FOOTNOTES
[15] Advantage was taken of the Abbot’s compulsory absence to take the necessary steps for the dissolution of the monastery. (Froude.)
[16] In some private memoranda of Thomas Cromwell, which still exist in his own hand-writing, occur the words,—“Item. The Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also to be executed there with his accomplices.” The trial, however, took place at Wells, the execution (a foregone conclusion) at Glastonbury, as related in the story.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIAL.
The period of English history of which we are now writing has been aptly called “The Reign of Terror.” England under Thomas Cromwell, and France under Robespierre, were alike examples of the utter prostration which may befall a mighty nation beneath the sway of one ruthless intellect.
To make the King absolute, and himself to rule through the King, was the one aim of the man whom Fox, the Martyrologist, grotesquely calls “The valiant soldier of Christ:”—for this end he smote down the Church and the nobility: Bishop Fisher and the Carthusians represented the ecclesiastical world, the Courtenays and the Poles the aristocracy, Sir Thomas More the new-born culture of the time; and Cromwell chose his victims from the noblest and the best. The piety of Fisher, once the King’s tutor, to whom his mother had committed her royal boy on her death-bed, could not save him; nor his learning, Sir Thomas More; nor her grey hairs, the Countess of Salisbury. Spies were scattered through the land; it was dangerous to speak one’s mind in one’s own house; nay, the new inquisition claimed empire over men’s thoughts; we have seen that the concealment of one’s sentiments was treason.
Will my more youthful readers wonder then that men could be found to convict upon such charges as those preferred against the aged Abbot of Glastonbury? They need wonder at nothing that occurred while Bloody Harry was King, and Thomas Cromwell Prime Minister.
The juries themselves sat with a rope around their necks; when the Prior and the chief brethren of the Charter-house waited upon Cromwell to explain their conscientious objections to the Oath of Supremacy, loyally and faithfully, he sent them from his house to the tower; when the juries would not convict the ecclesiastics, he detained them in court a second day, and threatened them with the punishment reserved for the prisoners, unless they found a verdict for the crown; finally, he visited the jurymen in person, and by individual intimidation forced the reluctant men to find a verdict of guilty, whereupon the unfortunate monks were hanged, drawn, and quartered, with every circumstance of barbarity, suspended, cut down alive, disembowelled, and finally dismembered.[17]
Thursday, the fourteenth of November, 1539, was a gloomy day: black leaden clouds floated above, the ground was sodden with moisture, the leaves, fallen leaves, no inapt emblem, rotted in the slime, a heavy damp air oppressed the breath; the day suited the deed, for on that day the aged Abbot of Glastonbury was formally arraigned at Wells, together with his brethren the Prior and Sub-Prior, on the charge of felony,—“Robbery of the Abbey Church with intent to defraud the King.”
They might well have proceeded against him under the Act of Supremacy, but variety has charms, and this new idea of felony commended itself to the mind of Cromwell, as a good device for humbling the clergy.
Lord Russell, one of Henry’s new nobility who supplied the places left vacant by so many ruthless executions, whose own fortunes were built on the plunder of the Church, sat as judge, and there were empannelled, we are told, “as worshipful a jury as was ever charged in Wells.”
The indictment set forth that the prisoners had feloniously hidden the treasures of the Abbey, to wit, sundry chalices, patens, reliquaries, parcels of plate, gold and silver in vessels, ornaments, and money, with the intent of depriving our sovereign lord the King of his rightful property, conferred upon him by Act of Parliament.
“What say you, Richard Whiting, guilty or not guilty?”
The aged prisoner looked around him with wondering eyes; he scanned the crowded array of spectators, then the jury, who looked half ashamed of their work, and finally rested his eyes upon his judge.
“How can I plead guilty where there can be no guilt? These treasures were committed to my care to keep for God and Holy Church; it is not meet to cast them to swine; no earthly power may lawfully take to itself the houses of God for a possession, or break down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers. Am I tried before an assembly of Christian men, or before heathen, Turks, infidels, and heretics?”
“It is not meet for a prisoner to revile his judges,” said Russell; “as an Englishman you are bound by the Acts of Parliament.”
“Talk not to me of Parliament; you have on your side but the Parliament of this sinful generation, and against you are all the Parliaments who have sat from the Witan-agemot downwards, who have granted and confirmed to us of Glastonbury, those possessions which you would snatch from a house which has been the light of this country for a thousand years; to resist such oppression and sacrilege is not guilt, and I plead in that sense, ‘Not Guilty.’”
“Thou showest but little wisdom in pressing thine own opinion against the consent of the realm.”
“I would fain hold my peace; but that I may satisfy my conscience, I will tell thee that while thou hast on thy side but a minority in a single kingdom, the whole of the Christian world, save that kingdom, is dead against you, and even the majority here condemn your proceedings, although the fear of a barbarous death silences their tongues.”
“Of whom art thou speaking?”
“Of all the good men present.”
“Why hast thou persuaded so many people to disobey the King and Parliament?”
“Nay, I have sinned in dissembling my opinions, but now I will speak. I disallow these changes as impious and damnable (general sensation); I neither look for mercy nor desire it; my cause I commit to God, I am aweary of this wicked world, and long for peace.”
He sank upon the bench behind him, as did his fellow prisoners, and none of them took any further obvious interest in the proceedings.
Formal evidence was brought to prove the discovery of treasure hidden in secret places, but all this fell very flat upon the audience, the fact was tacitly admitted on both sides, the difference of opinion only existed as to the guilt thereof.
There was no room for doubt in Lord Russell’s mind; he summed up the evidence against the prisoners, and reminded the jurymen that their own loyalty was on trial, a very forcible hint in those days, and one which few men dared disregard.
They retired; returned with downcast looks, and gave a verdict in accordance with the evidence: theirs not to argue the point of law, the fact was sufficient.
“Prisoners at the bar,” said the judge, “you have been convicted on the clearest evidence of an act of felony—of seeking to deprive the King of the property willed to him by the high estates of the realm, in trust for the nation. Into your motives I need not enquire, but no man can be a law unto himself; born within these realms you are subject to the authorities thereof, and for your disobedience to them you must now die. The only duty remaining to me is to pronounce upon you the awful sentence the law provides against your particular crime—that you be taken hence to the prison whence you came, and from thence be drawn on the morrow, upon a hurdle, to the summit of Glastonbury Tor, that all men far and wide may witness the royal justice, where you are to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for while you are still living, your bodies are to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burnt before your faces; your heads are then to be cut off, and your bodies divided, each into four quarters, to be at the King’s disposal, and may God have mercy upon your souls.”[18]
A dead silence followed, broken at last by the Abbot’s voice.
“We appeal from this judgment of guilty and time-serving men to the judgment of God, before Whose bar we shall at length meet again.”
It was late in the same evening, the curfew had already rung, the rain was still falling at intervals in the streets of Glastonbury, as if nature wept at the approaching dissolution of the venerable fane which had been the ornament of western England so long.
In spite of the weather, many groups formed from time to time outside the gatehouse of the Abbey, for there the three prisoners had been brought from Wells, and there, in the chamber over the gateway, in strict ward, they were passing the last night the royal mercy permitted them to live.
A youth, repulsed from the door which gives admittance to the upper chambers, retired with despairing gesture; his face bore marks of intense emotion, the tears had worn furrows therein, and from time to time a sob escaped him.
A companion pressed up to his side.
“Will they not let you in?”
“No, Gregory, I have begged in vain these three times.”
“Why not try the sheriff, he is said to be merciful?”
“I can but try, I will go to his house at once.”
As due to his office, the high sheriff of the county was charged with the details of the morrow’s tragedy; he liked the task but little, still he viewed it as a simple matter of duty, and could not flinch from it.
He was resting after the fatigues of the day, and in truth, thinking very uneasily over the events of the trial.
“What if, after all, he is in the right—that appeal to the judgment bar above was very solemn—when that great assize takes place, in whose shoes would it be best to stand, in the place of the judge or the felon of to-day?”
A domestic entered—“A lad craves a moment’s speech.”
“Who is he?”
“I know him not, but he has been weeping bitterly, as one may see by his face.”
The sheriff hesitated, but he was in a merciful mood; he suspected the object of the visitor, and it was a good sign for the success of the suppliant that he permitted the visit.
“Well, my lad,” said he, as Cuthbert entered, “what is the matter now?”
“I have a boon to crave, your worship; you will not refuse it me?”
“Let me first hear what it is.”
“The Abbot has been my adopted father, my best friend from childhood; let me see him once more, let me receive his parting blessing, ere wicked hands slay him.”
“Wicked hands, my lad, you forget yourself, and where you are.”
“Pardon me, I meant no offence; I know it is no fault of your worship.”
“It is but a slight boon, after all,” said the sheriff, “and one which may be conceded;” and as he spoke he wrote a few lines on a slip of parchment. “They will give you admission for half-an-hour, if you show them this at the gateway.”
“May I not stay longer?”
“It would not be kind to those who are to die; they need their time to make their peace with God.”
“That is already made, your worship.”
“I trust so,” said the sheriff, with a sad faint smile at the boy’s earnestness.
“Who art thou, my lad?” he said.
“The Abbot’s adopted son.”
“But who were your real parents?”
“I know not.”
“What name do they call you?”
“Cuthbert, I have none other.”
“Poor lad,” said the sheriff, as the boy departed, “it seems almost like a familiar face, yet I have never met him before; some accidental likeness, I suppose.”
