Praise for The Woman in the Shadows
‘Step into the intimate world of Thomas Cromwell, as seen through the eyes of his wife Elizabeth.’
Anne O’Brien
‘A delicious frisson of danger slithers through every page of the book. Enthralling.’
Karen Maitland
‘A delicate and detailed portrayal, absolutely beautifully done. Captivating.’
Suzannah Dunn
‘Rich, vivid and immersive, an enthralling story of the turbulent Tudor era.’
Nicola Cornick
Praise for The Daughters of Hastings Trilogy
‘Like one of its own rich embroideries, cut from the cloth of history and stitched with strange and passionate lives.’
Emma Darwin on The Handfasted Wife
‘Moving and vastly informative, a real page turner of a historical novel.’
Fay Weldon on The Handfasted Wife
‘Brings the 11th century alive…a wealth of well-researched detail.’
Historical Novel Society on The Swan Daughter
‘A beautifully woven tale of an exiled princess’s quest for happiness.’
Charlotte Betts on The Betrothed Sister
About the author
Carol McGrath taught History and English for many years. She left teaching to work on a MA in Creative Writing from Queens University Belfast, then an MPhil in English at Royal Holloway, London, where she developed her expertise on the Middle Ages. Her debut novel, The Handfasted Wife was published by Accent Press in May 2013. The Swan Daughter and The Betrothed Sister followed in 2014 and 2015.
ALSO BY CAROL MCGRATH
THE DAUGHTERS OF HASTINGS SERIES:
THE HANDFASTED WIFE
THE SWAN DAUGHTER
THE BETROTHED SISTER
COMING SOON
THE SILKEN ROSE TRILOGY
For
Patrick
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOWS
Midsummer’s Eve
21st June 1526
IT IS A GLORIOUS DAY: the sky a spread of blue with the midsummer sun slowly rising towards its zenith. A sudden breeze blows through the boughs of the apple trees, causing leaves to shiver. On the other side of our garden wall, the monks of Austin Friars are at their morning prayers. A bell that peals the hour from St Peter’s Broad Street gives way to chimes from a hundred London churches until, at last, they cease and for a moment there is only the hum of bees in my lavender beds.
From where I’m sitting in a shady arbour stitching a sleeve for Thomas’ shirt I can see him tending his roses. Enjoy this moment, Lizzy, I think to myself, for in a heartbeat it will be gone. Enjoy watching Thomas taking advantage of a rare holiday, his sleeves rolled back, his shirt loose from his breeches, scattered with dirt like a peasant’s smock, sweat pearling on his brow; my husband, Thomas Cromwell, who works so hard because he is determined to one day stand shoulder to shoulder with the greatest nobles in the land, so he says, and so I believe.
As if he senses me observing him, Thomas glances up from his work and pulls a linen cloth from his belt. ‘We’ll watch the guild marches from the river bank this evening, Elizabeth,’ he calls over, wiping his forehead. ‘It’ll be cooler there,’ He leans on his spade and begins to dig again.
‘Will it?’ I say into the air, for he is not listening now.
I doubt it will be cooler by the river today. We’ll be caught up in a press of people merrymaking. I find myself smiling. How our children love puppet shows that appear on the narrow, cramped streets all the way down to the river. Stages are already erected along the Cheape with tableaux from the Old Testament, and an angel and a devil will wander around the audience; the devil scaring the children, who love to be frightened more than they care for the angel’s blessing.
Listen! Hear my girls now. Catch their excitement, their voices escaping from the opened windows above.
‘What can I wear?’ nine-year-old Annie cries.
‘What can I wear?’ echoes young Grace.
A coffer lid slams and their maid scolds, ‘Hush now, children. You will disturb Gregory.’
Gregory is in the library, working at his letters. No sound escapes from that opened casement, though, without doubt, he would prefer to play outdoors on such a pleasant morning.
I draw my needle slowly in and out of the bleached linen cloth. They say Queen Catherine still embroiders shirts for King Henry, to whom she is devoted, though the pomegranate, her symbol and that of fruitfulness, has not helped her to bear fruit other than a daughter and this has brought about her misfortune and sadness. I am so fortunate to be blessed with my husband and children.
Later, we shall wend our way down to the ancient waterway that rolls through our city, watching our lives unfold, reminding us how life has its ebbs and flows, its truths and untruths, its sorrows and joys - and, yes, I too have known both great joy and profound sorrow, as I shall relate.
Part One
Wood Street
The Rose, it is a royal flower
The red or white, Shew his colour.
Both sweet and of like savour
All one they be
That day to see
It liketh well me.
Roses , a song for three voices
The Oxford Book of Medieval Verse
Chapter One
1513 Wood Street
BRANCHES OF ROSEMARY SLID from Tom Williams’ funeral bier, scattering around the mourners’ feet to be trampled into the tiles of the church nave, releasing the scent of remembrance. For a moment, it seemed as if the bier threatened to slope backwards. I let out a gasp of horror. Was it an ill omen? I stood still and my father, mother, sister and the long procession of merchants, their wives, and yeomen following behind me, stopped walking. With one adept movement, the six guildsmen adjusted its weight on their shoulders just in time, and righted it.
My husband had ever been a slight man. I wondered at that, because he had been a King’s Yeoman of the Guard, a protector of the King’s property. Surely this is a heavy man’s job. Tom had been an agile swordsman, though it was sword-play that was to be his undoing. He died from a thrust through the chest on Monday and by Thursday he was wrapped in his shroud.
Tom’s death had been an accident. The Tower yeomen had not used blunt swords for practice that day. It was a hot day and he drank too much ale on an empty stomach, which made him careless, and he’d been caught by a blade in his breast. It had pierced him through.
I smoothed down my dark overdress. With the sun slanting into the church’s opened doorway the black bombazine took on a ghostly, silvery sheen. My breath felt trapped tight inside my chest as, again, I began to follow the bier through the great doorway of St Alban’s Church along the pathway to the graveyard.
It had been raining but now the sun was out and, blinded by the bright June sunlight, I faltered on a loosened, slippery paving stone and almost tripped. Mother reached out and took my hand.
‘Elizabeth, steady.’
Her voice was gentle. My younger sister, Joan, held my other hand.
By the graveside, my tears began to flow. I had never loved Tom Williams and had resented my marriage but I had become used to his quiet manner, his generosity, and to my position as one married into a respectable London family. At three and twenty, I was young to be a widow. Dabbing at my eyes with a soft linen cloth, I cried for his passing along with the other cloth merchants’ wives who wept with me. He had sinned gravely and I despaired for his soul. He had not deserved to die.
Was he
now truly at rest? If what the priests tell us is true, he will dwell long in purgatory. I must be strong and not give way to weeping. Wiping away my tears away with a linen handkerchief, I swallowed and distracted myself by scanning the gathering of merchants and merchants’ wives, all familiar faces. A few moments later, my eye lighted on a new face amongst the mourners, a cloaked man standing a little apart under a yew tree. He was high-cheeked, of middle height and looked like a clerk, though wealthy enough to wear the best cloth. I noted the richness of his fur-trimmed hat and the lustre of his velvet cloak as he stepped forward to speak with Father. Puzzled, I watched them as Mother adjusted her funeral hood, complaining how it pinched her ears.
Joan shook raindrops from her cloak and mumbled, ‘Mother, I told you, you could have worn a simpler cap. I told you it was too tight.’
My forward younger sister was a trial to my mother, always knowing better than she.
The stranger nodded and, it seemed to me, discreetly stepped back into the shadow of the yew tree, just as the priest lifted his hand, his surplice hem caught by a breeze into a brief flutter and his raised arms in a flapping gesture making him seem like a strange dark bird, one you would see drawn on the border of a map.
The church bell tolled steadily as Tom was finally lowered into his last resting place. We said our Pater Noster as Father Luke committed my husband, sewn tightly into his linen shroud, onto the hay that lined his grave. As I glanced away, a tame blackbird began to hop about my skirts. Not wanting to tread on it, I moved too quickly, revealing a flash of crimson petticoat below my dark gown.
I tugged at my kirtle and gently shook it until the offending underskirt was once again hidden beneath the folds of my black gown. I knew that crimson was a colour forbidden to one of my humble rank, yet I could not resist wearing it. The soft, slippery silk had been left over from a length we had sold to a foreign merchant. Tom had given it to me as a New Year’s gift. Today, I wanted the bright colour to temper the sombre mood that was drowning me, and why should I not? It was my own secret flaunting of the rules that contained our daily lives. Tom Williams had possessed a secret, a secret so dangerous it could never be spoken, and in the keeping of it I feared for his soul and for my own. Tom had broken the rules and now he would receive God’s judgement for his sin.
The priest signalled to me and I unpinned the posy of herbs I wore on my waist, and cast it on top of my husband’s shroud. Others followed my lead until Tom’s linen-wrapped body was concealed under a covering of laurel and rosemary.
Mother squeezed my hand. ‘It’s time to leave. Lizzy, speak, or do you wish your father to speak for you?’
‘No, I shall thank them.’
I raised my head and turned towards the gathering. Through gaps in the mourners, I could see the patiently waiting band of parish poor who had led us through London’s streets, pausing at every wayside cross to kneel and pray. I had not noticed the stench of poverty then, but now, a whiff of their staleness cut through the rain and the scent of damp earth, laurel, ivy and rosemary. I felt sorrow for them all. The world is cruel to the poor.
Joan lifted her black spice-filled pomander to her nose and said in too loud a voice. ‘I am glad I do not live in the City.’ A wimpled city matron standing near to us swivelled her head around and glowered at her.
‘Be silent, Joan,’ Mother said in a low, sharp tone. ‘You may one day.’
I glared at my sixteen-year-old sister and whispered into her ear, ‘Don’t let the merchants’ wives hear that sort of remark. They will think you proud.’
‘I am proud,’ she whispered back.
‘Not today, Joan,’ my mother snapped. ‘Be silent. Your sister has to speak and be heard.’
Ignoring my sister, I turned towards the poor who were waiting by the church door and said, ‘Thank you for coming today. Bread, cheese and ale will be served in the church.’ I paused and added because Tom would need their prayers, ‘Do not forget to say a last Pater Noster for my husband’s soul. Your prayers will guide him into Heaven’s blessed light.’
Their heads bowed with respect and gratitude, they went into the church, and my servants followed them through the door to distribute their funeral dole. How thankful they were for so little, I thought, tears filling my eyes again.
I drew breath and focused my attention on the cloth guildsmen and the yeomen by the graveside, ‘Thank you for your vigil by my husband’s bier this night past, for your candles, for your sorrow at his passing and for your prayers. You must all be hungry too. The funeral feast will be served in my hall.’ They nodded their thanks but continued to pray.
My father smiled at me. I had spoken well. Glad the burial was over, though there was still the funeral feast to get through, I took my sister’s hand in my own and hurried her along the path towards the graveyard gate with Mother just behind. I stopped to open the gate latch and glanced over my shoulder at those who were making ready to follow us. Some still knelt at the graveside, murmuring prayers. Others spoke with Father. They were merchants, good-wives, guildsmen and a knot of Tom’s yeomen friends, red and gold uniforms flashing below their dark cloaks.
I glimpsed the blackbird again, hopping onto the ivy covering an ancient stone grave marker, pausing to study me with sharp, bright eyes. They say a blackbird can carry a dead person’s soul. I shivered, despite the warmth of my garments and the midday sun.
My house stood close by, a tall building with a garden that reached a long way back from the street. Its two overhanging floors held a number of upper chambers and attics. A wide alley along the side led to stables and a spacious gated yard, within which stood a warehouse where we kept the stores of woollen cloth we supplied for various monasteries in the City. Cloth rooms for finer fabrics were situated on the ground floor of the dwelling house.
We entered the great hall by the heavy street door. There, dining trestles were set in a horseshoe for the feast. I glanced through an open side door from the hall into my small parlour. It held a sense of emptiness now that the funeral bier had been removed. The tapers had been extinguished, leaving only black candlesticks, a pair of black gloves and a pile of mourning rings that lay in a basket by the bench.
I pulled the door closed, and stepped forward into the middle of the hall, ready to greet my guests. My father stood with me as, fussing, Mother and Joan checked the tables.
I could not help saying, ‘All is as it should be, Mother. You needn’t worry. Look, the only white on display is that of linen table cloths.’
‘Yes my dear, but your funeral guests will judge us,’ she said. ‘Well, yes, I can see that your napkins are freshly laundered.’
I nodded. ‘Meg has overseen all.’
The hangings that usually made the hall look welcoming were shrouded with thick black cloth. Mother swept over to the wall behind the high table and straightened a fall of black cloth so that not even a bright stitch on the hanging could show beneath it. Joan stood back with her arms folded and approved.
Hired servants were still in the process of setting out borrowed pewter mugs for the funeral ale, plates of fowl, bread and savoury pies. Meg, my maid, led three kitchen servers along the trestles with dishes of meat and platters laden with fresh salad. For once Meg was clad tidily, in a dark kirtle with only one black, springing curl escaping her cap.
As she passed close to me, Meg whispered, ‘Mistress Elizabeth, it will soon be over.’
‘Thank you, Meg, for your concern,’ I said, longing for the day to end.
As they flowed into the hall, mourners approached me with respectful words, and I noted that the stranger from the churchyard was amongst them. I had a strange feeling now that something about him felt familiar; his square jaw or the determined set of his shoulders. I was sure I had met him before. Perhaps it was just that he had purchased cloth from us in the past. He bowed to me and when Father introduced him as Master Cromwell, the gentleman said in a smooth, hushed voice, ‘Mistress Williams, I am sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He hesitated for a moment, as if he would say more, but closed his mouth again, bowed and then crossed the hall to speak to a group of local cloth merchants. Father took my arm and guided me to the high table. Everyone found places and Father Luke blessed the food and drink.
I had no appetite for the feast, though others clearly did as the pies and meats vanished from their platters with speed.
Crumbling a pasty on my plate, I found myself answering a visiting merchant’s questions about Tom’s death. He expressed his sorrow, excused himself and turned to his neighbour. I heard him discuss his wool sales. Soon enough, I thought, I must think of my own business. Not today, not for a little time yet. Gerard Smith, my journeyman, was more than competent at managing things. I glanced along the trestles to where Smith, a small man around thirty and two, with sand-coloured hair and bright, kindly blue eyes, was seated with the apprentices. I hoped I could rely on him, because if I could not then Father would take over our cloth business himself.
For several hours, I spoke little and ate sparingly. Father went about the hall speaking with merchants. I wondered how I would manage but knew I must and would. A chair scraped beside me, jolting me out of my thoughts. I felt a light touch on my elbow and glanced up. The feast was ending. My merchant had left his place. Gone to the privy, no doubt. Instead, Father stood by my chair, with Master Cromwell by his side.
‘Lizzy, Master Cromwell is my new cloth middle-man. He would like you to show him your bombazine cloth. He has admired your mourning gown.’
I started. This was nothing new. Father always employed different cloth middlemen to sell his fabrics to Flanders, thinking each one better than the last but today, at my husband’s funeral, it was not seemly. Master Cromwell was watching me through eyes of an unusual shade, not quite blue or grey.
The Woman in the Shadows: Tudor England through the eyes of an influential woman Page 1
