Westminster Abbey, Summer 1441 #4
He blushes at the thought of me roped. ‘No! Of . . . of course not, Your Grace! My orders are to escort you with all honour and respect. I would never . . . I mean, I could never . . .’
‘Tell them that I deny they have authority over me and that I am innocent,’ I say firmly. ‘If you please.’
He bows – he can’t help himself – and gets himself out of the door. I hear him clatter down the stairs again with his guard, and I put my hands tightly over my mouth so that I don’t laugh aloud.
BUT I WIN only a day’s grace. The next day, he comes again. This time, his young face is drawn and pale, and he does not look at me at all, but speaks to the floor between his polished boots.
‘Your Grace, I am come again, and this time you are bound to come with me,’ he says, still not looking at me, as if I am Medusa with a fatal beauty that might turn him to stone.
‘The privy council may not drag me from sanctuary.’
‘It is not a case against you,’ he reassures me. ‘You are called as a witness, to give evidence in the trial of Roger Bolingbroke.’
‘As a witness?’
‘As a witness,’ he confirms. ‘And I am ordered to assure you that I will bring you to the court and return you safely here to sanctuary, after you have given evidence.’
No trace of my delight comes to my eyes. ‘You swear on your soul, I have to give witness and come back here?’
‘Your Grace, you have my word on it.’
‘Then I’ll come,’ I say graciously.
I make the old woman take my cape out of the chest of clothes that stands at the foot of my bed and put it around my shoulders.
I make her lift the hood over my golden wire headdress.
I am confident that I look as well as if I were riding to meet the king at court.
I let the young officer lead the way down the stone spiral stairs, and the old lady follows me.
In the yard outside the staircase door, they have a horse waiting for me, tacked up with my own beautiful saddlery.
I think with a sudden pang of Owen Tudor jumping on his horse and riding off into the darkness.
They let him go because they loved him and wanted him to be free.
Nobody loves me like that, and anyway, I have no refuge where they would defend me to the death.
As we cross MillBank Lane to Westminster Palace, I start to feel more confident.
Nobody pays us much attention; I draw my hood closer, and nobody points or catcalls.
I am sure my husband will be at the head of the council, and he may have planned this to convict Bolingbroke and prove my innocence.
He may have refused to receive my letters so he can take his place as chief judge.
He will know there is no need to warn me; I know exactly what to do.
All I ever did was consult Roger Bolingbroke for my health.
All I ever did was pray with my chaplain.
All I ever did was dictate letters to my clerk.
Our library is a centre of philosophy and the sciences; magic is one small feature of the new learning: look at the library at Oxford!
Just like our collection, though ours is better.
By the time we clatter through the cobbled gates to Westminster Palace, the ride in the open air has brought colour to my cheeks.
When the young captain lifts me down from the saddle, I know he is conscious of his hands spanning my slim waist. The sergeant at arms leads the way into my husband’s privy council chamber, and the young captain follows me.
I hold my head high and walk like a queen.
When the door swings open, I expect to see my husband seated at the head of the inquiry, hiding his smile.
He is not there. In his place is my friend Henry Chichele Archbishop of Canterbury, seated in the middle of the high table with a room full of churchmen and lords around him.
Robert Gilbert Bishop of London is on one side, and Cardinal Beaufort, our old enemy, on the other.
There must be dozens of bishops, all in full robes and wearing their mitres, as if it is judgement day, and behind them are lords of the realm: Huntingdon, Northumberland, Stafford, and all the others who were once fawningly glad of a smile from me. They look awkward – as they should.
‘Her Grace, the Duchess of Gloucester.’ A clerk gets to his feet and reads from a document: ‘You are charged with several counts of witchcraft, heresy, and treason, by this court. You are requested to say how you plead.’
‘This is not a court that can charge me,’ I say simply. ‘I come as a witness, not as an accused person. I have claimed sanctuary and cannot be charged for criminal offences under the law of the land.’
I look neither to the left nor to the right but directly at the archbishop, my dear friend, who squirms like an awkward child in his big seat.
‘Besides,’ I remark, smiling at him. ‘I am a royal duchess. I will only answer to a jury of my peers. You are a dear friend, but not my peer.’
The cardinal leans towards him, and they whisper for a moment and then instruct the clerk.
‘Your point is noted. We will ask you to return tomorrow as a witness to events,’ he says.
‘Under sanctuary,’ I stipulate. ‘Under the holy protection of the Church. I am a devout daughter of the Church.’
‘Under sanctuary,’ says the archbishop. ‘You will answer to the Church for ecclesiastical offences only.’
I don’t allow my triumph to show in my face; I nod my head as if this is nothing more than I expected, and I turn for the door.
I don’t curtsey to any of them, since none of them rise to bow to me.
The young captain leaps to open the door as I walk towards it, and I pass through without a check and down the stairs to where my horse is waiting in the yard.
Again, I have a moment’s thought of escape. A woman like Jacqueline would have dared them to try her, conscious of her blazing innocence; a horseman like Owen would have outridden his guard. But I am not either of them: I am guilty, and I have nowhere to go.
‘Where’s my husband, the Duke of Gloucester?’ I ask the young captain, who holds my horse as I get into the saddle.
‘I don’t know, Your Grace,’ he says miserably, and he gets on his own horse and escorts me back to the abbey.
I MAKE SURE to attend all the services in the Lady Chapel, and I even get up to pray in the night, though only the monks see me.
I think the worst that can happen to me now is that they insist that I confess and my confessor sets me a penance.
It might be expensive, like giving some land for a shrine, but I can afford it.
Queen Joan – Henry V’s stepmother – was imprisoned for witchcraft but never charged with any offence.
They never even asked if she was guilty, and she never pleaded one way or another.
She lived in comfortable seclusion, visited by her friends and served well.
I could be released to Bella Court and retire from public life until the king dies and my husband takes the throne, and then I will be queen and I will have this expunged from the record as if it never was.
I wake early the next day, and I insist that the old woman brings me a big bowl and ewer of hot water.
I wash thoroughly, dress in my blue gown, and comb out my hair.
I will wear it loose, under a gold coronet.
I wear a c?te-hardie of blue wool and a cape of blue.
I am ready when the captain comes for me just before noon, and I enter the privy council chamber as if my soldiers are a guard of honour.
The archbishop and the cardinal are in their places again, the earls behind them; everything is the same as yesterday and for a moment, I don’t notice the man seated at the side of the room, tucked against the wall as a nonentity.
When I have time to look around, I see Roger Bolingbroke.
The handsome scholar is folded over himself in a chair, as if all the bones in his body are broken.
He’s dressed in a mumming costume like some fool of a tailor would design for a witch in a play: a dark robe with badly sewn stars and moons and planets stitched all over it.
He wears a tall conical headdress like a lady’s hennin on his head, and it too is drawn with symbols of the planets and occult signs.
His robe is stained and splashed with mud, horseshit, and blood, so I guess this is how they dressed him, to be pilloried before the crowd, and they threw whatever came to their dirty hands.
He is seated on a throne of worn dark wood, like a bishop might have in a cathedral, but his tormentors have crudely carved and scratched signs of the planets and insignia of letters and stars and moons. It too is muddied and defaced.
He is hunched like a scolded child, his robe bunched and gathered around him as if he is cold, hiding his tall handsome frame.
He looks as if all the pride and courage have been pulled out of him, like a hanged man whose belly and lungs are drawn out of his body and burned before his horrified gaze.
There is something in his lap: I take one look and then turn my face from the screaming candlewax baby, more nightmarish than ever now that the tattered silk shroud around its body is stained with graveyard mud.
‘Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester, do you recognise this man?’ Henry Chichele asks, as if he doesn’t know me and hasn’t been under my patronage for years.
‘I do,’ I say. I stand very tall before them, and I put my hood back. There is a little murmur in the room at the gold coronet and the fall of my glossy hair.
Roger Bolingbroke does not look up; he is slumped like a stringless puppet, his eyes closed.
‘You know of him as a philosopher, alchemist, and magician?’
‘I do – as does everyone. My husband the Duke of Gloucester was his patron. He was a man of honourable fame and learning.’
‘Do you know of him as a necromancer and a magician who summons spirits?’
‘I do,’ I say boldly.