Three Lions of England

by Cinnamond, Patrick

  ‘Get up, Wat!’ Jack took aim at Sir Robert, loosed.

  The arrow took Sir Robert in the shoulder, piercing the armour, the sheer force spinning him away from Wat with a grunt, and splaying him on the grass nearby.

  In fear of his life, King Richard rode away from the archer. Then he checked the rising panic within, stopped, and turned to face it down like his father the Black Prince would have faced it down.

  Wat could taste blood, was breathing up blood, bubbles, froth. It took all of his will to push himself up to his feet. The day was darkening, as if the sun was going black …

  Jack was aiming at Squire Standish when Sir Thomas rushed him, swinging a sword. He could not make the shot, and had to dodge out of the way of a cut for the head.

  Squire Standish rode up to the traitor Tyler, leant into the swing of his sword at the head, clouting the basinet off with fearsome momentum.

  Wat careened to the ground, face down in the grass, utterly shattered. He tried to get a grip on the grass … the earth … pull himself together, but he had no power … no power, not even to move a muscle … and this absolute weakening was death.

  Enemy downed, Squire Standish rode to defend the King. The archer must not shoot the King!

  Jack pelted away from Sir Thomas to make enough space and time to aim and shoot him down.

  Sir Thomas ran for his life; he had to catch the archer and strike him down before he could shoot, but of course the archer was far quicker, wore no plate.

  Jack drew, aimed at the chest, shot, missed …

  Too low, the arrow took the knight in the hip, propelling him back like he had been yanked by two carthorses. Spitted, Sir Thomas rolled on the ground in a blind agony.

  Jack drew another arrow from his bag, turned on his heel, marked Squire Standish with the King. Then, at the very edges of his vision, he saw Wat lying on the ground. ‘Oh Jesus, no.’ He abandoned the shot, ran over, to help. He turned Wat, only to find he was neck-broke, bloodied to bejesus, eyes like stones. He laid a hand on Wat’s face, and drew the eyelids shut. ‘I’ll make them pay dear for this.’

  It was Sir Robert, clutching the arrow shaft jutting from his chest, but belligerent in pain, who struck the archer on the back of the head with the flat of his sword, cold-cocking him. This traitor would not die easy. He saw all too well now why the Frenchies tortured English archers, poked out their eyes, and cut off their fingers, before chopping them into pieces. They were the spawn of Satan.

  Sir Robert staggered over to where Tyler’s body lay. He looked down at the bloodied face of his enemy. ‘You were nobody, nothing,’ he hissed through his teeth, ‘and when I find your girl I will kill her and that will be the end of you.’

  He raised his sword and hacked off the head, for spiking on Traitor’s Gate.

  XXIV

  ‘Treachery!’ yelled John, riding up the front rank. ‘They have attacked Tyler! This is treachery! Shoot them!’

  A thousand white-fledged arrows were plucked from the earth and fed into bows. Bows were drawn back in fury, for vengeance. God was about to speak …

  ‘Shoot!’ cried John.

  No one shot because no one wanted to shoot the King. They could see the King, and the King was England.

  In the middle of Smithfield, Squire Standish saw the archers draw. ‘The rebels are going to shoot, Majesty. Oh my God!’

  ‘Have courage!’ King Richard said. Holding his sceptre high, he kicked Bucephalus into a headlong gallop towards the rebels.

  Squire Standish followed the King, fumbling the bugle to his lips. Everything had happened so fast! He blew three times to give the signal to Sir Simon.

  King Richard rode for the centre of the rebel host, waving his sceptre aloft. ‘Be at peace, men of Kent! I am your God-given King. I am your captain! You shall have no other captain but me!’

  ‘Seize him!’ John ordered. God was the people. The people were God. And God was angry!

  No one moved a muscle. Not a soul. There was complete silence. Not a word. Like the strange listlessness before a gale howls in.

  ‘They have killed your captain in cold blood!’ John shouted. ‘Under a flag of truce!’

  John looked around him. It was in every face – doubt, not faith: that is the King – I’m not going to lay a finger on him – not by myself, not bloody likely.

  ‘Tyler laid hands upon the King and was executed!’ Squire Standish said.

  ‘You assassinated him!’ accused John.

  King Richard stared John down. ‘I alone am the rightful king of England. All loyal King’s Men must obey me!’

  ‘For crimes against the people, you are my prisoner,’ John said, and advanced on the Boy King. If he must be the hand of God again, amen, amen.

  King Richard yanked Bucephalus into a full rear. ‘My word is the law of the land, not yours, John Ball.’

  ‘Heed the word of your king, priest!’ Squire Standish said. ‘You are under arrest for treason!’

  ‘Try and arrest me,’ taunted John, drawing his sword. ‘Go on then. This is not your army.’

  ‘You are the very Devil himself.’ King Richard rode away, up the front ranks, and decreed: ‘We will extend our royal pardon to all other men on this field – if you all follow me now.’

  ‘Follow him to your eternal deaths!’ cried John. God was deserting him. It could not be! It must not be!

  ‘Follow your king off this field! Be at peace!’ Squire Standish shouted. ‘Trust in your king and captain, Kent!’

  King Richard held his sceptre to heaven. ‘To Clerkenwell, men!’

  The leading ranks of the Kentish marched after the King.

  ‘You are all fools!’ John shouted at the Kentish. No one, not a man, would look him in the eye. ‘Fools!’

  King Richard turned to Squire Standish. ‘Ride. Find Sir Simon de Burley and instruct him that there is to be no bloodletting here. We are the King and captain of these men. They love their king, followed us in good faith. We will be merciful, as they were dutiful. We will let my people go.’

  ‘A judgement befitting Solomon himself, Majesty.’ Squire Standish nodded. ‘Ride, man! Ride!’

  Man, beware and be no fool,

  Think upon the axe, and of the stool!

  The stool was hard, the axe was sharp,

  The fourth year of King Richard.

  Anonymous

  (stool: executioner’s block)

  Epilogue

  Although lately in the abominable disturbance horribly made by some of our liege subjects who made insurrection against our peace, certain of our letters patent were made at the importunate demand of these same insurgents, to the effect that we enfranchised all our liege subjects of certain counties, freeing and quitting them of all bondage and service, and also that we pardoned them for all insurrection made against us, granting them a firm peace; that no acre of land held in these counties should be held at more than four pence the acre … Because, however, these said letters of manumission were issued under duress, and without mature consideration, we, considering the grant of the aforesaid liberties highly prejudicial, in relation to the inherent rights of the prelates, lords and magnates, and the Holy Church of England, and to the loss and damage of the state, with the advice of our council we have recalled and annulled all said letters.

  Witnessed by the King, at the Tower, 23rd June, in the fourth year of his reign.

  I

  The Feast of St John the Baptist, Monday, 24th June, 1381

  Dressed in black so that the bloodstains would not show, Sir Robert drew the poker from the brazier. The tip was white hot, glowing like a solitary cat’s eye in the dark of the White Tower’s dungeon. ‘We have written your confession for you. Now, all you have to do to end your ordeal is sign it and Sir Simon will read it at your execution.’

  Jack was bruised, bloodied and bent double like an old serf, hands and head locked in the stocks. ‘I won’t sign anything for you, Bastard,’ he said and spat on the stone floor.

 
Sir Simon – dressed in black like Pluto himself, ruling over this benighted realm, this place of black light, the skull and the bones – unrolled the scroll, showed it to the prisoner, who did not understand the terrifying power of what he held in his hand, as yet …

  Sir Robert brandished the poker – waved it right before the prisoner’s eyes, leaving lines of white glowing in the air. ‘You will sign it, Jack Straw, even if you cannot write common English. You will beg to make X your mark, and then you will give me the names of all your co-conspirators! We are especially interested in the whereabouts of Tyler’s daughter.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Jack gave them the two fingers with both hands – the Sign of the Archer.

  ‘Silence!’ Sir Robert applied the poker to the prisoner’s right cheek … the scorch of flesh … the stink of burnt pork …

  Jack attacked the stocks, tried to writhe out of them in a storm of blinding lights, a frenzy of pain. ‘I’ll kill you!’

  ‘You had your chance,’ Sir Robert said, remembering how he was unhorsed, flying through the air. He replaced the poker in the brazier. ‘Read his last words to him, Sir Simon.’

  Sir Simon nodded, and began speaking in the common tongue, in a Kentish accent, a mocking parody of the prisoner’s own voice: ‘I, Jack Straw, second in command to Walter Tyler, the leader of the Kentish rebels, wish to make my confession. It no longer serves me to lie, nor is it proper to speak falsehoods, especially as I know that my soul would be subjected to harsher torments if I did so.’

  Jack snorted. ‘Torturers!’

  Sir Simon went on: ‘I hope that by speaking the truth I may help my country, and according to your promises, I will have the help of your prayers after my death to find peace with God. So I will speak plainly without any attempt to deceive…’

  ‘—This is a joke.’

  Sir Robert struck the scum across the face. ‘No, this is the truth. This is how you will be recorded in history. As a traitor. A coward. An informer. A man of straw!’

  ‘Fuck you, Bastard.’

  “At the time when we assembled at Smithfield to meet the King, our plan was to kill all the knights, esquires and other gentlemen in his escort. Then we would have taken the King with us from place to place in full sight of all; so that everybody would have joined the True Commons – for it would have seemed to everyone that the King was our captain. And when we had recruited all the commons in the country to our cause, we would have murdered all those we had named as traitors or indeed any lords who would have opposed or resisted us. Then we would have driven out of the land all the lords of the church, bishops, canons, parsons, leaving only the friars to celebrate the sacraments for the people. Then we would have killed the King…’

  ‘—We were loyal King’s Men!’

  ‘Loyal rebels, eh?’ said Sir Robert, and drew the poker out of the brazier. ‘Repeat after me: “We would have killed the King”.’

  The heat of the tip seared Jack’s eye into a mist of tears. ‘Never.’

  Sir Robert let the poker glow white before the prisoner’s eyes. ‘You will lose your sight if you do not repeat after me—’

  ‘After me. After me. After me …’ And Jack laughed at the Bastard.

  Sir Robert pressed the poker against the traitor’s master eye. A puff of steam … screams … pop, the eye burst … a flood of blood and humours flowed down the cheeks …

  Jack passed out.

  Sir Robert fetched a bucket of water and threw it over the prisoner’s head.

  Jack came round – a world of darkness, and killing pain, and shivering fright.

  Sir Simon continued: ‘Since there would no longer have been lords above us we would have made our own laws for the common good. We would have created kings, Walter Tyler in Kent, and one in each of the other counties, and appointed them to rule us.’

  Through clenched teeth, Jack hissed: ‘We were loyal to the King!’

  ‘On the evening of the day that Walter Tyler was killed, we planned, because the common and especially poor people of London were with us, to sack and set fire to the four quarters of London and burn it down.’

  ‘Lies!’ Jack could barely hear his own voice. It had been reduced to a whisper. But he would speak until they had to stop him, and tell them nothing they wanted to hear. He would die well. He would die well.

  ‘These were our aims, as God will help me, on the point of death.’ Sir Simon folded up the scroll.

  Sir Robert raised the glowing poker tip to Jack’s seeing eye. ‘This can be that point. A quick death – if you tell me where Tyler’s daughter is.’

  ‘I will never tell you.’ He would die well.

  ‘Then may the Lord have mercy on your immortal soul, for there will be none for your earthly body.’ Sir Robert pressed the poker into the flickering eye, blinding the traitor.

  II

  The Ides of July, Monday, 15th July, 1381

  ‘John Ball – you have been found guilty of treason by a court of law!’ Bishop Despenser announced from the scaffold platform above a small crowd of St Albans townsfolk. He was immensely proud to be the man who had apprehended the great traitor, hiding in a cellar in Coventry, and brought him to book. Fittingly, it was one of his fellow True Commons who had betrayed him, with a little persuasion from himself and a sturdy pair of tongs. ‘John Ball – you have been sentenced to die by hanging, drawing and quartering.’

  ‘Say your prayers, traitor.’ De’ath the executioner, face hidden under his black hood, shoved the condemned to his knees. ‘And be quick about them.’

  To the wails of weeping women and men in the crowd – the lost of this world, the dispossessed – John slowly clasped his mutilated hands together, but did not bow his head, and kept his eyes wide open, fixed on King Richard on his throne. ‘Bless me father for I have sinned …’

  King Richard glared back at the devil priest. John Ball did not deserve to recant, confess or repent! The King had travelled all the way to Norwich to personally witness this execution. The King wanted the satisfaction of knowing the devil is dead, that his forked tongue would spray no more venom into the public body.

  John’s ribs had been stoved in by Bishop Despenser’s torturers, but he dragged air into his bruised lungs and prayed in his loudest preaching voice so the crowd would hear and pass on his last words: ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’

  Bishop Despenser struck the condemned traitor on the head. ‘Blasphemous dog! To use the words of Our Lord in his Passion so!’

  King Richard stood up from his throne. ‘Go to your damnation, John Ball!’

  John pointed at the King. ‘It is you who go to damnation, King who betrayed his people. I have seen in a vision that you will die at the hands of traitors. The nobles will murder you for the crown.’

  ‘Silence, dog!’ said Bishop Despenser.

  ‘Carry out the sentence.’ Against all protocol, King Richard ordered the executioner to act himself.

  De’ath the executioner stepped forward, slid the noose round the condemned’s neck and jerked it nice and tight.

  ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,’ said John, preaching to himself. That is what the Saviour said on the cross before they killed him.

  De’ath the executioner tied the condemned’s hands behind his back. He dragged him to his feet and made him mount a stool. When that was done he threw the rope over the cross-bar of the scaffold and he and his apprentices took the strain.

  ‘Forgive me, Father. All I wanted was to see your kingdom on earth. Your will done on earth as it is in heaven—’

  ‘May God have mercy on your rotten soul.’ Bishop Despenser kicked the stool out from under the traitor.

  King Richard cheered the hanging jig of John Ball with all the others present. A merry dance it was. Most hilariously funny. The executioner was very experienced, very competent. The traitor was still very much alive when he was cut down.

  De’ath the executioner carried the condemned to the quartering table. He thre
w water into the condemned’s face, slapped his cheeks until he came round, choking. He showed the wicked sharp sickle he would use to cut the private parts, to open the belly.

  John shuddered at the glinting weapon, closed his eyes, he could feel nothing as he heard a voice incant the prayer for the dying: ‘God of power and mercy, you have made death itself the gateway to eternal life. Look with love on me your dying brother, and make me one with your Son in his sufferings and death, that sealed with the blood of Christ, I may come before you free of sin.’

  King Richard smiled as the priest shrieked like a pig when the executioner castrated the Mad Priest, sliced his belly open and drew out his entrails. He enjoyed the knowledge that the traitor was still conscious as his guts were tugged out and burnt before his eyes in a brazier.

  De’ath the executioner removed all the condemned’s organs and burnt them on the brazier, even after the traitor was dead. Then he cut off his head.

  Hallelujah! King Richard rejoiced in the spectacle of Ball’s headless corpse being hacked into quarters with an axe, knowing that it would be denied Christian burial in sacred ground and the pieces would be disposed of in a way the King saw fit – sent to the four corners of the Kingdom to serve as a warning to all his people. Obey your king. Obey your rightful lords!

  The King sets up a Royal Commission to resist disturbers of the peace, Thursday, 20th June, in the Year of Our Lord, 1381

  This commission much comforted those faithful to the King but alarmed, quite deservedly, the wicked. Those rebels who had enjoyed the centre of the stage were now forced to seek hiding places, while the lawyers who had fled from the fury of the mob now dared return from their caves. The former now waited in silence, fearing the judgement and justice to be enforced on them; the latter lost their fear and joyfully prepared to avenge their injuries. However, the rebels were not yet reduced to such fear in every part of the country. In Essex, where the madness had its original roots, the rebels again assembled in a great crowd at Billericay. Trusting too much in their own strength and deceived by their own pride they determined either to enjoy the liberty they sought by violence or to die fighting for it.