by Paul Doherty
Angel of Death
( Hugh Corbett - 4 )
Paul Doherty
Paul Doherty
Angel of Death
1
O day of wrath, o day of mourning! A common feeling amongst men as the end of the century approached. They talked and gossiped about how, in the year 1299, something terrible would happen to mark the changing of the century. Men pointed to the inclement weather, the failure of crops and the outbreak of war as signs on the dark-edge of the world that the Anti-christ had been born. In the cities and villages Satan and all his imperial army had been seen singing their diabolical matins in the wet dank woods. Men believed Satan walked. His time had come and no more so than in Scotland, where King Edward I of England had led a huge army of foot and horse to bring his rebellious subjects to their knees.
If the devil did walk and if he did lurk in the darkness then surely he must have taken up his throne in the dark, wooded slopes overlooking the English camp outside Berwick. There, wrapped in a brown woollen cloak, seated on a trunk in his purple silk war pavilion, Edward of England was bitterly regretting the evil he had done that day. He poured himself a large brimming cup of blood-red Gascon wine, and sipping it while he half listened to the sounds of his camp, the calls of guards, the faint neigh of. horses, the crunch of mailed feet on the crushed bracken. He was cold. A wind had swept in from the grey, cruel North Sea and, despite all his attempts to keep warm, Edward of England shivered. He wanted to go down on his knees and confess to his creator his terrible sin. Cain's sin, the sin of anger, of murder; and yet he meant well. He had spent twenty-four years of his reign attempting to bring order to these islands, crushing the Irish, bringing the Welsh to heel and, at last, conquering the Scots. Had he not intervened and given them a king, their own noble, John Balliol? Yet what had happened? Edward felt like squeezing the cup in his hands. Balliol, conspiring with his enemies abroad, Philip of France and the King of Norway, had risen in rebellion. Edward, swearing terrible oaths, had taken his huge force north and crossed the border, sacking the priory of Coldstream and everything else in his way until he came to Berwick. He hated that town on the Scottish eastern march, full of fat burgesses who looked after their own concerns, revelling in its nickname of the Alexandria of the West.
Its citizens had seen Edward's fleet at sea and the huge force of English, Welsh and Irish: the lines of bowmen, the serried ranks of men-at-arms, the colour and panoply of his cavalry. Yet those same burgesses of Berwick had refused him entry, saying that their fealty was to John Balliol, the rebellious king. Edward had immediately ordered an all-out assault, screaming in rage when he heard how his fleet had been driven back and his soldiers were dying in their hundreds in the ditches under the walls of this rebellious city. Finally, his own nephew had received his death wound, a huge quarrel from a crossbow smashing into his unprotected face and turning it into a screaming bloody pulp. That had been the last straw for Edward. He had mounted his great warhorse Bayard and personally led the charge across the narrow ditch of Berwick and stormed the gate. In the face of such fury the Scots had given way. Once the English had seized the gates, the terrible slaughter had begun. Edward, furious with the rebellious citizens, ordered his soldiers to show no quarter and the day had been given over to sacking the city. Men, women and children were cut down in their hundreds; the wells choked with corpses; the bodies littered the streets like leaves on a windy autumn day. Churches had been sacked and horses stabled there, precious ornaments looted, silken hangings torn down. Children had not been spared; they were knifed, beheaded and impaled on lances. Women in their hundreds were raped before their throats were cut, and then the entire city was put to the torch. Edward had seen it all. A terrible descent into hell as he rode his great, black warhorse along the terror-filled, narrow streets. Eventually, he had seen one of his Irish footmen cut the throat of a woman begging for mercy and Edward had dismounted, muttering, 'Oh no! I did not wish this!' On his knees he had tried to beg God's forgiveness but God had moved away from Edward of England. The king felt it would be useless giving orders for the killing to stop now, for the English had simply run out of people to slay.
Only one place held out: the Red House owned by Fleming merchants, their own trade hall in Berwick given on the sole condition that they would always defend it against the English. The Flemings proved their loyalty, barring doors and windows; they had kept the English army at bay while they fought from room to room, even hiding in the cellars, trapping the archers Edward's captains sent down after them. The slaughter had been terrible. The house was well named, Edward mused, for by the time his attack had been beaten off there were pools of blood at the foot of its walls and huge red gashes where the blood poured down from the bodies lolling out of the windows. Tired and weary at such resistance, Edward had called off the attack and ordered the place to be burnt to the ground, closing his ears to the dreadful screams of burning men. He had sat on his horse, encased completely in black armour, a gold circlet around his helmet, watching impassively whilst the Red House burnt, ignoring the cries of the Flemings and the stench of their burning bodies.
Now it was all over. Berwick was a sea of ashes. The rebellious John Balliol had already sent messages to the king's camp, promising to do fealty, abdicate his royal rights and leave Scodand for ever. Edward was satisfied. His rule had been accepted and the rebels smashed. Treason, once again, had earned its just deserts, but Edward knew there was something wrong. Such killing, such murder, such hatred would cause new troubles to fester in Scotland, and Edward was tired. Twenty-four years a king, the sweet taste of victories, of triumphant glory, had already turned into a bitter bile. He had buried his young children in their little coffins at Westminster and St Paul's. He had also lost his adoring wife Eleanor and Robert Burnell, his faithful chancellor; all gone into the darkness. Only Edward, God's anointed, was left on this earth, attempting to bring order out of chaos.
Edward chewed nervously at a fingernail. And behind him what was happening? His usual cordial relationship with the great barons of England was also turning sour. They were beginning to object to his war taxes and arduous campaigns. They did not share his vision, so objected in an ever rising chorus of protest. Edward took a large mouthful of wine and swirled it around in his mouth, hoping it would calm the raging abscess in one of his teeth. 'All things break down,' he murmured. His rule, his health. Would he continue to spend the rest of his life in cold tents outside desolate towns? Would that be his reward for eternity? Sitting in some icy part of hell, unable to achieve what he so desired? Edward felt Satan was close. The king licked his lips. He would go south. He would rebuild Berwick and restore the priory at Coldstream. He would have masses said in all the churches, abbeys and cathedrals. He would do penance. He would talk to God. Surely a fellow monarch would understand? Edward of England cowered deeper in his cloak and listened to the wind rise outside. Was it the wind or the hymn of Satan's army camped about him, waiting for his soul? The king put the wine down and, going over to his trestle bed, lay down, praying for sleep to calm the pain in his body and soothe the iron-hard anxieties in his soul.
A few weeks later, in a small white-washed room in London, Edward might have met a man who fully understood the iron bitterness of hatred and the unquenchable hunger for vengeance. The man sat on a small stool, shrouded in his robe, the cowl pulled over his head to hide his face. He just stared at the simple altar; only the crucifix hanging above it was clear in a pool of light thrown by a solitary candle. Like Edward, the man was cold, not just because it was winter or the lack of fire in the room, but rather from an iciness which came from the innermost part of his being: a malicious hatred which dominated his every waking moment, his every thought, no matter how calm hi
s outward appearance seemed. For this man hated the English king. A hatred which had grown like some rare exotic plant, tended carefully, nurtured every hour of the day since the news had come from Berwick. The man wanted revenge. He knew from the Bible about vengeance being the Lord's but such thoughts were no comfort. At first he had wanted vengeance for justice's sake but, now, he feasted on his hatred for the English king as he would on a good meal or savour a rich wine.
The man stirred and looked into the pool of light. Edward had achieved a great deal in Scotland and the people may well have accepted him, but there was no excuse for Berwick. The man smiled mirthlessly and once more called up the bitterness behind his revenge. 'Oh God! How could God allow it? How could he?' He thought of his younger brother, the bland face and blond hair, the simple cornflower blue eyes. How much he had trusted him! How his brother had adored him. How he had accepted, childlike, his assurances that service with Edward of England would bring him great profit. How he could move and prosper, and how no finer place existed for business and commerce than the great town and castle of Berwick.
His brother had accepted his assurances and gone, only to perish with the rest in the terrible slaughter there.
The news had come slowly through pedlars, tinkers and the odd merchant. At first, the man had refused to accept what he heard; surely no king could do that? Edward of England, who styled himself as the great saviour of the West, could never order a town with all its men, women and children to be put to the sword? Such things were now past. They were against the laws and usages of war and Edward of England reverenced the law as he did the Blessed Sacrament. But when the truth came it was even more dreadful. Yes, Edward had ordered all the citizens of Berwick to be butchered. Thousands had died; some put it as high as ten thousand, others twice that number. The town had been completely sacked, inhabitants butchered without distinction of age sex or condition. Even those who had fled to the churches were slain within sanctuary, the sacred places treated blasphemously by the ordinary English soldier. And his brother? The man closed his eyes to hide the tears. Matthew must have died, his blue eyes glazing over, their look of puzzlement hidden by death. And Matthew's wife, the little children? How many had there been? Three or four. He remembered them from two years ago, when Matthew had been in London: they were peas out of a pod with their round cherubic faces and thick masses of blond hair. They had played in the cathedral forecourt, screeching with laughter at the sheer enjoyment of life. Now their lives were gone, snuffed out like the faltering flame of a candlewick, all because of the wrath of the King of England.
The man looked at the crucifix, his lips curled back like those of a snarling dog. He recalled a line from the Bible. What was it? 'I have made a pact with the dead,' he murmured, 'with Hell. I have come to an understanding.' How could he look at that crucifix? If God had stopped talking to him, he would stop talking to God. He rose, walked over to the altar and, grabbing the crucifix, twisted it till the alabaster head hung down to the floor. He returned, sat down and looked at the blasphemy he had committed. He did not care. He got up once again and, licking his fingers, snuffed out the candle. Now he was in the dark. What he planned was indeed best planned in the dark, though, when it happened, all would see. He would call on the forces of darkness, on his own strength, guile and cunning, to bring Edward of England as low as Hell itself.
2
'Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.' The priest's hymn of praise to a thrice-holy God was taken up by the choir, their singing welling up to fill the huge nave of St Paul's Cathedral. Beneath its canopy of carved stone and wood, Walter de Montfort, Dean of St Paul's, with other canons of the cathedral began the incantation which marked the beginning of the important part of this solemn High Mass. The celebrant's gold and gem-encrusted vestments dazzled the eye, their colour and light being magnified by the hundreds of beeswax candles which stood upon and around the huge, high altar. The damask white altar-cloth with its gold fringes and purple tassels was already covered in pools of pure wax. The incense rose in huge fragrant clouds, warming the cold air and doing something to hide the stench of the populace packed in the cathedral. On the right side of the sanctuary sat Edward of England in his robes of state, a silver chaplet on his steel-grey hair. His face modelled itself in a look of piety as, under heavy-lidded eyes, he watched his opponent the dean celebrate the mass of peace before that same dean launched into a lengthy sermon on whether the Church should pay its taxes.
On either side of Edward sat his temporal and spiritual lords of England. On his immediate right was Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal mover behind this morning's pageant, a defender of the Church's right to grow wealthy but pay nothing. Edward disliked the man, a born conniver, who hid his political ambitions behind the intricacies of Canon Law, scriptural quotations and, if these failed, appeals to Rome. Edward should have drawn comfort from his great barons but these too he did not trust. The burly Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of his armies: Edward had once respected the man but now, looking sideways, he glimpsed Bigod's puffy, pig-like features, a man, Edward thought, prepared to go to war and fight his enemies as long as it brought great profits to his own coffers. Beside him sat Bohun, Earl of Hereford, a thin weasel-like man with a loud voice and a brain which Edward privately considered no bigger than a bead. He would go where Norfolk led.
The only men Edward did trust were behind him, the clever clerks and lawyers who aided and assisted him in his government of the country. The chief of these, Edward's Senior Clerk of the Chancery and Keeper of the Secret Seal, Hugh Corbett, stirred restlessly on the gouged wooden stool he had been given to squat upon throughout this long and lengthy service. Corbett felt guilty. He loved the mass but hated these solemn occasions when Christ and his saints were hidden by the panoply and rituals of the church. Corbett stretched his legs and looked around. Beside him, his servant Ranulf wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve and, for almost the hundredth time since the service began, attempted to clear his throat of phlegm. Corbett glared at him. He knew Ranulf was ill with a slight fever, but he also suspected his servant took great glee in reminding Corbett of how ill he actually was.
The clerk, looking round the huge, muscular frame of his king, stared up across the sanctuary. The altar was a pool of light; priests, bishops, abbots, – the lay servers of the cathedral, the whole retinue of this marvellous edifice, all in attendance now concentrated on celebrating High Mass. The choir's paean of praise eventually ended and the reedy, strident voice of Walter de Montfort began the solemn, long prayer of the Consecration. Corbett curbed his impatience. He knew the service was only a charade; once it was finished the real politics would begin. Edward of England needed money; he wanted treasure to fight Philip of France abroad and crush the rebels in Scotland. He had taxed his people and his merchants; sold privileges and concessions in order to fill his war chests but now it was the turn of the Church.
To assist him, Edward had gathered his parliament, or virtually all of it, into one sweaty mass in this cathedral. They would hear mass, make reparation with God, take the sacrament and give each other the kiss of peace. Then the real business would begin. Corbett shifted uneasily on the rough wooden stool and pulled his cloak more firmly round him. It was bitterly cold; January 1299 would, he thought, be remembered by many for the terrible snowstorms which had swept the country. Outside, the snow lay two or three feet deep, whipped up by a savage cold wind which now pierced the cracks in the cathedral doors and whisded along the nave, making the candle-light dance and everyone shiver. Corbett felt guilty for thinking such secular thoughts as the mass swept towards the solemn point of consecration when the celebrant would take the bread and wine and utter the sacred words, transforming them into Christ's body and blood. Corbett quietly struck his breast and murmured 'Miserere, Miserere!' Beside him Ranulf sniffed once again, wiped a runny nose on his jerkin sleeve and looked sideways at Corbett, hoping his master would take note of the fresh insult. Ranulf loved Corbett but would ne
ver admit it, relishing every opportunity to stir, excite or alarm this usually serious-minded, rather grave clerk.
Corbett's mind, however, had wandered off, concentrating on the king's major problem: Edward was bankrupt. Two years ago he had debased his coinage, then he had begun to raise taxes in one parliament after another and collectors of the tax on land were sent into the shires and boroughs to claim the king's due. The demand for money was relentless: Edward was at war with France, attempting to save the English Duchy of Aquitaine from Philip IV's acquisitive clutches. Moreover, the King had recently put down a serious revolt in South Wales and only a year ago he had sacked Berwick and brought Balliol and others to their knees. Yet the rebellion in Scotland refused to subside. News had come south of a new Scottish war leader, a commoner, William the Wallace, who had fanned the flames of unrest by perpetrating secret night raids on isolated garrisons and columns, not missing any opportunity to harass and attack the English occupiers.
The wars demanded good silver. Edward had taken loans from the Italian bankers, the Frescobaldi, but now they would give no more and so he had turned on the Church. The Church was wealthy, a fat milk cow, and Edward dearly wanted to separate some of its riches from it. He had seized the tax levied by the former pope, Nicholas IV, who had nurtured grand ideas of uniting all Christendom in a new offensive against the Turk. Edward had enthusiastically taken up the idea of a crusade but had seized the money raised. He then turned to the alien priories, those houses owned by religious orders abroad, seizing their revenue and temporalities. Corbett had played a significant role in the appropriation of this ecclesiastical wealth, going through memoranda rolls, documents and charters, searching out what the king's rights were in these matters. Time and again, Corbett with barons of the exchequer and other treasury officials, had met to study long lists of rents, dues and fee-farms owing to the king. The results had been meagre, certainly not enough to finance Edward's wars abroad, so the king had begun to cast envious eyes on the wealth of the rest of the English Church. In this he met two staunch opponents: Boniface VIII in Avignon, who was totally determined on the churches in Western Christendom resuming their regular payments to the coffers of St Peter, and Robert Winchelsea, consecrated archbishop four years earlier, who had a very clear idea about his own rights and those of the English Church.