Mistress to the Crown (47 page)
Read Mistress to the Crown Online
Authors: Isolde Martyn
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
I had been thinking about that, too. ‘I know there’s a risk at my age, my love, but I cannot imagine anything I’d like better – except, of course, being with you!’ Wrapping my arms about his neck, I drew his face to mine. ‘What say you we go about the enterprise without delay?’ I suggested, running my finger teasingly across his lips.
‘You might need a lawyer for this,’ he murmured, turning his head to kiss my palm.
‘I’ve always needed a lawyer, Tom, but it has never been the right one until now.’
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he laughed. ‘Shall we get started, Mistress Lynom? You know I like to take my time to perfect each clause.’
After our lovemaking, as I lay cuddled in my Crown Solicitor’s embrace with Hercules a warm snail shape next to my feet, I thought about this fresh beginning. Perhaps I should consign ‘Mistress Shore’ to the keeping of the moonstruck young woman at Ludgate. The irony pleased me; I could brush off my unholy reputation, pick up my skirts and whirl into the dusty corners of England’s history where no diligent chronicler could seek me out.
Tom was fast asleep when I stole to the casement and opened the shutters. Above the frosty gables of London, the giant Orion brandished his cudgel of stars at the western sky.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered gratefully to Heaven, and turning my face towards Westminster, I smiled and blew a kiss of farewell to the spirits of the men I’d loved.
History Note and Acknowledgments
In 1972 the real Mistress Shore was finally unmasked, thanks to the excellent research of Nicholas Barker. In an article in
Etonia
, he informed the world that she was neither a goldsmith’s wife nor baptised ‘Jane’.
Two documents had come to light: the papal letter of Sixtus IV permitting Mistress Shore’s case for divorce to be heard; and the will of John Lambard, drawn up in 1485, in which he left ‘Elizabeth Lyneham, my daughter’ a set of green velvet bed hangings and a stained cloth [painting] of St Mary and St Martha. He also left bequests to ‘Thomas Lyneham gent.’ and ‘Julyan Lyneham’. We do not know if Julyan was Elizabeth’s baby or Thomas’s child by a former marriage, but he/she was obviously a recipient of John Lambard’s affection.
So how did Elizabeth become ‘Jane’? The documents of her time referred to her patronisingly as ‘Shore’s wife’ and her first name was never mentioned. The man who christened her ‘Jane’ was the unknown author of the play
The First and Second Partes of King Edward the Fourth, Containing … his love to fayre Mistress Shoare
, performed in 1599, long after Elizabeth Lambard’s death.
The information about Elizabeth’s father getting into hot water over the house in Wood Street is true, but I have invented the reason why. His showing Elizabeth to her suitor Shore is fiction, but it was inspired by Sir Thomas More’s admission that he exposed his two sleeping daughters to a prospective husband.
After the divorce, William Shore returned to England in 1485. He died in 1495 in Derbyshire. There is a brass memorial on his tomb in Scropton Church, and a copy of his will (c1494) is held
in the Public Record Office at Kew. John Agard was one of his executors.
Elizabeth’s resting place is harder to determine. The brass memorial to her parents in Hinxworth Church shows her kneeling behind her mother, so maybe she died at Hinxworth. It is hard to believe that she ended her days old and penniless as Sir Thomas More alleges in his
History of King Richard III
.
And Thomas Lynom/Lyneham? King Richard’s letter to him is authentic and, yes, Thomas did marry Elizabeth and survived the change of dynasty. During King Richard’s reign, the bail system was inaugurated and legislation was passed to prevent felons’ goods becoming forfeit before conviction, so Lynom as Crown Solicitor could well have influenced the King to make these changes.
The Calendar of Patent Rolls
mentions his pardon after King Richard III’s death, and records that in 1486 he was the receiver for Richmond and Middleham castles (the latter was Richard’s home in Yorkshire). Richard had granted Lynom a property at Sutton-on-Derwent, Yorkshire, but in 1518 this land reverted to its former owner because Lynom was ‘now deceased’. However, there is another ‘Thomas Lyneham gent.’ who became a commissioner for several shires and served as clerk controller of Prince Arthur’s household at Ludlow. This ‘Lyneham’ was a commissioner for Worcestershire in March 1531. I am still trying to discover whether his will has survived and where this successful public servant was buried.
A list of Lord Hastings’ possessions dated October 1489, found among the papers of his son, mentions a flat diamond ring and a cross purportedly containing a fragment of the True Cross, and I have mentioned these in the story.
As far as Mistress Shore’s character and appearance, the only source is Sir Thomas More’s
History of King Richard III
, which was written between 1513 and 1521 in King Henry VIII’s reign. More
served as a page in Cardinal Morton’s household so perhaps most of the information about Mistress Shore comes from Morton. More talks of ‘those that knew her in her youth’ and there may have been many older Londoners who remembered seeing Mistress Shore do penance. The comment that there was ‘nothing in her body that you would have changed, unless you would have wished her somewhat higher’ could have been said in irony about a tall woman. What puzzles me is that if More claimed she was still alive when he wrote his book, why did he not interview her? Did she refuse to speak to him? Was she not coherent? She would have been in her early seventies.
I have searched for mention of her in official documents but there is only Edward IV’s ‘protection’ of William Shore and Richard Ill’s 1483 proclamation against her.
However, what royal mistress could ask for a better reputation in posterity than Thomas More provides:
But the merriest was this Shoris wife in whom the king therfore toke speciall pleasure. For many he had, but her he loved … she never abused to any mans hurt, but to many a mans comfort & relief: where the king toke displeasure, she would mitigate & appease his mind: where men were out of favour, she wuld bring them in his grace
.
If you are searching for Mistress Shore’s London in today’s city, many streets follow their old medieval lines and you can enjoy a coffee in the crypt of St Mary-le-Bow, the church where her divorce case was heard. Gerrard’s Hall no longer exists; its stones were ground up to make the prehistoric beasts at Crystal Palace. The façade of the London Mercers’ former hall now embellishes Swanage Town Hall in Dorset.
My thanks to: Jenny Savage for sleuthing through legal archives; David Beasley, Librarian of the Goldsmiths’ Company;
Joanna Loxton, Assistant Archivist of the Mercers’ Company; and Paul Darby, Matlock Local Studies, Derbyshire, for providing a family tree of the Agards.
As for other useful sources: Tudor historian John Stow’s
The Survey of London
; ‘The Map of Modern Early London’ at http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/; the biographies of Edward IV and Richard III by Charles Ross;
Richard III
by Paul Kendall Murray; John Schofield’s
Medieval London Houses
; and articles on the Woodvilles and Hastings families published in the
The Ricardian, Journal of the Richard III Society
. All these have lit my path.
I owe a lot to fellow Ricardian, Julie Redlich; to my writers’ critique group for their valuable comments; and my wonderful ‘guinea pig’ readers – Margaret Phillips and Angela Iliff (UK), Jane Dowler (Canada) and Jean McClenahan (Australia). Thanks to all of you!
If you would like to read any of my other novels that are set in the Wars of the Roses, you are most welcome to drop in at www.isoldemartyn.com.
— Isolde Martyn, October 2012
Glossary of Medieval words
ambler – horse very good for fast walking gait
arras – wall hanging
aught – anything
aumery – open cupboard/dresser
Brecknock – Brecon, Wales
brigandine – soldier’s protective jacket
broadcloth – everyday cloth
caravel – ship
chapmen – travelling salesmen
cod-piece, cod-flap – inset in men’s legwear
cog – small ship
cordals - laces
cote – coat
destrier – warhorse
diapered – over-stitched
doolally – northern slang for mad*
enow – enough
ewer – basin (style: an ewer)
fent – modesty insert in ‘V’ collar
frontlet – wire piece in headdress
fustian – mock velvet
greaves – thigh armour
jack (1) – fellow
jack (2) – leather tankard
jade – woman
jezebel – wicked woman
henin – steeple headdress fashionable in Burgundy
houpelande – man’s long robe
inn – alehouse, but also a lord’s hall
lairy – Derbyshire slang for wild, disorderly
Lammas Day - 1st August
laver – large bowl for hand washing
liveryman – member of a guild
lirapipe – hanging sideflap of a man’s hat
madder – red dye
mark – 13s 4d or 8 oz silver
mawther – woman*
Michealmas – 29th September
milksop – cowardly person
musterdevillers – probably grey cloth
naught – nothing
parlour – sitting room
points – laces that held a man’s hose to his upper clothing (gypon)
pricket – candle spike
proctor – church lawyer
rose noble – coin
sallet – helmet
settle – long seat with high back
shawm – musical pipe
solar – upstairs south-facing parlour
slibjib – Derbyshire slang for weak-faced man*
stained cloth – a painting
stomacher – worn between shirt and doublet like a waistcoat
the Staple – wool merchants’ company
tabor – small drum
tansy (as in colour) – yellow
tartarin – rich cloth
thwang – northern slang for toss*
timbrel – tambourine
tippet – narrow, outer hanging sleeve
tisshew – gauzy fabric
trencher – bread that can be used as a bowl
turkisse – turquoise
warden and subwarden – officers in a guild
Winchester geese – Southwark prostitutes
werrat – northern slang for noisy brat, possibly used in the fifteenth century
Table of Contents
Soper’s Lane, the City of London, 1463
Chapter One : Bow Lane, London, 1475
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five