Aleric Donnal’s notebook
Aleric Donnal’s notebook
I feel I ought to set everything down, if only to get my thoughts into some sort of order.
I spend so much mental time in the Middle Ages that I feel like a time traveller; a miner of past secrets and thoughts.
And sometimes I am more at home in the past than a present that seems so hostile and uncertain.
My academic quest, if you can call it that, began in Brittany, at the University of Rennes, where I spent several years researching in the cathedral archives.
While I was there, I came upon the Fontescues, an old Devon family, and now I am continuing my academic quest at Morbay University, where I teach groups of undergraduates between conducting my research and working on my book.
I will return to Brittany in due course, but I have made some intriguing discoveries here in Devon.
I have been granted access to ancient forgotten documents held in the muniment room of Fontescue Hall, and Mr Fontescue has generously permitted me to visit whenever I wish.
He is an amiable man, but more concerned with the upkeep of the hall than with his family’s long and fascinating history.
In the dusty and rarely visited muniment room, I came across what appears to be a personal chronicle written by a Devon monk called Brother Anselm, who travelled between France and England carrying messages between Lady Margaret Beaufort and her beloved son Henry Tudor, then the Earl of Richmond, who was exiled in Brittany for many years, living under the protection of Duke Francis II.
In 1476, Brother Anselm wrote: May the good Lord punish me if I ever become a traitor to the House of Lancaster, even though the cause often appears to be lost. Before I took my vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, I fought at Tewkesbury for our sovereign lord Henry, the sixth of that name, and his wife, Queen Margaret, when her only son was piteously slain by the Yorkists.
It was there that the usurper who calls himself King Edward IV and his followers violated the sanctuary of the abbey and pursued their enemies into the great church itself to commit terrible slaughter contrary to the laws of God and man.
What I saw on that day hardened my resolve to do all in my power to set Henry Tudor upon the throne of England.
My name before my transformation into a man of God was Richard Fontescue, and my elder brother, Thomas, was the inheritor of our family estates.
Now I am become a humble canon of the Augustinian order, a monk by any other name, and my vows of poverty, chastity and obedience mean that I must treat all men with equal love and care.
Yet when I recall the dreadful scenes I witnessed at Tewkesbury, I find my thoughts unaltered.
My confessor says I must not harbour such hatred for the House of York and its supporters.
I assure him that I will try and cleanse my mind of all resentment.
I am myself entrusted with the secrets of men and women in the confessional. Most of those secrets are of a common nature: lust, avarice or a lack of charity towards neighbours. Yet from time to time I hear some secrets I would rather the penitent did not share.