Her voice was quiet, but carrying as she reached Nellie, turned to where the Sheriff’s men were still standing with the town bailiff by the fire and announced:
“Arrest this woman. She is a harlot.”
Nellie looked at her, and pursed her lips thoughtfully.
It was Captain Wilson’s voice which rang out for all to hear.
“No more she ain’t. She’s my wife.” He stared, first at Robert, who now looked embarrassed, then at the sheriff’s men. “Would any care to dispute with me?”
No one seemed inclined to move.
“And who’s this pasty-faced scold?” he asked the crowd that had now turned to watch this new spectacle. “Who’s this tittle-tattle, this cold-eyed witch?”
There was an audible laugh in the crowd.
Then Nellie Godfrey’s voice rang out as she made her own lightning deductions from what she saw of the family group before her.
“Why,” she shouted – and it seemed to Edward Shockley that there was not a man or woman that side of Fisherton Bridge would would not hear. “’Tis Abigail Mason who’s just burned her husband so she can get another.”
Edward stared. Was it possible that Abigail had grown paler? She visibly buckled, as if she had been hit and winded. And she said not a word.
He looked from one to another. He saw Abigail’s eyes smouldering with rage and hate – the hate not of someone who has been found out, but who has been told a truth about themselves they did not realise.
As he stared first at the terrible fire, then at the pale figure who stood before it, it seemed to Edward Shockley, tortured for so long by his own conscience, as if the scales had fallen from his eyes.
The agony of England and Mary Tudor was nearly over.
In Sarum, in 1557, Bishop Capon died, Queen Mary appointed three vigorous Catholic preachers to uphold the faith at Sarum, but the bishop himself was not immediately replaced.
In 1557 also, Philip of Spain made one of his rare visits to his unloved queen. He came only for troops, to be used in his quarrel against the French. The English unwillingly supplied them, and Pembroke led seven thousand men to rout the French. It was a brief triumph. In January 1558, after Pembroke himself had returned, the French struck back and attacked Calais. Philip, more anxious to make gains for Spain in Italy, let them take it. So fell the last territory England was ever to hold in France. The loss was a saving to the British exchequer, for Calais had been expensive to keep, but a blow to England’s prestige.
It broke Mary’s heart.
But neither her husband nor her people cared for the Catholic queen any more. Cardinal Pole, her great ally, had been recalled from England by a new pope, who hated the proud aristocratic legate. In November 1558, isolated and sick, Mary Tudor died.
During her reign, some two hundred and eighty were burned: a small number, as the dismal records of religious persecution go, but enough to tell the islanders that they wanted no more. The last victims due to stand at the stake in Sarum were never executed. The under-sheriff, given the writ for their execution, tore it up. Before it was renewed, the queen had died.
Mary’s burnings were over, and it was time for England to find a compromise in this new world between the dangerous extremes that had destroyed so many people of conscience.
It was fortunate for the people of the island that, at this point in their history, two people with the necessary political and spiritual talents should have appeared upon the national stage: Elizabeth I of England, and Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury.
1580
It was mid-afternoon and few people were about. Edward Shockley had been to the village of Downton to the south and had made his way up, past the edge of old Clarendon Forest, returning to Salisbury a little earlier than expected.
At the corner of the street he paused, in mild surprise.
A stranger was coming out of his house. He appeared to be an artisan of some kind. He would have hailed him, but a moment later the stranger had turned right towards the market place and Edward was too tired to follow him, Odd though. He wondered who it was.
He went slowly down the street. It was good to be home.
There were few more contented men in Sarum than Edward Shockley. At last he had found peace.
For years he had lived in fear; worse, he had lied to his wife and despised himself. Now, as he looked back, it seemed to Edward Shockley that there were several causes. One, to be sure, was his own weakness. He did not deny it. But there had been another cause, too. He had not known what he believed himself. He had had a conscience, of a kind, but no cause.
Now he had one. It was the cause espoused by the queen. It might not seem noble to his wife, or to Abigail: but to him, and to many Englishmen, it was a cause with wisdom, and one, this time, that he was prepared to stand up for.
The cause was peace – and compromise.
The years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, thanks to her clever diplomacy, had given her island kingdom mostly peace, so far at least.
As for the religious settlement, to Shockley it seemed a masterpiece. It was a compromise. Copying her father, Elizabeth was Supreme Governor of the Church. The Prayer Book of Cranmer, with small changes, was restored. All people must attend church. Office holders must swear the Oath of Supremacy. The communion was taken in two kinds: bread and wine; the services were said in English. All this was Protestant, but moderate.
And many Catholics liked the English services, which were so arranged that there was little there to offend them anyway.
For the rest, there must be no disorder; the enforcing of the oaths could be as lax as they pleased. As for what men believed in their hearts . . . Unlike her half sister, Elizabeth had little religious feeling. She only knew the fear of persecution. She would, she said, make no window into men’s souls; let them believe what they liked: so long as they went to her church, or paid a small fine.
And up and down the country, while strict Catholics or extreme Puritans denounced the changes, men like Edward Shockley heaved a sigh of relief.
It was imperfect, hypocritical, cynical – and absolutely sensible.
Around her, the new queen had gathered a number of sound advisers including Pembroke, who for the fourth reign in succession, kept himself in high favour, and that sage councillor William Cecil. They understood the value of her cautious approach, and they helped her to make wise appointments. One of these was the gentle scholar and friend of Cranmer, Matthew Parker, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury; another was the new Bishop of Salisbury, John Jewel.
It was Jewel who transformed the Sarum diocese by his endless hard work and preaching. It was Jewel, also, who wrote one of the most important documents in the history of the Anglican Church: his
Apology
.
The
Apology
won Edward Shockley’s mind and heart.
“It is so simple you cannot argue against it,” he told his family with delight. “Our English Church is no new invention, no denial of authority: ’tis an exact return to the Church as it was set forth in the Scriptures – in the early centuries before Rome added its own doctrines and practices to muddy the clear waters. We celebrate Our Lord with bread and wine – as He ordained we should. We have bishops, as did the early Church; but there is nothing in the early Church concerning a pope at Rome, nor many of the Roman pomp and vanities; we have purified England of copes and altar cloths, relics, indulgences and superstition: that is all.”
And it was Jewel who finally taught Edward Shockley to come to terms with himself. Shockley always remembered the interview.
The bishop was such a small, slight fellow, with a sweet, thin, irregular face and gentle but hugely intelligent brown eyes. Study had made him prematurely old: his hair was thinning. But he was so wise.
He had imbibed advanced Protestant doctrines while he was in exile on the Continent in Mary’s reign, but at Sarum he was cautious.
“The spire was struck by lightning just before I came,” he joked to Edward, “so I took it as a warning to be careful. Here in Sarum,” he explained, “there are still many false shows from the old popish days: fine chalices, the robes of the priests, the altar cloths,” he ticked off the items that were to be found in churches all over the diocese. “In Basle or Geneva, we should have laughed at them. But now I have returned to England, I see that I must be patient, Master Shockley. Patience is my guide. I shall change these things gradually. And you, too, must learn to be patient – even with yourself. God will judge you soon enough.”
Now that he felt he had nothing to fear, his sense of shame disappeared. He was frank with Katherine about his admiration for Jewel, but as he pointed out, as long as the family outwardly conformed, that was enough. She might teach their son and daughter what she liked on that condition.
On this basis their marriage had continued without undue friction, ever since. Their children were married now. The girl was a secret Catholic; his son was not.
He saw Abigail Mason marry Robert and have two children. She was still as pale as ever; but he noticed that she and her family quietly attended Elizabeth’s church services rather than pay the fine. He often thought of poor Peter with affection, and wondered whether Abigail did.
Once or twice during these years he also saw Nellie Wilson, who had now grown into a respectable married woman at Christchurch. She became a little stout, and her husband grew so rich by his voyages that he was on a nodding acquaintance with the gentry. He never alluded to her past; indeed, there were few at Sarum besides Abigail Mason who could even remember her. As for Piers Godfrey, he died and left a little family of artisans to whom Edward sometimes gave a little work.
There was only one storm cloud on the horizon threatening the peace he loved so much – Catholic Spain. For Philip of Spain was arming for an invasion; and already he had supported a rising in Ireland.
The Spanish king had a Catholic rival to Elizabeth, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots – thrown out of Scotland by the dour Protestant followers of John Knox, safely confined in England, but a rallying point for every Catholic rebel.
Philip had papal support too. Since Elizabeth had failed to return her kingdom to Rome, he had excommunicatd her and, worse, he had even secretly offered plenary indulgences – remission of their sins – to certain gentlemen who had offered to assassinate her. Subtle and determined Jesuits like Edmund Campion were even now touring the country in secret, telling good Catholics they must not attend Elizabeth’s church and stirring up all manner of trouble.
It was all leading to a Spanish invasion.
And this was the important subject which nowadays occupied his mind more than any other. He had been pondering it all the way from Downton and it was about this that he planned to address Salisbury council the following month.
Katherine was surprised to see him back so soon.
He asked her who the stranger was.
“I hardly know him,” she told him. “A goldsmith I think, who knows John. He only came to pay his respects.” She smiled. “There is something I think would interest you more though – Thomas Forest came here two hours ago. He wants you to visit him at Avonsford.”
And at this news Edward Shockley immediately forgot all the other matters that had been on his mind.
What in the world, after so many years, could Forest want with him now?
The rift between Edward Shockley and Thomas Forest had opened gradually. But for years he had supposed it was complete.
It had begun because, for once, Forest had been wrong in a business assessment.
Their joint cloth venture had not been a great success.
For their main market, the Netherlands, had been sadly disrupted. The cause was Spain, which tried to impose its Catholicism and the cruel rule of the Inquisition on an unwilling population. The brutal troops of the Duke of Alva had been valiantly opposed by the Dutch forces of William of Orange. And the effect, for years, had been chaos. The great Antwerp cloth trade had suffered, and so had the cloth merchants of England.
Shockley’s trade was hit. He fought back, finding markets for his best broadcloth, and set up business in striped kersey and lace as well.
“But though it provides enough to keep us,” he told his family, “the profit is not nearly enough to satisfy Forest.”
And so, a little before Bishop Jewel died, he had bought Forest out, for a modest figure. It was an arrangement that worked well. His son and John Moody ran the business now.
He had made one other change too. Since the Antwerp business had gone, he had let the Fleming pay off the debt on easy terms, so that his family should be provided for, then he had ended their arrangement.
While the younger men ran the day to day business, his own concern turned increasingly to the affairs of the city. Which included the poor.
It was this that caused the rift with Forest.