The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More (6 page)

A
CHILD!
thought Jane. This would be wonderful. A boy whom his father would make a scholar? That would delight him; that would turn his attention from his poor, simple wife. If he had a boy to whom he could teach the Latin tongue, why should he bother to teach it to Jane? And must he not be grateful to the simple woman who could give him such a blessing in life?

But, thought Jane, if it is a girl, how happy I shall be, for then he will see that girls should not be made learned. She will teach him what I could not; and she and I will be together; she will love flowers and we will grow them together, and I shall take her to New Hall; and when I show my child to my family, then I shall know that the world was right when it said that the married state is the best state of all.

So the child could make Jane happy as Thomas never could.

THOMAS WAS
gay.

A child! That was the meaning of married life. That was what he wanted. What was the life to be lived in Carthusian solitude when compared with the bringing up of a child? The best tutors in England should be procured for young Master More. They would be glad to come. Dr. Lily perhaps? There was the greatest teacher in England. Then there would be Thomas More himself to guide his son.

Those were happy days—awaiting the birth of the child. A son, of course. The firstborn should be a son. And after that, more sons and some daughters. And the daughters should be treated in the same way as the sons; no matter what Erasmus, Colet, Lily and the rest said, Thomas was convinced that women should not be denied education. His daughters should prove him to have been right.

But for the present he could dream of his son.

There was laughter in The Barge; and if Jane did not understand all the jokes, she laughed as though she did. She was happy and Thomas was happy to see her happy.

Married life was the best state of all.

HIS FRIENDS
were often at the house. Jane did not care. She sat, her needle busy, making clothes for the child. Her body widened and her prestige grew. Who were these scholars? Who was Dr. Colet, with his talk of founding schools for children? It was true that he was no longer a mere vicar of Stepney but had been appointed Dean of St. Paul's itself. But what did she care for him. Who was Dr. William Lily, who had learned Latin in Italy, had traveled widely, had opened a school in London and had, like Thomas, almost become a monk? Who was this Dr. Linacre who had taught Thomas Greek? Who was the great Erasmus himself? Clever they might be, but none of them could bear a child!

New dignity and confidence had come to Jane. She sang snatches of songs as she went about the house.

Married life was indeed good and Jane was very happy.

AND ONE
summers day in the year 1505 Margaret came into the world.

ARGARET WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN SHE FIRST KNEW
the meaning of fear. Until then her world had been a merry place, ruled by the person she loved best: her father.

The only times when she was unhappy were when he was not at home. Then the old house with its dark staircases, its odd nooks and alcoves, seemed a different place. Margaret would sit in the
window seat watching for his return, looking out on the shops of the apothecaries and grocers, thinking that they were not quite the same shops which she had passed, her hand in her fathers, while he explained to her the uses of spices and drugs, the scent of which filled the air. Nothing could be quite right in Margaret's eyes unless her father was with her.

When she heard his laughter—and she almost always heard his laughter before she heard him speak—she would feel as though she had found the right answer to a problem which had bothered her in her lessons. She would run to him and stand before him, waiting for him to lift her up.

He would say: “And what has my Meg learned today?”

Eagerly she would tell him, and draw back to see the effect of her answer. Pleasing him was the most important thing in the world to her. She longed to be able to speak to him in Latin; that, she believed, would please him more than anything she could do.

“Meg,” he once said to her when an answer she had given him had especially pleased him, “to think that when you were born we hoped for a boy!”

“And you would rather have me than any boy, would you not, Father?”

“Rather my girls than any boys in the world.”

She believed that he meant: rather his Meg than any boys; but he would think of the others—Elizabeth who was three and Cecily who was two—and he would tell himself that it was not right for a father to love one child more than the others. And he was a man who must always do right; she knew that. She was a child and not good like he was; and she could love one member of her family so much that if all the affection she had for the others were rolled into one heap it would be as the moon to the great sun of her affection for him. But she would not ask him if he loved her best; she knew he did; and he knew of her love for him. That was their secret.

Sometimes she would go into that room in which he sat with his friends, and he would take her on his knee or sit her on the
table. Then the old, solemn-faced men would look at her, and her father would say: “Margaret will prove to you that I am right. She is young yet, but you will see … you will see.”

Then he would ask her questions and she would answer him. They would say: “Can this be a maid so young?”

“A maid who will show you, my friend, that a woman's brain is equal to a man's.” Then he would bring his smiling face close to hers. “Meg, they do not believe that you can learn your lessons. They say that because you are a girl this headpiece of yours will not be equal to the task. Meg, you must prove them wrong. If you do not, they will say that I am right named. For
Mows
… that is Greek for fool, Meg; and it will seem that I shall be worthy of the name if I am wrong. Meg, thou wilt not let them laugh at thy father?”

“Nay, Father,” she said scowling at the men. “They shall not laugh at thee. We will show them who are the fools.”

They laughed and talked to her, and she answered as best she could, with her heart beating fast for fear she should behave like a very little girl instead of a learned young woman of nearly five years old. She was determined to save her father from the mockery of his friends.

So her lessons were more than a task to her; they were a dedication. She
must
master them.

“It is not natural to sit so long with your books,” said her mother. “Come … play with Bessy.”

But if she played with Bessy it was but to teach her; for, she thought, Father will like all his daughters to be clever. It will not do for one of us to be wise and the rest ignorant.

Yet she hoped that Elizabeth and Cecily would not be able to learn as easily as she could, for she wished to remain the cleverest of her father's daughters.

Thus Margaret, even at the age of four, had become an unusually learned little girl.

One day her father brought home a girl of her own age—a shy sad little girl.

Margaret heard his voice and rushed down to meet him; she flung her arms about his knees; then she stood solemnly regarding the little girl who stood beside him, her hand in his.

Her father crouched down so that the three of them were all of a size. He put an arm about each of them.

“Margaret,” he said, “I have brought a playmate for you.”

Margaret wanted to say that she had no wish for a playmate. Her lessons absorbed her; and she had two sisters with whom she could play. If she wanted a new addition to their household it would have been a boy, so that she could have proved to those friends of her fathers how right he was when he said girls could learn as much as boys.

But she knew that she must not make the little girl feel unwanted, for that would surely displease her father.

“This,” he went on, “is another Margaret. Margaret is my favorite name.”

That made Margaret smile and look with new interest at the little girl who had the same name as herself.

“This Margaret is coming to live with us, Meg.”

“We cannot have two Margaret's in one house,” Margaret pointed out. “If you called me she would think you called her.”

“My wise little daughter!” His laughter was merry but she knew that he had sensed her resentment, and she blushed because she knew it must displease him.

“One of us would have to be given a new name,” she said quickly.

“What other names are there for Margaret?” he asked. “There is Peg. There is Daisy. There is Meg and Marget. Ah, but we already have a Meg and Marget in our own Margaret. There is Mercy. One of you will have to change her name, will she not?”

“Yes,” said Margaret, her lips trembling slightly. She knew what he expected of her, and she knew that she could not bear to hear him call another Margaret. He knew it too; that was why he expected her to give her name to this girl.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Often he had told
them that. He often said: “Ah, my Meg, if only men and women would
realize
that it is the unselfish acts that bring most pleasure, then the world would become full of unselfish people; and perhaps the very act of unselfishness would become a selfish one.”

She knew, with his eyes upon her, that she must make the sacrifice now.

“I… I will be Daisy or Mercy,” she said.

He kissed her then. “My Meg … my dearest Meg,” he said; and she thought that if that was the last time he called her by her name she would always remember his voice at that moment.

“Mercy is a beautiful name,” he said, “for mercy is one of the most beautiful of all qualities.”

“Do you like Mercy?” asked Margaret of the newcomer.

“Yes,” she answered. “I will be Mercy, because this is your house first, and you were the first Margaret in it.”

Then her father kissed them both and said: “So my Meg stays with me; and in addition I have brought Mercy into the house.”

Her name was Mercy Gigs and she had been left an orphan. She had no fortune, he explained to Margaret, but her own sweet nature. “So, Meg, we must take her into our house. I will be Father to her; your mother will be Mother; and you will be sister to her as you are to Elizabeth and Cecily.”

And so it was that she acquired a new sister, to learn with her and talk with her. She had the advantage of having started her lessons earlier, but she soon realized that Mercy Gigs was a rival, for she had given her devotion to the man who had taken her into his house and become her foster father, and, like Margaret, her one thought was to win his respect and approval.

She too worked hard at her lessons and tried to startle him with her ability to learn. Now when the friends came and asked how Margaret was progressing with her lessons, there would be two little girls to confront them; and Mercy Gigs, the orphan, could confound them even more than Margaret who was, after all, the daughter of a learned man.

“So Mercy will prove my point completely,” Thomas would
say with glee. “Mercy is going to be as clever as my own children. Mercy shall be given the best tuition with my own children, and she will show you that most feminine minds are as capable of absorbing knowledge as a sponge absorbs water.”

Then Mercy would blush and smile and be very happy.

Later there came a period of anxiety. It began when, one day, her father took Margaret on his knee and told her that he was going away for a little while.

She put her arms about him and bit her lips to hold back her tears.

“But it will not be for long, Meg,” he said. “I am going into foreign lands. I am going to the universities of Paris and Louvain to see my friends who come to see me when they are here; and perhaps one day, Meg, I shall take you and your mother and your sisters there. How will you like that?”

“I would rather stay here and that you should stay too.”

“Well, Meg, that which we would rather have does not always come about. You will have to look after everybody in the house, will you not? And you will work hard at your lessons whilst I am gone?”

She nodded. “But why must you go? Why must you go?”

“I am going because quite soon I may want to take my family to France. But first I wish to go there alone, to make sure that it is the place my family would like to live in.”

“Of course we should like to live there if you were there. There is no need for you to go first without us.”

He kissed her and put her down.

Her fears had started then. Not only was this due to the fact that he left for France shortly afterward, but she knew from the looks of the servants, from the voices of the people who spoke with her mother, and from her mothers worried looks, that something frightening had happened.

He had not told her what it was; and she knew that could only be because she was too young to understand.

She talked of this matter with Mercy. Mercy was wise and
quiet; she too had noticed that something was wrong; she too was afraid.

Once when her mother was baking bread in the kitchen, Margaret said: “Mother, when will my father come back?”

“Soon, my child. Soon.”