Chapter Seven.
Sad Tidings.
“But of all sad words by tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—‘It might have been!’”
Though the majority of the nation were comparatively indifferent to the religious changes that had been effected, there were certain political occurrences which they viewed with less equanimity. One of these was the vast number of Spaniards brought over by Philip. It was reckoned—doubtless with some exaggeration—that in September, 1554, three Spaniards might be seen in London to every Englishman. The rumour ran that five thousand more were on the way. The nation was both vexed and alarmed. Was England to be reduced, like the Netherlands, to the condition of a mere outlying province of Spain?
Before eight weeks had run out from the day of Philip’s arrival in London, his hand upon the reins was plainly visible. He had been heard to say that if he believed a member of his own body to be tainted with heresy, he would amputate it immediately and without remorse. The Gospellers were not left quite ignorant of what they might reasonably expect.
It was on a quiet morning in October that Agnes was on her way to Horsepool, when she was overtaken by Cicely Marvell, carrying a yoke of water-pails like herself.
“Good morrow, Mistress Marvell!” said the former. “Dear heart! but you look something troubled belike. Is any sick with you?”
Cicely and Agnes were quite aware that their religious sentiments were alike. It is in the cloudy and dark day that those who fear the Lord speak often one to another.
“Heavy news, my maid!” said Cicely in a low voice, and shaking her head. “Yesternight sixty folk were arrest in London for reading of Lutheran books.”
“Poor folk, trow?”
“All manner, as I do hear.”
Neither high nor low, in those days, were safe, if suspicion of heresy were once roused against them. The higher class were the more likely to be detected; yet there was a little more hesitation in bringing them to the stake. But it was easy to see, then as now, that as a rule it was the poor of this world whom God had chosen to be rich in faith. For every rich man or titled lady who incurred bodily danger through faithfulness to the truth, there were at least fifty of those whom the world regards as “nobody.”
There was a strange mixture of comedy and tragedy in the events of those days. The miracle-play alternated with the pillory, and the sight-seers went from the burning of a heretic in the morning to see the new athletic games, introduced by the Spaniards, in the afternoon in Palace Yard. A grand tournament at Court preceded, and a bear-baiting followed, the humiliating spectacle of the Parliament of England kneeling at the feet of Cardinal Pole, and abjectly craving absolution from Rome. One man—Sir Ralph Bagenall—stood out, and stood up, when all his co-senators were thus prostrate in the dust. He was religiously a Gallio, not a Gospeller; but he was politically a sturdy Englishman, and no coward. Strange to say, no harm came to him. Nay, is it strange, when we read, “Them that honour Me, I will honour,” and “Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it?”
There were no longer any sermons preached at the Cross that a Gospeller cared to hear. One was forthcoming regularly every Sunday; but the preachers were Pendleton the renegade, Feckenham the suave, or Gardiner the man of blood. The uneasy feeling of a section at least of the populace was shown by frays at Charing Cross, incipient insurrections in Suffolk, assaults on priests at the altar, and unaccountable iconoclasms. The image of Becket was twice found broken by mysterious means; and a cat, tonsured, and arrayed in miniature vestments, was discovered hanging on the gallows in Cheapside, while the offer of a large reward failed to reveal the offender.
During this time, Mistress Winter’s piety had been blooming in a wonderful manner. She kept Saint Thomas of Canterbury on a small table, with a lamp burning before it, and every morning diligently courtesied to this stock and stone. When her hands were not otherwise busied, a rosary was pretty sure to be found in them, on which she recounted Paters and Aves with amazing celerity. The bitterness of her tongue kept pace with her show of religiousness. Ugly adjectives, and uglier substantives, were flung at Agnes all the day long, and whether she deserved reproof or not appeared to make no difference. But though words and even blows were not spared, Mistress Winter went no further. Agnes was much too useful to be denounced as a heretic, at least so long as she remained at her post in Cow Lane. She did all the unpleasant work in the house, besides filling the convenient offices of a vent for Joan’s temper, and a butt for Dorothy’s ridicule. But though getting rid of her was not to be thought of, words were cheap, however peppery, and a box on the ear was a great relief to the feelings of the giver—those of the recipient not being taken into account. So Agnes got plenty of both.
“Sweet-heart, how earnest by yonder black eye?” anxiously demanded John Laurence, on the last Sunday afternoon in January, when Agnes and he were coming back from their favourite stroll towards Clerkenwell.
“’Tis nought new, belike,” said she with a smile.
“Please God,” returned he, “it shall be ancient matter and by-gone, very soon.”
He stood still a moment, looking over the crowded chimneys of the City, just beyond the green field through which they were walking.
“Doth the thought e’er come to thy mind, Agnes,” asked he, “how soon all things shall be bygones? At the most afore many years,—yea, afore many days, it may be,—thou and I shall be away hence from this world. And even this great city, that doth look thus firm and substantial, ere long shall not be left thereof one trace. Yea, heaven and earth shall pass away: but Christ’s words shall not pass away.”
Agnes listened with interest, but gave no answer beyond a gesture of assent.
“I have fallen to think much of late,” said the Black Friar, “of one word of His,—assuredly not to pass away, nor be forgotten—‘Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.’ Verily, it were awful matter, to draw down on a man’s head this public denying of Jesu Christ.”
“Dear heart!” said Agnes, at once sympathetically and deprecatingly.
“Ah!” he replied, with a sigh of self-distrust: “hope is one matter, and belief another.”
“Dost fear some ill work, trow?” she asked doubtfully.
John Laurence did not answer at once. He spoke after a minute, dreamily, as if to himself; a habit to which Agnes was now quite accustomed.
“‘Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after that He hath killed hath power to cast into Hell.’”
The Friar walked on for a few seconds with his usual rapidity, and then suddenly stopped again.
“Men think lightly of these things, dear heart,” said he. “Most men have a far greater care lest they break a limb, or lose an handful of gold, than lest they be cast into Hell. Yet see thou how Christ took the same. And He knew,—as we cannot know,—what is Hell.”
“The good Lord keep us!” ejaculated Agnes fervently.
“Amen!” responded the Black Friar. “‘He shall keep the feet of His saints.’ It is not we that keep ourselves. ’Tis not we that hold Him, no more than the babe holdeth himself in his mother’s arms. And the mother were more like to leave the babe fall into the fire or the water, than He to loose hold upon His trustful child.”
He was trying to prepare her for what might come. But she was not prepared.
Cold though it was, they had a pleasant walk that afternoon. The time of release was drawing so near, that Agnes felt almost as bright and glad as if it were already come. At Cow Cross, her betrothed bade her farewell, saying with his grave smile that he would not come further, lest it should cost her an extra taunt from Mistress Dorothy.
Agnes was quite satisfied to be saved the small torment in question. She did not realise how soon the time might come when it would seem to her a lighter thing to endure Dorothy’s ridicule for a calendar year, than to miss one glimpse of that face.
We recognise such facts as these—when they come.
The next day passed over uneventfully. The Tuesday morning rose, bright, clear, and frosty. Agnes was in spirits perfectly marvellous, considering what she had to endure. She was making melody in her heart as she carried her pails to the pump, thinking gladly how short her time of trial was growing, and how bright her future would be. It mattered nothing to her that she would have to work as hard as ever; nothing, that she must live in a single room of a crowded street in the heart of the City; nothing, that John Laurence was a worn, gaunt man of more than twice her years, and utterly unattractive in the eyes of the world; nothing, that the day was bitterly cold, and her thin bed-gown a very insufficient protection. Everything was rose-colour to her. Had she not Christ in Heaven, and one honest heart that loved her upon earth?
When Agnes came in sight of the pump, she perceived a little child sitting crouched upon the step of the trough, and evidently crying. Her heart was not hard to touch, and setting down her pails she laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder. He had been too much absorbed in his grief to notice her approach, but when she spoke he looked up,
showing the now tear-stained face of little Will Flint.
“Why, Will, my little lad!—what matter now?”
Will burst into a fresh paroxysm without answering.
“Metrusteth thou hast not been an ill lad?”
Will shook his curly head.
“Nay, what then? Is Mother sick?”
Another shake.
“Come, tell me what it is. Mayhap we shall find some remedy.”
“O Mistress Agnes!” came with a multitude of sobs.
“Nay, then, tell me now!” pleaded Agnes.
“O Mistress Agnes, they have ta’en him!”
“Ta’en whom, my lad? Sure, thy little brother Dickon is not stole away?”
“No!” sobbed Will. “But, O Mistress!—they’ve ta’en him to yon ugly prison, afore those wicked folk, and they call him an here—heretic, and they say he’ll ne’er come out again—nay, never!”
This was manifestly something serious.
“But ta’en whom, Will, dear?—not thy father?”
“Oh nay, nay!—the Black Friar.”
“What Black Friar, Will?” Agnes hardly knew her own voice.
“Why, our Black Friar—Father Laurence. There was only one.”
For a minute there was dead silence in reply—a minute, during which the rose-colour died out of sky and earth, and the glad music was changed to funeral bells. Then Agnes rose from her stooping position.
“There was only one!” she repeated, with a far-away look in her eyes, which were fixed on the tower of the Cathedral, but saw nothing.
“He was so good to me and Dickon!” sobbed Will.
“Child, wilt do thy best to find out whither they have ta’en him, and when he is to be had afore the Bishops, and then come and tell me?”
Will, occupied in rubbing his eyes with his small sleeve, nodded assent. Agnes filled her pails mechanically, and carried them home. The world must go on, if the sun would never rise any more for her.
Early the next morning Will brought her news that the six prisoners, of whom John Laurence was one, had been taken to the Counter, and that on the eighth of February they were to appear before Bishop Gardiner at Winchester Palace, Southwark. Knowing that Mistress Winter would soon hear of the arrest, if she had not already done so, Agnes made no attempt to conceal the news. She told it herself, and requested permission to go and hear the examination.
“What, on a brewing-day!” cried Mistress Winter. “Good sooth, nay! They be right sure to be put by to another day. If that be not brewing, nor baking, nor cleaning, nor washing-day, may be thou canst be let go for an half-hour then.”
“Prithee, Mistress Sacramentary, don thy velvet gown!” spitefully added Dorothy.
The hall of the Bishop’s Palace was crowded that morning. The six prisoners were led out in order, according to their social rank:—first, William Hunter, the apprentice-boy of Brentford, only sixteen years of age; then Thomas Tomkins, the weaver; Stephen Knight, the barber of Maldon; William Pygot, the butcher of Braintree; John Laurence, the Black Friar; lastly, Thomas Hawkes, the only one in the group who wrote himself “gentleman.” They were such common, contemptible people, that Gardiner thought them beneath his august notice, and scornfully referred them to Bonner’s jurisdiction. They were marched at once to the Consistory sitting in Saint Paul’s Chapter-House, whither the crowd followed.
The Consistory demanded of the accused persons—
“Do ye believe that the body of Christ is in the Sacrament, without any substance of bread and wine remaining?”
The prisoners replied that this doctrine was not agreeable to Scripture.
“Do ye believe that your parents, your sponsors, the King, Queen, nobility, clergy, and laity of the realm, believing this doctrine, were true and faithful Christians, or no?”
“If they so believed,” was the answer, “they were therein deceived.”
“Did ye, yourselves, in time past, truly believe the same, or no?”
They said, “Ay, heretofore; but not now.”
“Do ye believe that the Spirit of Christ has been, is, and will be, with the Church, not suffering her to be deceived?”
“We do so believe,” replied the prisoners.
“Have you,” pursued Bonner, “being infamed to me as heretics, not been a good space in my house, and been there fed, and instructed by those desirous of your soul’s welfare—and yet you refuse this belief?”
The accused admitted all this.
“Will ye now conform?”
“In no whit, until it be proved by Holy Scripture,” came the decisive answer.
“If not,” demanded the Bishop, “what grounds have you to maintain your opinion? Who is of the same opinion? What conference have ye had therein with any? What comfort and relief had you from any, and their names and dwelling-places?” (Note 1.)
This was a deliberate request that they would accuse their friends and teachers. But the prisoners did not respond.
“We have no ground but the truth,” they said, “which we were taught by Doctor Taylor, of Hadleigh, and such other.”
Since Taylor of Hadleigh was already burnt to ashes, this admission could do him no harm.
The accused persons were then remanded until nine o’clock the next morning, and advised in the meantime to “bethink them what they would do.”
It was Cicely Marvell who told all this in a low voice to Agnes Stone, as they stood together under a tree in the meadow behind Cow Lane.
“Keep a good heart, dear maid!” said Cicely encouragingly. “May be it shall be better than we might fear. ‘The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’”
But Agnes shook her head. To such a trial she at least anticipated no other end than death. Too well she knew that, like the Master whose servant John Laurence was, “for envy they had delivered him.”
Perhaps, too, her spirituality was of a higher type than that of Cicely. She recognised that the Lord’s tender mercy lies not in sparing pain to His chosen, but in being with them when they pass through the purifying waters, and bearing them in His arms through the fire which is to consume their earthliness, but not themselves. His is a love which will inflict the pain that is to purify, and tenderly comfort the sufferer as he passes through it.
Agnes hardly knew how she passed that Friday evening. Her usual duties were all done; but she went through them with eyes that saw not, with deafened ears on which Mistress Winter’s abuse fell pointless, for which Dorothy’s sarcasms had no meaning. God was in Heaven, and John Laurence and his persecutors were on earth: beyond this there was to her nobody and nothing. The vexations for which she used to care were such mere insignificant pin-pricks that it was impossible even to notice them now.
So the Friday evening, and the sleepless night, wore away: and the Saturday morning broke.
Note 1. These questions, in point of wording, are very much condensed.