London - Edward Rutherfurd [317]
From the outer gateway of the Tower, they were placed on hurdles and dragged through the streets. Their journey was a long one, for while the old Smithfield site was still used for executions, another place had gradually become even more popular: the old Roman crossroads a mile to the west of Holborn, where once a marble arch had stood and which now took its name from a little stream that ran nearby, known as Tyburn; the gallows was Tyburn Tree.
The crowds along the way noticed something unusual. Since olden times, since the good old days when Saint Thomas Becket had defied the Plantagenet king, it had been the custom before any churchman was handed over to the civil authority for execution to remove the Church’s protection by stripping him of his religious orders. But today, Henry being God’s temporal and spiritual representative on Earth, this was no longer necessary. With a gasp the onlookers noticed: “They are dressed as priests.”
At Tyburn, where a great crowd awaited by the gallows, King Henry had decided to make this a court entertainment. Not only was he present, but so were the ambassadors of France and Spain. More than forty mounted courtiers accompanied the king, all wearing masks, as though they were going to a carnival.
Before this noble company the three priors meekly came. Offered the chance to recant at the gallows foot, they all refused. Nooses round their necks, they were hauled up and hanged and then, while fully conscious, taken down and cut open. Their bowels were dragged out, then their hearts, and their arms, legs and heads hacked off and raised, and waved about for all that splendid crowd to see. It was savagely done, in the best and oldest way. Then their blood-soaked limbs were taken to be nailed or hung in sundry places.
And so, with the butchering of these, the first of the Christian martyrs who denied the king’s supremacy, Henry’s Church of England proclaimed its new authority.
Peter attended the executions, then made his way back to the monastery. When he reached it he felt very tired.
Shortly afterwards some of the king’s servants arrived with a small package rolled up in a cloth. When it was unwrapped, the monks saw that it was their prior’s severed arm. The king’s men nailed it to the monastery gate.
It was a little after noon that the commissioners came to the Charterhouse to demand the oath from the community. The monks were all gathered together. The commissioners, who included a number of churchmen, explained to them the propriety and the manifold wisdom of loyal obedience to their king. But all the monks refused. Except for one.
To their great astonishment, looking tired and ill and having, after the horrors of the morning, it seemed, lost heart, the most recent arrival, Father Peter Meredith, stepped forward and, alone of all their number took the oath.
Secretary Cromwell himself informed young Thomas Meredith what had happened; and Thomas should have been glad. “Not only does he live,” Cromwell remarked, “but it does you some good: I’ve already told the king that the only loyal fellow there was your brother.” He grimaced. “He himself may not be long for this world though. They tell me he seems very sick.”
And so, indeed, Thomas found him when he visited the Charterhouse a few hours later. For while the rest of the community was being subjected to a barrage of threats and persuasion in the chapel and in the refectory, Peter had withdrawn to his cell where he was being tended by old Will Dogget. He seemed now to have difficulty even rising from his bed, and after a few words, Thomas left him.
But it was the other visit he had to make that he dreaded. For a long time he hesitated outside the house at Chelsea, and it was only when one of the children happened to run out and spot him that he was obliged to enter. Even then, he made every excuse to play with the children and avoid the subject before, at last finding himself alone with Susan, he had to break the news.
“Peter has taken the oath.”
At first, she did not believe it. “I have been to the Charterhouse and seen