Death of a Chancellor

23

All through Friday and Saturday Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald kept a discreet watch on the comings and goings round the Cathedral Close. Sometimes they watched from Anne Herbert’s upper window, regular supplies of tea and home-made cake fortifying them in their vigil. Sometimes one of them would walk round the streets, the cathedral itself standing impassive as it waited for the Resurrection.

On both days the pattern was the same. A quartet of clergy would set off from the Archdeacon’s house shortly after nine o’clock, heading at a sedate pace towards the Bishop’s Palace, the Archdeacon himself accompanied by Father Barberi and the two gentlemen from Rome. Then there would be a gap. Between ten and ten thirty a steady trickle of members of the Chapter and the choir would present themselves at the Bishop’s front door. About half an hour later they would emerge, looking rather happier than when they had gone in. Sometimes Patrick Butler would join Powerscourt and Fitzgerald, taking careful notes of the times of entry and departure of all the participants.

‘What a story,’ the young man said cheerfully to Powerscourt on the Friday afternoon. ‘I think it’s the biggest story I’ve ever come across. Maybe I can make my name with the Saga of Compton, its murders, its conversions, like William Howard Russell did in the Crimea for The Times. Then Anne and I could be rich and move to London!’

Powerscourt smiled at the young editor. ‘Do you know what’s going on with all this religious traffic?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I think I can guess but I’m not sure.’

‘I’ve been reading up on all this stuff, Lord Powerscourt. You have to in my business if you’ve got the time. Very discreetly, of course. I haven’t asked anybody in the Close about it. But I think that all the members of the Chapter who weren’t already Catholics are being received into the faith. Maybe the Archdeacon’s friends are doing them in relays. And they may also be ordaining them as Catholic priests and deacons at the same time. Mass conversion, mass ordination, if you ask me.’

And with that the young man returned to his offices, dreams of fame and glory floating through his brain. Powerscourt was thinking of betrayal, the betrayal by Judas that led to the crucifixion on this day nearly two thousand years before, the betrayal of their religion by all these Anglican priests in the name of a higher calling. He didn’t think it was going to be a very good Friday for Compton.

On the Saturday evening Powerscourt and Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald assembled at Anne Herbert’s house on the edge of the Close. There were notices all over the town advertising the great bonfire due to take place on the Green late that Saturday night. Anne Herbert reported that her father, normally a phlegmatic and reserved individual, had been astonished at the number of people arriving at his station. The number of extra trains was greater than he had ever seen. Every railway worker for miles around was on duty to ensure safe passage for the visitors.

At seven o’clock a team of workmen began building the bonfire that was to be the centrepiece of the night’s attractions. Powerscourt and Patrick Butler watched, fascinated, as cart after cart and wagon after wagon drew up alongside the site.

‘Christ, Patrick,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it’s going to be enormous.’

‘They say in the town,’ Patrick Butler replied, ‘that it’s going be to be the biggest bonfire Compton has ever seen. The wood was ordered from all over the county weeks ago.’

‘I wonder how many heretics you could burn on it when it’s finished,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I doubt if even Bloody Mary herself could have provided enough bodies for it.’

‘Careful how you speak of the Catholic Queen in these parts at this time, Lord Powerscourt. Tomorrow you might be struck down or popped on to the pyre yourself for such blasphemy.’

Powerscourt was thinking about Arthur Rudd, burnt on the spit in the kitchen of the Vicars Hall. He thought of the monk of Compton, burnt to the west of this Cathedral Close in 1538. He had passed a small memorial to his life and death set into a wall during his perambulations round the Close the day before.

From time to time Patrick Butler would dash off into the town or to inspect the building of the bonfire at first hand.

‘He’s like a puppy, really,’ said Anne Herbert affectionately, ‘he just can’t sit still. He has to be running about all the time. Do you think he’ll calm down later on, Lady Powerscourt?’

Lady Lucy laughed. ‘I’m not sure he will, you know. He wouldn’t be Patrick if he wasn’t like that, would he?’

Patrick Butler reported that another pair of carts were approaching the bonfire, bringing not wood but candles. He also reported that the streets of the city were virtually impassable. Shortly after nine o’clock the workmen began erecting a monstrous scaffold, whose peak was almost as high as the top of the bonfire itself. ‘That’s for the Archdeacon to address the crowd,’ said Patrick. ‘God knows if we’re going to get a sermon. I do hope not.’

Powerscourt thought the platform was going to be high enough for Lucifer himself, come to Compton to preside over the flames of hell. At nine thirty the crowd closest to the bonfire fell silent. The silence spread slowly out across the Green until even the tavern opposite the west front, scene of much rowdy merriment throughout the evening, fell silent. It was now completely dark, the spectators by the fire faint shadows from Powerscourt’s vantage point. Four men with blazing torches stood at the corners of the pyre. As if acting on a common signal they touched their flares to the faggots. Then they moved slowly and deliberately round the bonfire until the bottom section was a circle of light in the darkness. Sparks began to fly upwards and outwards, forcing the crowds back. Still the Archdeacon did not mount his scaffold. Powerscourt wondered what would have happened if it had rained. Maybe on this day the Lord their God delivered them the weather they needed.

It was hard to tell at first where the singing came from. Powerscourt stared forwards into the night. He could certainly hear singing, maybe a choir. He could also hear the sound of marching feet. Then he saw it, a great column of men and women coming down Vicars Close and passing not into the cathedral but along the Green and out towards one side of the bonfire. The choir, Powerscourt realized, was hidden in the body of the column, just as Napoleon’s drummer boys were hidden among the Emperor’s armies advancing to secure the destruction of their enemies.

‘Faith of our fathers, living still,’ they sang,

‘In spite of dungeon, fire and sword:

O how our hearts beat high with joy

Whenever we hear that glorious Word!’

As the column, at least a hundred and fifty strong, Powerscourt thought, reached the light of the flames he saw that at the front were two men bearing an enormous banner. It showed a bleeding heart above a chalice in the centre. At the four corners were the pierced hands and feet of the crucified Christ.

‘What on earth is that, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy, standing very close to her husband and feeling just a little frightened.

‘It’s the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, my love. In the Pilgrimage of Grace, the northern revolt against a Protestant England in 1536, it was the chief emblem of the rebels.’

Still the Archdeacon did not climb to his position above the fire. Powerscourt wondered where he was. Perhaps he was in the cathedral, at prayer before his great ordeal. For this was a huge crowd, sections of it maybe rather drunk. It could be difficult to contain, much more difficult than preaching a sermon to the converted.

Then they heard another burst of singing, coming from the other side of the Green. Another column, at least as long as the one from Vicars Close, was approaching the bonfire from the opposite side to the first one. In the vanguard two men were carrying an enormous banner of the Virgin enthroned in glory. They were singing the second verse of the same hymn. People were now moving quickly through the crowd, circulating handbills with the words printed on them so that those unfamiliar with it could sing along.

‘Faith of our fathers we will strive

To win all nations unto Thee:

And through the truth that comes from God

We all shall then be truly free.’

Sections of the crowd were now able to join hesitantly in the refrain.

‘Faith of our fathers, holy faith!

We will be true to thee till death.’

The second column advanced across the Green and stood shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues who had marched down Vicars Close. Still the Archdeacon held his peace. The next column was coming from behind the cathedral. Powerscourt realized that they were advancing from all four points of the compass. The final column would come from behind them and pass right in front of Anne Herbert’s front door. The third column was advancing behind no fewer than five banners. All of them showed the Five Wounds of Christ. They too joined the semicircle around the bonfire. Stewards were moving through the crowd again, handing out candles to the faithful. They started on the side nearest the Vicars Close and a ripple of lights winked up towards the night sky. Fathers with small children on their shoulders peered nervously upwards in case the candle dropped on their heads. And here Powerscourt saw just how carefully the evening had been organized. For the children’s candles were tiny, a fraction of the size of those handed out to the adults. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on a birthday cake.

Then they heard the last column. Powerscourt and his party were all out in the front garden by now, staring as if hypnotized at the bonfire. They too had candles in their hands. The hymn was growing louder. Peering into the dark behind the Green Powerscourt saw another banner of the Five Wounds of Christ at the head of the procession. This one had the letters IHS, an abbreviated form of the Greek word for Jesus at the top.

‘Faith of our fathers, we will love,

Both friend and foe in all our strife . . .’

The pilgrims were passing Anne Herbert’s front door, advancing through a waving sea of candles towards the bonfire. Powerscourt doubted if much love had been shown to friend and foe in all the strife in Compton. Three dead bodies was not the greatest tribute to brotherly love.

‘And preach thee too, as love knows how,

By kindly words and virtuous life.’

The column had been intended to continue up the road and then turn left further up where the path led to the west front of the minster. But something, maybe the lights, maybe the noise, made them swing left and head straight across the Green. The crowd parted before them like the waters of the Red Sea, candles making sudden darts to the left and right. As this final column arrived at the bonfire the other three already there joined in the last verse.

‘Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers

Shall win our country back to thee

And through the truth that comes from God

England shall then indeed be free.’

The chorus was deafening. Most of the crowd were holding their candles high above their heads. The fire was burning fiercely. Some of the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ had been stuck in the ground in front of the bonfire, swaying slightly in the light breeze.

‘Faith of our fathers, holy faith!

We will be true to thee till death.’

Then the trumpet sounded. At first nobody could see where the noise was coming from. Then a forest of candles pointed up to the parapet above the west front. Almost lost among the statues of saints and bishops, of Christ enthroned in glory, a young man played one short fanfare. ‘Christ, Francis,’ muttered Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘are we going to have the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding across the sky in a minute?’

‘You never know, Johnny, maybe it’s the name and number of the beast, the whole book of Revelations coming next.’

The minster door opened. Four people bearing enormous candles escorted the Archdeacon to the scaffold. He mounted very slowly. Powerscourt saw that he was wearing the regalia of a Jesuit priest. Presumably these were the clothes that had travelled to Melbury Clinton with him on his furtive and clandestine missions to celebrate Mass. At last he reached the top. Powerscourt noticed that one of his companions, carrying a large bag, had accompanied him and placed the receptacle on a tall table beside him. Really, Powerscourt thought, as the acolyte retreated towards ground level, these people leave nothing to chance. The Archdeacon would not have to grope about at his feet for whatever religious rabbit he wished to pull out of the bag. It was ready by his right hand. They leave nothing to chance. Maybe somebody should ask them to organize Edward the Seventh’s Coronation. The Archdeacon looked very slowly at the great throng beneath him. The crowd was inching closer and closer to the bonfire. He raised his hand very slowly and made the sign of the cross. Then he spoke.

‘In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, Amen.’

He paused again. There was an enormous outbreak of cheering. Powerscourt wondered how many of this crowd came from Compton and how many had come in the special trains.

The Archdeacon raised his hand for silence. ‘Brothers and Sisters in Christ,’ he went on, ‘we are gathered here in this time and place to mark a very special anniversary.’ Powerscourt realized why the Archdeacon had been chosen for this particular assignment. He had an extremely powerful voice which carried easily right to the back of the Cathedral Green.

‘Tomorrow,’ he continued, turning slowly so that each section of the crowd could see him in turn, ‘is the one thousandth anniversary of this cathedral as a place of Christian worship.’

There were huge cheers from the crowd. Many of them punched their candles in the air.

‘For nearly six hundred and fifty years the abbey belonged in the bosom of Mother Church, a dutiful servant of Rome.’

Again a mighty roar from the crowd. Many of them were crossing themselves. One or two were kneeling on the ground, eyes closed in prayer.

‘And then, due to the political necessities of the King of England, this church was ripped from its rightful home.’

The men in the first cohort to reach the bonfire had pulled the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ out of the ground and were waving it aloft.

‘Tomorrow,’ the Archdeacon went on, his finger stabbing into the night, ‘we are going to right that wrong. Tomorrow we are going to restore this church to its rightful home in the bosom of the Holy and Apostolic Church! Tomorrow we are going to rededicate this building as a place of Catholic worship! Tomorrow we are going to make the Cathedral of Compton Catholic once again! Tomorrow we shall celebrate Mass here for the first time in three hundred and sixty years!’

At each tomorrow he had pointed dramatically at the minster, the building still dark among the ocean of candles waving at varying heights on Cathedral Green.

‘I have here,’ the Archdeacon pulled a heavy-looking package from his bag, ‘a gift for the cathedral from the Holy Father himself!’ Very slowly the Archdeacon took off the cloth that surrounded the bounty from the Pope.

‘This is an altar stone, a slab that contains the relics of a saint and martyr who gave his life that his country might come back to the true religion!’

The crowd fell silent. Powerscourt wondered if it was a relic of Sir Thomas More.

‘Compton will be graced,’ the Archdeacon went on, ‘with a relic of one of the most illustrious servants of the Church in England. Edmund Campion!’

He waved the slab in the air. There were gasps from the crowd. Powerscourt wondered how many of them knew who Edmund Campion was. He rather suspected that most of them did.

‘At this time of renewal, of rebirth, of Resurrection, it is fitting that we should make a symbolic rupture with the past that deprived England of its true faith and Compton of its true religion! I have here some of the heretical Acts of Parliament that drove an unwilling Compton into the arms of heresy!’

The Archdeacon fished about in his bag once more and produced an ancient scroll, the paper on the front yellow with age.

‘The Act of Annates of 1532 which stole from the Pope the revenue due to him from the bishops of England!’

The Archdeacon held it aloft, turning slowly so that all sections of the crowd could see it properly. Then he hurled it on to the fire. There was a quiet splutter at first, then a brief blaze of light as the Act was turned to ashes. For a second or two the crowd were completely silent. Then there was an enormous cheer.

The Archdeacon was back in his bag again. ‘The Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533 which ratified the sovereignty and independence of the Church of England!’ Another vital piece of Reformation legislation was cast into the flames of hell. There was another burst of applause as the act caught fire.

‘The Second Act of Annates of 1534 which proclaimed the heresy that the King and not the Pope selected the bishops of the Church!’

Again the Archdeacon hurled the scroll into the bonfire. The crowd had found a word they could chant now. Shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang around Cathedral Green.

Now he was bringing laws out two at a time. The Archdeacon held two acts aloft, inciting the crowd with the cry of ‘Further heresy! The Act of Succession of 1534 which pronounced Henry the Eighth’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void! Further heresy! The Act of Supremacy of 1534 which proclaimed that Henry was the only supreme head of the Church of England!’

The Archdeacon held the second act high above his head. ‘This was the Act that led to the death of saint and martyr Sir Thomas More!’

Then he threw the two Acts on to the pyre to join the earlier cornerstones of Henry’s Reformation. A great chant of Heresy! Heresy! Heresy! rang out among the crowd. Powerscourt wondered if they might get out of control. Lady Lucy was holding on to him very tightly. But the Archdeacon wasn’t finished yet. He pulled another ancient scroll out of his bag.

‘Yet further heresy!’ he called out to the crowd. ‘The Act for the Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries of 1536! The Act that destroyed hundreds of faithful Christian houses, devoted to the service of their communities and to the worship of God! To the flames with it!’

Again he cast it into the fire. This time the Act stuck at the very top of the pyre. For a moment or two nothing happened. The crowd held their breath. Was this a sign from God? Was this one not going to burn? Then there was a loud whoosh as the flames took hold. Once more the shout of Heresy! Heresy!, sounding rather like a battle cry now, rose above Cathedral Green.

The Archdeacon had one Act left. He held it aloft and turned slowly on his scaffold so that the entire throng could have a chance to see it.

‘And this!’ he shouted, waving it in the air. ‘This is the Act that saw the dissolution of our own abbey here in Compton! The Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries of 1538! This was the Act that tore the people of Compton from their mother church!’ Still he held it high above his head. The crowd stared, mesmerized. ‘Let it share, in part . . .’ The Archdeacon was at full volume now. Powerscourt wondered briefly if his voice was carrying as far as Fairfield Park. Or heaven itself. ‘Let it share, in part,’ the Archdeacon repeated himself for greater emphasis, ‘the fate of the blessed saints and martyrs who gave their lives to God in opposing it.’ He brought it down to chest level and ripped the Act in two. ‘Those martyrs were hung drawn and quartered, their bodies cut into four pieces.’ He ripped the Act into four. ‘This dismembered Act, cut into four pieces, I now commit to the fire!’ The Archdeacon knelt down and placed each part separately into a flaming section of the bonfire. He rose to his feet once more. An enormous cheer erupted from the crowd, their candles held aloft, their eyes fixed on four little scraps of paper that had once been yellow and were now turning into wafer thin sections of black, then crumbling into ash.

‘Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, nudging him gently in the ribs, ‘do you think those Acts were the real thing? Or did he just pick up a few bits of aged paper in an old bookshop?’

‘They might have come from Rome for all I know, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m sure Propaganda could rustle you up a forgery or two if you asked them nicely.’

The crowd were still cheering. Powerscourt wondered how the Archdeacon was going to bring them down from their ecstasy. He noticed that it was very close to midnight. He saw too that people were on the move. A new procession was forming with all the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ at the front. Then the four choirs that had sung in the marches to the bonfire swung into line behind them. They moved off into a new position in front of the cathedral doors.

Still the crowd cheered. Loud shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang out towards the darkened minster. The candles were still flickering brightly all across Cathedral Green. The Archdeacon was holding both arms aloft, turning very slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees. He looked, Powerscourt thought, like one of those Old Testament prophets appealing for calm among the unruly Israelites as they hankered after the golden calf or graven images rather than the God of their fathers. Gradually silence returned. All eyes were on the tall figure on top of his scaffold. Only when total silence had been restored did he speak. And then he astounded every single person at the scene.

‘Please extinguish all candles,’ he said. There were gasps of astonishment. People had become attached to their candles, seeing them by now as friends and companions on this very special night. Powerscourt saw that the Archdeacon’s shock troops, the choirs and the bodies who had marched together to the fire obeyed without question. Maybe that’s Catholic discipline, he suggested to himself. Then he corrected himself. Jesuit discipline. With mutterings of regret and a great deal of blowing all the candles went out. There was not a single light to be seen across Cathedral Green. It was five minutes to midnight.

The Archdeacon began to address the faithful once again. ‘On this day of all days, at this time so close to midnight and Easter Sunday,’ he said, ‘we value the dark. The cathedral is dark. Christ’s tomb, the sepulchre where he lies is dark. The darkness is the darkness of sin, of error, waiting for redemption from the light of Christ’s Resurrection. The Gospel of St Mark: “And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”’ Heads were bowed everywhere. The Archdeacon continued: ‘“And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away for it was great. And entering into the sepulchre they saw a young man sitting on the right side and he saith unto them: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is not here: he is risen.”’

The Archdeacon crossed himself. So did most of the crowd.

‘On the last stroke of midnight,’ the Archdeacon’s voice was beginning to show signs of its labours during the night. It cracked ever so slightly on the word midnight, ‘it will be Easter Sunday. I invite you all to take your candles into the church and leave them there. Stewards will show you the way. The paschal candles are by the door for you to relight your own. The light in the church will be the light of Christ’s glory The light in the church will be the symbol of the church’s victory over its enemies.’ Powerscourt wondered who he meant. Luther? Calvin? Thomas Cromwell, the architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Henry the Eighth? ‘People of Compton,’ the Archdeacon held his arms aloft for the last time, ‘I commend to you the words of the prophet Isaiah: the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.’

The Archdeacon paused. ‘Dominus vobiscum.’

There was nearly a minute of almost total silence. Some of the choirs were trying to clear their throats. Some of the crowd were retrieving their candles from the ground. Then the trumpet sounded once again, the young man on top of the west front enjoying his second moment of glory As the last note died away, the Cathedral clock began to toll the hour of midnight. Great Tom, cast in Bristol in 1258, who had spoken every day for centuries, gave forth once more. This was his six hundred and forty-third Easter Sunday. One, two, three. People began to shuffle forward from the back. The Archdeacon was still aloft on his scaffold, waving graciously to the people who passed beneath. Four, five, six. Powerscourt was holding Lady Lucy very tight, hoping she wasn’t too cold. Patrick Butler had disappeared on another of his forays into the crowd. Seven, eight, nine. Powerscourt wondered if the Lord Lieutenant had abandoned his port to come into Compton for the bonfire. He tried to remember who the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed for on Sundays. Murderers? Heretics? Ten, eleven, twelve.

The great doors of the cathedral swung open. The inside was completely dark but at the door two stewards were holding out the paschal candles, large enough and broad enough to rekindle all those which had burned so brightly on Cathedral Green. The choirs processed slowly through the doors, preceded by men carrying the banners of The Five Wounds of Christ, and made their way up the nave towards the stalls. They were singing from the Resurrection section of the Messiah: ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors and the King of Glory shall come in.’

Sconces to hold the candles had been placed all over the cathedral, in the aisles and the ambulatories, on the great pillars of the nave, in the north and south transepts, in the presbytery and the choir. Great empty stacks were waiting in the Lady Chapel and the side chapels to receive the surplus. Two orderly queues had formed outside the doors, shuffling forward to cast their light into the darkness.

‘Who is the King of Glory? Who is the King of Glory?’

Patrick Butler reappeared as suddenly as he had vanished. He took Anne Herbert by the hand and led her off towards the cathedral, both of them clutching their candles. Powerscourt thought suddenly that they might prefer to be alone but he did make one request before they left.

‘Could you see if you can find Chief Inspector Yates for me, Patrick? He must be about somewhere. I’d very much like to speak to him.’

The candles were beginning to have an impact now. The first arrivals were all instructed to leave theirs at the bottom of the nave. The lower section of the minster became incandescent with candles that flickered, candles that burned straight up, candles that burnt quickly, candles that looked as though they would burn for ever. It was a glacier of light, inching its way up the cathedral as the pilgrims left their tribute.

‘Who is the King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.’

‘You must be feeling very annoyed, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘You told everybody this was going to happen and it has.’

‘Well, there’s one consolation, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You always believed in me. I can’t tell you what a help that has been. Come, we’d better bring our candles. I think I’d feel incomplete if we didn’t.’

The Archdeacon had finally come down from his scaffold. He inspected the remains of the bonfire carefully as if trying to make sure all the Acts had been properly consumed. Inside the glacier of light had reached the top of the nave. The pillars and the soaring tracery were bathed in a golden light, glowing and glimmering as they had seldom glowed before in all their long history.

‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.’

Patrick Butler found Powerscourt and Johnny and Lady Lucy very near the front of the queue. The editor of the Grafton Mercury was more than usually excited. ‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, panting slightly, ‘I’ve been making inquiries as to where all these people came from. They’ve come from all over southern England, London, Bristol, Reading, Southampton. And they’ve all known about it for months. The thing’s been organized like a military operation. The local Compton people think they’ve been invaded. They’ve all gone home. They’re just going to wait until things quieten down.’

‘Have you had time, Patrick,’ said Lady Lucy in her sweetest voice, ‘to think of a headline for tonight’s proceedings?’ Lady Lucy had grown rather attached to Patrick’s headlines.

‘Well,’ said the young man, drawing Anne Herbert even closer to him, ‘I’ve known what the headline should be for some time, but I’m not sure all my readers will understand it.’

‘Share it with us, Patrick,’ Lady Lucy smiled, ‘we’ll do our best to grasp it.’

Patrick looked sheepish all of a sudden. ‘You’re teasing me,’ he said. ‘I shan’t tell you about my headline at all. You’ll never get to hear about the Bonfire of the Vanities.’ ‘Who is the King of Glory? Who is the King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory.’

Powerscourt was dazzled as he and his companions finally entered the cathedral, their candles rekindled by the paschal candle at the door. The glacier had reached the bottom of the choir. Looking back down the nave he thought he had seldom seen anything so beautiful. He transposed Wordsworth’s daffodils into the candles of Compton in his mind.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way

They stretched in never ending line

Across the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Powerscourt placed his candle on a sconce at the top of the choir, Lady Lucy’s behind it, Johnny’s nestling very close to a wooden angel with a harp. The wounds of Christ on the banners were gleaming in the light. The choir were belting out Handel’s most famous Chorus.

‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.’

The queues were still there as they left, shorter now, but still patient, snaking their way towards the west front. An extremely excited Patrick Butler was waiting for them.

‘Lord Powerscourt, you must all come at once! I found Chief Inspector Yates with the Chief Constable. They’ve been looking for you, my lord. They should be in Anne’s house by now. I didn’t think you’d want to talk to them anywhere near the cathedral.’

Powerscourt remembered meeting the Chief Constable very early in this investigation. He had seemed a most capable individual then, sitting in the Dean’s front room, discussing the murder of Arthur Rudd. Now he was distraught.

‘Powerscourt, Lady Powerscourt, Lord Fitzgerald, please forgive me for the lateness of this visit. I would welcome some advice. Chief Inspector Yates informed me of your suspicions some time ago, Powerscourt. I wasn’t sure whether to believe your theories or not, and it is difficult to take action when nothing has been done. But now I am convinced these people are going to rededicate the cathedral to the Catholic faith tomorrow. The Archdeacon said so. Even then I don’t think I have the power to act until something has actually happened.’

‘Do you think you can arrest them?’ said Powerscourt.

‘That’s just one of my worries, Powerscourt. I’d have to arrest the Bishop, the Dean and the entire Chapter. I’m not sure we have enough cells to hold them all here in Compton. We’d have to throw out the current incumbents, two burglars, one suspected murderer and a couple of horse thieves. I don’t think that would go down too well with the citizens.’

‘Why don’t you put them under house arrest?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Confine them all to their own quarters. Lock up the bloody cathedral for the time being.’

The Chief Constable smiled. ‘I’ve thought of that. But I don’t have the manpower to keep them all confined to their quarters. That’s my other worry, you see. You all saw what that crowd was like on the Green this evening. They could cause a great deal of trouble. They might even decide to storm the jail if they thought their people were inside.’

‘Are you saying, Chief Constable,’ asked Powerscourt, ‘that as things stand, you will be unable to take any action in defence of the laws of this country tomorrow?’

‘I’m afraid that is the case,’ the Chief Constable replied, looking even more miserable as he said it.

Silence fell in Anne Herbert’s little drawing room. Outside they could still hear faint noises of singing. It was Johnny Fitzgerald who spoke first.

‘Francis,’ he said, ‘you will recall that I did some reconnaissance into the military in the locality?’

Powerscourt nodded. That would have to do with Johnny’s acquisition of explosives, not a subject he wished to go into in present company.

‘Well,’ Johnny went on, ‘what the Chief Constable needs are reinforcements. Soldiers can be used like policemen, can’t they? There’s a crowd of infantry about twenty miles from here. I don’t think they’d be able to get here in time. But there’s cavalry five miles further away. I’m sure they could be persuaded to come to the rescue. They always like arriving at the last possible minute.’

‘My dear Lord Fitzgerald,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘your suggestion is admirable. But I fail to see how they could reach here in time.’

‘That’s easy,’ said Johnny, ‘we just get go and get them, Francis and I.’

‘But it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. Even if you set out at first light they couldn’t get here in time.’

‘Chief Constable,’ said Powerscourt, sensing that Johnny was about to get irritated, ‘what Johnny means is that we leave now. Once we can get changed and on to our horses.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said the Chief Constable.

‘We will meet with you or your representatives outside the cathedral during Mass tomorrow morning,’ said Powerscourt. ‘With or without the cavalry.’

While he waited for Lucy to collect her things before the return to Fairfield Park and the horses, Powerscourt went to have a final look at the cathedral. The last pilgrims were making their way inside. Even at a distance it glowed magnificently, the light from hundreds and hundreds of candles streaming out of the doors. The choir were nearly finished.

‘And he shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah!’

Powerscourt bumped into the Archdeacon on his way back.

‘Shall we be seeing you at Mass tomorrow, Lord Powerscourt?’ asked the Archdeacon.

‘You might, Archdeacon,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully, ‘you very well might.’