The Fair Maid of Kent

by Caroline Newark

  The queen’s relevailles took place in her grand apartments at the royal palace at Windsor on a miserably wet mid-summer’s day. As if in defiance of the rain, every single person present looked magnificent. The ladies of the queen’s chamber who circled the great state bed fluttered in their new silk gowns, swaying gently like a field of bright summer flowers, while the men of the household, from the chancellor down to the most menial page, had brand new clothes. Nothing was refurbished or altered to fit, there were no added trimmings to make an old tunic look fresh, everything had been newly stitched from the very latest and richest Flemish cloth.

  The queen was dwarfed by the magnificence of her glittering red and purple robes and by the extravagant silks and velvets of the sumptuous royal bed, but her smile was radiant. The baby was another healthy boy and perhaps for the first time in my life I envied her. She wasn’t beautiful and her figure after yet another confinement looked more like an overcooked apple dumpling than ever, but everybody said how much my cousin loved her.

  I was certain he never gave a thought to women like me, the ones he had selected for their beauty and charm, the ones who had surrendered willingly to his advances, who had given up their virtue, their good names and the respect of their husbands to share a king’s bed. The only thing of importance to him were the four beautiful daughters and five strong sons given to him by his wife.

  I was there at the queen’s request. The invitation, requiring Sir William Montagu to bring the Lady Joan, the king’s kinswoman, to Windsor, may have been meant as a kindness but I was the one who had to suffer an angry and reluctant husband escorting me up the hill to the palace walls. He had wanted to leave me behind at Bisham in the seclusion of my chamber where I’d spent the past six months, seeing no-one and with no idea what was happening in Avignon or anywhere else, but he was caught by a royal command.

  ‘If Holand is there you are not to go near him. You will not look at him, you will not talk to him, you will have nothing to do with him. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, William,’ I said wearily, wondering if the pleasure of seeing other people was worth this incessant hectoring in my ear.

  ‘I have appointed these women to be with you at all times.’ He indicated two great harpies whose bulging arms must surely be evidence of a lengthy apprenticeship pounding clothes in the Bisham laundry. ‘They will keep you company and ensure your good behaviour. Don’t think you can outwit them because I have instructed them carefully. They have been warned of your deceitful nature and know exactly what to do if you misbehave.’

  I didn’t enjoy the day’s entertainments. I was unable to have any proper conversations and quickly became weary of other women giggling and whispering behind their hands as they gazed at my gaolers who were constantly at my back or blocking my way, sometimes linking their arms with mine and even accompanying me to the latrines. Eventually, tired of unwelcome stares and spiteful comments, I retired back to our room, preferring my own company or the even more disagreeable prospect of seeing William.

  The pale grey light was fading and the candles had been lit early when one of the queen’s pages arrived at the door asking politely if I would please accompany him. He gave no reason and I didn’t ask, simply glad for the opportunity to shake off my warders.

  He led me to the royal apartments, through one gorgeous room into the next, until we finally arrived at the door to the queen’s private rooms. At this point he turned to my two determined companions.

  ‘You cannot come in,’ he said firmly. ‘Only Lady Montagu.’

  They exchanged a frightened look and stepped back, totally in awe of their surroundings, knowing they mustn’t incur the queen’s displeasure.

  I crossed the threshold into rooms which at one time in my youth would have been familiar. Two maids were seated at one end of the room industriously mending, catching the remaining light from the narrow west window while another was attending to the queen’s hands, removing her heavy rings and placing them carefully in a silver coffer.

  When the queen saw me she waved the woman away and told me to sit. I curtsied carefully and lowered myself onto the little velvet-covered stool at her feet. By the light of the candles she no longer looked radiant, merely tired and pale. She was very plain, her skin spotted with freckles with lines around her mouth, and once again I wondered why my cousin, who could surely have picked any woman, had chosen her. It wasn’t as if Hainault was a powerful country with great wealth, it was like Flanders, just another cloth-weaver’s county. She would have brought him nothing.

  ‘Lady Montagu. What a trouble you are.’

  My eyes filled with unexpected tears. ‘Oh Your Grace, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ she said briskly. ‘You’re not in the least bit sorry unless you mistake feeling sorry for yourself with the remorse you ought to be experiencing. You are nothing but a silly vain young woman who thinks only of her own pleasure.’

  This was dreadful. I’d known for years she didn’t really like me, ever since she’d sent me away from Woodstock, but I had no idea what I’d done to deserve this attack. I bent my head and tried to look meek.

  ‘I’ve known you since you were a child and I used to have pity for you. It’s a curse to be as beautiful as you are, Lady Montagu. I watched you grow and saw how men gazed on your beauty and lusted after you the way they would lust after a rare and precious jewel. In your presence they could think of nothing other than their desire to possess you. It was like a sickness and it affected all of them. Even the king.’

  My eyes widened in horror. She knew!

  A slow cat-like smile spread across her flat features and I realised she was amusing herself at my discomfort.

  ‘He tells me everything, Lady Montagu,’ she said calmly. ‘Everything. A loving wife always knows when her husband has strayed and she forgives him when he confesses. For years I watched him struggle against his feelings for you. It was obvious to me how much he desired you. I sent you away hoping he would no longer be tempted but in the end he was not strong enough and you were just a silly little girl who mistook a man’s lust for something else.’

  I swallowed the shame and the horror of her knowing, wondering how much he had told her but quickly realised it didn’t matter how much; it was the betrayal of telling her at all. It cheapened what I thought we had had together and for the first time in my life I truly felt like a whore. I thought he had loved me and yet the moment he had left my bed he had gone running to her and told her what he had done.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I wept.

  ‘You didn’t,’ she said coldly. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Lady Montagu. You meant less than nothing to him. Once he’d taken you, it was finished. You were like some insignificant town he’d besieged. Once the gates were forced and the houses stripped of their wealth, he lost interest. I imagine you thought you were the only one, but you weren’t; there were others. For a man like him, a great king, there will always be others, women who think themselves irresistible. And I imagine you thought you were somehow special, a true and passionate love, but you weren’t that either. You should know by now how men whisper lies in the pursuit of a woman. You mattered not one jot to him. No woman matters to him but me. I am the only one who can hold him because I am the only one he respects, the only one he truly loves. You are not important and you never were.’

  I sat in tears, wishing I was back at Bisham and thinking I could never face my cousin again. How could he have told her what we’d done together?

  After a while, when I stopped sobbing and started dabbing my eyes, the queen continued as if I were nothing but the stupid little girl she said I was.

  ‘Stop weeping, Lady Montagu. You must learn not to cry over men. It is very irritating and not at all helpful and I didn’t bring you here to discuss your girlish infatuation with my husband. Now, this affair concerning Sir Thomas Holand.’ />
  ‘Oh!’ I put my hand across my mouth. ‘I didn’t know you knew.’

  ‘You foolish woman! Of course I know. Did you imagine a scandal like this can remain a secret? I should imagine half the court knows and is laughing at you behind their hands. Not only have you shamed your husband and caused him great distress, you have near bankrupted him. He has had to ask the king for help. It costs a great deal to involve oneself with the papal court and Sir William does not have the funds. He is still a relatively young man without recourse to his inheritance and you have done him a great disservice with your silliness.’

  She stopped and regarded me severely.

  ‘I have been approached by the Bishop of Norwich, Bishop Bateman, who is in a quandary. It seems the papal tribunal will not accept the attorney duly appointed by your husband on your behalf. They say the attorney must be answerable only to you. I gather Sir William has declined to allow anyone access to your person, keeping you in seclusion, a matter for which, I may say, you have only yourself to blame. I do not propose to ask if there is any truth in this ludicrous story, that is not what concerns me. However, I would not see a woman deprived of justice and since we all desire a speedy resolution of this regrettable affair, I have asked Bishop Bateman to find a suitable attorney to advise you.’

  She beckoned to one of her maids. ‘Take Lady Montagu to the green chamber.’

  I tried to tell her of my gratitude but she waved me aside.

  ‘Go away, Lady Montagu. I’m tired of you. You have been nothing but a disappointment to me and I don’t want to see you again.’

  It was humbling to be spoken to like this by a woman who had once been almost a mother to me but all I could do was creep away with my head bent, wishing I had never come to Windsor.

  I followed the queen’s maid through a door into a little ante-room and then into another room where the walls were hung with a rich green cloth. A group of men looked up as I came in and from their faces I could tell this was not a place for idle conversations, this was a room for serious business.

  I had never met Bishop Bateman before but William’s father once told me he spent much of his time in Avignon on the English king’s business and was held in the highest esteem by both my cousin and the Holy Father. He was tall and austere and looked much too clever to bother with a young woman too stupid to realise that her royal lover would be bound to tell his wife of his affairs, a young woman who was in so much trouble that even the Queen of England didn’t want to see her face.

  ‘Reverend Father,’ I murmured miserably as I knelt to kiss his ring.

  ‘Lady Montagu.’ He bowed his head and indicated that I should sit.

  He regarded me out of a pair of heavy-lidded eyes and his voice when he spoke was deep and sonorous.

  ‘The Holy Father was graciously pleased to receive the petition from Sir Thomas Holand although somewhat surprised, as was I. We do not expect to see cases like this at the Curia.’

  He gave a slight cough and looked down his long nose as if both his and the Holy Father’s surprise was entirely my fault.

  ‘It has long been understood, Lady Montagu, that the question of the abduction of a wife or the validity of a marriage should be dealt with in the ecclesiastical courts, here in England. That is how it has always been. However, understanding Sir Thomas’s difficulties, His Holiness has graciously agreed to appoint Cardinal Adhémar Robert to preside over a tribunal which will investigate this most unfortunate of matters.’

  He drew forward another man, a black-robed middle-aged man with a round face and sharp brown eyes who had an ill-clad youth holding a bag of parchment and quills hovering at his shoulder.

  ‘This is Master Nicholas Heath. He will act as your attorney. He is well-versed in canon law and known to me so you can be assured as to his probity. He has great experience in the law and I am certain he will deal with your somewhat unusual situation speedily and to the tribunal’s satisfaction.’

  The bishop gave a weak smile as if the whole unfortunate matter was extremely distasteful to him. More used to important diplomatic missions, he must regard my marital troubles as grubby and of little importance and he looked extremely relieved to be washing his hands of his responsibility for me. With a brief nod and a curt aside to Master Heath, he disappeared swiftly through a side door accompanied by a swish of his expensive robes and a waft of chill air. His two servants followed hastily after him, leaving me alone with Master Heath and the boy.

  I smiled at my attorney who gave a little bow, creasing the immaculate folds of his gown which flowed around his plump middle. He took the stool on the other side of the table and indicated the pimply youth who was busy laying out parchment and inks.

  ‘My clerk. He will take notes if you have no objection, my lady. My memory is good but the written word never lies.’

  I gave the boy a brief smile and he blushed like a girl right up to the roots of his straw-coloured hair.

  ‘Before we proceed to the matter in hand,’ said Master Heath. ‘Let me first make it clear that I am here to represent you and only you. I do not represent Sir William Montagu nor do I represent Sir Thomas Holand and I do not in any way represent the views of His Grace the king nor of any other person. I am totally your man.’

  What a pretty little speech. I was impressed.

  He steepled his fingers, resting them comfortably against the front of his gown, almost sighing with contentment.

  ‘Let me start at the beginning, Lady Montagu. A tribunal under the auspices of Cardinal Adhémar Robert has been charged by the Holy Father to enquire into the circumstances of your marriage.’ He smiled a thin-lipped smile. ‘Your first marriage.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Sir Thomas Holand asserts that you are his wife and he wishes you to be returned to him.’

  ‘But I am married to Sir William Montagu. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘My lady, it is not a question of what everybody knows, but of what the tribunal knows.’

  ‘How will they know?’

  He smiled at my ignorance.

  ‘They will ask questions. They will listen carefully to the arguments we attorneys put forward and they will consider the testimony of the principals in the case and the testimony of any witnesses. When the tribunal has heard all the evidence set before it, there will be deliberation. The auditor and the notaries will review the evidence and consult their books on canon law and the cardinal and the auditor will discuss the more difficult points. Doubtless they will pray for guidance and then the court will deliver its considered judgement to the Holy Father.’

  I thought it very peculiar to think of all these men deliberating and praying about my marriage to Thomas.

  ‘And now, if you are ready, shall I begin?’

  I nodded my head in acquiescence. This could not be difficult. Surely it was very simple.

  ‘As you know the case before the tribunal concerns your alleged marriage with Sir Thomas Holand.’

  He had a persuasive manner of speaking which spread like ripples on a millpond until all I was aware of was the rise and fall and the rhythm of his voice.

  ‘Before we discuss the facts of your marriages, my lady, you need to understand how much the Church frowns upon private marriages, those without the blessing of a priest. In the eyes of the Church such a marriage – a marriage which is not in facie ecclesiae – is illicit and the parties involved may be excommunicated.’

  I gave a little gasp and put my hand to my mouth.

  ‘I didn’t know that, Master Heath.’

  He smiled gently, the way one would when instructing a small child in his catechism.

  ‘There are two elements to any marriage: the consensual agreement between a man and a woman that they are man and wife, per verba praesenti, at this present moment, and the physical consummation of that agreement. If the seco
nd element is absent we have a cause for annulment of the marriage. If the parties do not have the comfort of their physical union, there can be no marriage in the eyes of God.’

  He reminded me of Bishop Simon the way he droned on about the comforts of physical union as if marriage was nothing but the joys of a goose-feather bed.

  ‘However, if the parties agree that they will become man and wife at some time in the future we have a spousal per verba de futuro, akin to a betrothal, and there would be no physical consummation at that time, but the parties would be bound to each other and could not marry elsewhere. When physical consummation takes place, the spousal is transformed into a de praesenti agreement.’

  It was very muddling.

  ‘What if there were no words or the words were wrong? What if there was no consen… consensual agreement?’

  He smiled sadly. ‘Then it is fornication, my lady. A sin in the eyes of the Church.’

  What had Thomas and I done? I was in dread I would be branded a fornicator and be excommunicated and yet we had made an agreement and we had most definitely consummated the agreement. So why would anyone, like my mother, think we weren’t married?

  He was very thorough. He first asked me about my family and if I knew the day and year of my birth and he asked about my time in the royal nursery with the queen’s children and at Bisham with Lady Catherine. He led me through my meetings with Thomas and the words we had said to each other. He pressed me on several points. Was I frightened of Sir Thomas? Had he used violence against me at any time? Did I understand fully what marriage was?

  ‘Who raised the question of marriage between you?’

  Even now after everything that had happened I could still remember the day at the béguinage, the softness of the air and the warmth of his words in the orchard: “You could marry me”.