“The Lady Elizabeth having just completed her fourteenth year, so her tutor writes, all things seem to be turning out for the best. Marvellous to relate, the Princess had abandoned her former excess and turned to occupations more fitting for a lady. Suchlike habits as boxing, climbing, pinching and otherwise maltreating her maids and companions, as well as tormenting and cutting up mice and frogs, seem to have lost most of their attraction for the Princess, who has turned her mind to prayer and the study of holy books ...” – to which the Devil and his followers must have seduced her.
That notwithstanding, I have heard rumours that there have been complaints from Lady Ellinor, the daughter of Lord Huntingdon who is scarce sixteen, that in their play the Princess does sometimes take hold of her with such a hot hand that her private parts are bruised green and blue. On St. Gertrude’s Day past the Lady Elizabeth commanded a pleasure ride in the Forest of Uxbridge and the company streamed without escort over the hills in a wild gallop like a pack of demons, forgetting womanly modestly as if they were accursed heathenish Amazons.
This Lady Ellinor did one day secretly report that the Lady Elizabeth had visited a witch in the said Forest of Uxbridge and had sworn by the blood of Our Lord she would ask the old hag to show her the future, as her ancestor, King Macbeth, had done.
The witch mumbled prophecies and adages to Lady Elizabeth, but she also gave her some foul drink, such as one would imagine a fiendish love potion, which, not regarding the peril to her immortal soul, tis said she drank it. Afterwards the witch gave her the prophecy written down on a parchment; the corpus delicti enclosed will be the witch’s scrawl – of which I can understand not a word, the whole seems to me mere devilish prattle. The parchment is affixed hereto.
All this I have undertaken most humbly in Yr. Lordship’s service and I remain etc”
Signed: ) + ( Secret Agent.
The precise wording of the strip of parchment which the secret agent had attached to his letter to the infamous “Bloody Bishop Bonner” in 1550 was as follows – my cousin, John Roger, added in explanation that it clearly must be a prophecy by the witch of Uxbridge to Elizabeth, Princess, later Queen, of England –:
Parchment Strip
To Gaia, the Black Mother, I put my question; Into the chasm I plunge: full fifty fathoms I fall. Thus saith the Mother: “Thou hast drunk of Thy salvation!”
“Be of good cheer, Elizabeth, Queen,” I hear the Guardian call.
“My potion has the power to loose and to bind:
It sets woman from man apart again.
The body alone is sick, sound is the mind:
The whole will see, if the half be blind;
I shield – I command – I ordain.
The groom I lead to Thy bridal couch:
Become one in the night! Be one to the end of days!
No more divided by the lie of I and Thou!
One body, one blood united in praise!
My draught is a sacrament, making of two the One
That looketh before and behind in the night,
That never shall sleep, eye eternally bright,
In which aeons are but as a day alone.
Be comforted Elizabeth, Queen, be of good cheer:
The Black Crystal is freed from the Mother!
Take this as a token for England’s broken crown, saith the seer:
Soon shall its sundered halves conjoin with one another.
For Thee, and for the Lord of the silver spring
Gushing from the roots of the blossoming tree,
The furnace awaits, and wedlock’s ring:
‘When ancient worth’s renewed, and gold to gold doth cling,
Then shall the riven crown again united be.’ ”
The following postscript from the secret agent was attached to the witch’s parchment strip. It briefly reports the capture and imprisonment of the ringleader of the Ravenheads, the “Bartlett Greene” mentioned in the letter to Bishop Bonner. Its text runs as follows:
Postscriptum: the Monday following the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord, 1550.
“Bartlett Greene’s band of outlaws has been cut down and he himself captured; he was unwounded, which seemed a sheer miracle, the skirmish was fought with such ferocity. Now lies this rogue, brigand and arch-heretic in strong chains, tied over and over, guarded day and night that none of the demons that do look on him, not even his Mistress, Black Isaïs, may free him from them. Thrice the Apage Satanas has been said over the locks that bind him and most liberally has holy water been sprinkled on them. – –
I do now most fervently pray to the Lord that the prophecy of Saint Dunstan may be fulfilled and that he that instigated the desecration – perchance the said John Dee? – shall be pursued with torments until he meets his deserved end. Amen!”
Signed ) + ( Secret Agent
Once more I take a bundle of papers at random from the legacy of my cousin, John Roger, and I can see immediately that it is a diary of our common ancestor, Sir John Dee. It is related to the letter of the secret agent, that is obvious, and comes from almost the same year. The text runs as follows:
Fragments from the diary of Sir John Dee of Gladhill, beginning with the day of the celebration following the award of the degree of Master of Arts.
The Feast of St. Anthony, 1549.
... of Arts we shall sup mightily like good Christian gentlemen. The brightest spirits of Old England will shine – at least their foreheads and noses will! But I will show them all who is the master!
... o cursed day! O accursed night! – – – No! – o blessed night, I trust. – The quill does scratch most miserably, my hand is still drunk, yes, drunk! – But my mind? As clear as clear! Yet again: take thee to thy bed, thou cur, and do not presume! – One thing
