Blanche Heriot - Synopsis

Synopsis

Blanche Heriot is a young woman, living in Chertsey during the Wars of the Roses. The story is set in May 1471.

Blanche has a lover, Neville Audley, who has been away in the wars, fighting for the Lancastrians. He returns to Chertsey with a price on his head and is intent on fleeing to the Continent. However, he is apprehended by Yorkist soldiers in Chertsey. He kills one soldier and a dog and flees to Chertsey Abbey, seeking sanctuary.

Neville, however, is arrested and sentenced to die at curfew the next day. A mutual friend of Blanche and Neville, Herrick Evenden, agrees to take a token (a ring given to Neville by a nobleman from the Yorkist side for sparing his life) to London to call in the favour and spare Neville's life. With only five minutes to go before curfew bell will toll, Herrick is seen approaching Laleham ferry, half a mile distant, on his return from London. Realising that Neville's life depends on her delaying the curfew, Blanche runs to the bell tower and ascends the old stairs. She crouches down beneath the bell and clings onto the clapper. Despite being dashed against the bell and frame, she holds on until the sexton (accompanied by soldiers) decides to climb the tower to investigate. Just then, Herrick Evenden arrives with a pardon for Neville. Following his release, a party ensues at the local hostelry, and Neville and Blanche are married shortly afterwards.

Albert Smith completes the story with a reference to the motto written around the band of the Curfew Bell "Ora mente pia pro nobis, Virgo Maria". This refers to the bell which is now hung as the fifth bell in the ring of eight at the parish church, St. Peter's, in Chertsey and which was cast circa 1310 and re-cast circa 1380 for Chertsey Abbey by the Wokingham founders who were linked to the Abbey. On the Dissolution of Chertsey Abbey in July 1537, it was moved to the parish church.