The Anthology of English Folk Tales E-Book

Folk Tales Authors

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 271

Beschreibung

This enchanting collection of stories gathers together folk tales from across England in one special volume. Drawn from The History Press' popular Folk Tales series, herein lies a treasure trove of tales from a wealth of talented storytellers performing in the country today, including prominent figures Taffy Thomas MBE, Hugh Lupton and Helen East. From hidden chapels and murderous vicars to travelling fiddlers and magical shape-shifters, this book celebrates the distinct character of England's different customs, beliefs and dialects, and is a treat for all who enjoy a good yarn.

Leseprobe

EDITOR’S NOTE

It’s been a great pleasure working with professional storytellers on the Folk Tales series, and a real treat to gather so many of them together here.

In these days of displacement we all long to feel connected to our roots. These tales offer a glimpse into how our ancestors thought, along with evocative descriptions of England’s varied landscape. There is much here to make you feel amused, unsettled, happy and moved. Just take your pick! I hope you enjoy the tales as much as I have.

Nicola Guy, 2016

First published in 2016

The History Press The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved Text © The Authors, 2016

The right of The Authors to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 7894 1

Original typesetting by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Since 1993, the Society for Storytelling has championed the art of oral storytelling and the benefits it can provide — such as improving memory more than rote learning, promoting healing by stimulating the release of neuropeptides, or simply great entertainment! Storytellers, enthusiasts and academics support and are supported by this registered charity to ensure the art is nurtured and developed throughout the UK.

Many activities of the Society are available to all, such as locating storytellers on the Society website, taking part in our annual National Storytelling Week at the start of every February, purchasing our quarterly magazine Storylines, or attending our Annual Gathering — a chance to revel in engaging performances, inspiring workshops, and the company of like-minded people.

You can also become a member of the Society to support the work we do. In return, you receive free access to Storylines, discounted tickets to the Annual Gathering and other storytelling events, the opportunity to join our mentorship scheme for new storytellers, and more. Among our great deals for members is a 30% discount off titles in the Folk Tales series from The History Press website.

For more information, including how to join, please visit

www.sfs.org.uk

CONTENTS MAP

Cornwall Tom the Tinner

Dorset William and the Bull

Gloucestershire The Secret of the Gaunts’ Chapel

Wiltshire The Moonrakers

Hampshire The Wherwell Cockatrice

Berkshire The Cheviot Shepherd’s Charm

Oxfordshire The White Hare

Sussex The Lyminster Knucker

Surrey Mathew Trigg and the Pharisees

London Wonderful Wife

Herefordshire The Little Tailor of Yarpole

Worcestershire The Murderous Vicar of Broughton Hackett

Shropshire Humphrey Kynaston

Staffordshire The Giants of Staffordshire

Bedfordshire The Silent Sentinels

Essex The King of Colchester’s Daughter

Norfolk The Potter Heigham Drummer

Suffolk The Green Children

Northamptonshire The Far-Travelled Fiddler

Leicestershire & Rutland The Monk of Leicester

Nottinghamshire The Gypsy Boy

Cheshire Ingimund’s Saga

Cumbria Hunchback and the Swan

Lancashire The Devil in the Fireplace

South Yorkshire Cat and Man

The Woodsman and the Hatchet

East Yorkshire The Three Roses

North Yorkshire The Giant of Pen Hill

West Yorkshire All’s Well That Ends Well

CORNWALL

TOM THE TINNER

Mike O’Connor

Mike O’Connor is an expert on Cornish folklore. A bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, he holds the Henwood Medal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall and his tale ‘Return to Lyonesse’ won a British Award for Storytelling Excellence. His research on travelling storytellers in Cornwall is put to great use in Cornish Folk Tales.

Tom the Tinner is a classic. As ‘Jowan Chy an Hor’ it is the only folk tale recorded in the Cornish language, noted by Nicholas Boson of Newlyn around 1667, or perhaps even earlier according to Lhuyd in Archæologia Britannica. Also found in the wartime notebook of Edith Marks, storyteller and holocaust survivor, it shows the resilience and cross-cultural significance of folk tales, even in the darkest hours. Enjoy this great story.

Tom Tresidder the tinner lived at Chy an Horth, the House of the Ram, near St Levan. Now Tom was a tin streamer, for in those days you still could sluice the black tin sand from the streambeds. But eventually all the tin had gone. Tom and his family fell on hard times. Tom had his wife to support and his daughter; sixteen years old she was, and the very image of her mother. So reluctantly Tom said a fond farewell to them both and set out to find work.

He had heard there was work to be had over in the east. So he walked for a day and he walked for another day, and close to sunset he reached a farm near Praze an Beeble. There the farmer and his wife were kindly people, so Tom asked to be taken on as a farmhand. He agreed to work for a year for two gold pieces. For a year he worked hard and he worked well. After twelve months the farmer said to him, ‘Here is your pay, but it’s been a hard year. If you give it back to me I will give you something worth more than silver and gold.’ Tom thought, ‘If it’s worth more than silver and gold I’d best be having it.’ So Tom agreed, but what the farmer gave him was a piece of advice; ‘a point of wisdom’ he called it, and the advice he got was this: ‘Never lodge in a house where an old man is married to a young wife.’

Then Tom thought, ‘I still have nothing to take back to my wife and daughter.’ So he agreed to work for another year for two more gold pieces. For another year he worked hard and he worked well. After twelve months the farmer said, ‘Here is your pay, but it’s been a hard year. If you give it back I will give you something worth more than strength.’ Tom thought, ‘If it really is worth more than strength then I’d best be having it.’ So Tom again agreed, but again what the farmer gave him was a ‘point of wisdom’, and the advice he got was this: ‘Never forsake the old road for the new.’

Then Tom thought, ‘I still have nothing to take back to my wife and daughter.’ So he agreed to work for yet another year for two more gold pieces. For that year he worked hard and he worked well. After twelve months the farmer said, ‘Here is your pay, but it’s been a hard year. If you give it back I will give you something worth more than gold and silver and strength.’ So once again Tom agreed, but once again what St Levan the farmer gave him was a piece of advice. The farmer said it was the best ‘point of wisdom’ of all, and the advice he gave to Tom was this: ‘Never swear to anything seen through glass.’

Then Tom decided that although he had nothing to show for three years’ work he would return to his wife and daughter. The farmer’s wife gave him a fine slab of heavy cake to take with him.

On the road, Tom soon met some fellow travellers. They were merchants and they drove pack horses laden with wool from Helston Fair. They were going to Treen, not far from where Tom lived, so he was delighted to have some company on the road.

That night they reached an inn. As the door was opened, Tom saw the landlord was an old man, but the landlady was a young woman. He remembered the first advice, ‘Never lodge in a house where an old man is married to a young wife.’ So he asked to sleep in the stable. That night as he lay there he heard voices. Looking through a knothole he saw the young landlady talking to a monk, discussing how they had murdered the old landlord. But the monk stood close to the knothole and Tom was able to secretly cut a fragment of fabric from the monk’s gown with his penknife.

Next day Tom woke to find a gallows outside, for his friends the merchants had already been found guilty of the landlord’s murder. But Tom produced the fragment of cloth and told what he had heard, so the merchants were set free and again they set off on the road, with many promises of rewards for Tom when their trading was over.

After a while they came to a fork in the road where a new shortcut had been made. ‘Come with us on the new road,’ said the merchants, but Tom remembered the second piece of advice, ‘Never forsake the old road for the new.’ So alone he took the old road. He’d only gone a few yards when he heard a hue and cry from over the hill. He ran across and found his new friends were being attacked by robbers. ‘One and all!’ cried Tom as he struck out with his walking stick and soon they sent the robbers flying. Then the merchants continued in safety with many thanks and more promises of reward.

So after two days walking Tom got home. Looking in the window, he thought he saw his wife kissing a young man. His grip tightened on his stick and he was about to burst in when he remembered the third advice, ‘Never swear to anything seen through glass.’ So he put his stick back in his belt and he gently went inside to find it was his daughter, now a young woman and still the very image of her mother, saying goodnight to her fiancée, Jan the cobbler.

Of course they were all delighted at being together again. But then Tom had to explain to his wife that for three years’ work he had earned only cake and wisdom, to which his wife replied it seemed that he had earned nothing but cake. She was so vexed that she picked up the cake and threw it at Tom with all her might. Tom ducked and the flying cake missed him and smashed against the wall. As it did so it broke into pieces. Out fell not two or four or six, but fifteen gold pieces, all wrapped in a piece of paper. On the paper was written, ‘The reward of an honest man’.

DORSET

WILLIAM AND THE BULL

Tim Laycock

Tim Laycock lives and works in Dorset. He is a folk musician, storyteller and actor, and has been interested and involved in the oral history and traditions of his native county since a boy. He particularly enjoys performing the works of William Barnes and Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy was fascinated with stories connected to fiddle playing, and included them in many of his poems and novels. A short literary version of this comic account of the soothing power of music can be found in his novel Tess of the D’ Urbevilles.

William was the best fiddler in the area, known all around as the man for the job when it came to dances and celebrations where music was required. So when Timothy Thomas got married to Sarah Rose, it was the most natural thing in the world to ask old William to play. Now this all happened one glorious summer’s day at the end of June, just after midsummer. But to understand what happened after, I must just make sure that you know of the old West Country belief that at midnight on Christmas Eve, if you go into a stable or a barn, or anywhere where beasts are kept, you will see them on their knees, in honour of the birth of Jesus. Down in Somerset they also say that at that special time, midnight on Christmas Eve, beasts can talk; but that may be due to the scrumpy they drink in those parts …

Anyway, on the day of the wedding all the folks went to church, and there was old William sat in the gallery playing sacred music on the violin; and whenever the vicar called for a hymn or psalm, old William led them all in the singing most appropriately. The service being over and the couple wed, the bride and groom linked arms in the traditional way and led the congregation out of the church and down towards the tithe barn, with old William in front, playing the ‘Caledonian March’ or ‘Bonaparte’s Retreat’.

When they got to the barn, it looked beautiful. Walls freshly whitewashed, floor swept, greenery around the windows and doors, great long tables down the middle all groaning with eatables and drinkables. They all sat down and the feasting began – all except for old William, who was perched on a barrel over to one side, playing lively song tunes and ditties to keep ’em all humming while they ate. But they didn’t forget him, oh no. Because in Dorset, folk are very hospitable towards musicians; you only have to hear the string of a fiddle or the toot of a flute, and you can’t help yourself. You have to dip your hand in your pocket and give them a few pence, or something to eat, or maybe a drink; so as William played, someone gave him some beef, someone else gave him some cake; someone else gave him some beer and someone else gave him some cider – so he was fed and watered as he played.

After two or three hours the food was all gone, so they cleared away the tables, pushed the benches to the walls and began to dance. They did the longways dances and the circle dances, the right-hand stars and the do-si-dos, and there was old William sawing away on the fiddle, playing ‘Up the Sides and Down the Middle’, and all the jigs and reels and hornpipes popular in that neighbourhood at the time. As he played someone gave him some gin, someone else gave him some whisky, someone else gave him some rum, and someone else (who should have known better) gave him a glass of brandy. So consequently, when the bride and groom had gone off on honeymoon, and all the guests had gone home, the only person left in the barn was old William, absolutely exhausted – well he’d been playing all day – and, to tell you the truth, not completely sober. So he made a mistake, which, had he been in his usual state of mind, he never would have made – he took a short cut across Long Meadow.

Now, anyone in the village would have told you that this was where the farmer kept his bull. But William had forgotten this; at least, he forgot it until he was as far as he could possibly be from any of the four hedges. And then, in the darkness, he heard a pounding of hooves and the sound of heavy snorting; and looking round, he saw Farmer Chick’s prize bull Captain, charging towards him in the moonlight, horns a-glinting.

Well, William was far too tired to run for it, so in the circumstances he did the only sensible thing; he took up his fiddle and began to play. Well, it was very lucky for William that Captain was musical; as soon as he heard the music he stopped, listened, and a contented smile came over his face; and as long as William kept playing, all was well. As soon as he stopped to think of another tune, down went the bull’s head, and his hooves began pawing the ground – so William had to keep playing.

He played all his jigs and reels and hornpipes; he played them all again; then he even played a waltz or two. The night wore on, until at last, William had one of those dreadful moments that all musicians experience, when you know that you know more tunes, but you can’t remember what they are. And down went Captain’s head, and his hooves were pawing on the ground … and then William had a flash of inspiration. Even though it was the middle of June, he very slowly and reverently began to play the old Nativity hymn, ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night’.

Well, it was very lucky for William that not only was Captain musical, he was also religious. He thought it must be Christmas Eve, so down he went on his great knees, and down went his head until his horns were touching the ground. William took his chance, took to his heels and was over the hedge before the bull could get up again. And as he said afterwards, he’d often seen people look stupid, but he’d never seen a bull look stupid before; and that’s the story of William and the Bull. The violin or fiddle was the pre-eminent instrument for village music in Dorset until the arrival of melodeons and concertinas in the middle of the nineteenth century. Thomas Hardy played the violin and loved country dancing; his father, uncle and grandfather all played string instruments, and formed the nucleus of the church band in Stinsford parish church just outside Dorchester. Their collection of dance tunes, handwritten in the back of their carol books, has long formed the basis of the repertoire of local céilí bands. Hardy was fascinated with stories connected to fiddles and fiddle playing, and included them in many of his poems and novels; a short version of William and the Bull is told by dairyman Crick in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The dialect poems of William Barnes, based largely on childhood memories of north Dorset and the Blackmore Vale, contain many references to fiddle music at local celebrations. Recently, the music manuscript of Benjamin Rose, a farmer, alehouse keeper and fiddle player from Belchalwell, has emerged. It is dated 1820, and contains 133 country dance tunes of the sort that old William would have played to Captain.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE

THE SECRET OF THE GAUNTS’ CHAPEL

Anthony Nanson

Anthony Nanson has performed internationally as a storyteller and co-produced, with storytelling company Fire Springs, such ecobardic epics as Arthur’s Dream, Robin of the Wildwood, Return to Arcadia, and Dark Age Deeds of the Celtic Saints’. His books include Gloucestershire Folk Tales, Exotic Excursions, Words of Re-enchantment, Storytelling for a Greener World (co-editor), Gloucestershire Ghost Tales (co-author), and Deep Time.

My source for this story is Joseph Leech’s Brief Romances from Bristol History (1884). When I visited the Gaunts’ Chapel, latterly the Lord Mayor’s Chapel, I discovered that the story has survived in local knowledge, for the verger knew about it and showed me the alcoves in the chantry chapel where Mary makes her confession.

King Henry VII enjoyed his stays at the manor of Acton Court, whose peaceful gardens and fields were much preferable to the noisy smelly city of Bristol, where on occasion he had business with the merchants. Sir Robert Poyntz had reason to be hospitable, having been knighted by Henry after the Battle of Bosworth Field that won him the Crown, but the King’s visit was quite an imposition, with his train of many courtiers, servants and soldiers.

In this entourage was a young courtier called John Coleman. Amidst the hustle and bustle, no one noticed how this young man caught the eye of Sir Robert’s raven-haired young daughter, Mary. Discreetly they slipped away to walk together among the tall clipped hedges. John was not yet twenty, Mary a few years younger. In just two days they’d fallen in love. In a shadowy green lane between two yew hedges, they held hands and gazed in each other’s eyes and pledged their undying love.

Unfortunately they were not as alone as they’d thought. Sir Robert had noticed his daughter’s absence and learnt from a gardener that she’d headed to this secluded part of the grounds. From behind the hedge he heard their fevered words and their vigorous teenage kissing. Out he leapt, furious as the Devil.

‘Keep away from my daughter, you villain, or you’ll feel for sure the weight of the clenched fist!’

By ‘clenched fist’ he referred to the Poyntz rebus: ‘poign’ being a pun on the family name. From the look on Sir Robert’s face John could believe he meant the threat more literally.

‘As for you, my young trollop, away with you to your room! Let’s see if a diet of bread and water won’t cool your blood!’

In tears of anguish Mary fled to the house. Sobbing in her room, she pulled from her hair – what her father hadn’t seen – the gold bodkin John had slotted there as a token of his eternal love. She trusted his pledge with all her heart, that he’d find a way to come for her. All she had to do was wait.

Meanwhile, Sir Robert complained to the King: ‘With the greatest respect, sire, it is a trespass to our hospitality that one of Your Majesty’s young fellows should make advances to my daughter of such tender years.’

Cunning King Henry valued Sir Robert’s friendship. He dismissed John Coleman at once from his service and sent him packing back to London.

John loved Mary Poyntz with all his heart, but he hadn’t a hope of marrying her unless he first distinguished himself in some way. He had neither money nor rank. He was no warrior. He decided his best bet was to become a scholar, so thereby to become of use to the King and be taken back into his service.

To Padua he went. He studied with all the vigour of his yearning to make himself worthy of Mary. He heard no word from her, but he trusted her, that she would be faithful to their pledge. He didn’t dare write, for fear her father would intercept the letters.

Skill in scholarship, the learning of languages, takes time. The years pass by quicker than you ever expect they will. John was a man past thirty when at last his friends at court secured from the new King, Henry VIII, his appointment to a diplomatic post in which his linguistic skills could be put to use in reaping intelligence for the Crown.

John’s heart soared with the dream that at last seemed in reach. He risked a letter to Mary, via a friend of a friend, telling her about his appointment, declaring his undiminished love, hoping they might soon consummate their love before God.

In Calais, awaiting the ship to England, he met an acquaintance of his youth who had connections in Gloucestershire. Pretending a nonchalance he did not feel, he asked the man, ‘What news of the Poyntzes of Iron Acton?’

‘Old Sir Robert soldiers on. Has a place in the Queen’s household.’

‘And his children?’

‘Married and breeding, most of them.’

John fought to keep the tremor from his voice. ‘And Mary too?’

‘Not married yet, despite her years’ – John half let go a sigh of relief – ‘but a rich old gentleman from outside the county has lately made an offer, and she has accepted him.’

There was more to the story of Mary’s engagement than John’s informant knew. All these years she had avoided any entanglement. Her heart had been loyal to John. But when this latest offer came she was nigh on thirty and her father, perceiving the advantage of the alliance, insisted she accept – on pain of being shut away in a nunnery. She resisted as long as she could, till not only was she convinced her father would carry out his threat, but a friend in whom she’d confided said, ‘Open your eyes to the truth. If your sweetheart hasn’t come for you by now, has never even written, you can be sure he’ll have forgotten all about you by now and be married to a wench more fitting to his rank.’

Reluctantly Mary yielded to her aged suitor’s proposal. But then, only days before John reached Calais, John’s letter arrived, delayed by its circuitous route. At once all her feelings were awoken. She remembered that day between the yew hedges, his lips on hers, his hands on her waist. She felt a churning in her loins, such as she’d never before known, all the stronger because her natural instincts had been held in check so many years. She could not marry the man she was betrothed to. Better to go to the nunnery than marry anyone but her beloved John.

It never came to that. Her father died. Her brother Sir Anthony, who inherited his estate, wanted her to be happy, and his wife Lady Jane was her good friend. Mary was free to break her engagement. On tenterhooks she waited at Acton Court for John Coleman to come.

John knew none of this; only that Mary had accepted another. He never boarded the ship from Calais. His hopes and dreams were shattered. England held nothing for him except the memory of the love he’d lost. He didn’t know where to go, except away from England. Fate took him to the Rhine, where he found refuge in a monastery in which his scholarly skills were appreciated. He could not think of finding love with any other woman. Better to devote his unspent passion to God. He became a monk, and a priest. He passed his days in study and prayer. He tried not to think of Mary. The years passed, like a stream running quick beneath a bridge, and John cared not; the passing of the years of his life could only bring him closer to his destiny in God.

Then one day the monastery had a visitor, an Englishman returning from Rome. His name was John Essex and he was the Abbot of St Augustine’s in Bristol. Just to hear mention of Bristol, a place so close to Acton Court, made John Coleman tremble inside. He wanted to ask after Mary Poyntz, as he’d done in Calais long years before, but he was now a man of God; it would be a peril to his soul even to speak her name. The Abbot was a shrewd man and might have divined the true import of such a question. As it was, he was impressed by John’s abilities and perceived in his conversation a longing for England, and Gloucestershire especially.

‘Listen, Coleman, the mastership of the Gaunts’ Hospital is vacant and falls under my jurisdiction. If you’d like the job, it’s yours.’

The Gaunts’ Hospital was a priory adjacent to St Augustine’s Abbey with a mission to feed the poor. I daresay Bristol’s proximity to Acton Court was one reason John accepted that invitation, but upon arriving in the city he was determined to discipline his soul and made no attempt to contact Mary, whom he presumed to be married and perhaps dwelling far from Iron Acton.

Spiritual peril turned out to be closer than John expected. Before he died, Sir Robert Poyntz had paid for a splendid fanvaulted chantry chapel to be added to the hospital’s church. There he was buried and there members of his family often came to pray. Moreover, as the house now had only four resident brothers, there was space for a few lay gentlefolk to stay as boarders, of whom one was Lady Jane, the widow of Mary’s brother.

One day, as John passed Jane’s quarters, he saw her welcoming a guest – a woman slender in build, dressed in black like a widow, with raven hair threaded with grey. It was just a glimpse before the two women vanished behind the door, but John’s heart began to thud in response to something about that black figure, something perhaps in the motion of the shoulders as they turned.

He told himself it was his imagination. He made himself attend to his duties and devotions. But the very next day, in the Poyntz chapel, when he thought he’d finished the queue of penitents he’d been confessing, he saw one last figure waiting at the entrance. The woman in black. For a moment the image of the girl he’d carried in his memory was superimposed on that of the middle-aged woman before him, her face gaunt and pale, the bloom of youth spent. Yet she was beautiful to him and he loved her as much as he always had. In the cover of his alcove he gave no sign that he knew her. He lowered his eyes from the alabaster curve of her cheek and, as the blood thudded in his temple, he listened to her confession.

‘Father, I have sinned, if sin it be. Since my youth, I have been consumed with love for a man I met then. For years I hoped and prayed he would come to me one day, as he’d pledged. Because of this love, I refused all offers of marriage, I remained a burden on my family, and my heart and mind and body have so burned with unrequited desire that I have failed to give to God the devotion that is his due.’

John could barely speak to say the words of absolution. He watched with dismay the frailty with which the woman rose from her knees and walked, almost tottering, from the chapel, having betrayed no sign that she knew who he was. For hours afterwards he sat there. She’d kept faith to their pledge after all, she’d never ceased to wait for him, and he perceived what toll her lovesickness had taken on her strength, as she’d not had the solace he’d found in the monastic routine of study and prayer. What might have been! It was unbearable to contemplate. You might say it was not too late; they could still find love in these late years. But it was a sacred bond that John had made with God. His renunciation of the flesh was absolute.

In truth, though, it really was too late. Not many days later he was summoned by Sir Nicholas Poyntz, grandson of Sir Robert, to attend a dying person at Acton Court. In great consternation, hoping against hope it might be some aged retainer who’d run life’s natural course, John rode out to that manor to which he’d come in the King’s train all those years before. When he arrived the steward told him in sombre tones that death had beaten him to the door. He was shown into the chamber where Mary Poyntz lay pale and still in her bed. In death the lines in her face had softened so she looked almost as youthful as he remembered her.

By her bed was a letter addressed to ‘the Master of the Gaunts’ Hospital’. Had she known him after all when she came to confession? Dripping tears on the parchment, he opened the seal. The letter contained only a formal request: ‘I wish to be buried in the Poyntz chapel, dressed in a white silk gown that may be found in my wardrobe and has never been worn, and that in my hair be placed the pin enclosed with this letter.’ John upturned the envelope. Into his trembling hand fell the gold bodkin he’d given her when they’d pledged their undying love.

He buried her as she instructed, in the chantry chapel, dressed in her wedding gown, the bodkin in her hair. Ever afterwards he made his private devotions in that chapel. He prayed for Mary’s soul, and in the secrecy of his heart he prayed to her as well, as if she were his God, and begged her forgiveness for his lack of faith.

Even such a private matter of the heart is not immune to the tides of history. Once he’d broken with Rome, Henry VIII was eager to seize the lands and wealth of England’s monasteries. On 9 September 1539, John Coleman surrendered the Gaunts’ Hospital to the King’s commissioners and was paid off with a pension. He would have had a kind welcome back in the monastery on the Rhine, but instead he took a cottage in Gaunts Lane so that he might always be near Mary. There he lived to a great age, cultivating his little garden behind the church in which the body of his beloved Mary lay.