Mistress to the Crown (21 page)

The precedent was reassuring – my proctor’s eyes were twinkling with confidence – yet as I stood beside Shore before the bench, hanging upon the bishop’s every syllable, I was so afraid that the law of men would prevail and I should not be set free.

My husband fidgeted, emanating loathing with his sweat as the Bishop of Sidon made his speech. I could make no sense of that judge’s comments. Did he mean yea or nay?

The last was the Bishop of Hereford, the Queen’s ally in adversity. He preambled his decision with such judicial terms and lengthy arguments that any man listening would not have dared wager on the outcome, but outcome there was at last – a long rumble of Latin that had me cross-eyed until seeing my blank look, he had mercy, cleared his throat and repeated it in English:

‘It is the decision of the bench that the marriage between William Shore and Elizabeth Lambard be annulled for reasons of the frigidity and impotence of the defendant, William Shore.’

Catesby’s ‘Yea!’ buffeted any further doubt from my head.

In my favour! I could have jumped with utter delight, but seeing Shore’s shamed expression sobered me instantly.

‘Forgive me,’ I said with all sincerity, holding out my hand. ‘I wish you well with all my heart.’

But his eyes held the dull look of a horse that has been whipped too often. He walked out the church with not a word to anyone.

‘The first time a London court has ever upheld such a plea, Mistress Shore,’ declared my proctor, turning to me from jubilantly pumping Catesby’s hand. ‘You are to be congratulated.’

I murmured my thanks but I felt as scared as an escaped cage-bird testing its first branch.

‘And I hope you will mention my part in this to the King’s grace,’ murmured Catesby. But I was staring past him at the cluster of vengeful men who clogged the nave, blocking my path. Would my lawyers play my escort? Did they want their clothes spat upon? But it was the Bishop of Hereford who perceived my dilemma; he instructed his secretary and a sergeant-at-law to conduct me out through the sacristy into Bow Lane. Unfortunately, Shore’s friends realised. Like a pack of dogs they raced out the main door into Cheapside and, elbowing my servants aside, came growling through the churchyard.

‘You behave yourselves, gentlemen!’ snarled the sergeant, brandishing his pikestaff. ‘This woman is under the protection of Holy Church.’

Shelley jabbed up a lewd finger. ‘Tried your weapon as well, has she?’

‘Wetting your quill too, eh, inkhorn?’ Paddesley jostled the skinny secretary, while Ralph Josselyn the Younger scorched me with obscenities.

‘You poxy hypocrite!’ I flared back.

They spat upon me and Paddesley, evading the pikestaff, kicked my ankle hard.

I stumbled, but the sergeant caught me and, hobbling in pain, I reached the gate and clung there in dismay. It was evident my enemies’ shouts had drawn a crowd. Were Shore’s friends going to stir up the mob? Risk a fine from the guild for breaking the peace? Where were my servants who were supposed to escort me home?

God’s mercy! Lubbe, struggling through the mob, grabbed a jeering citizen by the collar and then all hell broke loose.

I screamed as someone scooped me off my feet, but it was Father’s large apprentice, Barnaby.

‘Give way!’ he bawled. Somehow he got me beyond the fisticuffs and unloaded me onto a cart board into my mother’s arms. Then he sprang up beside us and shook the reins. The crowd scrambled back, yelling abuse, as we galloped through. Stones and mud hit the back of the cart.

‘O Jesu, Barnaby,’ I exclaimed. ‘What about Lubbe and Hikkes?’

‘They’ll be all right,’ he muttered, flicking the horse’s back. ‘Can’t risk stopping.’

I broke into tears as we turned up Foster Lane and left the jeers behind. ‘You came for me, Mama.’ I couldn’t stop sobbing.

‘There, there.’ She cradled me against her as she had when I was a little girl. ‘I thought this might happen, darling. I’m sorry you lost.’

I pulled away. ‘But I didn’t, Mama. I’m no longer married.
I’m no longer married!
I’m free at last!’

But Mama was looking at the men’s spittle streaking my veil and she made no answer.

Barnaby took us to my lodging in Westminster, but Mama would not stay to celebrate. ‘I’ve promised your father to go straight home.’

As the cart rattled away, I stood in the cold shadows with my key in my hand. Beneath the frigid afternoon sky that betokened snow, only the wind bustled, shrilling through the archways and kicking the detritus of a vanished world. The courtyards were deserted, every window shuttered. In the back streets, curls of smoke rose through the stacks and louvres that belonged to strangers. I looked across at the silent Great Hall. The court had gone to Windsor for Dorset’s wedding.

Ostracism, the loneliness that rips our veil of self-esteem and plucks away all hope, stood before my door mocking my frail
victory. No husband, no children, no loyal maid, my reputation black with adultery, my brother cursing me for shaming him, and my lover was feasting with his wife and friends. Was this liberty a mistake? What if Ned wearied of me? What would happen when my fairness faded to lead and my breasts stretched to meet my toes, where would I be then? Had I defied the will of God in setting myself against the laws of men? This should be one of the most blessed days in my life and yet my joy tasted like ashes.

A tiny ahem broke through to my panicking soul.

‘Mistress Shore.’

I turned to find two of Ned’s little choristers. In hose and jackets instead of their surplices, they looked more like imps than cherubs. The cruel wind had buffed their cheeks to polished crimson, their breath was vapour, but their eyes were as bright as a robin’s.

‘Why aren’t you two at Windsor?’

‘St George’s have their own choir, mistress.’ Elbow nudged elbow. Did they need courage to speak with an outcast like me? ‘We … we were wondering if …’ More elbowing. ‘If you have any honeycakes that you don’t need. We saw you giving some to the bridge beggars at Long Ditch yesterday.’

I made a drawstring of my lips. You must never be a bootscraper to the male sex even if they are only seven years old and missing their mothers. ‘I daresay I could make some,’ I said, checking my own chimney to make sure my servants had kept the fire alight.

‘Oh, please, would you, mistress.’ As if I had set a flint to two candlewicks, the little faces glowed.

So, I finally celebrated my freedom – not with my royal lover and wearing fine apparel, but in an apron before the kitchen fire, with dough beneath my fingernails.

Lubbe and Hikke arrived, somewhat disarrayed, to join us.
And afterwards, my two little guests, full of griddlecakes, sang us their latest anthem.

We bid the children farewell with jests that made clouds and whorls amidst the frosty air, but once the front door was bolted, I felt the cold still clinging to my soul.

VII

During that first year Ned was so often away. It was as if I had a travelling chapman or an overzealous pilgrim for my lover. Mind, there was always a good royal reason. In the midsummer of ‘76, he rode north to fetch his father’s body from Pontefract Priory and, together with his mother, brothers and sisters, made a solemn progress to Fotheringay where the old duke was buried with much pomp. Following that came a royal progress meandering from Nottingham to Oxford.

That long, long summer, loneliness stalked me like an unwelcome suitor. The sand fell through the daylight hourglass so slowly and at night the candlewicks took too long to burn. Taking a boat to the city once a week and spending several hours with my silkwomen was like a snowflake on the face of my unhappiness, a joy quickly melted, but it helped.

The first visit to them – after my adultery had become a public scandal – had been painful. My dear women had been so tongue-tied, exchanging furtive sidelong glances that shared their embarrassment. Had they not needed the work, they might have barred the door against my knock, but I persevered, thrusting my presence on them each week to deliver their wages in person.
It was on Mama’s advice that I continued the business, and in time my silkwomen were welcoming my visits once more, hungry to share morsels of gossip or the sweetmeats I always brought.

The little enterprise faced adversity. Not just the Clavers, our main rivals, but Shore and his friends telling others to refuse to do business with a whore like me. However, to my great relief, Master Shaa continued to supply the gems my silkwomen needed and let them continue in the workroom on his premises. As to finding guildsmen who would stock the pretty girdles? Ah, that proved a dilemma at first. A leper trying to sell underlinen might have fared better. However, in September, my father’s apprentice, Barnaby, who had received the freedom of the Mercers’ Guild, opened his own shop and he was right willing to make a display of the belts. With the return of the wealthy to the city after the plague season and the notoriety attached to the merchandise, the jewelled belts became much sought after and other shops began to stock them. I appointed a chapman to carry our ware to York, Bristol and Southampton and other cities I had never seen, but most of our profit looked to come from London. The Girdlers Guild were none too pleased that merchants in other guilds were beginning to take our belts, nor was the House of Claver, but the restrictions on who could sell what had been gradually slackening during Ned’s reign, and sometimes it was a matter of swiftly removing our girdles from the counter when their guild inspector came to call.

My parents tarried in returning to the city, but in September Mama wrote from Hinxworth that Jack was newly betrothed. His marriage to a merchant draper’s daughter was to be in October so that our youngest brother Will, who was promised to be priest of St Leonard’s in Foster Lane, could marry them. Jack invited Shore to the wedding, but not me, so on the day of his wedding I defiantly – and sadly – waited on the opposite corner of Cheapside to glimpse his bride. A hope soon kicked away.

‘We don’t want your sort here,’ wheezed a man’s voice behind me and I swung around to discover two old people arm in arm. The man wore a draper’s livery.

‘Be off with you to Southwark, you harlot!’ he barked, waving his walking staff at me.

‘I beg your pardon, sirrah,’ I said through my teeth. ‘You are mistaken. I’m here to see my brother married.’

‘Oh, we know who
you
are. You’re the sister, the royal strumpet. Well, I’m Eleanor’s grandfer and I’ll not have you besmirch her wedding day. There’s a law against whores like you fouling our streets. Be off or I’ll send for Sheriff Stoker.’

‘My father’s friend!’ I laughed defiantly. ‘That should be amus—’

‘Go!’ said the old woman and spat in my face.

Shock disarmed me for a moment, and then I thought there are two paths from here; to cringe for my sins or to stand up for myself.

‘Yes, I am King Edward’s mistress,’ I said, straightening my shoulders and ignoring the detritus drying on my cheeks. ‘I am also a freewoman of this city and I have as much right to stand in this place as you have. So send for Sheriff Stoker or Sheriff Colet. If they are without sin, they can cast the first stone.’

I held my breath, dreading this might become uglier. St Leonard’s bells were pealing, the neighbourhood was gathering and I could hear the shawms of the bridal procession.

‘People like you should be locked away,’ snarled the old man. This time
he
spat, and led his wife across to the church door.

Shaken, I turned and leaned a hand against the wall like some poor addle-witted crone.

‘Is that you, Lizbeth?’ The new voice was male and uncertain, making it safe to look behind me; safe to stare at the fair-haired, tonsured young man, who stood inspecting me with my father’s
eyes, taking in the lavender damask, the cream satin, a gold-ornamented sister.

‘Will?
Will?
’ I had not seen him for several years.

He held out his arms like the Good Shepherd, but his embrace was the stiff, inexperienced gesture of a celibate. Holy vows be damned, I wanted to claw down the invisible rood screen that hedged his reserve.

‘Oh,’ I exclaimed, holding on to his forearms and examining his face for the little boy I had loved. ‘I think you’ve grown some more. Oh, Will.’

‘Jack’s seen you’re here,’ he said. ‘He wants you to leave. It might be for the best.’

‘Then I must,’ I said bitterly, letting go. ‘Tell Jack I wish him well. I’ve always wished him well.’ I thrust a small casket at him. ‘This is a gift for his bride. I pray you give it to her.’

‘I warn you it may be returned.’

‘Understood. You’d better go.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll see you again, Lizbeth.’

‘Only if you accept who I am, Will.’

His face was official. ‘It’s not who you are, sister, it’s what you are.’

VIII

‘“I am who I am” saith the Lord Our God,’ thundered out the preacher at St Paul’s Cross next morn, and that suddenly had me alert. The clanger of self-right hit my bell of guilt. No more Janus disposition, I vowed. No more picking at the scabs.

I am who I am
. I no longer hid away at Westminster but walked through Cheapside with my shoulders at ease. There were people I wanted to help – children who needed to learn a trade but had nobody to sponsor their apprenticeships. There were only a few I could afford to help at first, but I did my best, speaking with friends of my father. Their wives might shun me, but the men listened. A small beginning and not an achievement to be written in a chronicle, but people noticed. Gradually both rich and poor began to see me as a pipe to the royal rain butt and I soon found myself as busy as a magistrate after the Feast of Misrule. I did not need to appoint a lawyer to advise people where they might find help, I seemed to be doing that myself.

Doubtful investments were suggested across the tablecloth, fat bribes nudged my way and petitions waggled in my face. Posies blossomed overnight on the doorknocker, ambitious young
liverymen cluttered the threshold, and poor widows wrung their hands in my parlour.