IT was but the other day that in looking over my papers and books (for I am an old woman, and must needs be thinking of setting my house in such order as I would leave it), I came upon this volume, containing the record of my girlish days. I have had much pleasure in perusing it, and thus going back to the days of my childhood and youth.
I have lived to see great changes. In this land, where I was once so near to being a nun, there lingers hardly one religious house, so-called. The Scripture, then a hid treasure, is now in reach of all, taught even in dame schools, and read in all the churches, and we have peace at home and abroad, sitting every man under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make us afraid.
The Spanish Armada, which did so threaten us last year, is dispersed like a summer cloud, albeit the dispersion thereof did cost me a dear nephew, and I may say my last daughter also, for I have little hope that my dearest Mary will long survive her husband, my brother's second son, who died of his wounds at Plymouth after the victory. But she cannot, in course of nature, long precede her father and mother. My husband is yet strong and hearty for one of his age, and I myself am as vigorous as a woman of my years can expect to be.
My eldest granddaughter, an orphan, and some time a care from her delicacy, is grown a fine woman, and betrothed to her cousin Corbet, my great nephew and her second cousin. 'Twas not altogether with my will, I confess. There have been too many mixtures of the blood already, yet they have loved each other almost from childhood, as did Richard and myself, and I cannot reasonably oppose the match. 'Tis for her, always near and dear as a daughter, that I have taken on me to arrange these memorials, and for her sake I add a few words.
My father and his second wife lived to see Richard Earl of Stanton, my Lord having died unmarried not long after the death of his Lady and her child, which chanced close together. My mother survived her husband for many years, living most happily with her step-son and his wife Joyce, whom she had brought up under her own eye.
On the suppression of the convents, which took place under my Lord Cromwell, my husband had a grant from the king of the lands of our priory here, not however without paying a round sum for the same. He also bought the house and lands belonging to my old convent, and bestowed them in endowing a boys' and a girls' school in our village, and in rebuilding certain almshouses which have existed here from very early times.
Most of our Sisters had homes to which they returned. Sister Catherine was one of the first and loudest to be convinced of the error of her ways, and related more scandals than I care to record concerning our manner of life. But she was ever a hypocrite in grain, seeking naught but her own advancement. Our Mother was at last left almost alone, with nobody but Sister Placida, and one young maid, an orphan. Sister Placida chose to go abroad, to a convent of our order in France, and we supplied her the means to do so. Our Mother would fain have done the same, but we persuaded her to try abiding with us for a year, and she found herself so well content that she remained the rest of her life, save for some few years, during the unhappy reign of Queen Mary, when she betook herself to a convent in London, but returned to us again when the house was broken up. She was not fond of talking about it, and I don't think she found the return to her old life either as pleasant or as edifying as she expected. She lived to a great age, and though she never in words renounced her old faith, yet during her later years she attended our family devotions, and spent much time in the study of the Scriptures.
I never saw and one more amazed than she was when I told her the secret of the fire which destroyed the shrine of St. Ethelburga, for, as I believed at the time, she had no knowledge of the plot which had so nearly destroyed me. She was absent, even as the priest told me, at a chapter in Exeter, and they thought to complete their work and remove all its traces before her return. Nay, I have always believed that but for their signal and most unexpected discomfiture, she herself might have been the next victim, for she had more than one bitter enemy in the house, specially in Sister Catherine, who never forgave her humiliation, and who afterward bruited some shameful scandals about dear Mother and the rest of the family.
As I always suspected, 'twas Prudence who was the first cause of mine arrest, she giving information to Father Barnaby concerning what she called mine apostasy. She travelled the land afterwards as a pilgrim, visiting various holy places, and trafficking in relics, till at last Richard and I being on a journey, found her set in the stocks as a vagrant, and in evil case enow. We procured her release, and took her to a place of shelter, where she died, as I trust, penitent. She confessed to her treachery, and told me of many instances, wherein she had abused my dear mother's ear with false tales. And yet she persisted to the last, and as I believe truly, that she acted as she did out of love to my soul, and as she said, to give me a last chance.
As I have said, my husband bought the church lands about here, and likewise the site of our old convent, which last he gave for the endowment of our boys' and girls' schools in this village. *