David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

‘I’ve been reading up on all this stuff, Lord Powerscourt. You have to in my business if you’ve got the time. Very discreetly, of course. I haven’t asked anybody in the Close about it. But I think that all the members of the Chapter who weren’t already Catholics are being received into the faith. Maybe the Archdeacon’s friends are doing them in relays. And they may also be ordaining them as Catholic priests and deacons at the same time. Mass conversion, mass ordination, if you ask me.’

And with that the young man returned to his offices, dreams of fame and glory floating through his brain. Powerscourt was thinking of betrayal, the betrayal by Judas that led to the crucifixion on this day nearly two thousand years before, the betrayal of their religion by all these Anglican priests in the name of a higher calling. He didn’t think it was going to be a very good Friday for Compton.

On the Saturday evening Powerscourt and Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald assembled at Anne Herbert’s house on the edge of the Close. There were notices all over the town advertising the great bonfire due to take place on the Green late that Saturday night. Anne Herbert reported that her father, normally a phlegmatic and reserved individual, had been astonished at the number of people arriving at his station. The number of extra trains was greater than he had ever seen. Every railway worker for miles around was on duty to ensure safe passage for the visitors.

At seven o’clock a team of workmen began building the bonfire that was to be the centrepiece of the night’s attractions. Powerscourt and Patrick Butler watched, fascinated, as cart after cart and wagon after wagon drew up alongside the site.

‘Christ, Patrick,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it’s going to be enormous.’

‘They say in the town,’ Patrick Butler replied, ‘that it’s going be to be the biggest bonfire Compton has ever seen. The wood was ordered from all over the county weeks ago.’

‘I wonder how many heretics you could burn on it when it’s finished,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I doubt if even Bloody Mary herself could have provided enough bodies for it.’

‘Careful how you speak of the Catholic Queen in these parts at this time, Lord Powerscourt. Tomorrow you might be struck down or popped on to the pyre yourself for such blasphemy.’

Powerscourt was thinking about Arthur Rudd, burnt on the spit in the kitchen of the Vicars Hall. He thought of the monk of Compton, burnt to the west of this Cathedral Close in 1538. He had passed a small memorial to his life and death set into a wall during his perambulations round the Close the day before.

From time to time Patrick Butler would dash off into the town or to inspect the building of the bonfire at first hand.

‘He’s like a puppy, really,’ said Anne Herbert affectionately, ‘he just can’t sit still. He has to be running about all the time. Do you think he’ll calm down later on, Lady Powerscourt?’

Lady Lucy laughed. ‘I’m not sure he will, you know. He wouldn’t be Patrick if he wasn’t like that, would he?’

Patrick Butler reported that another pair of carts were approaching the bonfire, bringing not wood but candles. He also reported that the streets of the city were virtually impassable. Shortly after nine o’clock the workmen began erecting a monstrous scaffold, whose peak was almost as high as the top of the bonfire itself. ‘That’s for the Archdeacon to address the crowd,’ said Patrick. ‘God knows if we’re going to get a sermon. I do hope not.’

Powerscourt thought the platform was going to be high enough for Lucifer himself, come to Compton to preside over the flames of hell. At nine thirty the crowd closest to the bonfire fell silent. The silence spread slowly out across the Green until even the tavern opposite the west front, scene of much rowdy merriment throughout the evening, fell silent. It was now completely dark, the spectators by the fire faint shadows from Powerscourt’s vantage point. Four men with blazing torches stood at the corners of the pyre. As if acting on a common signal they touched their flares to the faggots. Then they moved slowly and deliberately round the bonfire until the bottom section was a circle of light in the darkness. Sparks began to fly upwards and outwards, forcing the crowds back. Still the Archdeacon did not mount his scaffold. Powerscourt wondered what would have happened if it had rained. Maybe on this day the Lord their God delivered them the weather they needed.

It was hard to tell at first where the singing came from. Powerscourt stared forwards into the night. He could certainly hear singing, maybe a choir. He could also hear the sound of marching feet. Then he saw it, a great column of men and women coming down Vicars Close and passing not into the cathedral but along the Green and out towards one side of the bonfire. The choir, Powerscourt realized, was hidden in the body of the column, just as Napoleon’s drummer boys were hidden among the Emperor’s armies advancing to secure the destruction of their enemies.

‘Faith of our fathers, living still,’ they sang,

‘In spite of dungeon, fire and sword:

O how our hearts beat high with joy

Whenever we hear that glorious Word!’

As the column, at least a hundred and fifty strong, Powerscourt thought, reached the light of the flames he saw that at the front were two men bearing an enormous banner. It showed a bleeding heart above a chalice in the centre. At the four corners were the pierced hands and feet of the crucified Christ.

‘What on earth is that, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy, standing very close to her husband and feeling just a little frightened.

‘It’s the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, my love. In the Pilgrimage of Grace, the northern revolt against a Protestant England in 1536, it was the chief emblem of the rebels.’

Still the Archdeacon did not climb to his position above the fire. Powerscourt wondered where he was. Perhaps he was in the cathedral, at prayer before his great ordeal. For this was a huge crowd, sections of it maybe rather drunk. It could be difficult to contain, much more difficult than preaching a sermon to the converted.

Then they heard another burst of singing, coming from the other side of the Green. Another column, at least as long as the one from Vicars Close, was approaching the bonfire from the opposite side to the first one. In the vanguard two men were carrying an enormous banner of the Virgin enthroned in glory. They were singing the second verse of the same hymn. People were now moving quickly through the crowd, circulating handbills with the words printed on them so that those unfamiliar with it could sing along.

‘Faith of our fathers we will strive

To win all nations unto Thee:

And through the truth that comes from God

We all shall then be truly free.’

Sections of the crowd were now able to join hesitantly in the refrain.

‘Faith of our fathers, holy faith!

We will be true to thee till death.’

The second column advanced across the Green and stood shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues who had marched down Vicars Close. Still the Archdeacon held his peace. The next column was coming from behind the cathedral. Powerscourt realized that they were advancing from all four points of the compass. The final column would come from behind them and pass right in front of Anne Herbert’s front door. The third column was advancing behind no fewer than five banners. All of them showed the Five Wounds of Christ. They too joined the semicircle around the bonfire. Stewards were moving through the crowd again, handing out candles to the faithful. They started on the side nearest the Vicars Close and a ripple of lights winked up towards the night sky. Fathers with small children on their shoulders peered nervously upwards in case the candle dropped on their heads. And here Powerscourt saw just how carefully the evening had been organized. For the children’s candles were tiny, a fraction of the size of those handed out to the adults. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on a birthday cake.