A Stormy Life
A Novel (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Stormy Life: A Novel

On the 10th day of the month of April of the year 1445, the maids of honor of the Queen, of which she who writeth this was one, were conducted by their mistress, the Lady de Scales, to the Goddeshouse at Portsmouth, there to await her majesty's landing - a goodly set of maidens, of which only one, in her own thinking at least, was a disparagement to the rest. The Queen's arrival was somewhat delayed by reason of a foul wind, which such as were not well pleased that the king's majesty should wed the French king's niece called a good English breeze; but we her grace's servants turned bedeswomen in those days, and said many hundred Aves for it to change; and with a yet greater fervor when we beheld our lodgings at the hospital, the chambers of which were built only with planks, very homely, and not clean, and the pallets we had to lie on and the cheer provided for us exceeding mean. Verily the religious house where we had slept the night before at Holy Cross was a palace to this one. The cold was likewise so sharp, that some of our company shivered as if they had the ague, until a large brazier was set in the midst of the hall, around which we gathered like moths about a candle.

When the pleasant warmth had comforted their frozen limbs, the wits of the damsels began to brighten also, and their tongues to wag; mostly at first touching the groans of the roaring wind and the rain, which was falling through the chimney and wetting the floor. One said that a vessel had been seen not very far off the coast which was thought to be the Queen's ship; but that it was not like to come into port that day, the gale being too strong.

"There are folks so unmannerly as to praise this ill-natured weather which keeps the French Queen from landing," said Mistress Allianor Daubeney, shaping her small mouth as if she feared her words should issue from it too fast.

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