D. Wilson: The First Horseman

Now they had to make the best of a bad job. That meant arranging a fake hanging. They cleaned the body and put a fresh shirt on it. Then they removed Hunne’s sash, formed a noose for his neck, hoisted him up and tied the other end of their makeshift rope to the hook in the wall. They tidied up the cell as best they could but were so anxious to get away that they bungled the job badly. The stool the suicide was supposed to have used was placed upon the bed. His bloodstained coat was left lying in a dark corner. There was more blood on the floor. And in their zeal to make everything appear as normal as possible, the criminals carefully extinguished the candle that Hunne would have had to have used in order to fix the rope to hang himself. The coroner’s jury could not fail to draw from all the evidence that Richard Hunne had been murdered.

While a search was instigated for the culprits, news of the atrocity gripped the capital. There were demonstrations of citizens, calling for justice against the clergy. The bishop and his accomplices were now so deeply mired that they could only press on in defiance of the evidence and the court proceedings. At a hastily convened tribunal, Hunne was posthumously declared a heretic, his body was duly burned and his goods confiscated, thus reducing his wife and children to penury.

It was late by the time I finished reading. I fell, fully clothed, upon my bed and extinguished the candle. My mind was still in a whirl. That was when the nightmares began.

The dreams that invaded my sleep over the next few nights became so persistent that I scarcely dared close my eyes. The details varied but the main elements were constant. I was lying on the bed in the Lollards’ cell, unable to move or cry out. Hideous, distorted faces leered down at me. They were chanting, chanting, chanting and my silent screams could not drown their monotonous, tuneless formula: exitus acta probat, exitus acta probat, exitus acta probat!

For two or three days I wrestled with a pressing, unwanted inevitability. An accusing conscience insisted that, whatever well-meaning friends might advise, whatever Lord Cromwell might order, whatever dangers might threaten, that which I had begun I had to finish. God in heaven knows I tried to stop my ears to that nagging inner voice. I immersed myself in work. I refused to think about murderers and heretics and Bibles and when such subjects thrust their way into my mind I told myself that I had already done more than enough to avenge my friend.

Pragmatism would probably have won out in the end had it not come under attack, not only from my conscience but also from a very pronounced change of mood in the City. Locke was right. The anonymous pamphlet had stirred up virulent anti-clericalism. There was always an undercurrent of ill-feeling towards the senior clergy among the mercantile community but now the hostility was almost tangible. In every tavern, alehouse and marketplace, people were talking about the fresh revelations concerning the old Hunne case. Even Cromwell benefited from the change of attitude. People who had grumbled about the New Learning and its impact on their traditional activities now applauded the minister’s initiative in bringing the overmighty ecclesiastical establishment to heel. Robert’s murder offered proof that the arrogant and power-hungry senior clergy had not changed in the twenty or so years since they had done to death another respected London merchant. Thus it was that the conviction grew that I could not remain inactive; that I had a public duty to expose the crimes of the Incents and their accomplices. Perhaps I was being called to play a significant role in bringing about real reform.

As I brooded on this I could see only one way to achieve my objective. There was no one from whom I could obtain fresh evidence. The Seagraves might know something but if I approached them Cromwell would undoubtedly hear of it and exercise a firm veto. Doggett undoubtedly possessed the information I desired but I could see no way to obtain his cooperation. If Incent was to be delivered up to the magistrate, it would have to be with the support of his own confession. Slowly I put together a plan — admittedly desperate — to obtain his signature to such a document.

While I was still pondering this initiative, a messenger called with an unexpected letter. It read:

Master Treviot, be assured of my right hearty commendations.

Please be advertised that I have today had the pleasure to call upon Mistress Packington. Being in Westminster for the great council summoned by His Majesty’s Vicegerent in Spirituals, I took the opportunity to visit the lady in hope to bring her some comfort after the tragic loss of her husband. She received me graciously and was, I think, somewhat solaced by memories I shared with her of that fine gentleman. It was the lady’s wish that I might call upon you and impart to you my recollections of conversations between Master Packington and myself as we came together from Antwerp into England and of our subsequent correspondence. These presents are to desire you to agree your conformity and goodwill thereunto.

I pray you, Master Treviot, indicate by the present bearer if it might please you to give me welcome, as I trust it shall.

Fare you well and the Holy Trinity have you in safe keeping.

Gabriel Donne †

From Westminster, this thirteenth day of January, 1536*

I sent word back inviting Donne to dine the following day. I also despatched a letter to Ned, asking him to join us. He would, I thought, enjoy meeting a fellow monastic and he might be able to help me understand Abbot Donne’s point of view.

The kitchens were pressed to provide a good table for my honoured guest. As it was a Friday and, therefore, a fast day, I had my cook scour the stalls in Fishmongers’ Row. The result was that I was able to set before my visitors oysters, stuffed trout, pike in a pastry crust and a supply of my best Rhenish. Ned, always a stickler for punctuality, arrived just as Paul’s clock was striking noon but he was soon followed by the abbot, attended by two of his cowled acolytes. Donne was a tall spare man whose bald head provided little evidence of the tonsure that had once surmounted it. When we were seated at table in the parlour and the servants had withdrawn, my guests made relaxed conversation about life in the cloister. Only when Ned introduced that subject which, as I knew, was dear to his heart did Donne betray hesitation.

‘Does His Majesty intend to close all the remaining houses?’ Ned asked.

‘Well, he is restoring some of the abbeys closed in the North, at the request of good Christian men there,’ Donne replied, ‘so I hardly think he is intent on putting an end to the religious life.’

‘Is that not merely a bone thrown to the rebels to quiet them?’ I asked.

‘I prefer to think better of my king than that,’ the abbot said, in a tone of mild reproof. ‘There is no doubt that the system is in need of overhaul. Much of the rigour has gone out of cloister life. Numbers have fallen. Standards have dropped. Discipline wavers. You must have seen this, Brother Ned — I shall insist on calling you “Brother” — else would Farnfield not have closed voluntarily.’

Ned stabbed with his knife at a morsel of pastry. ‘’Tis a hard road, I grant you. Some embark upon it who lack the stamina. Others of us, I think, are placed there to test our faith.’ He stared down at his trencher. ‘We are called to love God only and we take the cowl because that is what we dearly wish. If our love is ever diverted from God to… others, then we cannot sustain our high calling.’

‘And that was the case at Farnfield?’ Donne probed.

‘Perhaps. To my mind, Master Secretary’s visitors collected a little mud and built with it a tower of bricks.’