Twenty-two
The day before Campion’s execution dawned gray and wet, rain slamming down from the west and beating the river into a surface of pewter-gray misery.
The bakers were worried. A fine day meant a fine profit. Even if it poured with rain there would still be a vast crowd on Tower Hill to watch the execution, but few of them would want to buy soggy pies. The bakers prayed for a break in the clouds, for God to send fine weather to London. By mid-morning it seemed their prayers were answered. A great hole was tearing itself in the western clouds, the first shafts of sunlight falling on Whitehall and Westminster, and the weather-wise proclaimed that the morrow would be a good July day.
There was still the small matter of the trial to be completed, but that had not stopped the bakeries working late for days before the execution. There was no doubt about the verdict, merely what sentence Sir John Henge, the judge, would pass down. Most of London favored hanging. The time had passed when witches were burned, and the city believed that Dorcas Scammell should be convicted of witchcraft and hanged, high and slowly above their heads. Others preferred a longer death, saying that her crimes were so heinous that a signal punishment was needed to deter others. They favored that she should be hung, drawn and quartered. It had the added advantage, as well as persuading other witches not to loose their familiars on armed men, that the victim would have to be stripped naked before her entrails were cut out and burned in front of her face. The body of a naked young girl would double the price that could be charged by those whose upper windows, fortuitously, overlooked Tower Hill. The builders of London, who customarily made small, laddered platforms from which spectators could watch executions, were similarly in favor of the severer punishment.
Yet others, mindful perhaps that the revolution was releasing strange ideas on England, preferred that she should be burned. If a man killed his wife the punishment was death by hanging, but if a wife murdered her husband, then the punishment was worse because the crime was worse. Women must be restrained, and there was a goodly body of London opinion that believed the sight of a burning, screaming woman would remind wives that the revolution did not encourage husband-murder.
Yet on one thing all were agreed. In church after church, in parishes a good half-day’s walk from London, the preachers roused the faithful in preparation for the great event. Perhaps never in living memory had so many Puritan preachers simultaneously taken the same words of scripture as their text: Exodus 22, verse 18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Mercurius had done its work well. Faithful Unto Death Hervey was a hero to the city, the witch would die and already an enterprising publisher had put on sale a lurid and lengthy pamphlet that told the sorry tale of the witch Dorcas Scammell. Mothers subdued troublesome children by threatening them with Dorcas.
On the day before the execution there was already a fair crowd that gathered solely to watch the preparations, despite the rain that intermittently swept like smoke over Tower Hill. Many of the crowd were connoisseurs of this place, remembering the deaths of noblemen who had the privilege of sword or axe, the death swift so long as they had given a fat purse to the executioner. There was general agreement that they would have preferred Dorcas Scammell to die at Tyburn; the facilities for spectators were better there, though they were sympathetic to the authorities who thought it unlikely that they could safely escort the witch that far. She was bound to be lynched somewhere on the journey across London.
Carpenters came and constructed a scaffold. The crowd jeered them good-naturedly, yelling at them to build the platform higher. Later, as the rope was fixed to the crossbar, a portion of the crowd began to shout that the witch should be burned, as witches used to be burned, but the anger died when one of the workmen mimed a dancing, hanging death on the raw planks. Laughter sounded on the rainswept hill.
Someone, seeing the completed gibbet, asked if the sentence had been passed, but it seemed that the authorities were merely anticipating Sir John Henge’s final decision. Rumor swept the crowd, but nothing was certain.
Some of the chief actors in the drama were cheered by the people. The weather improved, a weak sun shining on the hill when the hangman came to inspect the work. He waved at his public, exchanging jokes with them, delighting the crowd when he pretended to measure up a fat, loud-mouthed woman who screamed for the workmen to build the gibbet even higher.
Faithful Unto Death Hervey visited the hill three times from the courtroom within the Tower. At his third visit there was still no sentence, but he climbed on to the scaffold and calmed the crowd by waving his hands.
“It will soon be over, good people! Soon! Tomorrow you will see a witch die! Tomorrow this city will be a safer place for us all!” They cheered him again. He prayed with them, asking God to give him strength to fight the evil of witchcraft, and then he promised the crowd that he would deny himself all comfort, all rest, until the last witch had been extirpated from among the Saints. The Saints clapped and shouted for him.
Far off, in the Strand, Sir Grenville Cony was in his house. He expected four eminent visitors, members of the Commons who were devout Puritans, and so the naked Narcissus was hidden behind its closed shutters. A Bible, that his secretary had lavishly inked with marginal notations, was prominent on his desk. The four visitors were waiting and would continue to wait until Sir Grenville had finished with his present visitor.
Septimus Barnegat was perhaps the only man who did not fear Sir Grenville Cony. Barnegat could have no fear, for as an astrologer he sheltered behind the destiny of stars and planets, and the truth he told could not be swayed by fear or favor. Barnegat was an expensive astrologer, as highly thought of as any seer in Europe, and he charged high fees to those merchants who sought his advice about insurance, or as to whether a ship should set sail on a particular tide. Barnegat was a busy man, in demand by politicians, lawyers, merchants and nobility. He was also irascible, jealous of his science and easily annoyed by questions that were beyond that science’s competence. Sir Grenville had just asked such a question and Barnegat’s small, fierce face scowled as he replied.
“How can I tell, Sir Grenville? Give me the girl’s natal date and I will answer, but it will take time! Indeed time! The charts, the influences.” He shrugged. “All of us must die, nothing else is so certain, but whether it will be tomorrow I cannot tell.”
Sir Grenville rocked back and forth in his chair, hands clasped on his great belly. “There’s nothing in my chart?”
“Of course there is! But no feminine influences. You might assume the lack of them to be the affirmation you want.” Barnegat allowed himself a smirk. “I cannot imagine Sir John Henge showing mercy to Dorcas Scammell.”
“No. And the other matter?”
Barnegat sighed. “There are a thousand other matters. Which one?”
“An enemy across the sea.” Sir Grenville sounded positively humble in the presence of the famous astrologer. Septimus Barnegat was not an easy man to approach; he turned down the majority of applicants. Now he frowned, stared at the beautifully drawn planetary chart and nodded slowly. “You have an enemy across the sea, yes. Matters fall into alignment, indeed they do.” He pursed his lips. “He is to the east.”
“You’re sure?” Sir Grenville leaned forward eagerly. The east was Holland, and Holland was Lopez; he did not fear the Jew as much as the enemy to the west.
Barnegat shook his head wearily. “If I am not sure, I say so. If I do not know, I say so. You have no need to ask me if I am sure.”
“Of course, of course.” Sir Grenville took no notice of the reproof. “Will he be coming to England?”
The science of astrology was not easily mastered. No King, no statesman, no banker, no merchant in Europe would dream of taking action without first consulting the heavens, but not one of them truly understood the intricacies of the astrologer’s work. It was a mystery, confined to those practitioners who had given their days and nights to the study of the delicate and beautiful movements of stars and plan
ets. There were some, a few, who scoffed, but as Septimus Barnegat was fond of saying, if the science did not work, why did the astrologers not starve in the streets? Yet sometimes, and this was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the science, it was easier to seek answers of an earthly origin than go through the painstaking, time-consuming endeavor of plotting the harmonious spheres.
Septimus Barnegat, as befitted a man of his wealth and reputation, took some earthly help. He paid his monthly retainer to Julius Cottjens, as did all the better London astrologers, and he paid for any news concerning his clients.
Barnegat knew about Sir Grenville’s fear of Lopez. He knew too that Lopez was ill. He traced a tobacco-stained finger along an elliptical line. “I detect sickness. Yes.” He glanced up at Sir Grenville. “I think there will be no voyage across the sea.”
Sir Grenville smiled. Cottjens’s news was safely confirmed. “And from the west?”
“Nothing. A void, Sir Grenville.”
“Excellent, excellent!”
Sir Grenville truly was happy. For months now, Barnegat had reported a tangle of influences, but now the truth emerged. Sir Grenville was safe. No enemies across the sea, and, though the astrologer had not confirmed it, the certainty of the death of Dorcas Slythe. The two men talked as Barnegat rolled up his charts and put almanacs into his case. The astrologer believed, as Sir Grenville was beginning to believe, that the Presbyterians were losing ground. The Independents, the radicals of the revolution like Ebenezer Slythe, were in the ascendant. Barnegat, who was consulted by some of the Independent leaders, offered Sir Grenville the news that soon they would be seeking money.
“A lot of money?”
“They wish to raise their own forces,” Barnegat sneered. “A fervent army of rabid Puritans, doubtless chanting psalms as they lop heads. They could be formidable, Sir Grenville.”
“And victorious.”
“If they raise the money. At present they feel the Low Countries might be more friendly toward them.”
Sir Grenville knew he was being sounded out. He nodded slowly. “They might save themselves a journey, Barnegat. I will be happy to talk.”
“Many of them want no king.”
Sir Grenville smiled. “At present we have no king. The sky does not seem to have fallen in.” He did not bother to ensure Barnegat’s silence. The astrologer was not a man to betray his own clients, and Sir Grenville’s slow defection from the Presbyterians, who would keep a figurehead king, to the Independents who thought the ship of state would sail quite well without one, was safe in Barnegat’s memory. Nevertheless, Sir Grenville knew, he had put out a secret hand of friendship to the turbulent Puritans of the revolution. “We’ll meet next week?”
“Indeed, Sir Grenville. The same time?”
“Of course!”
Sir Grenville waited for his next visitors, men with whom he would talk politics, and stared at the river which went past to the Tower. He smiled. The girl would die tomorrow, and he, Sir Grenville Cony, would continue to take the income of the Covenant. Some he would pass to Ebenezer, as he had passed some to Ebenezer’s father, but not even Ebenezer Slythe, a subtle young man, would ever know just how much was never passed on.
Sir Grenville had two seals, and no one could take them from him. His enemy across the sea, the one man who could rescue Dorcas Slythe, was ill. As Septimus Barnegat had said, all was indeed well in Sir Grenville’s heaven.
All was not well in the heaven of the Reverend Simon Perilly. Lady Margaret had asked him to travel to London, a dangerous business, and there find a lawyer who would defend Campion.
Sir George’s old London lawyer, on hearing the request, developed a sudden and inconvenient illness. Another man, whom Perilly had thought a friend, threatened to report Perilly’s presence to the authorities. He could be arrested as a spy. The Reverend Perilly had failed miserably. Now it was too late and he could see no way to save the girl.
He must travel back to Oxford, taking a circuitous route, to tell Lady Margaret that he had failed. She had moved to the King’s capital, preferring other Royalists about her to refuge in the Parliamentary house of her son-in-law, and Simon Perilly knew how desperately she wanted Campion’s freedom. To Lady Margaret, Campion’s survival would be a blow against her enemies. Yet she would be disappointed.
He called on one last friend in London, a man he had known since Cambridge, and a man he knew would not betray him. Luke Condign was a lawyer, but of no use to Perilly, for he worked to the Commons. His office was in Westminster itself and it was there, in the very heart of the enemy stronghold, that Perilly found Condign. The lawyer was gloomy. “There’s nothing to be done, Simon, nothing.”
“It’s so unfair. So unfair.”
Condign shrugged. He doubted there could be smoke without fire, but he did not wish to disappoint his friend. “I’m sorry.”
“There is one thing you can do for me.”
Condign was wary. “Tell me.”
“Can I send a message to her? I suppose it’s hopeless trying to see her.”
“Not unless you want to take her place, my friend.” Condign smiled. “Yes, I can get a message to her.” Each evening an official bag of papers went to the Tower. Some were letters to embassies abroad, sent from the Tower wharf, while others were orders for the movement of armaments from the Tower’s armory. A few were letters to prisoners. “You know they’ll read it? They won’t give her anything which they see as unfriendly to Parliament.”
“I know.” Simon Perilly took the offered paper and ink. He sighed, thought, then wrote swiftly, “Toby is well, recovering the use of his arm. He is in Oxford at Lord Tallis’s house. All there pray for you.” He wondered briefly whether he should put down that they would meet in heaven, but decided it might be inappropriate. “Be strong in the Lord.” He signed it, sanded the ink, then pushed it to his friend.
Condign nodded. “They should allow that. You know that my Lords Fleet and Atheldene pleaded for her?”
“I know.” Lady Margaret had written to her friends and acquaintances, begging help.
Luke Condign sighed. “Strange days, my friend, strange days. There was a time when the Commons beseeched the help of these Lords, but now?” He shrugged again. “You’ll sup with us tonight? Grace will be delighted to see you.”
“Of course.” The Reverend Simon Perilly had done his duty. He had done all he could, and the rest was up to Sir John Henge.
Judge Sir John Henge, tyrant of lawyers, groaned with the pain of the stone that he refused to let the doctors cut out.
The trial, he reflected, had been more tiresome than he expected. Caleb Higbed, forever smiling ingratiatingly and bobbing up and down like a pigeon, had been overlong. At least the prisoner had not had a lawyer, but that had not stopped her making protests at the proceedings. He had growled her into silence.
The jury now had the girl’s fate in their hands. Sir John had no doubt what that fate should be. He had known from the moment she had entered the courtroom, flaunting herself in a scarlet dress cut so low that he half expected her breasts to ride over the neckline with every breath she drew. She had tried to pull the dress up, but the jury, all Protestant men of property, had frowned at the harlot costume.
Sir John’s troubles had begun at the opening of the trial. That fool Higbed had assured him there was a confession, but Sir John, who prided himself on his thoroughness and his meticulous application of the law, had found an anomaly. “It says here her name is Dorcas Campion Scammell. That’s not the name on the charge.”
Higbed had half stood, half bowed and smiled. “As your Lordship observes, it is the name she chose to sign herself.”
“But is it her name?”
“No, my Lord.”
“If this isn’t her name, then this isn’t her confession. I would have thought the rawest lad in the law would have known that, Mr. Higbed.”
“As your Lordship pleases.”
It had not pleased Sir John, but the law was the law
, and Sir John embodied the law, and so he had demanded evidence.
So the witnesses were called, the evidence laid damningly before the jury. Goodwife Baggerlie, coached by Caleb Higbed who had thought the confessions too pat to convince Sir John, swore that she had heard Campion declare she would murder her husband by witchcraft. Maleficio was established.
Ebenezer Slythe, his face pale, pleaded for his sister’s life. Sir John interrupted him. “I thought this witness was here to give evidence.”
Caleb Higbed smiled at Sir John. “We thought your Lordship might listen to a brother’s plea.”
Sir John groaned, shifting because of the pain in his guts. “The time for a plea, Mr. Higbed, is after the verdict, not before. Have you lost your wits? Or do you think I’m a fool?”
“Nothing is further from my mind, your Lordship.”
Ebenezer was dismissed. He stepped down with a smile. His plea for mercy was no more than a gesture to public taste, what the simpletons would expect of a brother. Higbed had assured him that Sir John Henge did not know the meaning of the word mercy.
Now, as the evening light dimmed the courtroom and shadowed the great royal coat-of-arms above Sir John’s head, an escutcheon that kept up the pretense that Parliament fought not the King but his advisers, the jury whispered together on their benches.
Sir John did not like his juries to take a long time, especially after he had more or less dictated their decision to them. He growled, “Well?”
The foreman stood up. “We are agreed, my Lord.”
“All of you?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Well?” Sir John Henge wanted this over.
“On the charge of witchcraft, my Lord. Guilty.”
A buzz went round the spectators, quelled by an angry glance from Sir John. Caleb Higbed looked with relief at the darkening beams. Sir John had already written both verdicts in his book, but he pretended to make a note.
A Crowning Mercy Page 33
