The Dream of America: As Seen from Saracen's Head Tavern

By Cj Becker

This is the tale of Thomas Jadwin's dream of America. The story occurs during the last half of the reign of England's greatest monarch Elizabeth I and the first decades of her hand-picked successor James I. Thomas' father was a cutler of Welsh ancestry who supplied fine weapons for Nobility. Thomas courts and weds the beautiful and educated fishmonger's daughter, Catherine Pelham. As a wedding gift the Jadwins are given a tenement on the High Street near London Bridge within walking distance of the Bear Baiting Garden and the Globe Theatre. They convert the tenement into a tavern called Saracen's Head. Many of the luminaries of the day, including William Shakespeare, Squanto, and Captain John Smith, come to Saracen's Head to hear the news and raise a tankard of Southwark ale. Inspired by his father's membership in Raleigh's Adventurers for Virginia Thomas buys shares in the company formed to plant the first English colony in America. In this age of famine, plague, war, and the Reformation, Thomas comes to see America as the place where a reconstitution of human society might occur. He actually makes the journey across the Atlantic to the newly founded colony at Jamestown with the Third Supply on the ill-fated Sea Venture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 21, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595824748

Book preview

CHAPTER 1 

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The city of London lies like a great hive in the lowering sun of November. Taking the perspective of a crow as it wings its way above the city, we see it has been the north side of the Thames River, the high side, the sunny side, which has been most desirable for habitation. This was where the Romans founded the city called Londonum, but the site had been occupied long before. The main body of the city is still largely contained within its medieval walls. The carrion crow will find good hunting outside those walls in the old moat because the residents of the rapidly developing suburbs nearby dump their garbage there.

A menacing structure looms to the east, downstream where the crow has come from. It is an outgrowth of the old city. This is the ancient moated and walled Tower of London. William the Conqueror built the Tower on the spot where in ancient times Beli buried Bran’s head after the Battle of the Trees. Still remembered with reverence, this is where the symbol of Bran, the crow, is protected from persecution. As the crow begins to fly over the Thames, it glances westward toward the curve of the river at Charing Cross. Here we can see newer and richer establishments along the north bank at Somerset Palace, Durham House, Suffolk Palace, and Whitehall. Wealth moves naturally upstream and upwind of the old city. The halls of governance have also moved from the hubbub of the commercial and industrial city. Around the bend in the river to the south, on the west bank, lies the town of Westminster that is home to Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament. The Houses of Parliament are adjacent to Westminster Abbey dedicated to St. Peter. The graceful town of Westminster is not a propitious hunting ground for carrion birds unless it is a time of riot, plague, or coronation.

The majority of the people of London live in tenements up to five or even six stories, which are half-timbered and plaster-filled with the gable end facing the street. The only stone buildings, by and large, are the numerous churches that bristle the skyline with their spires: St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and St. Mary Magdalene; St. Alban, St. Michael, and St. Katherine Cree; St. Ethel-burgh, St. Helen’s, and St. Marie Aldermarie; Grey Friars, Black Friars, and the Priory of St. Bartholomew Benedictine. These are but a few of the 122 churches within London proper. This is where people find sanctuary from the storm.

The crow glides toward its nighttime roost on Southbank by keeping St. Paul’s Cathedral in view on its right wing. St. Paul’s was consecrated in 1300 after taking two hundred years to construct. It was built on Ludgate Hill, the sacred site of a Bronze Age monolith and an Iron Age temple to Diana. St. Paul’s marked the high tide of the Gothic Christian society that began to unravel with the first of the bad weather. Its 489-foot spire was struck off in 1561 by an act of lightning. Protestants and Catholics alike saw it as a sign of God’s displeasure at the other side’s infamy. The spire has not been repaired. St. Paul’s is still the church with the longest nave in Christendom, which towers over its neighborhood and can be seen from all directions.

Another good hunting ground for carrion crows is the Southbank gate of London Bridge called Bridge Gate, which faces the village of Southwark. Festooning the top of this gate are the severed heads of enemies of the crown that have been impaled on pikes for public viewing. The crow now completes its wide sweep across the freezing Thames River with the dying of the light. It keeps Winchester House and St. Savior’s just upstream of London Bridge to the outside of its incurving flight and alights upon the crenellated parapet of Bridge Gate under its spiky crown of severed heads.

Saracen’s Head Tavern occupies a double-size lot a city block down the High Street from Bridge Gate. There are no musicians or poets to entertain the few patrons in the taproom. Helene the bar maid is out of sight quietly cleaning tankards and mugs. In the back of the establishment the proprietor of the nearly empty establishment, Thomas Jadwin, is sitting disconsolately against the back wall listening to Captain John Smith. Smith has let a room at the Saracen’s Head. He is a key member of the Virginia Venture whose aim is to plant an English colony in America. For month’s past he has been overseeing the construction of a ship, the Susan Constant, at a local shipyard. The Susan Constant will be the flagship to a trio of ships that will sail to America. Smith has also spent his time scanning maps and reading reports from earlier voyages of discovery from Master Jadwin’s library. Thomas is an avid follower of English exploration and was a member of Raleigh’s Adventurers for Virginia as well as a sponsor of the Virginia Venture. All that was left for the adventure to begin was for the king to give his blessing in the form of a charter, but fate has intervened.

Only a week before, on November 4, 1605, the king’s agents entered the musty, cobwebbed cellars of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall to find Guido Fawkes hunkered down behind thirty casks of black gunpowder. Searching Fawkes, they found three matches on his person ready to light. It was only a matter of hours before King James I, the royal family, the lords, and the minor nobles and high merchants of the Commons would have assembled for the opening of Parliament over the mouth of the improvised cannon. England was only hours away from having its heart and soul blown to kingdom come. Such a catastrophe would have crippled the country grievously, possibly fatally, considering the continental enemies that were poised to reap the rewards of the misfortune. The nascent British Empire envisioned by Dr. John Dee would have been aborted at its conception.

Following the completion of the flagship of the cockleshell squadron, the first possible date for the London colonists to launch their voyage of settlement across the Atlantic Ocean had been fast approaching on that fateful November day. Although this is not the time for the best weather on the Channel, it is necessary to leave in the dead of winter in order to complete the four-month crossing in time for spring planting. Attempting to give birth to a colony in the New World at any later time had proved to be a sure formula for failure. As a result of the Gunpowder Plot the colonization effort has come to a standstill. The colonists have missed the tide; the spirit of the adventure has ebbed for another year.

As Smith broods over the missed opportunity, he recites, once again, the advantages of the warm weather and rich soils in Virginia where two or even three harvests a year are possible. Once again he describes the forests, the game, and the fish. Once again he delineates the possibilities for a man to be free of the burdens of the decaying Old World. Catherine, the mistress of Saracen’s Head, comes out of the kitchen and chides the men suggesting less dolesome activities. Although she intends it to be sassy and lighthearted, it strikes a sour note. Thomas lurches up knocking over his stool and walks to the front of the tavern. He grabs a padded, long-sleeved jerkin from one of the pegs beside the door. Pulling the jerkin, he walks out into the street to clear his head leaving the door open. As the crow alights on Bridge Gate, it notices a human coming out of its house into the otherwise empty roadstead below. It watches for any evidence of food that it might take advantage of at dawn.

Thomas looks to his right toward Bridge Gate in the fading light. On the crenellated parapet with its crown of heads, he sees a crow landing and wonders what omen the bird may portend. He decides to walk in the opposite direction. Where the houses along the street begin to give way to pasture and orchards, he takes a turn to the west in the direction of the Bearbaiting Garden and the Globe Theatre. All of his life as far back as he can remember, he has had a dream: a dream of heroic adventures in exotic lands and of a better place in life for his family—a dream of America. Perhaps, he thinks glumly, it is just not meant to be.

From a slight rise he stands and looks toward the river, unseen because the tenements along Bankside block the view. Across the river the south-facing windows of London glint in the setting sun. He looks to the left of St. Paul’s Church, to the darkened rise behind the city called Hamstead Heath. Into its dark outline floods a warm memory from the past, a memory of his sweet Catherine. Thomas remembers when their friendship had turned to courtship in the spring of 1593. He begins to relax.

CHAPTER 2 

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It is 1593—five years after the Spanish Armada. Shipwrecked Spanish sailors who were scattered throughout the British Isles and settled into the English countryside to ply their native trades have made a comfortable aftermath to the armada victory. Philip of Spain has nearly rebuilt his navy and has breathed nothing but bloody revenge against Elizabeth of England. The Queen herself has stood in front of the Parliament and proclaimed, I fear not all his threatenings. His great preparations and mighty forces do not stir me. For though he come against me with a greater power than ever was, I doubt not but, God assisting me, I shall be able to defeat and overthrow him. For my cause is just, and it standeth upon a sure foundation—that I shall not fail, God assisting the quarrel of the righteous.

Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Francis Bacon have all spoken out for increased taxes in the House of Commons to equip a royal navy and army in order to supplant King Philip’s provinces across the Channel in Brittany. Lord Burghley has described Brittany as, a frontier enemy to all of the west part of England. The country still fears a Catholic rebellion, a Spanish invasion, or an assassination attempt on the Queen, but with every passing year these fears become diluted by more immediate considerations including, at the moment, the fact that this is the spring of the year and the daffodils are in bloom.

Catherine Pelham slowly awakens to silver carillons drifting over to the south side of the Thames from the churches of London. From under the warmth of her woolen blanket she hears St. Olave’s familiar bell two houses downstream begin to sound, like a slightly out-of-tune uncle. This causes her sister, Hannah, sleeping next to her to jump and rumble. They give each other their morning greetings and throw back the covers to prepare for the day of rest with their best Sunday dresses. The bells of St. Savior’s cathedral on the other side of Bridge Gate begin their chiming call to service. After breakfast the Pelhams walk up to St. Savior’s to hear specially selected Gospels and Epistles from the English Bible of William Tyndale, as well as Reverend William Parker’s own simple homilies of moral rectitude. After the service the families spill out of the cathedral ready for Sunday market followed by Sunday dinner.

On this pleasant April morning the adults pause to discuss the common gossip in a general mingling on the front steps of the cathedral. As always there is the subject of the Queen and her favorites. Sir Walter Raleigh, an old favorite, is in the midst of a vicious power struggle with Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, the new star in Elizabeth’s universe. Bess Throckmorten, one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, and Sir Walter had been incarcerated in the Tower for the sin of fornication discovered because Bess had given birth to a son. The Queen, of course, decides who her favorites shall marry, and seducing one of her ladies is a cardinal sin.

The capture of the Portuguese carrack Madre de Dios off the Azores is still on everybody’s mind. It is rumored that the Madre de Dios carried upwards of one million pounds in gold, silver, and jewels. The social disruption created by this windfall caused the Queen to temporarily release Sir Walter from the Tower as the only man capable of restoring order. Even though most of the wealth had melted into pockets of unknown parties, there is still enough leftover for Elizabeth to balance the books and build a new castle or two. The Madre de Dios had been carrying the pay roll for the Spanish armies in the Netherlands. The comparison between this single ship and what must have been the magnitude of wealth transported from the New World to Spain by whole fleets of ships has everyone’s imaginations spinning.

Thomas Jadwin and Catherine Pelham notice each other at a distance. They have been friends since the orchards of their youth. When they were kids Thomas, Catherine, and her younger brother Ned would strike out after Sunday dinner to conquer the hopeful dragons of their imaginations. Seeing himself as St. George, Thomas would carry a wooden sword and wear a small chain-mail shirt that his father, a blacksmith, had made for him.

On other occasions they would join the neighborhood mob and scramble under the carriages parked in the courtyard of the George Inn on the High Street to observe and harass a traveling Commedia. Italian street hustlers trained to act in concert would assemble a portable platform supported by beer barrels in the courtyard of the George. Out of the general maelstrom of jongleurs doing flips, drummers doing paradiddles, and a mob of youths shrieking from their seats in the orchestra, the Dottore would issue forth. Mounting the stage he would make a general proclamation suitable to the occasion.

Catherine remembers it well. not the exact words, to be sure, but certainly the vocal tones and the dramatic postures.

"Signor, Signora, Signorina!

Madame, Monsieur, et Mademoiselle!

Il troupo di Commedia Dell’arte

Presents for your appreciation this afternoon,

An adaptation of The Dowry,

And so began a performance.

Catherine cannot remember the words, but she does recall the vocal tones and the dramatic gestures. She would hold onto the rough spokes of the carriage wheel, stare up through the warm, dusty air of the courtyard, and watch the Dottore cleverly abuse the rustic Pantalone, with precise movements of arms and hands. Pantalone would respond by rising up on one leg, shaking like a duck, and farting to the general amusement of all. Most of all Catherine’s eyes would be turned to the beautiful Fracischina, with her bosom falling out to the delectation of her masculine audience. While kicking and spitting at the unruly kids under the carriages below with one hand, the Dottore curried the favor of the traveling knights and even the occasional lord in disguise in the balconies above them with the other hand. From above they were watched with annoyed bemusement. Nobility exists for such effusive attentions even when they are false.

Jumping off the stage the actors would remove their masks and suddenly become members of the audience. From under the parked carriage, Catherine would experience the magical transformation of the actor into a mere human with warts and bruises and hair on his or her legs. Yet in other ways they were actors still: most of them spoke imperfect English and they never removed their elfin shoes. And the magnetic effect of Fracischina’s bosom never lessened. From his knees Thomas once peed on the shoe of an unwary actor standing by their carriage. This she would never forget. It provoked a particularly intense outburst of Italian profanity. Catherine was amazed. Chased out from under the carriage, Thomas was caught and well thrashed. He was a local hero for weeks afterward. No one told his parents.

On the steps in front of St. Savior’s, Catherine thinks that she will remind Thomas of their theatrical past. Leaving the area of her mother’s group, she works her way over to him. Master Thomas, would you care take a walk over to St. Savior’s Dock to observe the river?

Thomas, now twenty-six years old, has been watching Catherine at a distance. During the period of a dozen or so years when they had not seen much of each other outside of chance meetings on Sunday, she had blossomed into a young woman. Thomas is strongly affected by the not-so-subtle change in her shape as well as by her confident demeanor. The youthful social convention of his knight to her squire had lost its usefulness. Thomas experiences a modest confusion of speech stemming from his divided attention. Catherine, who is two years younger than he, notices the disability with some pleasure. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, Thomas says, Indeed I would.

Catherine and Thomas walk away from their elders toward the river. At the edge of the crowd, they pass by the stall of a shalep vender. Being known as a drink that provokes venery, they pass by without comment. They walk by Montague’s Close, once a monastery connected to the church, and out onto the dock to the rivers edge. Catherine belongs to a family of fishmongers whose wharf is just down river past London Bridge. Continuing to look away from Catherine to keep his bearings, Thomas observes, The river is free of ice.

So it is, responds Catherine helpfully. It will cost a ha’penny to cross over to London until November. Being fishmongers Catherine’s family owns a barge and a wherry to conduct their business on the Thames. They rarely pay to cross the river even when it is not iced over and running free. Thomas assumes this is why Catherine has made such a low estimate for a wherry fare.

Catherine brings up the days of their youth, and they recall a few heroic moments, but the conversation remains stilted.

The sermon near put me to sleep, Thomas observes changing the subject. This creates a mildly conspiratorial mood.

In a straightforward fashion Catherine extends the confidence by mimicking one of the twelve overly familiar Anglican homilies, the one they have just heard, converting the earnest remonstrance into a comic recital by a slightly nasal tone, For where there is no right order, where reign abuse, carnal liberty, enormity, sin, and Babylonical confusion. Take away kings, princes, rulers, magistrates, judges, and such states of God’s order, no man shall ride or go by the highway unrobbed, no man shall sleep in his own house or bed unkilled, no man shall keep his wife, children, and possessions in quietness; all things shall be common, and there must needs follow all mischief and utter destruction both of souls, bodies, nonny, nonny, nonny.

These precious homilies are the very ones that Bishop Cranmer had labored over at the risk of his life. Henry VIII had rejected them as opening up a subject that must not even be mentioned no matter how well intended: the mere suggestion that kings might be replaced was treasonable. Incitement to regicide is still a capital offence on the public stage, but Queen Elizabeth has allowed the implication of regicide, within the confines of the church, as a bracing tonic to remind her subjects of the horrors of social disorder. These invocations of social chaos have replaced the searing visions of purgatory once depicted by Catholic prelates.

Neither Thomas nor Catherine have lived in fear of the Queen’s soldiers knocking on the door, or have they ever heard the terrible keening sound of a peasant’s rebellion surging up from Kent to the Bridge Gate. They have never seen the feast of carrion crows over the bodies of hanged rebels on every London street corner following a rebellion, nor have they smelled the choking smell from the witch’s fires at Smithfield as did their grandparents and parents when Protestant Elizabeth was still the dark princess and her step-sister, Catholic Mary, was on the throne. Times have gotten better under Elizabeth. Certainly Catholic dissenters, disorderly drunks, and rabble rousers of all kinds are still regularly whipped or put in stocks. They still see the heads of highborn traitors piked across the top of Bridge Gate that say beware all ye who enter here. But these are commonplace legal punishments, laws of nature like the weather. These are things that happen to evildoers.

Thomas’s casual summary of a boring church service and Catherine’s ironic reciting of the morning’s homily are not the voice of conspiracy and sedition, they are the voice of innocent adolescence. Yet their lack of discretion does serve to increase the ease and intimacy of their discourse. Catherine looks up at Thomas, smiling, angling for a more fruitful line of discourse.

Perchance, would thou go with me to St. Paul’s Saturday next? inquires Thomas on cue, using the expedient of a trip that had already been planned, but without much consideration of its possible interest for Catherine.

What would be the purpose of this trip? inquires Catherine.

It would be to visit our favorite bookseller, looking for books on exploration as well as books on the latest farming practices and such for my father.

I will ask my mother, says Catherine seeming to affirm the invitation.

Thomas savors the moment of social resolution.

Unexpectedly Catherine takes Thomas by the hand and pulls him back to the church square, to her mother and her two brothers, Martin and Ned, who are standing by. Her father died five years ago to be replaced in the business and at the head of the family by her oldest brother, Martin. Catherine repeats Thomas’s invitation. Thomas’s parents move closer as if by instinct. The two families acknowledge each other as fellow church members. Catherine repeats Thomas’s invitation once again. Thomas is slightly unnerved by the sudden importance of his casual invitation. The three parents, already advanced in age being in their fortieth decade, are well disposed to seeing their young adults comfortably matched and accounted for. Suitable matches for Catherine have not been forthcoming as far as her mother is concerned since suitors with the means to buy property and support Catherine in an appropriate manner have not appeared.

Mistress Jadwin states, Thomas is well experienced in this sort of thing having gone with his father on many occasion.

Perhaps Master Thomas then would come over for dinner first, suggests Mistress Pelham, to become more formally acquainted. This is agreed to by all.

On the way home Thomas is lighter than air. He barely hears his mother review certain aspects of the arrangement that might be expected by any Christian young lady. This was simply his mother thinking out loud, her maternal organizing function with which he was so familiar having held the Jadwin family together through good times and bad. Thomas is already weighing what he will or will not talk about with the Pelhams.

CHAPTER 3 

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Before the plague first ravaged London in 1348 the population was approximately fifty thousand and 90 percent of the total population of England lived in the countryside. The population of London at the start of the Tudor reign under Henry VII in 1485 had declined to twenty thousand. Despite the fact that the annual number of live births has not exceeded the numbers of deaths from the plague, the city’s population has now ballooned to two hundred thousand in less than a century, making it the largest city in Europe with the exception of Naples. This population explosion comes from the massive immigration from the once bountiful countryside that now suffers grievously from the wet, cold seasons and the failed harvests, combined with the availability of land in London from the dissolution of church properties.

Unlike Philip of Spain, who is motivated more by spiritual conquest than economic realities and is in a constant state of potential bankruptcy, England’s Elizabeth keeps a tidy purse and lets theology run its own course. Elizabeth can secure rates as low as 5 percent on loans from the bankers at Antwerp; whereas, Philip cannot secure a loan from any European banker regardless of the rate of interest. Philip is supported by the expropriated wealth of the New World, which has caused a massive inflation of Spanish currency. The solid English currency created and backed by Elizabeth has stabilized land rents and local borrowing rates, making it easier for those with property and other assets to plan ahead and sustain businesses. The English business class is doing very well.

In the never-ending challenge to feed burgeoning London, Elizabeth has restored fish days to the calendar in England. Although this reminds people of their recent Catholic past, Elizabeth has not done this in the service of the church, but rather to take some pressure off the demand for mutton and beef. The need for pasturage has increased deforestation, therefore, reducing the availability of wood, in the face of the ever-growing demand for wood for fuel. Fish was already the closest thing to meat that most of the poor would ever see, so Fishmongers such as the Pelhams have done very well in Elizabeth’s economy. They would buy a fishermen’s catch and store it to sell at a profit. The Jadwins have put their excess wealth into real estate; the Pelhams have expanded their warehouse capacity and bought more fish.

On the Wednesday designated for the formal visit, Thomas walks over to Catherine’s house on Battle Bridge Street for dinner at noon. The Pelhams live on the street side of their large house; the backside of the house serves as a warehouse that faces the river. Thomas sounds the knocker on the front door. Catherine’s sister, Hannah, answers the door. Master Thomas. Come in please. Hannah ushers Thomas into the front parlor walking with a limp.

Of Mistress Pelham’s ten births, five have survived. Hannah is lame as a result of a birthing accident. Being unmarriageable Hannah stays with her mother and does what she can to assist her as she becomes increasingly infirm. Hannah is older than Catherine. The eldest daughter, Mary, is married and has moved out into the country with her husband to a house in Vauxhall. Two sons, Martin and Ned, still live with their mother. Martin is married and fills the role of his father in the business. His wife, like his eldest sister, is also named Mary. The younger son, Ned, is a few years younger than Thomas. In the past, Ned had often joined Thomas and tomboy Catherine in their adventures together.

Martin comes into the parlor. Can I pour you a cider? he says without formality. Although he is only two years older, Martin is a serious family man. Ned comes in giving Thomas a boisterous greeting and a smirk. Ned is still a boy, and Catherine currently stands at the center of his attention.

The Pelhams are not given to extended social graces, and Hannah soon announces the meal. Thomas, Martin, and Ned enter the dining area. Mistress Pelham is already seated at the head of the table. Thomas sit here, she gestures to her right hand side. Ned sits next to him, and Martin sits at the opposite end of the table. Martin’s wife sits opposite Ned. Mary greets Thomas. Catherine and Hannah bring out the first round of dishes with the help of a housemaid. Buttered loaves are placed in easy reach, along with stewed oysters and a fresh salad of purslane, Spanish rocket, mustard, and turnip greens with a scattering of chopped leeks over all.

Catherine sits opposite Thomas on the left hand of Mistress Pelham. Hannah sits between Catherine and Martin’s wife. Mistress Pelham asks Martin to grace the meal. All heads bow, and Martin mumbles a well-rehearsed Our Father. Mistress Pelham then turns to Thomas and offers a suggestion. A green salad goes well with a bit of oil and vinegar, she points to the cruets in front of him. Catherine did make the salad, she says pointedly. Thomas smiles and nods to Catherine.

Martin breaks the formality when he states, The staff of life, a bit of fish, and a glass of ale is no longer enough. Now we eat forage that is good for a cow. We be indebted to Henry’s Spanish Queen for this state of affairs. Greens for the Queen! he toasts ironically. Greens had traditionally been the food of the poor in the old English diet.

Thomas fortifies himself with a piece of bread and stabs at the plate of greens in front of him. He is not unfamiliar with eating greens thanks to his mother, but he does recognize some of the greens as forage that his father uses for the beef cattle and the milker during the winter season. In recent years summer has not been long enough to plant, harvest, and cure hay, so his father has been experimenting with turnip greens as winter forage. In any case, the stewed oysters are an old friend, and he readily consumes them.

Some there are who say that the continual eating of flesh, fat, and of sweets is the cause of obstructions to the stomach, foul mouth, and corruption of the teeth and gums, says Mistress Pelham with good sense, if not especially in good taste.

Mother, says Hannah in a censorious tone, construing an indelicacy by the mention of digestion and its problems during the act of consumption.

Give me a well-stewed cod, says Martin returning to his dietary theme.

Thomas remains neutral, nodding and smiling; Catherine smiles and nods. A boiled pike is proudly brought out by the housemaid; salted salmon awaits its turn at the sideboard. Tankards of ale begin to aid the digestion and loosen the tongue.

Such an excellent dinner, says Thomas.

Hannah comments in turn, Master Thomas has a good appetite.

Ned kicks Thomas’s ankle under the table with his heel.

Mistress Pelham turns the conversation to Thomas and his family. Have you no brothers nor sisters then? she asks attempting to recall memories of Thomas’s family at St. Savior’s.

Indeed, I am the only child left of the three given birth by my mother.

Mistress Pelham offers a mannerly note of sympathy. She is positively confirmed in her supposition about Thomas’s sole position on the matter of inheritance. She moves on. Does your father own the tenement on the High Street then?

He does and the out buildings and field at the rear. It was in this field that Thomas, Ned, and Catherine often used to go to play. The smithy is in an outbuilding at the back of the yard. My father also owns another newly built tenement near Bankside, near the Bearbaiting Garden that he lets out to travelers.

With the exception of Catherine and Ned, the other Pelhams look to one another with a positive accord. With the huge increase in population, wages have dropped year by year, and it has been difficult to find a suitor for Catherine who has the prospects of supporting her in the manner that she is used to. Many women must wait until their thirties before they can find a male with sufficient income to raise a family. Many middle-class women never marry at all.

Perhaps your father will retire as a blacksmith and become a landlord some day? Mistress Pelham asks Thomas encouragingly.

Not fully understanding Mistress Pelham’s dislike of his father’s profession, albeit a modest impediment in so far as Thomas’s suit of her daughter is concerned since he is also a landowner, Thomas searches his mind for a suitable answer. Well I do some of the smithing these days that is true. Rightly speaking Mistress, my father is a cutler not a blacksmith, says Thomas. This is a distinction that is important to Thomas since he is a member of the Company of Cutlers through patrimony.

The distinction is lost on Mistress Pelham, and she pushes on, You attended grammar school, did you not, Thomas?

St. Savior’s Grammar School, Mistress. I had to do all my chores early in the morning. In Queen Elizabeth’s England free grammar schools were open to all young males who could read and write and to those who