Bell Harry

by Nicholas Best

  Four knights carried a canopy over the Queen’s head as she made her way in procession along the nave. Music played and the choir sang as she took her place for the service. The cathedral was full of people who had come to catch a glimpse of her in all her finery.

  Queen Elizabeth went to her quarters in St Augustine’s after the service was over. Bidding farewell to the Archbishop, she asked him to come and see her later, adding that she was looking forward to her birthday party at his palace on the 7th. The rest of her court was looking forward to it as well.

  ‘We’ve invited the French ambassador,’ she told Parker. ‘The Comte de Retz. He’ll be in Canterbury with his officials, so we ought to have them at the banquet. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, Your Majesty. Any guests of yours are guests of mine. It will be an honour.’

  The next three days flew by as the Archbishop prepared his palace for the party. The house was not particularly grand, a palace in name only, but he was determined that the Queen should have a good time while she was a guest under his roof. He wanted her birthday party in Canterbury to be an event that she would never forget.

  ‘The Queen is only going to be forty once,’ he told his staff. ‘We must make it a great occasion. We must give her a party here that she will remember for the rest of her life.’

  The staff needed no urging. They were all delighted that the Queen was coming. Her birthday party was going to be an occasion that they would never forget either. They were determined to give her a splendid time when she came.

  The high point was to be the banquet in the hall. The Queen was to sit in the Archbishop’s marble chair under a golden canopy, looking down the room. The French ambassador was to sit beside her with her ladies-in-waiting. Everyone else would sit at the other tables stretching the full length of the hall.

  It was going to be a tight squeeze to fit them all in. The numbers had been daunting enough before the Queen invited the French ambassador as well. They became a lot worse when it emerged how many of his officials the Comte de Retz was proposing to bring with him.

  ‘How many?’ The Archbishop couldn’t believe the number.

  ‘A hundred, Your Grace.’

  ‘He wants to bring a hundred Frenchmen to the party?’

  ‘He does, I’m afraid. They all want to be there.’

  ‘A hundred Frenchmen?’

  ‘I fear so. He says they’re all nobles and ought to be invited.’

  ‘Have we got room for them?’

  ‘Only if we turn the Kentish nobility away. Or the mayor of Canterbury and the aldermen.’

  ‘Well, we can’t. Tell the ambassador he can bring some of his people, but not all of them.’

  It wasn’t just the extra guests. It was the additional expense as well. More food, more drink, more everything. The people of Canterbury were helping with the costs of the Queen’s stay in their city. So were the cathedral’s dean and chapter. But the Archbishop’s birthday party for her was his own idea.

  He alone was picking up the bill for all the food and entertainment at his palace. The Archbishop had already had the Privy Council to dinner, and various members of the royal court on different nights. Now he was throwing a huge party as well, at enormous cost to himself. The expense of entertaining a monarch and her entourage in the manner to which they were accustomed was ruinous.

  ‘We shall manage,’ Parker assured his staff, wishing he could believe it. ‘Of course we shall. We only have to do it this once, thank the Lord.’

  The Queen was invited for early afternoon. Crowds gathered expectantly as she set off from St Augustine’s abbey. It was only a few hundred yards from there to the Christ Church gate, where the Archbishop was waiting to welcome her to his palace for her birthday party.

  Christopher Marlowe and his family watched the excitement from Mercery Lane. Christopher’s uncle had a draper’s shop in the lane, directly opposite the cathedral gate. Nine-year-old Christopher had been looking forward all day to seeing the Queen. In the event, he and his family only caught a brief glimpse of her through the window as the coach rumbled down Burgate Street without stopping and turned into the cathedral.

  The Queen was shimmering with jewels as she got out beside the palace. The Archbishop bowed low and welcomed her to his home.

  ‘Here we are,’ he told her. ‘Very many congratulations on your birthday, Your Majesty. May I wish you every happiness on this great occasion?’

  ‘You may.’ The Queen was in an excellent mood. ‘We were born at exactly this hour, if you remember.’ Parker had been chaplain to the Queen’s mother at the time. ‘Greenwich Palace. We shall be sitting down to eat at precisely the time we came into the world.’

  ‘I do remember, Your Majesty. It was a wonderful day. Everyone was delighted when you were born.’

  They went into the hall. All was ready for the banquet. The Queen washed her hands first, then took her seat on the marble throne. The others followed suit; her courtiers, the Privy Council, the French diplomats, the Kentish nobility, the mayor of Canterbury and all the other important people who had managed to secure an invitation to the feast. They all found their seats and waited for the Archbishop to say grace before sitting down and tucking in.

  The food was magnificent. A long row of meat dishes was laid before Queen Elizabeth and another of fish. A row of cakes followed. Beer was poured and wine flowed. The Archbishop’s servants stood ready at every table to ensure that drinking vessels were full and no plate was empty. Everything was being done to ensure that the banquet would be a success.

  As was customary, the ordinary people of Canterbury were allowed in to watch the fun. A crowd of onlookers gathered in the middle of the hall, most of them gaping unashamedly at the Queen. There were so many of them that they obscured her view of the room.

  ‘Tell everyone to move,’ she said irritably. ‘Tell them to stand to the side so that I can see what’s happening.’

  The onlookers shuffled obediently to the side walls. The banquet continued. The Queen turned to her ladies-in-waiting and sat chatting with them for most of the meal. She was watched carefully by the French ambassador at her side. He was waiting for the right moment to raise the subject of her marriage to the Duke d’Alençon.

  It was an unlikely match. The French king’s brother was still only eighteen, small and weedy, his face pitted with smallpox. Forty-year-old Queen Elizabeth didn’t want to marry him or anyone else. She was well aware, though, that flirting with the French would greatly upset the Spanish. The French ambassador was aware of it too.

  His moment came after the banquet was over. The plates were cleared away and the tables were removed by the Archbishop’s staff. Musicians came in and the dancing began. The ambassador sat with the Queen as the rest of her court took to the floor.

  ‘Lovely party,’ he told her. ‘The music in England is exquisite.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I don’t believe any prince in Europe has heard anything like the music we heard in the cathedral the other day. Or the Holy Father, either, for that matter. It was sublime.’

  ‘I hope you’re not comparing that Romish rascal to our great Queen.’ A young nobleman nearby did not care for the Pope.

  The ambassador was annoyed. He was about to rise to the Pope’s defence before he thought better of it. The English weren’t Roman Catholic anymore. Best just to bite his lip and let it lie.

  ‘Come and have a talk,’ the Queen told him. ‘We have lots to discuss.’

  There was a private door to the Archbishop’s gallery. They could watch the dancing from there. The Queen sat by the window with the ambassador and chatted with him almost until nightfall. She listened without comment as de Retz extolled the Duke d’Alençon’s virtues. She hadn’t committed herself to anything when the party came to an end at length and it was time to leave.

  Queen Elizabeth went first, as protocol demanded. She was still in a splendid mood as the Archbishop escorted her to her carriage.


  ‘A marvellous banquet.’ The Queen was full of congratulations. ‘It was everything we could possibly have wished for. We enjoyed ourselves immensely at our birthday party.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Majesty. I’m very pleased to hear it.’

  ‘We shan’t forget the sight of the Privy Council dancing the galliard in a hurry.’

  ‘No indeed. All those lords a-leaping!’

  The rest of the guests left soon after the Queen. They too were agreed that it had been a wonderful party. They all wanted to shake the Archbishop’s hand and thank him profusely as they called for their coaches. Nobody had ever attended a banquet quite like it before.

  The Queen stayed in Canterbury for another nine days. It was a relief to everyone when she left at last, taking her entourage with her. She went to Faversham first, and thence by stages to London. She left behind indelible memories of a fabulous royal personage decked out for every occasion in beautiful clothes and brilliant jewels. In Queen Elizabeth, the people of England at last had the monarch they craved.

  The Archbishop gave her a golden salt cellar inlaid with agates before she left. He also tipped her personal staff, distributing five hundred gold pieces among the servants and attendants of the royal household. It pained him to part with so much money, but there was no alternative. The Queen’s staff expected to be tipped.

  The Archbishop had kept open house for the two weeks of her visit. He had had her officials continually in his house for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all of them cheerfully freeloading at his expense. Even so, he found after their departure that he had over-ordered on the food. So much remained that he invited the poor of Canterbury to come and eat at his palace until it had all gone.

  Parker was substantially out of pocket by the time everyone had finished browsing and sluicing. He consoled himself with the thought that it would never happen again. The Queen was careful to make her royal progress through a different part of the country every summer. She wouldn’t be returning to Canterbury for the foreseeable future.

  He himself left for London a few days later. He arrived at Lambeth Palace to discover that news of the Queen’s birthday party had preceded him. Everyone had heard about it and wanted to congratulate him on his great success.

  ‘I hear that it was the party of the century,’ someone told him. ‘They’re saying at court that no one will throw another one like it for at least a hundred years.’

  ‘I should certainly hope not,’ said Parker. ‘The expense was ruinous. I’d be a pauper if I had to do it all again.’

  The talk in London was of nothing but the party for the next few days. The Archbishop basked in all the praise. Everywhere he went, people wanted to discuss it with him and hear all the details. It was generally agreed that his hospitality in Canterbury had set the standard for all the royal parties to come.

  He was at his desk in Lambeth, looking across the river to the Houses of Parliament, when two of his secretaries burst in. They brought wonderful tidings.

  ‘We’ve just had word from the court,’ they told him. ‘About your party.’

  ‘Yes?’ The Archbishop wondered if the Queen had said something.

  ‘Her Majesty enjoyed it so much that she wants to have another one next year. She’s decided to come to Canterbury next September so that she can celebrate her birthday with you again, at the palace.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘We certainly are. She wants to do it all again.’

  ‘In my house?’

  The secretaries nodded enthusiastically. What a coup for the Archbishop! The Queen never spent her birthday in the same place twice running.

  ‘Oh dear Lord.’ The Archbishop rose from his desk. Going across to the window, he peered out in despair. He was ruined. Another party like the last one would destroy his finances for ever. He couldn’t possibly afford to host the Queen again.

  He would have to resign as Archbishop. Either that, or plead sickness, or find some other excuse. Anything to avoid entertaining the Queen in his house again. He would be doomed if he spent any more money on her.

  But then the Archbishop caught sight of the secretaries’ faces. Both were corpsing with laughter.

  ‘That wasn’t funny,’ he told them sharply. ‘Don’t make jokes like that again.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Pilgrim Father Charters the Mayflower

  For weeks, someone had been going around Canterbury pinning libellous notices to church doors. The libels were religious tracts attacking the Church of England. It was clear from the tone that they had been written by a dissenter, one of the new breed of Puritans opposed to all the ritual and dogma accompanying Christian worship in England.

  It was November 1603 before the authorities managed to identify the author. Robert Cushman was an apprentice grocer, active in the Puritan movement. He was hauled before the court on charges of writing the tracts and failing to attend church, as the law required.

  Cushman refused to confess to the libels, even though the evidence was overwhelming, but he couldn’t deny his failure to attend service on the Sabbath. The Church of England, with all its pomp and ceremony, wasn’t for him anymore.

  ‘The singing of hymns is an abomination,’ he told the court. ‘It’s a corruption of God’s word. So is the Book of Common Prayer. Where is it written in the Bible that there should be bishops, living fat and sleek off their flock?’

  ‘That’s no reason to nail Lord have mercy upon us to the church door.’

  ‘God’s chosen are few. Scarcely one in a hundred will be saved if they don’t repent.’

  Unimpressed, the court sentenced Cushman to a brief spell in the prison at the West Gate to bring him to his senses. He emerged more determined than ever to live like a Puritan. He wanted to be free for the rest of his life from all the bowing and scraping of the Church of the England. Cushman wanted to worship the Lord in his own particular way.

  He was due to marry Sarah Reader when he had completed his apprenticeship. Sarah lived in the cathedral precincts. She and her brother Helkiah were active Puritans. Helkiah Reader had done time in the West Gate for distributing Cushman’s libellous tracts.

  Cushman went to see Sarah in her lodgings beside the cathedral. Like him, Sarah knew the building well, but could never bring herself to worship there. Beginning with the statue of Jesus over the Christ Church gate, Canterbury cathedral represented everything they hated most about the way religion was conducted in England. Statues of Jesus were idolatrous.

  Cushman found Sarah at home and sat in the parlour with her, discussing their future in an unsympathetic country. It looked more and more as if they would have to submit to the Church of England for the rest of their days if they couldn’t find an acceptable alternative. Neither of them was happy about that.

  ‘King James is the problem,’ Cushman told his fiancée. ‘There are a thousand Puritan clergy in the realm. Some of them went to see the King the other day. They asked him to make a few small changes to the Church of England, but he refused to listen. He wouldn’t help us at all.’

  ‘Not even changes to the creed?’

  ‘Nothing. The King wouldn’t hear of it. He says he will make Puritans conform to the established Church or else harry us out of the land. That’s what he told his court.’

  ‘Is he serious?’

  ‘I fear so. We must bow to the Church of England for the rest of our lives or find another country to live in. That’s the only choice we have.’

  It was a daunting prospect. Neither of them wanted to move abroad. They would both much rather just stay where they were and worship as they wished.

  ‘We aren’t alone,’ Cushman said. ‘There are people like us in other parts of the realm. They feel as we do. We could all go together if we could find somewhere else to live.’

  ‘It’s a big step.’ Sarah Reader wasn’t sure that she was ready to move to another country. ‘Perhaps the King will change his mind.’

  ‘Or perhaps he won’t
. He’s never going to be our friend.’

  ‘Where would we go?’

  ‘That’s the big question. We must find somewhere where they will allow us to worship as we please. It won’t be easy, but there must be somewhere. We shall have to find out where.’

  Holland was the obvious place. Dutch Protestants would take the Puritans in. But getting to the Netherlands was easier said than done. The Puritans needed official permission to travel abroad. It was never granted to religious nonconformists.

  ‘The sheriff’s men will try to stop us,’ Cushman warned. ‘So will the coast guard. We’ll have to go secretly. We must find a ship’s captain prepared to take us, no questions asked.’

  It was 1609 before Robert and Sarah Cushman managed to get to Holland. They went to Amsterdam first, and then to Leiden to join a group of like-minded English Puritans who had settled in the town. Cushman worked as a wool-comber and became a deacon of the Puritan community.

  But the English never took to Holland. Dutch ways were alien and different. A truce between Holland and Spain was due to come to an end in 1619, which meant that the Puritans might find themselves subject to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition if the war was renewed. In 1617 therefore, Cushman was sent back to England to find another home for the Puritans, somewhere English this time.

  The proposed destination was north America. A consortium of London businessmen calling themselves the Merchant Adventurers was getting together to fund a trading settlement at the mouth of the Hudson river. Fur and cod were to be the main commodities. If the Puritans were prepared to do the work, the businessmen would put up the money and finance their voyage to the New World.

  Cushman was sent to organise it. He returned to Canterbury and rented a room in Palace Street. From there he made frequent trips to London to meet the adventurers and negotiate the business arrangements for the voyage. It took him two years to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides.