The Heretics (49 page)

Margaret, Countess of Cumberland (1560–1616)

The countess was widely read with an inquiring mind that led her to embrace many subjects in the arts and sciences, including alchemy, medicine and mining. Born Margaret Russell, the daughter of the Earl of Bedford, she was given an extensive education – a benefit she would pass on to her own daughter, Lady Anne Clifford. At the age of seventeen, Margaret married George Clifford, the Earl of Cumberland, but eventually left him because of his continual adultery.

One of the talented women she helped was the poet Emilia Lanier, who had also been befriended and mentored by Lady Susan Bertie. In the early 1600s, Emilia spent some time at Margaret’s home in Cookham, and in turn dedicated poetry to her. Margaret’s daughter described her mother as having a ‘very well favoured face with sweet and quick grey eyes and a comely personage’. She tended towards Puritanism and was deeply pious.

The Dean of Rochester’s Wanton Wife

Alice Blague might be described, kindly, as a fun-loving girl. Married at fifteen to an ambitious clergyman named Thomas Blague, who was twice her age, she spent the rest of her life having affairs with other men and spending far too much money.

She doesn’t appear in
The Heretics
as a character, but she is mentioned by other people. In truth she could easily be made the subject of a book in her own right.

Much of what is known about her comes from the secret diaries of Dr Simon Forman, who used the word ‘halek’ as code for having sex. He certainly
haleked
with Alice Blague on at least two occasions – in June and July 1593 – and earned a fortune from her by providing medical and astrological consultations for a wide range of conditions and personal problems.

Forman gives us a very clear description of her character and appearance: ‘She had wit at will but was somewhat proud and wavering, given to lust and diversity of loves and men; and would many times overshoot herself, was an enemy to herself and stood much on her own conceit. And did, in lewd banqueting, gifts and apparel, consume her husband’s wealth, to satisfy her own lust and pleasure, and on idle company. And was always in love with one or another. She loved one Cox, a gentleman on whom she spent much. After that, she loved Dean Wood, a Welshman, who cozened her of much: she consumed her husband for love of that man. She did much overrule her husband.

‘She was of long visage, wide mouth, reddish hair, of good and comely stature; but would never garter her hose, and would go much slipshod. She had four boys, a maid and a shift [miscarriage]. She loved dancing, singing and good cheer. She kept company with base fellows of lewd conversation – and yet would seem as holy as a horse.’

Alice came from a well-to-do family, as did Blague, who had been schooled in the household of Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s most senior minister.

Dr Blague, a Cambridge graduate, evidently believed he was destined for the very top of the church tree – for both he and his wife consulted Dr Forman about his chances of success when bishopric vacancies arose.

But perhaps it was his wife’s activities that held him back. One of her lovers was, like her husband, a church dean. She was utterly infatuated with Dean Owen Wood, who was married to a wealthy widow, and she was desperate to know whether he was in love with her.

However, Dean Wood’s eye was as roving as hers. We know this because a maid from his house consulted Forman (as did many great ladies and gentlemen of the court). This maid told Forman of the day she saw her master with another man’s wife, having seen him ‘occupy Wem’s wife in her own house in the garret. He did occupy her against the bedside, her mistress being abed in Tottenham.’

Maybe Forman thought it wise not to pass on this bit of tittle-tattle to Alice Blague.

Alice gave Forman substantial amounts of money for her frequent consultations. For instance, she wanted to know whether her supposedly good friend Martha Webb (another patient that Forman took to bed) was having an affair with Dean Wood behind her back; she also wanted to know if she should have a child with Dean Wood. These two consultations cost her £1 3s 3d and she promised the huge sum of £5 if Forman would use magic to ensure that Wood would be hers alone.

Belief in magic and demonic possession were commonplace in the Elizabethan era. The Blagues knew all about supposed possession by devils, for one servant girl had been ‘much vexed with spirits in her youth’.

Many of Alice’s consultations concerned physical ailments. She and her husband were given expensive medicines for a whole host of illnesses and pains.

During the plague year of 1603, she became frantic with worry and went time and again to Forman. He said her only problem was that she was afflicted ‘with melancholy, and much wind. It makes her heavy, sad, faint, unlusty and solitary; and will drive her into a melancholy passion’.

She survived the plague and continued her wanton way through life for many more years.

Did the Dean of Rochester know about his wife’s philandering? He once asked Simon Forman ‘whether she be enchanted by Dean Wood or no’. But the answer he got was evidently ‘no’, for Dr Blague never forsook her. On his deathbed in 1611, he made her executor of his will and praised ‘her wisdome and fidelitie’. Little did he know. Or perhaps he simply turned a blind eye to her activities.

As for Alice, a mother of four, she went on to marry a prison keeper named Walter Meysey. They soon separated.