Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

by Georgiana Fullerton

"Yea," I said, "the truth, the very truth," and kissed her flushed cheek. Then feeing like to faint, I went away, Sir Hammond leading me to my chamber, for I could scarce stand.

"God bless you!" he again said, when he left me, and I think he was weeping.

I fell into a heavy, albeit troubled, sleep, and when I awoke it was broad daylight. When the waiting-maid came in, she told me Lady l'Estrange had been delivered of a dead child and Sir Hammond was almost beside himself with grief. My lady's mind had wandered ever since; but she was more tranquil than in the night. Soon after he sent to ask if he could see me, and I went down to him into the parlor. A more changed man, in a few hours, I ween, could not be seen, than this poor gentleman. He spoke not of his lady; but briefly told me he had sent in the night a messenger on horseback to Norwich, with a letter to the governor of the gaol, praying him to show as much consideration, and allow so much liberty as should consist with prudence, to the prisoner in his custody, sent by him a few hours before, for that he had discovered him not to be one of the common sort, nor a lewd person, albeit by his own confession amenable to the laws, and escaped from another prison. Then he added, that if I wished to go to Norwich, and visit this prisoner, he would give me a letter to the governor, and one to a lady, who would conveniently harbor me for a while in that city, and his coach should take me there, or he would lend me a horse and a servant to attend me. I answered, I should be glad to go, and then said somewhat of his lady, hoping she should now do well. He made no reply for a moment, and then only said,

"God knoweth! she is not like herself at the present."

The words she had so mournfully spoken the day before came into my mind, "I shall never be like myself again, and there shall be no more joy in this house." And, methinks, they did haunt him also.

I sat for some time by her bedside that day. She seemed not ill at ease, but there was something changed in her aspect, and her words when she spoke had no sense or connection. And here I will set down, before I relate the events which followed my brief sojourn under their roof, what I have heard touching the sequel of Sir Hammond and his wife's lives.

In that perilous and sorely troubled childbirth understanding was alienated, and the art of the best physicians in England could never restore it. She was not frantic; but had such a pretty deliration, that in her ravings there was oftentimes more attractiveness than in many sane persons' conversation. They mostly ran on pious themes, and she was wont to sing psalms, and talk of heaven, and that she hoped to see God there; and in many things she showed her old ability, such as fine embroidery and the making of preserves. One day her waiting-woman asked her to dress a person's wounds, which did greatly need it, and she set herself to do it in her accustomed manner; but at the sight of the wounds, she was seized with convulsions, and became violently delirious, so that Sir Hammond sharply reprehended the imprudent attendant, and forbade the like to be ever proposed to her again. He gave himself up to live retired with her, and ceased to be a magistrate, nor ever, that I could hear of, took any part again in the persecution of Catholics. The distemper which had estranged her mind in all things else, had left her love and obedience entire to her husband; and he entertained a more visible fondness, and evinced a greater respect for her after she was distempered than he had ever done in the early days of their marriage. Methinks, the gentleness of her heart, and delicacy of her conscience, which till that misfortune had never, I ween, been burdened by any, even the least, self-reproach, and the lack of strength in her mind to endure an unusual stress, made the stroke of that accidental harm done to another through her means too heavy for her sufferance, and, as the poet saith, unsettled reason on her throne. For mine own part, but let others consider of it as they list, I think that had she been a Catholic by early training and distinct belief, as verily I hope she was in rightful intention, albeit unconsciously to herself (as I make no doubt many are in these days, wherein persons are growing up with no knowledge of religion except what Protestant parents do instill into them), that she would have had a greater courage for to bear this singular trial; which to a feeling natural heart did prove unbearable, but which to one accustomed to look on suffering as not the greatest of evils, and to hold such as are borne for conscience sake as great and glorious, would not have been so overwhelming. But herein I write, methinks, mine own condemnation, for that in the anguish of filial grief I failed to point out to her during those cruel moments of suspense that which in retrospection I do so clearly see. And so, may God accept the blighting of her young life, and the many sufferings of mine which I have still to record, as pawns of his intended mercies to both her and to me in his everlasting kingdom!

When I was about to set out for Norwich, late in the afternoon of that same day, Sir Hammond's messenger returned from thence with a letter from the governor of the gaol; wherein he wrote that the prisoner he had sent the night before was to proceed to London in a few hours with some other priests and recusants which the government had ordered to be conveyed thither and committed to divers prisons. He added, that he had complied with Sir Hammond's request, and shown so much favor to Mr. Tunstall as to transfer him, as soon as he received his letter, from the common dungeon to a private cell, and to allow him to speak with another Catholic prisoner who had desired to see him. Upon this I prayed Sir Hammond to forward me on my journey to London, as now I desired nothing so much as to go there forthwith; which he did with no small alacrity and good disposition. Then, with so much speed as was possible, and so much suffering from the lapse of each hour that it seemed to me the journey should never end, I proceeded to what was now the object of my most impatient pinings—the place where I should bear tidings of my father, and, if it should be possible, minister assistance to him in his great straits. At last I reached Holborn; and, to the no small amazement of my uncle, Mrs. Ward, and Muriel, revealed to them who Mr. Tunstall was, whose arrival at the prison of Bridewell Mrs. Ward had had notice of that morning, when she had been to visit Mr. Watson, which she had contrived to do for some time past in the manner I will soon relate.

CHAPTER XVI.

One of the first persons I saw in London was Hubert Rookwood, who, when he heard (for being Basil's brother I would not conceal it from him) that my father was in prison at Bridewell, expressed so much concern therein and resentment of my grief, that I was thereby moved to more kindly feelings toward him than I had of late entertained. He said that in the houses of the law which he frequented he had made friends which he hoped would intercede in his behalf, and therein obtain, if not his release, yet so much alleviation of the hardships of a common prison as should render his condition more tolerable, and that he would lose no time in seeking to move them thereunto; but that our chief hope would lie in Sir Francis Walsingham, who, albeit much opposed to papists, had always showed himself willing to assist his friends of that way of thinking, and often procured for them some relief, which indeed none had more experienced than Mr. Congleton himself. Hubert commended the secrecy which had been observed touching my father's real name; for if he should be publicly known to be possessed of lands and related to noble families, it should be harder for any one to get him released than an obscure person; but nevertheless he craved license to intimate so much of the truth to Sir Francis as should appear convenient, for he had always observed that gentlemen are more compassionate to those of their own rank than to others of meaner birth. Mr. Congleton prayed him to use his own discretion therein, and said he should acquaint no one himself of it except his very good friend the Portuguese ambassador, who, if all other resources failed, might yet obtain of the queen herself some mitigation of his sentence. Thereupon followed some days of weary watching and waiting, in which my only comfort was Mistress Ward, who, by means of the gaoler's wife, who had obliged her in the like manner before, did get access from time to time to Mr. Watson, and brought him necessaries. From him she discovered that the prisoner in the nearest cell to his own was the so-called Mr. Tunstall, and that by knocks against the wall, ingeniously numbered so as to express the letters of the alphabet, as one for a, two for b, and so to the end thereof, they did communicate. So she straightway began to practice this management; but time allowed not of many speeches to pass between them. Yet in this way he sent me his blessing, and that he was of very good cheer; but that none should try for to visit him, for he had only one fear, which was to bring others into trouble; and, for himself, he was much beholden to her majesty, which had provided him with a quiet lodging and time to look to his soul's welfare; which evidence of his cheerful and pious spirit comforted me not a little. Then that dear friend which had brought me this good comfort spoke of Mr. Watson, and said she desired to procure his escape from prison more than that of any other person in the same plight, not excepting my father. "For, good Constance," quoth she, "when a man is blest with a stout heart and cheerful mind, except it be for the sake of others, I pray you what kind of service do you think we render him by delaying the victory he is about to gain, and peradventure depriving him of the long-desired crown of martyrdom? But this good Mr. Watson, who as you well know was a zealous priest and pious missioner, nevertheless, some time after his apprehension and confinement in Bridewell, by force of torments and other miseries of that place, was prevailed upon to deny his faith so far as to go once to the Protestant service—not dragged there by force as some have been, but compelled thereunto by fear of intolerable sufferings, and was then set at liberty. But the poor man did not thus better his condition; for the torments of his mind, looking on himself as an apostate and traitor to the Church, he found to be more insupportable than any sufferings his gaolers put upon him. So, after some miserable weeks, he went to one of the prisons where some other priests were confined for to seek comfort and counsel from them; and, having confessed his fault with great and sincere sorrow, he received absolution, and straightway repaired to that church in Bridewell wherein he had in a manner denied his faith, and before all the people at that time therein assembled, declared himself a Catholic, and willing to go to prison and to death sooner than to join again in Protestant worship. Whereupon he was laid hold of, dragged to prison, and thrown into a dungeon so low and so straight that he could neither stand up in it nor lay himself down at his full length to sleep. They loaded him with irons, and kept him one whole month on bread and water; nor would suffer any one to come near him to comfort or speak with him."