He had been seventeen when he began. Ten years had passed. Now, as he faced the furious abbot, he trembled.
“You are breaking your vows,” the abbot thundered.
He trembled, but he did not give way.
Brother Michael was a pure and simple soul. Three years younger than Sampson, he could not have been less like him. Where his older brother was thickset, Michael was tall and spare; prayer and meditation had softened his broad Saxon face; his head was tonsured; and in all his actions he was quiet and mild. Yet now, with the whole monastery against him, he was firm.
Why had he become a monk? Had it just been a youth’s revolt against his father, his coarseness and endless talk of money? Not really. He knew he was no worse than others. Was it because of Sampson, the older brother he had revered as a boy but whose small, blunt cruelties had come to shock him? Was it a yearning for the protection of his pious mother’s simple faith as she prayed to the Blessed Virgin every day?
No. It was an inner voice that had prompted him, a growing sense of the emptiness of the world around him, a need to shake off its grossness and find purity and simplicity. Just as a pilgrim desires to touch a fragment of the Holy Cross at a shrine, so Michael needed to feel the living presence of his God each day. And he knew he could not do so in the world.
This was not particularly surprising. Whatever the Church’s quarrels and compromises with kings, a great new tide of religious emotion had been sweeping across all Europe in recent generations, and had reached the shores of England. The great Cistercian monasteries, led by that stern monk known as Bernard of Clairvaux, had spread their simple religious communities and sheep farms from the Mediterranean to the bleak moors of northern England. A sudden enthusiasm for the Blessed Virgin Mary had sprung up. The roads to Europe’s holy shrines were thronged with pilgrims. Above all, in the last seventy years Christendom had thrilled to a new call to rescue the Holy Land from the Saracens in that great series of adventures, the crusades.
In London, too, this fervour was evident. The bells rang out, and time was reckoned not by the hours but according to the seven monastic services of the day. New churches and other foundations were clustering about the city. On the Thames riverside near the Aldwych the crusading Knights Templar were building the great headquarters already called the Temple. Near Westminster Abbey there was now a hospital dedicated to St James. So many and so flourishing were all these, that more than a fifth of London’s population was in religious orders of some kind.
When young Michael said he wanted to be a monk, therefore, his father had been disappointed but not shocked. After a few months, seeing that his son was steadfast in his purpose, he had obtained a place for him in the aristocratic community of Benedictine monks at the great house of Westminster Abbey, to which he had accordingly made a handsome donation, remarking hopefully, “The king’s palace is right beside him. Monks have been known to make fine careers.” And there, in the ancient and royal Abbey of Westminster, in the company of the black-robed monks, Michael had passed ten happy years.
He loved Westminster, the grey abbey, the great hall, the atmosphere that came from having religious cloisters, royal chapel and the courtyards of the royal administration side by side. He loved to walk out into the surrounding fields or gaze over the River Thames as it flowed by. How pleasant it was to be in a place so silent and peaceful and yet at the centre of things.
He had been happy when he had taken his vows. “These three vows,” the old monk who prepared him had explained, “will for the rest of your life be like friends to accompany you along the path to God. Poverty first,” he went on. “Why do we take the vow of poverty?”
“Because Our Lord said, ‘Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.’ And also, ‘Sell all thou hast and follow me.’”
“Exactly. You cannot love worldly goods and God at once. We choose God. And the vow of chastity?”
“He who follows the flesh neglects the soul.”
“And obedience?”
“To set aside my own pride and desires.”
“And to be guided by those wiser than you. For you need a guide upon your journey.” These three vows, the old man reminded him, were taken by every monk in Christendom. “Like dear friends, you must be constant to them, and they will protect you.”
Brother Michael had taken his vows and kept them. Indeed, they were now dearer to him than anything else. And if, from time to time, he saw that not all the monks at Westminster were chaste, or obedient, or even poor, he knew it was only a human frailty and prayed for them, and himself, the more.
He had been happy, too, when, just a year after his arrival, the Pope, having read the great Life of the monarch that the Abbey had prepared, together with many supporting documents, had at last acceded to the petitioning of the monks and canonized their former patron, Edward the Confessor. He had been happy when they set him to work making copies of manuscripts with the scribes, for he came to love books and the Abbey had a fine library. And, like any loyal monk, he had been happy at the growing prestige of his house. “We are even older than St Paul’s,” the brethren assured him. “St Peter himself came to Britain and founded this monastery here.” It gave him a thrill of religious excitement to think that he stood upon ground hallowed even in the days of the apostles.
But as time went by, there were things that troubled him.
Wasn’t the Abbey, with its ever-increasing lands, just a little too rich? Didn’t the monks live a little too well? What had happened to the vow of poverty? When the scribes proudly showed him the great charters that granted the Abbey’s possessions, were they not a little too obsessed with them?
For years he had put such doubts from him. Life at Westminster was delightful. Why question it? And then, two months ago, something had happened.
He had worked happily in the scriptorium for years now, copying manuscripts. He had even developed a fine hand. But the keeping and care of the monastic records was a task reserved for the more senior scribes. So he was honoured one morning when one of them, motioning Michael to join him, asked for his help. In his hand he held a charter that, Michael saw at once, came from an ancient Saxon king. “What are we going to do?” he asked. And was greatly astonished by the answer.
“Age it,” the monk had replied blandly. “You know, dust, oil, brine.” He smiled. “It’ll be old in no time.”
Only then had Brother Michael begun to understand.
In the month that followed, he had looked over most of the charters held by Westminster Abbey. As he sought information, he had asked naïve questions and spent hours in minute study. By the end of that time he had gone to the abbot and announced with a terrible gravity:
“I have discovered that at least half the charters in the Abbey are forgeries.”
Never in his life would he forget what happened next.
The abbot had laughed.
In fact, the situation at Westminster Abbey was substantially worse than Brother Michael had realized. The great Life of Edward the Confessor was largely a work of fiction. As for the Abbey’s claims to be older than St Paul’s, there was no proof at all. This being the case, it was clearly God’s will that the missing documents be provided.
So they had forged them. And still a constant stream of documents came forth. In an age when such forgeries, especially in the Benedictine order, were common all over Europe, the English Abbey of Westminster was the undisputed master of the craft. Charters of land grants, royal writs giving tax exemptions, even papal bulls – some were so well done that they would not be detected for centuries. All attested the Abbey’s rights and its almost incredible antiquity.
A few days later, after the abbot had told him not to concern himself, the same monk had again asked for his help. This time Michael had refused.
Within a very few weeks the situation had become intolerable. They reminded him of his vow of obedience and of his loyalty. He prayed for guidance. But he could not escape the dilemma.
All the
se charters are really about increasing the Abbey’s privilege and wealth, he reasoned to himself. How does that square with my vow of poverty? As for obedience, if I cannot obey with good conscience, what sort of obedience is that? He was out of sympathy with the great house and they all knew it. There was only one proper course of action. And so he had stood once more before the abbot and calmly told him: “I’m leaving.”
“You are proud,” the abbot thundered. “Who are you to question us?” Then, as almost any well-meaning monk would have done, the abbot pointed out with sweet reasonableness, “Do you not see? What we do is for the glory of God. When we write history or tell the lives of the saints, it is not just to inform men of what occurred, but to illustrate and expound the divine plan that men may better understand. Similarly, if it is God’s will that this Abbey’s rights and antiquity be known, we are right to furnish the proof so that sinful men may be convinced of the truth.”
Yet still Michael could not agree. The pragmatic common sense of his Saxon ancestors stood in the way. Either it was or it was not an ancient charter. Either he was telling the truth or it was a lie. “I’m sorry, but I wish to leave,” he repeated.
“And where will you go?”
Brother Michael bowed his head. That was something he had already arranged. As he told the abbot, however, that worldly-wise monk stared in astonishment and declared: “You must be mad.”
The crowd fell silent. It was still early. At a nearby monastery the bell for the morning service of terce had just finished ringing. At a sign from the bailiff, young Henry Le Blond reluctantly removed the cloak from his shoulders and stepped forward. Despite the fact that it was a warm summer morning, he shivered.
Hidden in the crowd, Pentecost Silversleeves watched with horror.
The place where they stood was a large, open space, about four hundred yards across, that lay just outside the north-west corner of the city wall. Today, its muddy surface caked dry by the sun, it looked like a huge, dusty parade ground. On its western edge the ground sloped down to the gully along which the Holborn stream flowed before it became the Fleet. Near the centre stood a group of elm trees and before them a horse pond.
This was Smithfield. On Saturdays there was usually a horse market there, and sometimes executions took place at the elms. At the horse pond, beside which the crowd of four hundred was now standing, certain important judicial proceedings were held.
By the water’s edge, as well as the man, naked but for a loincloth stood two other youths, two bailiffs, a dozen aldermen, a sheriff, and the Justiciar of England himself.
A master craftsman had been attacked and one of his apprentices killed. The culprits were all known because, in the hope of getting off lightly, they had turned king’s evidence and all accused each other. The crime had taken place the very night of the prince’s coronation. King Henry had been so angry that he had ordered his representative to deal with the matter personally. “I want them all tried,” he had stipulated, “within three days.”
Now, at a nod from the justiciar, the bailiffs tied the young man’s hands behind his back and bound his feet. Then, taking hold of his ankles and shoulders, they lifted him up and began to swing him.
“One!” the crowd roared. “Two! Three!” Le Blond’s body arched through the air and splashed into the water. Suddenly silent, the crowd watched expectantly.
Henry Le Blond was on trial for his life.
There were many kinds of trial in England. In civil disputes, freemen could choose trial by jury before King Henry’s impartial justices, but for serious felonies like murder or rape, which carried a penalty of death, the matter was felt to be too grave to leave to the imperfect judgement of men. So, despite the fact that many churchmen no longer approved, these cases were submitted directly to the judgement of God through the ancient trials by ordeal. For women this usually meant holding a red-hot iron and then seeing if the burns healed innocently or festered with guilt. For men it meant the speedier ordeal of trial by water. It was very simple. If young Le Blond floated, he was guilty.
Surviving this ordeal was difficult. To prove innocence, he must sink, and the best chance of doing that was to reduce buoyancy by expelling all the air from the lungs. But then, of course, if he wasn’t quickly fished out he would drown. Frightened men instinctively took a deep breath and floated. The crowd watched in silence. Then roared.
Henry Le Blond was floating.
It should have been him. He should be there with Le Blond and the other two. Oh God!
But Pentecost Silversleeves was free, for a very simple reason: he had taken holy orders.
Of all the Church’s privileges, none was more useful than the right of any clerk in orders, no matter how humble his status or how great his crime, to be tried by the ecclesiastical courts. Such men were known as criminous clerks. It was a system open to abuse, and in his dispute with his former friend Becket, nothing had infuriated King Henry II more than the archbishop’s refusal to reform it.
“Your Church courts either find their own people innocent, or they give them a few penances and nothing more. You are defending the most utter rogues,” he had charged.
“The privilege of the Church must be sacrosanct,” Becket would respond. “It’s a matter of principle.”
True, those guilty of serious crimes were supposed to be stripped of their orders and handed over to the king’s courts for punishment. “But even that you oppose,” King Henry had protested. “It’s outrageous.” And many sensible men in the Church thought he was right. Nevertheless, Becket had refused to give in, remaining in exile instead, and the matter had still to be resolved.
The trial of Pentecost Silversleeves had taken place the day before, at a hearing hastily called and held in the hall of the Bishop of London’s house at St Paul’s. It had been a dour proceeding.
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, was an aristocrat. His black robe was silken. His gaunt and yellowed face was like antique vellum drawn across a skull. His hands were thin as claws. He had no time for criminal clerics, nor for Becket, whom he regarded as a vulgar fool. As his hawkish eyes rested upon the trembling, long-nosed clerk, he had felt only contempt. “You should be handed over to the king for execution,” he had remarked drily. But there was nothing he could do about it.
For the ecclesiastical court still followed the ancient rules of oath-swearing. If an accused cleric said he was innocent and could provide enough reputable witnesses to swear to it, then he had to be found not guilty. Despite the fact that Pentecost’s accomplices, now suffering the king’s rougher justice, had all named him, the Silversleeves family had produced two priests, an archdeacon and three aldermen, all of whom either owed them favours or were subject to blackmail, to swear upon oath to the bishop that young Pentecost had never been near the scene of the crime.
“I am therefore obliged,” Foliot had said with a look of contempt for Silversleeves and his witnesses, “to find you innocent. And since technically you are innocent, you cannot be handed over to the king’s justice.” Then, with a cold menace, he had added: “However, I reserve the right to take my own view of this matter, and I tell you this: neither you, nor your mendacious witnesses, will ever, if I can prevent it, receive any preferment in this diocese again.” With which he had waved them away.
The other two had floated. They were all guilty. Now, upon the king’s particular orders, the sentence was to be carried out at once. Silversleeves trembled.
It was just then that he caught sight of the stout figure with the white patch in his hair. He was only thirty feet away and he had just turned round. Silversleeves tried to duck, but the master craftsman had seen him and a second later was jostling through the crowd. It was useless to try to get away. Silversleeves froze.
Simon the armourer was a conservative fellow. He lived in the house and followed the craft of his great-grandfather, Alfred. He still held several strips of land in the hamlet near Windsor, for which he paid rent. And he was proud of his skill as a master craf
tsman.
But he was far from the rich wholesale merchants, the aldermen, who ran the ever-growing city. “They never dirty their hands with work like we do,” he would say. “They hardly ever touch their goods. Their children are too proud to work at all, half of them. Think they’re nobles.” Here he would spit. “But they aren’t. They’re just merchants, no better than me.”
The intrusion of the young bloods into his house and the murder of his favourite apprentice had not only shocked and saddened him, it had positively infuriated him precisely because of the contempt for his class that it showed. “They’re no better than us. They’re worse,” he had raged. “They’re just criminals.” And that was just what he would show them to be. Justice would be done. He had come to Smithfield that day to witness his revenge.
But watching the young men as they were found guilty, and knowing what was to follow, he could not help feeling a pang of remorse. “They did a terrible thing,” he muttered. “But even so. Poor devils.”
Then he had seen Silversleeves.
He did not hurry, or make a scene. Carefully making his way through the throng, he came up to the long-nosed young man trying so uselessly to ignore him, sidled close until his beard was brushing Pentecost’s ear, and gently whispered: “You’re slime. You know that, don’t you?” He saw the scarlet blush start across the youth’s pale cheek. “You’re a murderer too, as much as them. But you’re worse. Because they’re going to die and you aren’t, Judas. You’re too much of a coward.” He saw Silversleeves stiffen. “Slime,” he whispered again, softly, then moved away.
Pentecost stayed to see the hanging. In a near daze, he forced himself, with fascinated horror, to watch as the three young men, all stripped, were led to the elms over whose high branches ropes were now tossed. He saw the nooses fitted, saw the three hauled up as the crowd cried out “Heave”, saw his friends’ beseeching faces contort and turn red, then purple, saw their bodies frantically kicking in the air, and saw one of their loincloths fall down pathetically. Then the three pale bodies hung limply, gyrating slowly in the faint breeze.