An Oxford Scandal

by Norman Russell

  ‘So, gentlemen,’ said Savident, ‘what have we here? An alabaster image of a bishop, placed conveniently on trestles. A Latin inscription carved into a piece of sandstone— Was this how you found it? Mr Stringer, can you enlighten me?’

  ‘It was chiselled off the front panel of the sandstone tomb by our workmen, and brought here.’

  ‘Dear God! All these things should have been left in situ, so that an investigator could see the whole picture, and draw some prudent conclusions. You present me here with the brutal ignorance of the iconoclast’s hammer.’

  His voice, naturally high, rose to a kind of protesting shriek.

  ‘I suppose you were all so very eager to see what was in the tomb, like little boys frantic to open their Christmas presents!’

  Provost Chalmers blushed. Professor Collingwood turned pale. Anthony Jardine thought: This fellow is a mountebank. We should never have called him in. He found that his thoughts were elsewhere. Dora was much better, and had been able to rise from her bed on the Saturday afternoon. She had been badly frightened, and had expressed her determination to adhere strictly to the diet proposed by Dr Maitland.

  ‘Mr Stringer,’ said Count Savident, ‘do these two parcels contain the alleged relics of Thomas Becket? I suppose they, too, have been bruised and broken by your precious workmen.’

  ‘They are quite intact, Count,’ said Stringer, ‘Until this morning they were locked away securely in a cupboard. There was a lead inscription accompanying them, authenticating the relics.’

  ‘Hm… Yes, well, gentlemen, please find seats for yourselves while I give my full attention to these finds. I can’t abide people hovering about me while I’m working.’

  Count Savident removed a monocle from one of his waistcoat pockets, and screwed it into his right eye. He stooped down, and examined the Latin inscription carved into the detached piece of sandstone.

  ‘It’s certainly Latin of the period,’ he said, ‘but you will know that already. Mr Stringer, have you determined the provenance of the sandstone?’

  ‘I have. It is from the Gault formation. I’d say it comes from the old workings at Wallingford, in Berkshire, just over the county border.’

  ‘Excellent! I thought as much. Now let us turn our attention to this alabaster image. It’s beautifully made… Very high quality work for the period.’ He produced a magnifying glass from a pocket and peered closely at the base of the image. A monocle and a magnifying glass, thought Jardine. He should have brought a telescope, to complete the set.

  ‘Some old lettering has been erased here,’ said Savident. ‘I can just make out the traces of three letters, R, O and B. Rob. Ah! I know who this is. Didn’t you spot those letters, Professor Collingwood? Have you read Thomas Jacobson’s Some Passages in the History of the Hundred of Sherwell, published in 1606? No? Well, in that book Jacobson mentions that some seventy years earlier, the wardens of Sherwell Minster found one morning that the alabaster image of Bishop Robert Lineham had been uprooted and removed from the church. He put the outrage down to the work of “enthusiasts”, as I recall. And this, I suspect, is that old bishop’s long-lost image. ROB, the beginning of Robert, or Robertus.’ Count Savident closed his eyes for a moment, and uttered a series of little squeaks. The others watched him in awe.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ he cried. ‘I can see it now, in my mind’s eye. It’s one of the records given in Peterson’s Tomb Inscriptions of Medieval Kent and Dorset. You’ll recall that no doubt, Collingwood? “Here lies the eminent and learned Bishop Robert Lineham, died such a day, such a month,” etcetera. In Latin, of course – I’m translating from memory. So there it is. Plundered from Sherwell Minster at about the time that Becket’s shrine was destroyed, and the relics brought here… How? And by whom?’

  ‘I should imagine—’ Professor Collingwood began.

  ‘No, no, my questions were rhetorical,’ said the Count, wagging a fat finger at the old professor. ‘A picture is emerging, gentlemen, and soon, I hope, I will be able to present you with a coherent account of this find, what it means, and what it portends. Now, let us examine these ancient bones.’

  Savident had evidently condescended to regard Frederick Stringer as a colleague. Together they carefully lifted the two parcels of bones, and placed them on one of the two laboratory benches. The others watched as they removed the silk wrappings from the remains, and laid them on the other bench.

  ‘Mr Stringer,’ said Count Savident, ‘can you articulate these bones?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Then do so.’

  While Stringer set about the task of arranging the bones in their natural order, Savident, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped together, began to utter some kind of combination of prayer and meditation.

  ‘He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?’ he muttered. ‘And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.’ His words were punctuated by the dry bones of Becket, as they clicked and clattered beneath Stringer’s skilled hands.

  This man is an appalling rotter and show-off, thought Anthony Jardine. He’s a thundering hypocrite, too. Now what mumbo-jumbo is he spouting?’

  ‘Deus, pro cuius Ecclesia gloriosus Pontifex Thomas gladiis impiorum occubuit: praesta, quaesumus… I forget the rest. It’s the collect for St Thomas’s day in the Latin Rite. Amen.’ He opened his eyes, and glanced at the bones.

  ‘Mr Stringer, from looking at those bones, how tall would you say Becket was in life?’

  ‘I should say about five feet ten.’

  ‘Yes. Now, Gervase of Canterbury said he was “tall in stature”, which chimes with your suggestion. But I have seen a pale blue chasuble in one of the European cathedrals, a chasuble once worn by Becket, and it was five feet four inches in length, which suggests that Becket was about six feet tall. Above average height for someone living in the twelfth century. Now, let us turn our attention to the silk wrappings and the lead plaque.’

  The polymath turned to the second bench, and carefully spread out the silk coverings. For a long time he said nothing, examining the ancient silk through his magnifying glass.

  ‘I thought I could discern heraldic leopards there, Savident,’ said Frederick Stringer, ‘which made me wonder whether the bones had been wrapped in the ancient Standard of England.’

  Count Savident turned from his task, and addressed himself to Stringer.

  ‘This is Lyons silk,’ he said, ‘of the old French manufacture, before the Italian merchants Turchetti and Naris established their silk workshop there. From an examination of the warp and weft, I would place it at around 1480. As for the leopards, well, one can just discern that they are quartered with three scallop shells, the whole thing being the blazon of the Fitzwalters of Didcot Chase, an ancient Catholic recusant family, long extinct. Are you beginning to see the picture, gentlemen?’

  He picked up the lead plaque.

  ‘Here, my friends,’ he said, ‘is the defining item of the whole mystery. See what it says: “These be the bones of the Holie Martyr Thomas Becket. Placed here by me, JM 12 Aug. AD 1539.” It gives us the very date on which these bones were deposited here at St Gabriel’s, under Staircase XII. The same date is carved into the inscription on the panel from the sandstone tomb. And it tells us who the perpetrator of this daring enterprise was. JM. Professor Collingwood, would you care to tell us who “JM” was?’

  ‘JM… Ah! John Morton, Precentor of Canterbury, and Rector of St Michael’s in the Bone Yard. He was deposed from his office in 1540, and fled abroad. He returned from the Continent in Mary’s time, and died of a bloody flux in 1556.’

  ‘Quite. Well done, Professor. Gentlemen, can you now picture the whole adventure?’

  Count Raphael Savident sat down on a stool, which he placed to face his audience. He closed his eyes for a few moments, and then began to speak.

  ‘It is the chilly autumn of 15
36, and word has reached Canterbury of the King’s intention to destroy Becket’s shrine, and to burn the remains of the holy martyr. The Archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, who had held that office for five years, owed his position partly to the influence of the Boleyn family, and had long been Henry’s creature. He would agree to anything that the King commanded.

  ‘What was to be done? There were many priests of the cathedral chapter who would risk their lives to thwart the King’s will. They knew that they would not be able to save the gilded and bejewelled shrine, but there was a simple but dangerous way of preventing the violation of Becket’s remains.

  ‘And so, a number of these brave men met in secret, led by the valiant and inventive John Morton, Precentor of Canterbury, and Rector of St Michael’s in the Bone Yard. He it was, perhaps, who suggested the immediate substitution of other human remains for Becket’s bones, taken, of course, from one of the many ancient tombs lying beneath the cathedral pavement. This they did, no doubt in the depths of one of those dark autumn nights, when few would be about.

  ‘And then a messenger was despatched post haste up to Oxfordshire, to Richard Fitzwalter, Esquire, of Didcot Chase, seeking his help; for the idea was to hide Becket’s bones far away from Kent, in a place where they could be preserved from the hands of that profane tyrant until better times ensued.

  ‘But they would not be simply hidden away in ignominy beneath the floorboards of an obscure country house. If you look in the admission rolls of this college, gentlemen, you will find that Richard Fitzwalter was admitted a commoner here in September 1508 – yes, he was one of your own number, as I ascertained from another source before I came here today. Can we doubt that it was he who orchestrated the reburial of Becket in a dignified tomb?

  ‘It would have been John Morton in Canterbury who secretly contacted those sympathisers in Dorset who stole the image of Bishop Lineham from Sherwell Minster. And why Robert Lineham, you may ask? Because he was known to have had sympathy with Lollardry, and other levelling doctrines. So in death he would be made to serve the martyred archbishop who had died for the liberty and exaltation of Holy Mother Church. It would have been conveyed secretly by covered cart the long winding way from Dorset to Oxford, stopping perhaps at the private dwellings of those good folk who later would become known as recusants. And when it arrived at St Gabriel’s, it would have been received by the staunchly Catholic Fellows of the college, and conveyed to the spot chosen for the tomb.

  ‘Meanwhile, the Fitzwalters would have had the sandstone tomb built in the quarry at Wallingford, and so brought secretly to Oxford, and on that auspicious day, 12 August, 1539, a year after the profanities of Henry had seen the shrine at Canterbury plundered and destroyed, and the fancied bones of Becket burned to ashes, the true relics of the holy martyr, the alabaster image, and the sandstone tomb were secretly united here at St Gabriel’s. Perhaps John Morton the Precentor came secretly to sing a Requiem Mass in the tomb, before the hallowed place was sealed for centuries, until this present year of 1895.

  ‘There is no valid reason, gentlemen, for supposing that these aren’t Becket’s bones. To set out to prove otherwise is to argue from a mind mired in prejudice, a Protestant determination to prove that anything Catholic must of its nature be false or fabricated.’

  They were silent for a few moments after Savident had finished speaking, and then Provost Chalmers and Professor Collingwood began clapping. Despite his dislike for Savident, Jardine did the same. Savident glanced at them in surprise, and then blushed with pleasure.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘how very kind! And now you must decide what you are going to do with these things. Do they belong to you? Or do they belong to the Church of England? You will certainly hear soon from Cardinal Vaughan, who will want to claim these relics for Rome.’

  *

  ‘We had an expert down from London to examine those bones,’ said Anthony Jardine, ‘and he proved beyond all shadow of doubt that they were indeed the remains of St Thomas à Becket.’

  Dora, toying with her insipid breakfast of scrambled egg, contrived to look interested. She was much better than he had feared, but her eyes appeared unnaturally bright, and she seemed nervous and uneasy. When he had first tried to tell her about the discovery, she had brushed the matter aside, her mind intent on some quack remedy, but he had managed to tell her the whole story later.

  ‘Becket… I suppose the Catholics will say his bones belong to them. Will you pass the pepper, Anthony? This scrambled egg is tasteless. Who was this London expert?’

  ‘He was a picturesque poseur called Savident. Count Raphael Savident. It’s probably an assumed name: I’m sure the fellow’s an Englishman.’

  ‘Savident? It’s an unusual name,’ said Dora. ‘Could it be the Savident who gave that lecture in London all those years ago?’

  ‘The very same,’ said Anthony. ‘Fancy you remembering that!’

  ‘I suppose he’s staying in college?’ said Dora.

  ‘No, apparently we’re not exotic enough for him. He’s bought a house in Beaumont Street. Number 13. He said it was his lucky number.’

  That must be the longest conversation that Dora and I have had at breakfast for months, Anthony thought. Well, it was too late now to rekindle the easy intimacies of their earlier years. Tomorrow he intended to spend a long evening with Rachel in their secret house in Rose Hill Lane, in the working-class suburb of Cowley.

  ‘I shall be out tomorrow evening until very late, Dora,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up for me.’ He expected his wife to ask where he was going, but on this occasion she did not do so. Perhaps her foolish tryst with that fellow out at the Trap Grounds made her careful about questioning his own doings.

  ‘Tomorrow’s the thirteenth,’ she said, ‘Perhaps that will prove a lucky day for us, too! I’m feeling so much better today. I think I’ll venture into town to do a little shopping.’

  ‘Excellent, my dear! The air will do you good. I must go. I’ll see you this evening.’

  When Anthony had left on his way to Woodstock Road, Dora went up to her boudoir and wrote a brief letter, which she intended to post in town. How could Bruce have treated her so cruelly? Coward! Well, he was not the only man would could bring her the satisfaction that she craved. There were others…

  *

  Sam Harper, well wrapped up against the chill night air, brought his tramcar to a halt in Park End Street, where a couple had raised their hands to stop him. They, too, were wrapped up to the nines, and no wonder. The thirteenth of November was proving to be one of the coldest nights he could remember, and the driving rain didn’t improve matters. The rain had started just after he’d left the terminus at the GWR station, and he’d stopped the tram in order to get into his oil skins and sou’wester. It was all right for the passengers, but no joke for a driver with no sheltering window in front of him.

  Bob Jones pulled the bell, and Sam gently urged the two horses on. All twenty-two seats were now occupied; any one else who hailed them would have to stand.

  They toiled up Queen Street and stopped at Carfax, where a couple of trams waiting for the last journey out to Summertown were standing. Nobody wanted to leave his own tram, and they continued across the lines into High Street.

  It was after ten o’clock, and very soon his shift would be finished. His wife would have kept a little fire burning, and there’d be a hot drink and something to eat when he got home. They crossed Magdalen Bridge and made their way across The Plain. Bob pulled the bell-strap, and they stopped to let most of the passengers alight. Within minutes they had reached the Cowley Road Terminus, and Sam drove his tramcar on to one of the five covered tracks. A couple of company grooms came out of the office to free the horses from the shafts, and lead them to the overnight stables in nearby Leopold Street.

  Driver and conductor chatted for a while, watching the horses being led out across the cobbles
. They both lived nearby, in the same row of little brown brick cottages behind the company stables.

  ‘Time to dowse the lamps, Sam,’ said Bob Jones, ‘then it’s you and me for home.’

  Bob’s cry of horror brought Sam running back into the tram. The little oil lamps in the ceiling were still glowing, and Bob was crouched down on the floor, cradling a woman in his arms. He looked up at his friend, his face dumbly questioning.

  ‘This lady… She’s dead, isn’t she? Oh God! Look at this blood! Sam, run for the constable. She’s been murdered, here in our tram, surrounded by passengers. I’ll stay here with her while you fetch the police.’

  *

  Inspector Corbett of the Cowley Police Office arrived at the tram depot just after eleven. A big, clean-shaven man in his fifties, he wore a rainproof cape over his uniform. His peaked cap was pulled firmly down over his brows. He regarded with some vexation the young constable whom he had brought with him. The lad was being sick in the rain-washed gutter, bent double in the pool of light cast by the flickering gas-standard at the entrance to the tram-shed. Admittedly, PC Brewster had never seen a corpse before, but that didn’t entitle him to make a show of the Force.

  Corbett had entered the uncoupled tram, still faintly lit by the ceiling lamps, and had examined the body of a woman, which the driver, Samuel Harper, had covered with an oilskin. The woman’s dress showed that she was a lady, but it was odd that she had no reticule with her. She was in her mid-forties, quite handsome in her own way. Her eyes were still open, the pupils frozen into little dark points.

  The woman had been stabbed in the left side; the emission of blood from the wound had dripped between the slats of the wooden seat and had formed a pool on the floor. That was all Corbett needed to know. When he got back to the Police Office he would write a meticulous account of the business in the incident book.

  ‘PC Brewster,’ he said, ‘if you’ve finished being disgusting, run down to the night telegraph office in Railway Street and send a message to Detective Inspector Antrobus at Oxford High Street Police Station. Ask him to come here at once, and to secure a mortuary van from Floyd’s Row. Can you do that without being sick again?’