A Net for Small Fishes

by Lucy Jago

  ‘Yet he remains your husband. What proof have you of putting marriages asunder?’ I asked again. Essex would never welcome Robin into Frankie’s bed; though separated, they were still married.

  ‘You doubt me?’ said Mary Woods, looking out of the windows at the swirling, grey sky.

  ‘To break the holy bond of matrimony is beyond the powers of most … healers,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t break it. My devils do. They do as I say, just as men do.’

  ‘What do they do?’ I said. It was growing so dark in the room that the woman’s moon face was all I could clearly see. Frankie put a hand on my arm.

  ‘Speaking of my work lessens its effect.’

  ‘You don’t wish harm on the husbands?’ I insisted.

  The washerwoman lumbered to her feet and nodded at Frankie. ‘Your friend is too suspicious, m’lady. I’ll go before I’m trapped by the snow. They say it’s going to be bad.’

  Frankie stood and blocked Mary Woods’s path to the door. ‘Whatever you do … your work … please start it on my behalf.’ The woman turned her head to me in triumph before replying to Frankie.

  ‘Grand ladies promise much and perform little. I need payment before I start.’

  ‘And if it has no effect, do you return the payment?’ I asked. I could not credit what was happening.

  ‘It does work,’ snapped the woman, ‘and if the husband is protected by angels, or by devils more powerful than mine, then it is better the marriage is left intact.’ At that she simply held out her hand. Frankie did everything on account, she never had coin. She tugged a large diamond from her finger and handed it over.

  ‘My lady!’ I protested.

  ‘This is very precious. It is a token of my good faith but must be returned when I pay you the proper fee. Do you wish for coin or a gift?’ said Frankie.

  ‘Three shillings,’ said Mary Woods, poking the ring down the fleshy fissure between her breasts whose vastness defied attempts to cram them under lacings.

  ‘Come to me in ten days to tell me how you do,’ said Frankie.

  ‘And for payment,’ Mary reminded her. Frankie opened the door herself. The washerwoman bobbed a meagre curtsy to her and ignored me.

  As soon as the door was shut, I rounded on Frankie. ‘That woman is a charlatan or a witch! How could you allow her here, let alone tell her you want rid of Lord Essex. The penalty for witchcraft is hanging!’

  ‘She is not some poor hag from Pendle.’

  ‘The difference may not be obvious to a jury. You gave her jewellery that can be identified as yours!’

  ‘I had no coins,’ said Frankie. ‘Essex gave me the ring, I never liked it.’

  ‘Your impatience will undo you.’

  ‘Too much patience and Robin will be married to someone else. I do what I have to.’

  ‘You must retrieve that ring and never see Mary Woods again,’ I said, almost shouting. Frankie narrowed her eyes at me.

  ‘You’d better be gone before the snow is impassable,’ she said. She marched into the cabinet and slammed the door but it was thin and without a latch and rebounded with little noise.

  I should have done more to stop Frankie paying Mary Woods that day. I already suspected that her yearning for Robert Carr would lead her to foolish acts that even her love for me would not restrain. I wish with my whole heart that I had fished that ring from between that laundress’s monstrous breasts and chased her out with a poker.

  16

  After a few days of snow it began to rain and continued interminably for a fortnight. I hoped that Frankie had retrieved the ring and sent Mary Woods away with a flea in her purse, but I kept my distance. I taught the younger children to cook biscuits and listened to Arthur’s grief for Prince Henry and his hopes for a position in Prince Charles’s new Court. He increased our stipend and I used the extra money to prepare for our wedding. Prince Henry’s death, the rain and high winds, put fashion from people’s minds; had Arthur not proposed, God knows what would have happened to us. It was a thought that made me sensible and grateful. I did not trouble him with where we would live after we were married, how the children would be educated, whether I would have my own carriage and other such matters, and I made all the arrangements with the church.

  In early March, Arthur arrived at my front door just as a messenger was handing me a note. I could tell from the seal that it was from Frankie. An apology, perhaps? I wished that I was already married and could hide away on my husband’s estate.

  ‘My father has come to visit,’ said Arthur, not dismounting.

  ‘Will you come in? When will I meet him?’

  Arthur was looking at the note in my hand. ‘I hear she is in trouble,’ he said. I felt so powerful a dread at his words that the noise around me seemed to hush, as if the world itself flinched from me. ‘There is talk that a cunning woman has been arrested who claims she was working to rid the Countess of her husband. You had better go to her.’ I could not tell whether his grim expression was from care for me, or displeasure that I was friend to a woman caught up in scandal. He did not ask if the rumours were true, which I took to be a good sign. He either trusted me to know nothing, or to be discreet if I did. If it was now discovered that Frankie had seen a cunning woman, how soon might Arthur discover that we had also used Forman’s skills to encourage him to marry me?

  ‘I can meet your father and go to Frankie afterwards?’ I said, but Arthur was already turning his horse. He nodded goodbye.

  I ran back inside for my cloak, deciding to catch him up. He would take the route through Ludgate barrier to Fleet Street, but the lanes and courts between my house and the gate out of the City were choked with mud and wide puddles with traffic on wheel and foot struggling in both. Arthur’s horse must have picked an elegant course through the obstructions for I did not see him ahead. I fell to worrying about Mary Woods and whether Frankie could be questioned or was too high placed.

  Northampton House, at Charing Cross, was newly finished. Many humbler dwellings had been razed to accommodate its grandeur, which was significantly greater and more proximate to Whitehall Palace than that of the Cecil mansion, Salisbury House, situated further east along the Strand. For all that Northampton and Salisbury had been allies, they were also the greatest of rivals. As Northampton had no wife or children, he could spend all his money and more, on himself.

  I called into the porter’s lodge and was taken by a servant across the huge courtyard, surrounded on each side by wings of the house. The main façade had an open loggia along its length, as if this country had good enough weather to require shade. Instead of passing through the grand doorway at its centre, more magnificent than anything I had seen at the Palace of Whitehall, we turned right under the loggia to the corner tower. We climbed two flights of tightly twisting stairs and emerged into an impressive gallery that occupied the entire length of the wing. Northampton’s clients, and others seeking favour, stood about, talking quietly and looking at the views. Large windows faced west, to Westminster, and another on the south looked over formal gardens to the river and beyond, to Lambeth Marshes. It unsettled me that Lord Northampton’s outlook included the house of Simon Forman. Outlined against the view was Frankie. I noted at once that she was dressed very finely, in the boldest of my designs, with a tall hat made taller with long plumes; but as she turned, I saw that deep shadows lined the sockets of her eyes.

  ‘Mary Woods has made a scandal and been arrested,’ she said, steering me to the end of the room where there were fewer people. I could smell Frankie’s sweat. ‘She cosened me of my ring then left for Norfolk, so I sent a man after her but she had already sold it for a pittance in London. He called the Justice of the Peace there and she defended herself by saying the ring was payment from me, claiming I asked her to murder my husband.’

  ‘She has accused you before a justice?’

  ‘It is her word against mine.’

  ‘She had your ring.’

  ‘I could have said she stole it but my m
an told the Justice that I gave Mary the jewel for safe-keeping before a masque when she was working as a laundress at Salisbury House. But now they know Mary never worked there, so they have clept him up too.’

  ‘Why did he say such a thing? There have been no masques since the Prince’s death.’

  Frankie looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t think they’d know that so far from London.’

  I fought down my rage at her idiocy.

  ‘My parents are here, with my great-uncle.’

  ‘They will kill you and throw your body in the Thames,’ I said.

  ‘Or worse, they will force me to return to Essex, to disprove the rumours that I want him dead.’

  Wretchedness and impatience had driven her to ignore my counsel and resort to foolish measures. I wanted to save her from rashness as she had saved me from destitution, but still I thanked my angel guardian that Arthur was to relieve me of dependence on her. Frankie would always be in my soul, but I would soon be free from the scandal and gossip that followed her like begging children.

  A high servant, probably Lord Northampton’s steward, entered the chamber. ‘The Lord Northampton calls the Countess of Essex,’ he bellowed. Even those too polite to do so before now turned to stare at us.

  ‘Your hat is brazen,’ I said. ‘You will annoy them with such a display.’

  Frankie began unpinning it with clumsy fingers. I swapped it for my own more modest confection.

  ‘Shall I wait for you?’ I asked.

  Frankie mumbled something.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are summoned also but I will tell them you had nothing to do with it,’ she said, setting off behind the steward. My heart began beating fit to jump out of my chest as I followed her the length of the gallery to a set of ornate double-doors. At our feet lay the pelt of the leopard from the Tower.

  ‘She didn’t last long,’ muttered Frankie. She stepped high over the dead creature so that even her hems did not brush it. I followed, hoping to be sent away once Frankie had described my attempts to stop her calling for Mary Woods.

  Lord Northampton sat in a large chair at the head of a long table. His dark eyes, watery with age, were watchful and his hands, strangers to plough and sword, stood out against his black robes. To his left sat Frankie’s father, a fat, profligate but largely genial man, known as overly indulgent of the women in his family, especially Frankie. Behind him, beside the fireplace, stood her mother.

  Lord Northampton shifted, wincing slightly as if every movement caused him pain. I wondered if he wore a hair shirt or spiked belt under his robes. He frowned at the hat on my head but otherwise ignored me. I felt very sick.

  ‘Tell us you have never set eyes on Mary Woods,’ he said to Frankie.

  Her father twisted to glare at his wife, whose alchemical experiments were well known. He clearly felt she was to blame for Frankie’s predicament, but she ignored him.

  ‘I asked her to attend upon me once,’ said Frankie.

  ‘And after this short acquaintance you gave her your diamond ring and a commission to poison your husband?’

  ‘I never asked her to poison him!’ cried Frankie. ‘I gave her my ring as surety that I would pay her three shillings, as Mistress Turner is my witness.’

  Lord Northampton stared at me and I nodded.

  ‘A diamond ring is too great a surety for services any fraud on the Southbank could purvey. What did she promise you?’

  Frankie hesitated a long while. I hoped she was remembering my warnings not to talk to Mary Woods.

  ‘To help me be free from Essex.’ There was silence in the room disturbed only when Frankie’s mother slumped into a chair beside the fire.

  ‘She has accused you of asking for a poison that would lie in a man’s belly three days before killing him.’

  ‘She is lying! She said she would talk to devils.’

  ‘And yet you have lived separate from Essex since Christmas. There would be no need for some spell to keep him from your bed,’ said the Earl in a restrained voice. ‘What else can the word “free” imply other than to seek his death? In what other manner can one be free from a spouse?’

  ‘The woman is a liar. She predicted that I would be free from my husband and, without asking any more of her, I requested that she do what she could to hurry this situation into being. There was no talk of poison or murder. How could she, a low woman, poison my lord in his great house in Chartley? It is a ridiculous claim.’

  Northampton’s face resembled that on a funerary monument.

  ‘You understand that Mary Woods is known throughout Norfolk as a cunning woman? By paying her you were meddling in witchcraft. Witches meet a most unpleasant death, a fact well known to you due to recent events in Pendle. Your own King has written at length against such practices. You have read “The Hammer of Witches”?’

  Frankie shook her head and Lord Northampton looked at me; I shook mine as well.

  “‘The Hammer”. Does that imply forgiveness for those who give suck to the Devil and his minions? Yet you meet with a witch, pay her princely sums, and allow her to tell all manner of ludicrous tales of husband murder. Whether Mary Woods speaks the truth or not, henceforth your own name will be forever linked with witchcraft and wickedness. Are you wishing to follow your illustrious forbears to the block?’

  Lord Northampton rose from his chair and walked around the table, causing our eyes to narrow against the crisp light that pierced the windows behind him.

  ‘To be separated from bed and board does not give you licence to behave as you please. I need hardly point out that you owe obedience to your father, as previously you did to your husband, until such time as your marital situation finds resolution. Your first obligation is not to your own desires but to the perpetuation and advancement of your family and to providing a worthy example to those beneath you. Your father and I enjoy the closest possible trust from His Majesty. This cannot be put at risk because of your discontent. However,’ he said, pausing to ensure he had our full attention, ‘I know there would be no woman on this earth more obedient to her husband than you, if that husband had the means within him to perpetuate your noble family. Is that not the case?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Frankie, uncertainly.

  ‘Self-interest is, of course, misplaced in a woman,’ continued Northampton, ‘but this foolish action of yours with Mary Woods provides ample evidence of your determination to be free from the man you accuse of making you unhappy. Be warned, Frances, that no man can make a discontented woman happy. You do, however, have some cause for complaint. The Lord of Essex is a gelding, not suited to be a husband.’

  ‘You are a perverse and unbiddable girl!’ burst out Frankie’s mother. ‘I am ashamed to hear such things. You have been married in the eyes of God and should make the best of it as is within your power. You have turned Essex from you with your unkindness and unwillingness. He is not able to know you because you make it impossible for him. The Queen herself is displeased.’ Her distress was sufficiently profound that she forgot her usual ‘hmm’.

  ‘Wife,’ said Suffolk, ‘let us hear what our uncle has to say.’

  ‘There is nothing to say and indeed nothing to be done,’ his wife insisted. ‘Frances must cease her complaining. There is such gossiping about her that the Court will not contain it and base persons at large will be free to tittle-tattle about us in every tavern in the land. The Howard name will be an object of derision.’

  ‘The people are ignorant,’ said Suffolk.

  ‘Broadsheets and libels are as popular as daily bread and the King himself takes note of them, for he desires his courtiers to preserve the glory of the Crown, not tarnish it.’ She turned to Lord Northampton. ‘Frankie was fifteen when she married and not a child. She should be grateful for the honour of bringing together two families that were previously asunder. You are a Howard, Frances.’

  ‘My dear,’ Suffolk began.

  ‘She needs an annulment,’ said Lord Northampton, as casually as i
f she needed a new horse. His audience fell silent, transfixed by shock. Even I, who had kept my eyes lowered throughout the conversation, stared at the Earl. A hint of a smile came into his eyes, like a boy who has shown himself cleverer than his older brother.

  ‘That is impossible,’ said the Earl of Suffolk.

  ‘It is against God,’ whispered his wife.

  ‘Is it possible?’ asked Frankie.

  ‘It is difficult, of course,’ said Northampton. ‘We are the only Protestant nation with Catholic divorce laws stricter than are now observed in many Popish lands. I would estimate that at least one in three of our peers live apart from their spouses, yet none are legally divorced. We cannot expect this to be a simple matter.’

  ‘Annulment by a woman?’ asked Frankie’s father. ‘Can the law accommodate such perversion?’

  ‘Is it not evident that you have raised a daughter who thinks it is right to take matters into her own hands, whatever the consequences?’ said Lord Northampton, and I wondered if he knew just how far we had taken matters into our own hands. Frankie hunched her shoulders; she was thinking the same thing. ‘The qualities of obedience, silence and forbearance are lacking in her and these faults will affect us all,’ her great-uncle continued. ‘If she has risked her neck to associate with persons such as Mary Woods, what else might she do? It is far better to help her be rid of Essex and see her remarried as swiftly as possible, to someone suitable to us and more acceptable to Frances. The Earl has insufficiencies not to be borne in marriage.’

  ‘Who would marry a wilful and credulous fool with no reputation? If she brings a case for annulment, she announces to the world her own lust and disobedience,’ said the Countess of Suffolk. ‘ “Can she not contain herself?” That is what people will say. And what if others seek to follow her example? Do you really wish the Howards to be known as the murderers of marriage? How then will we stand in God’s eyes?’

  ‘Our house is no stranger to drama and yet we have weathered it and sit high in the King’s regard. Frankie has beauty and wealth on her side, if not obedience. There will be suitors. We have a fine precedent in the eighth King Henry,’ said Lord Northampton, seemingly confident enough of his high standing in the eyes of God to ignore the Countess’s fears.