Death of a Chancellor (42 page)

Sections of the crowd were now able to join hesitantly in the refrain.

The second column advanced across the Green and stood shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues who had marched down Vicars Close. Still the Archdeacon held his peace. The next column was
coming from behind the cathedral. Powerscourt realized that they were advancing from all four points of the compass. The final column would come from behind them and pass right in front of Anne
Herbert’s front door. The third column was advancing behind no fewer than five banners. All of them showed the Five Wounds of Christ. They too joined the semicircle around the bonfire.
Stewards were moving through the crowd again, handing out candles to the faithful. They started on the side nearest the Vicars Close and a ripple of lights winked up towards the night sky. Fathers
with small children on their shoulders peered nervously upwards in case the candle dropped on their heads. And here Powerscourt saw just how carefully the evening had been organized. For the
children’s candles were tiny, a fraction of the size of those handed out to the adults. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on a birthday cake.

Then they heard the last column. Powerscourt and his party were all out in the front garden by now, staring as if hypnotized at the bonfire. They too had candles in their hands. The hymn was
growing louder. Peering into the dark behind the Green Powerscourt saw another banner of the Five Wounds of Christ at the head of the procession. This one had the letters IHS, an abbreviated form
of the Greek word for Jesus at the top.

The pilgrims were passing Anne Herbert’s front door, advancing through a waving sea of candles towards the bonfire. Powerscourt doubted if much love had been shown to friend and foe in all
the strife in Compton. Three dead bodies was not the greatest tribute to brotherly love.

The column had been intended to continue up the road and then turn left further up where the path led to the west front of the minster. But something, maybe the lights, maybe the noise, made
them swing left and head straight across the Green. The crowd parted before them like the waters of the Red Sea, candles making sudden darts to the left and right. As this final column arrived at
the bonfire the other three already there joined in the last verse.

The chorus was deafening. Most of the crowd were holding their candles high above their heads. The fire was burning fiercely. Some of the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ
had been stuck in the ground in front of the bonfire, swaying slightly in the light breeze.

Then the trumpet sounded. At first nobody could see where the noise was coming from. Then a forest of candles pointed up to the parapet above the west front. Almost lost among the statues of
saints and bishops, of Christ enthroned in glory, a young man played one short fanfare. ‘Christ, Francis,’ muttered Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘are we going to have the four horsemen of
the apocalypse riding across the sky in a minute?’

‘You never know, Johnny, maybe it’s the name and number of the beast, the whole book of Revelations coming next.’

The minster door opened. Four people bearing enormous candles escorted the Archdeacon to the scaffold. He mounted very slowly. Powerscourt saw that he was wearing the regalia of a Jesuit priest.
Presumably these were the clothes that had travelled to Melbury Clinton with him on his furtive and clandestine missions to celebrate Mass. At last he reached the top. Powerscourt noticed that one
of his companions, carrying a large bag, had accompanied him and placed the receptacle on a tall table beside him. Really, Powerscourt thought, as the acolyte retreated towards ground level, these
people leave nothing to chance. The Archdeacon would not have to grope about at his feet for whatever religious rabbit he wished to pull out of the bag. It was ready by his right hand. They leave
nothing to chance. Maybe somebody should ask them to organize Edward the Seventh’s Coronation. The Archdeacon looked very slowly at the great throng beneath him. The crowd was inching closer
and closer to the bonfire. He raised his hand very slowly and made the sign of the cross. Then he spoke.

‘
In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, Amen.
’

He paused again. There was an enormous outbreak of cheering. Powerscourt wondered how many of this crowd came from Compton and how many had come in the special trains.

The Archdeacon raised his hand for silence. ‘Brothers and Sisters in Christ,’ he went on, ‘we are gathered here in this time and place to mark a very special
anniversary.’ Powerscourt realized why the Archdeacon had been chosen for this particular assignment. He had an extremely powerful voice which carried easily right to the back of the
Cathedral Green.

‘Tomorrow,’ he continued, turning slowly so that each section of the crowd could see him in turn, ‘is the one thousandth anniversary of this cathedral as a place of Christian
worship.’

There were huge cheers from the crowd. Many of them punched their candles in the air.

‘For nearly six hundred and fifty years the abbey belonged in the bosom of Mother Church, a dutiful servant of Rome.’

Again a mighty roar from the crowd. Many of them were crossing themselves. One or two were kneeling on the ground, eyes closed in prayer.

‘And then, due to the political necessities of the King of England, this church was ripped from its rightful home.’

The men in the first cohort to reach the bonfire had pulled the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ out of the ground and were waving it aloft.

‘Tomorrow,’ the Archdeacon went on, his finger stabbing into the night, ‘we are going to right that wrong. Tomorrow we are going to restore this church to its rightful home in
the bosom of the Holy and Apostolic Church! Tomorrow we are going to rededicate this building as a place of Catholic worship! Tomorrow we are going to make the Cathedral of Compton Catholic once
again! Tomorrow we shall celebrate Mass here for the first time in three hundred and sixty years!’

At each tomorrow he had pointed dramatically at the minster, the building still dark among the ocean of candles waving at varying heights on Cathedral Green.

‘I have here,’ the Archdeacon pulled a heavy-looking package from his bag, ‘a gift for the cathedral from the Holy Father himself!’ Very slowly the Archdeacon took off
the cloth that surrounded the bounty from the Pope.

‘This is an altar stone, a slab that contains the relics of a saint and martyr who gave his life that his country might come back to the true religion!’

The crowd fell silent. Powerscourt wondered if it was a relic of Sir Thomas More.

‘Compton will be graced,’ the Archdeacon went on, ‘with a relic of one of the most illustrious servants of the Church in England. Edmund Campion!’

He waved the slab in the air. There were gasps from the crowd. Powerscourt wondered how many of them knew who Edmund Campion was. He rather suspected that most of them did.

‘At this time of renewal, of rebirth, of Resurrection, it is fitting that we should make a symbolic rupture with the past that deprived England of its true faith and Compton of its true
religion! I have here some of the heretical Acts of Parliament that drove an unwilling Compton into the arms of heresy!’

The Archdeacon fished about in his bag once more and produced an ancient scroll, the paper on the front yellow with age.

‘The Act of Annates of 1532 which stole from the Pope the revenue due to him from the bishops of England!’

The Archdeacon held it aloft, turning slowly so that all sections of the crowd could see it properly. Then he hurled it on to the fire. There was a quiet splutter at first, then a brief blaze of
light as the Act was turned to ashes. For a second or two the crowd were completely silent. Then there was an enormous cheer.

The Archdeacon was back in his bag again. ‘The Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533 which ratified the sovereignty and independence of the Church of England!’ Another vital piece of
Reformation legislation was cast into the flames of hell. There was another burst of applause as the act caught fire.

‘The Second Act of Annates of 1534 which proclaimed the heresy that the King and not the Pope selected the bishops of the Church!’

Again the Archdeacon hurled the scroll into the bonfire. The crowd had found a word they could chant now. Shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang around Cathedral Green.

Now he was bringing laws out two at a time. The Archdeacon held two acts aloft, inciting the crowd with the cry of ‘Further heresy! The Act of Succession of 1534 which pronounced Henry the
Eighth’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void! Further heresy! The Act of Supremacy of 1534 which proclaimed that Henry was the only supreme head of the Church of England!’

The Archdeacon held the second act high above his head. ‘This was the Act that led to the death of saint and martyr Sir Thomas More!’

Then he threw the two Acts on to the pyre to join the earlier cornerstones of Henry’s Reformation. A great chant of Heresy! Heresy! Heresy! rang out among the crowd. Powerscourt wondered
if they might get out of control. Lady Lucy was holding on to him very tightly. But the Archdeacon wasn’t finished yet. He pulled another ancient scroll out of his bag.

‘Yet further heresy!’ he called out to the crowd. ‘The Act for the Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries of 1536! The Act that destroyed hundreds of faithful Christian houses,
devoted to the service of their communities and to the worship of God! To the flames with it!’

Again he cast it into the fire. This time the Act stuck at the very top of the pyre. For a moment or two nothing happened. The crowd held their breath. Was this a sign from God? Was this one not
going to burn? Then there was a loud whoosh as the flames took hold. Once more the shout of Heresy! Heresy!, sounding rather like a battle cry now, rose above Cathedral Green.

The Archdeacon had one Act left. He held it aloft and turned slowly on his scaffold so that the entire throng could have a chance to see it.

‘And this!’ he shouted, waving it in the air. ‘This is the Act that saw the dissolution of our own abbey here in Compton! The Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries
of 1538! This was the Act that tore the people of Compton from their mother church!’ Still he held it high above his head. The crowd stared, mesmerized. ‘Let it share, in part . .
.’ The Archdeacon was at full volume now. Powerscourt wondered briefly if his voice was carrying as far as Fairfield Park. Or heaven itself. ‘Let it share, in part,’ the
Archdeacon repeated himself for greater emphasis, ‘the fate of the blessed saints and martyrs who gave their lives to God in opposing it.’ He brought it down to chest level and ripped
the Act in two. ‘Those martyrs were hung drawn and quartered, their bodies cut into four pieces.’ He ripped the Act into four. ‘This dismembered Act, cut into four pieces, I now
commit to the fire!’ The Archdeacon knelt down and placed each part separately into a flaming section of the bonfire. He rose to his feet once more. An enormous cheer erupted from the crowd,
their candles held aloft, their eyes fixed on four little scraps of paper that had once been yellow and were now turning into wafer thin sections of black, then crumbling into ash.

‘Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, nudging him gently in the ribs, ‘do you think those Acts were the real thing? Or did he just pick up a few bits of aged paper in an old
bookshop?’

‘They might have come from Rome for all I know, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m sure Propaganda could rustle you up a forgery or two if you asked them nicely.’

The crowd were still cheering. Powerscourt wondered how the Archdeacon was going to bring them down from their ecstasy. He noticed that it was very close to midnight. He saw too that people were
on the move. A new procession was forming with all the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ at the front. Then the four choirs that had sung in the marches to the bonfire swung into line behind
them. They moved off into a new position in front of the cathedral doors.

Still the crowd cheered. Loud shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang out towards the darkened minster. The candles were still flickering brightly all across Cathedral Green. The Archdeacon was holding
both arms aloft, turning very slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees. He looked, Powerscourt thought, like one of those Old Testament prophets appealing for calm among the unruly Israelites
as they hankered after the golden calf or graven images rather than the God of their fathers. Gradually silence returned. All eyes were on the tall figure on top of his scaffold. Only when total
silence had been restored did he speak. And then he astounded every single person at the scene.

‘Please extinguish all candles,’ he said. There were gasps of astonishment. People had become attached to their candles, seeing them by now as friends and companions on this very
special night. Powerscourt saw that the Archdeacon’s shock troops, the choirs and the bodies who had marched together to the fire obeyed without question. Maybe that’s Catholic
discipline, he suggested to himself. Then he corrected himself. Jesuit discipline. With mutterings of regret and a great deal of blowing all the candles went out. There was not a single light to be
seen across Cathedral Green. It was five minutes to midnight.