become a woman soon. You will only marry when you can bear a child.” My cheeks reddened. “Now kneel for your blessing.”
As I knelt, the thought came to me: how can the man that blesses me in the name of God marry me to such a man as Edward?
I stumbled from the room. “I shall not marry the King!” I muttered to myself. “I shall not marry anybody. I want to be free to choose my own life.”
Somebody caught hold of my arm and placed a finger across my lips. It was Ellie, fear shadowing her face. “Hush!” she whispered. “You know that in this house such words are treason.”
Who am I?
A bright sky encloses me and a sharp wind scents the air with hawthorn blossom. It is Sunday, my day of rest, and I have climbed Beacon Hill, knee-deep in honeysuckles and enchanter’s nightshade. Below me lie river valleys and forests, and at last I see what I have come for: on the north horizon – faint, but clear – the spire of Lincoln Cathedral.
Not only do I imagine our house, but I hear my father’s voice as he urges me to study: “When Edward dies,” he used to say, “and it is rumoured that he will die young, his sister Mary will sit on the throne of England. It will be a glorious day, my son! A Catholic monarch again! Until then we must keep our heads down.”
My father aged daily as Protestantism crept up on us like the sea, eroding the old faith like the face of a cliff. Everything, everyone that was dear to him was slowly swept away: his brother, a Catholic priest, gone to exile in France; the old Common Prayer book replaced by a new one encouraging the congregation to take part in the church service, and – the worst thing of all – no longer was the bread and wine thought to transform into Christ’s flesh and blood during Mass.
Our daily life became more and more difficult. My father taught Latin and Greek to the choirboys at Lincoln Cathedral, only a stone’s throw from our house on the hill below. One day, when I was about ten years old, he was dismissed. The new faith asked for Mass to be sung in English. My father took in private pupils. We sacked all the servants except one and we washed in cold water in winter so that we need not light a fire.
The house fell into disrepair around us, but this was nothing compared to the ruin of our faith.
“Enough is enough!” my father wept one day. And from then on, we attended an illegal Catholic Mass held deep inside such a forest as this, two hours’ walk from Lincoln. We would set off at dawn, every Sunday, whatever the weather, with the Proctors, our neighbours. That was the only time I ever thought about the boy king on the throne telling us what we could and could not do. “How can such a young boy have all that power?” I used to ask my father, but he explained patiently that it was the men around him who had all the power.
Dark thoughts fill my mind. At the beginning of last winter, all of us at that Mass were arrested. There was no trial. They took us straight to Lincoln Castle, which then served as the city’s prison.
Next to us were three Catholic monks chained to a pillar. We prayed to God all day to save them, but they died of starvation and were thrown into a communal grave without the last rites.
As the days passed, it was not the dirt or the disease or the damp that was the worst thing. It was one of our gaolers. He was a runt of a man with a twitch in his right eye, too skinny to lay a whip or a hand on us. Words were his weapon.
My heart lurches.
He terrified us with stories of a black dog, whose ghost roamed the prison. He said its teeth were as long as a man’s arm and as sharp as his razor. He said it would come looking for us at night. Mistress Proctor prayed as her husband lay in the straw like a pig in its own filth, howling and roaring with fear. Sarah Proctor thought only of escaping.
Plump little Sarah Proctor! Who would have thought it? To my shame, I laughed at her. But she had made up her mind. With a nail
As I knelt, the thought came to me: how can the man that blesses me in the name of God marry me to such a man as Edward?
I stumbled from the room. “I shall not marry the King!” I muttered to myself. “I shall not marry anybody. I want to be free to choose my own life.”
Somebody caught hold of my arm and placed a finger across my lips. It was Ellie, fear shadowing her face. “Hush!” she whispered. “You know that in this house such words are treason.”
Who am I?
A bright sky encloses me and a sharp wind scents the air with hawthorn blossom. It is Sunday, my day of rest, and I have climbed Beacon Hill, knee-deep in honeysuckles and enchanter’s nightshade. Below me lie river valleys and forests, and at last I see what I have come for: on the north horizon – faint, but clear – the spire of Lincoln Cathedral.
Not only do I imagine our house, but I hear my father’s voice as he urges me to study: “When Edward dies,” he used to say, “and it is rumoured that he will die young, his sister Mary will sit on the throne of England. It will be a glorious day, my son! A Catholic monarch again! Until then we must keep our heads down.”
My father aged daily as Protestantism crept up on us like the sea, eroding the old faith like the face of a cliff. Everything, everyone that was dear to him was slowly swept away: his brother, a Catholic priest, gone to exile in France; the old Common Prayer book replaced by a new one encouraging the congregation to take part in the church service, and – the worst thing of all – no longer was the bread and wine thought to transform into Christ’s flesh and blood during Mass.
Our daily life became more and more difficult. My father taught Latin and Greek to the choirboys at Lincoln Cathedral, only a stone’s throw from our house on the hill below. One day, when I was about ten years old, he was dismissed. The new faith asked for Mass to be sung in English. My father took in private pupils. We sacked all the servants except one and we washed in cold water in winter so that we need not light a fire.
The house fell into disrepair around us, but this was nothing compared to the ruin of our faith.
“Enough is enough!” my father wept one day. And from then on, we attended an illegal Catholic Mass held deep inside such a forest as this, two hours’ walk from Lincoln. We would set off at dawn, every Sunday, whatever the weather, with the Proctors, our neighbours. That was the only time I ever thought about the boy king on the throne telling us what we could and could not do. “How can such a young boy have all that power?” I used to ask my father, but he explained patiently that it was the men around him who had all the power.
Dark thoughts fill my mind. At the beginning of last winter, all of us at that Mass were arrested. There was no trial. They took us straight to Lincoln Castle, which then served as the city’s prison.
Next to us were three Catholic monks chained to a pillar. We prayed to God all day to save them, but they died of starvation and were thrown into a communal grave without the last rites.
As the days passed, it was not the dirt or the disease or the damp that was the worst thing. It was one of our gaolers. He was a runt of a man with a twitch in his right eye, too skinny to lay a whip or a hand on us. Words were his weapon.
My heart lurches.
He terrified us with stories of a black dog, whose ghost roamed the prison. He said its teeth were as long as a man’s arm and as sharp as his razor. He said it would come looking for us at night. Mistress Proctor prayed as her husband lay in the straw like a pig in its own filth, howling and roaring with fear. Sarah Proctor thought only of escaping.
Plump little Sarah Proctor! Who would have thought it? To my shame, I laughed at her. But she had made up her mind. With a nail