Joan: she was not like the other girls.
When he was eighteen, Martin had discovered that most of the girls laughed at him because he was puny. On May days, when many a young apprentice received a kiss, and sometimes more, he got none. Once, a cruel group of girls even taunted him as he passed. “Never been kissed. Doesn’t know how,” they chanted.
Another boy might have been crushed. But Martin with his secret pride told himself he despised them. What were they anyway? Only women. Fickle, weaker vessels – wasn’t that what the preachers in church called them? As for their smiles, their kisses, and their bodies – he shrugged. It was all the work of the Devil. As the poor young fellow brooded, his sad defences grew stronger. By the time he was a young man, still unkissed, he had come to believe, with a secret righteousness: “Women are unclean. I want none of them.”
Joan’s father was a decent, solemn craftsman. He painted the huge, elaborate wooden saddles of the rich and the nobility. His two sons worked with him; he had reasonably assumed his daughter would marry a craftsman of the same kind. So what the devil had she seen in the young Fleming, who had so few prospects? As would any reasonable father in his position, he had discouraged her. But the girl was quietly insistent, for a very simple reason: she was loved. In fact, she was worshipped.
Martin had been working for the Italian for six months when he noticed her. He had been on an errand to the Vintry wharves and was walking up towards West Cheap when he saw her sitting outside her father’s workshop at the bottom of Bread Street. Yet what had made him stop and talk to the girl? He could hardly say. Some silent voice within must have prompted him. Whatever it was, he had walked that way again the next day. And the next.
Little Joan was different. She was so quiet, so modest. She did not seem to find him ridiculous. When her calm, serious eyes looked up to his, it made him feel manly. And above all, he soon discovered there was nobody else. If he wanted her, she was his, and his alone. “She is pure,” he said to himself. Which, indeed, she was. She had never even been kissed.
And so he courted her. The absence of rivals gave him the confidence he needed and as that confidence increased, he became protective of her. He had never felt strong before, and it was thrilling. The first flush of courtship makes some young men conceited. It even makes them cast about, to see if they can be as successful elsewhere. But Martin knew that women were unchaste and not to be trusted, except for Joan. And the more of her goodness he saw, the more determined he was never to let her go. Not a week passed without some little present; if she was happy, he would match her mood; if sad, he would comfort her. No one had ever paid her so much attention before. So it was not surprising that six months later they both wanted to marry.
But how? The saddle-painter had only a little to give his daughter, young Martin’s father less. The two men met and sadly shook their heads. “He says there’s no one else for him,” the horner explained apologetically. “Joan’s just as bad,” the other replied. “What are we to do?” At last an agreement was reached, by which the young people were to wait two years in the hope that Martin might improve his position. After that: “Who knows,” Joan’s father said hopefully, “maybe they’ll change their minds.”
And then the disaster had occurred.
In a way, it had been Martin’s fault. The rules were simple enough. All common folk should be indoors after dark. If a servant went out, he must have his master’s permission. Even the taverns were supposed to be closed. This was the curfew, typical of medieval cities. Not that anyone took much notice; and apart from two sergeants at the city gates, and the beadle of each ward, there was no one to enforce it anyway.
One October evening, when his master was away, Martin had slipped out to a tavern. Two hours passed before he returned to the darkened house in Lombard Street and surprised the thieves. There had been two of them. He heard them as soon as he entered. Thinking of nothing, except that he must protect the Italian’s property, he rushed to the back of the house where they were, making such a noise that they fled. He chased them up an alley, where one dropped a small bag. Then they vanished. Martin picked up the bag and began to walk home.
It was a few minutes later that the beadle had emerged from the shadows to ask him if he had permission to be in the streets after curfew. And inspected the bag.
When the Italian returned the next day, nothing would persuade him that Martin had not tried to rob him. For the bag was found to contain several gold ornaments he had kept hidden. Poor Martin never had a chance. “I’ve caught this young man trying to rob me before,” he told the justices at the trial. It was enough for them to find him guilty of theft. The penalty for theft was death.
There were three main prisons that belonged to the city, all by the western wall: the Fleet, Ludgate, used mainly for debtors, and Newgate. None of them consisted of more than a few stone rooms, usually crowded. The regime was simple. Prisoners could pay the gaoler for food, or their family and friends, if any, might visit and pass food and clothing to them through a grille. Otherwise, unless passers-by took pity on them, or the gaoler gave them a little bread and water out of kindness, they would starve.
Martin Fleming had been in Newgate for a week now. His family had fed him, Joan had come to visit him each day, but he had no hope. Sometimes rich people could buy pardons from the king, but for a fellow like him, that was not even a possibility. Tomorrow he was going to die; and that was that.
So he hardly knew what to make of the strange message he had just received. It was Joan’s brother who had brought it, delivering it verbally, through the iron grille.
“She says to tell you that tomorrow everything will be all right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I. But she said something else. However it looks, nothing will be what it seems. Just do as she says. She was very insistent about that. Told me to repeat it. It won’t be what it seems and you have to trust her.”
“Where is she now?”
“That’s just it. She’s gone. Told me to tell the family not to expect her until tomorrow. She’s vanished into thin air.”
“So you’ve no idea what this is all about?”
“Beats me,” her brother shrugged. Then he left.
And what, Martin wondered, would be all right? Death?
Some time earlier – about an hour before noon – a tall, fair-haired man in his late twenties had stood before a door on the first floor of the house of William Bull. A servant had sent him up there, but now, faced with the awful prospect, his courage failed him. He hesitated. From the other side of the door, he heard a grunt. Then, nervously, he tapped.
William Bull sat on his privy and ignored the tap at the door. He was thinking.
The privy, which had been built on to the upper floor of the house by the sign of the Bull, was a splendid affair. It was a small square room with a shuttered window; the walls and the door were covered with green baize; the floor with fresh, scented rushes. The orifice itself, which opened on to a chute with a ten foot drop, was fashioned out of polished marble, upon which, in the shape of a ring, was a thick, red cushion which had been embroidered with a design of fruit and flowers in red, green and gold. The last king, Henry III, had conceived a passion for sanitation which led him to build as well as his many churches, the most extraordinary number of garderobes, or privies. Nobles wishing to be fashionable had followed suit, and Bull’s father, a baron and alderman of London, had installed his own, upon which he sat as though upon a throne, a merchant monarch proud of all he did.
It was also a good place to think. And that morning, William Bull had much on his mind. In particular, there were two decisions to make – one small, the other large. So large, in fact, that it would entirely change his life. Yet strangely enough, after the unspeakable events of the day before, it was the big decision that was easier.
When he grunted, he had just made it.
Another tap at the door. He frowned. “Come in then, damn you, whoever you
are,” he growled.
It was, as his household knew, his habit to give interviews in this sanctum. But now, seeing who it was, his face darkened into a glower. “You,” he snarled. “The traitor.” And his cousin winced.
Elias Bull was ten years younger than William. Spare where the merchant was thickset, fresh-faced where William had a blotchy cheek and heavy jowl, he was a weaver, but he made a poor living. “I wouldn’t trouble you,” he had confessed at their last encounter, “but it’s for my wife and children. As you know, our grandfather cut my father off with a pittance.” All he needed was a little help. “Is it right,” he had asked William, “that the sins of the father should be visited upon the son?” William, in genuine surprise, had answered: “Yes.”
The long reign of King Henry III had not gone well for the Bull family. It had started happily enough while the council had run England wisely and efficiently for the boy king. There had been no wars of consequence. England’s mighty wool trade was booming. The city, under its mayor and oligarchic council of aldermen, had prospered. “If only,” William’s father used to say, “that boy had never come of age. Or if only,” he would add, “he hadn’t been a Plantagenet.” For was there ever a Plantagenet born without dreams of empire? Young Henry had England and still possessed the lands of Aquitaine, around Bordeaux; but he dreamed of more.
And finally he had come to grief, just like his father John: a series of foreign entanglements that were vastly expensive had aborted; a large section of the barons, led by the great Simon de Montfort, had rebelled, and had set up a new council to govern the king, as though he were a child again. Montfort had called a huge assembly of barons, knights and even burgesses, which he called a Parliament. For a few short years it had even looked as if some new kind of kingship, subject to a great council, might develop in England. And in the midst of this turmoil, the awful thing had happened.
There had been dozens of riots in London before. But this one was different. It was not just the poor folk or hot-blooded apprentices. Solid citizens – fishmongers, skinners, traders and craftsmen – had led the ancient Folkmoot in an organized rebellion against rich dynasts like the Bulls. There were riots; a party, led by a furious young fishmonger called Barnikel, had even smashed the door of Bull’s house and tried to set light to it. Worse still, Montfort had let these radicals depose the aldermen and elect new, vulgar fellows of their own. And this disgraceful state of affairs had continued for some time until at last Montfort had been killed, the king returned to power, and the old patriciate managed to get control of London again.
Worst of all – the thought of it still made Bull clench his fists in fury – his father’s own brother had joined these rebels. A number of young idealists, or opportunists, from other patrician families had done the same. “But that doesn’t make it any better,” William’s father had told him. “A traitor is a traitor, and that’s that.” The young radical had been cut off from the family for ever. And now, for the third time this year, here was the traitor’s wretched son, pestering him for help. It was an outrage. But then his brow cleared, and he even grunted with a hint of pleasure. For after the great decision he had just taken, this visit was rather appropriate. I am growing cruel, he thought. But he saw no reason why he should deny himself a modest revenge.
As the merchant stared fixedly at his unwitting victim – to whom at that moment and in his present posture he appeared like a large and rather frightening toad – he said abruptly: “I’ll give you three marks if you go away.” This was enough to improve the family’s meals for some time, but not enough to make the slightest change in their circumstances. Elias looked anguished. “But if you come and find me here in a year from today,” William shrugged, “perhaps I’ll even give you the inheritance that might have been yours. Now get out,” he suddenly cried, “and shut the door after you.” At which poor Elias Bull, much mystified, departed.
The cruelty of William’s little joke lay in the one fact he had withheld: the big decision he had just taken.
In a year’s time, he would not be there. The Bulls were leaving London. For good.
In a way it was not surprising. Even his father had said: “The city is becoming intolerable.” The problem for his father, apart from the rebellion, was contained in a single word. Immigrants. It was natural, in the booming prosperity of that century, that London should have swollen. But the stream of immigrants had turned into a flood: Italians, Spaniards, French and Flemings, Germans from the growing network of northern ports known as the Hansa, not to mention the merchants and artisans flocking in from the regions of England. Worse yet, with the exception of the Hansa men, who kept themselves apart, they were mixing and marrying with exactly the craftsmen who had been such a confounded nuisance under Montfort. “These vulgar upstarts and foreigners are crowding us out,” the old patrician claimed.
For William, the process was summed up by an event that took place a year before old King Henry died. The little steeple over St Mary-le-Bow had come down in a storm and smashed a nearby house the Bulls owned. Normally this would have been quickly repaired; but his father had hesitated, then decided to sell. A year later, together with three smaller houses of the Bulls, it was being shared by a dye-master from Picardy and a Cordova leather-seller from Spain. Then, in nearby Garlick Hill, some vulgar tanners had moved in. These were small things, yet a sign of the times. But the final blow had been when his own house, previously in the aristocratic parish of St Mary-le-Bow, had been made part of the tiny parish of St Lawrence Silversleeves. A mean little church, not worthy of the patrician Bulls. Nothing could disguise the fact that the family was in retreat.
If the long reign of Henry III had been bad for the family, the last twenty years under his son Edward had been a nightmare. No English king was ever more impressive than Edward I. Tall and powerful, with a noble face and a flowing beard, his only peculiarities were a drooping left eyelid and a lisp when he spoke. A vigorous law-giver and commander, he was both intelligent and cunning. The leopard, they called him. And having seen his father’s often pathetic rule, he was determined to impose his own, iron will. He was usually successful. Already he had subdued the Welsh, secured their land with huge castles, and given them their first, English Prince of Wales. Soon he would march north, to hammer the Scots as well. And if there was one body of men in his kingdom he disliked, it was the proud patrician aldermen of London who elected their own mayor and thought they could make kings.
His attack had been cunning. For what merchant could deny that Edward was his friend? His laws were just and good for trade. Debts were regulated, taxes simplified, with a new but reasonable duty on wool exports that could mostly be passed on to the foreign customers. “Yet look at what he’s quietly done to us patricians,” William would point out. “He’s pushed the best wine trade to fellows from Bordeaux; the biggest wool dealers are either Italians or men from the West Country.” And while his father had always made huge and profitable sales of luxury goods to the Wardrobe, as the royal purchasing office was called, William could not sell them a thing. “We’ve been sidestepped,” he bitterly concluded. “That leopard’s run round us.”
Yet even this was only the softening up. The real assault, which had begun ten years ago, was devastating. For suddenly, on the pretext of improving law and order, King Edward had dismissed the mayor and put in his own warden. The aldermen had been aghast. But they got no support from the Londoners. And then King Edward had set to work. A barrage of ordinances followed: records, courts, weights and measures – all reformed with Edward’s usual thoroughness. “I suppose,” Bull conceded, “our sort of rule may have been a bit slack.” But the sting was in the tail. “His laws give any foreigner the same trading rights as ours,” Bull stormed. The king’s Exchequer court abruptly moved into the Guildhall, where the aldermen’s Husting court had always held sway. Two years ago, when the aldermen had finally protested – “What about London’s ancient privileges?” – the warden had coolly thrown them out of offi
ce and replaced them with new men, chosen by the Exchequer. “And do you know who these new fellows are?” Bull stormed. “Fishmongers, skinners, smelly little craftsmen.” The Montfort rebels were back.
Yet even then, the old guard had not quite given up. They had ruled London for centuries, after all. Many, indeed, had looked to Bull – a respectable figure not yet tainted by office – as a possible champion. Recently he had thought he saw his chance.
A year ago, to help pay for the coming Scottish campaign. King Edward had overstepped the mark by abruptly raising the customs on wool. This new tax, known as the maltote, was so severe that all London had protested. And while the city was still simmering, the post of alderman for Bull’s own ward suddenly fell vacant.
He had been assiduous. “In my father’s day,” he remarked to his family, “we owned so much of this ward that the aldermanry was ours for the asking.” But he made no such assumptions now. Swallowing his pride, he had courted the lesser merchants and craftsmen; he had made himself agreeable to the king’s warden. Even one of the vulgar new aldermen quietly confessed to him: “We need a sound man of standing, like you.” As the day drew close, no one from the ward had troubled to challenge him.
And yesterday the day had come. Discreetly, happily, his sense of family history lending him a dignity of which he was rather proud, William Bull in a fine new cloak had presented himself at the Guildhall to be chosen.
The Exchequer man who waved him away had scarcely troubled even to be polite. “We don’t want you,” he said curtly. “We’ve chosen someone else.” When Bull, mystified, had protested – “But I’m unopposed” – the fellow had only snapped back, “Not from your ward. From Billingsgate.” An outside man. It was unusual, though sometimes done.