CHAPTER THREE
My house tyrant, old Mall, will give me one of her scoldings. I have slept in my chair most of the night and the smell of the burnt out candle will give the lie to my excuses. God, my neck's stiff - more crippled than the rest of my creaking bones! When John Hues said I would be a famous lutenist and have a servant, I'll wager he never imagined Mall - no smart livery and "Yes sir, certainly sir," for her! Ah, well, she brings me washing water, food of a sort and empties my chamber pot. What more does an old man need?
I had a visit from my friend, Henry Peacham, yesterday, just as I was thinking of him. There was a bird outside the window, sitting on a branch, and, in my head, I had just begun to recite his poem:
Here Philomel, in silence sits alone,
In depth of winter, on the bared briar.....
thinking it was a long time since I had sounded anything like a nightingale and that it was April now, not December, when his familiar knock came at the door.
Our friendship is an attraction of opposites. Henry can put down in a few lines a drawing of what he observes. I hardly know what is happening around me, unless my attention is caught by a flash of colour. All my seeing is in my head; his is of this world only. There are few geniuses combining every talent as did Leonardo.
Today, Henry brought me a most useful gift. I had told him I was writing my story for you, Rob, and he gave me great encouragement. Knowing that I am only at ease in my great chair, he had a hinged board made to act as a writing desk. As he fixed it, he told me the latest news. Buckingham is off to France to make the final arrangements for Baby Charles's marriage and Inigo Jones (known to me in Denmark) has plans for a Triumphal arch and I know not what else on his drawing board. Spenser and I had our differences over poetry and music. Jones and Ben Jonson fight to the death over words and scenery. The music is always drowned out by chattering courtiers now so is no longer worth a quarrel.
~
I was glad to see Henry but felt exhausted when he went. I seem to have energy only for my story, and almost resent any interruption.
I will tell you a strange thing. My head is as full of the old music as ever but now that my skill on the lute is much diminished, voices from the past rise in my mind and I can hear snatches of conversation I hardly knew I had been conscious of at the time. I suppose I have translated them into the simple language in which I think. I was never a wordsmith, except when deep feelings urged me. I believe we can all be poets when deeply moved whether by bliss or misery. Most of the time, for me, plain language serves.....Where was I with my story?
~
February, 1577
After the visit to Doctor Dee, I felt wary of playing my Orpheus music and left my precious book with Lady Mary Sidney for safe keeping while out of England, for I was to join Master Philip's retinue in a few days time, when he set out for Europe on a great Embassy of combined commiseration and congratulation to two new rulers.
We paid another swift visit to renew our farewells to Lady Sidney, who was not in the best of health or spirits. I now regretted parting with my Orpheus book and, while the company were at dinner, always a protracted meal, I pleaded a call of nature and slipped up to Lady Mary's chamber for one last glimpse of my much loved picture. Hardly had I turned a page, when a heavy tread sounded in the corridor and a man's and a woman's voice, fierce in controlled anger. The heavy curtains were closed and I just managed to slip behind them and make myself small on the window seat, clutching my book, when the door was thrown open.
Lady Mary's tones were such as I had never heard from her - sharp and complaining. "Why am I always the family scapegoat? 'Mary, escort Lady Jane to her place as Queen,' which ended in her death and brother Guildford's. 'Mary, you speak Spanish, go and tell lies about Elizabeth to Ambassador de Quadra.' Only I knew nothing of your deceit, Robin, until the Queen flew at me tooth and nail. 'Mary, I have got the Queen with child,' and here her voice rose almost to a scream. 'Pile lie upon lie, take the baby for my own, learn to love her dearly, then just as I lose another daughter, snatch my Mary away to court at the Queen's whim....." And my dear lady fell into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.
"Control yourself, woman. That is far in the past and what is done cannot be undone. All I am asking now is that you should go to Lady Douglas Sheffield, explain that our marriage was not legal and demand that she gives up our son to me." The man's voice sounded haughty and, at the same time, wilful.
"After four years, supposing herself to be your wife, Robin, is she to be cast aside, or, perhaps, like poor Amy, fall conveniently to her death? Or is she to die in agony, poisoned,like Walter, who stood between you and Lettice Knollys? What ill will you do to me and mine if I refuse you this?"
"You may be sure that Philip will no longer be my heir if you persist in acting like a hysterical fishwife. Who are you to put on such high and mighty airs when we know that Henry was mistaken in his pride that 'the great King, Philip of Spain' was his long-awaited son's gossip. You and I are tarred with the same brush, dear Sister Mary. 'Traitors for three generations', Bess said of the Dudleys. Let her wait until my lawful marriage to Lettice provides me with a true-born son, then she can eat her words."
And the man I now knew to be the great Earl of Leicester, the patron of Master Campion and the original owner of my lovely lute, stamped furiously from the room.
I dared not creep out to comfort Lady Mary. The angry conversation I had overheard would prove my death warrant should my eavesdropping ever become known. Shivering behind the curtain, I waited until my Lady's sobs had ceased and then until I heard her close the door when the sound of her slippers tap-tapping down the landing told me that the coast was clear and that I might replace the Orpheus book.
I had no glimpse of Robert Dudley's face. He had come on a secret errand and rode away like a thief in the night. I knew now that Master Campion had come to Ireland to avoid the machinations of an evil man. Back in the great hall, I watched Lady Mary next to her son at the high table act the gracious hostess as though naught in the world had disturbed her quietude.
That night, I pondered the overheard conversation. If, as Lady Mary had told me, her knowledge of Spanish had helped release Robert Dudley and his brothers from the Tower, I felt that he had every reason to be grateful to her. To make unfair demands on one who had saved his life seemed to me overweening. I had not learned then as much as I now know of man's ingratitude. I might say that I put the whole matter out of my mind, unknowing that every last scrap is stored in that small but capacious organ, to be unleashed, all unawares, at a later date.
~
Back in London, all was now hustle and bustle as final preparations for our journey were put in train. I had not only my own affairs to worry about but was given the charge of a younger boy, Henry Danvers, Master Philip's page.A most precocious lad, he set about informing me of the private history of the adult members of our party, so that the sea-crossing passed quickly enough, though too slowly for the bad sailors among us.
"Fulke Greville is Philip Sidney's best friend. They entered Shrewsbury School on the same day. Old Sir Fulke comes from a line of rich sheep breeders, but he doesn't let you forget that his wife is a Neville and their house is called Beauchamp Court. They're also connected with the Willoughby de Brokes, so Fulke is as well born as Master Philip." I took little notice of this at the time, but understood in later life why Greville angled for Warwick Castle and, before that, chose the title of Baron Brooke of Beauchamp Court when Jamie was selling titles to augment his income.
Another time, my young mentor informed me that Sir Henry Lee, an experienced traveller in the Netherlands and Germany, was Queen Elizabeth's brother, as he was the son of Queen Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas Wyatt. I had played and sung Wyatt, so that was of some interest, though none of what I was now learning of the great ones agreed with Master Campion's moral teaching. I was, however,able to add my titbit of gossip, that Sir Henry's nephew, Thomas Lee, had come to Ireland with the Earl of Essex and that I had seen him swaggering about Dublin, a ne'er do well from all I had heard.
"Edward Dyer is also a great friend of my master's but he has very little fortune. He speaks many languages and has the reputation of being an alchemist. Certainly, he introduced Master Philip and Fulke Greville to Doctor John Dee, the Queen's magician."
I did not feel comfortable at this reminder of the happenings at Mortlake and quickly changed the subject. "And how do you know so much, may I ask?"
"Oh, I keep my eyes and ears open," said Henry, airily, and skipped off to watch the preparations for our ship's landing.
~
No need to describe to you, Rob, the journeyings that followed - spavined jades, myself always riding in their stinking wake; carts, shaking our bones over the cobbles; boats; barges; inns full of fleas,the beds infested by bugs; courts and castles no better below stairs than the most noisome pothouse. You knew it all when you yourself reached the furthest bounds of Europe.
Where are you now? France? Italy? Any place where your lute will earn you a crust. Even in England, I doubt that you would be by my side. What, you would be up and hastening off about some business of your own before I had finished two sentences! That is why I sit now in my chair and write, hoping that when I am dead, you will stay in one place long enough to get to know John Dowland.
~
We went first to Brussels and found the streets crammed with Spanish soldiers and German landsknechts. We soon moved on to Louvain to find the new Governor General, Don John of Austria, who was laggard in his promise to clear the towns of occupying armies, instead, holding court in the grandest manner. Henry Danvers and I went to see him shoot down the popinjay with his longbow from a mast one hundred and fifteen feet tall and heard him proclaimed 'King of the Year' and saw the Captain of the Guild place the golden popinjay round his neck.
"You know, of course," imparted the ever knowledgeable Henry Danvers, "that he is the baseborn son of King Philip's father and was brought up with Philip's own son, Don Carlos, who is mad." I was no more interested in that than the talks Master Philip had with the victor of Lepanto (another piece of information from Henry).
From time to time, I managed to escape from my garrulous charge and made friends with one of the court lutenists with whom I conversed in a mixture of Spanish and Latin. He told me of a strange old English musician, who was a good Catholic, living in exile in Louvain, and he took me past the great University from which Erasmus had been expelled, and through a maze of side turnings to the house of one John Heywood. Leaving me to knock and gain entry, he was off and I was glad that there were still Spanish soldiers in the streets of whom I might manage to ask the way back.
An old, bent woman answered my knock and, with great difficulty I made her understand whom I had come to see. She opened a door on a scene of indescribable chaos. I had thought Doctor Dee's laboratory untidy enough but that was the disorder of work in progress. This was the derangement of inactivity. I am afraid that, even with Mall's administrations, I shall come to it yet - every available space littered with old lutes, music books, manuscripts, unwashed crockery, cast-off garments, a full chamber pot (though I fear the fireplace had been used more often as a receptacle) and all the paraphernalia that surrounds a life inevitably coming to its close.
It was some time before I could distinguish the black-clad figure hunched in a rickety chair by too small a fire to give much light to the dusky room. When the eighty year old turned his lined face to me, he spoke in Latin,asking me my name and telling me his own. When he learned that I spoke English and was a lutenist, there was no holding the old fellow.
"Light a candle. Johnny Dowland, eh? Much too young to have heard of old John, who was once the heart of King Henry's court. Merry John, he called me and many's the time he rocked in his chair at my quips. Plays I wrote, as well as poems. After his death, I served young Edward....."
"Did you know Queen Mary and Prince Philip?" I asked, excitedly.
"I knew all at court and in those days young whipper-snappers had better manners than to interrupt," he replied, sharply. " I wrote Princess Mary a poem, a false one, praising her beauty. I was a courtier then and lied to royalty at the drop of a hat. Sweet Jesus, what an ugly woman! And your Bess is no better with her sharp face. She drove me from my home to end my days among strangers. I could tell tales of her.....I see you have brought your lute." He bent over it to see the better. " Holy Virgin...signed by Laux Maler!" and he stroked it lovingly, begging me to play to him. I began with one of the songs from my Orpheus book which I knew by heart in Spanish.
"That takes me back to the days when grandees and their fine ladies filled the court. They were shocked at our English custom of greeting with a kiss on the mouth but they soon learned such habits in the privacy of their chambers. Little Jane Dormer married one of them, the Count of Feria, and her cousin, Mary Sidney, aimed even higher..."
"Do not speak of that," I interrupted, hot with anger. " You calumniate a lady whom I admire above all others."
"Hoity toity," said the old man, "I like to see some loyalty among the youth of today so I will overlook your show of temper. Play me some more of the music of Don Luys Milan." ~
While Master Philip stayed in Louvain, I visited Master Heywood every day, taking him delicacies I saved from the remains of the banquets held at Don John's court. The old man lapped up every drop of gossip from the outside world I could obtain for him and, while I was talking, he allowed me to put his room to rights as best I could. He would not let me touch the music manuscripts, saying he knew where each one had its place and he directed me to find the copy of his 'Willow Song' which was later heard in the play 'Othello'. He asked me to sing it for him and was kind enough to say that I performed almost as well as he himself when young.
"Certainly better," he said, "than the poor lutenist, Mark Smeaton, whom they said was your Queen's father and was hanged for it. But there came a truly great lutenist to King Henry's court, sent by French Francis. He was an Italian, named Alberto da Ripa, whom the French called Albert de Rippe. The Frenchman, Marot, (not a bad poet for a Protestant) wrote of him as Orpheus, and so he was indeed - his playing could have brought the dead to life. Not poor Anne Boleyn, though."
He then whispered in my ear a tale so shocking that I did my best to put it from my mind. He claimed he had heard it from Sir Thomas More, and that his own wife, Joan Rastell, was the daughter of that great man's brother-in-law. That dire secret was the reason Sir Thomas perished on the sca- scaffold. I can hardly bring myself to write the word, even now.
Master Heywood was generous to me, as the old often are when their need for possessions is ended. As well as precious manuscripts of the music of Albert de Rippe, he gave me his own half filled Album Amicorum, saying "Let me be the first to sign your book and may there be many more friends to come." He wrote in a shaking hand,'Johannes Heywode, ut Orpheus alter, instrumentorum studiosus, musica et poeta, habebat in sua lingua gratiam.'
I bade farewell with tears in my eyes to that 'other Orpheus', thinking it better to be torn to pieces like the first one, than to die neglected in a little room. Yet, that may be my fate, Rob, and I was Orpheus in my turn.
~
We travelled to Cologne, where Master Dyer had old friends and I was able to visit a lutemaker's workshop and have my beautiful lute refurbished. Then down the Rhine, stopping at inns or castles on the way. I played a game with Henry of forecasting what would be round the next bend in the river.
After a while he tired of this. "It's too easy. All the Rhine castles are much the same. Tell me something of what we will see once we go inside."
We made a detour at Mainz for Hanau, where the count was a friend of Master Philip from his previous European journey. I surpassed myself by describing, unseen, an unusual and valuable silver cup that had been in his family for generations. Master Philip disliked this game when it was brought to his notice, but the other gentlemen found it great sport to have their fortunes told. As they would take no denial, I found it easier to invent their futures. When they believed me, I despised them for their credulity and, at the same time, felt guilt for my deception.
Though I lacked respect for such masters, I knew only too well that I needed them. As a masterless man in England, as Henry Danvers took pleasure in reminding me, I might be branded and imprisoned as were beggars. What misfortunes might befall a homeless boy in a foreign country kept my rebellious nature servile and sharpened my wits in learning German. I began to dream that Master Sidney's train had saddled up early and ridden on without me and I would start awake in a cold sweat of fear.
At every resting place, I sang till I was hoarse and played my fingers to the bone so that they ached to match the rest of my body, bruised from the jolting of my master's worst nag. Approaching Heidelberg, I almost fell asleep in the saddle and found myself saying, "There is a great picture somewhere in the castle of the murder of Admiral Coligny."
Master Sidney turned sharply in his saddle. "How could you possibly know that?" Turning to his friends,he continued, "The late Elector Palatine was so angered when Henry III of France visited him after the evil massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, which I myself witnessed in Paris, that he set up a huge picture of the shameful deed and stood before it at the head of his staircase as Henry arrived - not that a Valois can be shamed. I saw the picture myself when I was last in Heidelberg."
I began to feel alarmed. This was only a flash of 'seeing', less than when I 'saw' the Earl of Kildare and myself and of no duration compared with the death on the stairs I 'saw' at Doctor Dee's house. The two last were connected, I thought with the Orpheus music, which I had been very careful to avoid playing since we left Louvain, as Spanish music was unpopular at the Protestant courts we visited. Also I wished to experience no more of the vertigo and sickness which seemed to follow a 'seeing'. I much regretted the game of guessing and the pretence of fortune telling with which I had meant to ingratiate myself with Henry Danvers and the rest.
My companions now looked at me strangely and Henry said in private, "I hope you cannot read minds, Johnny. You would soon be in trouble then." I hastily denied this ability, saying that just occasionally I saw a picture in my mind's eye and surely there was no harm in that, to which Henry replied, meaningly, with the one word 'Witchcraft', threatening to have me ducked in the river Neckar.
Prince Casimir was at the court and condolences on his father's death were delivered to him, but Prince Lewis was absent, so Master Philip arranged to return on our way home, which pleased his friend.
We now journeyed on to Prague where, on Easter Monday, Queen Elizabeth's condolences were offered to the new Emperor Rudolf.
"Master Philip should leave you with him," said Henry Danvers, nastily, "for he is fond of magicians and queer folk of every kind."
~
I was still sulking next day when Master Philip called me to him. "I am going to the University to talk with an old Oxford friend, Johnny, and you may attend me."
My mind ran riot with hateful possibilities. Suppose he was going to leave me there with my lute to be examined by learned doctors to see if I was possessed by spirits and must be put to death as a wizard? I trudged up the great staircase as slowly as I could, keeping my gaze on my feet, not noticing the marvellous book lined Library as we entered, though, at any other time, I would have devoured it with my eyes. My morbid thoughts were interrupted as I heard Master Philip exclaim, "Well met Edmund,or should I now say Father Campion?"
Looking up in utter unbelief, my heart turned over in my breast as I saw my long lost master. Rushing towards him, I remembered my manners at the last moment and, falling to my knees, kissed his hand.
"Why, Johnny, what a joyful surprise! Nay, never weep," and he raised me to my feet with the gentle hands I remembered so well. "This is indeed a meeting of old friends," he explained, turning to Master Sidney, who, standing back, was gazing at us in an amused fashion.
I played my best quietly, as background to their conversation, not the music of Don Luys Milan, though I longed to show what I could do, but that of Albert de Rippe, my fears still lingering. Eyes closed, I was savouring the tones of Father Campion's beloved voice, when Master Philip's words roused me from my reverie.
"It is courteous of you to meet me here Edmund. I fear I would have been unwelcome at the Jesuit College."
"Rather say that my poor cell there would have been unfit for such a magnificent ambassador," responded Father Campion, (and more a true father to me than any I had known.) Turning to me, my true master, as I shall now call him, said, "I can hear that you have made good progress on the lute and have no more need of the restricting string. But what of the Latin?" And he launched into a series of questions in that language to which I replied as fluently as I could.
Observing Master Philip's raised eyebrows, I saw I was in for close questioning when we left the library. He considerately gave me leave for a private talk with my friend for a short while and retired to the other end of the vast room to examine the books.
"Well, Johnny, you find yourself in fine company," smiled Father Campion. "Are you happy?"
I wanted to say that I had never known true happiness since he left Ireland but held back. I said that I had kind masters, was well fed and housed and felt myself lucky. After giving him a hurried account of my adventures, I confessed that there was a matter that gave me much concern and I told him about the true 'seeing' and the pretending.
My true master was silent for what seemed to me a long time. Finally he said, "All God's gifts are good, my son, and we must strive to accept them and put them to the best possible use. The gift of prescience belonged to the prophets of the Old Testament. If you hold it in respect and use that talent wisely, you cannot accuse yourself of witchcraft. Also, if you will use your great gift of music as did David with Saul,for the purpose of healing, and not merely to give pleasure, you will repay in part for the power which has been bestowed on you. Cultivate both your talents in all humility, obey your masters and promise me that you will never 'pretend' again. I am under a vow of obedience and of poverty, which makes us very much alike. Does not my rough, monkish robe remind you of your old, Irish cloak?" And we ended by laughing together as we so often did in the past.
When the time came, all too soon, for us to part, Father Campion embraced me, saying, "Use the gifts we have spoken of with great care so that you are never tempted to abuse them. And, without incurring the sin of pride, remember that, in your country, a bard and seer ranks as high as any noble born. You are a friend and pupil I shall never forget, John Dowland. I look forward to our next meeting."
But we were not to meet again in this world. After that I would not answer to Johnny. I needed the man's name my true master had given me.
~
For the rest of the journey I felt my fifteen year life renewed. I carolled like an angel as we rode. My masters composed poems and I set them to music so that, when we reached Heidelberg again, I had a fresh collection of songs for Prince Casimir, who though more of a soldier than a poet, enjoyed a good tune.
We went to Neustadt to track down Prince Lewis and, when the condolences and congratulations were delivered to him, the embassy was officially at an end. However, Master Philip did not wish to leave Europe without meeting the great Prince William of Orange, so we journeyed on to Middelburg, where we found the Princess with her new baby for whom, according to new instructions, he was to stand gossip on behalf of his uncle.
The Prince was expected back next day from the Estates meeting so we English arranged a welcome in song for him. We rehearsed his anthem, 'Wilhelmus van Nassouwe', twisting our tongues round the strange words and mastering its triumphant rhythm. I was to sing the first verse alone, my angelic voice soaring to the high rafters of the hall. The others would then join in and the Prince would enter to a paeon of praise.
I was not at all nervous, as we had rehearsed so well under Master Philip's guidance. A movement at the great door and the whispered instruction, "Now!" launched me into the first verse, as a casual group of plainly dressed men sauntered into the hall. As I sang, I searched their faces to see which of these very unremarkable men might be the Prince.....
My skin crept, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth and I stood in frozen silence as I recognised the kind, tired face of the man of my Mortlake 'seeing', around his neck the medal and, beside him this time the follower into whose arms he had collapsed, mortally wounded.
My master's presence of mind quickly covered my lapse and his choir burst into song at the point where I had failed..When he called me to him, I was shaking in my shoes and he was white with anger. Wearing his orange suit in honour of the Prince, he reminded me more than ever of the strange occurrence at Doctor Dee's house. I was glad to kneel before him to still the trembling in my limbs which had not ceased since the real William of Orange came to my view. Stammering, I gave the best explanation I could.
"Without a time and a place it is of no use as a warning," mused my master, no longer angry. "Are you sure you remember nothing further that might guide us?" I shook my head miserably. "Then best we keep silent. Mind, not a word to a soul." I was far from wanting to spread the word that I was a wizard, even if Father Campion had used the word 'seer'. I promised gratefully.
That night, my sleep was sorely troubled. The next day, when I tried to sing, I found my voice had deserted me.
