The Fair Maid of Kent

by Caroline Newark

  ‘According to Sir Thomas Holand you know him very well.’

  Deny! Don’t admit more than you have to.

  ‘William, I’ve known Sir Thomas Holand for years.’

  ‘How many years?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I don’t keep a tally of your men. I think I recall him being your father’s steward and until recently he was yours.’

  His hands trembled as he took the parchment out of my fingers and put it down on the table. He kept glancing at it.

  ‘It’s not true, is it? Tell me it’s not true. It can’t be.’

  I tried to look puzzled as if I had no idea what he was talking about.

  All of a sudden his fist crashed onto the table with such force that the cup at his elbow rocked and wine slopped over the rim.

  ‘Tell me!’ he shouted. ‘It’s not true, is it?’

  I jumped and took a step backwards almost falling over the hound stretched out on the floor.

  ‘William, what is this? What’s not true? Why are you shouting at me?’

  He pushed himself out of the chair and came round the table. He was very much taller than me and for the second time in our marriage I was truly frightened of what he might do.

  He put his hands on my shoulders, pressing so hard I feared my bones might crack.

  ‘Thomas Holand claims you are his wife.’

  ‘Me?’ I tried to sound horrified. I was so scared of William that my voice dried in my throat and I began to shake.

  ‘He says he married you before I did. He says he lay with you. He says he had you before I did.’ He says…’ His whole body was trembling in fury as his fingers gripped tighter and tighter until I wanted to scream with the pain. ‘Tell me it’s not true.’

  In the forefront of my mind were my mother’s words: it was not a marriage, there was no priest and it was not a marriage. Whatever else it was, it was not a marriage.

  ‘William, this is impossible,’ I pleaded. ‘There was no marriage with Thomas Holand. I am married to you. We’ve been married seven years and we’ve shared a bed for more than five. You are my husband. How could anyone say I was another man’s wife?’

  ‘You swear it?’

  His face was so close to mine I could feel the heat of his breath.

  ‘We took our vows here, at Bisham,’ I stammered. ‘In front of our mothers, in front of the king and the queen; hundreds of people watched us marry. Of course I’m your wife.’

  ‘You swear you didn’t lie with him.’

  ‘William, please. How could I? I came to you as a girl untouched. I was a virgin. You know I was.’

  He paused for a moment and looked straight into my eyes. ‘You were ripe and ready for a man. You oozed juice like a bruised plum. I remember that.’

  Oh Holy Mother of God! And I thought I’d fooled him.

  ‘I was nervous.’

  ‘You were soft and you yielded yourself willingly.’

  Think quickly. What to say?

  ‘You were my husband, William. You had the right to take me. Naturally I was willing.’

  He hesitated, still unsure.

  ‘Was I the first? When I took you, was I the first or had you already permitted some other man to burrow his way into your secret parts?’

  ‘William!’

  ‘Do you swear there was no other before me?’

  I tried a little smile though to be truthful, I was much too scared to think about smiling. ‘Oh William. How could there have been? I was under your lady mother’s protection from the time I was a child. I lived here at Bisham. Your mother kept all the girls in her keeping, well-guarded as you can imagine. We never went out without an escort and at night we slept in a chamber with our governess. And when we went to Antwerp in the queen’s train, it was like living in a nunnery. Ask your sister?’

  ‘You swear there was no marriage. You weren’t his before you were mine, were you?’

  I placed my hands on the front of his tunic and tipped my face upwards.

  ‘I was pure when I came to you that night, as pure as Our Blessed Lady. Ask any of the women. They will remember your mother’s pleasure when she saw our sheets next morning. The signs were unmistakeable. She knew you had done your duty as a husband and I was now your wife. She knew you were the first.’

  He cast his eyes back at the parchment. ‘But what does it mean? Why would Holand do this?’

  ‘I don’t know but it is a disgusting calumny.’

  ‘He has no cause to harm me. What have I ever done to him?’

  William’s brow furrowed as he tried to think of a reason. His mind worked slowly as I had learned over the years, but nonetheless I had to act quickly. I was sure the worst of the danger was past but I had to be certain.

  ‘It is the work of someone who wishes to harm you by slandering the Montagu name,’ I said with certainty. ‘Some enemy of yours who has used Thomas Holand as his cat’s paw.’

  His face lit up.

  ‘That’s it. A slander. Yes. Someone who wishes to harm me.’ He chewed his lip. ‘But who?’

  ‘You are rising high, William. One day you will be a powerful man like your father and everybody knows a man on the rise makes enemies whether he likes it or not. There will be men who covet what you have and think you should be thrown down.’

  ‘That’s true. the king has favoured me on one or two occasions recently. It’s obvious he appreciates me as he did my father.’

  ‘And Edward speaks warmly of you.’

  ‘He does?’

  I smiled as sweetly as I could manage and placed a hand on his sleeve. ‘The last time I met Edward in Calais he sent John Chandos away with the others in order to speak to me of you. He had spent many hours considering you and I think you will soon be the one who rides at his side and receives his favours, not John Chandos.’

  ‘So it could be Chandos who has done this.’

  ‘It could. He is only the son of a gentleman, so a low slander like this would not concern him. He would not consider damaging a man’s honour anything other than a subject for mirth.’

  William scowled.

  ‘And what about your new brother-in-law, Philly’s husband?’

  ‘Young Roger Mortimer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he’s a friend.’

  ‘William, there are no friends when it comes to matters like this. Men cheat and lie their way to the top and a man desperate to succeed tramples on anyone who gets in his way. It’s how men are. You are just too good a friend to see it.’

  He started pacing to and fro, his head down, his face sullen.

  ‘But how could he do this to me? When I have welcomed him into our family. And why Holand? Why this particular slander?’

  ‘The Bible tells us the sins of a father are visited upon a son unto the seventh generation and Mortimer’s grandfather was an evil man. You remember how they say he attacked the king’s father by using the queen as his instrument. Mortimer would think nothing of a deceit like this. He could be rubbing his hands in glee this very moment, thinking of your discomfort.’

  William took my hands and gripped them tightly. ‘I knew it couldn’t be true. I knew all along you were truly mine.’ He stopped. ‘I shall fight this. I shan’t let whoever did this get away with it.’

  He folded me into his arms and held me close but it wasn’t from love, it was an act of possession. I was his and I knew he would never let me go.

  I thought William’s suspicions were put to rest but in the days which followed I realised I was wrong. Each morning as I kneeled on the cushioned velvet of my prie-dieu or walked in the dampness of Lady Catherine’s garden, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise and knew I was being watched. One of my maids fell unexpectedly sick and her replacement, a doe-eyed, mea
ly-mouthed fawner was seen sidling furtively into William’s rooms late one evening. My companions were scandalised, foolishly imagining the girl aimed to replace me in my husband’s bed, but I knew exactly what this Judas was doing and it wasn’t a matter of lust. I was certain William paid her for information.

  When, after a week, William disappeared without telling me where he was going, I knew I was in danger.

  ‘London, my lady,’ said the groom, who was supervising the tidying and cleaning of William’s rooms. ‘To bring back the dowager countess. My, but it’ll be a treat to see the good lady again, God bless her. Must be more than three years.’

  My mother-in-law! At the news, my heart sank. This was a woman who had said I was dead to her. She hated me and whether she thought me guilty or innocent of deceiving the Montagu family she would use this opportunity to take her revenge and I knew she would be merciless.

  As I watched the pale grey dawn lighten the sky each morning I counted the days since William’s departure and like a man awaiting the footsteps of his executioner I found myself ever-vigilant to the slightest sound. A week passed, ten days, two weeks, and with each passing hour I became more and more afraid.

  One day I woke to a thick late-autumn mist hanging sullenly over the river, obscuring everything beyond the outer walls, giving the world a ghostly appearance and thought this must be a harbinger, but still nobody came.

  Then, on a dark morning, well past the Feast of All Souls, when all the world seemed dead, I heard the first sound of an arrival. They came one by one: the soft clip-clop of snowy-white mules drawing an old lady’s litter followed by the noisy exuberance of a young man’s spirited hunter; the heavy rumble of a widow’s magnificent travelling coach, its wheels and axles caked in mud and grime; the steady tramp of an escort which masked the slower pace of a lady’s palfrey, and the clattering hooves as a great man and his retinue swept into the yard.

  I hadn’t been expecting the elegant sounds of Bishop Grandison’s private train but when I heard them I was not surprised. And lastly, my husband, the chief witness and prosecutor, announced by an ecstatic yelping from the Bisham hounds as they streamed down the steps into the inner yard to greet their master.

  Orders had been sent ahead for me to be kept in my room. I was not to act as the lady of the house in welcoming these guests because they were not my guests and to me they were not welcome. They were my interrogators, my peers, the judge and jury who would determine my guilt or my innocence according to their own set of rules and I had no expectation of mercy or understanding from any of them.

  I wore my most sober gown, one of dull grey woollen cloth with a plain white coif, knowing full well that any frivolousness on my part would instantly be seen as proof of guilt. I removed my rings and made sure my shoes were soft-soled in case they remarked on the hesitancy of my coming even though I had no wish to appear anything other than my husband’s devoted wife.

  As I walked into William’s private room with my head held high, the first thing that struck me was the emptiness of the chamber. I had expected a group of local knights from William’s council of advisors or perhaps his chief clerk, but no, this was to be solely a family affair.

  They were seated at the table but there was no chair set for me. I was expected to stand. William sat in his father’s carved chair, flanked by his two uncles, Bishop Grandison and Alice’s husband, and by his younger brother, John, whilst on either side sat Lady Catherine, Elizabeth, and William’s grandmother, the elderly Dowager Lady Montagu.

  I was faced with seven pairs of hostile eyes and not a single smile or greeting.

  ‘Lady,’ began Alice’s husband. ‘You know why you are here and I can tell you this, if you don’t give us the truth you will regret it.’

  ‘Uncle, please.’ William hunched his shoulders like a stork sheltering from the rain, looking for all the world like a man facing his imminent end.

  ‘I want no lies,’ continued Alice’s husband as if William hadn’t spoken. ‘There will be no twisting of the truth. You will answer the questions I put to you and you will answer them truthfully. Is that clear?’

  I looked at William but he had his head bowed and wouldn’t meet my eyes. I turned to his uncle.

  ‘I have nothing to hide, sir. I am a virtuous woman who has done nothing wrong and anyone who says otherwise is lying.’

  He glared at me. ‘I have heard of your so-called virtue and let me tell you this, it does not impress me. You know this man, this Thomas Holand?’

  ‘I do. He was my husband’s steward.’

  ‘And do you deny this marriage which he says took place between the two of you?’

  I chose my words carefully, as I had no wish to imperil my soul further by lying. It was a matter of selecting as much of the truth as could be told.

  ‘There was no marriage between me and Sir Thomas Holand. How could there be? I am married to my husband who sits beside you. There were a hundred or more witnesses to our wedding. It was blessed by your own brother, the Bishop of Ely, may God have mercy on his soul.’

  But William’s uncle was not so easily fooled. He could smell evasion.

  ‘That is not the question. It seems you insinuated yourself into this family by deceit. A girl in her finery with lies on her tongue is not a bride if she has a husband living. Such an occasion may be witnessed by a thousand men and yet be false. The question is: were you a true bride? Did you come to my nephew untouched by any other man?’

  ‘Your brother himself blessed our bedding.’

  ‘And you were a virgin?’

  ‘Sir!’ I wanted to sound as appalled as any woman would whose virtue at such a time was being questioned. I lowered my head as if overcome by shame at discussing an intimate matter. ‘Ask my husband,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He will tell you I was.’

  There was a moment of whispers between William and his mother and his uncle. The others looked on in stony silence.

  ‘I saw the sheets myself,’ admitted Lady Catherine. ‘They were stained but we all know there are ways. She is deceitful. She would have known what to do. My son was raised to be a fine boy and would not have expected trickery. She fooled him.’

  ‘Well, nephew? Did she make a fool of you? Had some churl been making free in the undergrowth before you?’

  William shot me a glance of pure hatred. ‘I thought she was a virgin. She pretended she was. She squealed like a stuck pig but was very willing. Far too willing for a maiden. And she wriggled like a whore.’

  Lady Catherine sat back in her chair. ‘Just as I said; a slut and a whore.’

  She had already decided on my guilt but her brother, the bishop, being a man of learning, was determined to have proof.

  ‘If this so-called marriage happened before they were wed here at Bisham, where could it have occurred? Where was she?’ Bishop Grandison had a silky voice but I wasn’t deceived. He was dangerous. ’Was it possible? She was in your household was she not, sister?’

  ‘She was and she was well-guarded. I had several women watch the girls in my house but for a deceitful, determined girl there are always ways.’

  She turned to her daughter. ‘Elizabeth! She slept with you in the girl’s chamber. You must have known her character well. What do you recall?’

  Elizabeth smiled thinly as she prepared the revenge she had been waiting to inflict on me for years.

  ‘As you said, lady mother, a whore, and one who knew words which would make you blush. I saw her follow men as they carried provisions to the store rooms, giggling at their jokes, and she made free with my father’s squires. Men constantly snapped at her heels and she encouraged them.’

  ‘How so?’ said William’s brother with a hot look in his eye. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘What whores always do. You’re a man, John; you surely know how it’s done. When we were hidden by crow
ds at the tourney, men would sidle up and place their hands on her person. It was disgusting.’

  ‘And did she welcome their attentions?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘She could hardly have married this man and lain with him on the grass at the tourney,’ said William’s brother. ‘That would have been impossible.’

  ‘I didn’t say she married him then and there, John, I meant she was the sort of girl who would have done so if the opportunity had arisen.’

  ‘Was there opportunity?’

  ‘How long does it take to wed and bed?’ said Alice’s husband.

  There was a silence while doubtless the women considered the stitching of gowns and the setting of veils and the men pondered the speed with which they might, if the possibility arose, take a willing bride.

  ‘It can be done in a trice,’ remarked William’s grandmother drily. ‘He would hardly have wanted a display of magnificence. He wasn’t planning to invite the nobility and give an extravagant feast. All he wanted was the girl.’

  ‘But where was it done? Lady, do you have an answer for us?’ said William’s uncle, leaning forward and glaring at me.

  ‘Nothing was done, sir. As I told you before, there was no marriage.’

  ‘Perhaps the girl is telling the truth,’ said the elderly dowager picking her words with the care of a practised interrogator. ‘Perhaps it was not a marriage at all. Perhaps it was a sham. She’s no fool. I recall the eve before the bedding.’ She fixed her eagle eyes on me the way she had that evening. ‘I asked if she was indeed virgo intacto and she reddened like an autumn sunset. She was no maid then, I’d swear to it. I thought it was my grandson’s doing but it seems not. Thus the question you should be asking is, not when did she marry this man but when did she lie with him and why? Was she tricked or was she a slut as my daughter-in-law proposes?’

  ‘And have there been others?’ said Elizabeth. ‘We need to know that.’

  Alice’s husband seized the bone he had been thrown. ‘You were defiled before you came to my nephew? You opened your legs for some other man? Is that true? Perhaps this is not so much a matter of marriage we are discussing but one of fornication.’