A Dangerous Inheritance

‘We read Sir Thomas More’s history,’ I add, ‘and I made the co

‘It is, my lady!’ Elizabeth Savage blurts out. ‘But what I know I have kept to myself for many years now. It does a body no good to get tangled up in the affairs of the great. I reckon I managed pretty well when King Henry closed down the Minories, making sure the sisters left without any fuss and the surrender went smoothly. I got my pension, and since then I’ve kept quiet. If I were to tell you the secrets I have harboured all these years, I would need your absolute assurance that they would go no further than this room.’

‘I give you that assurance,’ I promise her.

‘You have my word on that too,’ Sir Edward declares. ‘We have no cause to discuss this with anyone else.’

Elizabeth Savage seems still to be struggling with herself, but then her resolve stiffens. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘I will tell you what I know – and what no one else but me knows, the others having long since gone to their rest.’ And she tells us her extraordinary story.

‘I was born at the turn of the century; my father was a courtier – we were gentry from Worcestershire. My cousin Nan served Queen A

‘I was a plain girl, and no one offered for me anyway, so it was decided that I should enter the Minoresses’ convent at Aldgate. I was eighteen, and unhappy at the prospect, but in time I finally settled to the life, although that of a Poor Clare nun was no easy one. At the time of my profession, Alice FitzLewes was abbess; she died in 1524, when the community elected Dame Dorothy Cumberford. She ruled for five years until her death, and then I, by the grace of God, was chosen to be her successor. I was not quite thirty, and young for such a high office, but I had a good head for business, which is always a useful asset in a religious. I remained abbess until the friary was dissolved in 1539, and since then I have been living nearby in Hart Street. I do not go to the Minories now just to see the tombs. I like to maintain my links with the convent where I spent so many years, and the church where so many of my sisters lie buried. It is a miracle that it has escaped destruction. So many religious houses have gone.’

She smiles wanly at us, and for the first time I see a sweetness in that sad, narrow face.

‘I’m sorry, I am apt to wander in my mind,’ she says, ‘and I am not used to company. The tombs. Yes. It is of Abbess Dorothy Cumberford that I must speak. She had been here for many years before she was elected abbess; she was chosen for her age and holiness. She was an angel – and an inveterate gossip, like many nuns. But the tale she told me was no common gossip. Indeed, it was highly sensitive information, and she only imparted it when she knew she was dying – of a canker, bravely borne without complaint, I might add. She wanted to pass on the secrets of our house to someone she could trust. And so she confided them to me, as she had guessed I would be her successor; indeed, she had expressed her wishes in that behalf to the sisters.

‘When Abbess Dorothy was a young nun, there were several ladies of noble or gentle birth living in the great house in the friary close. That was nothing unusual, because in those days widows and spinsters often retired from the world to live in convents as paying guests. But some of these particular ladies had good reason to want to hide from the world, for they knew more than was good for them about what had happened to those hapless Princes. I think you know who they were.’ Again, that sweet smile crosses her face.

‘Chief among them was Elizabeth, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Her daughter, A

‘Naturally, the Duchess had retained an affection for the little Prince who had been her son-in-law; she’d been dismayed when his brother was deposed by the usurper, Richard of Gloucester, and horrified when later she heard dreadful rumours about the Princes being murdered; and, having good co

‘Did she ever discover what happened to them?’ I wonder.

‘She did, in the end,’ Elizabeth Savage reveals. ‘She heard Sir James Tyrell’s name bruited about as the Princes’ murderer, and made so bold as to question him about what people were saying, but he would not talk to her.’ Just as he had refused to talk to Katherine Plantagenet. ‘Then his sister Mary came to her. Sir James had told her of the Duchess “accosting” him, as he put it, but Mary had her own suspicions, and she unburdened herself to the Duchess. She thought her brother had been involved in some way, and that he had protested his i

‘Around that time the Duchess and Mary Tyrell got to know Elizabeth Brackenbury, the daughter of Sir Robert, the Constable of the Tower. She too was troubled, and eventually disclosed that her father was stricken in his conscience because he had been obliged to hand over the keys of the Tower to Sir James Tyrell for one night – and when he’d returned the next day, the Princes were gone, vanished into thin air, and Sir James and all his retainers with them. Mistress Brackenbury said her father had feared the worst, because earlier on King Richard had sent a letter in which he effectively commanded the Constable to do away with those poor Princes. Brackenbury refused to obey, saying he would not do it even if he should be put to death for it. How King Richard reacted he never found out, but the next thing he knew was that Tyrell turned up with two ruffians, demanding the keys in the King’s name.’

‘This is very like what Sir Thomas More wrote,’ I say, getting up and pouring some wine from a flagon that Sir Edward had thoughtfully placed ready on the table. I hand a cup to our guest.

‘Thank you,’ she says humbly. ‘You are very kind, my lady. Yes, it is much as More wrote – although he didn’t reveal it all – and soon you will know why. Now Elizabeth Brackenbury was very worried about her father. She told the Duchess and Mary Tyrell how the King had rewarded him for his co-operation and his silence with grants, estates and lucrative offices, but she said he regarded them as blood money and was uneasy about accepting them. He had been loyal to Richard up to the time he ordered him to slay the Princes; now he was afraid of him, for Brackenbury knew too much, and Richard had proved just how ruthless he could be. So after that time, Elizabeth said, Brackenbury took care never to put a foot wrong. He obeyed the summons to fight for Richard at Bosworth, and was killed in the battle.’

‘Did Brackenbury ever uncover any proof that Tyrell did murder the Princes?’ Sir Edward asks.

‘No. All trace of the boys had gone. Even their clothes had been removed.’ Elizabeth Savage shakes her head sadly and sips her wine. ‘After Henry Tudor became king, the Duchess decided to retire to the Minoresses’ convent as a boarder, and she invited Elizabeth Brackenbury and Mary Tyrell to join her.’

‘Why did she decide to go to the Minories?’ I ask.

‘Her kinswoman, Lady Talbot, was already living there, and there was space in the big house to accommodate several ladies quite comfortably. In due course, the other two ladies joined her, and with them came Mary Tyrell’s aunt, A