by Kate Ellis
She looked down once more at Mires’ body and her eyes were drawn to the outstretched right arm. The hand had been hacked off, leaving only a bloody stump. Walter de Daresbury’s justice had been done.
CHAPTER 23
Sir Thomas’s soldiers had rowed the ferry boat strongly back across the river to the Liverpool strand. Bartholomew lay quiet but conscious, his head in Katheryn’s lap.
Valentine answered Sir Thomas’s questions as honestly as he could, explaining that Lady Katheryn was too shocked after her ordeal to speak of the evening’s events. Katheryn was grateful. She had no wish to speak of it yet. When she was ready, she would answer Sir Thomas plainly, giving him the bare facts to clear up all doubts about the deaths of Agnes and Father Edmund. But for the moment she needed rest and prayer to gather her thoughts.
*
Jane ran to her mistress anxiously as soon as the shop door opened, offering warm refreshment; relieved at her safe return.
“Your cloak, my lady? Where’s your cloak? Come by the fire. You must be frozen.”
Katheryn, who had quite forgotten that she had left her cloak for Bartholomew’s comfort, said nothing.
“And your gown....it is covered in....take it off, my lady. I will soak it.”
“Jane...calm yourself. I will undress when I have had some of Matilda’s excellent broth.” She thought it best not to mention to origin of the dark stains on her dress. The mention of blood would only agitate Jane further. “You will be please to know that we can return to Cheadle tomorrow. My work here is done. You may tell Will to prepare the horses.”
Jane blushed and shuffled her feet. “Will is not here, my lady.”
“Where is he?”
Jane closed her eyes, near to tears. “I cannot say, my lady.”
Katheryn, aware of Jane’s distress, realised that things had been going on in her own household that she had missed, being too preoccupied with other matters. “Come, Jane, you are upset. What has Will been doing? Where is he?” she asked gently.
Jane looked down at her feet. “He is with the baker’s daughter next door. They have been...”
“Oh Jane,” Katheryn touched the girl’s shoulder comfortingly. “I am so sorry. I know your hopes were so high. But if he returns with us tomorrow.... Liverpool and Cheadle are a long way apart.”
Katheryn smiled and Jane, looking up, managed a weak smile of hope. But Katheryn knew she would soon have to endure her own parting. What would bring relief to Jane would bring her mistress much regret. Cheadle and Liverpool were indeed far apart...two days’ ride. She turned as Valentine entered the room and nodded to Jane who scurried off, leaving them alone.
“I leave tomorrow, Valentine. I have done all I can here.”
“I disagree, Katheryn.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have not done all you can. There is something more you can do.”
She was watching him, sensing that he was uneasy about what he had to say. He took her hand in his.
“Until the commissioners came, I was content to live a life of obedience to the rule of St. Benedict...as you were, no doubt, my dear Katheryn.”
She nodded, fearing what was coming, the choice she would have to make.
“I did not live a life of chastity before I entered the cloister. I must confess that to you. I was no libertine, you understand, but a young man encounters temptation in this world. It all finished, of course, when I dedicated my life to the service of God. But since...” He hesitated, trying to find the words. “Since I met you, since I came to know you, Katheryn, I have questioned the vows I made and whether they still bind me...and you.”
“Please, Valentine, say what is in your mind.” She looked at him with affection. He was clearly nervous, expecting rejection.
“Katheryn, I know the King’s new act of the Six Articles says that we are not allowed to marry, but there are many who do...and in such a place as Liverpool nobody would trouble to enforce it. I know the difference in our rank is great. You are a Bulkeley and I...I am a poor man of medicine. But all the knights in Cheshire could not hold you more dear than I do.”
He drew her towards him and held her. She closed her eyes, warm in the heat from the dying embers of the fire and in his comforting arms. She was exhausted by the events of the evening and in no state to make a decision of any importance.
“I am most honoured,” she looked into his anxious brown eyes. “That you should hold me in such esteem, but I am exhausted. Forgive me.” She entwined her fingers in his. For the first time she realised how much pain their separation would bring to her.
“Please, my dear, sleep now. I was thoughtless.”
“You were honest. I shall consider the matter in the morning.”
They kissed, deep and long before she retired to her chamber and stripped off her bloodstained clothes. The white shift beneath her gown was stained brown and Jane, recognising the colour of the stain, gasped in horror. Katheryn told her to calm herself. All was well and she was not hurt. Jane took the clothes away to soak, holding them at arm’s length.
Katheryn washed and fell gratefully into her bed. She slept the deep sleep of one who has completed a task with success. She had fulfilled her obligations to Agnes. As for the other matter, she would make her decision in the morning.
*
Will looked bleary eyed as he saddled the horses. Jane regarded him sheepishly. There was no sign of the giddy hope she had displayed when they had set out for Liverpool: the baker’s daughter had put paid to that.
Katheryn had farewells to make. She took Jane with her, thinking the distraction would be good for the girl, and walked through the morning streets to the church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas to give Father James and Father Nicholas a brief account of the events of the previous night. She then called at Bartholomew’s lodgings and found the ferryman in his bed being cared for by his motherly landlady. He assured her that he was recovering well, hauling himself into a sitting position with a gusto that Katheryn thought was probably unwise. When she told him she was leaving the town, he looked disappointed.
“I know of one who will miss you sorely, my lady.”
She turned away. She did not need another to remind her of her dilemma. She squeezed Bartholomew’s hand in farewell and promised to pray for his speedy recovery.
She set off down the strand with Jane trailing dreamily behind. The waterfront was busy. Cargoes were loaded and unloaded as impudent seagulls helped themselves to the remnants of last night’s catch of fish. Katheryn wondered how long it would be before a fisherman found Walter de Daresbury’s emaciated body. Perhaps he still lived: perhaps he had escaped the river. Part of her hoped he had...although she would not have admitted that to another living soul.
Jane was far behind when they reached the road up to the Old Hall. Katheryn waited patiently for her. There was one more call to make.
Marjory Moore showed Katheryn into the parlour and there was a new humility in her manner. Katheryn wondered how this change would affect her household.
When Katheryn spoke of what had happened, Marjory closed her eyes in relief. “Thank God,” she said. “It is certain this time? He is dead?”
Katheryn nodded and to her surprise the older woman fell to her knees and made the sign of the cross. Her prayer, when it came, was not for the dead man’s soul but one of thanksgiving. Katheryn waited, still, until she had finished. “You are relieved, mistress?”
She turned to Katheryn anxiously. “Is it wicked to rejoice at another’s death?”
Katheryn considered the question. “Mires blighted the lives of everyone he came into contact with, Marjory. If God has chosen to relieve the world of his wickedness, we can only rejoice at His mercy and wisdom.”
Marjory smiled, the first time Katheryn had seen her smile. They parted as friends.
Katheryn and Jane made their way back slowly and turned left at the High Cross into Dale Street.
*
Valentine rode with them to the Townsen
d bridge, saying little.
He halted his horse. This was where they had agreed to part. He paused awkwardly before speaking what was in his mind: the only thought he had kept there since the previous evening. “Katheryn...have you an answer for me? Have you considered...?”
“I have thought of little else.”
“Please, Katheryn. We are well together...will be well together...”
“I know but... When I was nineteen I made vows before God; the same vows as you made. A vow, once made, binds us for life.”
“As will our marriage vows. Will you not stay?”
“I must return. I have promised my brother and he will be concerned for me.”
“Send him a message. Will can take it.”
“And there is another vow I made...to my brother and to God. Master Cromwell granted me a handsome pension and I vowed to use some of it to build a new chancel for my brother’s church in Cheadle. That is a vow I cannot break...do you not agree, Valentine?”
He nodded, acknowledging defeat in this matter if not in the first. “Will you return?”
She turned away from him so that he would not see the tears in her eyes.
“I will pray each day that you will.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it and held it. “Take this.” He put a ring on her finger: a gold ring set with two stones, a blue and a red. She looked down at it and her heart lurched with indecision. “It was my mother’s,” he said. “Please take it and think of me whenever you look at it. Take it.”
It was time. She took the reins and turned her white mare towards the Warrington road. Then she looked back at Valentine. “We will meet again, Valentine. I know it.”
In response to a gentle kick, her mare moved off, leaving Valentine to watch her disappear down the rough pitted track: back to Cheadle...to keep her vow.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The real Lady Katheryn Bulkeley was Abbess of Godstow Abbey near Oxford in the last two years of its existence before it was dissolved in 1539. In 1538 she refused to surrender her abbey to the King’s commissioner, the ruthless Dr. London: her spirited and courageous defence of her abbey and her sisters can be seen in her correspondence with Henry V111’s Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell. She did not suffer too much for her defiance, however, as she was granted a generous pension of fifty pounds a year (in the days when a labourer’s annual wages were a tenth of that sum).
She returned to her home in the village of Cheadle in Cheshire where her brother, John, was rector (her eldest brother, Richard was constable of Beaumaris castle in Anglesey). A local ballad described her then as “A jem of joye, a lamp of godley light”. Her burial place lies in the chancel she had built for her brother’s church. I am sure she would forgive me for using her in this book to right some imaginary wrongs.
I have used the names of families prominent in Liverpool in the sixteenth century, though individual members of those families mentioned in the story are fictitious. The Moores were indeed a family of wealthy burgesses, reputed for their parsimony and business acumen, who provided Liverpool with many a mayor and magistrate at this time in history. The Crosses likewise played a major role in Liverpool’s municipal life. The Stanleys (Earls of Derby) and the Molyneux (later Earls of Sefton) had many interests in Liverpool (the Molyneux were hereditary constables of the castle) and kept large households of retainers there. But, in the manner of sixteenth century nobility, they had estates elsewhere and probably visited the town infrequently.
The famous “ferry across the Mersey” was operated by the monks of Birkenhead until their priory’s closure in 1536. It is feasible that one or more of the monks continued to run it after this date. The remains of Birkenhead Priory can still be visited although part of the site has been destroyed by the building of a dry dock. There is a legend which tells of a tunnel from the priory crypt to the nearby river which collapsed, burying several men alive as they attempted to flee with the priory treasure. The start of a passageway can be seen in the wall of the crypt: it comes to an abrupt end.
Norton Abbey near Liverpool was dissolved in 1536. As described in this book, the King’s commissioners were imprisoned in the tower while the abbot led a large band of locals in an impromptu celebration, which included the roasting of an ox in the abbey grounds. The commissioners somehow sent a message to the High Sheriff, Sir Piers Dutton, who arrived in the small hours of the morning with a group of his tenants. Monks and locals alike made their escape in the darkness by swimming the abbey pools. The abbot, John Birkett and several of his monks were imprisoned in Chester castle but it is likely that they were later released.
In March 1537 the Abbot of Whalley Abbey in Lancashire, was executed with two other monks for his part in the Northern Rising against King Henry V111. John Estgate, a monk of Whalley, was acquitted: I have used him in this story as a representative of all the religious who must have longed to take action to restore their former way of life.
Many dispossessed monks became priests in chantry chapels at this time, taking payment for saying prayers for the souls of the dead. The salary was small but, with the pension given to most former monks, they could eke out a living. The chantries, however, were to meet the same fate as the monasteries: they were dissolved in 1546.
As for Liverpool’s fate...of all the landmarks mentioned in this book, only the church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas (known as the sailors’ church) still stands behind the well-known Liver Building; though it has been much altered and suffered extensive bomb damage during world war two. The ancient pilgrimage chapel of St. Mary del Quay became a school after the dissolution of the chantries and was demolished in 1814. Liverpool castle fell to ruin in the seventeenth century and was finally demolished in 1726. Castle Street, Chapel Street and Dale Street are still there today and other places mentioned in this book are commemorated in street names - Crosshall Street, Oldhall Street, Tower Buildings and the Strand. The present day city would be completely unrecognisable to the Liverpudlians of 1539.
