Westminster Abbey, Summer 1441 #5
There is a shocked whisper at my answer. More than one man gives a little gasp, like a shocked maid-in-waiting. I keep my face completely serene.
‘Were you party to him casting a horoscope for the king, summoning a spirit to harm our gracious lord the king, and did you assist him in making an image of wax to cause harm to the king?’
‘I was not party to any such thing; I completely deny it. But I remind you that I am under sanctuary and need not answer to a court of law.’
Today, they are prepared for this, and the clerk has his answer ready. ‘This is not a court of law but an inquiry ordered by the king himself into false deeds and cursed imaginings.’
They have outwitted me. Sanctuary protects me from answering to a criminal court – but not from a royal inquiry, I am honour-bound to answer any questions the king might have.
‘There is no criminal charge,’ the clerk explains, as if I am a fool who did not understand him at the first word. ‘This is not a court but an inquiry, and so you should assist it, assist the inquiry.’
I manage a simper as if I am a fool who needs an explanation. ‘Of course. I have spent my life in service to His Grace the king.’
The clerk turns to Bolingbroke. ‘Do you, Roger Bolingbroke, solemnly admit and declare that you cast a horoscope and made a wax image and raised a devil with the intention of hurting the king, your gracious sovereign?’
‘I do,’ Bolingbroke says very quietly.
I do not let myself gasp – this is a death sentence for him, even if they are calling this an inquiry. What have they done to him to make him confess? He will get himself killed if he admits. Have they done something so evil that he is ready to die?
‘And was this lady, Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester, your patron in asking for this work and your assistant in doing it?’
‘Now, just wait a moment—’ I say. It is as if the ground is falling away beneath my feet. ‘Who is the subject of this inquiry?’
‘She was,’ Bolingbroke answers dully.
‘And did her chaplain Thomas Southwell and her clerk John Home know of the horoscope and the summoning of the demon? And did they undertake a black mass as a funeral for the wax doll – the doll that is in your lap? – due north from where you summoned the devil, so that the king should fail and die as the doll rotted away in the earth?’
‘They did.’
‘I didn’t order it!’ I exclaim.
The clerk looks at Bolingbroke as if he pities him as he invites him to write his own death sentence. ‘Did you undertake these crimes, with these men, at the request of the Duchess of Gloucester, here before us?’
‘I did,’ he says quietly.
I step forward. ‘Nothing can be alleged against me,’ I say firmly to my friend, the archbishop. ‘And this is not a court where men can judge me.’
‘No,’ he agrees mildly. ‘It is an inquiry. Did you ever consult Dr Bolingbroke in all the time that he was in your employ, a guest in your house, a scholar in your library?’
I catch my breath; this is my lifeline. ‘Of course I did,’ I say grandly.
‘We both did. Both my husband the duke and I. Doctor Bolingbroke advised the Duke of Gloucester as to his health. He is skilled in planetary medicine. He recommended the purchases of books and the right time for ventures. We paid for his scientific experiments and study. He advised me as to women’s troubles. ’
I feel as if I am finding my way out by touch, uncertain of my footing, wading in deep water. There are unseen obstacles in my way; but somewhere, there is a door that will open to my freedom.
‘Women’s troubles?’ repeats the celibate archbishop.
I turn my eyes down to my clasped hands; I manage a pretty blush. ‘I would rather not say more.’
‘But you spoke to Dr Bolingbroke?’ the archbishop queries, as shocked by unmaidenly frankness as by necromancy.
‘As a physician,’ I assert, ‘just as I asked my chaplain, who serves as my doctor, just as I asked Margery Jourdemayne, the midwife, for her advice.’
‘Margery Jourdemayne the witch,’ the archbishop corrects me.
‘She has helped many noble ladies in confinement, childbed, and travail,’ I say.
‘She attended the late Queen Catherine at her lying-in.
Are you saying the late queen was consulting a witch?
The wives of most of these noble lords here will have gone to Goodwife Jourdemayne, trusting to her natural skills – God-given skills.
None of us knew anything of witchcraft. She gave me herbs and oils and advised me to ask Dr Bolingbroke when the stars were most pro-pitious for conception of a child from the duke.
‘Was that wrong, Holy Father? It’s all I ever did.
’ I lift my grey eyes and look at the old fool; his face softens at my plea.
‘It was to give the king my nephew a little cousin; it was to bring a royal child into the royal family, to give my husband the son that he longed for, another Henry for England. It was my duty as a wife.’
The clerk leans over to the archbishop and the cardinal, whispering urgently. It is the cardinal, my enemy, who replies: ‘It’s allowable,’ he says begrudgingly. ‘If it’s midwifery.’
I don’t look at Bolingbroke, who neither speaks nor stirs but sits on his painted throne as if he were a corpse. I keep my eyes on the archbishop, waiting for him to release me.
When he says nothing, I make a little movement with my hands like a shrug, and I turn to the door. ‘May I go?’ I ask. ‘Since you have nothing against me?’
‘You may go,’ the cardinal answers, as if he is chief judge.
‘But you will not stay at Westminster Abbey. Tomorrow you will go to Leeds Castle and there await the results of the inquiries that the king has summoned. They will gather evidence and decide if there are charges to answer for all those involved in this magic-making. You will await the king’s decision at Leeds Castle. ’
Leeds is where they kept Queen Joan – a palace. I have no objection to Leeds Castle. ‘I am still protected by sanctuary?’ I prompt.
‘You are,’ the cardinal says grimly, ‘since you claimed it in such a timely manner.’
‘I have enemies,’ I speak past him to my new enemy, the archbishop, who has eaten the best dinners of his life at my table.
‘All great men and women have enemies. I did not know what lies they would tell about me. I had to claim sanctuary to save myself from harm, and I was afraid,’ I let my voice quaver a little.
‘We will discover the truth,’ the archbishop says feebly. ‘That is why we are holding inquiries before we issue summonses – criminal summonses. The evidence is very grave . . .’
‘Not against me,’ I specify. I don’t look towards Bolingbroke, who has given himself up for dead, and will die without a word from me. ‘There is nothing against me.’
I DON’T TRUST the cardinal’s word that I will be safe from trial at Leeds Castle.
Bolingbroke is a man walking without will or wit towards the gallows, and Southwell or Home will break under the torture that has ripped the life out of him.
If they don’t have the courage to deny their own guilt, they are not going to deny mine.
Also, I don’t know if the inquiry has picked up Margery for questioning about me, nor what she will say.
She has been tried for witchcraft before; she knows she must keep her nerve and deny everything.
Bolingbroke ordered his things from her – did she supply the king’s hair from his barber and the silk handkerchief from the royal wardrobe, the broken candles from Queen Catherine’s funeral?
If there is evidence from the barber or the vergers at the funeral, that is enough to get her strangled as a witch.
If my husband would only come to me, he could advise me. I have to know what the inquiry knows.
I have a sinking fear that I waste my time hoping for help from my husband.
He is not imprisoned, I am sure. If he had been accused of commissioning Bolingbroke as his witch, I could have pleaded wifely obedience and thrown all the guilt on Humphrey.
He must have heard that I am confessing to trying to make a son and heir for him; he must see that I am playing the part of an obedient wife.
He must be hoping to avoid me and keep away from the inquiry until all the evidence comes out.
He will keep away until he knows what charges I will face.
I am not surprised. Loving loyalty between husband and a wife comes with high tide and good times.
There is no chance of him saving me when the tide is against me.
I am on my own, and the only friends I have ever trusted are facing the death penalty.
I am more alone than I have ever been in my life before.
As the night goes on, my fear rises to terror, and I go down to the abbey to genuinely pray for courage in my ordeal. I even pray for Margery and Roger. I feel light-headed and sick, and I fear for my baby. When the old woman wakes me, I tell her I am too ill to travel today: I cannot go.
She goes away to tell someone, and when she comes back, it is with some mulled ale and some good bread, beef, and cheese on a pewter plate.
‘You needn’t go today,’ she says. ‘They say you’re to rest and go to Leeds Castle tomorrow. You can have the queen’s litter if you can’t ride.’
‘Who says?’ I whisper, not opening my eyes. ‘Who is so kind to me in my illness?’
‘Cardinal Beaufort,’ she tells me.