Chapter I: The Fledglings Leave the Nest (8)

Notwithstanding his disappointment concerning Agnes, Master Rotherham kept up his acquaintance with Lovell Tower. He was present when she took the veil at Godstow, in the summer of 1476; and that she was not the only attraction he found in the family was proved by the continuance of his visits. About three years after her profession, Master Rotherham came to the conclusion, which he communicated to Lord Marnell, that his grief for the loss of Agnes would be considerably alleviated if he might have her sister Dorathie. Lord Marnell hesitated: for Dorathie's social position, as heiress presumptive to her mother's barony, was very different from that of Agnes. But he consulted the elder ladies, and found Lady Margery of opinion that a good, sensible man without title or large property would be a much better husband for Dorathie than a bad or foolish man who brought her a coronet and a county.

"Say you not so, Madam?" she concluded, turning to her mother.

The Lady Idonia's reply was to call Dorathie to her. She took her grand-daughter's face in both hands, and looked tenderly at the rosy cheeks and the pretty blue eyes, which were those neither of father nor mother, but which reminded Idonia Marnell, how often no one knew, of other blue eyes which were dust now in the Abbey of St. Albans.

"Aye, Madge. It will do," was the short but distinct decision of the old lady.

So Dorathie Marston became Dorathie Rotherham, and instead of departing to some strange place with her husband, he came to live with her.

The years went on, until the autumn leaves of 1537 were carpeting the green sward, and the wind was blowing keenly through the glades of Woodstock, and waving the willows that congregate round the Abbey of Godstow. The period was one which we look back upon as lively and tumultuous: yet to the few aged men and women who could look back further yet, to the terrible days of the Roses, it seemed very quiet. Matters had changed greatly since that time. The little printing-press set up by William Caxton the mercer in the Westminster Cloisters, had spread its wide wings over all the land: and the monk who, in his isolated courage, had posted his theses on the door of the church at Wittemburg, had spread his skirts over all the world. Men talked busily now on subjects which they had hardly thought about, fifty years before. Men, aye, and women too, dared to think for themselves. And one of the earliest results of these phenomena was the conclusion that the so-called religious houses had generally ceased to be houses of religion, and that the sooner they were done away with the better.

The state of many of these religious houses was of a kind that simply cannot be described. In them Satan and his angels reigned supreme. But there were a few--alas! they were very few--where the vows were really kept, where learning still had scope, and charity still held sway. And of female communities, the best of all these was the Abbey of Godstow.

The smaller houses, of the value of three hundred marks and under, were first suppressed. The larger, of which Godstow was one, followed later. Undoubtedly the motives for this proceeding were not pure and unmixed. Every person who joined in it was not actuated by exclusive regard for morality, nor was everybody quite innocent of some respect for those confiscated lands--not to speak of silver vases, gemmed reliquaries, and gold pieces--which, in the general up-breaking, might fall in his direction. Perhaps, when we have satisfied ourselves that our own motives are on all occasions absolutely unadulterated, we shall be in a more advantageous position to cast stones at the Reformers.

The suppression of the Abbey of Godstow was close at hand, and the nuns had made arrangements for the lives they meant to lead in future. Such of them as had relatives living commonly returned to them. A few of the elder ones, who had none, took refuge in the one or two convents of their Order which were, reasonably and charitably, allowed to remain until the death of the last surviving member. Those who married were very few, and were decidedly independent of public opinion.

On a small, but comfortable, pallet-bed in the infirmary of the Abbey lay one nun who needed to make no such provision for future life. She had received her invitation to the King's Palace, and she lay waiting for His messengers to bring His chariot for her. She had other invitations too: loving entreaties from the distant wolds of Yorkshire, where Dorathie Rotherham, Baroness Marnell of Lymington, herself an old woman of eighty years, was longing to cheer the last days of her aged and only sister; and scarcely less urgent pressure from far Devonshire, where the Lady Combe, of Combe Abbas, was affectionately desirous to minister to her husband's saintly and venerable aunt. But none of all these moved Mother Agnes, as she lay in the pallet-bed, waiting for the King's messengers. Life's fitful fever was over, and the eventide had come. For her there was a longer journey, to a better home.

Outside the infirmary two nuns, an old woman and a middle-aged one, were discussing some point which evidently disturbed their serenity.

"Well, it must be, I count," said the younger, who was the Abbess herself. "I am sore afeared it shall be diseaseful to Mother Agnes. Good lack, can they not do the King's gracious pleasure without poking into every corner, and counting the threads in every spider's web! Howbeit--Well! go, Sister Katherine, and say that my Lords the King's Commissioners can ascend now. But I would have thee say to the chief of them, whoso it be, that in the infirmary is a very aged and holy sister that is nigh to death, and that I pray them of their grace to tread in that chamber as quiet as may be."

Sister Katherine departed on her errand, and the Abbess went forward into the sick chamber. A few minutes later her messenger rejoined her.

"My Lords Commissioners speak very fair," said she. "I told the eldest gentleman as you bade me, holy Mother: and he promiseth that only the three chiefest of them shall come into this chamber, and that they shall tread and speak so quiet as may be."

"'Tis the best we may look for," responded the Abbess: "but I would it were well over."

In about half an hour the footsteps were heard approaching. They roused the dying nun, who had been in a dozing condition for some time.

"What is it, holy Mother?" she said nervously.

"Dear heart, 'tis but those weary companions, the King's Highness' noble Commissioners, that must needs see with their own evil eyes how many candlesticks and phials of physic be of the mantel-shelf," said the Abbess rather irritably. "They know their own business, trow: but verily I would have thought, after reckoning every aglet[#] in the treasury, and every stick of firewood in the yard, they might have left us poor nuns be to drink our senna in peace. Dear heart, what work is here to drive out an handful of old women into this wicked world! Well, well! we shall soon have done therewith, most of us."

[#] The little silver ring which surrounds lace-holes in boots, stays, &c.

She ceased her diatribe, for my Lords Commissioners were entering, and standing up, gave them her blessing--with how much sincerity she was not careful to state. The three gentlemen bowed low to the mitred Abbess, and seemed half alarmed at their own temerity.

"Methinks we need not tarry hither," said the chief Commissioner. "May-be, holy Sister"--addressing Sister Katherine--"it should stand with your conveniency, under leave of my Lady Abbess, to take note of such furnishings as be in this chamber, and we will accept the same.--Lead forth, my Lord of Dorset."

Before this could be done, the further progress of the Commissioners was intercepted by a weak voice from the pallet bed.

"My Lord of Dorset!" said Mother Agnes faintly.

The youngest of the party, a fair-haired, good-looking young man of about five-and-twenty, paused and turned to her, as if the name belonged to him.

"Pray you, of your grace, come one moment hither," she said, speaking with some difficulty.

The young Marquis came forward at once, and knelt by the bed of the dying nun, who looked earnestly for some seconds into his face.

"What kin are you," she asked, "to sometime Queen Elizabeth, whose son was Lord of Dorset?"

"That son was my father's father," answered the young man.

"So long ago!" said the dying woman. "Young Lord, 'tis but like yesterday that your father's father was a young man like you. 'Past, as a watch in the night!'"

Her eyes ran feebly over the handsome features, the clear grey eyes, the nervous twitching of the brow, the good-natured fulness of the lower lip, the weak, vacillating indecision of the retreating chin. In those few seconds, she seemed to read his character.

"The good Lord's grace be with thee!" said the faint voice at last. "Be thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!"

Did Henry Grey think of those words, twenty years later, when after a life spent in bondage through fear of death, God gave him grace to break through the trammels of Satan, and to stand bravely out upon Tower Hill to die for Him?

The Commissioners were gone, to the relief of the Abbess, who muttered something as the door closed after them, which was not the same form of words as the benediction with which she had greeted them. The next moment she bent down to listen to the weak tones of Mother Agnes.

"Holy Mother, may I crave a boon of you?"

"Surely, good my sister," said the testy yet kind-hearted Abbess.

"Mother, among the gear that came hither with me, must be in the treasury "--

Agnes paused for breath.

"Well, good sister?"

"A silver ring, set with little rubies in form of a cresset."

"Aye. What so?"

"Good Mother, of your grace, give me leave to bear that ring upon my finger until I go hence."

The Abbess was sorely exercised by this request. It must imply either strong vanity in the dying nun, or else a most undue attachment to earthly things. Nay, probably, it meant what was still worse--an attachment to earthly persons: a most improper thing in a professed nun! The Abbess hesitated, but the woman's heart in her prevailed, as she looked into the wistful, dying eyes.

"My sister, shall I do well if I say aye? Thou wist no holy nun must have affinity with the world. Who gave thee the ring?"

"One that hath been dust these sixty years."

"Well, well! be it so. I trust thee, Sister Agnes. Only remember, thy thoughts should be above, not below."

"Below is the dust only," said Agnes. "What I loved is above."

The old nun who kept the keys of the treasury found the silver ring, and brought it to the Abbess. A faint smile greeted the remembered token as it was slipped on the thin hand.

"Remove it not, I pray," she said, "until I am not here to care for it. And now suffer me to keep silence, for I would commune with God."

The hand that bore the ring was laid upon her breast, with the other hand crossed over it. Two hours passed, and she never stirred.

"She must lack food now," whispered the Abbess to Sister Katherine.

Sister Katherine shook her more experienced head.

"She will eat no more, save of the angels' manna."

That night, Sister Margaret unlocked the treasury, and restored the ruby ring to its place. Agnes Marston cared for it no more.

*HISTORICAL APPENDIX.*