“But he is closing the great religious houses up and down the country every day! Robert Aske and all the others, hundreds of them, died trying to save the monasteries.”
“Well, now he wants to restore one.”
“But he said that there is no such thing as purgatory and so no need for chantries?”
“Apparently, he wants one for Jane and himself.”
“Cromwell himself appointed the false prior and closed our priory.”
“And that is to be reversed.”
For a moment I am simply stunned, then I see that I am being given the greatest gift for a devout woman: my family’s priory back in my keeping. “This is a great honor to us.” I am quite awed at the thought that we will be allowed to open our beautiful chapel once again, that the monks will sing the plainsong in the echoing gallery, that the sacred Host will stand behind the altar once more in a shining monstrance, and the candles be lit before it, so that the little light shines out of the window into the darkness of a hard world. “He is really allowing this? Of all the priories and nunneries and monasteries of England that he has closed he is allowing this one light to shine? Our chapel? Where the banners of the white rose hang?”
“He is,” Montague says, smiling. “I knew it would mean so much to you. I am so glad, Lady Mother.”
“I can make it beautiful again,” I murmur. Already I can imagine the banners hanging once more in the chancel, the quiet shuffle of people coming into the church to hear Mass, the gifts at the door, the hospitality to travelers, and the power and quietness of a place of prayer. “It is only one place, and only a little place, but I can restore the church at Bisham. It will be the only priory in England, but it will stand, and it will shine a faint holy little light into the dark of Henry’s England.”
GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, CHRISTMAS 1537
Montague and I, accompanied by my grandson Harry as our page boy, visit Greenwich to take our gifts to the king and find a court that is still in mourning for Queen Jane. It is the quietest Christmas that I have ever seen. But the king accepts our gifts with a smile and wishes us the compliments of the season. He asks me if I have seen Prince Edward and gives me permission to visit the little baby in his nursery. He says I may take my grandson and gives a smiling nod to Harry.
The king’s fears for his son are painfully evident. There are double guards on the doors and no one may enter without written permission. No one at all, not even a duke. I admire the baby who looks well and strong and I press a gold coin into his nurse’s hand, saying that I will pray that he stays healthy. I leave him bellowing for a feed, a Tudor in his loud demands.
Having paid my respects I am free to go to the princess’s rooms. She has her own little court, her ladies around her, but when she sees me she leaps to her feet and runs to me and I wrap her in my arms and hold her, as I always did.
“And who is this?” She looks down at Harry, who is on one knee, his little hand on his heart.
“This is my grandson Harry.”
“I could serve you,” he says breathlessly.
“I should be so pleased to have you in my service.” She gives him her hand and he gets to his feet and bows, his little face dazed with hero worship.
“Your grandmother will say when you may join my household,” she tells him. “I expect you are needed at your home.”
“I am no use at home, I am quite idle, they would not miss me at all,” he says, trying to persuade her but succeeding only in making her laugh.
“Then you shall come to me when you are very useful and hardworking,” she says.
She draws me into her privy chamber, where we are alone and I can look at her pale face and wipe the tears from her cheeks and smile at her.
“My dearest child.”
“Oh, Lady Margaret!”
At once I can see that she has not been eating properly, there are shadows under her eyes and she is too pale. “Are you not well?”
She shrugs. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I was so grieved for the queen. I was so shocked . . . I could not believe that she would die like that . . . for a little while I even doubted my faith. I couldn’t see how God could take her . . .”
She breaks off and leans her forehead against my shoulder, and I gently pat her back, thinking, Poor child, to lose such a mother and then to love and lose a stepmother! This girl will spend the rest of her life longing for someone she can trust and love.
“We have to believe that she is with God,” I say gently. “And we sing Masses for her soul in my own chapel at Bisham.”
She smiles at this. “Yes, the king told me. I am so glad. But Lady Margaret! The other abbeys!”
I put a finger gently over her lips. “I know. There is much to mourn.”
“Do you hear from your son?” she whispers, her voice so soft that I have to bend to hear her. “From Reginald?”
“He was raising support for the pilgrims when they made peace and forged their agreement with your father,” I say. “When he got news of their defeat, he was recalled to Rome. He’s there now, safe.”
She nods. There is a tap at her door and one of the new maids puts her head into the room. “We can’t talk now,” the princess decides. “But when you write to him, you can tell him, that I am well treated, I think I am safe. And now that I have a little brother my father is at peace with me, and with my half sister, Elizabeth. He has a son, at last. Perhaps he can be happy.”
I take her hand and we go out to where her ladies, some of them friends and some of them spies, all rise and curtsey to us. I smile equably at all of them.
WARBLINGTON CASTLE, HAMPSHIRE, SUMMER 1538
I spend the summer at my house at Warblington. The court on progress passes nearby, but this year there are no Knights Harbinger, riding down the road to make sure that I can house the great party. The king does not want to stay, though the fields are as green and as wide and the forests as richly stocked with game as they were when he said it was his favorite house in England.
I look at the great wing that I built for the comfort of Queen Katherine and her young husband and think that it was money wasted, and love wasted. I think that money or love offered to the Tudors is always wasted, for the Tudor boy who was so well loved by his mother has been spoiled by us all.
I hear from my house at Bisham that Thomas Cromwell has taken the priory away from us, for the second time. The monks who were to pray for Jane Seymour have been told to leave, the chantry that was to stand forever, the only chantry in England, is quiet. The bishop’s cope is taken away, our priory is closed again. It was reopened on a Tudor whim; it closes on Cromwell’s command. I do not even write to protest.
At least I am confident that the princess is safe at Hampton Court, visiting her half brother at Richmond Palace. Without doubt she will have a new stepmother before the year is out, and I pray every night that the king chooses a woman who will be kind to our princess. They will be looking for a husband for her too, the Portuguese royal family has been suggested, and Montague and I agree that whatever my age and wherever she is sent, I must go with her to see her settled in her new home.
I am busy this summer in Warblington, preparing for the harvest and bringing the records up to date, but one day my steward comes to tell me that a new patient at our little hospital, a man called Gervase Tyndale, has been asking the surgeon Richard Eyre why there are no books of the new learning in the church or at the hospital. Someone tells him that it is common knowledge that I, and all my family, believe in the old ways, in the priest telling the word of God to the faithful, in the holy Mass, in faith not deeds.