In covering a field so vast as the history and politics of this period, I have had to confine myself to those events which would have affected Katherine, but in showing these national events I have tried to extract the truth from the welter of conflicting data and points of view. For the actual accounts of the Good Parliament and the Peasants' Revolt, I have read all the authorities, but have leaned chiefly on the Anonimalle Chronicle of St. Mary's Abbey, York, which gives information not available to the earlier historians.
The existence of Blanchette has been entirely overlooked, but it is documented by Armitage-Smith and also by the "Registers".
These registers have also, by inference, provided me with much of the story, since many entries bear on the personal life of Katherine and the Duke, such as their parting in 1381, attested by a Latin Quit Claim - as well as by those assiduous monkish chroniclers who never lost a chance to attack the Duke - for reasons I have tried to show.
My Latin was not adequate for all this research and various amiable people have helped me, but with Middle French and Middle English I have perforce become familiar and one of the great personal pleasures in writing this book has been the reading of much medieval literature - and Chaucer. It has occurred to me, and here I know I am treading on dangerous ground, that Chaucer may have had his beautiful sister-in-law in mind in occasional passages, particularly in the Troilus and Criseyde.
That I have not invented Katherine's beauty for fictional purposes is borne out I think by the references. John of Gaunt's (now destroyed) epitaph in St. Paul's referred to her as "eximia pulchritudine feminam," an unusual tribute on a tombstone, while the disapproving monk of St. Mary's Abbey called her "une deblesse et enchanteresse"
Lady Julian of Norwich was one of the great English mystics. All her quotations are verbatim from her Revelations of Divine Love. I hope it has been possible to rebuild the little church to which her anchoress' cell was once attached; when I visited it, it was in a pathetic state of demolition as a result of enemy action.
In closing I want to thank again all those who have helped me and particularly my dear friend Isabel Garland Lord, and my English cousin, Amy C. Flagg, of Durham.
I have consulted all standard histories and source books for the period, and most of the Chronicles, but my debt to the following is greatest:
John of Gaunt's Register. Camden Third series, in four volumes covering 1372-1383. These comprise the actual French (occasionally Latin) documents issued by the Duke.
The Genesis of Lancaster, by Sir James H. Ramsay.
John of Gaum, by Sydney Armitage-Smith. The definitive biography.
Chaucer's World, compiled by Edith Rickert.
The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333-1381, of St. Mary's Abbey, York. Edited by V. H. Galbraith.
Froissart's Chronicles, translated by Thomas Johnes.
It would be tedious to list all the other chronicles, or the biographies of Chaucer, Wyclif, the queens, the Black Prince, Henry IV, Richard II, etc. But I must mention a few of the background books like J. J. Jusserand's Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages; J. Huizinga's Waning of the Middle Ages; all of Eileen Power's vivid and exhaustive works, particularly Medieval English Nunneries; all the fine books by G. G. Coulton; Life on the English Manor, by H. S. Bennett; and Walter Besant's fascinating and beautiful volumes on Medieval London.
London, March 18, 1954
A.S.
Part One (1366-1367)
"If no love is, Ah God what feel I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good from whence cometh my woe?
If he be wicked, a wonder thinketh me .. ."
(Troilus and Criseyde)
CHAPTER I
In the tender green time of April, Katherine set forth at last upon her journey with the two nuns and the royal messenger.
The invisible sun had scarcely risen as they quitted the little convent of Sheppey, and guiding the horses westward towards the Kentish mainland, rode gingerly down the steep hill. Dripping dun clouds obscured the minster tower behind them and thick mists blew from the North Sea.
The bell began tolling for Prime and Katherine heard through its familiar clangour the bang of the priory's gate and the faint voice of the little wicket nun calling again through the mist, "Adieu dear Katherine, adieu."
"Farewell, Dame Barbara, God be with you," Katherine answered, hoping that her tone was not too gay. She had tried to make herself feel the requisite doleful pang at parting from this convent where she had spent over five years, but her heart would not obey. It bubbled, instead, with excited anticipation.
She had been a puny child when the good Queen had sent her to Sheppey Priory as a boarder, now she was a marriageable woman, for she would be sixteen next October sometime after Michaelmas. And she had had her fill of the cloisters and the hovering nuns, kindly as most of them were. She was sick of the inexorable bell that ruled their lives, tolling for Matins and Lauds and then every three hours throughout the day until Compline at eight o'clock and bed. She was sick of lessons and plain-song, and the subdued admonishing murmurs of women.
No matter how dutiful one tried to feel, it was impossible to be sad at leaving this behind, when the blood ran hot and rich in the veins, and when out in the world there were all the untried beckoning enchantments: dancing, sensuous music, merriment - and love.
Now at last it had come, the summons to court, when Katherine had almost given up hope, and it seemed that the Queen had totally forgotten her early interest in the little orphan. Perhaps the Queen had forgotten but at least Philippa had not. Katherine thought of the coming meeting with the sister whom she had not seen in all these years and gave a sudden bounce of joy, which the old white horse instantly resented. He stumbled in a muddy rut, recovered himself, then stood stock still, his long lips thrust out.
The Prioress Godeleva resented the bounce too, for Katherine was riding pillion behind the prioress.
"What possessed you to jump like that, Katherine!" snapped Godeleva over her shoulder, while she flapped the reins and tried to induce the horse to move. "Bayard hates double weight, and you're not a child to play the fool. I thought we'd trained you better." She flapped the reins again futilely.
"Forgive me, Reverend Mother," said Katherine reddening.
Dame Cicily, the other nun, came fluttering up to them crying, "Oh dear, oh dear, Reverend Mother, what's the matter?" She was riding a decrepit nag borrowed from the convent's bailiff and had perforce dropped behind.
"As you see," said the prioress coldly, digging her heels into the horse's belly and slapping his neck with her small white hand, "Bayard is baulking."
Long Will Finch, the Queen's messenger, who had been riding on ahead and singing a bawdy song to himself suddenly noticed the silence behind him. He turned his roan and peering through the mists came back to investigate. "God's nails - - - " he muttered when he saw the trouble. "These holy old hens should stay in cloister. We'll not reach Windsor till Whitsun at this rate."
He dismounted, hit Bayard a powerful swat on the rump with the flat of his dagger while savagely jerking the bridle. The horse gave an indignant snort but he jumped forward and Katherine clung to the prioress's plump waist.
"You need a switch, Reverend Mother," said Long Will, breaking a branch from a hazel bush and handing it to Godeleva.