Nancy also provides an exclusive excerpt from "The Chalice" for you to read! Over to you, Nancy!
THE TUDOR NUNS’ FATE & AN EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT OF THE CHALICE
In my recently published second novel, The Chalice, I continue to write about
the life of a young Dominican novice in the time of the Dissolution of the
Monasteries. My first book, The Crown,
was set, in part, in the Dartford priory that was the only house for Dominican
sisters in England. The Chalice takes
up the story after the priory has been “surrendered” to Henry VIII, who ordered
it demolished and a royal manor house built atop the rubble.
What happens to a woman who entered a
religious life because of a calling but is forced from her sheltered home
because of a fast-moving Reformation imposed from above? This question is hard
to answer from the historical record.
Roughly 1,800 nuns, 1,600 friars and 5,000 monks were expelled from
their religious orders in the 1530s. Henry VIII had launched commissioners to
investigate the monasteries for corruption and decay. Not surprisingly, all
were found wanting. “Reform” was not the point—extinction was. Those who protested or refused to submit to
the royal will were severely punished, with imprisonment or execution.
More than 1 million pounds was transferred
to the royal treasury in the Dissolution. The king vowed that this wealth would
be used to found or enhance religious, charitable and education establishments.
Historians now say that no more than 15 percent of the secured wealth was used
for these purposes. Some of the money was poured into the king’s building
plans, such as the Palace of Nonsuch. Much of the rest paid for Henry VIII’s
invasion of France in 1544.
The abbeys themselves were either demolished
and stripped of their value down to the lead or awarded
to courtiers loyal to the king. Many of the nuns, friars, and monks were given fixed
small pensions, but they proved inadequate to the inflation and coinage
debasement that ravaged England in the 1540s and 1550s. Ambassador Eustace
Chapuys wrote to Charles V: “It is a lamentable thing to see a legion of monks
and nuns, who have been chased from their monasteries, wandering miserably
hither and thither, seeking means to live.”
In The
Chalice, I base my depiction of life after the destruction of Dartford
Priory on historical research. A group of former nuns did live together in
community near their former priory. Others sought shelter from the families
they’d parted from years ago. And perhaps others, as with my Joanna Stafford,
struggled to maintain some independence.
Here is an excerpt from The Chalice that addresses life after
the Dissolution:
When I stepped out the door, I plunged
into the heart of town. I lived on the High Street, in one of the two-story
timber-framed buildings that faced the church.
From behind our priory walls, Dartford had
seemed a good neighbor—a friendly, well-ordered place. Three hours on horseback
from London, the town was known for its safe travelers’ inns, its proud shops,
and, of course, its five-hundred-year-old church. There was another Dartford,
though. One that was not so well ordered. The shambles was closer to the church
than usually thought desirable in a town this size. The stench of it, the
butchered animals and dead fish, were a constant unpleasantness. I wondered why
the town fathers did not have such a malodorous site moved.
The shambles was a reminder that beneath
the pleasing surface of Dartford lurked ugliness. It was a reminder that I too
often ignored.
That very
morning, heedless, I leaped across the puddles in the street to reach the pride
of the town: Holy Trinity Church. Its square Norman tower, with five-foot-thick
walls, could be seen for miles.
I’d made it
across the street when I heard my friends’ voices behind me.
“Sister Joanna,
a good morning to you.”
Brother Edmund
and Sister Winifred bore such a strong resemblance to each other: slender, with
ash-blond hair and large brown eyes. As I waited for them to reach me in the
doorway, I scrutinized Brother Edmund’s sensitive features, more out of habit
than necessity. For years he had struggled with a secret dependence on a
certain tincture, made from an exotic red flower of India. At the priory he’d
confessed it to me and vowed never to weaken again. Ever since, I’d studied his
eyes for the telltale sign of the potion: a preternatural calm, a blank
drowsiness. When the priory was dissolved, Brother Edmund continued his work as an apothecary and healer. The priory had had
two infirmaries, one inside its walls and the other, for the benefit of the
town, outside it. Brother Edmund kept the town’s open, supplying it himself,
and practiced his skills on any who desired it. I worried that his proximity to
the tinctures of his trade would weaken his resolve. But today, as every day
for almost a year, his eyes were clear.
When they
reached me, I realized it was Sister Winifred who deserved my concern more than
her older brother. Her skin was ashen; her cheekbones stood out in her face. I
knew the marshy air of Dartford wreaked havoc on her, especially after a
sopping night.
“Are you well,
Sister?” I asked as the three of us entered the church.
“Oh, yes,” she
said quickly.
Our footsteps
echoed as we walked across the church, which was alive with light. Brilliant
candles flickered everywhere: at the grand high altar, at the chapel of Saint
Thomas Becket, and on the floor clustered around the brass memorials, honoring
the dead gentry of Dartford.
Wewere the only
people visible on the floor of the church. Yet we were not alone. A hundred
feet up, high above the vestry, through three vertical slits, a candle gleamed.
And a malevolent dark form moved between those carved slits.
Father William
Mote, the vicar of Holy Trinity Church, was watching us from his private room.
Brother Edmund glanced up; he, too, took
note of the priest’s surveillance. He put his arm around Sister Winifred,
patting her on the shoulder as he guided her to our destination at the
southeastern corner of the church: the altar of Saint Mary the Virgin.
I do not know exactly how it happened,
that we, the refugees of Dartford Priory, were shunted off this way. No one
ever said we were unwelcome at Holy Trinity. It was all done as if it was for our
benefit: “Your Dominican Order reveres the Virgin—wouldn’t you be more
comfortable in a chapel devoted to Her?” And we would hear Mass exclusively
from doddering Father Anthony rather than Father William,. The final insult was
the timing: to prevent any “confusion,” we attended separate Mass.
I made a tally of all the good that our
priory had done for generations—not just as landlord and employer but also as
sponsor of the almshouse and the infirmary. And what of our role as teachers?
The priory was the only place where girls of good local families could learn
reading and writing. Nothing took its place. And yet now we were treated like
inferior animals to be culled from the herd. I dipped my fingers in the stoup
of holy water at the side of the chapel entrance. But before I followed Sister
Winifred inside, I whirled around to glare at Father William’s high spying
place. You should be ashamed, I thought.
Brother Edmund shook his head. Just as I
stood watch over him for signs of his weakness, he did his best to help me
master mine—my temper.
I took my place before the statue of the
serene Virgin. It was of some comfort that we took Mass in such a chapel. A
colorful wall mural of Saint George slaying the dragon dominated the room.
There was a stirring behind me. The others
were arriving, the six nuns of Dartford who still lived in community. They were
the vestiges of the priory, attempting to live out the ideals of our order.
When King Henry and Lord Privy Seal Thomas Cromwell dissolved the priory, most
of the sisters returned to their families. Our prioress departed for the home
of a brother, and none of us heard from her again. But Sister Rachel, one of
the senior nuns, had years earlier been bequeathed a large house a mile from
the center of town, and five others joined her there, pooling their pensions.
Arthur’s rambunctiousness made my joining the sisters in their community
impossible, and so I, like Brother Edmund and Sister Winifred, leased lodgings
from Holy Trinity Church.
Morning Mass was when we could all be
together again. At the priory, we had chanted the Psalms at least four hours a
day—the liturgy was the core of our commitment to God. To be reduced to a
single observance was difficult, but without daily Mass we’d be plunged into
confusion.
Sister Eleanor strode forward, water
dripping from her clothes. Yes, the hem of her kirtle was drenched from the
mile’s walk in the rain, but she’d never complain. She’d been appointed circatrixof
Dartford by the prioress—the enforcer of rules. From what I could tell, she
considered herself the leader now, though Sister Rachel—ten years older and the
actual owner of the house—also had firm ideas of how they should conduct
themselves.
We all stood in the same exact place every
day, re-creating the hierarchy of our lost world. Sister Winifred and I, the
two ex-novices of Dartford, were in front. The tense Sister Eleanor stood
behind us. Next were the two nuns who also held office while at Dartford:
Sister Rachel, the reliquarian, and Sister Agatha, the novice mistress. Then
came the final three. Brother Edmund stood across the aisle, alone, continuing
the strict division of man and woman.
I struggled to hide my impatience as we
waited for our assigned priest. The only sounds were the sizzle of an altar
candle or one of Sister Agatha’s loud sighs. I turned around; her eyes met mine
with a little nod. Of all the sisters, I missed her the most, my warm-natured,
gossipy novice mistress.
Finally we heard the shuffling feet of
Father Anthony.
“Salve,” he said in his creaky voice.
A moment after he’d begun Mass, I looked
over at Brother Edmund. This was not correct. My friend, who was as proficient
in Latin as I, cleared his throat.
“Father, forgive me, but it is not the
beginning of Lent.”
The priest blinked rapidly, his mouth
working. “What day is it?”
“It is the second of October, Father.”
“What year?”
Brother Edmund said gently, “The Year of
Our Lord fifteen hundred and thirty-eight.”
Father Anthony thought a moment and then
launched into an appropriate Mass.
How far we had fallen. I ached to
remember: Sitting in my novice stall, singing and chanting, the lavender
incense so heady it made me swoon. Or plucking cherries from a tree in our
orchard.Or leafing through the precious books of the library. This morning, I could
feel the same longing from the others, pulsing in the very air. Yet what was to
be done? The monastic life was extinguished in England.
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