In the latter part of the fourteenth century, an incident occurred in
the family of the Earl of Suffolk, which affords a curious
illustration of old manners in England. We shall follow the account of
the circumstance, given in a manuscript in the British Museum.
Sir Michel Poole, second Earl of Suffolk, had several sons and
daughters. First was Mighell, son and heir; then William, second son;
and afterwards ten additional olive branches, of diverse names and
both sexes--all of whom, however, died, and went down unmarried to the
cold tomb. Some fell off like nipped blossoms in their infancy;
convents and wars absorbed the rest, till only the eldest two were
left of all that numerous family to perpetuate the name of Poole, and
raise the fortunes of the race. In due course of time, Sir Mighell
married Elizabeth, daughter of the right noble knight, Thomas Duke of
Norfolk; and these together had two children, Jane and Katharine, but,
alas! no son. Years passed on, and the hope of an heir was at an end;
but before that hope was quite laid aside, the tragedy of the house
began.
Jane, as yet heiress and darling, a round, bright, wilful cherub,
beautiful and loving, but mighty in her passionate force, and
indomitable in her infant will, beyond all power of control--the one
most cared for, and on whom was anchored such a rich argosy of hopes
and first fond love--was one day given into the safe keeping of Maud,
a young serving-girl, a rough, untutored peasant-girl, who was one of
the underwomen to the bower-maidens. The king was coming to the castle
that night, and every female finger that could work was employed on
the last stitches of a dainty tapestry-bed, which was to receive His
Majesty as became his lordly dignity. Even the mother's care must give
way to the housewife's duty; even love must yield to loyalty.
Left alone in an upper apartment with her young charge, Maud became
weary of confinement, and resolved at all hazards to descend to the
great hall, and have her share of the general amusement. Down,
accordingly, she went. Jane, of course, accompanied her, and, contrary
to orders, was allowed to romp about at pleasure. The day was cold,
and the fire burned brightly in the open hearth. Nearer and nearer the
little one crept to the blazing logs, watching the sparks fly up in a
golden shower when the crackling masses fell to the ground, or when
some rough soldier struck them with his mailed hand. No one looked to
her while she played by the open hearth, and tried to seize the vivid
sparks; once only, a trooper caught her roughly back; but again she
stole towards the great blazing logs, and this time she was less
fortunate. Suddenly, a cry was heard. Jane's clothes were in flames.
Maud extinguished them as she best could. She crushed the burning with
her hands in such haste as she might make; but, alas! to what a wreck
had the fire reduced the child! Her long fair hair was withered to its
roots; her pretty eyes were closed, and the curling lashes scorched to
the skin; her pure neck was blackened and blistered; and, a mass of
pain and sore, she lay like a dead thing, but for the wailing moans
which shewed her sad title yet to a ruined existence. Alas for her
that she did not die! Wo, that life was so strong in her now, when,
blemished and disfigured for ever, she might not hold its honours or
taste its joys!--now, when she must endure a worse thing than death
for the sake of her family name! 'Therefore,' says the chronicle, 'she
was in a manner loathed of her parents, and kept forth secretly from
the common knowledge of the people.'
'The house of Poole must have no charred mummy for its heiress,' said
old Dame Katharine; and Sir Mighell and his lady bowed their heads and
acquiesced.
It was agreed, then, that she should be sent to a house of 'close
nuns,' to be made a woman of religion, and so kept out of the sight of
all men's eyes. With this view, she was brought up; taught nothing
else; suffered to hope for nothing else; suffered to speak of nothing
else. But they could not bind her thoughts; and by a strange
perversity of will, these went always to the open fields and the
unfettered limb, to the vague picturing of freedom, and the dreamy
forecast of love. Yet she kept her peace; not daring to tell her mind
to any, and nourishing all the more strongly, because in silence, the
characteristics which destroyed the charm of a conventual life. When
she came to the years of discretion, she was to be professed; but, in
accordance with an old custom, before her profession she required to
enter the world for a season, that her 'vocation' might be judged of,
whether it were true or not, or simply the effect of education on the
one hand, and of ignorance on the other; and thus, when she was
fifteen years of age, she was dismissed to her father's house for the
space of six months' nominal trial, after which time she must return
to the convent for ever.
Now, Dame Katharine a Poole, Jane's paternal grandmother, was a
fierce, proud old woman, whose heart was set on the creation of her
son's house, and whose very virtue was her family pride. When she
heard of Jane's return to the outer world of men, she hastily rode
over to see this ugly, despised thing, and to take her from her
father's castle to the grim quiet of her own dungeon-like home, if so
be that she was as unlovely as report had spoken her. They met; and
for a moment the proud old dame was struck as by death. The seamed and
scarred face, the closed eyes--one perfectly sightless, the other
well-nigh so--the burnt and withered hair growing in long, ragged
patches only, the awkward gait and downcast look; all were like
daggers in Dame Katharine's heart; and 'she rebuked her greatly,
seeing that she was too loathly for any gentleman who was equal to her
in birth.'
Poor Jane bore all these coarse reproaches with much outward meekness;
but the spirit which they woke up in her was little interpreted by the
drooping head and tearful eyes. A fiery demon, breathing rage and
vowing revenge, took such meek-seeming as this, and blinded the old
grandam to the mischief she was working, until it was too late to
repair it. Dame Katharine took the girl home; Sir Mighell and his wife
consenting in gratitude to be so well delivered from such a heavy
burden. Dame Elizabeth, the girl's mother, truly shed a few tears,
quickly dried; and so young Jane parted for ever from her father's
house.
Like a dead thing, revived by the fresh winds of heaven, Jane's
comparative freedom aroused in her the most passionate abhorrence of
the life to which she was destined, and the most passionate desire for
liberty and affection. With each breath she drew by the open casement,
with each glance cast into the depths of the dark woods beyond, rose
up the strong instincts of her age, and turned her for ever from the
convent gate. In vain the dame insisted; Jane stood firm; and declared
that she would still refuse, at the very altar, to take the vow. Yet
was she timid in all things but those of love and liberty; and Dame
Katharine, by violence and threats, so worked on her fears, that she
at last consented, amid grievous tears and bitter reproaches, to be
deprived of her name and state, and given forth to the castle people
as a poor gentlewoman, godchild to the dame.
'Anything for freedom!' sighed Jane, as she took the oath of secrecy.
'Any deprivation rather than that living tomb of the nun!'
It was now the dame's chief care to be rid of her charge. She cast
about for suitors, but even the lowest squire shook his head at the
offer. At last, she married her grandchild to the son of an honest
yeoman of Suffolk, and so sent her forth to take her place in the
world as the wife of a common peasant, and the mother of a family of
peasants. Such was the fate allotted to Jane a Poole, daughter of the
proud Earl of Suffolk!
Of her issue, we need say but little. Suffice it to know, that Jane
and her ploughman William had four children, three sons and one
daughter; of whom William, the second son, married an honest man's
daughter, whose name was Alice Gryse, and whose children were living
in 1490, when this chronicle was written.
Return we now to the puissant lord, Sir Mighell, Earl of Suffolk. He
was not long suffered to enjoy his home; indeed, so ardent a soul as
his would have eaten its way through his castle walls, as a chrysalis
through its silken tomb, if he had been long inactive. If war had not
been his duty, he must have made it his crime; if foreign foes had not
called upon his valour, too surely would domestic friends have
suffered from his disloyalty. Born for the fight, he would have
fulfilled his destiny by force if he might not by right. At the battle
of Agincourt (1415), he perished along with many other of England's
nobles.
Sir Mighell having died without a son, his titles and estates went to
his brother, Sir William. Dame Elizabeth, widow of Sir Mighell, and
her daughter Katharine, shortly afterwards, as was usual in these
times, went to reside in the Abbey of Brasenode; and there they
ultimately died.
Meanwhile, and for years afterwards, no one knew anything of Jane,
who, though exiled from her rank and family, perhaps enjoyed more real
happiness than those who had been guilty of her maltreatment. At
length, her husband died, which was a source of grief. Honest William
had thought her queer in manners; but he loved her for all that, and
was proud of her, as the daughter of a poor gentleman. He blessed her
on his death-bed; and she remained a widow for his sake. Many yeomen
wished to marry her, but she refused them all. This went on for many
years--long after Sir William a Poole had become fourth Earl of
Suffolk, and had had children born to him; long after Alice Gryse had
become Jane's daughter-in-law, and made her more than once a
grandmother too; and then the whole of this strange story became
known. Jane had kept her vow of secrecy with perfect fidelity; never
had she breathed a syllable to her husband or children as to the
family to which she belonged. It was only, late in life, through
confession she made to a priest, that who and what she had been was
revealed. Shocked with the depravity of her unnatural parents, this
pious and learned doctor, says the chronicle, 'commanded her to
publish this account to her children and their issues, that they might
know of what race they came, if so be, by the great mercy of
Providence, they might claim their own again. And not only to them,
but also to make it known to all men, as far as was consistent with
her own safety; for he said, that the great power of Almighty God
should be published to all the world. For this reason was the
chronicle written--that all men might take warning; for no deed of
wickedness is done in the dark, which shall not be dragged forth to
the light; and no oppression on the innocent shall prosper before the
right hand of Eternal Justice.'