Command Of The King Read online

  Mary Lide was born in Cornwall and educated at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, where she read History. She has lived in the USA (where she was English Speaking Fellow at Ann Arbor), France, Denmark and Italy, and now divides her time between America and Cornwall. Her earlier novel Ann of Cambray won the New Historical Writer Award.

  By the same author

  Ann of Cambray

  Gifts of the Queen

  Hawks of Sedgemont

  The Diary of Isobelle

  Tregaran

  COMMAND

  OF

  THE KING

  Mary Lide

  Grafton Books

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  Grafton Books A Division of the HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  Published in paperback by Grafton Books 1991

  First published in Great Britain by Grafton Books 1990

  Copyright © Mary Lide 1990

  ISBN 0-586-07391-4

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow

  Set in Janson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  COMMAND

  OF

  THE KING

  Table of Contents

  COMMAND OF THE KING INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CONCLUSION

  INTRODUCTION

  ——

  There was a time in the early years of the sixteenth century when Englishmen came to the conclusion that they were tired of civil war. The long-lasting quarrels between the two noble houses of York and Lancaster had exhausted them, and they wished for peace. They prayed and hoped that in the Tudor kings, who had finally gained the throne, they would find the means to achieve their aim. Yet such is the effect of civil war that former loyalties are difficult to break and old alliances die hard. Despite prayers and hopes, rebellions were frequent, and riots and conspiracies stirred up constant unrest. In a world that appeared as unstable as quicksand, people therefore began to rely on prophecy, on portents and witchcraft. Reports of a sorceress, a new one, aroused fresh interest (depending always, of course, how, and by whom, her gifts were used).

  By origin she was a simple peasant woman, who, no doubt, would have remained content with her own local fame, had not the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre in Canterbury swallowed her and made her a nun. Her real name was Elizabeth. Like a hundred other country witches, she was round of face, sturdy legged, gifted in blending herbs and salves, which she sold for medicine. Had she not been persuaded to join the Holy Sisterhood, she would have lived out her life among the hopfields of her home, doing harm to no one. But God (or the Devil, depending whose side you take) inspired her, and gave her fits, during which, like Joan of Arc, she claimed she saw visions, heard voices and performed miracles (hence the Holy Sisters’ interest in her). She also agreed to give advice to the king, the most recent Tudor king that is, who had inherited the crown a few years earlier.

  Who persuaded her to meddle with kingship was at first unclear, or for what reason, but kings do not take kindly to advice, especially advice which runs contrary to their will. The Nun of Kent and her convent friends might have thought of that before she was pushed into seeking an audience with a monarch. And he, already beginning to change from the great lumpish boy who had inherited, he might have thought what punishment she would deserve if her prophecies did not please him.

  The meeting took place in the early summer time, when the roses were in bloom and the fields of Kent were alive with game. The year was 1513. The king had most recently been in Westminster to plan a new war, not war in England this time, but war abroad, in France, where, like other former English kings, he felt he had a God-given right to rule. He was called Henry, eighth of that name, Henry Tudor, and he was desperate for some sign that this invasion would succeed, especially since an earlier one had proved so disastrous that he had threatened to hang his army on its return, down to the meanest mercenary. Why he agreed to meet with a sorceress is a matter of conjecture. Perhaps he still liked to give the illusion he was what he had been, a boy, who took more pleasure in dancing and hunting than affairs of state, and so pretended to see her for a joke. Perhaps he was curious; perhaps he had a superstitious streak; he may even have felt some bond with her; he might have argued that, like her, he was chosen by God (for if she had not looked to be a nun, neither had he looked to be a king; it was only when an older brother, Arthur, died, that the crown had devolved on him). But most of all the thought of his coming French campaign obsessed him, and he wanted its legality approved. In any case, whatever the cause, he allowed his friends to proceed and, under pretext of a hunting expedition, came to a country lodge, deep in the Kentish hinterland, where Sister Elizabeth waited for him.

  Picture then this scene. The king, moody, petulant, partly sceptical, partly (the worst part) credulous, slouched in his chair, his polished riding boots pulled high over the strong legs of which he was so proud, his feet beating a tattoo on the floor of the hall where he had deigned to dine, his small eyes closed in thought (although whether he had God, or prophecy in mind, whether he was debating his plan of attack, or was simply digesting the last capon he had swallowed, let no man guess). Certain it was, he would not have come at all unless he had expected compliments, encouragement, praise, all the flattery to which he had become accustomed. Imagine his surprise, which turned as quickly to affront, when he was greeted with none of these familiar pleasantries; imagine his courtiers’ consternation when he was met with homilies, with admonitions, lectures, counsel which, at best, might be termed motherly, and at worst bordered on insolence. There sat the king, growing even more restless; and there the Nun Elizabeth, plumped fairly down before him on a wooden stool, her feet in their rustic clogs planted as firmly as his were restless; her nun’s habit stretched across her ample lap as if she meant to shell peas; her rosy cheeks beaming with self-righteousness.

  ‘Beware, great king,’ she is supposed to have said (although, since she was a simple country woman, used to speaking in a simple way, more like she had no knowledge of courtesy and addressed him by name, as she would have done one of her peasant clients in her peasant days).

  ‘Take care, Henry, what you do. Your father gave us a taste of peace, we expect much more from you. Be careful where you put your trust; your friends are not always as friendly as they seem and your belief in them may be betrayed. These warlords with whom you play at war, this French invasion which you plan, may do you harm at home and may fail again. Instead, turn to peace. Make the king of France your ally; rely on Holy Mother Church to arrange a truce, whatever the cost. And last,’—here all agreed she waxed most eloquent—‘if God has not granted you an heir, perhaps the fault is yours, for flouting His laws. You have married where you should not, your brother’s wife, contrary to church decree; perhaps God is punishing you.’ And to compound her impertinence she repeated this last
warning, her coarse country hands beating in time with the king’s nervous scuffling (although had she remained the simple Elizabeth of village fame she might have welcomed a married life herself and certainly would have thought twice before blaming a man for his lack of sons).

  How the courtiers felt, those warlords, to hear themselves abused when they had helped arrange the interview; how they, too, felt betrayed, fearful of anything that smacked of treachery; how they fell over themselves to stutter excuses, reproaches, blame—to explain all that would task the imagination: who faulted whom, who suspected what. At least the king heard the nun out, a courtesy he seldom granted anyone, and, in this case, revealed himself a marvel of patience. He had much on his mind these days. Hitherto hunting and feasts had occupied him, not politics. Now the intricacies of government were beginning to intrigue him. He had wed his brother’s widow, that was true (although she herself claimed that the first husband had never bedded her); and he certainly still had hopes of a son. He had no ideas, as yet, of putting his wife aside, much less of looking for a new one. But he had also begun to tire of her, as is the way of husbands, kings or not. As for the war he planned, it was also true that he was jealous of the power of France, so jealous that he had attacked it once and was on the verge of attacking it again. Alliance with the French king would not have occurred to him. Finally, although he valued his friends, he had a malicious streak that liked to keep them on edge; he often smiled at them, but that did not mean he trusted where he smiled. He heard the Nun of Kent to the end, pulling at his chin where the thin wisps of a red beard showed; running his hands through his chestnut hair as if to part it from its roots. And when she had done and leaned back, almost panting with triumph, he rose to his feet without a word, threw her some coins from the purse tied to his waist, and swept from the room in a storm of spurs. Not stopping to thank his hosts for their dubious hospitality, not bidding his companions farewell, he sprang on his horse, and whipped it out of the stable yards. In those early years, when he was young, they claimed he could tire eight horses a day, riding the poor beasts until they dropped, and could lose as many huntsmen along the way. Now he rode furiously, alone, making for his court at Richmond, where his queen expected him. What he thought of the Nun of Kent he kept to himself, until a later date proved, or disproved, the substance of her remarks. And those who were present at that meeting slunk away, afraid to speak (although in time, when certain events came to pass, they were to claim prior knowledge).

  But there were others, shrewder men, who from the start felt convinced that the lady had been well schooled; what could a simple country woman know of courts and kings, be they English or French, what of queens, unless she had been tutored? Perhaps. She certainly had been taught enough of church affairs to know that among the king’s advisers, the most powerful was a churchman, Wolsey by name, and are not church men, by profession, geared to peace, not war? As for friendship, she might have addressed herself to that subject more feelingly, seeing that her friends had given her such bad advice, forcing her to lecture the king on kingship, a breach of etiquette for which both she and they would pay a price. Well, the meeting had been arranged, and had taken place; how much the king paid attention to, was influenced for or against by what she said, all that lay in the future, to be revealed. But in the early years of the sixteenth century, when England hoped much from its new king, that good dame of Kent may be remembered for temerity if not for tact. The rest of this story will recount the windings in and out, the effects and results of her prophecy.

  CHAPTER 1

  ——

  Vernson Hall lay far off from the court of kings, in the heart of the Devonshire countryside. That October day in the year 1512, its famous garden was already devoid of colour, the roses tattering into shreds, and behind the clipped yew hedges, the old grey house had huddled down, like a sleeping dog. The scene should have been a tranquil one, as calm as the western hills which sloped away on all sides, but Philippa de Verne, only daughter of the house, was blind to its beauty as she walked back and forth through the dew-heavy grass. Today, everything about her seemed on edge, even the air she breathed, and where her swinging braids struck the cobwebs across her path showers of raindrops fell in cold cascades. Her eyes, usually the colour of cornflowers, had darkened like a stormy sea, and her whole body, her whole stance, appeared caught between two things at once, between apprehension and defiance, between grief and fear. Her rounded face, still touched with childhood innocence, had begun to lengthen into adult awareness, and she held herself straight with an effort that was plainly visible. A watcher, a sympathetic watcher, had there been one, might have been touched by her valiant efforts to remain calm. For most of all it was her fear that showed.

  Away in the distance she could hear the thuck, thuck, thuck, of the woodman’s axe, rising above the more common sounds of kitchen and farm. That dull continuing scrape of steel against wood was like a blow to her own flesh and she almost felt the tree stumps bared like bones. She covered her ears. Behind her closed eyes her stepfather stood out, just as he had last night, legs apart, his stocky body decked in the silks which he liked (and which her father’s property, her real father’s property that is, paid for, the property that now should be hers). As if imitating a little courtier, he cocked his head at those falling trees, his jaunty cap pulled on one side. The same self-satisfied smile would cross his face and he would smooth his beard in the same smug way. ‘What else is wood good for?’ he would ask, gesturing to the avenue of oaks, old when Vernson Hall had been built. ‘The very thing to build my house, my new house to fit these new times. Where else should I bring my new bride? How else should I spend my new wealth? And when you marry, as I mean to have you do, and send you far from here, what will your protest matter to anyone.’ And he would smile, just as he had smiled last night.

  Last night that stepfather, Thomas Higham, had summoned her, the first time she had met with him since her mother’s death had orphaned her three weeks before. Master Higham had installed himself in the main room of Vernson Hall as if it already belonged to him. For Philippa, that old medieval room had always seemed the heart of the house, with its huge fireplace and faded tapestries and sagging floors; she had always felt safe there, where generations of de Vernes had lived. To see Master Higham take it for his own, usurping her father’s place (albeit her father had died when she was born), even to sitting in her mother’s favourite chair, had given Philippa a strange sensation, like a coldness to the heart, like a warning.

  Perhaps last night she had obeyed Master Higham’s summons out of some sense of pity for him; to imagine him alone, bereaved and sad had disturbed her. Perhaps she had had some vague hope that she might comfort him, as he her, for all that he had always ignored her even when her mother had been alive. After all, she had told herself, three weeks is not long to grieve, and I myself have never felt so bereft. But Master Higham, Bully Higham as the villagers called him, had felt no need of pity for himself, and as little need for pitying her. Up he had jumped when she had come in, as bright as a robin in his crimson coat, no mourning garments for him, and no time for mourning. More than ever he had looked out of place in that room, with his broad solid frame straining at his gentleman’s coat, and his broad solid legs, too short for straddling a gentleman’s horse, a peasant tripping over a sword. And more than ever she had felt his dislike of her, held in check perhaps while her mother lived, now spilling out unrestrainedly.

  Nor had he been alone. A man and lady had kept him company, one on either side of the hearth, so that Philippa had been trapped between them both, like facing two school masters at once. She had taken the couple for a married pair, the woman of ripe, childbearing age, a vigorous woman with thick dark hair and a determined chin, as outspoken as her own mother had been quiet. Philippa had not met the woman before but the husband (or so he seemed) she had heard of. He was plainly old, thin-shanked, scant-locked, his doublet bursting over a paunch, his hand gripped nervously around a tankard of ale
. He was a companion of her stepfather’s, of whom the villagers had much to tell; nothing sharper, they used to whisper, than Master Simeon’s long nose for ferreting out titles to land; nothing faster than his legal tricks for cheating a man of what was his. He and her stepfather had long been friends; wherever he went they claimed trouble followed close behind. One look at him and his furtive stance and all those old stories had come crowding back to put her on the alert.

  Her first thought had been that, as a lawyer whose ways were well known. Master Simeon must have been summoned too, to give her stepfather legal advice. Or perhaps he had come to advise her; was there her mother’s will to read or a last request to discuss? These possibilities had seemed daunting enough, until she had realized that Master Simeon was to appear in quite a different sort of guise. And then she had been appalled.

  When she had entered the room, knocking carefully on the door to avoid offence, he had laboured up, with a show of agility, doffing his cap with an elaborate bow, and twisting his thin lips into a smile. That conspiratorial smirk had roused her suspicions anew, as had her stepfather’s accompanying bow. Master Higham had never shown her courtesy before, why should he now offer it?

  His unabashed encouragement of his old crony had soon revealed the reason.

  ‘Come Master Simeon,’ Thomas Higham had cried, giving the older man a nudge so that the contents of the tankard splashed upon the floor. ‘No call to hang back; let’s see your wit.’ He had flapped his own cap as if shooing away flies. ‘Master Simeon, stepdaughter,’ he had introduced his friend, ‘who craves a word with you.’ And he had given another nudge, at the same time winking behind his hand at the woman, as at some private joke.