The Abbess paused, smoothed down her gown over her knees, folded her hands in her lap, and raised her head, scanning the benches, looking at each one of us individually.
‘If you feel you have no complaints, you only have to answer every question with the words “Omnia bene” – “All is well” – and he will enquire no further.’
The Abbess was speaking with double tongue. I cannot tell to what extent the less subtle of our sisters understood what she was saying. I was not even quite sure myself what she was saying.
‘The Bishop will be exigent and critical. Everything, from the cleanliness and correctness of your habit, to the cleanliness and purity of your hearts and minds, and your adherence to our Rule, will be opened to him. After the examinations, both of the management of the Abbey and of each of us, he will deliver himself of what are called Injunctions, and administer penances, individually and collectively.’
Privately, the Abbess told me more about this Bishop Shaxton. He is not one of us. It was the patronage of Queen Anne Boleyn which set him on the path to a bishopric.
‘He is known to have studied heretical books. He is known to have prayed at Mass that the clergy be relieved of their vow of celibacy. Bishop Shaxton is firmly in what is called the reformist camp.’
His continuing rise depends on the favour of Master Thomas Cromwell, who is well ahead of the King when it comes to matters of reform.
‘Well, my child, they call it reform,’ said the Abbess. ‘I call it blasphemy and sacrilege. I do not expect any advantages to accrue to us from this Visitation. We must be on our guard. If he chooses to find irregularities, or if any sisters are impelled by conscience to make grave accusations, it is upon myself that the heaviest blame will fall. That is as it must be. But such an outcome would strengthen any the arguments for our dissolution. Although that is of course unthinkable, it will make the negotiations harder.’
Bishop Shaxton turned out to be a stunted man with a face like a pug. He wore for the High Mass the Abbey’s richest cope, heavy with gold thread and green silk embroideries. It was made by our nuns long before the days of even Dame Philippa and Dame Joanna. I have seen it close up. It is worn out, the embroideries in shreds. From a distance it is still gorgeous, and it swamped the small Bishop.
Then came a surprise. He did not mutter the Mass under his breath as all priests do, as if in private communication with God with the congregation as distant spectators. This small Bishop has a large voice, which raised bellowing echoes in the vaulting. I was not predisposed to like him, but his celebration of the Mass stirred me. He was including us. We were sharing in the Mass. His voice will have reached far down the nave to where a few devout people from the town were standing. I have never forgotten that Mass. If that is an aspect of ‘reform’, I am in favour of it.
My interview with him two days later was the last, since I was the last novice to be admitted. As I went in, the Chapter House seemed vast. I had only known it filled with our rustling, whispering, sweat-scented community. He stood at a desk, and I stood before him. The clerks with their writing tablets sat on benches against the wall behind him. I was prickling with nervousness.
I had spent the two days trying to decide what to do. I could tell the Bishop about the Prioress’s little white dog, which slept in her bed. Our Rule prohibits the keeping of any pet animals. I could tell him about Sister Catherine Hunt’s greed. If a piece of bread, the merest crust, is left unattended at table, she puts her hand over it and it is down her throat in an instant. No wonder that she is fat. She is a kind soul but this slyness infuriates me. Anger is a deadly sin. Small annoyances fester, in a life as close-knit as ours. I had confessed my feelings about Sister Catherine’s greed to Father Pomfret, but did not bring them to Chapter, as I might have done.
I could tell the Bishop about the evenings of chatter in the parlour after Compline, when we should have been observing the Great Silence. I could tell him my suspicions about Dorothy and Father Robert Parker. I could complain about Master Tregonwell, though I knew that would not do me any good at all. I could tell him all about the Fairheads and what they got up to. I could tell him that Sister Eleanor Wilmer put a dead rat on my bed.
As I waited for my turn to go into the Chapter House, my heart thumping, I became certain that I did not want to tell the Bishop any of it. Partly because our frailties and shortcomings are our own, between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and our sisters. If that is heretical, then I am heretical. Also because I wanted to protect Dame Elizabeth Zouche, and to protect the Abbey itself against any possible catastrophe. She was so confident. But every time these days that she used that word ‘unthinkable’, I had a sinking feeling.
So as I stood there before him, whatever Bishop Shaxton asked me, I answered ‘Omnia bene’. He looked exasperated. Before he dismissed me he asked me where I was from. When I told him, he said: ‘Ah, Abbot Eley. An interesting man.’
And then: ‘Do you not have anything at all that you feel you should tell me?’
I said: ‘I know we are all uneasy here about what the future will bring.’
He shuffled the papers on his desk.
‘We are all uneasy, daughter. Change rocks the foundations. What will be will be.’
After Compline, thinking that the Abbess might need me, I made my way to her house, was let in by her maid, went up the stairs, and approached her door. I heard her voice winding on and on, and did not like to interrupt by entering. Then I heard the Bishop’s deep voice, raised to a roar: ‘MADAM, BE MUTE!’
I did not stay.
The next day we assembled with trepidation in the Chapter House once more to hear his conclusions and Injunctions. We waited and waited. No one came. Bishop Shaxton and his entourage had left Shaftesbury at dawn.
The Abbess swept in and announced without comment that the Bishop had been recalled urgently to London in order to lend his voice to an important conference at Lambeth Palace. Then she dismissed us and told us to return to our normal occupations. The ceremony of my profession as a nun was due to take place that day after Vespers, and that never happened either. It was ‘postponed’, I was informed. I felt rejected, realising that I was of no importance in the scheme of things. My profession was never mentioned again. I remained a novice. That caused me to suspect that the Abbess had, maybe unknown even to herself, begun to give up hope.
She did tell me that Bishop Shaxton had been summoned to a conference with German theologians who had travelled from their country with the intention of formulating an agreement with the English bishops on Christian belief and practice. Some English bishops were concerned that the German Protestants sought to push them further than they, or certainly the King, would wish to go.
‘The Germans,’ said the Abbess, ‘are not only against the celibacy of the priesthood, but against holy images, against private masses, against the veneration of angels. And much else. Bishop Shaxton would be supporting the Germans.’
In the event the King dissolved the conference. Everything I have ever heard about the King convinces me that although he defied the Pope for his own reasons, and was excommunicated, he retains his Catholic faith.
‘Bishop Shaxton,’ said the Abbess, ‘is trying to keep in with both the King and Master Cromwell. That is not easy in these days. They seem to speak with one voice but they do not. Cromwell will surely overstep the mark and fall, but not soon enough.’
She could not bring herself to say, ‘Not soon enough for us.’
Shortly after the Visitation she saw Sir Thomas Arundell again. He stroked his blue feathers and told her about a further and more violent uprising in the north against the suppressions, this time in Cumberland and Westmoreland. The rebels called it the Pilgrimage of Grace.
‘I,’ he said, ‘call it the Pilgrimage of Disgrace.’
Two hundred people were hanged and many slaughtered.
‘My dear Dame Elizabeth, I speak to you now as a friend. I do advise you to surrender your Abbey now. Most are doi
ng so. Follow the moo, my dear, follow the moo.’
‘What do you mean, follow the moo? I am not a cow.’
‘Quite right, indeed you are not. It is London street-talk, it means to follow the majority.’
‘Shaftesbury Abbey is no part of the majority.’
‘There are to be no exceptions, Madam. It is not only the smaller religious Houses that are being dissolved now, but all. Including the great Abbeys. Including Glastonbury, and Shaftesbury. Surrender is no longer voluntary. It only ever was in theory. It will be less painful, and more advantageous, to follow the moo. Refusal to sign the deed of surrender would have extremely unpleasant repercussions, and endanger your nuns’ pensions, not to mention your own. Another Act is being prepared in Parliament, to give a general suppression the full force of the law.’
‘All of them? All of them to go? Do you realise how many there are? Nuns and monks in their thousands will become homeless. It is quite impossible.’
‘There are something more than five hundred religious Houses remaining, as I understand. It is a vast undertaking indeed. Master Thomas Cromwell plans to have them all closed, vacated and demolished by the end of next year.’
‘Demolished?’
‘To prevent any attempt at return. Unless, of course … Do you by chance know of a Sir John Horsey?’
‘I know the family,’ said the Abbess. ‘There is a Horsey house at Clifton Maybank, a parish in our county of Dorset.’
‘Correct. This Sir John of Clifton Maybank is a man of a certain age, with four children to place in the world. He is a close friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt, of whom you have heard me speak. Sir John Horsey rolls in money. Rolls in money, Madam, do you hear? Money talks. And he is one of the King’s knights.’
‘It is well for Sir John. So?’
‘Sir John Horsey desires the possession of Sherborne Abbey and its demesnes. Intact.’
He paused, and then: ‘I do not want to use a harsh word which if bandied abroad could do damage. I can perhaps without offence use the word inducement, or the word enticement. Sir John Horsey, a few years back, when he saw which way the wind was blowing, induced or enticed Master Cromwell to forcibly appoint as the Abbot of Sherborne a right-minded man who could be relied upon to surrender, with his sixteen or so monks, without causing trouble.’
‘John Barnstable. I heard of his appointment. But I did not know –’
‘How should you know, Madam? It was not intended that you should know. Sir John Horsey will of course have to compensate the King, that is, to pay the King for the Abbey, upwards of a thousand pounds as I hear. My only purpose in telling you this is to demonstrate what can, in extreme situations, be brought about.’
I had become momentarily distracted, finding the name Horsey comical, and trying to recall one of my mother’s songs about a little horsey, but failing to retrieve more than the sweet silly air of it. So I may have missed something. I picked up my quill in time to hear Dame Elizabeth Zouche saying with solemnity, as if making a great concession:
‘I am prepared to offer His Majesty the King five hundred marks and Master Cromwell personally one hundred marks in return for the survival of Shaftesbury Abbey.’
A silver mark is worth less than a pound, only about thirteen shillings and four pence. I think Dame Elizabeth may have been offering her own personal money. So paltry a sum, when they were poised to benefit from the incalculable wealth coming from the Abbey, would hardly tempt either the King or Master Thomas Cromwell. And her speaking of marks, instead of pounds, was – what? – countrified. I wished for her sake that she had not made the attempt.
There was an awkward silence. Sir Thomas said, ‘If you will take my advice, Madam, you will do no such thing. That could not change your situation except for the worse. In any case the survival of Shaftesbury Abbey as a monastic House is not negotiable, any more than it is at Sherborne. This is not the point in question.’
‘Nevertheless, I would ask you to do as I say and pass on my offer.’
Sir Thomas bowed. The customary dish of mushrooms was at her elbow. In the silence that followed she spiked one mushroom after another with her knife in quick succession and brought it to her mouth. She did not offer the dish to Sir Thomas.
Before he left he said, almost pleading:
‘Madam, think. These changes may be the most important things ever to have happened in England. These changes mean freedom from Rome. England is becoming her sovereign self. All our people will benefit.’
Well, he and men like him are certainly poised to benefit. Whether Sir Thomas relayed the Abbess’s proposal or not, she received no response. I do not imagine that her offer ever reached the King. As for Master Cromwell, over-stretched in his many undertakings, he was content to have set the dissolutions and demolitions in train and to leave the rest to the Commissioners. According to Arundell, he was much occupied in negotiating the King’s next marriage, his fourth, to a German princess.
I have never heard of a man so given to marrying as our King of England. I cannot think why he does not just take concubines, it would save so much trouble. But he is obsessed with male issue, and there are always foreign politics involved too. He has never seen this German princess, whose name is Anne, but he has commissioned a portrait of her. As the Abbess said, seeing a portrait is not the same as seeing the real person. I would wager that it will be a flattering likeness, even if she has a face like a lump of dough.
‘My dear Dame Elizabeth,’ said Sir Thomas Arundell, standing up, ready to leave, stroking his blue feathers, ‘Do not think that I do not feel for you. We have always been friends, have we not? We have always understood one another, have we not, in a quite particular way?’
‘I have thought so, Sir Thomas.’
There was a sad vestige, as she said this, of her former manner towards him.
‘You are fortunate,’ he said, ‘and I must take some credit for this, that your surrender will be taken by Master John Tregonwell, and not by Dr Leigh or Dr Layton, who are perhaps over-assiduous and inclined to violence and insult in the execution of their duties, which to my mind is not appropriate. Master Tregonwell is a reasonable man.’
The Abbess raised her eyebrows.
‘In comparison to others,’ said Sir Thomas.
‘The Abbey of Shaftesbury will never surrender,’ said the Abbess. ‘And Master Tregonwell is a blowfly.’
She met my eyes over Sir Thomas’s shoulder.
That Christmas season of 1538, there was something desperate about the festivities. Nothing took place that year which did not take place in the Abbey every Christmas and throughout the twelve days. In the daytime everyone behaved relatively normally. Only we avoided one another’s eyes, knowing and not-knowing what the next night would bring.
Again as usual, loads of extra firewood were brought up from Gillingham. As usual, geese and ducks and fishes were roasted, mountains of loaves were baked. When darkness fell half a dozen fires were lit in different places on the cobbles and flagstones of the Abbey precinct, singeing the branches of trees. Up against the brewery were butts of ale, freely available to anyone sober enough to set a tankard under a tap. Bands of musicians from the town swilled in through the gatehouse, creating discord as the rhythms and melodies of flutes and fiddles and whistles and lutes mingled.
People came out from their lodgings, shrieking and whooping, most of them unrecognisable. Our labourers, porters, tradesmen, craftsmen, stable boys, apprentices, clerks, chantry priests, maid-servants, cooks, are transformed every year into flocks of crazed nuns of all shapes and sizes, lifting their makeshift habits as they stomp and stamp in their dance round the fires. Some of them blacken their faces with charcoal. This is a truly comical sight.
By the end of the twelve days people are exhausted and ready for normality. Many of our sisters have neither the courage nor the humour to join in. They cling together, giggling behind their hands, affecting outrage, jigging just a little to the music. But I do remember Mother Onion, in her
normal black habit, dancing as if transported, her feet describing a jumping pattern as if her knees were on springs, with her head erect and her body still as a statue.
The Fairheads did not so much disguise themselves that Christmas as appear in their true guises. They wore their brightest clothes, they curled their hair and brought ringlets forward on to their cheeks, and fixed their veils at the crowns of their heads, all hung about with coloured ribbons. The youngest novice, who always represents the Abbess, was this year a Fairhead. She put cushions under her tunic to simulate the Abbess’s bust. She chalked her face white and drew wrinkles on it with a dirty stick. She probably saw the Abbess as a crone.
This year the travesties were more extreme than usual. I shan’t forget the antics of the Infirmaress, wearing a cloak over nothing but a shift. She threw off the cloak, raised her shift at the back, and ran around a bonfire with her rear end exposed, pursued by Mother Catherine Hunt in outsize hose with a switch in her hand, screeching like an owl. Men disguised as nuns, very drunk, with their tunics pulled up to expose hairy legs, lolled around playing cards. Against the Abbey wall, half-concealed by the brewery buildings, a row of couples – I could not tell which were men and which were women – were fumbling and humping. I remember a tall figure in a floating green gown and veil, with long dark hair, being roughly handled by the head carpenter, his red beard defying any attempt at disguise. The figure in green shimmered into the firelight, her arms outstretched as she dipped and swayed, singing in a high voice. It was Father Robert Parker.
I saw Sister Eleanor Wilmer run to him, grasping his gown: ‘Dance with me!’ she said.
He shook her off.
And I? I was not myself either. I hardly then knew Gregory, the Steward’s assistant, but I noted that we were much of a size. Gregory lent me a pair of tight mulberry-coloured hose, a short jerkin with sleeves, and a little wool cap. So that Christmas, after dark, I was a boy and I drank and swaggered like a boy. The little cap did not disguise me enough. I drew out from among charred twigs a brimless object so dirty and misshapen that it was no longer recognisable as a hat unless it was on a head. I pulled it down over my brow. I don’t think many people recognised me. Certainly the Steward did not. He slumped down at my side.
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