The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Brother Edmund and I both tensed.

  “Do you speak of his crown?” I asked.

  The prior’s green eyes glittered in the candlelight. “Yes.”

  I looked over at Brother Edmund, questioningly. He nodded.

  I took a step toward the prior. “My name is Sister Joanna Stafford; I am a novice at the Dominican Order in Dartford Priory. This is Brother Edmund Sommerville, a friar at Dartford. We believe King Athelstan’s crown to be hidden at our priory, since the time of its foundation. We’ve traveled here to learn more about the king and his crown, to better understand its powers.”

  Prior Roger nodded, as if this were exactly what he expected to hear. “Come with me.”

  Brother Edmund touched my elbow, gently, and I followed him and the prior back up the stairs. We walked down a long passageway to the prior’s own chamber.

  I expected him to offer us chairs. But instead he went to a bookshelf in the corner and reached up, to a place in the upper right-hand corner. He pushed, hard. There was a sliding noise. The bookshelf eased back to reveal a narrow, secret place.

  I covered my mouth with my hands. This was precisely the sort of thing I had been hunting for at Dartford, without luck, for weeks. At first my pulse raced, exultant. When I returned to my own priory, I would search the walls in the prioress’s chamber for a similar point of entry. But then I remembered how Cromwell’s men had pounded on all of the walls in that room, torn up the floor. They’d suspected an entranceway was there, yet found nothing.

  The prior beckoned for us to follow. “Bring the candle,” he said.

  We slid inside the space, Brother Edmund carrying the source of light. Almost immediately it led down a steep set of stairs.

  “Was this place created to hide the relics of Athelstan?” Brother Edmund asked as we descended.

  “No,” said the prior. “It leads to our dark house. We moved the relics into it later.”

  “What is a ‘dark house’?” I asked.

  “A place of punishment for those who have sinned against the order so greatly they must be set apart for a period of time,” the prior said.

  “A prison cell?” asked Brother Edmund, shocked.

  We’d reached the bottom of the steps.

  “Of a sort. There were monks who, judged guilty by their priors, spent years down here, in chains.” The prior turned back to us, reassuringly. “We do not use it this way, and haven’t for many, many years, even before the Holy Father send out an edict discouraging their usage in 1420. But many of the monasteries and abbeys of England were built with them, rooms or whole chambers underground. After the edict, most filled in their rooms. We, of course, told the commissioners who came two years ago that we had had ours filled in. We showed him the original entrance, from another part of the abbey. The door opened to nothing but a wall of dirt. This entrance, from the prior’s chamber, was constructed in secret.”

  The prior began to lead us down a narrow passageway. The floor was dirt.

  Brother Edmund asked, “Did the king’s commissioners specifically seek the relics of Athelstan? Did they ask about the crown?”

  “Oh, yes. We were pressed to tell them, several times. They have somehow discovered that the crown exists and suspect it has great powers, but they don’t know where it is hidden. The king’s commissioners, Layton and Legh, made visitations, and their men searched every inch of the abbey. And Bishop Gardiner himself has made inquiry.”

  “Gardiner was here?” My voice rose in alarm.

  A monk stepped in front of us; he had been listening in the darkness. He was the gray, nervous one from the front of the church.

  “Why do you ask?” he demanded, pointing straight at me. “What do you know of our sworn enemy, Stephen Gardiner?”

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  A tense silence filled the passageway leading to the dark house.

  Prior Roger said, “This is Brother Timothy. He is a brilliant monk of many questions.” The prior’s tone was patient. He turned back to us. “Bishop Gardiner was a friend of the former prior’s. He came to Malmesbury many times. Sometimes it was to seek guidance from God on how to navigate through the difficulty of the king’s divorce. But sometimes it was to ask for details about the relics of Athelstan, and particularly the crown. Neither my predecessor nor myself nor any other man here has ever told the bishop the truth about the crown. We would happily die the full death of a traitor, torn limb from limb before the mob, before we would tell him where to find the crown of Athelstan.”

  “Why?” I whispered.

  Brother Timothy said, “Because it is a greater risk for Gardiner to have the crown than for anyone else.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” chided the prior.

  Brother Timothy took a step closer to me, studying my face. “With all my heart, I feel we should not tell this female anything more,” he said.

  “Their coming here, both of them—their quest—was foretold,” the prior said.

  “Oh, yes, by Brother Eilmar.” The monk rubbed his hands, agitated. He turned to us. “Four hundred years ago, Eilmar had a series of visions. One was of a man and woman who’d come on the eve of the distribution; he drew them over and over. The design was taken up and made into the stained glass that you saw in our church. But he had other visions, too; oh, yes. Brother Eilmar was convinced he could fly and fashioned himself wings. One day he strapped on his wings and jumped from a tower—and broke both his legs. Our good monk said afterward that his only fault was in not fashioning himself a tail!”

  The prior laid his hand on Brother Timothy’s arm. “You know that to be the chosen vessel for great visions can be disturbing as well as transporting.”

  Brother Timothy glared at us. “But Prior, they could be spies from Gardiner. They’re Dominicans, and I’ve heard the bishop favors Dominicans for his most devious tasks. The risk is enormous. We could be delivering the most valuable relics in all of England—and knowledge of the crown itself—into the hands of the devil, to the Protestants!”

  Prior Roger said sternly, “Bishop Gardiner is no Protestant. You forget yourself.”

  I had never before heard that word—“Protestant”—but I could see Brother Edmund had, and he shook his head, vehemently.

  Brother Timothy cried, “Their numbers grow stronger every day. And look what evil they do—in the North, the poor starve because the monks have all been killed or driven out of their monasteries after the Pilgrimage of Grace. There is no one to give alms to the destitute and starving; the sick have nowhere to go since the monks’ infirmaries were all torn down. Cromwell says there will be new hospitals and almshouses in places where the monks’ abbeys once served that purpose, but not a single one has been raised. Not one. They destroy, the king’s men, but they do not build!”

  It was at that moment Brother Edmund spoke.

  “We have not come here because of a vision or a prophecy,” he said. “But we have come, nonetheless. We know that the crown of Athelstan has a power that men seek. The king’s commissioners look for it in Dartford Priory, as well, and yes, Bishop Gardiner looks for it. He is frantic to find it. But he did not send us here today.”

  I stood frozen. I could not believe Brother Edmund was telling them so much.

  “I swear to you, upon my eternal soul, that I will not give the crown to anyone who could possibly use it to harm the faithful.” Brother Edmund’s voice shook. “I will do nothing that will endanger our blessed monasteries.”

  The prior nodded, as if satisfied. But Brother Timothy turned on me, his face filled with loathing.

  “She will deceive us,” he insisted. “I know it in my soul. She is a creature of our enemies. And she already knows enough to betray all. Haven’t we all been taught of the wicked frailty of woman? Their own Thomas Aquinas said the female is defective and misbegotten.”

  Brother Edmund moved toward me, protectively. But I stepped in front of him, to confront my accuser.

  “I am a sworn servant of God, equal in ded
ication to you,” I told Brother Timothy. “I’ve seen wickedness and defect and frailty in men who practice all forms of religion, greater than in the actions of any woman.”

  Brother Timothy threw himself at the feet of his prior. “I plead with you not to tell her!” he begged. His Benedictine habit slid off one shoulder and I could see the deep red grooves on his back, some of them scabbed. This was a monk who mortified himself with knotted cords.

  Prior Roger held up his hand, to bring matters to a halt. Brother Timothy got to his feet. With those disturbing green eyes, the prior examined my face. I shivered under his gaze. But I did not flinch.

  The prior closed his eyes; his lips moved in prayer.

  “Prior, what is your will?” pleaded Brother Timothy.

  The prior opened his eyes and said, “We will take both of them to the room.”

  Brother Timothy bowed his head in agonized submission.

  In just a few minutes more, a door was opened on this dark passageway, and I blinked in shock. Laid out on a velvet cloth were objects of blinding beauty and magnificence. There was a long golden sword, a spear, a jeweled crucifix, and a goblet.

  “These were sent from France, by the father of the first Capet king?” whispered Brother Edmund, mesmerized.

  “Yes,” said the prior. “They were objects he inherited as the direct descendant of Charlemagne. He sent them to win the hand of Athelstan’s beautiful sister, but even more important, to forge an alliance with the man they called the English Charlemagne.”

  Brother Edmund moved toward the sword. “Is this the . . . ?”

  “Sword of Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome? Yes.”

  Brother Edmund crossed himself, in awe.

  Four monks shuffled into the room. They stood against the wall, murmuring prayers.

  The prior greeted them and said to us, “Tonight is the first part of the distribution. The faithful here will take the relics from Malmesbury and hide them, separately.”

  The prior opened a small trunk and removed a parchment with but a few sentences written on it. I could see from its color and delicacy that it was extremely old.

  “It is time you heard this,” said the prior.

  Brother Edmund and I would finally learn the secret. My heart hammered so loudly I felt sure everyone could hear. But all attention was on Prior Roger.

  He read aloud: “The crown of Christ Athelstan wore. If your blood be royal and your soul be pure, wear the crown and rule the land. For the worthy, there is victory. For the pretender, there is death.”

  “This was proclaimed by Athelstan?” Brother Edward asked. The prior nodded.

  My mind raced as I absorbed the words of the parchment.

  “But what makes a man pure enough, or worthy enough?” I asked.

  The prior only shook his head. “No one knows.”

  “And if he is deemed worthy, and wears it, then he cannot be defeated? By anyone or anything?”

  A tense silence filled the room. “That is what is believed,” said the prior.

  “Is it truly the crown of thorns, which Jesus wore?” Brother Edmund whispered.

  The prior made the sign of the cross; the others followed. “The crown that was given to the king contained a dozen thorns embedded in crystal, and those thorns were said to be taken from the crown Christ wore at Golgotha. Athelstan had it blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury before he wore it on the field of the battle of Brunanburh. Before his death he bequeathed it to the abbey, along with his other most precious relics. Special instructions were given to the prior, and handed down.” He hesitated. “But the very next King of England came to Malmesbury and begged us to hide the crown from all. He feared that it would lead to great confusion and chaos in the land, that any man bearing the slightest royal blood would lay claim to it, to usurp the throne. His request was granted. Occasionally, the other relics were shown to those who could be trusted. But all too soon, that became a very small number. There were attempts at theft.”

  The prior looked at us proudly. “And so we took action. In the twelfth century, the Prior of Malmesbury made a bequest of some smaller relics and important documents to Exeter Cathedral. At the time it was proclaimed that we had given up all we had. Everything you see here became a secret from that time onward. We no longer allowed anyone outside of the abbey to have knowledge of Athelstan’s relics.”

  “When was the crown separated from the rest and sent to France?” I asked.

  “It was removed from Malmesbury well before the transfer to Exeter. After the battle of Hastings, all here agreed it must be removed. We could not risk the danger of foreign rulers laying claim to it.”

  “Who was it who took it away?”

  “A female descendant of one of the brothers of Athelstan.” The prior glanced at me. “We are not sure of her name. As you know, Athelstan had no direct descendants. The woman took it and left England; she said she would return it to the land of Charlemagne. The abbey never heard from her again.”

  I said, “Do you know that it was dug up, in the South of France, and then seized by Richard the Lionhearted? And that he may have very well died because of it? He tried to wear the crown. That has to be it. As did Edward, the Black Prince, and Arthur Tudor. They all died because of their desire for the crown and to control its powers.”

  The prior nodded, solemnly. “We heard report from a brother who had been to Rome and assumed as much. I’m afraid the rumors of the crown’s existence have haunted the Holy City as well as England. When the Black Prince brought it back and his father the king built Dartford Priory, we believe that other members of the royal family learned of it. No one knows who, or how much knowledge they possessed. But Prince Arthur, our king’s older brother, must have heard the stories and gone to Dartford to try it for himself.”

  And Arthur brought his bride, Katherine of Aragon, with him, I thought. She witnessed the power of the crown and was frightened that it could be used to harm her daughter, the Lady Mary. That is why she asked me to profess at Dartford, to protect the princess from the crown’s dark reach.

  Brother Edmund asked, “If you knew it was kept at Dartford, why didn’t you go to claim it?”

  The prior shook his head. “God’s will sent it there, and has kept it safe from human transgression. We could not meddle.”

  “And you have no idea where it could be hidden within the priory?” My voice rose, desperate.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I have told you all I know.”

  After a moment, Brother Edmund asked, “What did you mean, this is the first distribution?”

  “We cannot allow the body of our king to fall into the hands of heretics. After Easter, we must do what we are called upon to do.”

  I shivered. The body of King Athelstan, dead for five centuries, would be disinterred and buried in some secret place.

  Brother Edmund had another question. “Prior, why did you say that Bishop Gardiner, of all men, should not obtain the crown?”

  The prior shuddered. “Because it is possible the bishop will try to wear it himself and rule the land.”

  “But he’s not royalty,” I protested.

  From behind us, Brother Timothy said, “The bloodline does not have to be legitimate issue. King Athelstan was the son of a concubine.”

  Brother Edmund shook his head. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Do you not know Bishop Gardiner’s background?” asked the prior. “It’s true he does not speak of it openly, but I thought it known in certain circles.”

  Dread growing inside me, I asked, “His background?”

  “He comes from a merchant family, doesn’t he?” asked Brother Edmund. “Didn’t Gardiner’s father trade in cloth, and earn enough to send his son to study law at Cambridge? That is my understanding.”

  “The royal strain comes through Gardiner’s mother,” said Brother Timothy. “She was Helen, the bastard daughter of Jasper Tudor, uncle to Henry the Seventh. Jasper carried the royal blood
of France, through his mother, Queen Katherine of Valois, the widow of Henry the Fifth.”

  Brother Edmund said, “So Bishop Gardiner is cousin to His Majesty on his father’s side.” Once again I heard that voice, ferocious in its intensity, in my Tower cell: “I serve the House of Tudor!”

  The prior cleared his throat. “And now, we have a certain ceremony to perform. These relics have been our sacred trust for many generations, and tonight they will be separated and made safe from the heretical agents of Thomas Cromwell. Brother Edmund and Sister Joanna, I will give you my blessing, should you wish it.”

  We received the blessing of the Prior of Malmesbury. I admit I did not hear his words; I was so stunned by everything I’d seen and heard.

  When Brother Edmund and I stepped onto the wide, dark abbey green, the wind was up. Feathery wisps of clouds rushed across a sky heaving with stars. Luke and John hovered at the entranceway on the street, waiting for us.

  “Brother Edmund,” I said, “I must ask you, what did you mean with the promise you gave to the prior, about never giving the crown to anyone who would possibly use it for harm?”

  Brother Edmund peered down at me. “It was fully meant. Surely you agree.”

  I clenched my hands. “You know I was sent to Dartford to find the crown and to tell Bishop Gardiner its location. I have no love for the bishop, but he promised me that it would be used to save the monasteries, not destroy them.”

  Brother Edmund’s voice was very quiet. “And how would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I cried. “In the Tower of London, he refused to explain. Perhaps if he possessed the crown, he could use it to prove to all of Christendom that relics are not just superstition. We know the crown has powers. Look at what happened to those who have tried to take it for themselves. Bishop Gardiner could threaten the king with the crown’s powers, to force him to stop the dissolution.”