The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [116]
The fifteenth century had not been a happy period for the English. Their triumph over the French at Agincourt had not lasted long before that extraordinary figure Joan of Arc, with her mystical visions, had inspired the French to kick the English out again. By the middle of the century when the long drawn-out conflict of the Hundred Years War finally ended, the conflict had become costly and trade had suffered. Then had followed the generation of dispute between the two branches of the royal house, York and Lancaster. If these so-called Wars of the Roses were a series of feudal battles rather than a civil war, they did nothing to promote law and order in the countryside. With civil disorder and land rents falling, it was not surprising if the royal mints, as they have always done when the treasury is empty, clipped the coinage. And although some efforts had been made in recent years to improve its value, Henry Totton was quite right in saying that good English coinage was hard to find. Trade therefore, whenever possible, was carried on in the strongest currency, which was usually foreign.
Henry Totton quietly explained all this to his son. ‘Those ducats, Jonathan,’ he concluded, ‘are what we really need. Do you understand?’ And Jonathan nodded his head, even though he was not truly sure whether he did or not.
‘Good,’ the merchant said and gave the boy an encouraging smile. Perhaps, he thought, since Jonathan was in a receptive mood, he would touch upon the question of ports.
Few subjects were dearer to his heart. For a start, there was the whole question of the great Staple port of Calais and its huge financial dealings. And then, of course, there was the vexed question of Southampton. Perhaps, he considered, he would explain Calais first, today.
‘Father?’
‘Yes, Jonathan?’
‘I was thinking. If I stay away from Alan Seagull, I can still play with Willie, can’t I?’
Henry Totton stared at him. For a moment he scarcely knew what he could say. Then he shrugged in disgust. He couldn’t help it.
‘I’m sorry, Father.’ The boy looked crestfallen. ‘Shall we go on?’
‘No. I think not.’ Totton looked down at the coins he had spread on the table, then out of the window at the street. ‘Play with whom you like, Jonathan,’ he said quietly, and waved him away.
‘You should see it, Dad!’ Willie Seagull’s face was shining as he helped his father, who was mending a fishing net.
It had been the very next morning after Totton had had his conversation with his son that Jonathan had taken Willie Seagull into his house for the first time.
‘Was Henry Totton there?’ the mariner broke off his humming to enquire.
‘No. Just Jonathan and me. And the servants, Dad. They have a cook and a scullion, and a stable boy and two other women …’
‘Totton’s got money, son.’
‘And I never knew, Dad – those houses, they don’t look so wide at the front, but they go back so far. Behind the counting house, there’s this great big hall, two floors high, with a gallery down the side. Then there’s more rooms at the back.’
‘I know, son.’ Totton’s was a very typical merchant’s house, but young Willie had never been in one before.
‘There’s this huge cellar. Whole length of the house. He’s got all sorts of stuff down there. Barrels of wine, bales of cloth. He’s got sacks of wool, too. There’s boatloads of it. And then’, Willie went on eagerly, ‘there’s this attic under the roof, big as the cellar. He’s got sacks of flour and malt, and God knows what up there.’
‘He would have, Willie.’
‘And outside, Dad. I never realized how long those gardens are. They go from the street all the way to the lane at the back of the town.’
The layout of the Lymington burgage plots followed a pattern very typical in English medieval towns. The street frontage was sixteen and a half feet wide – the measure known as the rod, pole or perch. This was chosen because it was the standard width of the basic ploughing strip of the English common field. A strip two hundred and twenty yards long was called a furlong