The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham (14 page)

I also remembered the sense of mystery of that first experiment at Bella Court. It seemed so innocent at the time, if only we were to know where it would lead. I carried the small secret parchment everywhere with me, concealed in the sleeve of my dress, even when I attended a mass in the chapel at Windsor Castle in the presence of the young king. He was as courteous to me as ever, yet seemed to pay me no special attention and I wondered if our ‘experiment’ had failed.

When I met again in secret with Roger Bolingbroke and Thomas Southwell, I told them it was my wish to experiment with a more powerful incantation, which we had previously ruled out. The secret book described a method to secure the supreme and undying love of any person with dignity and honour. Most importantly, this was described in the secret text as having been used by the Greek philosopher Parmenides to obtain special favour from the King of Persia. The ‘spell’ was also much more complicated, as it required the casting of two figures in pure silver. We discussed the involvement of others to do this difficult work but decided the only way to ensure secrecy was to share the tasks between us.

Roger Bolingbroke agreed to fashion moulds for casting the silver from the soft Portland stone left over from the building of Bella Court. The book described how the moulds should be made in two halves which fitted perfectly together. Roger professed he was no sculptor, although fortunately a good likeness was not required, as the images were symbolic. One was to be in the form of a man wearing a crown, to represent the king, and the other needed to be recognisably female in shape, one third larger than the first and holding a sceptre. I was to provide the silver from my jewellery, while Thomas Southwell had the task of procuring a small furnace from the London silversmiths.

 
After several weeks they finally announced they were ready to make the new experiment. The appointed hour for the casting for the first figure was the first hour of a Sunday, under a waxing moon. Roger Bolingbroke told me he had read that since ancient times the waxing moon has represented the goddess Artemis, one of the most widely venerated of the ancient deities. He said we must watch for when the moon grows larger in the night sky, moving from the new moon towards a full moon. That is the best time for spells that attract, bring positive change, spells for love, good luck and growth. It seemed a good omen for our experiment.

I was able to slip away in the darkness to where Roger Bolingbroke was waiting for me as we had secretly arranged. We rode silently in the night through the woods, across the old river bridge then through back streets and alleyways to the small London workshop where Thomas Southwell had been working on the pretext of learning the art of jewellery making. Twice we stopped to make sure we were not being followed, as it was vital to maintain absolute secrecy about our experiment.

I remember how the brilliant heat of the smelting furnace added a surreal sense of occasion to our experiment. Thomas Southwell had built it using charcoal and had to maintain the heat with a pair of leather bellows. It was hard work, and the sweat was running down the poor man’s red face before the silver was molten. Roger Bolingbroke took the crucible of glowing liquid silver in long iron tongs and poured it with great care into the stone mould he had built, while I read the first incantation: ‘
I Eleanor, wishing to obtain favour and be revered by King Henry and honoured forever, form this image made and carved in his name, by virtue of which he should love me without measure forever’.

When the mould was cooled we quenched the small figure in spring water, then he handed the figure to me and I could look at it properly for the first time. Roger Bolingbroke had been unduly modest about his skills as a sculptor. I held in my hands the figure of the king and there was a likeness, from the proportions of his body to the pious look on his face. The little crown on his head had been finely modelled and I remember that the gentle warmth still radiating from the silver made it feel like I was holding a living thing. Pleased with their work, I handed the small figure to Roger Bolingbroke who inscribed it with the magic words in the book, before wrapping it in a clean linen cloth until we were ready for the next.

Our plan was nearly ruined when, on the evening of the following Wednesday my husband returned late from a meeting of parliament. He was restless and was barely asleep before I slipped away into the night. The appointed time for casting the silver figure to represent me was the first hour of Thursday, so we reached Thomas Southwell’s workshop with only moments to spare.

As before, the figure was cast with me saying the next incantation: ‘
I Eleanor, form my own image according to my likeness, by which I may rule forever over King Henry and be loved by him for all eternity’
. This time Roger Bolingbroke had chosen to flatter me with the proportions of his sculpting, for when I held the still warm figure it looked more like a girl in the flower of her youth than my more matronly shape.

On the following day we met together one last time to purify the images with a special potion of aromatic cinnamon, long pepper and the herb agrimony, saying the magic words three times. A prayer was read by Thomas Southwell as set out in the ancient text. Then followed a strange ritual. I had to use a small iron chain to bind the ‘hands’ of the king’s image behind its back.

The arms of the little figure were quite thin, so Roger Bolingbroke was able to bend them in his strong hands without too much difficulty. I took the chain and carefully tied it around the little hands in a knot that would not easily slip off again. The next part of the ritual required the head of the figure to be bent to face down. Unfortunately the solid silver neck was too hard to bend, so Thomas Southwell took a small hammer and, while holding the little body firmly on his workbench, had to hit the back of the head until it bent.

Until then I had been happy to go along with the strange ritual, which reminded me a little of playing with dolls as a child. Now, watching Thomas Southwell’s hammer do its brutal work, I felt the first stirring of conscience. I said a silent prayer that no harm would come to the king through our experiments, which were never intended to do anything other than win his favour. There was no going back by then, though, and I placed the figures together, saying: ‘
As this image, made in the name of King Henry, stands before me with bended neck, thus may he love me and revere me above all others and strive to praise me’
.

The last stage of the experiment required me to travel through the city with the images wrapped in linen to the king’s residence at Windsor Castle, where I was to remain until evening, when I took the small bundle to a secret place and buried it deep in the earth so it could never be found again. Looking back I cannot recall any sense of danger in what we were doing, although if anyone discovered our experiment it could so easily be mistaken for treason and witchcraft.

Throughout the Christmas festivities I watched and waited for any sign of favour. T
hen we received our New Year’s gifts
 from the king. To Humphrey he presented a tablet of solid gold with an image of the Virgin Mary suspended by three gold chains, with six diamonds, sapphires and hundreds of pure white pearls. For me there was a beautiful brooch in the shape of the king holding a golden ball, set with five large pearls, a large fine diamond and three hangers adorned with rubies and pearls. As I held it in my hand I was a little shocked at the uncanny similarity to the figure which I hoped was safely buried in Windsor Great Park. These were without question the finest New Year’s presents given to anyone by the king, a certain mark of his grace and favour.

It was of course not possible to say our restoration was linked in any way to the experiments, although my accomplices were content our efforts had not been wasted. I was the favourite of the king—and the duke was now predominant in the country. The sudden death of the king’s mother, Queen Catherine of Valois, on the same day as our gifts arrived, also removed one more person who would most certainly have worked to reduce our influence with the young king.

Another queen was also lost to us that year, as Humphrey’s stepmother Queen Joanna died at Havering-atte-Bower, a village near London, after a short illness. I remembered how I visited her with Countess Jacqueline before we set sail for France. Queen Joanna treated me kindly, even though I was merely a lady-in-waiting to the countess. She had also talked openly about her interest in astrology to foretell the future.

Humphrey’s mother had died when he was young, so he had become close to his stepmother, who would regularly accompany him on his visits to the Abbey of St Albans. On the news of her death he decided he would meet the cost of her funeral and persuaded the king to make it a full state occasion. The same Italian craftsmen responsible for the fine stonework and statues at Bella Court were commissioned to create a life sized effigy of Queen Joanna, not as the old woman she was at her death but instead based on a youthful portrait, looking beautiful in her prime.

The body of Queen Joanna lay in state in Westminster Great Hall, wearing a golden crown under a red velvet canopy surrounded by torches, burning day and night in her memory. A hundred paupers held candles while bishops and priests read prayers for her soul. Many nobles and knights visited to pay their respects to the wife of one of our greatest kings. On the day of her funeral I travelled at Duke Humphrey’s side in a grand procession behind her funeral carriage all the way from London to the cathedral at Canterbury, where she was laid to rest next to her second husband, Henry IV, in St Thomas the Becket's chapel behind the high altar.
 

I have always found some solace in her story as, like me, she was falsely imprisoned for necromancy and using witchcraft against the person of the king. Having endured her punishment, Queen Joanna was pardoned and released to live the rest of her life comfortably in Nottingham Castle, with a good pension. If I can endure the same, perhaps there is hope for me yet.

Honi soit qui mal y pense

Reflecting on my past life and adventures in this secret journal reminds me that, although I have seen much sadness, there are also many things I must be grateful for. I was once the first lady of the land, the favourite of the King of England and France, with everything I could wish for. My children were growing up in a palace, surrounded by beauty, music and learning and, after years of longing for what he could not have, my husband was finally content. He was also very proud when our daughter Antigone gave us a second grandson, and named him Humphrey.

My New Year’s gift from the king was a beautifully crafted garter of real gold, with the motto made with letters of gold:
Hony soit qui mal y pense.
The buckle was decorated with a flower of precious diamonds, with two large pearls and a bright red ruby on the pendant and two perfectly matching large pearls with twenty-six smaller pearls on the garter. Surely this was the final proof, if it were needed, of the king’s absolute regard for me? It is only now, all these years later, that the significance of the motto strikes me as particularly apt:
Evil
unto him who evil thinks
.

Everything was going so well. I was finally given a beautiful little granddaughter, my third grandchild, named Elizabeth by Antigone and it seemed our lives could not be better. Then an ominous shadow passed over our lives, slowly at first, just as the sun passes behind a cloud and you gradually realise its heat has cooled. I used to look back and try to see what we could have done to prevent it, yet now I cannot help but wonder it was simply our destiny playing out. Perhaps we could no more have changed the course of those terrible events that blighted our lives than stop the clouds obscuring the sun.

My bored guards talk softly in their Welsh language as they wait outside the chapel entrance, more for the summer sunshine than through respect for my privacy. I sit alone on a wooden bench in the cool sanctuary of the castle chapel and read the
devotional Book of Hours,
brought to me by the kindly priest. I asked the young guard Richard Hook to enquire after him and learned that the priest has left on a pilgrimage to visit a holy place near St Davids in the west of Wales. I have added him to my prayers and hope he is well enough for such a long journey.

Translating the fine print as well as I am able to, I see new meaning in the words of Psalm 142, ‘
Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for every one living shall not be justified in thy sight. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath humbled my life in the earth. He hath set me in obscure places as the dead of the world
’. It is true that those who entered into judgement against me were themselves surely guilty of the same beliefs.

I grieve for those who died because of the events I set in place and will remember them always in my prayers, although I wonder why my God must be a vengeful one. Was it our destiny, some grand plan that would have unfolded without regard to my actions or inaction? My life is surely humbled and I have lived these past ten years in such obscure places as I had never heard of.

The question which troubles me now is to understand my true destiny. The psalm says,
‘Make the way known to me, wherein I may walk: Deliver me from mine enemies’.
Am I to submit to this unjust imprisonment, so I can dedicate my last few years to prayer? Should I risk my life attempting a reckless escape, knowing this could bring harm and pain to myself and others? I would have no concern for
my jailor, Sir William Bulkeley, yet w
hat would become of his good wife Lady Ellen and her family? For now, at least, the decision is not mine to take.

When I witnessed Queen Catherine being laid to rest in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey I remembered her as a beautiful, confident woman of my own age and realised how fortunate I had been with the birth of my children. I thought that was the end of her influence on my life and now she would trouble us no more, yet it was not to be. Some ten years before, when still Lord Protector, Duke Humphrey had been concerned over rumours she intended to marry his own cousin, Edmund Beaufort, who had stolen the glory of the defence of Calais from him.

I remember how the prospect of a Beaufort being in a position of such power and influence caused my husband sleepless nights until he formed a plan to prevent it. As Lord Protector it was within his power to propose an Act of Parliament to prevent the Dowager Queen marrying without the king's consent. The true purpose of the act was to ensure that any future husband would face the loss of his lands and possessions. This would be certain to deter the ambitious Edmund Beaufort, who knew Humphrey would not hesitate to enforce the Act.

As we expected, there were those in the parliament who saw this as a move by my husband to protect his own position in the line of succession. His opponents were unable to win the day, although he was forced to concede that children from such a marriage would still be members of the royal family and not suffer punishment. Humphrey told me he was content with this, as the king's permission could only be granted once he reached his majority, and when the Act was passed that was still many years away.

Humphrey had taken the precaution of having the Dowager Queen watched, installing one of our trusted men in her household as a groom in her stables. Through him we learned, less than a year later, that his brother’s widow had ignored the ruling of parliament and married in secret. Fortunately it was not to the cardinal’s nephew, Edmund Beaufort. Our informant told us her illicit husband was a servant, a Welshman by birth named Owen Tudor.

He had the man investigated and found this was no ordinary servant. Owen Tudor was well educated, the same age as the Dowager Queen Catherine and from a noble Welsh family.
 
He had also been a soldier and fought with honour in France, being made a squire by the king, who granted him the right to bear arms in England, the only Welshman permitted to do so. His position as keeper of the Queen's wardrobe had been well paid and placed him in close and regular contact with the Dowager Queen, so it was possible that by forestalling her marriage to Edmund Beaufort, Humphrey had made it possible for their relationship to become more intimate.

We were in no doubt there was a conspiracy by the Bishop of London and others to conceal this scandal, particularly from Humphrey and parliament, as the couple were living secretly at the bishop’s palace in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. The problem was how to deal with this knowledge. I begged Humphrey to let the matter pass and accept that the Dowager Queen had acted just as he had done with Countess Jacqueline. He had no wish to punish the queen in any way, as she was after all the mother of the king, yet Tudor had clearly shown a disregard for the Act of Parliament which Humphrey had taken the trouble to put in place.

While this marriage remained secret, it seemed prudent to simply let the matter rest. It remained so for some years, during which time they had three sons and a daughter, then rumours began to circulate in London about the illicit marriage. We had always known it was a matter of time before the truth was revealed, as the queen had influential supporters. The scandal would also be of great interest to those in Cardinal Beaufort’s faction who were also opposed to Humphrey’s rise to power and always seeking ways to weaken his authority.

At about the same time we heard from our informer in the queen’s household that Queen Catherine was unwell. She had taken to her bed and was showing worrying signs of the instability and delusions that had afflicted her father, King Charles VI of France. It seemed she would occasionally forget who she was or sometimes think she was still Queen of England. Our man understood from overheard conversations that, as a consequence of Catherine’s condition, Owen Tudor was now considering the future of his two eldest sons and planned to visit the king at Windsor Castle to ask for them to be recognised.

The time for Humphrey to act decisively had finally come. On his orders, the queen’s husband Owen Tudor was arrested and brought to appear before the Council to explain his conduct. The hearing should have been a formality, as by marrying the Dowager Queen, Tudor had shown contempt for the ruling of parliament set out in the Act of Parliament. To Humphrey’s surprise, a majority of the members of Council were persuaded by the Welshman that he had not acted dishonourably and that surely Queen Catherine should be free to choose whom she should marry. He was released, acquitted of all charges.

At first we suspected the devious hand of Cardinal Beaufort behind the Council’s decision. Humphrey privately accused him of an attempt to discredit his actions and received the shocking reply that it was the king himself who had directed the Council. This was impossible to disprove without drawing more attention to the matter but we knew if it was true it meant we risked incurring the king’s displeasure.

I hoped the matter was ended and proposed we should accept the inevitable and publicly support the Dowager Queen’s marriage as legitimate. I should have known my husband better. He had taken Owen Tudor’s acquittal as a personal affront. Without concern for the consequences, Humphrey again sent armed men to track down and arrest Owen Tudor as he made his way back to Wales. This time he imprisoned Tudor without further trial in Newgate jail, seizing his possessions.

We then faced the question of what to do about Queen Catherine, who was by then reported to be pregnant with yet another child. Humphrey arranged for her to be taken to Bermondsey Abbey for her own safety, where she could be under close observation by his own physician. It was soon after arriving at Bermondsey Abbey that she sadly lost the child and suffered complications which led to her death. Although he was innocent of any part in this, rumours began spreading in London that my husband precipitated the tragedy through his self-serving actions. Humphrey was dismissive of such talk, as he had personally ensured she was cared for as well as possible. There was nothing to be done about the rumour and gossip yet I knew it was the start of a shadow passing over us.

Then we learned Owen Tudor had escaped from his cell in Newgate Prison and was now presumed to be somewhere in Wales. My husband was furious, as he knew Tudor must have had help from someone in Newgate. He sent all the men at his disposal in search of him and held an inquiry, which failed to identify Tudor’s accomplices. This time when Tudor was recaptured Humphrey would have imprisoned him in the Tower but was conscious that the whole business was potentially damaging to his own reputation. Humphrey instead had Tudor sent to Windsor Castle, where he remained in some comfort until the king was of age.

We expected King Henry VI to grant a royal pardon to Owen Tudor at the year end, when he reached the age of sixteen, yet were surprised when the king took him into his own household, ordering the restoration of his goods and lands. The king also recognised Tudor’s two eldest sons as his half-brothers and his manner towards us changed. It was said he could not forgive my husband for such treatment of his late mother. Through no fault of his own, Humphrey had provided his enemies with the means to poison the mind of the king against him.

Worse still for Humphrey and against his advice, the young king assumed personal control over parliament, creating a new council with Humphrey at the side of Cardinal Beaufort. Although he was awarded
a salary of two thousand marks a year for life, it grieved him to see his power and influence eroded so greatly, as he was certain the cardinal had been behind the plan and now he must rely on his old enemy to secure any decisions.

With this check on his political ambitions, my husband returned to the study of old manuscripts, which he had begun in his days at Oxford, and seemed content to spend long hours in his library. I was also content to devote myself to raising my children and reminding London society of our importance by arranging banquets and riding in splendour through the city, followed by Humphrey’s personal guard, all in their fine uniforms.

The king continued to show me favour and had grown into a handsome young man, tall and slim, intelligent and sharp. He loved hunting and gaming and spending money on fine hats and gowns, yet he was not popular with the people, who rarely saw him. He had never shown the spirit of his father and could have accompanied Humphrey to the relief of Calais, yet chose instead to spend long hours at prayer in his personal chapel.

Now dangerous rumours began to circulate in London as word spread about his late mother’s mental condition. I had been close to the king and on several occasions observed how he would sometimes become as if his mind was elsewhere. One moment he would seem to be listening then the next he would have a far-away look in his eyes. Thomas Southwell agreed it was possible the king could have inherited some form of madness from his mother’s French family.