The Woman in the Shadows: Tudor England through the eyes of an influential woman

by Carol McGrath

  The bolt of good, soft, dark green kersey had made me long for the oak woods of Putney when I had first discovered it. It was such a beautiful hue and texture that I had been tempted to save it for myself for a fine winter cloak lined with fleece. There might even be enough left to cover a new hood to set off my silvery hair and my sea-coloured eyes. Longing for new garments to wear once my period of mourning had ended, I had almost persuaded myself that I needed that new winter cloak, when I heard a voice beside me.

  ‘Mistress, is this your cloth?’ I glanced up.

  ‘Yes, it is, sir.’ I replied quickly and stood aside to allow the owner of this slick voice to look more closely at my fabrics.

  I watched him as he fingered my cloth. He was tall man with eyes as brown as treacle, his hair dark and falling to curl under below his chin, hair on which he was wearing an expensive black woollen hat with velvet trim. I noted that his fine brown tunic was tapered, revealing a slender waist before it generously flowed into gathers to cover his hose at the knees. He trailed his hand delicately over my green wool, then the brown and back to the green kersey. Since the tunic he wore was trimmed with dark fox fur, I knew that he could well afford the cloth.

  ‘May I assist you?’ I ventured. ‘Perhaps you need a new cloak? The brown broadcloth is very serviceable.’

  His long fingers caressed the bolt of green wool. There was something possessive in the gesture that made me feel uneasy. ‘This is much finer,’ he said. ‘How much?’

  There went my green cloak. ‘Two shillings for the ell.’ I presented him with an inflated price, hoping he would decline. He frowned. I lowered my price slightly. He countered with another much lower price. I shook my head.

  It was unfortunate that at that moment my father came wandering towards my stall, just as the finely dressed gentleman was examining the cloth, clearly looking for any fault that might make me further lower the price. I saw Father approaching with a scowl on his face. No doubt, I thought furiously, Smith had told Father where I was today.

  The gentleman looked up and smiled broadly at Father. Father’s scowl fled his countenance, for he had recognised the gentleman.

  ‘Why, it’s Henry Wykes. Greetings. I was on my way to Cornhill, but my attention was captured by this superb green wool. Look, is it not a wonderful shade? Such a fine and even dye.’

  I stood back and folded my arms. How did Father know this person to whom I was quickly taking a dislike? When this customer opened his mouth I could see the teeth behind the smooth smiles that were frightening and piratical.

  Father looked straight at me. If a look could have sliced me through, that one almost did, it was so sharp.

  ‘This is my daughter, Master Northleach, and I purchased this cloth for her.’

  I was irritated by Father’s proprietary manner.

  Smith stepped forward and said to Father, ‘But Mistress Williams is selling it, Master Wykes,’

  Father’s mouth fell open. ‘I am not sure I like to see my daughter here.’ He glared at Smith. ‘Surely you can do business for her, Smith?’

  ‘She is more than competent, Master.’

  Smith did not wait for Father to tell him he was bold, but turned to the customer. ‘I think if you want that cloth, sir, you should close the deal. I see another interest already.’

  My father and Master Northleach both followed the hand touching my cloth up to its owner’s face. The merchant who owned it had the look of a Spaniard about him.

  ‘How much for the green cloth?’ the new customer asked, on seeing that our attention had shifted to him.

  ‘It is not for sale.’ Master Northleach said. His face had darkened and his teeth appeared to snap like a wolf’s. He reached over and tapped the ell of cloth. ‘This cloth is already spoken for. I shall give the merchant the price she asks.’

  The Spaniard bowed politely and, backing off, moved to the next trestle.

  As Father crossly looked on, Smith smiled and nodded, his thin yellow hair falling for a moment over his face. He swept it back with a flourish and winked at me. I increased my first price by two shillings.

  The smoothly spoken man counted out the money and handed it to Gerard, who immediately secreted it in a purse. ‘You strike a hard bargain, Mistress,’ Master Northleach said, smiling with those great white teeth that looked as if they could snap off my very hand. ‘Since you are such a pretty woman, I am happy to purchase. No doubt, I shall make up the difference when I sell your father’s worsted in Bruges this winter.’

  ‘You are a cloth man?’ I said, shocked that my father had changed middlemen again, and to this smooth creature. Never had Father spoken of him before. Momentarily I wondered what had happened to Thomas Cromwell. Even so, Father had more than one middleman. Once one completed a sale, another soon took his place.

  ‘Your father and I are in business together, that of selling cloth - but this,’ he tapped the bolt of green woollen fabric- ‘I shall have made into a short cloak. Now, if you will excuse us.’ He reached out an arm to guide Father away, the bolt of green cloth entrusted to a servant who wore an ancient padded jerkin splattered with a few rust-hued stains, as if it had once belonged to a soldier.

  Father turned back. He glared again at Smith and said to me in a perfunctory manner, ‘Elizabeth, I’ll call on you later this week.’ Conversing together, the cloth merchant and Father walked off towards Cornhill.

  ‘If I may be so bold, Mistress Elizabeth,’ Smith said in a low voice after they were lost amongst a seething crowd gathered by the conduit at the crossroads. ‘I don’t think your father should put his trust in that middleman. I’ve never seen him before at the cloth fairs. There’s something about his manner that I cannot lay my finger on. It’s too smooth.’

  ‘Oh, Gerard, I know, but maybe we can’t judge too quickly. Father, after all, as you believe, has so much experience with cloth.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m wrong.’ Smith shrugged his shoulders. He looked into my face, his eyes sincere. ‘Mistress Elizabeth, I have underestimated you and I’m sorry for it.’

  ‘Really,’ I said sharply, though I felt we had crossed over from suspicion of each other to acceptance.

  ‘You see, I was concerned, Mistress. I told your father you were here, and it is your father that I worry for now.’

  ‘I’m relieved that you need have no concern for me, Smith,’ I said. ‘Neither should you worry about him. He’s made a fortune selling abroad,’ I added loyally, though I did not like the new middleman one bit either.

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ Smith replied, though his thoughtful face still betrayed his concern. He disguised it by swiftly accosting a customer and selling yet another bolt of woollen fabric. There was something about the new middleman that had unsettled me and I determined to speak about this to Father next he came to Wood Street.

  Chapter Eight

  MY APPRENTICES PROVED THOROUGH at cleaning, sorting and organising the storerooms. Two weeks later, just before All Hallows’ Eve, I called them to the office and instructed them about the cloths I wished to purchase at the Northampton Cloth Fair.

  I showed them samples of the new fabrics they must seek out, encouraging them gently to feel the textures and look at the colours, reminding them of sumptuary laws, the colours ordinary citizens were permitted to wear and those not permitted.

  ‘Only the queen and king may wear purple. The nobility may wear -’ I caught myself guiltily hesitating, ‘scarlet. You, Barnaby, must wear browns, pale blues, forest greens, black and grey, and yellow. The nobility can wear a rich deep blue. Black is a most expensive cloth - the dye costly, multiple dyeing of woad or indigo, and the mordant is usually copperas. In Northampton we shall buy fine cloth in ordinary colours and sell it on for city wives. You’ll watch out for velvet trim. That’s allowed. I think a silversmith’s wife would be delighted with yellow serge for a winter cloak. She may also trim it with fox fur but not ermine. That’s for the rich.’

  Barnaby glanced down at his pale blue tunic. ‘It
is as well that I like these colours, Mistress. They are honest colours.’

  ‘True enough, blue for humility, but we’ll ensure that we have velvet and satin in many colours for trims. The colours will please many.’ For a moment I thought wistfully of a gentleman who dressed plainly but was clearly wealthy enough to wear a whole cloak of soft black velvet. ‘We are done for today,’ I said.

  At that moment, Meg came to see me. ‘Mistress Elizabeth, your father is here to see you and he’s with a companion.’ She lowered her voice in a confidential manner. ‘I don’t know the gentleman with him but he’s handsome, Mistress Elizabeth.’ She fiddled coyly with one of her dark curls and straightened her cap.

  I wondered just for a heartbeat if Father’s companion could be Thomas Cromwell. My heart beat faster as I said, ‘Barnaby, Wilfrid, go and find Master Smith. Tell him you are to spend an hour learning multiplication.’ I removed my great linen apron and handed it to Meg. ‘Serve my father and his friend hippocras and seed cakes, Meg.’

  ‘I think your father called his companion Master Northleach. Shall I set out refreshments in the parlour or the hall?’

  My heart screeched disappointment. It was as if, without warning, a poisonous snake had slithered over my threshold. My back stiffened. Detachment, I told myself. I would conceal my true feelings until I discovered Father’s motives. I suspected these might not be to further my own interests. I had pushed Northleach to the recesses of thought since our first meeting and Father had not come to see me for a fortnight.

  ‘I see. Serve them in the hall, not the parlour. I hardly know that man.’ I hurried up to my chamber to change my white widow’s wimple for a suitable hood and my dark work dress for the funeral black bombazine. I would not look shabby in front of the merchant, but in a small act of defiance, I mischievously wore my crimson petticoat.

  Father would not manage me today, as I suspected would be his intent, and hoping that they would not stay long, I determined that, just in case they lingered, I would attend Vespers to make a timely end to Master Northleach’s visit.

  When I stepped down the staircase into the hall, Father and Master Northleach were seated comfortably on the velvet padded bench by the hearth, stretching leather-covered toes towards the warmth; Father’s, I observed, a serviceable brown, but his companion’s footwear was dyed green to match his mantle. As I approached, they hurried to their feet, too anxious, I noted. Father stretched his large hands out to gasp mine while Northleach made a polite bow. As he swept up again, I saw that his green short cloak was fashioned from my beautiful wool mix and clasped at the neck with a large gold pin. I swept an eye over the cloak but refused to remark on it. Instead, I bade them both sit, poured the hippocras that Meg had placed on a low table and offered them seed cakes along with linen napkins edged with black-work stitching. Taking the straight-backed chair opposite, I arranged my skirts so that my crimson underskirt did not creep below my bombazine gown.

  ‘How is business?’ I asked my father.

  ‘Well enough, Lizzy. Master Northleach will take my kersies and medley cloth to the Bruges market.’ He drew in a breath. ‘This is one reason we are here. Do you wish to join my venture?’

  ‘I can guarantee sales if you do, Mistress Williams,’ Northleach said earnestly.

  ‘I have little left to sell abroad as I sold very well in September, though I do intend purchasing more cloth at the Northampton Fair, but I have another middleman in mind for this cloth.’ I smiled, wondering what the other reason for Northleach’s visit could be, though I had my suspicions.

  Open-mouthed, my father stared at me, shocked at my forthright manner. His cup tilted and golden drops of hippocras dribbled onto his lap. As he dabbed at the sticky drops with his napkin, I handed him a jug of water. ‘If you are quick, Father, it will not stain.’ He did not yet know about my plan or my intent to seek out Thomas Cromwell as my own middleman and I had wondered if I should even tell him. But now that it was revealed, I intended sticking to it.

  ‘Elizabeth, did I hear correctly? You plan on travelling to the Northampton Cloth Fair in November? I forbid you.’

  ‘Father, it is not your right to forbid me anything.’

  At this, he puffed out his chest in the usual way when he was irritated, and looked flustered. ‘You will be prey to cut-throats and thieves, never mind the weather. You have no wit, no care for your own safety, nor consideration for your mother’s heart or mine.’ He dramatically struck his breast with one hand, still clutching the napkin in the other. ‘In November!’ he repeated.

  ‘I am taking Smith with me, the apprentices and Meg, too. She is worth two armed men.’

  He dropped the napkin, stood up with the spring of a younger man and slammed the water jug back on the table. ‘Two women on the roads! You cannot travel like this.’ His face was as red as my petticoat.

  Northleach flashed his large teeth, ‘I can see Mistress Elizabeth is learning to look after her own interests. But your father is right. A lady should not be exposed to dangers such as the roads contain.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said calmly to the merchant, curious as to where his interests in my affairs really lay. I turned back to father. ‘Father, do sit down again. Finish your hippocras. I am going to the Cloth Fair. Nothing will stop me returning with new cloth.’

  Father shook his head. ‘The sooner you have a new husband the better, Elizabeth.’

  Perhaps I imagined that in that moment Master Northleach looked at Father and shook his head and Father nodded, but I suspected not.

  Master Northleach eased himself up from the bench, placed his cup on the table, and as if he was trying to calm troubled waters said, ‘Mistress Elizabeth, I hear you have a fine garden. I wonder whether we could take a turn in it. I need fresh air.’ He smiled, flashing those teeth again. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’

  His long, lean hand reached out to me.

  ‘Do so, Elizabeth,’ Father said, his face less fiery now. ‘I must have a word with Smith.’

  I rose and hurried to the door, ignoring Master Northleach’s offer of his hand and called for Meg to accompany us into the garden. A boy came running from the kitchen to say that Meg was gone out to fetch milk from the dairy.

  ‘Send me Susannah, or Bess,’ I said. ‘Tell her to bring a basket. She can pick herbs for the supper salad while I speak with Master Northleach.’

  Northleach offered me his arm again and this time I took it.

  ‘Five minutes, sir,’ I said and looked at Father’s pleased face. ‘I am attending Vespers today.’

  ‘I won’t be long, Elizabeth, just long enough to make sure that Smith knows what you are doing.’

  I extricated my arm from the elbow it was tucked into. ‘No need, Father. Smith knows perfectly well that I am buying new cloth.’

  His face lost its smile. ‘There will be conditions, Elizabeth, if you are set on this.’

  ‘What conditions?’ How dare my father suggest conditions to me, but then there was that outstanding loan and I did not want to estrange him completely because, after all, despite his behaviour he was my father and doubtless meant well.

  ‘Guards, wagons, safe accommodation.’

  ‘Are you providing all this? Monastery common rooms will do for us.’

  ‘We shall see. You may be trying to make a cloth merchant of yourself, Elizabeth, but you are still my daughter.’ He managed to look disconcerted.

  I smiled to myself. ‘And a woman.’ Those words he did not say though I knew my father, like most men, considered a woman a lesser being than a man and like Eve, open to temptation. At least he accepted that I was indeed going to Northampton. Relishing my small triumph, I confidently led Master Northleach along the passage from the hall just as Susannah, basket swinging by her side, joined us. Leaving my father at the storeroom door, we entered the garden by a small side entrance. The maid trailed behind us, her basket bumping against her kirtle.

  Northleach stood, legs akimbo, and his greedy eyes surveyed the garden with
admiration, not seeing the charred timbers of my burned-out warehouse building beyond the garden wall. ‘It is a delight to find such well-kept gardens hidden behind the City dwellings.’ He plucked rosemary from the bush and rubbed it between his long fingers. The sad smell of remembrance reminded me of Tom’s funeral. He cast it lightly from his long fingers and turned to me with a flashing smile.

  Susannah hurried off to busy herself amongst the plants, snipping furiously with her scissors. The boy I employed to sweep the pathway was busy with a bundle of twigs, making piles of fallen leaves. Master Northleach glanced their way before making further comment.

  ‘In the Low Countries where I have lived, there are many new plants these days.’

  ‘Such as?’ I asked, listening more closely now. I liked plants. This, I would hear. The colours dyers extracted from plants always fascinated me. Perhaps Northleach was more informed than I.

  ‘Travellers have discovered a new thistle that, steeped in vinegar, might help toothache. It is also thought that drinking an infusion of this thistle can help with the sweating sickness.’

  I was curious, since Tom Williams’ mother had died of the sweat. Meg and I had needed to wash everything, absolutely every surface in the house, with lye soap and vinegar. The rooms smelled for days after her death. The sweat, an illness that haunted our city some years, was said to have come with our king’s father’s mercenaries from the continent, when he won the final battle in the cousins’ war, and it was so rampant, it killed many too quickly.

  ‘A humble thistle. Just imagine that it has such potency,’ I said.