by D. K. Wilson
‘Why not?’ he responded truculently. ‘’Tis the truth.’
‘Your brother was no heretic,’ I said. ‘It can only distress Mistress Margaret to hear him compared to simple-minded Lollards, rural clods with a smattering of theology who presume to challenge the doctors of the Church. Robert was well-educated, a man of standing, not an itinerant tailor or pedlar selling his home-made theology to silly women. The Church is certainly at war with such as them but not with Robert Packington.’
Augustine gripped me by the arm, so tightly that his fingers felt like talons. ‘Robert said that you were struggling to come to terms with God’s truth. Can you not see what is happening before your eyes? You talk of ignorant Lollards. Is Dr Crome a lean-witted yokel, or other university-trained men like Bishop Latimer and Archbishop Cranmer? And what of Master Cromwell? The King has placed him in charge of all church affairs and for certain he loves God’s word. These are standard bearers of Bible truth, which must and will triumph, however many of us have to shed our blood for it.’
I was finding Augustine’s zealotry uncomfortable and wondered whether he had drunk too much wine. For the moment I could not escape as he steered me into a space beside a large livery cupboard. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he whispered confidentially. ‘Do you remember the big bonfire of Tyndale’s Testaments the former Bishop of London, old Tunstall, made in Paul’s Yard a few years ago? Well, can you guess who paid for all those copies? No? ’Twas Tunstall himself! What say you to that?’ His self-congratulatory grin was nauseating.
I smiled, muttered something and tried to extricate myself, but he had not finished with me. ‘This is how it was,’ he said. ‘I was in Antwerp with Tyndale and he was angry with the printers for certain errors in copies recently made. He wanted to set in hand a new printing but had no money for the work. So I said, “Leave it to me; I’ll raise the money.” I came back here and went to see Tunstall, posing as an ardent papist. “Will you pay me to buy up all the pestilential Testaments I can find?” I asked. He eagerly agreed and I bought for him all the faulty copies. So you see, Tunstall had the books, I had his thanks and Master Tyndale had the money for his new, better print run.’ He giggled and now I knew that he was drunk.
‘I must have a word with Humphrey,’ I said, at last detaching myself.
‘Aye, do,’ he said, ‘and help us find Robert’s killer.’
I was only too glad, a little later, to say my farewells and return home.
Chapter 16
That night I lay awake for a long time. A wild wind rattled the shutters and occasional draughts penetrated my curtained bed, making the candle flame veer and tremble. By its light I read Tyndale’s little book. Not systematically. It seemed that this supposedly seditious volume was connected with Robert’s death, so I searched it for any violent denunciations of bishops, priests or abbots which might have provoked hostility from the religious establishment. I could find none.
My mind drifted from the unhelpful text to remembered snatches of conversation. Advice, observations, warnings Robert had offered a young man who, at the time, had paid little heed to them. He had told me that I was more aware of my weaknesses than my strengths. I knew, now, what he meant. Instead of standing up to the savage blows of fate, I had collapsed into self-pity and despair. Lizzie, in her more direct way, had made the same point when she accused me of unloading my responsibilities on to her. If I was to be truly a man, I would have to have faith in myself.
Perhaps this was what Tyndale was saying. He made several references to ‘faith’. I took up the small volume again. ‘Faith is the mother of all goodness and of all good works, so is unbelief the ground and root of all evil and evil works.’ So the translator wrote. Dimly I began to see how the clergy might regard such teaching as a threat. If faith – something essentially personal – was all a man needed to live a good life, what need of masses and decked altars and elaborate ceremony? Tyndale and his friends were bidding fair to make priests redundant.
The following afternoon Robert’s funeral was held. I arrived early at the small parish church of St Pancrate in Needlers’ Lane, knowing that the event would draw a large crowd. Even so, I had to shoulder my way in through the west doorway. Many tradesmen on Cheap and the adjacent streets had closed their premises as a mark of respect and because they wished to be present at the obsequies. The coffin already lay on trestles in the chancel. An area at the front of the nave, before the rood screen, had been cordoned off for dignitaries and principal mourners. Some senior members of the Mercers’ Company had already taken their places there. In their ceremonial robes they looked rather incongruous perched on the stools provided by the verger and his assistants. After a brief word with the verger, I was allotted one of these seats and took my place on the north side of the nave opposite the pulpit.
‘A terrible business, this.’ My neighbour, a corpulent grocer, opened a whispered conversation. ‘In all my forty years in the City I’ve never heard the like.’
‘Aye,’ I agreed. ‘Know you if the magistrate has made any progress tracking down the culprit?’
‘I think not. Mind you, we all know who was behind it, do we not? ’Tis another clergy plot, like the old Hunne affair.’
‘Hunne affair?’ I queried. ‘What was that?’
‘Of course, you are too young to remember. It was… what… let me see, twenty years ago, mayhap more. Richard Hunne was, like Master Packington, a highly respected member of our merchant community. He had little love for the clergy and fell out right royally with his parish priest. He was going to take the fellow to court. The next we heard, he’d been arrested on a charge of heresy and clapped in Tunstall’s prison. He was found there in his cell – hanged by the neck, like a common sheep-stealer.’
‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I think I remember something about it now. The bishop’s people were suspected of murder but it never came to trial.’
‘That’s right. The bastards hushed it up. Had it judged in Tunstall’s own court and acquitted the killers. Suicide, they said. Bastards!’ He scowled. ‘One law for them and another for the likes of us. Look at them.’ He pointed to the clergy in their cassocks and copes, who were filing into the stalls on the other side of the screen. ‘’Tis always the same. They think their “holy orders” make them better than other men. Any breath of criticism or scandal and they close ranks. But times have changed. They won’t get away with it now.’ He fell silent as the choir began the Dirige Domine.
The doleful ritual followed its course and eventually reached the place allotted to the sermon. As the preacher – a tall figure in the habit of an Austin friar – climbed into the pulpit, a murmur of recognition and surprise rippled through the congregation. The man chosen to deliver the oration was one of the most controversial figures in London. You either liked or loathed Robert Barnes. His many enemies dubbed him a pestilential, argumentative Lutheran. The bishop had banned him from City churches but he was powerless to prevent private citizens nominating him to preach at their funerals. Robert, I knew, looked up to Barnes as a champion of the new, radical religion and that was why he was here this morning to speak at my friend’s obsequies. The king had, apparently, wavered in his opinion. He had, on more than one occasion, had the friar thrown into prison but latterly had appointed him an ambassador to the German princes who espoused Lutheranism and were in league against the Emperor. Like many of my neighbours, I had long abandoned the effort of trying to understand the toings and froings of royal policy. Like them, I, too, wanted to hear what Barnes had to say. Would it bring me any nearer to understanding what Robert believed and what might offer some clue to his murder?
The preacher clutched the reading desk and for several moments gazed keenly round the congregation. Not a sound disturbed the expectant silence. When, at last, he spoke it was in a strong, deep, booming voice that brooked no contradiction. ‘The fifteenth of St John in the fine English of William Tyndale, which I would that you all did read:
“The servant is n
ot greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, so will they persecute you; if they have kept my saying, so will they keep yours. All these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they have not known him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they should not have had sin; but now have they nothing to cloak their sin withal. He that hates me hates my father.”
‘Christ here speaks to us of masters and servants and enemies and I would that we dwell briefly on each of these. What, then, do we know of masters? “Why”, you say, “they are even those that give us orders.” Aye, and so they do. Yet do they not also feed you, pay your wages, commend your diligence and chastise your indolence? Even so, does our heavenly Lord, for sure it is you never had nor can have a more just, a more generous or a more caring master…’
Barnes spent several minutes on this theme before moving on to his next heading.
‘But what said this good Lord, this best of all lords, about servants? “The servant is not greater than his lord.” You all know that to be true. What a topsy-turvy world that would be where servants tried to rule over their masters. Yet what do we see in our own land today? A rebel rabble in the North who would dictate to our sovereign lord the king the membership of his Council, the laws to be passed by his parliament, the ordering of worship in his church! Yet is there more to Christ’s words than this: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you… If they kept my saying, they will keep yours.” The servant is identified with his master. He wears his livery. He is known for his lord’s man. He carries his lord’s messages. He defends his lord’s honour when others seek to besmirch his name. He goes to war in his lord’s army. Mayhap he will die for his lord… as has honest Master Packington. For why does his cadaver lie there?’ Barnes made a dramatic gesture towards the coffin. ‘For loyally serving his Lord Christ – even unto death. Be not deceived, good neighbours.’ Barnes paused again to glare at the congregation and it must have seemed to every person present that the preacher caught his eye, and his alone. ‘Be not deceived. Master Packington was slain for being good servant to his heavenly Master, for openly wearing Christ’s livery. For speaking Christ’s truth to all who would hear. And, even now, his spirit stands before his Lord to hear his gracious commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”’
It was true, then. For all his outward respectability, Robert had been a member – and, seemingly, a prominent member – of this heretical underworld. My mind recoiled at the thought but could no longer reject it.
Barnes was now working up to his peroration. The words tumbled excitedly from his lips and were reinforced by dramatic gestures. ‘Thus we come to the third type of whom Christ spoke: his enemies. These are they, he says, who hate him and hate his Father. Why did men hate the good Christ? Who could possibly hate our good Lord? Hear again what he says: “If I had not spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now have they nothing to cloak their sin withal.” Christ denounced the priests and Pharisees of ancient Jewry for what they were – hypocrites, blind guides, men who paraded their false piety before the world to win the praise of the common people.’ Barnes turned to gaze on the rows of clergy in their chancel pews. ‘These were his enemies; sinners who were struck to the quick by his words of truth. Scripture tells us “He knew what was in men’s hearts” and it was because Christ revealed to his enemies the truth about themselves that they tried to silence him.
‘What is the question on every Londoner’s lips in these days? Is it not, “Who has done this monstrous thing? Who has struck down our beloved Master Packington?” Well, I will give you now the answer: it is the enemies of Christ. The servant is not greater than his master. Robert Packington was proud to wear his Lord’s livery and it was his Lord’s sworn foes who set another to silence him. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would not soil their own hands with Christ’s blood; they had the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, do their evil work for them. Our modern hypocrites, the Roman priests of London, who are enemies alike to Christ and to King Henry, paid a desperate villain to slay Christ’s servant, Robert Packington. So, my neighbours, as you pray for the soul of our dear brother departed, pray also that his enemies may be brought to justice. But pray, above all, that the true Gospel, for which Master Packington died a holy martyr, may be set forth among us with the blessing of our sovereign lord, the king, and to the confusion of Christ’s enemies.’
For several breathless moments the only sound to be heard in St Pancrate’s was the preacher’s footfalls as he descended from the pulpit. Then pandemonium broke out. Men cheered. Others shouted, ‘Shame!’ ‘Heretic!’ or ‘Lutheran!’ It was fully five minutes before sufficient order could be restored for the service to be concluded. After the coffin had been interred and we all spilled out on to the street, the congregation split into groups. Some stood in the narrow lane. Others made their way homeward. But all were talking excitedly about what they had heard.
Chapter 17
It was difficult to maintain the routine of the workshop in those days. The beaters often laid aside their tools to discuss the latest incidents in our divided city and I had to beat the furnace boy for neglecting his task and allowing the fire to grow too cold. People who came in through the door wanted to gossip rather than spend money. In truth, there were few customers to be had. The times were too uncertain for people to be thinking of buying plate or jewels. Some there were who came to sell precious items or raise money against them, so that they could conceal coin against a better time. Neither I nor my neighbours were much disposed to lend in such an atmosphere of uncertainty. The threat from the northern rebels seemed to have passed but the feeling of insecurity lingered. A common rumour persisted that the Emperor and the King of France were joining forces, at the pope’s behest, to invade the realm of England’s ‘heretic’ king. One could never be sure who might be thrown into jail for speaking against the doings of our sovereign lord; for expressing opinions that were either too Catholic or too radical. Panic was, in fact, led by the government. Orders went out from Cromwell’s office that every priest in the City was to be searched for ‘offensive weapons’. Any item so adjudged was to be confiscated, with the exception of ‘a knife for meat’. Citizens were abandoning their parish churches in favour of others where partisan preachers to their liking were to be found. Not that one had to listen to sermons to discover what the rival parties were advocating. The streets were awash with pamphlets and broadsides, printed or hand-copied, then passed surreptitiously from person to person or boldly nailed to doorposts at dead of night.
Saturday 18 November was the day appointed by the coroner for the inquest into Robert’s death. Along with other witnesses I took my reserved place in a crowded Mercers’ Hall. Punctual upon the appointed hour, Master Kernish entered with his clerk and called for silence. He swore in a twelve-man jury of solid citizens. It did not please me to see Simon Leyland of their number and I wondered whether we might expect some self-important intervention from him.
The coroner tried to conduct the proceedings in an almost icy calm but the atmosphere was hot with anger and speculation. The witnesses were called in order, starting with Doctor Drudgeon. We all repeated our recollections of Monday’s events and no one added anything new. There was one absentee; Ben Walling was present but there was no sign of his friend Bart. Kernish called the apprentice’s name twice and then asked if anyone knew his whereabouts. I noticed that Ben kept his head down and his mouth shut.
It was when Ben was giving his evidence that the almost inevitable question came from Leyland. ‘With respect, Master Kernish, might we have more information about the deceased calling out the name “Thomas”?’
The coroner looked quizzically at Ben. ‘Can you add anything to your testimony on that point?’ he asked.
The young man shook his head. ‘As I said, sir, Master Packington’s reply sounded like “Thomas” but I may have been mistaken. What followed was so sudden and unexpected that I could easily hav
e got it wrong.’
‘Did it seem to you that the deceased was calling out to his friend, Master Treviot?’ Leyland demanded, in his whining voice.
Kernish frowned at the interruption. ‘I will question the witnesses,’ he snapped. ‘The jury’s task is simply to listen to the answers. If you wish elucidation on any matter you will ask me.’
Leyland put on an obsequious smile. ‘Of course, Master Kernish. I beg your pardon if I spoke out of turn. I simply wanted to be as clear as possible about the relationship between the deceased and Master Treviot. There is much talk of them being of the same religious party.’
‘That is nothing to the point’, Kernish replied. ‘You will oblige the court by keeping personal speculations to yourself.’
Leyland looked abashed by the reproof but he had done what he intended and I noticed the glances being cast in my direction by several members of the audience.
When all the witnesses had given their testimony, Kernish called upon the Chief Constable of Cheap Ward to say what progress had been made in tracing the killer. That official made a stilted, formal reply, grumbled about the shortage of manpower, hinted at ‘leads’ being followed. What it all amounted to was that he had not the slightest idea about the perpetrator of the crime and entertained little hope of discovering him. Kernish now summed up all that could be known about Robert’s death and virtually instructed the jury to declare a verdict of murder by person unknown.