The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Before the lash of the wind drew blood, before I felt it first move through the air, our horses knew that something was coming.

  When I was seventeen, I made the long journey down to Canterbury from my home, Stafford Castle. At the beginning of each autumn my father traveled to London to attend to family business, but he had not wanted me or my mother to accompany him. A bout of sweating sickness had struck the South that summer, and he feared we’d lose our lives to the lingering reach of that disease. My mother would not be dissuaded. She told him she feared for my life if I did not take the healing waters at a bath she knew of in Canterbury.

  Once we reached London, my father remained in our house on the Strand, seeing to business, while we rode on with two servants to Canterbury. The day after we arrived, my mother, greatly excited, took me to the shore. But when we reached it, and I gazed for the first time at those churning gray waves, my mother’s temper changed. She had not seen the sea since coming to England from Spain at fourteen as a maid of honor to Katherine of Aragon. After a few moments of silence, she began to weep. Her tears deepened into wrenching sobs. I did not know what to say, so I touched her shoulder and a moment later she stopped.

  • • •

  The third day in Canterbury I was taken to be healed. Below a tall house on a fashionable street stretched an ancient grotto. We walked down a flight of stairs, and then two stout young women lowered me into the stone bath. It brimmed with pungent water bubbling up from a spring. I sat in it, motionless. Every so often, I could make out strange colors beneath the surging water: bright reddish brown and a deep blue gray. There were mosaics on the bottom of the pool, we were told.

  “A Roman built this bath,” explained one of the women. “There was a forum in the city, temples, even theaters. Everything was leveled by the Saxons. But below ground it’s still here. A city below the city.”

  “How do you feel, mistress? Stronger?” She so wanted to please us. Beyond London and the ranks of the nobility, it was not known how much our family had lost in the fall of my father’s oldest brother, the Duke of Buckingham. He was executed after being falsely accused of high treason, and nearly all Stafford land was seized by the crown. Here, in a Canterbury bath, we were mistaken for people of importance.

  “I feel better,” I murmured. The woman smiled with pride. I glanced over at my mother. She folded her hands in her lap. I had not fooled her.

  • • •

  The next morning, I expected to begin the journey back to London. While I was in bed, my mother lay next to me and ran her fingers through my hair, as she used to when I was a child. “Juana, I’ve made arrangements to see a young nun,” she said.

  There was nothing surprising about her making such a plan. In Spain my mother’s family spent as much time as possible with nuns, monks, and friars, visiting the abbeys that dotted the hills of Castile, to pray in the churches, bow to the holy relics, or meditate through the night in austere cells. One of my mother’s usual laments was how poorly England compared. The religious houses near Stafford Castle failed to impress her. “Not a single mystic within a day’s ride of here,” she’d moan.

  As we rose and dressed my mother told me about Sister Elizabeth Barton. Two years earlier she had been a servant of the steward of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. She fell ill and for weeks lay senseless. She woke up healed—and her first question was about a child who lived nearby who had also sickened, but only after Elizabeth had lost consciousness. There was no way she could have known of it. From that day on, she was aware of things happening in other rooms, in other houses, even miles away. Archbishop Warham sent men to examine her, and they concluded her gifts were genuine. It was decided that this young woman should take holy vows and so be protected from the world. The Holy Maid of Kent resided in the Benedictine priory of Saint Sepulchre, but she sometimes granted audiences.

  “Her prayers could be meaningful,” my mother said. There was a time when the prospect of meeting such a person would have intrigued me. But I felt no such anticipation now.

  When I had first left the household of Queen Katherine more than a year ago, I would not speak to anyone. I wept or lay in bed, my arms wrapped around my body. My mother had to force food into me. Everyone attributed it to the shock of my having witnessed the king’s request for an annulment: the queen, devastated, wailed loudly; he stormed from the room. This happened on the first day I entered service as a maid of honor to the blessed queen. The divorce was a frightening scandal. But from the beginning my mother suspected something else had upset me. She must have pressed me for answers a hundred times. I never considered telling her or my father the truth. It was not just my intense shame. If my father knew that George Boleyn—a favored courtier and brother of Anne, the king’s beloved—had violently fondled me and would have raped me had he more time, there is no force on earth that could have prevented him from trying to kill George. As for my mother, of the blood of ancient Spanish nobility, she would be even more ferocious in her revenge. To protect my parents, I said nothing and blamed myself for what happened. I did not want to ruin my parents’ lives—and those of the rest of the Stafford family.

  By the end of the summer of 1527, a dullness of spirit overtook me. I welcomed this reprieve from tumultuous emotion, but it worried my mother. She could not believe I’d lost interest in books and music, once my principal joys. I spent the following months—the longest winter of my life—drifting in a gray expanse. The apothecary summoned to Stafford Castle diagnosed melancholia; but the barber surgeon said no, my humors were not aligned and I was too phlegmatic. Each diagnosis called for conflicting remedy. My mother argued with them both. When spring came, she decided to trust her own instincts in nursing me. I did regain my health but never all of my spirits. My Stafford relatives approved of the quieter, docile Joanna—I’d always been a headstrong girl—but my mother fretted.

  That morning in Canterbury, when we’d finished dressing, my mother declared we had no need of servants. The priory of Saint Sepulchre was not far outside the city walls.

  Our maid was plainly glad to be free of us for a few hours. The manservant was a different matter. “Sir Richard said I was to stay by your side at all times,” he said.

  “And I am telling you to occupy yourself in some other way,” my mother snapped. “Canterbury is an honest city, and I know the way.”

  The manservant aimed a look of hatred at her turned back. As much as they loved my father, the castle staff loathed my mother. She was difficult—and she was foreign. The English distrusted all foreigners, and in particular imperious females.

  It was a fair day, warmer than expected for the season. We took the main road leading out of the city, majestic oaks lined each side. A low brick wall surrounded Canterbury, most likely built by the Romans all those centuries ago.

  As we neared the wall, my horse stopped dead. I shook the reins. But he shied, edging off the road. I had never known my horse to move in this way.

  My mother turned around, her face questioning. But just at that moment, her horse gave her trouble as well. She brandished the small whip she always carried.

  The winds came then. I managed to get my horse back onto the road, but he was still skittish. The wind blew his mane back so violently, it was like a hard fringe snapping my face. By this time, we had managed to reach the gap in the wall where the road spilled out of Canterbury. All the trees swayed and bent, even the oaks, as if paying homage to a harsh master.

  “Madre, we should go back.” I had to shout to be heard over the roar.

  “No, we go on, Juana.” Her black Spanish hood rose and flapped around her head like a horned halo. “We must go on.”

  I followed my mother to the priory of Saint Sepulchre. Leaves and branches hurtled over the ground. Two rabbits streaked across the road, and my horse backed, whinnying. It took all my strength to prevent him from bolting. Ahead of me, my mother turned and pointed at a building to the left.

  I never knew what struck me. M
y mother later said it was a branch, careening through the air. All I knew was that pain clawed my cheek, followed by a spreading wetness.

  I would have been thrown but for the bearded man who grabbed the reins, then helped me down and into a small stone gatehouse. My mother was already inside. She called out her gratitude in Spanish. The man dampened a cloth, and she cleaned the blood off my face.

  “It’s not a deep cut, thank the Virgin,” my mother said, and instructed me to press the cloth hard on my cheek.

  “How much farther to the priory?” I asked.

  “We are at Saint Sepulchre now; this man is the porter,” she said. “It’s just a few steps to the main doors.”

  The porter escorted us to the long stone building. The wind still blew so hard I feared I’d be sent flying through the air. The porter shoved open tall wooden doors. He did not stay—he said he must see to the safety of our horses. Seconds later, I heard the click of a bolt on the other side of the door.

  We were locked inside Saint Sepulchre.

  I knew little of the life of a nun. Friars, who had freedom of movement, sometimes visited Stafford Castle. I had not given thought to the meaning of enclosure. I knew that nuns, like monks, were intended to live apart from the world, for prayer and study. But now I also began to grasp that enclosure could require enforcement.

  There was one high window in the square room. The wind beat against the glass with untamed ferocity. No candles brightened the dimness. There was no furniture nor any tapestries. A framed portrait of a man did hang on the wall. The man wore plain robes; his long white beard rested on his cowl. He carried a wooden staff. Each corner of the frame was embellished with a carving of a leafed branch.

  My mother gasped and clutched my arm. With her other, she pointed at a dark form floating toward us from the far end of the room. A few seconds later we realized it was a woman who wore a long black habit and a black veil, and so had melted into the darkness. As she drew nearer, I could see she was quite old, with large pale blue eyes.

  “I am Sister Anne, I welcome you to the Priory of Saint Sepulchre,” she said.

  My mother, in contrast to the nun’s gentle manner, spoke in a loud, nervous tumble, her hands in motion. She told her our names and said that a visit to Sister Elizabeth had been granted; the windstorm roughened our journey, and I’d been slightly injured; but we expected to go forward. Sister Anne took it all in with perfect calm.

  “The prioress will want to speak to you,” she said and turned to lead us down a passageway even darker than the room we’d waited in. The nun must have been at least sixty years old, yet she walked with youthful ease.

  Sister Anne ushered us into another dim, empty room.

  “But where is the prioress?” demanded my mother. “As I’ve told you, Sister, we are expected.”

  Sister Anne bowed and left. I could tell from the way my mother pursed her lips she was unhappy with how we’d been treated.

  In this room stood two wooden tables. One was large, with a stool behind it. The other was narrow, pushed against a wall. I noticed the floor was freshly swept and the walls showed no stains of age. The priory might have been modest, but it was scrupulously maintained.

  “How is your cut?” my mother asked. She lifted the cloth and peered at my cheek. “The bleeding has stopped. Does it still hurt?”

  “No,” I lied.

  I spotted a book mounted on the narrow table and decided to inspect it more closely. The leather cover was dominated by a gleaming picture of a robed man with a white beard, holding a staff—similar to the portrait in the front chamber. The beatific pride of his expression, the folds of his brown robe, the clouds soaring above his head—all were rendered in dazzling colors. Running along the borders of the picture were intertwined branches: thin with slender green leaves. With great care, I opened the book. It was written in Latin, a language I had dedicated myself to since I was eight years old. “The Life of Saint Benedict of Nursia,” read the title. Underneath was his span of life: AD 480 to 543. Below was a black bird, holding a loaf of bread in its beak. I turned another page and began to absorb the story. Underneath a picture of a youth in the tunic of a Roman, it said that Saint Benedict forsook his family’s wealth, choosing to leave the city where he was raised. Another page showed him alone, surrounded by mountains.

  I’d been concentrating so closely that I didn’t hear my mother until she stood right next to me. “Ah, the founder of the Benedictines,” she said. She pointed at the branches that stretched across the border of each page. “The olive branch is so lovely; it’s the symbol of their order.”

  My finger froze on the page. I realized that for the first time since last May, when I submitted myself to the profligate court of Henry VIII, I felt true curiosity. Was it the violent force of the wind—had it ripped the lassitude from me? Or had I been awakened by this spare, humble priory and the dazzling beauty of this, its precious object?

  The door opened. A woman strode into the room. She was younger than the first nun—close in age to my mother. Her face was sharply sculpted, with high cheekbones.

  “I am the prioress, Sister Philippa Jonys.”

  My mother leaped forward and seized the prioress’s hand to kiss it, and went down on one knee. I knew that in Spain, deep obeisance was paid to the heads of holy houses. But the prioress’s eyes widened at the sight of my prostrate mother.

  Pulling her hand free, the prioress said, “I regret to hear of your mishap. We are a Benedictine house, sworn to hospitality, and will offer you a place of rest until you are ready to resume your journey.”

  My mother sputtered, “But we are here to see Sister Elizabeth. It was arranged. I corresponded with Dr. Bocking while still at Stafford Castle.”

  I stared at my mother in surprise. My impression had been that the trip to Saint Sepulchre had been arranged in Canterbury or London, at the earliest. I began to comprehend that the healing waters had served as an excuse to get us here. Coming to Saint Sepulchre, without servants to observe us, was her purpose.

  “I have not been informed of this visit, and nothing occurs here without my approval,” the prioress said.

  Most would be intimidated by such a rebuff. Not Lady Isabella Stafford.

  “Dr. Bocking, the monk who I understand is the spiritual adviser of Sister Elizabeth, wrote to me granting permission,” my mother said. “I would have brought his letter as proof, but I did not expect that the wife of Sir Richard Stafford—and a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of England—could be disbelieved.”

  The prioress clutched the leather belt that cinched her habit. “This is a priory, not the court of the king. Sister Elizabeth is a member of our community. We have six nuns at Saint Sepulchre. Six. There is much work to be done, earthly responsibilities as well as spiritual. These visits rob Sister Elizabeth of her health. ‘Will this harvest be better?’ ‘Will I marry again?’ She cannot spend all of her time answering such questions.”

  “I am not here to inquire about harvests,” snapped my mother.

  “Then why are you here?”

  With a glance at me, my mother said, “My daughter has not been well for some time. If I knew what course to take—what her future might hold—”

  “Mama, no,” I interrupted, horrified. “We were ordered to never solicit prophecy by Cousin Henry, after the Duke of Buckingham’s—”

  “Be silent,” scolded my mother. “This is not of the same import.”

  There was a tap on the door, and Sister Anne reappeared.

  “Sister Elizabeth said she will see the girl named Joanna now,” the elderly nun murmured.

  “Did you tell her of these guests?” demanded the prioress.

  Sister Anne shook her head. The prioress and nun stared at each other.

  “Please, without further delay, show us the way to Sister Elizabeth,” my mother said, triumphant.

  Sister Anne bowed her head. “Forgive me, Lady Stafford, but Sister Elizabeth said she will see the girl alone. And that she must
come of her own free will and unconstrained.”

  “But I don’t want to see her at all,” I protested.

  My mother took me by the shoulders. Her face was flushed; I feared she was close to tears. “Oh, you must, Juana,” she said. “Por favor. Ask her what is to be done. Sister Elizabeth has a gift. Only she can guide us. I can’t help you anymore all alone. I can’t.”

  I had not realized how much my spiritual affliction troubled my mother. Her suffering filled me with remorse. I would go to this strange young nun. The visit should be brief; I intended to ask few questions.

  The prioress and Sister Anne spoke together in hushed tones for another minute. Then the prioress beckoned me to follow her down the passageway, through the front entranceway, and down another dim corridor. I thought of how the elegance of her movements differed from those of the ladies I’d grown up with. Her walk was not calculated to draw admiration but was of a grace that derived from simplicity and economy of movement.

  I also tried to plan how I could speak to Sister Elizabeth without disobeying the command of Lord Henry Stafford, my cousin and the head of the family. It was the prophecy of a friar, much distorted, that was the basis for the arrest of the Duke of Buckingham. During the trial, my uncle was charged with seeking to learn the future—how long would Henry VIII live and would he produce sons—so that the duke could plot to seize the throne. Afterward, my cautious cousin, his son, said repeatedly that none of the family could ever have anything to do with prophecy. My father agreed—he harbored a personal distaste for seers, witches, and necromancers. It was one of the many ways he differed from my mother.

  The prioress rapped gently on a door. She hesitated, her brow furrowing, and then she opened it and we stepped inside.

  This room was tiny. A lone figure sat in the middle of the floor, slumped over, her back to us. There was no window. Two candles that burned on either side of the door provided the only light.

  “Sister Elizabeth, will you attend Vespers later?” asked the prioress.

  The figure nodded but did not turn around. The prioress said to me, “I shall be back shortly,” and gestured for me to step forward.