James Forrester - Final Sacrament

About ten minutes after the bells of the city had chimed the hour, Thomas saw the Tyburn cart crossing Holborn Bridge. It had high sides, solid wooden wheels, and was pulled by two chestnut horses. Six guards accompanied it, all armed with halberds. Not many people had gathered to watch it go past, not here. Most knew the fate of the six men and three women standing inside it; they would have presumed that the condemned were thieves and murderers, to be pointed out to children as examples. One or two onlookers shouted a curse or an insult as the cart passed them; most, however, were unmoved by the sight of the men and women on their way to execution. It was just another one of the city’s routines.

Clarenceux stepped out from his waiting place by St. Andrew’s and started to walk behind the cart. “Sir John, remember that God is with you, and the goodness you have done in His name will never be forgotten, and that you are in our hearts,” he called in a loud voice.

Men and women stopped what they were doing and stared at him. For a moment there was amazement that anyone-not least a gentleman-would dare speak openly to one of the criminals in the cart. But there was no doubting that that was exactly what Clarenceux was doing; his voice was trained to carry and he was using it to good effect.

Three of the guards stopped and rounded on him; they leveled their halberds at him. “Silence, you! Do not speak to the prisoners,” shouted one, as the cart continued on its way.

They resumed their positions and likewise Clarenceux resumed his, following the cart. “God be with you, Sir John,” he called. “Tonight you will dine at the right hand of the Lord Jesus. The food of Heaven will be sweet-sweeter by far than the bitterness that people-”

The first clod of earth hit him, shortly followed by the second. “Shame on you, Papist!” yelled a woman. A man with a tall, black hat confronted Clarenceux, trying to stop him from following the cart. “Do you want to hang too?” he demanded. “Show some sense, go home.” But Clarenceux simply moved around him, to the other side of the road, close to where Thomas was standing. The guards backed away cautiously, watching him.

Thomas waited as the cart rumbled past the end of Fetter Lane. Never had nine men and women looked more pitiful, he thought. Two prisoners were on their knees-he could see their faces through the side of the cart. Two women were embracing each other. The others just stood with their hands bound, leaning against the wooden side of the cart as it lurched over the uneven road. Sir John alone stood proud in the middle, his head shaved.

“Behold, you, the living! You, the complacent living!” Sir John’s voice rang out. “There is still one good man among you. One man of courage, one man of goodness. Do not pray for me; I go to meet my Maker. Pray for him-the good man, the man of conscience! Pray for yourselves, in your viperish and self-consuming sin! Pray for your redemption from the evil that you do in God’s name!”

For a moment Thomas lost sight of Clarenceux amid the gathering crowd. Then he heard his master’s unmistakable voice singing “ Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi. ” Clarenceux was on the far side of the street, about fifty feet behind the prisoners. The guards had their halberds leveled at him and were walking backward, trying to keep pace with the cart, but they were no longer trying to push him away. They did not know what to do. They were irritated and confused. “ Miserere nobis ,” Clarenceux sang, before repeating, “ Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi. ”

Thomas hurried across the street, ready to protect his master. Clarenceux was singing part of the Latin Mass-“O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”-and the next line would end with the words dona nobis pacem : “give us peace.” It was threatening in its purity and its irony. He was striding more freely now, committed to his protest. More mud hit him. A gentleman in a fine silk waistcoat and doublet tried to have words with him. Clarenceux pushed him away, still singing.

At the top of Chancery Lane, more people started to gather. Still Clarenceux went on singing-and in chanting the Agnus Dei he was joined by several of those in the cart, who, even if they did not know who he was, realized that he was singing it for them, and making a spectacle of himself for them, in defiance of the guards and the crowd. On they went, still singing the Agnus Dei , and when they passed the grounds of Lincoln’s Inn, where the road left the houses and there were fields on both sides, the sound of the singing seemed to be stronger. People paid no attention to the prisoners but cajoled and cursed Clarenceux, accusing him of wanting to let murderers kill innocent people and Catholics assassinate the queen; but few followed the cart very far. When it approached the village of St. Giles in the Fields, only six people were still following. Clarenceux was one, Thomas another, and the other four were also singing the Agnus Dei .

No one in the parish of St. Giles challenged the protesters, although the people in the high road looked askance at them. The guards did not bother them either, their halberds back on their shoulders. The prisoners took heart from this and continued singing through St. Giles and beyond, out along the road that led to Tyburn. But here the four men with Clarenceux fell away and returned to their own business. Thomas stayed with him, walking alongside, watching out. People going to Tyburn to see the execution caught up with them and then hurried on, often shouting an insult as they went. Washerwomen in the fields briefly stopped laying out their laundry and stared. But as the men and women in the cart saw how near they were to Tyburn, their singing turned to fearful wailing. One of the women began to scream hysterically. Sir John turned and tried to comfort her, and when she paid him no heed, he tried to rouse the others to sing again, but their hearts were not in it. They were people who preferred the tavern to the pulpit and had no wish to go to their deaths singing part of the old Mass. Those walking to the place of execution continued to shout abuse at the condemned as they passed the cart. Then even Clarenceux fell silent, simply repeating, “Hail, Mary, mother of God,” as he walked.

There were more than a thousand people gathered at Tyburn. It was the first of several law days in the city, and it had been some weeks since the last jail delivery, so those looking for some gruesome entertainment had all turned up early, hoping to secure the best view. As the cart drew nearer to the gallows, the distress of the prisoners became more extreme. Thomas saw there were children in the crowd: a boy of about nine was playing with a dog, and a young girl was chasing another child between the standing onlookers. He heard joyful shouts and saw a young woman being lifted into the air by a group of young men. Around him came careless shrieking, insults, and the singing of rude songs. He saw the face of a man in a leather jerkin who, realizing he had been swindled, lashed out at the coney-catcher who had tricked him. There was a woman being lasciviously kissed by a man at the back of the crowd, his hands groping her breasts. “Surely the Hell to which the most miserable sinner is condemned is no worse than this,” Clarenceux shouted to Thomas. But then the crowd surged forward. The people were not angry; they were singing and dancing and gesticulating and laughing, shouting jokes and throwing mud at the prisoners simply for the sport of seeing if they could hit them. The cries of the prisoners and the screams of a woman only made them laugh more, and the guards had to fend them off with their halberds.

Within a few seconds, Clarenceux, Thomas, and the cart were engulfed. The cart was almost stationary now with the press of the onlookers. Thomas tried to keep as close to Clarenceux as he could but it was difficult in the festive, jeering crowd. The six halberd bearers were assisted by a dozen soldiers who had been waiting at the gallows since early that morning, but it was all the guards could do to keep the crowd from climbing onto the cart. Thomas hoped that Clarenceux would back off, but he did not. Instead he pushed forward to seize hold of the back of the cart, and held on to it all the way to the gallows.