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This Tangled Skein, The Elizabethan Dilemma

By Karen Rees

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CHAPTER 1 – MARCH 1572 – ROUEN, FRANCE

“I am alone. All alone.”
The black words she’d just penned blurred. Anne Marie scrubbed her sleeve across her face, wiping her tears away. The time for weeping was past. She must look to her future or it would be taken out of her hands.
For a dozen heartbeats she sat staring out the glazed window that looked down from the Bossuets’ great hall onto their little back courtyard. Somewhere below, a duck started squawking. The squawking stopped abruptly, a sign that the cook was starting preparations on the evening meal.
She took a deep, steadying breath then reached across the small writing table beside the window for a fresh sheet of white paper. After dipping sharp goose quill into bronze inkwell, she started the letter again.
“My right worshipful Cousin Jonathan Peterman. I commend myself to you and your good wife Lettice. I am writing to inform you that my dear parents, Paul and Margaret duChant, along with my brother Edmund and my little sisters were all taken in the pestilence that visited Strasbourg in the summer just past.
While sorting my parents’ papers, I found the correspondence between you and my dear mother, your cousin. I feel it is only right that you should be told that she and the rest of my family are now with the angels. Only I remain.
I am currently living in Rouen with a kind family from this place, Monsieur Antoine and Madame Jeanne Bossuet, friends of my father’s family. They fled France to escape the persecution and came to Strasbourg in 1568, some years after you left us to return to England.
Now that France is safer, they have returned to Rouen and brought me with them. Before I left Strasbourg, I sold my father’s shop, our house, and other small properties so am not in immediate want. I also have learned the crafts of spinning and embroidery by which I can earn my way. My friends here have found a husband for me.”
Anne Marie halted. She’d not meant to write that last sentence. Her hand and her heart had overtaken her caution. But a blank sheet of paper provided such freedom for words.
Rather than rewriting everything a second time, she’d have to make sure the letter was sealed before Madame Bossuet returned from the shoemakers.
What to say next?
She brushed the smooth goose feather against her chin for a moment thinking of Claude Goujon, the young wool merchant the Bossuets had picked for her, before re-inking the quill and continuing.
"My opinion was not sought.
I have my father’s lute and my grandmother’s ruby ring you so kindly sent my mother after my Great Uncle Richard went to the stake. It is my wish to travel to England in order to renew your acquaintance and to visit Wynnfield Manor where I was born. I pray your family is well and prospering in the service of our blessed Lord Jesus.
From Rouen this 4th day of March 1572,
I bid you farewell.
Anne Marie duChant.”

The odor of burning candle replaced that of acidic ink as Anne Marie sealed the folded letter with a blob of hot red wax. She’d scarcely finished when she heard quick footsteps approaching behind her. She straightened up at the writing table and looked over her shoulder, hopefully with a composed expression.
A thick waisted, gray-haired matron wearing a dark green gown and a self-satisfied look was bustling across the rush matting toward her.
“Is your letter finished, Anne Marie?”
“Yes, Madame Bossuet. It’s ready for the courier.”
Madame Bossuet stopped beside the writing table, a smile on her square face.
“Good. Good. Antoine is determined that the one he’s penning to his business contact should leave on the next ship for London. I’m sure your mother’s family will be glad to know you are well and soon to be wed.”
Clamping her jaw against a useless protest, she handed over her letter.
Madame Bossuet stepped past the glazed window to the warm fireplace and laid it on the mantel beside the lantern clock. She returned and settled on the padded chest near the pearl-gray plastered wall.
“I met young Claude when I was coming back along Big Clock Street. He plans to wait upon us this evening. You can play your father’s lute for him.”
“I still have embroidery to do,” Anne Marie said. “I’m not sure I will be finished -”
“Nonsense. Work can wait when Claude comes.”


The evening meal was over. The several candles on the linen draped dining table were burning low, the voiding dish was full of gnawed duck bones, and the last bite of sharp cheese had been eaten. The Bossuets’ youthful shop assistant, having gained permission to spend half an hour with friends, dashed off before dusk faded. Monsieur Bossuet, in keeping with his age and paunch, left the dining parlor at a more leisurely pace.
Anne Marie began helping the kitchen maid clear the white tablecloth of dirty wooden trenchers and empty serving dishes.
“Let the servants finish,” Madame Bossuet said, handing her a taper. “We should light the hall candles. Claude could arrive at any moment.”
She reluctantly followed Madame Bossuet out of the dining parlor, past the stairs coming up from the ground floor, and into the great hall. While twilight still brightened the two tall windows at the far end and revealed Monsieur Bossuet by the fireplace feeding its amber coals, night was beginning to claim the rest of the room.
After lighting the wall candles on either side, she joined the Bossuets by the fireplace and set her taper on the mantel. Its bright yellow flame showed a second letter beside the lantern clock. She smiled with anticipation. By this time tomorrow her letter would be on its way to London.
The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs pulled her thoughts from the letters. Claude Goujon, garbed in fine but suitably somber Huguenot garments that set off his blond hair and short beard, stepped into the candlelit hall.
She watched him striding confidently toward her. Outwardly, he seemed a desirable match. He was the hardworking second son of a respected and wealthy merchant friend of the Bossuets who was as willing for his son to wed her as the Bossuets were. This was largely due to the money she would bring with her. That was only to be expected and troubled her little.
Rather it was Claude himself who made her hesitate.
It wasn’t just his casual thoughtlessness or that her private religious views would be unacceptable to him and his strict Calvinist parents should they learn of them, and were she and Claude to marry, how could they not? But the way he sometimes ran his gaze over her when they happened to be alone made her uncomfortable. It was as if he were examining newly purchased property or, even worse, undressing her with his eyes. It was not something she could explain to Madame Bossuet.
Tonight, greeting her with a brief bow in the presence of the Bossuets, Claude kept his disconcerting gaze to himself. He straightened and looked down at her.
“What songs does my little red bird have for me this evening?”
Anne Marie, nettled by his patronizing tone, was saved a reply because Madame Bossuet spoke first.
“Claude, you shouldn’t tease Anne Marie about her hair. Besides, it’s more copper than red.”
“What do men know of the subtlety between red and copper?” Claude said cheerfully. “We are all business and politics and war.”
“Just business and politics now, thanks to God and Admiral Coligny,” Monsieur Bossuet said. He waved Claude over to join him on the brown-padded settle near the fireplace. “With the wars over for more than a year, we have the best peace the Huguenots have ever had. Worshiping nearly anywhere we choose, being allowed to hold public office. Now that Coligny’s become a favorite with the King....”
Claude folded himself down beside Monsieur Bossuet while Madame Bossuet chose a padded stool facing them.
“I have heard,” Claude said, turning to Monsieur Bossuet, “that King Charles has put him in command of the fleet and also reimbursed him for his losses in the wars with the Catholics.”
When Anne Marie was first getting to know Claude, his ability to easily forget her had proved annoying. She’d even lost her temper with him on one occasion. He’d merely laughed, pinched her cheek, and later teased her about the incident.
Now that she knew him better, she was glad to be forgotten.
She moved a stool off to one side between crackling fireplace and darkening window as far from Claude as she politely could. If she were fortunate, he would continue to forget her for the rest of the evening.
“Yes,” Monsieur Bossuet said, “Coligny has also been appointed to the King’s council. God is surely on our side. Today I even heard talk that the Queen Mother has offered her daughter Marguerite in marriage to King Henry of Navarre.”
“Imagine,” Madame Bossuet said, leaning forward, “the leader of the Huguenots marrying a Catholic princess. That is one wedding I would travel across France to witness.”


The following day the letters beside the lantern clock began their journey to London. Late in the morning Anne Marie donned her dark brown cloak and slipped out of the Bossuets’ half-timbered house with its cloth shop and kitchen on the ground floor and living area on the three floors above.
She hurried through the maze of narrow, dirty cobblestone streets with their overhanging upper stories, hastening past sellers crying their wares from shop doors, dodging ragged beggars, brown-robed priests, and marketgoers with laden baskets as she headed for Viscount Gate and the waterfront beyond.
Monsieur Bossuet had told her which ship was carrying her letter. It was to sail by noon.
Although Rouen lay some fifty miles inland by road from the port of Le Havre on the Normandy coast, the meandering River Seine would make the two-masted merchantman’s journey much longer. Nevertheless, that same meandering river had allowed the walled city to become a booming port and outport for Paris farther to the east.
She passed out Viscount Gate and halted on the sloping river bank beyond the curtain wall encircling the city behind her. Faint odors of tar, sewage, and fish filled the air. Away on her left, jutting out from either riverbank, were the long ends of what had once been a wooden bridge stretching across the Seine. Off to her right, the Old Palace, a quadrangle-shaped castle with curtain walls and bastions, marked the southwest corner of the city.
Her gaze swept the river from broken bridge to Old Palace, searching for the two-masted merchantman carrying her letter. She passed over the small boats ferrying passengers across the river and the larger ones transporting cargo from ships to sloping river shore.
Vessels of every type were anchored in the Seine: weathered fishing trawlers from the Baltic loaded with herring, broad cog boats filled with Russian furs, graceful Venetian caravels carrying spices from Arabia or silks from China, three-masted carracks from Spain bringing exotic woods from the New World, sturdy merchantmen with pewter from England and hides from any place they could be found.
Rouen, made rich by its wool trade, had a thriving textile export business. Its blacksmiths also created and exported ironwork of all kinds – from church bells to scissors to lacy filigree. Cloth, ironwork, and French wines surely filled the holds of more than one of the merchant ships moored here. The merchantman she sought today was carrying, among other cargo, a shipment of diaper cloth to London for Monsieur Bossuet.
There it was, anchored across from the Old Palace.
She had arrived none too soon. Even as she watched, the ship began casting off. Within a minute the merchantman was drifting away in the slow current.
Hands clasped, eyes closed, she breathed a fervent prayer that her letter would receive a warm welcome at journey’s end from the tall, resolute man and smiling, plain-faced woman who lived in her memory. Even more, she prayed that the letter would be the start of a new life for her far away from Claude Goujon.
She opened her eyes to see sailors clambering up the tall masts. Sails were unfurled and gradually swelled in the March breeze that brushed her cheek and filled her nostrils with the river’s smell. The ship swung farther out into the slate gray river. Her letter was on its way.


Five days later the merchantman sailed up the dark blue Thames and docked at Wool Quay in London, a port even busier than the one it had left. The captain had the letters delivered to Monsieur Bossuet’s business contact on Candlewick Street. The following afternoon the contact sent an apprentice with Anne Marie’s letter to a half-timbered house on St. Mary Street off Aldgate.
There, the apprentice handed it to a kindly-faced matron in a dark gown and crisp white apron and cap. In turn, she laid the letter on the golden harpsichord sitting in a corner of their otherwise simply furnished great hall where it would remain until her husband finished the meeting with his fellow ministers.
From the intensity of the overheard voices coming from his study, it could be some time.


Jonathan Peterman breathed a quick prayer for patience as his gaze swept the five men sitting in a half circle of padded stools on the other side of his writing table.
They, like he, had fled to the Continent early in Queen Mary’s reign. He’d spent the exiled years in Strasbourg. Two of those sitting here had gone directly to Geneva, one to Frankfurt, and one to Zurich. The fifth one, Clement Wood, had originally gone to Frankfurt. But due to disagreements over the use of the Second Prayer Book, he’d quit the English church there and gone to Geneva with John Knox. All had been active in the English congregations established in those cities. After Elizabeth was crowned, they’d all returned to England and, like himself, been hired by lay organizations to preach in London’s parish churches.
“I know we had more freedom of worship on the Continent,” Jonathan said, hands fisting on the oak table’s hard surface. “Still, England’s established worship is much closer to Scripture than before. No more idols or saints days, we have sermons, communion is given in both kinds -”
“But,” the Frankfurt man interrupted, “people still have to kneel when taking it as if the bread and wine are something to be worshiped.”
“The Prayer Book smacks too much of Popish teaching,” Clement Wood said from his seat between the glazed windows. He fingered his dark chin beard. “We didn’t even use it in Geneva.”
“The required worship doesn’t match what we find in Scriptures,” the first Geneva man said. “What kind of respect are we showing to God if we don’t worship as he prescribes? Look at the Israelites in the Old Testament. When they failed to worship correctly, God brought punishments on them.”
The Zurich man, seated near one of the book cabinets, had his mouth open, trying to get a sentence in. He finally managed it.
“Yes, and what kind of church deposes ministers like John Field because they refuse to wear vestments when they officiate? Wearing clerical garb denies the priesthood of all believers.”
Clement Wood spoke again.
“And what of Thomas Cartwright? When he pointed out how unscriptural the Church of England’s structure is, he lost his Cambridge Professorship. But he spoke the truth. Elders should be appointed to carry out church discipline in the parish. Congregations should select their own pastors. Offices such as archbishops and archdeacons must be abolished.”
“The French church here in London is ruled by ministers and elders,” the second Geneva man said, “not by a religious hierarchy appointed by secular government. If they can do it, why can’t we?”
“They aren’t Englishmen,” Jonathan said, shifting on his padded stool, “and don’t owe allegiance to the Queen. But we are and we do. Especially now that she’s been excommunicated, and the Queen’s cousin Mary Stuart is in England.”
He held up a hand to fend off interruptions.
“I know the English church isn’t yet all it should be. But think of how many religious turnabouts we’ve witnessed. King Henry was loyal to the Pope and then broke with him. Under King Edward, England rid herself of much false Catholic teachings. Then Queen Mary brought it all back – or tried to – and lost the support of the citizenry because of it. Now we have Queen Elizabeth. I know she hasn’t yet gone as far as she should in establishing the true religion. But I firmly believe that time and God are on our side. We just need to be patient.”
“We might, instead, find ourselves facing more heresies,” the Zurich man said with a frown. “We’ve already got the Anabaptists, Unitarians, and Family of Love. And what about the Catholics? Even as we talk, they’re no doubt plotting to overthrow Elizabeth and put Mary Stuart in her place.”
“All the more reason to stand with the Queen,” Jonathan said. “I believe God’s hand was at work when Mary Tudor’s Catholic bishops refused to serve under Elizabeth. The Queen had to appoint Reformist ones. We also control the House of Commons. If we’re willing to agitate and wait, we’ll eventually see both church constitution and worship change into a more scriptural way of doing things.”
The Frankfurt man spoke again.
“What if it doesn’t happen? We tried to get reforms through the Convocation a few years ago. We lost.”
“But only by one vote,” Jonathan said, wagging a finger. “One vote. If we came that close to passing legislation binding on the Church of England, what might we accomplish in the future?”
“We could find ourselves at war with Spain at any moment,” the Zurich man said. “Or, even worse, the Queen could take a Catholic husband. Then what would become of the true Church? Smithfield would see a whole new crop of martyrs.”
“We certainly didn’t get legislation through Parliament,” Clement Wood said in a bitter tone, “despite controlling the House of Commons. Or have you forgotten that it just voted down the bill that would have replaced the old popish canon law with a new reformed system? Without such a system how can the Church have true discipline?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” Jonathan said. “I’m as disappointed as you. But, for good or ill, we must stand with the Church of England. We mustn’t separate from it as the Plumber’s Hall group and Fitz’s congregation have done. If we do, we’ll forfeit all opportunity of guiding the church toward purity.”
Clement Wood frowned.
“How can we guide the church to purity if we compromise the truth?”
The discussion ended at last. Jonathan limped slowly across the paneled hall on a club foot inherited from his father to see his guests on their way. Having bade farewell to the last one, he stood in the entryway brooding on Clement Wood’s challenge.
By standing with the Queen and the currently imperfect English Church, was he in reality forsaking the truth and allowing the devil a foothold? Or was it the devil himself causing him to doubt? He must search his soul and lay these issues before God.


When he returned to the hall, his wife Lettice was waiting for him with a letter in her hand and carefully controlled curiosity on her face.
“This came earlier ... from France,” she said, handing it to him. “At least that’s what the delivery boy said.”
“France?”
He was accustomed to receiving letters from their eldest son Thomas, a divinity student at Cambridge, and ones from his ministerial correspondents. But not from France. Momentarily setting his deeper concerns aside, he broke the red wax seal, unfolded the letter, and glanced at the signature.
“It’s from Anne Marie,” he said in surprise.
As he began to read, sadness crept over him like a shadow. So, Paul duChant was dead.
During their years together in Strasbourg, he’d spent many frustrating hours debating predestination, infant baptism, and the relationship between church and state with Paul. Unfortunately, he’d already been infected with Anabaptist heresies and couldn’t see his error. Paul had allowed him to baptize Edmund and the little girls when they were born only because he himself had felt so strongly about it. Even then, Paul had made it clear that he saw no value in the ceremony since, as he said, babies can’t have faith. Apart from his wrong ideas, Paul had been a good man and a very generous one to those in need. Pray God he’d repented of his heretical Anabaptist leanings in time.
He finished the letter and handed it to Lettice. Her expression softened and tears gathered in her faded blue eyes as she read. She handed the letter back and blotted her tears with her sleeve edge.
“Margaret and Paul gone. Poor little Anne Marie.”
“How old would she be now?” he asked, picturing a talkative little girl with a head of curly copper hair, and brown eyes and brows.
Lettice’s forehead creased in thought.
“Nineteen, I think,” she said, looking up at him. “She was starting to talk when Thomas was born, and he’s seventeen.”
He glanced at the letter.
“It sounds as if these Bossuets have arranged a marriage for her.”
“But apparently not one she wants.”
“She’s hardly old enough to know what’s best for her.”
“Her family should be picking her husband,” Lettice said. “Not strangers.” Then, “What are you going to answer?”
He suspected she wanted him to tell Anne Marie to come. Lettice had a tender heart, sometimes too tender. He’d not known that when, in taking a stand against the Catholic Church’s requirement that priests remain celibate, he’d acquired a wife.
Still, he’d never regretted his decision to marry and then to keep his new wife when Queen Mary had ruled that priests who’d wed during Edward’s reign must put their wives away and do penance for adultery. Instead, they’d fled to the Continent with the other exiles. Lettice had gone with him for love. He’d taken her for love but even more because of principle.
The answer to this letter as well would be a mixture of love and principle. Anne Marie was family. She also was the daughter of a man who’d been inclined toward heresy.
“What am I going to answer? I’ll know after I’ve prayed about it.”

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