David Dickinson: Death of a Chancellor

Still the bells rang out on this wet and windy afternoon. High up on the roof the crows, regular attendees, if not actually confirmed members of the Church of England, added their raucous tribute to the dead. Powerscourt was looking at the military colours of the local regiment that hung in the north transept and thinking about the dead Queen, in whose armies he had served, and in whose service he had seen too many lay down their lives. He looked around the congregation, late arrivals filling up the last few pews right at the back of the cathedral. How many, he wondered, in this great throng, come to pay their last respects to a different person, how many could remember a monarch other than Victoria? He certainly couldn’t. As he looked across the tightly packed pews on the other side of nave, he thought six or seven persons might remember the reign of William the Fourth. Victoria had seen her island kingdom rise from being an important power to the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Powerscourt had not been the only person in Europe and North America to wonder if the Boer War in South Africa might seem in future years to have marked the slow beginning of that empire’s end. And now there was a new King, Edward the Seventh. Powerscourt tried desperately to recall who Edward the Sixth had been. Was he warrior or wastrel, playboy or saint? Dimly he remembered that Edward the Sixth had been an ardent Church reformer, sandwiched between Henry the Eighth and Bloody Mary, eager to force the Protestant religion on a reluctant people. Maybe Compton Minster had its own martyrs to the zealotry of the Reformation. He struggled further back to earlier Edwards, Confessor and Hammer of the Scots.

The bells stopped. The entire congregation turned to look as the body of the former Chancellor, John Eustace, was carried into the cathedral. Six pallbearers, three staff from Fairfield Park led by Andrew McKenna, and three vergers from the cathedral, all clad in black, bore the coffin in a slow procession behind the choir and three members of the Chapter. A junior vicar carried a large silver cross in front of the Dean and the Bishop.

Powerscourt suddenly remembered walking round one of England’s finest cathedrals with his father years before on one of their rare trips from Ireland to England, Wells had it been, or Gloucester, and his father explaining to him the different roles of the various dignitaries. The Bishop in spiritual authority over every priest and every parish in his diocese. The Dean responsible for the administration and running of the cathedral. The Chancellor, secretary to the Chapter and responsible for the archives and the famous cathedral library. The Precentor in charge of the music and the organist and the choirmaster, the two posts often held by one man. The Archdeacon the link between the cathedral and the work of the Bishop in the diocese. Powerscourt remembered his father taking particular pleasure as they watched a vicious game of croquet in the gardens of the Bishop’s Palace where all the players were in dog collars. ‘The Church Militant rather than the Church Spiritual,’ his father had said as a red ball disappeared off the lawn into the Bishop’s rose-beds.

The little procession was passing Powerscourt now, the pallbearers straining to keep in step, always fearful that one of them might slip and drop the dead man to the ground. The coffin was laid on a table in the centre of the choir. If he strained his neck right out to one side, Powerscourt could just see the side of it through the screen. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ the Dean had a strong tenor voice, well able to fill the great spaces around him, ‘and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.’

The choir began to sing the 60th Psalm, ‘Lord thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another.’ Powerscourt looked around again at the mourners. They were not, on the whole, the rich of Grafton though there were many who had turned out in fashionable clothes. These, he thought, must be the respectable middle classes of Compton, shopkeepers, teachers, lawyers with whom John Eustace had come in contact. Patrick Butler was eyeing the congregation too, wondering if there were any more advertisers he could lure into taking space in his memorial issue to Queen Victoria. Anne Herbert was sitting beside him, fretting about his restless staring up and down the nave.

The congregation sang ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Lead Kindly Light’ by John Henry Newman. The Bishop read one lesson, the Archdeacon of Compton the other. Then the acolyte with the silver cross preceded the Dean to the pulpit. The congregation settled themselves noisily in their hard pews to hear him.

Connoisseurs of the sermons of the dignitaries of Compton Minster had long ago noted that the Bishop, although a considerable scholar in the Gospels of the New Testament, always preached from texts in the Old Testament. He would tell the stories of the ordeals of the Children of Israel against Philistines and Gideonites, Danites and Ammonites, Benjamites and Schechemites, and Keilites and Amalekites. There were often some bloodthirsty battles. There was, usually, triumph and victory for the Israelites, after many hardships along the way. Thus, the Bishop would always conclude, does the Lord of Hosts finally triumph over the enemies of his chosen people. The Dean, the connoisseurs noted rather sourly, always tried to bring in some references to the latest theological thinking when he preached. Neither the connoisseurs nor the congregation cared for the latest theological thinking. They preferred the older theological thinking, many feeling that the world would be a better place if everybody still believed every word of the creation story in the Book of Genesis. The Chancellor seldom preached, but his sermons were always mercifully short. He would speak of the transcendent importance and power of God’s love, a love handed down to his servants in so many forms, love of parents to children, love of children to parents, love of husband to wife, wife to husband, love of the natural world created for God’s glory.

‘My text for today,’ the Dean began, peering out at his congregation over the tops of his glasses, ‘comes from the fifth verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel According to St Matthew. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ The connoisseurs had not heard this sermon before. It must be a new one, specially composed for the occasion, rather than an old one revamped. Powerscourt looked closely at the Dean, a tall strong figure of a man, with powerful hands which turned the pages of his sermon.

‘It is now twelve years since John Eustace came to this cathedral as Chancellor,’ the Dean went on, ‘and I can still remember his first meeting with the full Chapter of this cathedral as if it were yesterday. He was slightly shy. He was invariably courteous. He did not push himself forward. That meekness, which shall inherit the earth, was a constant in his behaviour with his colleagues in all the years he graced the minster with his presence.’

Patrick Butler was wondering if he should reprint the Dean’s sermon in his next issue. Depends on how long it is, he said to himself. Patrick didn’t think the Dean would approve if his words were cut. Powerscourt was remembering the words of the Latin tag. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Speak only good about the dead. And then he remembered the impious adaptation given by his Cambridge tutor after attending the funeral service for a famously unpopular professor, De mortuis nil nisi bunkum. People only speak rubbish about the dead.

‘One of the definitions of the word meek in the Oxford Dictionary,’ the Dean went on, ‘is kind. To be meek is to be kind. Meek is merciful. To be meek is to be merciful. John Eustace was famous throughout our little city for his generosity. He was a man blessed with great wealth. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Chancellor Eustace had already inherited a large portion of the wealth of this world. Such people do not always take the time or the trouble to seek out the hungry and the afflicted, the poor and the bereaved. John Eustace did. Our late Chancellor was one of the greatest benefactors the poor of Compton have ever known. The houses he had built for the poor and the destitute of this city will be a permanent memorial to his life and his generosity.’