‘Ben?’
Finally Ben turned, and when he spoke his voice was no more than a whisper. ‘I was always so sure,’ he said. ‘About all of it. Every last detail. Christ’s plan for Heaven on earth. It was all so clear to me what needed to be done. All of it written in the Scripture, and if it took my life to see it done, I would have given it, and gladly. But now …’ He shrugged and shook his head. ‘Now I don’t even know what to reach for any more to save myself.’
Richard’s heart welled with pity: he could not begin to imagine the fear in a life without faith. Who would you turn to? In whom could you trust? Without God his life would be meaningless, a void. He stretched out a hand and took hold of Ben’s arm. ‘You must pray,’ he said. ‘You must ask for God’s help.’
‘I cannot pray. My heart is empty.’
‘You must try,’ Richard insisted. ‘Whosoever asketh, receiveth, he that seeketh findeth. You must not give up hope.’
‘All I ask for is my death.’ He murmured the words as he turned away, shrugging Richard’s hand from his arm and staring once again through the bars.
Richard swallowed down his horror. ‘It grieves me to see you like this,’ he said to fill the silence and hide his anguish. He could think of no more words of comfort to offer his friend.
‘Then do not come again.’
Despite himself Richard’s lips twitched. Even in despair, Ben’s impatience was undimmed. Perhaps there was hope after all. ‘And abandon you to this?’
Ben let go of the bars and looked at his friend. ‘Why should you care? It is your Church that put me here.’
‘Because I love thee still.’ The answer came unbidden and unconsidered, but it came from the heart. It found its mark and Ben dropped his head. Richard could see the muscle twitching in his cheek as he struggled with his emotions. Finally, he turned again towards his friend.
‘I don’t deserve your love.’
‘Perhaps that’s true. But love is not conditional. And if I won’t forsake you, what makes you think that God would do so?’
Ben was silent, fingers working once more at the cold steel bars, gaze drawn out towards the world beyond his prison.
‘You can find your freedom in here, even in the depths of your fear,’ Richard said gently, ‘if you pray. God will answer you, Ben. It is written; Jesus said unto them, for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as much as is a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto you. You will find your faith again, if you pray.’
Ben gave no answer, lips pressed tight, eyes unseeing. Richard waited but the other man did not move, his back still turned to the cell, and they stood for a long while, the light growing dim with the fading of the afternoon. Finally, they heard the warden in the passage and the scrape of the keys in the lock.
‘I will come again,’ Richard said, touching a hand lightly to the other man’s shoulder. ‘God keep you.’
Then, reluctantly, he had gone out into the clear freedom of the day, leaving his friend to face his darkness alone.
Chapter 15
November 1605
The Lord is my light, and my saluation, whome shal I feare? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, euen mine enemies and my foes came vpon me to eat vp my flesh, they stumbled and fell.
(Psalms 27:1–2)
* * *
In the Abbey library Richard began to pack up his papers, his mind tired and his fingers cold in spite of the fire in the hearth, which could never quite chase the chill that seeped from the thick stone walls. As he left the seclusion of the library, his thoughts still turned on his work, phrases from the Book of Numbers tapping at his brain. Perhaps he would find the answer on the walk home, he thought. Perhaps the crispness of the darkening afternoon would lead him to the words he was seeking.
The Abbey nave was busy with people, humming with voices that were raised in excitement, men of all classes engaged in animated chatter. He paid them scant attention; the Abbey was often crowded and his thoughts were still with the Hebrew as he made his way to the door. Outside, Broad Sanctuary was lively with unexpected celebration. An impromptu bonfire had been lit before the Abbey doors, flames licking up into the darkness, the air heavy with the scent of smoke. He stopped just beyond the door for a moment, confused, thinking he might have mistaken the day. But All Hallows had been and gone a few days before, the chill of winter settling in with its passing, so there must be some other cause for celebration.
A large crowd had gathered, drinking, talking, laughing. Someone had brought a fiddle, and there were couples dancing to a quick-paced folk tune he did not recognise, the womens’ skirts swirling out around their legs as they twirled. He turned his face away from the lewdness of it, but he sensed the tension in the air, an excitement fed by nerves, and drew his cloak more tightly round him, the fur warm against his neck, as he bent his steps towards Thieving Lane where he had no doubt he would find out all he needed to know. In his curiosity the passage from Numbers was all but forgotten.
‘It was the Papists, Doctor Clarke,’ Alice said, running to the door to greet him. ‘Did you hear? They tried to blow up Parliament.’
He said nothing, too shocked by her words to reply. For a moment he thought she was joking until he saw the furrow that brought her eyebrows close together, the pale eyes squinting through the dim evening light to see him better. She took his cloak and hat.
‘Doctor Clarke?’
He rubbed his cold hands together, nodding. Then he gestured to the hall. ‘Shall we?’
Thomas Kemp stood before the hearth, his wife in her accustomed chair. She held no sewing but sat looking up at her husband, pale hands working together on her lap.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Kemp turned immediately to Richard as he crossed to the fire to warm his hands. ‘They put barrels of gunpowder into the cellars.’
He stared. ‘Barrels of gunpowder? How in God’s name …?’ He could scarcely credit such a thing was possible.
‘One of the devils was taken in the act, no less,’ Kemp told him. ‘A little longer and it would have been too late. But the one they’ve caught will talk and no doubt we shall find out more soon enough.’
Richard was silent, still searching to make sense of it. How could such a thing have happened? How could it have come so close to success? The realm under threat, himself, this house, these people, all of them had been within a hair of their deaths. He could think of no words to say. Dazed, he sat on one of the chairs by the hearth and barely noticed when Alice placed a cup of wine in his hand. He sipped at it absently.
They had become complacent, he realised, all of them. So many long years of peace and prosperity had blinded them to the evils of such monsters in their midst. They had thought the Papists vanquished and the threat removed, but the devils had only been biding their time after all, still plotting for power. That men could seek to do such brutish things – it surely was the work of Satan.
‘And the Bishop of Rome approved it?’ he managed to ask.
‘Ah. Who can say?’
‘There were bonfires in the streets on my way home.’
‘The news has travelled fast. They have set a civil watch on the gates, and closed all the ports.’ He was thinking of his trade, Richard guessed, the precious cargos that must now wait to be unloaded.
‘Perhaps it was the Spanish,’ Alice said, sitting close to Emma Kemp on a stool by her feet, taking the older woman’s hand in her own, reassuring. ‘I heard there was a mob outside the ambassador’s house.’
‘Surely not? They would hardly risk war again so soon.’
‘What would have happened if they had succeeded?’ Alice asked. ‘What would have happened if King James and the lords had all died?’
The two men exchanged a look that dared not even contemplate the consequences, the bloodbath that would have ensued. Whatever faults we might find with a king, Richard tho
ught, we cannot return to the days when power could be wrested at the point of a sword. Or at the lighting of gunpowder. It was years since the spectre of a Papist uprising had hovered over England: the execution of Mary Queen of Scots twenty years before had removed the focus for any Catholic claims to power. Instead, they had gone underground, served by an endless influx of Jesuit priests who lived in holes in the walls of their followers’ houses and led the Mass in secret darkness. Biding their time and plotting, it seemed.
‘It is better not to think of it,’ Richard said. ‘We must just thank God that the devils were caught in time.’
‘I think we would be better to thank the Earl of Salisbury. I understand it was he who discovered the plot.’ Kemp winked at Richard, who lifted a hand to his mouth to cover his smile.
‘Thomas!’ His wife was shocked.
‘But yes, my dear,’ Kemp placated. ‘Richard is right. We should also thank God that they failed.’
‘Who can believe it?’ Emma Kemp kept saying, her fingers still turning against one another. ‘That they would do such a thing?’
‘Let’s hope they have no more plots afoot.’
‘Aye,’ Thomas Kemp agreed, with feeling. ‘I remember the last go-round with the Papists in power …’ meaning the reign of Bloody Queen Mary, when hundreds of Protestants burned in her bid to drag England back to Rome. Now others had taken up the cause again, men willing to die for the man they called the Pope. Richard wondered at the power the Roman Church held over men, the slavish devotion, men who would risk all to serve it, zealous, fanatical, dangerous. Men with nothing to lose but their faith. Then he remembered what Alice had said about Ben, and wondered how much difference there was between them.
At the weekly meeting the talk was all of the gunpowder treason, these men committed to the English Church outraged by the violence the Papists had attempted. Richard was glad of the respite – anger turned against Rome instead of Puritans for a while. It was some months since he had heard anything of Ben, living quietly away in the Midlands, and for a time Richard had hoped to hear no more, allowing himself to half believe that God had relieved him of the burden of his task. But Bancroft had lately begun asking again for news and the months of pleasant self-deception were at an end, conflict and uncertainty bearing in on him again and leaving him exhausted.
‘It was meant to be the day of our deaths,’ Andrewes said, ‘as sheep to the slaughter. We must celebrate God’s merciful deliverance from such monsters. That our land should breed such devils.’
‘It is but two days,’ John Overall said. ‘Who can know if they have further plots to destroy us? Westminster Palace is merely a stone’s throw from here – we were … we are … all of us at risk.’
They nodded in agreement, aware of the closeness of the danger.
‘We would all of us have died,’ Overall insisted. ‘All of us.’
‘But God has spared us,’ Andrewes said, ‘and we must thank Him for His mercy.’
‘And they have caught the conspirators, have they not?’ Thomson asked. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes now.’
‘One of them,’ Andrewes said. ‘They have caught one of them. There must have been many.’
Richard was silent. He was as relieved as any that God had delivered them, his blood still thrilling with the shock of it.
‘The others have fled,’ Andrewes continued, ‘but the one who was taken will talk. And in time his companions will join him.’
No one doubted the truth of his words. Richard knew well the deprivations of a prison cell and he had heard the wails of men under torture, but he could not bear to imagine the agony of the rack. It was said no one ever held out against its pain, that many prisoners talked even at the sight of it. The king would surely sanction its use for a crime so heinous.
‘We have tolerated dissent for too long,’ Thomson said. ‘Of all kinds. Papists, Puritans, Separatists.’ He flicked a glance to Richard. ‘They must all of them be brought to heel.’
‘Indeed,’ Overall agreed. ‘But we cannot prosecute them all. We cannot find them all. They are cunning, and numerous. The Papists with their smuggled priests and hidey-holes, the Separatists with their hidden congregations. How can we find all of them out?’
‘We must make examples of the ones we catch,’ Thomson answered. ‘Send a message that England will not tolerate dissent.’
‘But it does no good. These people want to be martyrs – it seems only to serve to bring others to their cause,’ Overall argued.
‘No one wants to die how these men will die,’ Thomson said. ‘No matter their faith.’
‘So what can be done about them? How can we silence their murmurings, their plottings, before they commit more monstrosities?’
Thomson turned to Richard. ‘You’re keeping very quiet, Doctor Clarke. Do you have nothing to say on the subject of dissenters?’
He hesitated, aware he was being tested, Thomson’s spiteful needling relentless. Like the bullies of his childhood, he thought, picking on the easy target. He imagined Thomson had been a hateful child. He knew these men distrusted him – they had already excluded him from their fellowship – but he had no wish to confirm their beliefs about his loyalties. He said, ‘I am as afraid of Papists as anyone. It seems they’ve never given up their bid to wrest power from the rightful king. So many years of peace have caused us to forget their treasonous ways and be easy on them, but we must still wage war against them – they have made that plain with this latest outrage.’
‘And what of other dissenters such as Separatists?’ Thomson lips parted in a smile, and Richard whispered a brief mental prayer for forgiveness for the hurt he would have liked to inflict.
The eyes of every man at the table slid towards him and he chose his next words with great care. ‘It is a different battle,’ he said, ‘but a battle nonetheless, to defend our Church and the conformity that has for so long brought us peace. Dissenters of all kinds must be found out and made to conform – the future of the realm depends upon it.’
‘Nicely answered.’ Thomson smirked.
Richard tilted his head and smiled in reply, but inwardly he was seething. The other men were still observing him, their doubts about him plain in their faces. He sat upright and still, trailing his eyes around the table at each of them in turn: he refused to be cowed. All except Thomson dropped their gaze as he got to them.
Andrewes said, ‘The devils will be found out. By God’s marvellous works, the destroyer passed over us, and we shall know more in the coming days.’ He cast his gaze around the table. ‘But for now we must return to our God-given labour. He would have us finish our task. The Book of Numbers, I believe, chapter eleven?’
There was a murmuring of assent, a rustling of papers as the men turned their minds to the task in hand, Richard’s possible crimes paling next to the audacity of the Papists; but a tension remained as an awareness of their danger, an apprehension that there may be other plots to come. All of them were jumpy, focus wandering with each strange noise outside, their thoughts still half-taken by the week’s events. But eventually the meeting began their work, comparing the translations that had come before against their own attempts. Within moments they were arguing: as ever, Doctor Overall was defending the phrasing of the Bishops’ Bible.
‘But an’an does not mean “did wickedly.”’ Richard was trying to be patient.
‘Neither does it mean “murmuring,”’ Layfield countered.
‘It can only be translated truly as “complaining,”’ Doctor Thomson said, with a sigh.
‘But their complaining is wicked – it angers God. Therefore there is truth in such a translation.’
‘Their complaining is such that God hears it but Moses does not. Murmuring is surely apt here.’ Murmuring is but the outward show of dissent, Richard knew, and rumours and discontent travel quickest in an undertone: the ancient world would have been no different. No wonder it displeased the Lord. He thought of Ben and the rumours o
f his crimes that Bancroft fed on, murmurings he wanted Richard to confirm with fact.
Saravia said, ‘Let us read the lines again so that we can hear them against one another.’
‘As you will.’ Overall was testy.
Andrewes read them out in turn.
The Bishops’ Bible:
‘And when the people did wickedly, it was a displeasure in the eares of the Lorde.’
The Geneva:
‘When the people became murmurers, it displeased the Lord.’
Then Thomson read his own line:
‘And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord.’
There was a silence as each man took time to consider the merits of each possibility. Andrewes rested his fingers on the pages of the Bibles that were open before him and looked up.
‘Gentlemen?’
Richard said nothing, though the simplicity of Thomson’s phrasing was pleasing. And there was no denying that complained was an accurate rendering. They all waited for the Dean to speak again, his judgement in these matters always wise: there was not one of them who would argue against his decisions.
He said, ‘I believe that Doctor Thomson has the right of it on this occasion. The line therefore will read,
And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord.’
Andrewes flicked a last glance round the table to invite more comment, but no one spoke and the Translation moved on to the following line.
Chapter 16
Winter 1606
Heare, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD. And thou shalt loue the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soule, and with all thy might.
And these words which I command thee this day, shall bee in thine heart.
(Deuteronomy 6:4–6)
The King James Men Page 20
