David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Then they heard the last column. Powerscourt and his party were all out in the front garden by now, staring as if hypnotized at the bonfire. They too had candles in their hands. The hymn was growing louder. Peering into the dark behind the Green Powerscourt saw another banner of the Five Wounds of Christ at the head of the procession. This one had the letters IHS, an abbreviated form of the Greek word for Jesus at the top.

‘Faith of our fathers, we will love,

Both friend and foe in all our strife . . .’

The pilgrims were passing Anne Herbert’s front door, advancing through a waving sea of candles towards the bonfire. Powerscourt doubted if much love had been shown to friend and foe in all the strife in Compton. Three dead bodies was not the greatest tribute to brotherly love.

‘And preach thee too, as love knows how,

By kindly words and virtuous life.’

The column had been intended to continue up the road and then turn left further up where the path led to the west front of the minster. But something, maybe the lights, maybe the noise, made them swing left and head straight across the Green. The crowd parted before them like the waters of the Red Sea, candles making sudden darts to the left and right. As this final column arrived at the bonfire the other three already there joined in the last verse.

‘Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers

Shall win our country back to thee

And through the truth that comes from God

England shall then indeed be free.’

The chorus was deafening. Most of the crowd were holding their candles high above their heads. The fire was burning fiercely. Some of the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ had been stuck in the ground in front of the bonfire, swaying slightly in the light breeze.

‘Faith of our fathers, holy faith!

We will be true to thee till death.’

Then the trumpet sounded. At first nobody could see where the noise was coming from. Then a forest of candles pointed up to the parapet above the west front. Almost lost among the statues of saints and bishops, of Christ enthroned in glory, a young man played one short fanfare. ‘Christ, Francis,’ muttered Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘are we going to have the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding across the sky in a minute?’

‘You never know, Johnny, maybe it’s the name and number of the beast, the whole book of Revelations coming next.’

The minster door opened. Four people bearing enormous candles escorted the Archdeacon to the scaffold. He mounted very slowly. Powerscourt saw that he was wearing the regalia of a Jesuit priest. Presumably these were the clothes that had travelled to Melbury Clinton with him on his furtive and clandestine missions to celebrate Mass. At last he reached the top. Powerscourt noticed that one of his companions, carrying a large bag, had accompanied him and placed the receptacle on a tall table beside him. Really, Powerscourt thought, as the acolyte retreated towards ground level, these people leave nothing to chance. The Archdeacon would not have to grope about at his feet for whatever religious rabbit he wished to pull out of the bag. It was ready by his right hand. They leave nothing to chance. Maybe somebody should ask them to organize Edward the Seventh’s Coronation. The Archdeacon looked very slowly at the great throng beneath him. The crowd was inching closer and closer to the bonfire. He raised his hand very slowly and made the sign of the cross. Then he spoke.

‘ In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, Amen. ’

He paused again. There was an enormous outbreak of cheering. Powerscourt wondered how many of this crowd came from Compton and how many had come in the special trains.

The Archdeacon raised his hand for silence. ‘Brothers and Sisters in Christ,’ he went on, ‘we are gathered here in this time and place to mark a very special anniversary.’ Powerscourt realized why the Archdeacon had been chosen for this particular assignment. He had an extremely powerful voice which carried easily right to the back of the Cathedral Green.

‘Tomorrow,’ he continued, turning slowly so that each section of the crowd could see him in turn, ‘is the one thousandth anniversary of this cathedral as a place of Christian worship.’

There were huge cheers from the crowd. Many of them punched their candles in the air.

‘For nearly six hundred and fifty years the abbey belonged in the bosom of Mother Church, a dutiful servant of Rome.’

Again a mighty roar from the crowd. Many of them were crossing themselves. One or two were kneeling on the ground, eyes closed in prayer.

‘And then, due to the political necessities of the King of England, this church was ripped from its rightful home.’

The men in the first cohort to reach the bonfire had pulled the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ out of the ground and were waving it aloft.

‘Tomorrow,’ the Archdeacon went on, his finger stabbing into the night, ‘we are going to right that wrong. Tomorrow we are going to restore this church to its rightful home in the bosom of the Holy and Apostolic Church! Tomorrow we are going to rededicate this building as a place of Catholic worship! Tomorrow we are going to make the Cathedral of Compton Catholic once again! Tomorrow we shall celebrate Mass here for the first time in three hundred and sixty years!’

At each tomorrow he had pointed dramatically at the minster, the building still dark among the ocean of candles waving at varying heights on Cathedral Green.

‘I have here,’ the Archdeacon pulled a heavy-looking package from his bag, ‘a gift for the cathedral from the Holy Father himself!’ Very slowly the Archdeacon took off the cloth that surrounded the bounty from the Pope.

‘This is an altar stone, a slab that contains the relics of a saint and martyr who gave his life that his country might come back to the true religion!’

The crowd fell silent. Powerscourt wondered if it was a relic of Sir Thomas More.

‘Compton will be graced,’ the Archdeacon went on, ‘with a relic of one of the most illustrious servants of the Church in England. Edmund Campion!’

He waved the slab in the air. There were gasps from the crowd. Powerscourt wondered how many of them knew who Edmund Campion was. He rather suspected that most of them did.

‘At this time of renewal, of rebirth, of Resurrection, it is fitting that we should make a symbolic rupture with the past that deprived England of its true faith and Compton of its true religion! I have here some of the heretical Acts of Parliament that drove an unwilling Compton into the arms of heresy!’

The Archdeacon fished about in his bag once more and produced an ancient scroll, the paper on the front yellow with age.

‘The Act of Annates of 1532 which stole from the Pope the revenue due to him from the bishops of England!’

The Archdeacon held it aloft, turning slowly so that all sections of the crowd could see it properly. Then he hurled it on to the fire. There was a quiet splutter at first, then a brief blaze of light as the Act was turned to ashes. For a second or two the crowd were completely silent. Then there was an enormous cheer.

The Archdeacon was back in his bag again. ‘The Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533 which ratified the sovereignty and independence of the Church of England!’ Another vital piece of Reformation legislation was cast into the flames of hell. There was another burst of applause as the act caught fire.

‘The Second Act of Annates of 1534 which proclaimed the heresy that the King and not the Pope selected the bishops of the Church!’

Again the Archdeacon hurled the scroll into the bonfire. The crowd had found a word they could chant now. Shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang around Cathedral Green.

Now he was bringing laws out two at a time. The Archdeacon held two acts aloft, inciting the crowd with the cry of ‘Further heresy! The Act of Succession of 1534 which pronounced Henry the Eighth’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void! Further heresy! The Act of Supremacy of 1534 which proclaimed that Henry was the only supreme head of the Church of England!’