The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham by Riches Tony

Author:Riches, Tony [Riches, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: WWD
Published: 2014-11-01T16:00:00+00:00

My husband returned to his love of learning once life returned to normal, inviting scholars and philosophers to Bella Court for long discussions and debates. It was at about this time that I was introduced to Thomas Southwell. An eminent doctor of medicine and the Canon of St Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster, he was a close friend of Roger Bolingbroke, who shared his interest in astrology and was knowledgeable about the planets and constellations.

Thomas Southwell was an extremely bright, quietly-spoken and likeable man, always impeccably dressed, with an interesting opinion on everything, so he soon became my personal physician, guide and tutor in the esoteric arts. His one failing was to rarely appreciate the witty remarks of his friend Roger Bolingbroke, who would amusingly often take advantage of this fact. Most interestingly for me, he was always ready to discuss such questions as how the universe came to exist, how it operates and man's place within it. He was also exploring how religion could coexist with the learning and knowledge that had been supressed over the ages.

My curiosity about the magical arts had begun with seeing how Margery Jourdemayne could cure most ailments with her herbs and potions, and the spark that had been kindled by the passion of Friar Randolph now took another turn. My new companions had made a study of a rare and secret handbook Humphrey had procured from astrologers in Germany. I was intrigued at their plan to undertake certain ‘experiments’ to test the truth of the ancient writings.

The book looked disappointingly ordinary when they showed it to me, with a plain brown leather cover, several torn and missing pages and few illustrations. The secret book did not seem to have great age or to have been looked after particularly well. It contained what claimed to be faithful copies of secret astrological and occult arts from ancient times, much of it written in finely printed Latin, with some in Italian. The front part of the book was missing, leaving no details of its author, although some clue to the book’s provenance came from notes in the margins by a Johannes Hartleib, who proved to be a counsellor and advisor to the Duke of Bavaria. These notes were cryptic and in old Germanic script, which Roger Bolingbroke was fortunately able to translate for us.

One of the experiments was supposed to help with gaining favour – and there was one person whose favour I needed more than any other, the young King Henry VI. Now fifteen years old, he was always polite to me, yet I knew it was because my husband had been Regent for as long as he could remember. In truth I suspected his mind had been turned against me by his mother. I had not forgotten that Queen Catherine, a woman of my own age, was Countess Jacqueline’s sister-in-law through her first marriage to the Duke of Touraine, also of the House of Valois. They were close, and I was there when Jacqueline had been godmother to her son, holding the infant king at the font.

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