Chapter 5
Late October 1604
Thinke not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, & the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
And a mans foes shalbe they of his owne household.
He that loueth father or mother more then me, is not worthy of me: and he that loueth sonne or daughter more then me, is not worthy of me.
And he that taketh not his crosse, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
(Matthew 10:34–38)
* * *
Sunday morning and the household at Thieving Lane prepared itself for church.
‘You will come?’ Thomas Kemp addressed his son across the table at breakfast.
Ben kept his eyes on his food, heartbeat rising for the old confrontation. It had always been like this. ‘I will not.’
He heard his father’s sharp intake of breath, irritation barely suppressed. ‘For your mother, Benjamin. It would do you no harm to think of your mother once in a while.’
Breathing deeply, he forced himself to be calm, but his fingers curled and uncurled, over and over, and his jaw was set tight. It was cruel of his father to use his mother against him.
‘It is not a true church,’ he said.
‘It is a true enough church for your family and for your king.’
‘It is a false ministry.’ He spoke quietly, keeping his temper in check. ‘And I cannot take the Host from such a man.’
‘Would God have you dishonour your father and mother?’
He said nothing, mouth clamped shut against the words of anger, fists clenched and white-knuckled, containing the resentment. A soft answer putteth away wrath, he counselled himself. But grievous words stir up anger.
‘Then you may take the Lord’s Supper back in the Midlands,’ his father breathed, ‘where you can do what you like with the Host. A bare table, a basket, passing it hand to hand. I don’t care how you worship when you are elsewhere. Not any more. But here, in my house, you will honour your father and mother, and you will come to church.’
Ben lifted his hands to his face, wrestling with his conscience. He wanted to please his father, to earn the old man’s approval for once, but St Margaret’s was anathema to him. How could he worship alongside the sinners that filled the English Church? Their very presence defiled it. It was no gathering of the faithful, but a base set of rituals devoid of spiritual meaning, and governed by men who served the king over God. It was not for such things that Christ gave His life: He had died that we might follow Him, in purity, in poverty, humble, obedient to His Word. Only to His Word. And only in His Word lay salvation. The English Church was not the church that Christ commanded, sanctified by God with each man a fruitful branch and God’s grace freely given, recognising no king, no priest, no prophet, no lord but Christ. To go would be a betrayal of all he believed.
He shook his head. ‘I cannot,’ he whispered.
‘You did it for Cecily.’ Ellyn looked up from her ale.
Ben shot her a look of hatred. ‘Only for our marriage,’ he breathed, and it had hurt him to do it. He had been abject before God, desolate with his own unworthiness, and he had spent countless hours afterwards in prayers of repentance, confessing the sin of his desire, his need to do whatever it took to marry her.
‘But still …’ His sister shrugged, meaning to say that if he had done it once he could do it again.
He swallowed. Footsteps and voices sounded beyond the door of the dining chamber, his mother and Alice and Richard hurrying down to breakfast. His father leaned across the table towards him and spoke softly. ‘Do it for your mother, Ben. The God of our church would forgive you that.’
He was silent, staring at his uneaten bread, unseeing. It was tempting, a chance to please his parents; he had never sought to bring them pain. But he belonged firstly to God and there could be no compromise. ‘I cannot,’ he murmured.
His father slammed a hand to the table in frustration and Emma Kemp’s laughter in the doorway stopped abruptly. She surveyed the scene for a moment with a nervous frown, hands twisting together in front of her skirts. The motion was becoming habitual.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked, with a determined lightness in her tone.
Ellyn flicked a glance to her brother. ‘Ben is feeling unwell,’ she said. ‘He’s going to rest while we’re at church.’
He looked up quickly, grateful but surprised. It had always been Sarah who had tried to make peace: Ellyn’s temper was as hot as his own. Briefly he met his sister’s look, and the glance he received in return clearly said that he owed her.
There was a moment’s silence before Emma Kemp chose to believe what was easier to hear. ‘Nothing serious I hope, Ben?’
‘Just a headache,’ he replied, stepping out from his place at the table. ‘I slept badly.’
‘Then you should rest.’ She smiled as he moved towards her and touched her fingers to his arm as he passed.
‘I’ll be fine,’ he said, gently, squeezing her fingers with his own in a rare moment of affection. Then he turned away and left them all behind him.
Richard walked next to Ellyn as the household moved in slow procession through the Westminster streets. A chill wind was blowing from the north between the houses, and the sky hung low above them, clouds bulging deep slate grey with the promise of more rain. Underfoot the road was rutted and slick with mud, and they picked their way over it with care. He drew his cloak tighter round him, wishing they could walk more swiftly to let the movement warm them. Thieving Lane was quiet, few people in the streets – even the prostitutes and thieves took themselves to church on Sunday – but a lone child scurried past them chasing a reluctant hen.
Ellyn barely came to his shoulder, but she had the same lithe grace as her brother. He stole glances at her as they walked side by side, aware of her for the first time as a woman. He had only ever thought of her as a child before and the sudden realisation sent a flush across his skin. She turned to him and smiled and, confused, he looked away. Then, to cover it he said, ‘I’m sorry your brother is unwell.’ It was all he could think of to say and even as the words came out he knew it was foolish: Ben had never given in to a headache in his life.
She turned her head towards him again and this time her face wore the same look of contempt he had seen so many times on her brother. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him. Surely you realise that?’
‘I hoped …’ He trailed off. There was no way to explain to her what he had hoped.
‘As did we all,’ she replied.
He said nothing, wondering how much she knew, if her family had tried to shield her from the truth of her brother’s past. She had been little more than a child when Ben was in prison, and she had grown up in his years away. But somehow they had stayed close to each other – of all his family it was Ellyn that Ben had always loved the best.
‘The years in the East did nothing to change him,’ she said. ‘Though I’m not sure why anyone thought they would. But my mother has become delicate since Sarah’s death, and so we like to pretend that things are otherwise.’
‘I understand,’ he answered. ‘We shan’t talk of it again.’
She smiled in agreement. ‘It is better, I think. And safer.’
He said nothing, disturbed by her trust in him. It was not only Ben he had been asked to betray.
Crossing Broad Sanctuary, they came to the parish church of St Margaret’s that stood next to the Abbey, familiar to him from the times he had stayed with Ben when they were boys, and then in later years when he had visited Ben in prison. It was a fair building, larger than his parish church in Kent, stone walls shining pale against the darkened sky. The Kemp children had all been baptised within its walls; Ben, under protest, had solemnised his marriage vows here, and the churchyard held the graves of Cecily and her child.
Inside, out of reach of the wind, rows
of columns rose up strong and graceful, and great trees of candles flickered warmth in defiance of the winter morning. They took their places, the benches filling quickly, the hubbub good-humoured and expectant. Richard gazed up at the stained-glass image of Christ above the altar. Even with a weak sun behind it the colours glowed deep and luminous, lapis lazuli blue and Tudor rose red, Christ vivid in his Passion.
He let himself sink into the image, the scene of that first Good Friday when all had seemed lost, the horror of Christ’s death amid the jeering crowd. Opening his heart, Richard found himself amongst the throng, the Eastern sun hot against his back and head, a cough in his throat to clear the dust. Around him hung the sour stench of unwashed humanity, men calling out in their anger and grief and lust for violence, and over their shouts rang the high ululations of women as they keened and wailed their sorrow. And above it all, the dying body of our Saviour hung from the cross.
The pale skin of His torso glistened with its sheen of sweat, and the mangled flesh of His palms and feet was bloody where the nails had ripped through tendon and bone, the weals vivid where the ropes had worn at his wrists. Blood trickled from the crown of thorns, mingling with the tears that Christ was weeping for the world. Even in the throes of his own violent death, He wept for all mankind. Close to his side the spear tip glinted, and Richard’s breath stopped in anticipation of the wound, Christ crying out in his agony. Tears welled and he blinked them back. Then he sank to his knees, trembling, and closed his eyes, the image burning sharp behind them, his words of fervent prayer unheard by any save God.
You gave your life for me, my Lord, poor sinner that I am. You died to save me, to bring me home. You suffered agonies that I might live through all eternity with God. Teach me to serve Thee better. Let me be with Thee always …
The hubbub round him quieted, the vicar waiting in the pulpit for hush. Slowly, Richard became aware of the growing silence, and he opened his eyes as he let himself be drawn back to the day, the outside world lightly meeting the joy in his soul. He got up from his knees and retook his place on the bench beside Ellyn, gazing around him at the crowd with new understanding. It was for this that the English Church existed, he thought, a place to bring each soul to this love and this grace. It was imperfect perhaps, and flawed, vessels of wood and earth amongst the vessels of gold and silver, but how should it be otherwise? Who but God could tell one from the other?
A peace settled over him, a sense of certainty. Here within the sanctity of the Church he understood the need to protect it and keep it whole. Ben and his kind would break it down and rend it at the seams. Then who would bring all these good people to God? Such destruction could not be allowed to happen. As the minister began to speak, Richard felt his burden lighten. It was God’s will that he should fight for the Church. Ben had set himself against it, and there could be no other way.
The welcome supper took place at the deanery, the first official meeting of the First Westminster Company. Richard was nervous, aware of the weight of the task ahead of them, the Scripture placed in their hands for generations to come. They would be building on the work of those who had gone before, taking the best of each, and revising: each man bringing a new expertise, a new understanding to render the Hebrew ever more perfectly in English.
When he stepped from the door of the Kemps’ into the lane, he was aware of the quickness of his heartbeat and the dryness of his mouth – a heady mix of nerves and excitement, the joy of God’s work in his blood. The day was just starting to darken, the autumn chill beginning to bite with the disappearance of the sun, and all along the street the merchants’ wives were overseeing the lighting of the lanterns that hung outside their doors, exchanging news and gossip with each other, their chatter lively as they called from one side of the narrow lane to the other. Apprentices and journeymen passed between them, heading home at the end of the working day, adding occasional male banter to the mix. The night was clear, but above the busy streets of Westminster the stars were all but invisible, obscured by smoke from a multitude of chimneys, and the lights that were slowly mastering the night. A half-moon gleamed wanly, looking down on the earth without interest.
Richard turned left out of the door and drew his cloak tighter round him, then bent his steps towards the Abbey. It was a short walk along Thieving Lane, so called for the pickings it once gave to those who claimed sanctuary, untouchable by the law in the precincts of the Abbey. The custom was less observed these days than in the past, but still he kept his wits about him – Westminster streets after dark offered little safety. One of the neighbours, a middle-aged widow standing on her doorstep with a broom, hallooed him with a merry little wave, and he nodded in response, hurrying on, embarrassed by the attention. He heard her cackling at his back as he turned the corner – apparently she had achieved the reaction she wanted.
At the end of the lane he turned through the arch that led to Broad Sanctuary where the houses gave way to the open space before the Abbey. It was still peopled with traders and locals, small braziers giving off light and heat, the hubbub of the city even after dark. The busyness disquieted him; he was still unused to such crowds, and he quickened his steps towards the Abbey, eager for the quiet and scholarly conversation he hoped to find at the deanery.
He was not disappointed. The tranquillity of the Jerusalem Chamber soothed him as soon as he entered, and he stood just inside the door for a moment, allowing his eyes to drink in the mediaeval splendour. Cedar panels lined the walls – later he would learn the timber had come all the way from Lebanon – and a fire was roaring in a fireplace as big as he had ever seen. Vast tapestries reached almost to the ceiling, scenes from the story of Abraham and Sarah. He could think of no finer surroundings for the work of the Translation.
He was one of the first to arrive and Lancelot Andrewes greeted him warmly in Latin, a language both men spoke as easily as English. He took a seat at the great oak table that occupied the centre of the floor and accepted the cup of spiced wine he was offered. Nerves gave way to excitement and anticipation, the great work almost begun. The others drifted in one by one. Some of them he knew from his days in Cambridge, scholars and clergymen all, and introductions were made for the others. He was pleased to be in this company: he had long held Andrewes in awe, for his learning, for his knowledge, for the piety of his faith. Casting his gaze around the table, he catalogued the other scholars in his mind: John Overall, Dean of St Paul’s; John Layfield, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and one-time chaplain to the Earl of Cumberland, with whom he had sailed to the New World; Richard Thomson, brilliant, corpulent, arrogant, drunk; Hadrian Saravia, half-Flemish, half-Spanish, prebendary of Westminster; William Bedwell, Arabic scholar and mathematician. With the possible exception of Thomson, Richard was proud to be among such company.
When all of them were settled, Andrewes spoke to welcome them. Even though his voice was soft his words never faltered, and each man at the table paid him rapt attention. He went through the rules one by one as they were set out by Bancroft and the king, giving them the details of the days that would make up their lives for the next coming years. Each man would work alone each day, amending, translating, revising the week’s allotted chapters as he saw best. Then one day each week, yet to be decided, the Company would meet again at the deanery to discuss and compare, and find the best of what had been done. Andrewes, as leader, would have the last word, but it was hoped they could reach consensus amongst themselves, sifting truth from untruth, marrying the Hebrew and English to reflect God’s perfection. And so, week by week, little by little, the ten men that sat around this table would work through the first twelve books of the Old Testament, from Genesis through to Kings II.
When the business of the evening was concluded, a banquet was served. The large table was laden with platters of all manner of meat and fish: ducklings piquant with spices; Scottish salmon poached in ale; beef served in the style of the Levant, stuffed with oranges and dates and spiced with nutmeg. The aroma was beguiling
, and for ever afterwards the catch of such a scent would reawake for Richard the excitement of that evening, the feeling that at last he had succeeded – his knowledge recognised and valued, and no more lingering doubts about his loyalty. He had earned his place among them, finally accepted, respected. Sitting between Andrewes and Layfield, he listened, rapt, to Layfield’s stories of the New World – a new Eden. It was the most perfect of any day he could remember.
A few days later was All Hallows’ Eve and the city was bright with bonfires to celebrate, preparing for the Feast of All Souls the next day, when the lives of the saints would be remembered. It was not yet five o’clock when Richard strolled from the Abbey on his way back to Thieving Lane, but the day was already darkening, the air brisk and cold. Torches had been lit in their sconces, and the streets around the Abbey were thronged with people in festive spirit and children playing. A crowd of labourers was clustered round a cart that was selling ale, and a baker’s boy with a basket of fresh-baked pies was working his way among them; Richard caught the scent on his way past and remembered he was hungry. He huddled deeper inside his cloak, one hand keeping safe the small purse of coins, the fabric rough against the dryness of his hands and the slight weight of it pleasing in his palm.
He stopped now beside a small fire to watch three young children ducking apples in a bucket, their faces wet and glowing in the firelight, oblivious to the cold. A sharp memory of the farmhouse of his childhood sheared across his thoughts, the fire bright and warm in the hearth, the bowl of apples on the table, his sisters waiting, chattering with excitement. He could see their faces even now with perfect, vivid clarity, flushed and happy, and water spraying from the tips of their hair. Searching the image, he looked for his mother. She was there, looking on, tendrils of hair come loose from the worn linen cap, but the details of her face were lost to him. Only his father was absent, still working, long days of labour stretching from darkness to darkness for most of the year. There had been little time for frivolity – even for the children, apple bobbing was a rare treat. Grateful for his escape from such a life, he winked at one of the boys who had turned to observe him with the open-faced scrutiny of the very young. The child continued to stare, blankly, so Richard turned away with a smile and walked on.
The King James Men Page 5
