A warm September wind swept gently across the sloping field, rippling the golden stalks of wheat and bowing clumps of scarlet paper-thin poppy heads.

Cicely lay, bronzed and bare-armed amidst this quiet solitude, her rough cotton tunic billowing out around her in the breeze. A worn scythe at her feet. She leant across to glance at her young son Walter, sleeping peacefully beside her on the upturned hay cart, the breeze ruffling the collar of his woven smock and long chestnut curls.

She inhaled the peaceful tranquillity of this precious safe haven. A distant church bell rang out, echoing through the surrounding wild flower meadows and spinneys. A hidden woodland spring trickled and winked in the sunlight. Swallows swooped and wheeled overhead as she craned her neck to look upward, but was suddenly jolted upright by the sharp pain across her back. Tears pricked her warm hazel eyes as sadness once again struck at her weary heart. 

As the mellow sun slipped behind a bank of drifting Cumulous clouds, her feelings of fear and solitude returned. It cast a looming shadow over the late Summer sky and she reached out to cradle her child.

Her mind wandered  back to the time of her escape and what had brought it about two long years ago.

The heavy thundering hooves of the Kings’ horses broke the silence on that cold Winters midnight of 1536. Damp,icy stillness across the dark Wolds shattered with hoarse shouts and flaming wooden torches. She woke to the shrieks of Beth, her mother and father Griff’s  gruff calls. The battered down oak door and smashed window panes were but preludes to the butchery Cromwell’s henchmen visited upon her family that bleak and bloody night.  Her Father and husband Will  bludgeoned and bundled off for their alleged parts in’ “The Uprising”. Mother and daughter left beaten and bruised as they pleaded in vain for their loved ones. The muffled cries from baby Walter, hastily hidden in the old well, drowned out by the commotion above ground. 

 “You can’t stay here Cecily my girl, not you and the baby ,”  Beth had announced at first light as she dragged herself wearily across the gutted kitchen.“ 

“They’ll be back as they’ve done before, searching for your father’s banner. That’s all the proof they need. If they find it then there’s no hope for any of us. The gallows for Griff and Will. Starvation  and worse for us and young Walter.”

Her mother promised to seek out safe shelter for herself in the neighbouring settlements sympathetic to the cause but as yet undisturbed. She couldn’t risk holding onto the one piece of evidence that would confirm the family’s involvement in the recent unrests in their native Lincolnshire.  Having retrieved the worn woven cloth from its hiding place beneath the cracked kitchen flagstones, she wrapped it securely around the sleeping baby before swaddling him in his woollen sheepskin wrap.

“They won’t stop to search a newborn’ but you need to keep moving,”Beth cautioned.

“Stay in the woodlands as far as Pike’s cottage and then take the hidden coastal path. Aunt Meg will be waiting out by the sheep folds. Silas rode out to her after they’d all gone.

Cecily listened with a heavy heart, taking the few meagre provisions Beth placed in her hands. She had milk enough for her baby. Carefully placing him in the woven sling about her sore shoulders, she unhooked Will’s wooden crook from the wall and turned to face her mother. Tears blinded them as they gripped each other in a last farewell. Walter yawned as Beth bent to kiss his cradled cheeks. 

 Will this be the last time I’ll ever see my mother ?  she thought dejectedly as she slowly made her way from the ruined farmstead. A weary and worrying journey lay ahead. Poor farm girl, and now a young married mother, both having rarely ventured further than this small patch of land. She was heading out into the unknown. In her safekeeping, a son not three months old, and a concealed item, so dangerously incriminating, it could prove tragic for them all.

For two days she tramped through dense forests on her journey, avoiding the muddy, deeply rutted lanes along the way.  She glimpsed distant isolated hamlets, burnt-out and still bearing the scars of the King’s barbarous incursions.Trails of black smoke singeing the cold air. Cecily held her precious bundle very close as she navigated the treacherous tracks that hugged the rugged coastline, stooping to shelter in the gorse-covered caves only to rest briefly and suckle her infant son.  Her painful injuries a stark reminder of that dreadful night.                          

Meg was waiting expectantly on the edge of the windswept fields.  Her slight frame wedged between the broad backs of the woolly sheep, as she beckoned earnestly to the distant figure of her neice slowly emerging from a stone gulley on the farthest side from the rough enclosures. 

“You’re safe here both of you “ Meg embraced Cecily warmly and cradled a crying Walter in the folds of her thick woven shawl. A welcoming fire blazed in the iron grate of her solid stone cottage as Cecily sat hungrily devouring the thick broth placed before her.

“But the banner must be returned to Louth “ she added warily, motioning to the cloth lying limp and torn by the hearthside.

A week later Cecily set out by herself from the cottage, leaving Walter gurgling contentedly in the small wooden cot Meg had prepared. The banner lay safely hidden under the folds of her thick woollen kirtle. She rode with Meg’s sons over the next two days as they took the shorn fleeces to market. 

Alone, she stepped silently into the church, placing the threadbare cloth at the foot of the altar before stooping to pray. Cecily knew little of the uprising but was certain in her understanding that this red banner was carried by the rebels in their” Pilgrimage of Grace,” displaying the wounds suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross. It signified the suffering of all Catholics as they protested against the upheavals brought about by King Henry VIII and the policies of Thomas Cromwell. For this she had lost her family.

Cecily and Walter stayed with Meg in the safety of this remote area .Only the whineying of the ploughing Shire horses and the bleating of new young lambs disturbed the solitude.The quiet, sheltered hills and vales proved a welcome refuge where she could wander freely and in peace. She baked, sewed and helped with the daily chores around the cottage, minding the sheep out on the open pastures when Nicholas and Joseph were busy mending the enclosures. Walter grew and thrived over the months, no longer the sickly, frail baby he’d once been. He grew sturdily, following the waddling goslings and chicks with his own tentative steps. Although she kept herself busily occupied, the pain of losing both parents and husband in such tragic circumstances stayed with Cecily. She and Meg wept openly at times.

The anguish Cecily felt about the fate of these men was often unbearable. She later found out that, along with many others rounded up at that harrowing time, they  had been executed on the King’s orders. Whole families faced persecution and death.

She was indeed lucky to escape with her child. Beth, having sought refuge with neighbours, was again caught up in further atrocities in the Spring of 1537.

               But Cecily’s escape was now complete.

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