by David Field
‘And it will give me a great awareness of the honour you do me, to be allowed to honour her memory,’ Richard replied through welling tears of his own. ‘I am sorry that on occasions in the past, harsh words have passed between us, but have no doubt that the respect I have for you borders upon that due by a son to a father. Let us be reconciled.’
‘There must be more than that,’ Cromwell insisted. ‘You are held back for lack of an estate, and I have many such at my disposal, as the abbeys and monasteries fall into my pockets. Before Grace faded from my sight, there was another standing in the corner of the chamber, smiling that smile of his, his red robes shining clear in the moonlight from the open shutter.’
‘The Cardinal?’
‘The very same. I held him in the same regard that you assure me you hold for me, so this gift that I shall make to you will be all the more fitting.’
‘Gift?’
‘Of land. One of the larger houses that I have been obliged to dissolve of late has been the old Abbey of Leicester. It had already begun to fall into ruin, and local desecrators have taken to removing the stonework for their own houses. It is only a matter of time before they loot the graves.’
‘And?’
‘One of those graves is that of the Cardinal. I always intended to cover it with a suitable memorial, but the time was never auspicious. Now it would probably be adjudged hypocrisy on my part, given my opposition to shrines, but the grave itself must be kept from desecration, and that task I entrust to you.’
‘Willingly, but how does this involve an estate?’
‘The Abbey has several estates that over the years have been added to its rental rolls, and of these the finest was — and still is — the one at Knighton, slightly to the north of Leicester itself, which I am pleased to grant to you, for your convenience as you see to the preservation of Wolsey’s final resting place. It brings in several hundred a year, if properly stewarded, and there is still an old manor house, according to the latest return I had from the abbot. Also on the land is a small house of Benedictine nuns that was endowed by the late Queen Katherine in her will; they are believed to be no more than four in number, but I would be greatly obliged if you would allow them to remain, out of respect for the memory of that most pious lady. She was a good friend to the Cardinal, and it sore grieved him that he was obliged by Henry to pursue the annulment.’
‘It was said that he shrank from doing so, and that this was the cause of his downfall.’
Cromwell’s eyes flashed. ‘Be in no doubt that the cause of the Cardinal’s downfall was the malevolence of the Boleyn witch and her evil uncle. The Cardinal was a true servant of Henry’s, and would have secured the annulment if he could. That did not prevent his big heart from lamenting the grief that it caused Katherine, however.’
Richard reached for the wine jug that was still covered by a cloth, uncovered it, and poured some of it for Cromwell, which he drank with a pale smile of thanks.
‘You have given me much to think about,’ Richard assured him, ‘and of course I shall be ever grateful of your generosity, but when will it be convenient for you for me to return to Jane, to see how she fares, and bring her the glad tidings?’
Cromwell glanced up at the high window and smiled. ‘The weather appears to be set fair again, and who knows how long this might last at this time of the year? Perhaps you should set off without further delay.’
‘But I returned only yesterday. Do you not need me here?’
‘Indeed I do, but as you yourself advised me, I have other clerks. I have only one man I can trust to preserve the Cardinal’s grave, and only one father of a girl called Grace who has yet to be born.’
‘Thank you — Thomas,’ Richard replied as he addressed Cromwell by his first name for the very first time, and reached across the table to grip his hand.
‘Before you journey to Leicester, you might wish to know something of your neighbours. To the north of your lands in Knighton, less than half a day’s ride, lies the Bradgate estate of Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset. His great-grandmother was the fabled Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV, your great-grandfather. Before Elizabeth married Edward she was wed to Sir John Grey. Henry Grey’s wife is Lady Frances Brandon, the daughter of our current Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, and his then wife the late Princess Mary, the current Henry’s sister. You had best write all this down.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they will be your nearest ennobled neighbours, and Lady Frances has recently given birth to a daughter they have named Jane. Your daughter Grace will require a playmate during her childhood, and better that she play with someone of noble birth than the offspring of your local blacksmith or butcher.’
‘Someone other than Thomas Wolsey, son of a butcher, or Thomas Cromwell, son of a blacksmith, you mean?’ Richard grinned in reply.
Cromwell couldn’t prevent the chuckle leaving his throat. ‘I have taught you too well, and you have learned too readily. Be on your way, before I find some boring monastic charter for you to decipher for its hidden wealth.’
Jane rushed out of the modest manor house at Grimston into the thinly swirling flakes of the first snowfall of winter. Richard had barely dismounted and was about to lead the horse into the shelter of the stables when she threw herself into his arms and hugged him warmly.
‘Back so soon! Baby must have known, for I felt him stirring inside me!’
‘It’s a girl,’ Richard told her as he smiled down at her eager face and kissed the snowflakes off her lips. ‘And she, like you, would be better off inside, by the fire. I hope there’s mulled wine.’
There was indeed, and while Richard helped himself as they sat with their legs extended towards the log fire in the centre of the room, betraying the house’s Saxon origins, Jane demanded to know why he was back so soon after his departure.
‘Cromwell has sent me on a mission to preserve the Cardinal’s grave from the plunderers of Leicester Abbey.’
‘If the grave is in Leicester, why are you in Grimston?’
‘Leicester is two days’ ride to the west of here, and we leave once this snow stops falling.’
‘We?’
‘Yes — you and I. My new role as tenderer of Wolsey’s grave brings with it an estate I can finally call my own.’
‘For as long as you do Cromwell’s bidding, presumably?’ Jane asked suspiciously.
‘He and I are reconciled, and he has given his blessing for us to call our daughter Grace,’ Richard told her with a beaming smile.
‘But now we will be dependent on Cromwell’s good will to abide on our new estate? I have seen how Cromwell’s good will can turn into an evil gale in a matter of hours. You forget that he had me summoned to his rooms in Whitehall, and that he questioned me without relenting until he had the information he needed against Anne.’
‘Information that you gave both freely and gleefully, as he tells it,’ Richard reminded her. ‘Now, are you content to journey to Leicester without delay?’
XXIV
The snow abated with nightfall, and by the following morning there was no evidence that it had ever fallen, as Richard and Jane pointed their mounts with their backs to the brightly rising sun. They struck across verdant acreages and pleasant wooded vales until the ramparts and towers of Leicester Castle came into view, and they passed through the town in the late afternoon of the second day, chasing the setting sun to their destination on their new estate.
‘Is this it?’ Jane said disconsolately as they rode through the old moss-covered gate that was hanging from its hinges.
Richard gazed forlornly at the cluster of broken-down buildings. One was larger than the rest, and appeared to have retained most of its roof, although chickens ran squawking from its gloomy interior as they approached. From a barn of sorts came the mournful lowing of a cow, and two donkeys were grazing listlessly outside the front door of the third building, little more than a squat tower, from which came bustling a middle-aged woman wearing the b
lack habit and white cowl of a nun of the Order of St Benedict. She looked up, smiled, and walked across as she wiped her hands down the side of her habit.
‘Good afternoon, and welcome to the Convent of Knighton, a Benedictine house. You are seeking a night’s sanctuary? If so, you should know that we poor sisters live strictly by the code laid down by the founder of our order, and can offer only the roof above your head, and the barest of potage to line your stomachs. I’m Sister Maria Magdalena, and since the recent promotion of Mother Boniface to the right hand of God, I am the one responsible for what transpires in this house, of which there are only two more sisters, apart from myself.’
Richard smiled benevolently down at her from his horse’s back. ‘You do not fear that even the remaining three of you will be obliged to renounce your vows following the great purge of holy houses?’
Maria smiled up at him with a confident beam in her warm brown eyes. ‘We have nothing to fear from the heretic and blasphemer Cromwell, since we live our lives in simple purity. Even should our house be taken from us, we shall continue to do God’s work, safe in the knowledge that He will provide.’
‘Your faith and purity do you credit, Sister Maria. I shall be sure to commend both to my master — the heretic and blasphemer Cromwell.’
If she was shocked by this revelation, there was no evidence of it in her face as she invited them to dismount. As Richard helped Jane from her side saddle, Maria’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Jane’s somewhat protruding midriff when her riding cloak fell away to reveal her rich gown.
‘You are with child, my daughter? Come, lose no time in entering our humble hospitium, and resting your stomach. Sister Hortense will bring you food and drink, and the rushes are fresh. It is to be regretted that we have no bolster on which you may sleep, but Christ himself entered this life in a stable, so we are told.’
An hour later, Sister Maria ducked back into their accommodation and enquired whether or not they had been fed, and if there was anything else that they required which could be provided ‘within the means of this humble house.’ Jane shook her head, and smiled her thanks for what they had already received, but Richard was seeking more information.
‘I am advised that this house was endowed by the late Queen Katherine.’
Maria crossed herself and muttered some blessing in Latin before answering. ‘Indeed, she was most pious and devout. Since her death, the Devil has been able to wreak his evil throughout the nation. And, I have to say, mainly through the hand of the man you serve. I have no doubt, as you indicated earlier, that this house will soon fall by his hand, and we shall all be back in the wicked world that we sought to escape from into the loving arms of God, whom we serve.’
‘That’s precisely the point, though, isn’t it?’ Richard argued. ‘Because you have withdrawn from the world, and make no contribution to the community by which you are surrounded, it is too easy for men like Cromwell to accuse you of idleness, and thereby justify the closure of your houses.’
For once Sister Maria was not smiling. ‘You accuse us of withdrawing from the community, and yet, were you to ask the people who seek to survive in this locality, they would tell you of our good works. Of the food we supply in times of poor harvest. Of the divine blessings we can bring during sickness. When the last outbreak of the Plague visited the village just down the road, it was myself and my sisters who ministered to the dying when no-one else would venture near them, for fear of contracting the pestilence themselves. And not just in times of sickness — were you living here, for example, I would be available to assist in the delivery of the baby that your wife is expecting.’
‘Actually, we’re not...’ Jane began, until silenced by a look from Richard, who smiled back at Sister Maria.
‘You were not to know, Sister, but we shall be living here. This estate has been granted to us by my master, Thomas Cromwell, and we are your new lord and lady of the manor.’
‘Deo gratias,’ Maria mumbled as she once again made the sign of the cross. ‘You seem to be honest Christian people, so perhaps this humble house may be allowed to remain for a little while longer?’
‘Your wish is to continue to do the work of God?’ Richard enquired.
Maria nodded.
‘Is there any reason why you need to do so under holy orders?’ was Richard’s next question.
Maria thought deeply before replying. ‘Of course not, but even were I to cast off this humble mantle and resume the clothes I wore before taking my vows, I would continue to honour them, both in my heart and in my deeds.’
‘The two other Sisters,’ Richard replied, ‘what work do they do?’
‘Sister Hortense is our farmer, tending the plants and beasts that you see all around you. It is through her good deeds that we are fed daily. Sister Catherine is our builder, and in company with some of the local men she ensures that the fabric of our buildings remains such that we can continue to be protected from the elements.’
‘And yourself?’
‘As I have already advised you, my particular calling is toward nursing the sick.’
Richard thought for a moment, then smiled back up at Sister Maria from where he was resting in the rushes. ‘So if you were allowed to remain here, even if not under holy orders in a convent, you would continue to serve this local community under the inspiration of God?’
‘Have I not already said so?’
‘Not in so many words. I take it that the sad hovel in which we are currently accommodated was once the manor house?’
‘Yes, but it has not been occupied by a lord since it came under the overlordship of the Abbey at Leicester, which itself is shortly to be closed.’
‘And your Sister — Catherine, I believe she is called — could supervise local tradesmen to restore it to what it once was?’
‘If we are to remain here,’ Maria replied, ‘it would be the least we could do by way of thanks.’
‘And Sister Hortense would see to the tending of crops and the raising of animals?’
‘As I said.’
‘You yourself would continue to nurse the sick, and deliver children into this world?’
‘That is my vocation, under God’s holy guidance.’
‘Then there remains only the matter of how you are dressed, and how you are named. There can be no objection to your remaining here, and continuing your work, provided that you do not flaunt your vestments and continue to call yourself a convent. You would be officially closed, but quietly going about the work you have always done.’
Maria knelt on one knee, fingered the cross that hung around her neck, intoned a string of joyful Latin, then raised her hand in a blessing to them both before scuttling out in floods of tears.
‘You are actually intent on living in this shithole?’ Jane asked as soon as Maria was out of earshot.
Richard smiled. ‘It will not be a shithole for much longer,’ he assured her. ‘The Holy Sisters will be so grateful to be allowed to remain as they were that they will restore the manor to what it presumably once was. And it shall be our manor, not one that can be taken from us any day that King Henry wakes to a sick stomach or a toothache.’
‘I’m not lying in these disgusting rushes for more than one night,’ Jane insisted with a firm set to her jaw.
‘You will not have to. Tomorrow I honour my undertaking to secure the grave of Cardinal Wolsey, and then we shall impose upon our neighbours to the north.’
They found Wolsey’s grave with the guidance of Abbot Joseph, who was loading a donkey with his few possessions prior to returning to his home village of Clifton, on the banks of the Trent a day’s ride north. The grave itself had not been violated in any way, but it was weed strewn, and the humble marker at its head was drooping at a perilous angle before Richard placed it back upright and hammered it back in with a stone. Then he stood back and surveyed the simple mound.
‘He was once the second most powerful man in the realm, and this is all that remains of him,’ Richard
mused sadly.
Jane rested against him, her hand through the crook of his arm. ‘Cromwell may well finish up the same way — and sooner than he imagines.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Wolsey fell foul of the King, did he not? You forget that I once served Queen Anne, and I heard the lies she poured into Henry’s ear regarding Wolsey’s efforts with Rome. Henry believed that Wolsey was in league with Rome because Anne and her uncle Norfolk persuaded him that he was. Norfolk need only pour similar poison into Henry’s ear regarding Cromwell, and he will be a mere memory.’
‘Thomas Cromwell is a stronger man than Wolsey ever was. And stronger than Norfolk.’
‘Pray God that it never comes to the test. Now, where do you propose that we rest tonight?’
They were admitted to the large house at the south end of Bradgate Park the moment that Richard mentioned the magic name of Cromwell, and were met in the main hall by Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset.
‘You are both most welcome, Sir Richard. And of course, Viscountess Rochford. I trust that the purpose of your visit is purely of a social nature, and you do not carry your master’s commission to close us down?’
‘Not at all,’ Richard assured him. ‘In fact, we call in the capacity of near neighbours, since I have recently taken over the lordship of Knighton, to the south of you. Our own humble house is undergoing repair at present, and we have need to cast ourselves upon your hospitality while those repairs are completed. In the fullness of time I would hope to repay the favour, although even when completed our humble manor house will have nothing of the splendour of Bradgate House.’
‘It shall be our pleasure,’ Henry Grey assured him in a cringing tone that was almost embarrassing. ‘Any friend of Thomas Cromwell is a welcome guest in this house. Come into the Hall and meet my wife and daughter.’
