Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more

by David V. Barrett

  ‘Richard Topcliffe is a witch.’

  That man, Topcliffe, the Queen’s pursuivant – I had thought of him during the Mass. I had halfway asked for his trespasses to be forgiven. I renounced that feeble-hearted prayer.

  ‘He has a room for the torture of priests in his own dwelling . . .’

  ‘But it is a felony to house a priest!’ said Father Stephen.

  Father Edward tightened his fingers into a fist at the jest. ‘I hung from the wall in that room. Topcliffe pushed my head up, but it would not stay, so he knotted my hair to a nail . . .’

  ‘What did he do then?’

  ‘Drove his fingers into my ears, and drew forth my tongue with pincers, and he spat on it. And said, “Ephphatha”.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Let it be open.’They answered me in unison, and Father Stephen winced, but spoke on: ‘It is mockery of Christ, who healed the dumb man. What then?’

  ‘His spit tasted of dandelion stalks.’

  ‘What effect did it have, Brother Edward?’

  ‘Topcliffe asked me questions. As soon as I saw that the truth would stream out of me, I tried to bite my tongue off. But he held my jaws apart.’

  ‘Better you had done it,’ said Father Stephen, but his voice was not steady.

  ‘He questioned me for an hour. I told him the names of some Catholic houses, the ways to find their priest-holes. When he left me alone, I struck my head against the ground rather than leave myself in his hands. But I only lost my senses, not my life. Do you doubt me?’

  I did not doubt him. I pitied him. I had wished Father Edward would suffer, for causing my honesty, and my family’s suffering. But my wish for revenge was a shallow cup, and his past pains overflowed it.

  ‘I do not doubt you,’ said Father Stephen. ‘But I am not compelled to pardon you, brother.’

  I should not have brought Father Stephen to Father Edward. I should have sent him down a false road. I would share the blame for his murderous deeds.

  ‘Topcliffe returned with a man – wealthy, with a deep peak to his hair. Topcliffe asked me questions, and I spoke the truth. The man said, “This man has been ill used, and will confess to anything”. But Topcliffe swore my honesty. And the man asked me this and that, conundrums and paradoxes, until he was satisfied. A clever man.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I know not. But I fear he was Walsingham.’

  I knew that name: the Queen’s spymaster.

  ‘He laughed and said that Topcliffe had done what God could not, and made men honest. He questioned him further – asking if a man under this charm might sign a treaty falsely, or do a thing against his nature. And they tried to make me sign a false document, and . . . other things. Topcliffe used all his old methods, then, to see if they could get a lie from me, when before he sought the truth.’

  ‘And then they set you free, to curse your fellow priests.’

  ‘Yes. I heard them fight over it. Topcliffe planned to enchant all Jesuits; Walsingham wished to keep the charm for use on other men. Foreign ambassadors, and the Queen’s own advisers. He told Topcliffe to cease all experiments, and kill me, so that news of the charm would not spread.

  ‘Topcliffe raged, and defied the spymaster by releasing me, that night – he had me dressed, and gave me a horse. And I met with you all for Mass – and knew not, when I took the Mass, that the charm could pass from me to you, by touch. And touch on the tongue, especially. I believed that I, alone, would speak the truth and die for it.’

  Father Stephen looked at his own hands, and at Father Edward’s. I thought that Father Edward’s words would change Father Stephen’s direction, as the wind turns the weathervane. But Father Stephen gave no sign.

  I spoke in desperation, to delay the evil moment. ‘Father Edward, why did you come to our house?’

  ‘To minister to your souls. I hoped – God forgive me – that I might be a better priest, for my affliction! That the fears, or lies, that keep people from Our Lord might all be known to me. I am sorry, Anne . . .’

  Father Stephen spoke. ‘That was spiritual vanity, brother.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘We should all listen to our spiritual directors in such matters. Not chase off on missions of our own devising.’ He was chastising Father Edward, but seemed abashed himself.

  I pushed my point. ‘Father Edward, why did you not end your life, when you were able?’

  ‘Oh, for I am a coward,’ said Father Edward. ‘Self-slaughter would mean Hell for me. And Hell would be an eternity of Richard Topcliffe’s private chamber. So I have tried to continue our mission, despite my gift.’

  ‘Foolish,’ said Father Stephen.

  ‘I know!’ he shouted, then. ‘But you have saved me! I will make confession, and you will kill me. And you will go to Hell, in my stead, brother.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘You have never been put to the question, Brother Stephen, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you would brave Hell for eternity, when you have not felt it for a minute.’

  Then Father Edward stood, and began to undo his doublet.

  I knew not why. Had the dishonesty of disguise grown too much for him? He undid the dozen small buttons that ran down from the lace collar, shrugged himself free and stood in his undershirt. His wrists and neck were red and chafed where he had worried at his own skin. Was he shedding his gentleman’s clothes to die a priest, without lace or velvet?

  He folded the doublet reverently and handed it to me. It was warm from his body, and heavy.

  I saw his reason. Knowing that Father Stephen would kill him, he did not want his doublet, his host’s gift, to be spoiled.

  I laid the doublet on the bench and, lacking more words, I stood in front of Father Edward, barring Father Stephen’s way.

  Father Stephen called across me: ‘Edward! Why did you not leave this country and come home to Rheims?’

  ‘I could not cross the Channel. I must speak my profession to any who ask it. I could only slope from house to house, on borrowed horses . . .’

  Father Stephen rose to his feet, and came close to us both. He reached past me, but held no blade, and laid his empty hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘I have left England, and travelled to Rheims, and returned here. I have passed four days in England, this time, and not suffered arrest.’

  ‘Do you tell me that to taunt me, Brother Stephen?’

  ‘No. Will you come home to Rheims with me, Brother Edward?’

  ‘You said you would not spare me!’

  ‘I spoke the truth, but I am not a prophet. My heart has been changed. I did not foresee it.’

  Father Edward stepped out from behind me and let himself be embraced. ‘Have you money for our passage?’

  ‘For mine. Not yours, Brother Edward, as I did not think to need it – it does not take a full purse to kill a man. But we might cut the fancy buttons from your clothes . . .’

  *

  24 December

  Two of my flock have come back to me.

  I foresaw that one would die by the other’s hand. Now Edward takes food out to the arbour where Stephen lodges, and they study together.

  They say they will go to Spain, for the mild climate will allow Stephen to work despite his peculiarity. I have overheard Stephen say that their frankness may see them made saints; he does not make such impious jests in my presence.

  Anne Barton writes that the charm weakens, but does not pass. Much can be achieved through misdirection, but questions from her parents still compel her honesty. I have sent letters to Edward’s hosts, telling them this hard news. Perhaps the charm afflicts seminary priests most strongly because they have spent years in the consideration of truth. Those who know truth, but have not studied or disputed it, are less fertile soil. Stephen, who is affected most deeply, was the most scrupulous of novices.

  Anne also asks me if there are convents with vows of silence. I will tell her no order would ac
cept her as a novice until she is eighteen. It is a lie, to prevent a rash decision. The charm’s hold on her may still lessen.

  I have called home all the priests that Edward met – all those who survive. I pray they will return to me in safe silence, not lose their lives to feed a courtier’s greed for war.

  Soon we will have here a seminary of spotless honesty. All fear, all doubt, all jealousy will be seen clear as if it were nailed to the church door. We have survived another of the world’s tricks; will we survive the truth of one another?

  Ω

  William Allen, founder of the English College at Douai, set up a similar college in Rome in 1575. He moved to Rome in 1585, becoming Librarian at the Vatican until his death in 1594 – undoubtedly the route by which Dr Richard Barret’s journal made its way there. We can only surmise that, to stop any discovery of what had happened to the priests, one or other of them asked for and confiscated Anne Barton’s journal.

  In 1582, while the College was at Rheims, scholars there translated the New Testament into English, as part of what became known as the Douay-Rheims Bible. The College returned to its original home in Douai in 1593.

  The revelation that the Queen’s principal interrogator Richard Topcliffe used magical powers in his campaign of hatred against Catholics adds another layer to the man known as ‘the cruellest tyrant in all England’. He interrogated and tortured many priests, and his treatment of Fr Edward was lenient compared to the sadism he displayed to others. The use of magic to force priests to answer questions with the truth displays a level of sadistic subtlety alongside the physical means he delighted in using.

  At the time of Elizabeth, belief in the real power of magic was nothing unusual, but the Church would be at pains to cover up its successful use against itself.

  1600

  Giordano Bruno was one of the great puzzles of the sixteenth century. He was a monk, a mathematician, a philosopher, an astrologer and probably a spy, and he developed a complex Art of Memory which he taught around Europe. He was also an early advocate of the idea of an infinite universe. He began as a Dominican monk, but was later a Lutheran and then a Calvinist, and he ended up at odds with any form of orthodox Christian belief; it was almost a question of which Church would take its revenge on him first.

  He was prepared to challenge any established beliefs, and delighted in disputing and debating with authorities. It could not end well. After seven years of imprisonment and interrogation by the Inquisition, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600.

  Or was he? This file of documents found in the Vaults of the Vatican Library casts an intriguing new light on Bruno’s life, and on its end. Rather than turn them into a narrative, we present the whole file, a puzzle to match Bruno himself.

  Documents in the Case of Brother G.

  Paul Kincaid

  1. Document removed from the Vatican Library on 18 February 1600.

  14 September 1570. Brother Giordano, from the monastery of San Domenico in Naples, requested to see a copy of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Nicholaus Copernicus. Application supported by Cardinal-Priest Rebiba. Request approved.

  Marginal notation in another hand:

  Remove this.

  *

  2. Extract from a letter written by Father Ambrose, San Domenico Maggiore, Naples, dated 23 March 1600.

  I was summoned to the home of one Giacomo Carafa of Sorrento. He is an old man now, but his daughter, who looks after him, confirmed that he had once been an astrologer for many of the noblest families in Naples. His home shows no sign of past wealth.

  . . . The old man was unable to rise from his bed to greet me, and I assumed for a while that I had been called to give him last rites. However, he had heard of the execution of the heretic Giordano Bruno last month, and his conscience bothered him. It seems that he had known Bruno some thirty years before.

  ‘That winter,’ he said, though I could not determine the exact year of which he spoke, ‘Brother Giordano came often to my home. He said he was interested in astrology. He would not let me cast his own chart, but he liked to look at old charts I had drawn up and which at that time I kept always in my room. He would note the positions of the stars and planets, and compare them from one chart to another. He needed only to see a chart once to remember its details precisely. Then he would go to my window and look to the heavens. It was a crisp winter, I remember, and the stars were very clear. He would delight in identifying the planets. “Look, that is Jupiter,” he might say, or “There is Mars, of course.” Then he told me of someone, in Poland, I think he said, who had discovered that the planets revolve around the sun, and that our Earth does the same, which surprised me. And he said that the Earth is a planet just like Venus and Mars, and he said one time, “Had we but a strong enough lens, might we not observe the seas and forests and cities of those other worlds.” “Not cities, surely,” I replied, “for that would mean there are people to build them, and what people could they be that have not known God, where Christ incarnate has not died to redeem their souls as he died for us on this world?” At that he was silent for some time, looking up into the night sky. Then he waved his hand, a gesture I had seen him make on other occasions to dismiss some inconvenient notion. “No, there are people, I am sure of that. And all the constellations, the fixed stars, are they not also suns, and are there not worlds that circle them, and people on those worlds too? And perhaps,” he said, after another long pause, “if God’s mercy is truly infinite, then it must extend to all those worlds and all those people also.”’

  At that, Giacomo Carafa himself fell silent, and it seemed he must have fallen asleep. Yet in time he roused himself again with a great sigh, and turned his gaze to the plain cross above his bed. ‘And that, I truly believe, was a most terrible heresy. But though I forbade Brother Giordano my home, yet I never spoke of that sin to anyone as surely I should have done.’ He seemed to subside in his bed, as if he had only enough strength to tell his story. ‘I understand,’ he said, his voice now much fainter so that I had to lean close to catch his words, ‘that Brother Giordano left Naples not long after, though in truth I never saw him again.’ At this, the old man asked to make confession and receive absolution, and this was done.

  Marginal notation in another hand:

  Why did we not know of this before?

  *

  3. Extract from an undated memorandum written in his own hand by Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. This is presumed to date from late 1575 or early 1576.

  Brother G. came to me today. He assured me that no one else knows he is in Rome. He demonstrated once more his phenomenal memory by reciting large parts of the De revolutionibus by Copernicus, which he had read only once during that previous visit to Rome. He then assured me that the orbit of the planets is not circular, as Copernicus avers, but follows a somewhat different pattern, though he is not yet sure what that pattern might be. He also insisted that he is now more certain than ever that the fixed stars are themselves suns, and that they are in turn orbited by planets of their own. This is a dangerous argument, and I had to stress that he should never repeat it to anyone else. At this point I said that, since the death of Pope Pius, no one else in the Vatican was aware of our previous discussions or agreements. Gregory is unlikely to be sympathetic to his embassy. So he should take extra care, since he no longer has the support he might once have had. Brother G. waved a hand impatiently in front of his face, as though batting away a fly, and said: ‘No matter. It’s too late now, we must go on.’

  Once he had slipped away, I realised that he was not the only one in danger. Tomorrow, for my own protection, I will make arrangements so that it will appear to anyone who does not investigate too closely, that Brother G. was forced to flee Naples for reasons of heresy. I suspect it will not be too hard to make that convincing.

  *

  4. One page of a letter. The rest of the letter has not survived, so it is impossible to determine who it was addressed to, or who wrote it. There is some sign of dama
ge to the paper.

  . . . as advised, I joined the company and travelled with them from Savona, via Turin and eventually to Venice, where I am now. I note that at this time he called himself simply Giordano Bruno, and no longer wore his habit. Since he made no mention of the fact, it is possible that many of those in our company were unaware that he [illegible].

  During much of our journey, he kept to himself. I believe he was writing, though I had no opportunity to see what he wrote. However, of an evening he would often walk out alone from whatever inn or farm we had taken refuge in for the night. On these occasions I was generally able to follow him without being seen. He would find a lonely field where he would not be interrupted. There he would light a small fire, sometimes two or three, then settle down on the ground and look up at the heavens, which he might do for hours on end.

  [illegible] close enough I heard him speaking. I could never distinguish his words – to get close enough for that I would have betrayed my presence – but in the main I think he was praying. That, at least, was my impression, except on one occasion when I saw a figure standing close beside him. I can give no accurate description. The figure was tall, thin and very pale. I could not tell whether it was male or female, or even with complete confidence whether it was living or not. There was something almost ghostly in its pallor. And in a moment it was gone, I cannot say how or where.

  I have not seen such a figure again since, and must assume it was someone local, perhaps an accidental encounter. The next morning we completed our journey to . . .

  *

  5. Memorandum by Cardinal Scipione Rebiba written in his own hand, dated 13 June 1577.

  Have spoken with Christopher Clavius. Someone had to know. He does not believe me.

  *

  6. Unsigned note found among the papers of Cardinal Scipione Rebiba after his death, 23 July 1577. The handwriting has been tentatively identified as that of Giordano Bruno.

  Have made contact. Will proceed with the embassy as circumstances allow.

  Marginal notation in another hand: