Page 1 of The Cardinal's Daughter
Few can claim to be a cardinal’s daughter, but I can. Of course, it’s possible to take a certain pride in that fact these days, with Queen Mary on the throne and the Catholic faith restored, but for years I kept it a secret. For a long time before that, I didn’t know about my real parentage. I believed that the good man and his wife who raised me were my own father and mother.
I grew up in a large house in Worcester, which stood in the shadow of the great cathedral. John Clausey, my adoptive father, was an alderman, a man of great standing in the city, and well off. My mother was a sweet and gentle lady who looked after me most tenderly, for I was her only daughter and much cherished. She taught me all the housewifely tasks: how to spin, how to polish the pewter and silver, how to make fancy tarts and rose water, and how to crush flowers for the pot-pourri that scented our gleaming home. I spent a lot of time playing in the meadows and woodlands outside the city, with Mother watching over me, busy at her needlework with the other matrons, as I frolicked with my friends, who were mostly the daughters of our neighbours. My father taught me my letters and bought books for me from the bookseller in the cathedral close – mostly edifying little volumes, intended to instil virtue in young girls.
My brother Jack was a year younger than me. We were close as children, but not so much so as we grew older, when he gravitated to his friends and I preferred mine. Boys, I thought then, were beyond the pale. Yet there remained affection between us when we were on our own, which was not often, as Jack went to school. I, as the girl, had to stay at home, of course.
I loved the cathedral and could wander around it for hours. The stained-glass windows were wonderful – I was entranced by the jewelled colours. I liked to linger by the tomb of wicked King John or peer into Prince Arthur’s chantry. He would have been our king, but he died young, and it was his brother, Henry VIII,who sat on the throne when I was a girl. I was born in February 1512, the third year of his reign.
Most of all I enjoyed the peace of the cathedral. There was something very special about the silence and the reverent hush. I felt strongly the presence of God. I was then – and still am – very devout.
When I was fourteen, Father began looking for a husband for me. ‘The young men will come flocking,’ he said to my mother. ‘Dorothy not only has the looks, she has that handsome dowry.’ Something in the way he said it struck me as odd, as if my dowry was a thing apart, nothing to do with him. Yet he was rich; there was no reason why he could not have dowered me well.
I wasn’t so sure about my looks. My mirror of burnished silver reflected my round face, full lips, wide eyes and dark hair. Was that pretty? I had no idea. But there was no shortage of suitors, most of them men of my father’s circle, widowers with greedy eyes looking for young flesh and a pot of gold. I wanted none of them, and my doting parents did not press me. Why couldn’t a handsome young man come and woo me?
I sometimes cherished a romantic notion that I would become a nun. I could see myself looking beautiful and pious, a wimple framing my face, my hands busy at my rosary beads. I would pass my time serenely in a church very like the cathedral and have done with worldly things. The fantasy would last until I was given my next new gown, and then I would giggle with my friends and think upon comely lads again. I was so naïve.
I was fourteen when Jack was found a wife. Father settled upon a match with thirteen-year-old Anne Johnson, who was all milk and honey before her marriage, but turned out to be a spiteful little chit who looked down on us, just because her people came from gentry stock. She was clever too, reserving her scathing comments for when my parents were out of earshot. When Jack gave her as good as she gave us, she ran off in tearsto tell Father or Mother that he had been horrid to her, which invariably earned him a reproof. It did not make for domestic harmony.
When I was approaching eighteen, I was still unbetrothed, having put off so many of my suitors because not one was the right man for me. I fear that, by then, word had got around that I was too choosy, because fewer were enquiring about me. Anne, of course, made spiteful comments about my becoming a dried-up old maid before I condescended to accept someone, by which time no one would want me, and I suppose there was a grain of truth in that, which rather concerned me. But I would not sell myself short.
I became aware that my father was worried and assumed that he shared my fears. Then I overheard him saying to my mother that no more money would be forthcoming for me, which made me wonder greatly. Who had been sending money for me? And why?
I had to ask them. And it was then that my mother, with tears welling in her eyes, told me that I had been adopted at birth and that my real father was the great Cardinal Wolsey - the King’s chief minister and the most powerful subject in the realm.
‘He did not want to give you up,’ she said. ‘He and your true mother loved you and grieved greatly at losing you. That much I know. He asked for regular reports on your progress and has always been much gratified to hear that you were happy and well behaved. But the Cardinal has now fallen from favour.’
This was not news to me: everyone had heard how he had failed to persuade the Pope to divorce the King from good Queen Katherine. But I was reeling from the revelation that my beloved parents were not really my parents. I looked at them both and saw only strangers. It was a horrible moment.
‘But we love you truly,’ Mother said, with emphasis. ‘You have always been a joy to us.’
‘And always will be,’ Father added. ‘I know it will take time for you to accustom yourself to the situation, Dorothy, but it is as well you know the truth because we must have a care to your future. Over the years, the Cardinal has paid a handsome allowance for your maintenance, but it has not arrived this year, and we suspect that is because his goods have all been forfeited to the Crown. The word is that the King will proceed against him for treason. I do not know if that is true or not, but if the King’s men find among his effects evidence that you are his daughter, you could be deprived of your dowry. Maybe I am worrying unnecessarily. But in the circumstances, I do think that it would be wiser for you to go into a convent now, rather than wait to find a husband. It was what the Cardinal wanted for you. He expressed the desire for you to be a nun at Shaftesbury when he handed you over, a newborn babe in arms, to us.’
‘A nun?’ I could not take it in, on top of everything else. I had once imagined such a life, but now it seemed like a long-ago daydream. My head was swimming. I was not who I thought I was, my real father was in danger, and now I was to be sent away from the only family I knew to be a bride of Christ. And I could not ignore a sneaking suspicion that my adoptive father was seeking to protect himself in these changed circumstances. Understandable, really, but unsettling, to say the least.
Whether it was from the strain of telling me the truth, my mother suffered an apoplexy a week later and became bedridden. Father was crippled by grief, and nothing I said could comfort him. Jack effectively became master of the house, and Anne its mistress. She made it very plain from the first that she wanted me gone. As the weeks passed and Mother sank into an alarming decline, not even knowing who I was, Father remainedimmersed in misery, not having said a word of my future since his alarming revelation.
It should have been my part to look after my mother, but Anne made it very clear that she would be the one to do it. ‘I am so much more capable than you,’ she said dismissively, making me feel worthless, to the point where I realised that it was time for me to make my own way in the world.
I spoke to Jack. ‘I believe I have a dowry.’
‘You have a handsome dowry,’ he told me. ‘Would you like me to find a husband for you?’
Briefly, I considered taking him up on the offer, but then prudence won out, for we had recently heard that the Cardinal had been banished from court, which sounded ominous. It would probably be wise, I thought, to use my dowry before it was taken away, and disappear. Mother did not need me now; she was being well looked after; and it wasn’t fair on Jack, having to act as a buffer between me and Anne.
‘I want to enter a nunnery,’ I said. ‘It is what Father wants.’
Jack looked surprised. ‘Are you sure, Dorothy?’
‘I am quite sure,’ I declared. There was no need for him to know why. The fewer people who knew my secret, the better. And I was in no mind to give Anne ammunition against me.
Jack nodded. He looked relieved. ‘Did you have any particular religious house in mind?’
‘Yes, Shaftesbury Abbey. It has a wonderful reputation for sanctity and learning. I believe it was founded by King Alfred the Great.’
‘It’s certainly one of the largest and richest abbeys in England. Many daughters of the well-to-do go there,’ Jack said brightly. ‘You have made a good decision, Dorothy.’
My handsome dowry guaranteed acceptance. When the letter from the Abbess arrived, bidding me join the community to testmy vocation, I suddenly realised the enormity of what I was giving up. Marriage, children, the act that made children. . . And any independence I might have enjoyed as a wife, had I gained a husband who allowed it. I would be sworn to obedience to the Mother Superior, and to chastity and poverty. For one who had grown up surrounded by luxury, that would be difficult. I began to wonder if I had made the right decision.
I went to the cathedral to think and pray, then sought out one of the canons, a sweet-natured man who had shown himself friendly towards me, and poured out my doubts to him.
