THAT WAS JUST the beginning of trouble and not its end, for though hard used, my sufferings were nothing to what came on us after. There were rumblings at first when Beaton the fat cardinal was raw sliced in St Andrews by Protestant rogues, his corpse hung on the ramparts. One wag undid his britches to piss on the great man’s head. What a stramash. Fifers like young Kirkcaldy got the credit, such as it was.
Then Father John ran off there to find his vocation. Of course preacher Wishart was already burnt, which was a shame, for he was a tall slender man with dark colouring, though very learned with it. He preached here in Haddington on our sins, but got small audience. Earl Patrick had him carried off to Hailes and then sold him to Beaton for roasting. What religion’s in that? Killing and burning? Mary, Mother of God, save us from the fires.
He was on the royal make then was Pat, all the old quarrels with James forgotten, now he was dead. First Pat fought with the Scots, and then with the English, all for keeping Liddesdale as his own domain. Then off to Venice he runs, some watery place, to waste his lands on wine and whores. Now he was back, supporting the bairn Queen, resisting the Protestants, and sooking up to the widow Guise. Bothwells are always kindly to widowed queens.
He fancied his chances, did lanky Pat, and put away his own good wife, Agnes of Morham, the mother of his children, on the excuse she was a cousin in blood and too close to wed. It’s a crying shame and who does it remind you of, Francesca? Aye exactly, only Pat wasn’t fat and stinking, just thin and oily. She was better without him.
Now Earl Pat hies to Court in the best doublet and hose, studded with jewels and handing out gold guineas as if they grew in his own kailyard. Quite the gallant, pox or no pox. His face was marked. I suppose the jewels were pawned.
But she had his measure, the French Marie, and soon Pat was in the sulks, sent packing with a tail between his legs, and an empty purse. So he’d given George Wishart to the burning and gained nothing for his pain. What can the bold Earl do now? Off to the English who pay him to lie low at Hermitage and keep out of the fight that’s coming. No one guessed till the Castle at St Andrews fell down, and there was Pat’s name on an English payroll. So much for his religion. Pat’s son turned Protestant but that’s another story.
I think my girl, our daughter, was kept all this time at Hermitage till use could be found for her. It’s a cold stark place almost in England. Did she see her father and have her cheek petted, her hair ruffed? Did he even throw her a look, while he hunted and drank, plotting what he could get next? A skivvy doubtless, till she had a use for the son Hepburn, whose name curdles on my tongue like vinegar in cream. Faithless, cold hearted Pat – nothing dear but himself, not even his own boy Jamie, Agnes Sinclair’s laddie. And he casts the mother off without respect or mercy, the good lady mother. Aye, and I was a mother too.
What’s the use of brooding? Confess your sins to Mother Mary and leave them behind you. There was no time to spare besides, for the English were on us. While Pat was safe in his darksome castle, the manhood of Scotland was felled at Pinkie. All because they wouldn’t send the babbie Queen to England to be wed. For three days the Esk ran red with blood. We took in wounded and dying like a plague season. Black Saturday. Then down they came to Haddington, Hertford’s wild southern beasts, and wrecked the town, carrying off everything they could on legs, hooves, wheels. It was plain robbery. We barred the convent gates and escaped the worst for a time. Our time was coming, though.
Put down your quill, woman, for Jesu’s sake, and listen to me. I’m ashamed, but I’m speaking plain and true, so hear me out. For most folk war was waste and trouble. But the war made me what I am, Francesca, it gave me chances. I thickened at the waist but my purse fattened with my belly.
You see I was in charge of all the supplies. Lady Prioress was failing and not suited anyhow to dealing with soldiery. So I bargained with the English army – and later with the French. All these rough men needed fed, and their horses wanted fodder. We had food enough snug in the convent, since the well-born sisters had made off in carts and litters to their castled kin. Up in the Lammermuirs I had stores aplenty hidden. The army had money which was easier for them to pay than risk foraging in enemy country. Some supplies I saved for the sisters, but much more was lost for a price. I became a woman of means, and why not after all I suffered? Aye, put that down if you will. When it’s said and done I was able to plough, and put my hand to the furrow. Without me, Francesca, the convent would have been ruined entire, and you and I sent out with beggars’ badges.
The next spring they were back, another army. Grey was commander now. This time the Prioress gave them up the nunnery and withdrew to Dunbar. She could take no more. The English began building walls and ramparts round the town, sending out to garrison Yester, Nunraw and Hailes. But I bargained again to keep our lands and manor, in return for livestock and crops when the season came.
Yet the best was still to be. A hosting of Highlanders and Scots was marching south. Grey lacks men to hold all his places and wants to give up Hailes to someone other than the enemy. Earl Patrick’s lying low at Hermitage, so I offer to manage the Castle, and keep a supply route open. The servants creep back to Hailes to find me in charge – in my habit for respect. Then as soon as the Scots arrive I offer to supply them too. Prices are high in times when so much is wasted or driven off by one side or the other. Who can question a holy sister on the weight of beef?
Haddington’s flat-bottomed, which was never said of me. So the English must be hollowing out a massive ditch and raising huge turf walls, one behind another. But they cannot take in all the town, so St Mary’s Church is left beyond the wall, though they try to ding it down, only managing to hole the roof. This was mistaken as proved, when Scots occupy the church and build a scaffold for their guns. What a cannonade from dawn to dusk. It sounded round the country and the hens at Hailes stopped laying. And all that soldiery wanting provender for empty bellies. It’s hungry work the soldiering, aye in more ways than one. Keep your eyes down on those papers, my girl, and spare your blushes.
How am I so learned in the wars? Well, thereby hangs a tale. Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say. The French arrived, armoured troops with guns and money for supplies, unlike the naked Highland savage with his skirts and empty sporran. And with the French, Italian fortifiers. It’s war now for holy Europe but fought in our wee kingdom to defend the widowed Marie and her little Queen.
Leaving Sir Wilford in command, Grey went back to England burning as he goes. But at Dunbar, while the town burnt, he could not touch the castle for its strength. God preserve our Lady Prioress. And as he watches, white sails come up the river past Bass Rock. It’s the French, as I told you, carrying Signor Ubaldino the master builder.
What a proper man he was, well made but gentle with it, all neatly shorn and bearded with trimmed nails and perfumed hair bound back. A courteous, cunning man without a wife to handle, here at least. He soon made Dunbar Castle impossible to take. Some said this won the war, for how could Haddington be supplied with Dunbar commanding land and sea?
Next Ubaldino started to wall in Haddington with earthworks and counter bastions. He explained it all each night when he returned to lodge with me at Hailes. I accommodated the better sort of soldier there in special comfort. It was a blessed time, always up and doing when not abed. The English were shut in now, though ever ready for some foray or supply if it could be contrived. Yet their case looked grave. The Scots camped first at Lethington, but then took the convent for their comfort, leaving me the French and Italian sort of men, who were better payers anyway.
Soon a whole Scots Parliament assembles to negotiate with the French, for what I know not. So all must needs be fed and watered to a high degree. Only Beth Hepburn has the keys, and knows the oldest wines buried in the vaults. So back to the Nunnery I go to ply my latest trade. How strange, Francesca, to see the genteel rooms of holy sisters given up to lords with all their knights and retinue crammed like goslings in a coop. To and fro the Parliament went with meetings and eatings. I hustled in all the old servants, and those from Hailes besides, but guests bred like rats. It was no concern of mine except they must be fed.
The widowed Queen, Marie de Guise, came one day riding into the convent court with all her train about her. A souple sapling she was as well, swinging from the saddle to stand taller than lanky Pat himself. Lovely reddish hair, fair skin, and grey eyes – a beauty in her prime – I say so myself. And all the heralds, banner bearers and courtiers of the day, Scots and French, clustered round her as bees to honey. She was ushered into the refectory where clerks and nobles were spreading seals, papers, quills. The baby Queen must go to France, no longer bound to Edward Tudor. In return King Henri will defend us from the English and steer the Scottish government. Hamilton will be made a duke in France. That seems the nub for all the long orations. Then more wine and food is called for and everyone mightily content.
I returned to Hailes, relieved to see them all away if truth be told, but merriness was gone from the business. Too many died, which is a waste, Francesca, of sweet flesh. First our Scots and the French thought to overwhelm the ramparts, but Wilford fought them back, an English lion. When the garrison tried to sally out, they were surrounded and lost half their number. Provisions were become scarce and I could no longer play procuress without risk.
Next, an English fleet arrived in the Forth, so reinforcements and supplies reached the famished town. But strange to say this weakened resistance, since none had volunteered to starve, and many slipped through the blockade to desert. God knows, any poor wretch would do the same before die upright on an earthwork, or stretched out like a sewer rat. Hand to hand and desperate, they killed and maimed each other without mercy. Pretty bodies ruined.
Ubaldino brooded in his room at Hailes. This was not war as it should be waged by soldiers, but the death throes of animals. He left for winter quarters and was never seen again at Haddington. What a proper man he was. And I was left to winter on my own.
Then, Francesca, came the worst, without remede or succour. A wet raw season gnawed at the vitals on all sides. Plague broke out inside the town; bodies lay unburied in the glaur. Brave Wilford took a fatal wound and was let go to die in England. Outside the town was little better, for men crouched behind their siegeworks frozen cold, soaked to their skins, exhausted, starving. I tried to offer entertainment at the castle but with poor provision. The serving lasses gave what comfort they could to hungry men, but I kept clean quarters and insisted on payment down. War grinds all grain coarse, and gives a death to feeling. The heart lies waste and silent. Will it never end? God pray, dear sister, we do not see that like again. They say the English turned to eating rats, but sure the rats were already starving.
Then of a sudden, all hope gone, there was an end. Another English army trudging through the Borders. But not to fight – they had no further stomach. Instead they gathered up the remnants and burned the rags of Haddington. They marched their survivors home shrouded in close column, or in carts, or on canvas litters. An evil work, they say, for what our town cost them, foul island in a sea of enemies. And our besiegers let them go, watching sullenly yet without fight, since they had no more stomach for it either.
Every stone standing in the town was torn down. Last of all the English stopped south of the river and razed our nunnery to the ground, as if the French Treaty they had come to wreck might be blotted out by powder and by fire. Of course the stores were long since gone, but all those pretty chambers, and the chapel where young Master John supped holy blood from our silver chalice. To see them lost forever made dry eyes weep. Even today. Look at these smudged cheeks. Aye, pass a napkin. And a sup of wine.
How time revolves. The wheel of fortune turns, Francesca. I was left at Hailes, a castle to my charge, but no convent to receive me back. I was unsure what might come, though girdled round with gold. Till Earl Patrick comes riding back from Hermitage to make his peace at Court. Somehow Pat was on the winning side again, if winning is what you call the ruin of a country. Anything he had left in Lothian was saved by me, for all the thanks I got. He died unwept soon after.
Enough for one night and maybe many more. Let’s say our rosary, sister, and go to sleep, for this old body slows and unwinds. I’ll take a cordial with me and trust on better dreams. God grant peace and quiet rest.