London - Edward Rutherfurd [384]
The sickness of Gideon’s wife was a curious thing. It seemed to strike her whenever Martha and Gideon broached the subject of America. Its nature was never specified but, as Mrs Wheeler remarked to Martha one day: “She is exactly sick enough not to travel.”
Then, to everyone’s surprise, at the very end of 1636 Gideon’s wife gave birth to a boy. So great was the family’s joy that they cast about for a name that would express their gratitude to the Lord. And at last Martha came up with a striking solution. One winter’s morning a rather astonished Meredith held the infant at the font, and with a wry glance at the family announced: “I baptize thee: O Be Joyful.”
Instead of a name, Puritans would sometimes take an entire phrase from their beloved Bible. It was a clear expression of Puritan loyalty, yet one that even Laud could hardly do anything about. And so O Be Joyful Carpenter, Gideon’s son, entered the world.
Gideon’s wife could now relax. The first four years of any infant’s life were by far the most dangerous. Having delivered herself of such a precious burden, she knew very well that, for some years at least, not even Martha would suggest that O Be Joyful should be risked on the long sea voyage. She became quite healthy.
It was a great surprise to her family, and not least to herself when, in the summer of 1637, Martha performed a criminal act. The sight she had witnessed had finally driven her conscience beyond all endurance, as it had enraged all London.
Although a gentleman and a scholar, Master William Prynne, most people agreed, was a contentious fellow. Three years earlier, he had written a pamphlet against the theatre which King Charles considered an insult to his wife, who was then engaged in some court theatricals. Prynne was sentenced to have his nose split and his ears cut off in the public stocks. Martha was outraged, but there was no public disturbance.
In 1637 however, Prynne was in trouble again, this time for writing against the desecration of the Sabbath by sports and, more dangerous still, for urging that bishops should be abolished. “He shall go to the stocks again,” the king’s court declared. “Even the stumps of his ears shall be ripped out; and then he shall go to perpetual prison.”
“Is all free speech forbidden, then?” the Londoners demanded. “If the king and Laud treat him like this, what will they do to us, who agree with every word he says?”
The day of the punishment itself was a sunny summer’s day, 30 June. Drawn along Cheapside in a cart, the tall figure of Prynne, horribly disfigured yet obviously once a handsome man, stood proud and unbowed. “The more I am beat down,” he had once declared, “the more I am raised up.” And so it was now. A huge crowd cheered him all the way. They threw flowers into the cart. And when the loathsome sentence was carried out, a roar of rage arose that echoed round the city walls and could be heard from Shoreditch to Southwark. Martha returned, trembling.
But it was only when Meredith, in his sermon next Sunday, made reference to the wickedness of those like Prynne who denied God’s bishops, that something within Martha suddenly gave way. Standing up, she spoke quietly but clearly: “This is not the house of God.”
There was an astonished silence. She said it again.
“This is not the house of God.” And then, feeling Dogget tugging at her arm, she calmly proceeded: “I must speak out.” And did so.
It was remembered for many years, that little speech in St Lawrence Silversleeves; even though, until the beadle dragged her from the place, it could not have lasted more than a minute. It touched on popery, on sacrilege, on God’s true kingdom – in simple words with which every Protestant in the congregation could identify. But most of all, it was remembered for one terrible sentence: “There are two great evils walking this land,” she said: “and one is called a bishop, and one is called a king.”
“She will surely,” they said, “have her ears cut off too.”
It took all Julius’s powers of persuasion to save her.