Read Online Death Be Pardoner To Me: The Life of George, Duke of Clarence by Dorothy Davies - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dorothy Davies
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was not very good living in my aunt’s house. She was gracious, she was kind, but she was extremely strict and we attended services what seemed like all day every day. A tall, thin, elegant but stern looking lady who ruled her home with supreme authority. She would allow no laughter; she would allow no conversation outside of ourselves. No visitors were permitted, no letters came. I knew not where my lord father was or my brothers; we heard nothing. No news was given to us. They might have been dead for all we knew. There was heartache, tremendous heartache at this. Coventry was not home and never would be. It was even more of a temporary resting place than Ludlow had seemed but without the diversions of Ludlow; no brothers, no riding, no hawking no hunting, just rigid devout life. For a time it pushed me even further away from having any kind of faith but I have to recall then I was very young and very disillusioned. For such a nice life - and it had been, despite the menacing clouds - had been abruptly, horribly, brutally brought to an end. I could not remove from my mind the pictures of the dead and dying in the castle and the courtyard at Ludlow, although I shut my ears to the screams of the women, nor could I stop bewailing the loss of my precious few possessions. There was no chance at Coventry to have anything new.
We studied, Dickon and I, and we improved our standards of scholarship but we stagnated in the sheer ennui of services and solitude, of silent meals and lack of companionship outside of each other.
I discovered hidden depths in my small brother I had not suspected. He was pious, which I did not know before then, and took real pleasure in the religious life we led. He went willingly to every service where I lagged behind, seeking excuses not to go, for the chapel was ever cold and I was ever in need of warmth. He did not mind the studying, leaping ahead of me in his knowledge of Latin and French. Whilst I laboured over translation, I realised he wrote as freely in those languages as he did in English. I was often told to look at my brother’s work as an example of what I should be doing but what I should be doing and what I did were two very different things then and continued to be for the rest of my life. I was never a scholar to that degree; if something interested me, I would pursue it relentlessly, if it did not, then the words found it hard to penetrate this stubborn mind of mine.
What can I say? In later life, when I fought with my brother of Gloucester over points of law I found my arguments equalled his or he equalled mine. I cannot say which was right of those two statements, so perhaps some of those early lessons did sink in after all, for we were well matched, according to those who heard us, trading argument for argument with neither of us able to outdo the other and it all being left to our brother the king to adjudicate for one or other of us. But that was in the future, the troubled turbulent future when money was important and estates were vital and our wealth depended on that which we held.
I think now of those days at Coventry when we were two small boys trying to be as innocuous as possible so as not to disturb my aunt’s household or bring censure down on our heads – my head if anyone’s for Dickon was better behaved than I at any given moment of a day or night – and where all that was open to us to pass the endless days was study.
Christmas passed in a haze of services and muted celebrations. The meals were good, but there was no entertainment, for my aunt employed no Fool or minstrels, considering them a waste of good money. Dickon bewailed the fact he had no lute. I longed for a dog to run at my heels as I played or rode with hounds. I longed to ride with hounds, too. Horses were kept for travelling, according to my aunt, not for frivolous things like hunts.
The New Year brought little prospect of joy or release from the prison in which I felt we were incarcerated but
We studied, Dickon and I, and we improved our standards of scholarship but we stagnated in the sheer ennui of services and solitude, of silent meals and lack of companionship outside of each other.
I discovered hidden depths in my small brother I had not suspected. He was pious, which I did not know before then, and took real pleasure in the religious life we led. He went willingly to every service where I lagged behind, seeking excuses not to go, for the chapel was ever cold and I was ever in need of warmth. He did not mind the studying, leaping ahead of me in his knowledge of Latin and French. Whilst I laboured over translation, I realised he wrote as freely in those languages as he did in English. I was often told to look at my brother’s work as an example of what I should be doing but what I should be doing and what I did were two very different things then and continued to be for the rest of my life. I was never a scholar to that degree; if something interested me, I would pursue it relentlessly, if it did not, then the words found it hard to penetrate this stubborn mind of mine.
What can I say? In later life, when I fought with my brother of Gloucester over points of law I found my arguments equalled his or he equalled mine. I cannot say which was right of those two statements, so perhaps some of those early lessons did sink in after all, for we were well matched, according to those who heard us, trading argument for argument with neither of us able to outdo the other and it all being left to our brother the king to adjudicate for one or other of us. But that was in the future, the troubled turbulent future when money was important and estates were vital and our wealth depended on that which we held.
I think now of those days at Coventry when we were two small boys trying to be as innocuous as possible so as not to disturb my aunt’s household or bring censure down on our heads – my head if anyone’s for Dickon was better behaved than I at any given moment of a day or night – and where all that was open to us to pass the endless days was study.
Christmas passed in a haze of services and muted celebrations. The meals were good, but there was no entertainment, for my aunt employed no Fool or minstrels, considering them a waste of good money. Dickon bewailed the fact he had no lute. I longed for a dog to run at my heels as I played or rode with hounds. I longed to ride with hounds, too. Horses were kept for travelling, according to my aunt, not for frivolous things like hunts.
The New Year brought little prospect of joy or release from the prison in which I felt we were incarcerated but
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