by Mel Starr
I awoke with the Angelus Bell from St Frideswide's Priory to a cold, drizzling morning. Arthur was not pleased that I sent him to the castle forecourt on an empty stomach on such a day. I told him to return and we would meet for dinner. I did not tell him the business I intended to pursue. I should have.
I wrapped my cloak about me and set off for Holywell Street. This cloak was of fur, a gift from Lord Gilbert two years past as part of my wages for accepting the post of bailiff on his Bampton estate.
I had seen others peer enviously at me when I wore the garment through Oxford's streets. Such a coat was beyond my station. Let them stare. I was warm and dry.
I made my way up Catte Street, passed through the Smithgate, and had walked but two or three paces east on Holywell Street when three men stepped before me and blocked my way. My first thought was that I had been accosted by thieves and was about to be robbed of my purse. A second thought caused me to realize this was not likely. It was not the dark of night, when felons might be abroad, but day, and the men who obstructed me were not poorly dressed, as one might expect of a man willing to risk his neck to have another man's coins.
One of the three stepped toward me and demanded my name. I told him. He next asked my destination. I told him that, as well. He then asked about my coat; where had I come by it? When I told him it was a gift he rolled his eyes and turned to his companions.
One of these was a man of about my size and age. Which is to say he was some above average in height and slender. The leader of the three turned to this fellow and spoke:
"Sir William, is this the coat?"
"Aye, the very one."
The leader of this band was a brawny fellow, not of my height, but he surely outweighed me by two stone or more. He was of Arthur's size and shape. He grasped my shoulders and before I could react, so surprised was I, he spun me about and his companions stripped my coat from me.
"You are arrested," the leader told me harshly.
"Of what am I accused?" I replied, somewhat stupidly as I think back on it.
"Hah… do not take us for fools. You have stolen Sir William's fur coat."
"Not so," I replied with some heat. My wits were returning and my temper was aroused. "'Twas a gift from Lord Gilbert Talbot."
I thought the fellow hesitated for a moment. Perhaps it was my imagination. "And why should a lord give a fur coat to you?"
While I engaged the leader in this conversation Sir William was inspecting my coat. "This is my coat, Sir Thomas," he said firmly.
Sir Thomas, who still gripped my arm, turned back to me. "You were a fool to steal such a coat, and twice a fool to walk along the Cherwell with a maid where another might see you wearing a stolen coat."
I opened my mouth to protest but before I could speak the third member of the group, a short, round fellow, seized my free arm and with Sir Thomas began dragging me down Canditch toward the Northgate. A crowd of onlookers gaped at the scene, believing, I am sure, that some miscreant had been apprehended.
Sir Thomas and his silent companion alternately dragged and shoved me through the streets to Oxford Castle. Once there I was taken through stone passageways to a chamber I knew well, the anteroom and clerk's office for the sheriff of Oxford, where two years past Margaret Smith and I convinced Roger de Cottesford and a judge of the King's Eyre that they must release Thomas Shilton. Standing beside the clerk was a man I knew. Sir Simon Trillowe grinned thinly at me behind hooded eyes.
"Inform Sir John that we have caught the thief," Sir Thomas told the clerk. The man rose silently from his place, opened the heavy door behind him, and did so.
The Sheriff of Oxford appeared in the doorway moments later. His stout body nearly filled it. Small, dark eyes peered at me from a florid face which featured a large, hooked nose. He was Sir Simon's father. The nose left no doubt of that.
"Here is the stolen coat," Sir Thomas proclaimed, standing aside so Sir John could see my cloak in Sir William's hands. "We found the thief on Holywell Street, as Sir Simon said we might."
Sir Simon dropped his eyes and bowed slightly toward Sir Thomas. The smile remained upon his lips and I knew why I was apprehended and charged. What I might do to free myself was not so evident.
"'Tis yours, surely?" the sheriff asked Sir William.
"Aye. There is no doubt. A London furrier made it for me two years past. Twelve shillings it cost me."
Sir John turned to me with glaring eyes. "What have you to say for yourself?"
"The man lies… or is mistaken. His only true words are that the coat was indeed made by a London furrier. But it was made for Lord Gilbert Talbot."
"Then why would you have it?"
"A gift from Lord Gilbert. He wished me to serve him as bailiff at his Bampton estate and offered a fur coat to persuade me to agree to the post."
"He lies," Sir Simon said. Until these words he had lounged against the chamber wall, pleased with my discomfort. "I've seen Sir William with this very coat these past two years."
Sir John turned again to me and spoke through thin lips. "I think it odd that Lord Gilbert would give such a coat to a… a bailiff. I know Lord Gilbert. He is a parsimonious fellow. I doubt he owns such a coat for his own shoulders."
"Then send for him and ask," I challenged.
"I see no need to trouble Lord Gilbert when I have before me two witnesses who say you are a thief."
The sheriff turned to his clerk and spoke. "Fetch the gaoler." To Sir Thomas he said, "We are fortunate the county court is assembled this week. Trial in this matter will be Friday. Be he guilty, we may hang him Saturday."
I had no doubt but Sir Simon and his friends would make certain that I would be condemned. I tried again to convince Sir John to consult Lord Gilbert.
"Unless you send to Lord Gilbert," I cried, "you will do murder come Saturday. I am no thief. I am in Oxford to seek thieves… those who have stolen Master John Wyclif's books. And Master John has seen me wear this coat. He also can tell you 'tis mine, not Sir William's. "
"Master Wyclif?" Sir John pursed his lips. "Troublesome fellow."
As the sheriff delivered this opinion his clerk appeared with a slovenly man I assumed to be the gaoler. This conjecture was quickly proven correct. The fellow lifted shackles and chain in his left hand and expertly bolted the irons about my wrists before I could react. What good reacting might have done I cannot tell.
I was led from the clerk's chamber, through the gallery, to a stone staircase. Shadows there were dark. I could not see where the staircase ended for the gloom. The gaoler gave me a shove when he detected my reluctance and as I took the first step I heard laughter echo down the corridor from the clerk's anteroom.
I found the bottom step more by feel than by sight. The gaoler, perhaps accustomed to the shadows in which he worked, shoved me a few paces past the last step, then stopped before an indentation in the stones which, when my eyes grew more familiar with the dark, I saw to be a door.
Before I could draw another breath I heard the door swing open and received another shove which propelled me into a cell darker even, was that possible, than the corridor in which a moment before I was standing.
The gaoler slammed the door shut behind me and replaced the bar. How many men, I wondered, have heard that same sound while standing in this place? Perhaps Thomas Shilton, imprisoned on my mistaken testimony, occupied this very cell. He emerged unscathed when I learned my error. Would I escape also? This seemed doubtful, for those who placed me here knew I was no thief and if they were in error seemed glad of it.
The cell was not utterly dark. Near the top of the vaulted ceiling a slit was cut into the wall, perhaps three fingers high and a forearm long. Dim light penetrated the cell through this aperture. It perhaps opened to some shaded part of the castle yard. The slit was too high to reach, and it would have been of no use to try. Even a man as slender as I could get no more than a hand through the opening. And then only if his wrists were unshackled. Mine were not.
Some
previous occupant of the cell had tried, I think, to enlarge the slot. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place I could see about the hole rounded and chipped edges to the stonework. Some wretch, bound for the gallows, had discovered some tool with which he had chiseled away at the opening. Perhaps he had scraped at the stone with the irons about his wrists. I forced the thought from my mind. I did not wish to consider how a man might tear flesh from hands and fingers in such a futile effort.
Some wretch! I was now that wretch. Did not the sheriff predict the gallows for me come Saturday? It was Wednesday. I had three days to live, did not Lord Gilbert or Master John intercede for me. Why should they? They did not know where I was, nor did any other who might be minded to aid me. So I thought.
The gloom of my spirit matched the gloom of my cell. No friend knew of my plight, and those who put me in this place would not tell them. No, this was not true. There was a friend who knew of my affliction. I knelt in the rotten rushes covering the dirt floor of the cell and called upon the Lord Christ to free me from my unjust captors. Perhaps, I hoped, He had already noted my misfortune and set a plan in motion for my freedom. But it would do no harm to remind Him of my trouble in case other matters had captured His attention. An unwelcome thought came to mind. If the Lord Christ loved and served me only so much as I loved and served Him, where then might I be?
From this point I must tell the tale as it was told to me. For two days I lived in the cell beneath Oxford Castle, awaiting my fate, unknowing of the answer to my prayers taking place outside the castle walls. I was fed stale bread, thin pottage, and foul water. I would not again complain of the cook at Canterbury Hall.
Arthur returned to Canterbury Hall for his dinner with information he thought I would be pleased to learn. But the bell rang for dinner and I did not appear. Arthur saw no reason to go hungry just because I was tardy, so sat at his place at the low end of the table and devoured two bowls of pottage with little concern for me. He told me later he assumed I had again found my dinner with Kate Caxton.
Sir Thomas Barnet, justice of the peace and he who apprehended me on the Holywell Street, was known to several onlookers at my arrest. One of these had business with Robert Caxton, and was on his way to the stationer's shop when he saw me confronted and dragged off to the castle. This tale he reported to the stationer. Kate overheard his account.
When, for the second day, I did not call at the shop, Kate became uneasy. The customer who told of my arrest was not close enough to the scene to hear of that with which I was charged, but he saw that the man seized was tall and wore a fur coat — which had been stripped from him. Kate knew I owned such a garment.
I did not appear at Canterbury Hall for my supper and Arthur knew something was amiss. He did not know where I might have gone in search of books, but did know where I might have gone in search of a maid. Although darkness was settling upon Oxford, Arthur hastened to Holywell Street. Be there a man safe from attack on a dark street, that man is Arthur. He wears the blue and black livery of Lord Gilbert Talbot. Few men wish to anger a powerful lord, even if they may not know the noble's colors, by attacking one of his servants. Grooms seldom own much worth taking, and Arthur is a powerful man, worth two in a brawl.
So he went unmolested to the stationer's shop where, after some pounding upon the door, Robert Caxton opened to him. My disappearance, and the arrest of a young man wearing a fur coat on the Holywell Street, caused much consternation at the stationer's shop that night. Arthur would have gone to the castle then, but Caxton persuaded him that he would not be received, the gate being closed for the night.
Arthur told me he spent a sleepless night, and at dawn ran to Canterbury Hall, pounded upon Master Wyclif's chamber door, and together they returned to Caxton's shop. The four then hurried to the castle and entered as a warder drew up the portcullis.
Kate said it took some time to find the sheriff. They discovered a man who directed them to the clerk's anteroom, but the sheriff was not in. They waited. When Sir John arrived he dismissed their plea for my release. He told Master John that I had been arrested and charged on presentment of evidence. He, himself, had seen the evidence. Trial would be tomorrow. Had Master John evidence he wished to set before the court, he might do so on the morrow.
The clerk showed them firmly from his office, and it was Kate who, in the castle forecourt, turned to Arthur and bid him ride to Bampton for Lord Gilbert. The county court might dismiss Robert Caxton, Kate, Arthur, even Master Wyclif, but the court would hear Lord Gilbert Talbot.
I knew nothing of this. The slot in my cell appeared in ghostly light to announce dawn, but I had no other way to learn the time. The bells of Oxford which rang for holy office could not penetrate to my place.
The gaoler returned as the light from my thin embrasure began to fade. I heard him lift the bar and the door creaked open. A bowl of cold pottage and a cup of foul water appeared in the opening. The door banged shut before I could rise from the malodorous rushes which I had gathered in one corner of the cell as my bed.
I felt no hunger. Two spoonfuls of the cold pottage and a sip of water were all I could manage. If a man were to stay long in such a place the diet might kill him before he went to the gallows.
Arthur went from the castle to the Stag and Hounds, retrieved his old palfrey, and set off across Castle Mill Stream bridge and Oseney Island as fast as the ancient beast could trot. So he told me.
By the time Arthur saw the spire of the Church of St Beornwald rise above the forest east of Bampton it was too late to return to Oxford that day. John the chamberlain ushered him to the solar, where Lord Gilbert and Lady Petronilla are pleased to sit by the fire of an evening. Lord Gilbert heard Arthur's tale with rising fury, swore vengeance against Sir John did harm come to me, and sent Arthur first to the kitchen, for his supper, then to the marshalsea with orders to have five coursers and Arthur's palfrey ready and saddled at dawn.
The rising sun was yet but a glow above the naked branches of the forest to the east of Bampton, and the Angelus Bell ringing to announce the dawn, when Lord Gilbert, Arthur, and four other grooms thundered across the bridge over Shill Brook and rode east toward Oxford. Arthur's palfrey could not keep up the pace, but he followed with as much haste as the old beast could manage.
About the time Lord Gilbert was rattling the planks of Shill Brook bridge I was looking up to the place in my cell where dawn showed the location of the slot and the world beyond. This day the county court would find me guilty of theft. Of this I was certain, for none who knew of my innocence knew of my peril. So I believed. I knelt again on the rushes, as I had done often the day before, and asked the Lord Christ to spare me. If He chose not to do so, then I asked that I might go to my death as a Christian, bearing no unforgiven malice toward those who sought my death. Which of these requests He would find most difficult to perform I knew not.
I had not been shaved since Tuesday, and my chauces and cotehardie were wrinkled from sleeping in them and stained from lying upon the filthy rushes which were my bed. I looked a thief even was I not. Certainly Sir Thomas, Sir Simon, and Sir William hoped my disheveled appearance would lead others to accept my guilt.
I ran fingers through my hair, made myself as presentable as I could, and awaited summons to my doom. I had no way to judge the time, but thought it must be near to the sixth hour when I heard the gaoler lift the bar and squealing hinges respond.
I had seen no daylight for two days. The courtroom into which the gaoler shoved me was lit by a row of south windows. I blinked in the light and it was some moments before I saw Kate, her father, and Master John standing near the back of the hall. Their dour expressions did little to lighten my spirits, although Kate did manage a fleeting smile and fluttered her fingers in my direction. My eyes turned to others in the chamber and I saw Sir Simon scowling at me. He had observed Kate's greeting.
I blinked my way, still shackled, to the accused's box with more joy in my heart than another in my place might have felt. While stumblin
g up the stairway from the cells I had thought of a way to escape the gallows. In time Lord Gilbert would learn of my plight and see me freed. Until then, if it be necessary, I would plead Benefit of Clergy.
No man who can read and has his wits about him should ever face the gallows for felony. Even should the county court or the King's Eyre find him guilty, and guilty he may be, can he read from the Bible and plead Benefit of the Clergy, he will escape the hangman. What punishment a consistory court might demand would be small indeed compared to a noose. The Church hangs no man.
The bailiff shouted for silence and the din subsided. "Oyez," he cried. "All good and worthy men are called to hear the charge against Hugh de Singleton."
The judge took his place — he was none other than Sir Thomas Barnet. The king's statute of four years past gives justices of the peace the power to apprehend and try felonies in accordance with writs of Oyer et terminer. It was sure now I must plead Benefit of the Clergy, for there was no jury in the box to hear my plea.
Sir Thomas called Sir William to testify, which he did convincingly. Sir Thomas held out my coat. Sir William drew close to inspect it and pronounced it his own. Sir Simon was next called, and swore that he had seen his friend, Sir William, wear this very coat for two years, since his return from London, where he had joined his father, who had been called to Parliament.
"Do you answer this charge?" Sir Thomas growled and glared at me. His countenance could leave no doubt in the spectators' minds of his opinion.
"I am not guilty of this charge," I replied with as much resolve as I could muster. "The coat is my own. 'Twas a gift two years past from Lord Gilbert Talbot, as I told you two days past. You had but to send for him to know the truth, which you would not do, for truth is a thing you wish to evade."
"Silence!" Sir Thomas roared. "There are laws to deal with those who impugn the court and its officers. You have answered the charge; you will say no more."
"He may not, but I will," said a voice from the rear of the chamber. It was Master John. He pushed his way through onlookers to Sir Thomas' bench and spoke again. "I have testimony to give in this case," he declared.
