David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

The Archdeacon held the second act high above his head. ‘This was the Act that led to the death of saint and martyr Sir Thomas More!’

Then he threw the two Acts on to the pyre to join the earlier cornerstones of Henry’s Reformation. A great chant of Heresy! Heresy! Heresy! rang out among the crowd. Powerscourt wondered if they might get out of control. Lady Lucy was holding on to him very tightly. But the Archdeacon wasn’t finished yet. He pulled another ancient scroll out of his bag.

‘Yet further heresy!’ he called out to the crowd. ‘The Act for the Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries of 1536! The Act that destroyed hundreds of faithful Christian houses, devoted to the service of their communities and to the worship of God! To the flames with it!’

Again he cast it into the fire. This time the Act stuck at the very top of the pyre. For a moment or two nothing happened. The crowd held their breath. Was this a sign from God? Was this one not going to burn? Then there was a loud whoosh as the flames took hold. Once more the shout of Heresy! Heresy!, sounding rather like a battle cry now, rose above Cathedral Green.

The Archdeacon had one Act left. He held it aloft and turned slowly on his scaffold so that the entire throng could have a chance to see it.

‘And this!’ he shouted, waving it in the air. ‘This is the Act that saw the dissolution of our own abbey here in Compton! The Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries of 1538! This was the Act that tore the people of Compton from their mother church!’ Still he held it high above his head. The crowd stared, mesmerized. ‘Let it share, in part . . .’ The Archdeacon was at full volume now. Powerscourt wondered briefly if his voice was carrying as far as Fairfield Park. Or heaven itself. ‘Let it share, in part,’ the Archdeacon repeated himself for greater emphasis, ‘the fate of the blessed saints and martyrs who gave their lives to God in opposing it.’ He brought it down to chest level and ripped the Act in two. ‘Those martyrs were hung drawn and quartered, their bodies cut into four pieces.’ He ripped the Act into four. ‘This dismembered Act, cut into four pieces, I now commit to the fire!’ The Archdeacon knelt down and placed each part separately into a flaming section of the bonfire. He rose to his feet once more. An enormous cheer erupted from the crowd, their candles held aloft, their eyes fixed on four little scraps of paper that had once been yellow and were now turning into wafer thin sections of black, then crumbling into ash.

‘Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, nudging him gently in the ribs, ‘do you think those Acts were the real thing? Or did he just pick up a few bits of aged paper in an old bookshop?’

‘They might have come from Rome for all I know, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m sure Propaganda could rustle you up a forgery or two if you asked them nicely.’

The crowd were still cheering. Powerscourt wondered how the Archdeacon was going to bring them down from their ecstasy. He noticed that it was very close to midnight. He saw too that people were on the move. A new procession was forming with all the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ at the front. Then the four choirs that had sung in the marches to the bonfire swung into line behind them. They moved off into a new position in front of the cathedral doors.

Still the crowd cheered. Loud shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang out towards the darkened minster. The candles were still flickering brightly all across Cathedral Green. The Archdeacon was holding both arms aloft, turning very slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees. He looked, Powerscourt thought, like one of those Old Testament prophets appealing for calm among the unruly Israelites as they hankered after the golden calf or graven images rather than the God of their fathers. Gradually silence returned. All eyes were on the tall figure on top of his scaffold. Only when total silence had been restored did he speak. And then he astounded every single person at the scene.

‘Please extinguish all candles,’ he said. There were gasps of astonishment. People had become attached to their candles, seeing them by now as friends and companions on this very special night. Powerscourt saw that the Archdeacon’s shock troops, the choirs and the bodies who had marched together to the fire obeyed without question. Maybe that’s Catholic discipline, he suggested to himself. Then he corrected himself. Jesuit discipline. With mutterings of regret and a great deal of blowing all the candles went out. There was not a single light to be seen across Cathedral Green. It was five minutes to midnight.

The Archdeacon began to address the faithful once again. ‘On this day of all days, at this time so close to midnight and Easter Sunday,’ he said, ‘we value the dark. The cathedral is dark. Christ’s tomb, the sepulchre where he lies is dark. The darkness is the darkness of sin, of error, waiting for redemption from the light of Christ’s Resurrection. The Gospel of St Mark: “And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”’ Heads were bowed everywhere. The Archdeacon continued: ‘“And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away for it was great. And entering into the sepulchre they saw a young man sitting on the right side and he saith unto them: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is not here: he is risen.”’

The Archdeacon crossed himself. So did most of the crowd.

‘On the last stroke of midnight,’ the Archdeacon’s voice was beginning to show signs of its labours during the night. It cracked ever so slightly on the word midnight, ‘it will be Easter Sunday. I invite you all to take your candles into the church and leave them there. Stewards will show you the way. The paschal candles are by the door for you to relight your own. The light in the church will be the light of Christ’s glory The light in the church will be the symbol of the church’s victory over its enemies.’ Powerscourt wondered who he meant. Luther? Calvin? Thomas Cromwell, the architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Henry the Eighth? ‘People of Compton,’ the Archdeacon held his arms aloft for the last time, ‘I commend to you the words of the prophet Isaiah: the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.’

The Archdeacon paused. ‘Dominus vobiscum.’

There was nearly a minute of almost total silence. Some of the choirs were trying to clear their throats. Some of the crowd were retrieving their candles from the ground. Then the trumpet sounded once again, the young man on top of the west front enjoying his second moment of glory As the last note died away, the Cathedral clock began to toll the hour of midnight. Great Tom, cast in Bristol in 1258, who had spoken every day for centuries, gave forth once more. This was his six hundred and forty-third Easter Sunday. One, two, three. People began to shuffle forward from the back. The Archdeacon was still aloft on his scaffold, waving graciously to the people who passed beneath. Four, five, six. Powerscourt was holding Lady Lucy very tight, hoping she wasn’t too cold. Patrick Butler had disappeared on another of his forays into the crowd. Seven, eight, nine. Powerscourt wondered if the Lord Lieutenant had abandoned his port to come into Compton for the bonfire. He tried to remember who the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed for on Sundays. Murderers? Heretics? Ten, eleven, twelve.

The great doors of the cathedral swung open. The inside was completely dark but at the door two stewards were holding out the paschal candles, large enough and broad enough to rekindle all those which had burned so brightly on Cathedral Green. The choirs processed slowly through the doors, preceded by men carrying the banners of The Five Wounds of Christ, and made their way up the nave towards the stalls. They were singing from the Resurrection section of the Messiah: ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors and the King of Glory shall come in.’