The Witch of Eye (38 page)

Eleanor was immediately wary. ‘Did he give you his name?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, Your Grace. His name is William Woodham. He said he was a member of Your Grace’s household staff.’

Woodham. Woodham ... Eleanor racked her brains. She couldn’t think of anyone by that name.

‘Did he give you any indication of why he wanted to see me? I can’t see just anyone, you know.’

‘No, of course not, Your Grace. I’m quite aware of that. And so is the man who wants to see you. But he asked me to be sure to tell you it was an urgent message about his master, Canon Hume, and another gentlemen of your acquaintance, a Magister ... er ... Magister...’

‘Bolingbroke?’ snapped Eleanor, turning towards him. ‘Hume and Bolingbroke? What did he tell you about them?’

‘I’m sorry, Your Grace, but perhaps I am the bearer of bad news. I do hope not, but it seems that the gentlemen have been arrested. Master Woodham thought you should know.’

‘Arrested!’ Eleanor’s heart seemed to stop in that moment and the blood drained from her face. ‘Arrested?’

She looked towards the door where William Woodham hovered anxiously on the periphery of the dining room. Yes, of course, she recognised him now. He was the one she’d seen trailing around the palace in the wake of Canon Hume; she’d seen him several times though she’d never had much to do with the man.

‘You had better find a room where I can speak privately to him,’ she said quietly to the butler, rising from the table while her companions looked questioningly up at her. ‘And make sure no one disturbs us.’

‘Please carry on, everyone,’ she said with a reassuring smile and a half-wave of her hand. ‘Someone wishes to see me, but it shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back very soon.’

Her companions turned their attention back to their wine and wafers and the jongleurs began their entertainment. It would be some time before Eleanor rejoined them.

In a private room to the rear of the King’s Head, with the butler standing guard outside the door at her request, she and William Woodham faced each other across a small table. As he whispered to her in a low, urgent voice, telling her exactly what had happened, it didn’t take Eleanor long to realise that she stood on the brink of a potential catastrophe. And, until her husband returned home, she would have to think for herself and think fast. There was no one else to turn to.

July 1441

‘H
ow are you, Henry?’

William de la Pole, the Earl of Suffolk, was always pleased to welcome his old friend Henry Beaufort to the palace. As Steward of the Royal Household, it was his duty to show important guests into the presence of the King.

‘Well enough, William, thank you,’ Beaufort said, ‘considering the weather we’re having. But my right foot is a little damp. I suspect I have a leak in my boot.’

‘Do you need to change your boots before you see the King?’

‘No, please don’t worry. There are far more important things than wet feet to worry about and I don’t want to keep His Highness waiting. ‘

‘Very well. He asked me to show you into the solar. Come this way.’

Feeling more than a little concerned, Henry Beaufort followed de la Pole towards the private royal solar. He prepared himself mentally for some awkward questions: the King had never before summoned him to Westminster with this degree of urgency.

‘Do you know what this is about, William?’

‘He has recently returned from Sheen and I’m afraid he’s heard the rumours,’ William de la Pole answered briefly.

The city of London was ablaze with rumours. As soon as news of Canon Hume’s arrest got out, tongues started wagging. Magister Bolingbroke’s name was not so well known but it didn’t take long for the gossip-mongers to associate him with the Duchess of Gloucester and when news broke that a Canon of St Stephen’s, Westminster, had also been arrested, gossip reached fever pitch.

And then the rains came. Shortly after midsummer, as the whole of England basked in innocent sunshine and crops stood ripening in the fields, black thunderclouds began to gather in the west. The occasional summer storm wouldn’t normally be a cause for much concern, but this one moved in swiftly, only to be followed by another and, a few days later, yet another. Torrential downpours flattened the wheat crop and barley fared little better. Storms raged and battered the entire country for more than two weeks, rivers overflowed their banks and flooded low-lying buildings. People could do little but huddle together in their homes to take shelter from the incessant rain.

There must, they reasoned, be an explanation for storms of such biblical proportions. Not within living memory had there been such winds, such thunder and lightning. The people of England had offended God in some way and this was how He wreaked divine vengeance upon them. It had never happened before, so it could only be because of recent events.

The King, looking concerned, rose to greet his great-uncle as he was announced.

‘My Lord, I trust you are not too wet?’ he asked. ‘This storm is quite unprecedented. And in the middle of July! It seems well nigh impossible.’

Beaufort bent to kiss the ring on the King’s outstretched hand. ‘Oh, please, Your Highness, don’t concern yourself about me. I couldn’t let a few drops of rain put me off responding to your urgent request to see me. After all, Southwark isn’t so very far away and I did have the advantage of a covered carriage.’

‘Come then, and warm yourself anyway,’ said the King, leading the way towards the huge fireplace where a pile of logs burned. ‘It is unreasonably cold for the time of year.’ He took a seat in the inglenook and gestured to the Cardinal to join him.

‘Now tell me, my Lord Uncle, what is going on. The Earl of Suffolk says every servant in the palace is living in fear and trembling that these storms are visited upon us by the wrath of God. I need the assurances of a man of the Church before I make any of the pronouncements I feel I should make. Why is there so much panic, do you think?’

Beaufort smiled. ‘Panic is easily transmitted from one person to another, Your Highness,’ he said, ‘and once someone makes a claim like that, it adds fuel to the fire. It is a kind of mass hysteria, I suppose, though none the less real for that. And I’m afraid this dreadful, unseasonal weather is not helping things.’

‘I’m told,’ the King said, ‘that people in the city are saying it’s a sign of God’s displeasure at the activities of certain clerks and women they’re calling witches. No word of this had reached me while I was staying at Sheen so it has all come as quite a surprise. I do hope you can explain it.’

Pleased to have the ear of the King, Beaufort took the opportunity to tell him how it had come to the attention of the Council that certain members of the Duke of Gloucester’s household, who were hitherto respected members of the clergy, had been indulging in practices which smacked of heresy and witchcraft. Somehow, word had spread.

‘What kind of practices?’ the King demanded.

‘Casting horoscopes, Your Highness, and the rumour is that they were doing this at the behest of the Duchess.’

‘Really? But all the ladies of the court enjoy that kind of thing, don’t they? Horoscopes and so on. There’s no great harm in that, surely?’

‘Not normally, Your Highness. It is usually a perfectly innocent pastime, but not in this case.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because these horoscopes were chiefly related to...’ Beaufort hesitated. Ideally, what he had to say should be delicately put but there was no way around it.

‘Yes, yes?’ the King urged him, ‘related to what?’

‘To your death, Your Highness.’

The King’s jaw dropped. ‘My death?’

‘I’m afraid so, Your Highness.’

‘But that’s dreadful! I can hardly bring myself to believe you, except that I cannot doubt your word as a man of the Church. But surely, this can’t be true!’

‘I’m afraid it is. I understand they regularly employed techniques of divination, including an astrolabe, which is not unreasonable, I suppose, but apparently they ventured a step too far. They had begun conducting heretical masses within consecrated buildings.’

‘Consecrated buildings?’ King Henry’s normally dull brown eyes were wide with disbelief, his face drained of colour. ‘Churches, you mean? Monasteries? Priories?’

‘Churches, in the main, Your Highness. It seems that these masses involved removing the crucifix, the holy chalices and so on from the altar and replacing them with heretical paraphernalia.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Mirrors, water bowls, anything which might produce an image they wished to see. Mirror magic is much favoured by sorcerers, Your Highness. As is all image magic.’

‘Magic of any kind is to be vehemently discouraged,’ said King Henry. ‘Especially where it violates the House of God.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Beaufort. ‘Lollardy is bad enough, but outright devil worship...’

The King was horrified. ‘You don’t think it was devil worship, surely? I can hardly bring myself to believe that any uncle of mine would...’

‘It may well be, Your Highness, that your uncle knew nothing about it.’

Beaufort was quick to interrupt because he knew he should appear to defend Gloucester in all this. After all, the Duke was the young King’s uncle and he could well have an affection for him. But Beaufort really did want to make Gloucester pay for sending that letter of complaint, for the false accusations he had made in it, for his insults and the way he had questioned Beaufort’s own integrity. In retrospect, perhaps it had been a mistake to mention devil worship a moment ago, though, to be fair, he had stopped just short of making an actual accusation. The important thing was that he now had the King’s absolute attention. That was all that mattered for the moment.

‘I’m sure my uncle of Gloucester is innocent in all this,’ the King was saying, ‘but I can only pray that he is. He is away from home, I understand, so we cannot question him, but I am sure he can’t have known anything about it. Otherwise, he would have put a stop to it. Immediately.’

‘I’m sure he would, Your Highness. But, in his absence, the other members of the Council have been conducting their own investigations and they have been swift to act. They have apprehended all those dubious people with whom the Duchess is known to have associated. They are all in the Tower, including one woman who was actually accused of witchcraft some years ago.’

‘And is she really a witch?’

‘It seems so, yes. From what I understand, she sought out men of God and involved them in heretical practices. Sadly, she seems to have done the same again and it grieves me to tell you that, this time, these were men who were serving as so-called advisers to Her Grace the Duchess of Gloucester.

The King was quiet. Sitting alongside him, Henry Beaufort was not able to look directly into his face, but he heard him swallow nervously several times. He had clearly been deeply shocked by what he’d heard. At length, he spoke.

‘I’d appreciate your advice, my Lord. This is truly the most dreadful news. Men of God, you say?’

‘I’m afraid so, Your Highness.’

‘And they were the Duchess’s advisers?

‘Members of her household, yes. Close advisers.’

‘And where is the Duchess?’

‘She has claimed sanctuary, Your Highness, in the Abbey Church of St Peter, here in Westminster.’

The King sighed deeply before he spoke. ‘Then what should I do, my Lord Uncle? How do you think I should proceed from here? I cannot simply ignore the situation.’

‘It seems, Your Highness, that the whole matter hinges on the fact that these people were trying to predict the date of your death by means of mirror magic, image magic and using astrolabes to cast horoscopes. I quite firmly believe that whatever results they achieved were totally incorrect, inadmissible, given the circumstances in which they were working. In my opinion, you would be wise to acknowledge the rumours, but you must not be seen to be intimidated by them because their predictions will, of course, be proved incorrect.’

‘That is fervently to be hoped!’ the King interrupted, allowing himself the ghost of a smile.

‘So you must commission a corrected version, containing more accurate astrological calculations. An entirely new horoscope under the direction of the most trustworthy, learned men in the country, men of impeccable reputation whose word will not be doubted. That should put an end to this whole nasty business.’

‘Who do you suggest? Would you be prepared to do it, my Lord Uncle?’

‘I don’t think I should,’ said Beaufort. ‘The best man for the job would be John Somerset. After all, he was your physician when you were a boy, Sire, so he knows you well. And now he is your Chancellor of the Exchequer. No one would question his judgement.’

‘An excellent suggestion. And perhaps he could agree to share the work with John Langton. I met Master Langton when I visited the University at Cambridge recently. An excellent man. Moreover, not only is he Chancellor of the University but he is also a lawyer. He would be above reproach.’

‘Then those would be the two best men to undertake the work, Your Highness. Shall I ask that they should be sent for?’

‘I would be most grateful if you would. An alternative horoscope must be drawn up as soon as possible,’ said the King. ‘I must not lose the cordial love of my people. I must govern them wisely and well.’

He paused again, then turned towards Beaufort and looked directly at him.

‘Tell me, my Lord Uncle,’ he said. ‘Why do you think my uncle of Gloucester’s wife commissioned that horoscope?’

Beaufort took a moment before he answered but there was only one answer he could give and it was the truthful one.

‘Consider, Sire,’ he said, ‘that your uncle of Gloucester is the heir to your throne. Perhaps she covets your crown.’

***

‘I
t’s not my fault. I’m innocent in all this, Jenna. Tell me it’s not my fault.’

In all honesty Jenna couldn’t answer the Duchess. It could be her fault or, if not directly her fault, then certainly the fault of her advisers. They stood accused of conspiring to bring about the death of the King and, by her association with them, Eleanor was in serious trouble though she protested that her concern had only ever been for the King’s health. Much as she wanted to believe her mistress, Jenna doubted her motives were entirely altruistic.