow four poster bed, its murrey-coloured, gold-tasselled drapes pulled close.

  ‘Mistress Marissa Langen?’ Cranston asked.

  The old woman’s lined face was redeemed by eyes bright and sharp as a spring sparrow. She nodded, pointing a bony finger at the coroner. ‘You are Jack Cranston.’ She smiled, and her thin face, framed by a starched, white wimple, seemed to grow younger. ‘I remember dancing with you!’ She cackled. ‘Thirty years ago. The May Day celebrations, a lovely summer’s evening, eh? I never forget a face or certain parts of a man’s anatomy.’

  Despite the circumstances, Athelstan grinned while Cranston noticeably coloured, coughing and stamping his booted feet in embarrassment.

  ‘Oh yes, Jack Cranston. I have heard of your achievements in both the battlefield and bedchamber. And this must be your secretarius, Brother Athelstan?’ She poked the air with her fingers. ‘I also know what is going on at Blackfriars. Oh yes, the clerks who moved the manuscripts there chatter and gossip, like the noddle-pates they are. No one asks me.’ She sniffed primly. ‘But I can talk, eh Jack?’

  ‘And that, mistress, is why we’ve come. Now …’ Cranston pulled up a stool, indicating that Athelstan should do the same, so they sat like errant schoolboys before this sharp-eyed, keen-witted old woman.

  ‘What is it you—’ She broke off at a swelling roar which carried across the grounds of the Tower. ‘The wolves gather,’ she murmured. ‘They will do no harm to an old woman, former handmaid to a queen, living out her days here as a pensioner.’

  ‘They will not hurt you,’ Athelstan soothed.

  ‘No, they won’t,’ she retorted. ‘The wolves hunt other prey: those three unfortunates Sudbury, Legge and Hailes. I have heard the chatter. They brought in the poll tax and they will now pay for it with their heads.’ She crossed herself swiftly. ‘I have seen all three on their knees in the Chapel of St John; only God can save them. So,’ her fingers fluttered, ‘Jack Cranston and his keen-eyed little companion. Why are you here? Queen Isabella?’

  ‘Queen Isabella,’ Cranston agreed. The old lady rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.

  ‘Now you must remember I was not with her during the hurling days. I have no knowledge of the power of Mortimer, though I think he was a constant memory for my mistress the Queen Mother.’ She sat back in her chair, gesturing at Athelstan to pass the pewter cup from a side table. He did so and she sipped, then studied both of them over the rim of the goblet. ‘I entered Queen Isabella’s service in the spring of 1353, the twenty-sixth year of her son’s reign. Isabella, Her Grace,’ she added briskly, ‘had been closely protected by her son after Mortimer’s fall and there,’ she smiled faintly, ‘is the root and the rub of this matter. Brother, Mortimer was hanged naked on the elms at Tyburn, his corpse left dangling for two days and nights. Rumour had it that Isabella was pregnant at the time with Mortimer’s child.’

  ‘I heard something similar,’ Cranston grunted.

  ‘Anyway, true or not, they say Isabella’s wits were turned, her mind became unstable. So, for the first two years after Mortimer’s death she was confined to Windsor Castle.’ Marissa blew her cheeks out. ‘She recovered and moved into
the eastern shires, staying at Hertford for a while, but, for most of the time, at Castle Rising in Norfolk. You know it, Jack, I’m sure. A great towering donjon surrounded by half-timbered dwellings and protected by rough-hewn, powerful walls pierced by only one entrance.’ She repressed a shiver. ‘A gloomy, murky place, especially when the sea fogs roll in to cloud the eye and muffle all sound. A pagan place with its morasses and marshes. At night strange sounds can be heard drifting in from the wasteland. It was—’

  ‘Can you tell me about her husband’s heart?’ Cranston interrupted, growing more and more distracted by the growing clamour from outside.

  ‘Oh, that. She carried it as a priest would a pyx containing the sacred host. A small, silver-bejewelled vase covered with a pure silk cloth sewn with gold. Where she went, her chaplain and physician, Master Laurence, followed carrying the heart.’ Marissa looked pityingly at Athelstan. ‘And so it was until about five months before her death in August 1358. She was poisoned.’ Marissa paused. ‘I am sure she was poisoned, and her mind began to drift again.’

  ‘But surely that was old age?’

  ‘No, no, listen, Brother. In the late winter of 1358, after the Feast of the Annunciation, my mistress Isabella was visited at Castle Rising by a mysterious group of men; cloaked, cowled, hooded and visored. The constable of the castle said they rode like wraiths out of the mist demanding an immediate audience with the Queen Mother. The constable challenged them, asking their names.’ Marissa held up a spotty, vein-streaked hand. ‘I remember this most clearly; their leader replied, “Sancto Alberto di Butrio”. That’s what the constable told us later, that’s all that was said.’

  ‘You are certain?’ Athelstan insisted.

  ‘I remember that evening very distinctly. Isabella was sitting in her chair before the hearth in the royal solar. I was with her when the constable reported what had happened.’

  ‘And what did the Queen Mother do?’

  ‘Brother Athelstan, I assure you, I have never seen her so startled, so frightened. She screamed at us to go, we were to leave immediately. Everyone, ladies in waiting, servants, guards. We hastened out and the four strangers were admitted.’

  ‘You saw no faces?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Just four black shapes like ghosts from the gloaming coming up those steps, boots scraping the stone, the clink of weapons beneath their cloaks. There was something frightening about them. One of them spoke; his riding boots were wet and he slipped on a step. He cursed and I am sure the tongue was Italian, a few words of abuse. But then we were ushered down and they swept in.’

  ‘How long did they stay?’

  ‘All night, apparently, closeted in that solar. The constable became so concerned he went back to the solar but the door was locked and bolted on the inside. He knocked. Isabella came to the grille in the door and pulled it open. The constable said her face was like that of a ghost, waxen-white and drawn, eyes much enlarged. She whispered hoarsely that under pain of death she must not be disturbed any further.’ Marissa sucked from the goblet, silently toasting Cranston as he took generous mouthfuls from the miraculous wineskin before passing it to Athelstan to do likewise.

  ‘The mysterious visitors,’ Marissa continued, ‘left just before dawn. They came out of the castle bailey. Naturally, the grooms and ostlers had inspected the horses and harnesses but these could yield nothing about the identity of their riders. They left immediately, riding into the mist and disappearing into the desolate wasteland around Castle Rising. After they had gone Isabella became deeply disturbed, even fey-witted. She never uttered a further word about her midnight visitors, nor would she allow us even to refer to it.’

  ‘Did Isabella understand Italian?’

  ‘A little,’ Marissa shrugged, ‘but, there again, they would probably speak the language of the court, Norman French.’

  ‘Could one of those visitors have been her husband,’ Athelstan asked, ‘allegedly slain at Berkeley, though some say he escaped?’

  ‘True.’ Marissa nodded in agreement. ‘I heard the rumours. Anyone close to the Queen Mother did, but none dared voice it. The “Days of Mortimer”, as they were called, were forbidden fruit. We knew they were there but not for discussion.’ She sipped from the goblet. ‘Afterwards, the Queen Mother’s mood slipped deeper into darkness. Within two months of those visitors leaving she began to feel unwell.’ She tapped the arm of her chair. ‘I remember there was wine in the solar. Isabella liked that. Most of it was drunk that night. I sometimes suspect her midnight guests secretly distilled some noxious potion which began a growing rot within her; she sickened and died in the August of that year.’

  ‘And those midnight visitors, was anything ever discovered?’

  ‘Brother, I assure you nothing—’

  She paused as the door was flung open and Nettles burst into the chamber.

  ‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan,’ he gasped, ‘you are needed now in the Chapel of St John.’

  Cranston and Athelstan hastily made their excuses to the old lady and hurried out into the bright sunlight. Despite the warmth, Athelstan felt a chill as a roar of angry voices echoed across the bailey. They hastened up the steps and into the chapel of St John the Evangelist, built so its apse projected out of the south-east corner of the White Tower. The chapel was oval in shape. Along either side of it ranged six drum-like pillars ornamented at top and bottom with acanthus leaves. Each pillar, representing one of the apostles, was lavishly painted with scenes from that particular saint’s life. Behind each set of pillars was a narrow gallery separating them from the outside wall, which was pierced with windows through which the sunlight poured. The chapel was dominated by a finely decorated rood screen depicting a crucified Christ flanked either side by life-size statues of the Virgin and St John painted in the glorious, eye-catching colours of England’s royal house, the Plantagenets: gold, red, blue and silver.

  On that particular day the hallowed beauty of the royal chapel had been shattered by those taking refuge there. A gaggle of frightened women, cloaks wrapped around them, surrounded Joan the Queen Mother who, her lovely face ravaged by both time and excess, sat in the throne-like sanctuary chair. Others lurked deeper in the dappled shadows. Athelstan saw Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, waxen-faced, white-haired and sharp-featured, garbed in a stained sulpice. John Legge, the chief tax assessor, knelt before Sudbury, hands clasped. Beside him crouched Robert Hailes, Prior of the Hospitallers and Treasurer of England. All three men were deep in prayer, and, from the still burning candles and the sacred vessels strewn across the altar, Athelstan realised mass must have just finished. Sudbury and his companions were now quietly reciting the litany of the saints.

  Others too sheltered behind the altar. Henry of Derby, Gaunt’s elder son, who, at Cranston’s insistence, had been left in London with others of the self-proclaimed regent’s household. Henry of Derby, with his close-cropped black hair and solemn face, looked the only one ready to confront the boiling rage of the gathering rebels. The Queen Mother, lost in her own hysterics, glimpsed Cranston and stretched out her hands in supplication, her sobs almost drowning Sudbury and the others now chanting the ‘Placebo’ and ‘Dirige’ psalms, the conventional prayers for those about to die.

  Athelstan and Cranston both sensed a deep spiritual gloom pervading that small jewel of a chapel. There was a growing disorder which could easily tip into chaos. The coroner drew his sword and beat the blade against a pillar. All noise ceased, everyone’s eyes on the coroner.

  ‘We must flee this place,’ Cranston declared. ‘Now, it’s only a matter of time …’ He paused as Ferrour, cloak thrown back, clattered into the chapel. ‘You, sir,’ Cranston pointed at the new arrival, ‘will help us. Now,’ the coroner bowed towards the Queen Mother, ‘Madam, this clatter and chatter must cease. Master Nettles, collect as many Tower archers as you can and accompany us.’ Cranston beat his sword against the pillar. ‘Now, now, now!’ he shouted. Immediately the people in the chapel hurried to obey, dividing into t
wo groups. The Queen Mother and her ladies-in-waiting assembled under Cranston’s direct protection and that of his archers. Athelstan summoned the rest to gather around him.

  ‘The water-gate,’ Cranston ordered, ‘swiftly, now. You must only carry what you need.’ He gestured at the sobbing Queen Mother and her distressed ladies in waiting. ‘I beg you to be calm. Brother, we must go.’

  Athelstan grasped Sudbury’s cold, vein-streaked hand and gently tugged. ‘My Lord Archbishop, please?’ He turned to the others, Legge, Hailes and a Franciscan friar, who were all beside themselves with fear, their eyes bloodshot, faces unshaven, robes and tunics grubby with food and wine stains. Athelstan tried to ignore the stench of sweat, urine and vomit. The chapel now reeked like the taproom of some shabby alehouse, the tightening grip of fear dulling the wits of these hunted men.

  At last everyone was ready. They left the chapel and hurried down the steps along Red Gulley to the cavernous water-gate where a group of Tower archers had prepared two great war barges. The river water in the moat was swollen, heavy and sluggish, while the stench was offensive. Black shiny shapes scurried across the pillars either side of the gates, river rats disturbed in their plunder of the refuse the river swept in. The other side of the moat was deserted. Athelstan wondered if the stench had driven the mob away. The roar of the rebel army now gathering before the Lion Gate and other entrances rolled like thunder on a summer’s day. Athelstan sensed something was wrong. Why was the other side of the moat facing the water-gate unguarded? True, the moat reeked like a sewer, but something else must have drawn watchers and spies away.