The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Nineteen In which Crowner John holds another inquest

The gaol in Rougemont was full, the filthy cells all occupied. The gross custodian, Stigand, was panting more than usual, as he staggered up and down the arched passage under the keep, doling out stale bread and water and collecting the stinking leather buckets that were the only sanitation.

In the early afternoon, there was a diversion, as the castle constable came down with the sheriff, the coroner and a priest from the cathedral to put the two silversmiths to the test. Torture was an accepted way of extracting confessions, just as a conviction for a crime led either to hanging, combat or the Ordeal.

Gwyn of Polruan and Thomas came with John de Wolfe, the former merely as a spectator but the clerk was there to record the event for the coroner’s rolls, in case the matter ever came before the King’s Justices.

The two suspects were dragged out of their cells by two men-at-arms, as the wheezing Stigand would have been hard-pressed to drag out even a sheep. Dirty and dishevelled, they were a pathetic sight, though the younger Garth had a certain sullen defiance about him that was in marked contrast to Alfred’s abject terror.

Rusty shackles rattled at their wrists and ankles, far different from the elegant silver bracelets they were capable of making. They were hauled across the muddy floor, their reluctant feet skidding in the slime.

‘Which one do we do first, sir?’ whined the gaoler, hardened by years of service into a callous indifference to the suffering he witnessed or inflicted almost every day.

Richard de Revelle flicked a bored finger towards the older workman. ‘To save my time, take him. He’ll break far faster.’ Babbling with fear, Alfred fell to the ground, in attempted supplication to the sheriff, who pointedly turned his back on the man as the soldiers dragged him across to an alcove on the further wall.

‘It’s obvious that poor Godfrey Fitzosbern’s denial of this ravishment was true, so it must be one of these knaves,’ he declaimed to John.

His brother-in-law scowled at the lack of logic in Richard’s words. ‘Why “poor” Godfrey, all of a sudden?’ he demanded. ‘He confessed to conspiring to a fatal miscarriage.’

The sheriff clucked his tongue reprovingly. ‘Is that such a crime, eh? Who of us can honestly deny a little adultery now and then? Not you for sure, John. And what might you do if your pretty innkeeper got with child – or that comely merchant’s wife down in Dawlish?’

The coroner’s face darkened at this: although his liaison with Nesta was almost public property, he thought that he had been more discreet about his occasional dalliance with Hilda down at the coast. How the hell did Richard know of it? Though John could easily even up the score, as only last month he had caught the sheriff in bed with a whore.

The screaming behind them reached a crescendo and they turned to watch Alfred being laid out for the peine forte et dure. This took place in a shallow bay in the stone wall, arched over by vaulting. The alcove was about eight feet wide and a stout hook was embedded just above floor level into the supporting pillar at each end.

The men-at-arms held the victim on the ground, wriggling like an eel, while Stigand managed to bend himself enough to drop the ankle shackles over one hook. With much puffing and blowing, he then hooked the wrist chains over the other, so that Alfred was stretched across the mouth of the alcove, lying on his back. The party of observers moved slowly up to the weeping, wailing and terrified man, and stood looking down at him dispassionately.

Privately John thought this process a piece of useless witchcraft, like the Ordeal, but it was approved by Church and State alike. The fact that confessions extracted under the duress of exquisite pain were as often false as they were true seemed no hindrance to their effectiveness in improving the conviction rate.

Richard de Revelle took a step nearer, the hem of his long green tunic almost brushing the craftsman’s chest.

The priest from the cathedral chanted something incomprehensible under his breath and made the sign of the Cross in the air. Thomas de Peyne followed suit, three times in rapid succession, almost dropping his precious writing bag into the mud.

‘Alfred, son of Osulf, do you confess to the carnal assault and defilement of Christina Rifford?’ asked the sheriff, almost conversationally.

The man stopped his tumble of beseeching, pleading words long enough to deny it. ‘No, sir, of course not, sir! I never so much as touched the good lady, as God is my judge!’

‘He’s not your judge here, my man. I am your judge today.’

Both the canon and the Coroner looked sharply at Richard, for different reasons. He was claiming precedence over both the Almighty and the Royal Justices, but they decided to stay silent.

‘I did nothing, sir. How can I confess to something that never happened?’ Alfred’s voice cracked with hysterical fear, but the sheriff stepped back and motioned for the soldiers to commence.

At the foot of each green-slimed pillar lay a pile of thick metal plates, roughly rectangular in shape and red with rust.

‘If you persist in your innocence, then we must jog your memory,’ said de Revelle, nodding at Ralph Morin, whose opinion of this process was similar to John’s. Many fighting men were uneasy with these cold-blooded antics in hidden dungeons. However, he had no choice but to motion to one of his soldiers, who bent and lifted one of the iron slabs, weighing about fifteen pounds.

‘Place the first one on his breast,’ commanded the sheriff. The plate was lowered on to Alfred’s chest, resting from his collarbones down to his belly. Though uncomfortable, there was no perceptible effect and the older man kept up his noisy protestations of innocence and his entreaties for mercy.

‘Another!’ ordered de Revelle, and the other man-at-arms moved to obey.

‘If this fellow confesses, what will you do with the other?’ asked John, with a trace of sarcasm.

‘Give him the same treatment, of course,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘No doubt they were both in it together.’

When the second iron was lowered on to his chest, the skinny Saxon gasped and his exhortations stopped as he made the effort to breathe against the weight of thirty pounds pressing down on his breastbone. As the third slab was balanced on the others, he became dark in the face and his lips had a bluish tinge as he wheezily tried to get air into his lungs.

Stigand, his drooping belly hanging down over his wide belt, stood with hands on hips, watching the process with an expert eye. ‘This one will not last a quarter of the hour, sheriff,’ he said critically. ‘He’s skinny and his ribs will crack under the next plate, mark my words.’

Ralph Morin held up his hand to stop the next slab being laid. ‘Best get him to confess while he’s still conscious or you’ll just have a corpse and nothing to write on the crowner’s rolls,’ he advised.

Richard stood at the head of the failing Alfred. ‘Well, man? Are you ready to confess?’

Spots of blood were breaking out in the whites of the man’s eyes and his purplish tongue was swelling between blackening lips. Unable to speak for lack of breath, he nodded feebly.

Triumphantly, the sheriff turned to his brother-in-law. ‘See? He admits it! This method is far better than all your snooping and poking about with your poxy parchments, John.’

There was a sudden jangling of chains behind them as a scuffle began between the remaining guard and Garth, who was as massively built as Ralph Morin.

They swung round to see the younger smith dragging the man-at-arms towards the alcove. The other soldiers ran to seize him, but he shouted, ‘Let the old man up! He did nothing. It was me! Let my friend go – it was me, I tell you.’ His big face was deadly pale, as pale as it would be at the end of the rope that he must know would now be his inevitable fate.

The faces of the onlookers reflected their varying reactions to this sudden development. The sheriff wore a self-satisfied smirk, the coroner seemed unconvinced and Stigand looked disappointed.

‘Do you know what you’re saying, boy?’ John rasped. ‘You are not just moved by pity for your fellow worker?’

Garth’s expression was now impassive and resigned. ‘It was me all right. That girl preyed on my mind ever since she came to the master’s shop some weeks past.’

‘So how did it come about, then?’ demanded John, still not sure of the truth of the younger man’s confession.

‘The young woman left our shop just before we closed. I was burned up with desire for her, so I followed her to the cathedral. At first I had no intent to have my way with her, only to look at her from a distance, to see that face, those full lips. But the way her hips swayed, the curve of her breast – I lost my senses. When she left through the little side door, I followed – and outside, in the darkness, my wits gave way altogether …’

The passion in his voice as he relived those moments, convinced John, but as Alfred seemed now on the verge of death, the constable interrupted to send one of his men to displace the iron plates, while they settled this new twist in the story.

‘So were you in it as well, you evil swine? I suppose this Alfred took his turn with the poor girl, eh? They’re both in it, didn’t I say as much, John?’ cried Richard de Revelle, self-satisfaction oozing from every pore.

‘Not as well, I tell you,’ shouted the deep voice of Garth. ‘It was me on my own, see. Not him. The old man is past ravishing, though his eyes still fancy a pretty woman.’

Richard drew on his soft leather gloves nonchalantly. ‘Perhaps, but I’ll hang both of you next week, just to make sure, I can’t believe any of the lies that you rabble give me.’

This was too much for the coroner, even though he was used to the sheriff’s arbitrary sense of justice. He drew him aside and muttered, close to his face, ‘You have no authority to hang them, Richard. Rape is a Plea of the Crown, you know that well enough. I let you waste time with this charade here to get your confessions, but they must be tested before the King’s court.’

Richard waved a hand dismissively at the coroner. ‘The shire court has been good enough for centuries and it’s the same gallows at the end of it. Why are you so obdurate, John?’

‘Because the King’s law is the law. The families have the right to speak and to choose either compensation or death.’

Ralph Morin came across to interrupt. ‘What are we to do with these men? The older one is surviving though he’ll not get his breath back inside an hour. Are we to press the younger one?’

De Revelle was annoyed at the coroner’s interference, but could hardly torture a confession from a man who had already proclaimed his guilt. He waved a hand at Stigand, who still stood by his fire with the branding iron in his hand, looking vaguely disappointed at the turn of events. ‘Take both of these vermin back to their cells. I’ll decide later what’s to be done with them.’

The guards led the two men away, Alfred still gasping for breath and the doomed Garth stolidly silent. As they passed close to where Gwyn was standing, his bulbous nose wrinkled and he sniffed noisily. He moved to the coroner’s side and murmured into his ear in Cornish-Welsh, to keep it confidential, ‘That smell on them. It’s surely the acrid fumes from that silver furnace hanging about their clothing.’

John looked at his officer blankly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Remember when Christina Rifford confronted Fitzosbern, she hesitated about some familiar smell in connection with her ravisher. Maybe Fitzosbern had that same stink upon him as those men have, from living near that furnace – but it came from Garth, not Fitzosbern.’

The coroner nodded. ‘You may be right, Gwyn. I’ll ask her when we next meet. It might explain her uncertainty, which worried me at the time. Though, with Garth’s confession, we have all we need – assuming it’s true,’ he added cynically.

Gwyn pulled the end of his luxuriant moustache as an aid to thought. ‘I reckon it’s true enough. No young man would falsely let himself in for the gallows-tree, even to save a friend.’

With the sheriff glaring at them suspiciously for speaking in a tongue incomprehensible to him, the group broke up and made their way into the castle courtyard. Ralph Morin asked John what would happen next about Fitzosbern’s death. ‘An inquest first, in two hour’s time. Though that will not take us very far in discovering who beat him to death,’ replied John. ‘My clerk Thomas is looking into it now,’ he went on, as they strode over the frost-hardened mud towards the gate-house. ‘Fitzosbern’s injuries bled a great deal and we need to look at certain persons and places to see if fresh stains can be found.’

They parted inside the arch of the main gate, and the coroner and his henchman climbed to the cramped chamber high above the guard-room. Here de Wolfe was surprised to find Eric Picot waiting for him, muffled in a long, dark green cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal a rich red lining.

John pulled off his own cloak and sat behind his trestle table, motioning the wine merchant to the only other stool, while Gwyn hauled himself up on to his favourite perch on the window-sill.

John looked expectantly at Picot who, his swarthy face set in a troubled frown, began hesitantly, ‘I wanted to tell you something before the inquest begins on Godfrey Fitzosbern. For me to say it openly at the inquisition may cause an injustice – and might also expose me to anger and perhaps even violence.’

John sat hunched behind his table with arms outstretched to grasp its edges, a puzzled look on his dark face. ‘Why should this be, Eric?’

The other man continued to look uneasy. ‘What I want to say may lead to suspicion of certain persons. That may be quite false, but they will still blame me for it, whether it be true or not.’

The coroner looked past the Breton to catch Gwyn’s eye, but his officer merely raised his bushy eyebrows and lifted his shoulders.

John returned his gaze to Picot. ‘You’d better tell me what you know and then I’ll judge what to do about it,’ he suggested.

Picot hunched forward on his stool, hitched his cloak up on his shoulders, then pulled off the close-fitting felt cap that covered his curly black hair. ‘Last night I decided to call on Fitzosbern, now that he was recovered from his poisoning or whatever it was. About three hours before midnight I went to his house, next to yours.’

‘And why did you do that? You are hardly friend enough to enquire after his health.’

‘I went to plead with him to release his wife.’

John frowned his deep frown, the old crusading scar on his forehead whitening as the skin furrowed. ‘Release her? What do you mean?’

‘Not to oppose us pursuing an annulment that would allow Mabel and me to marry. She had left home for ever and was living at my home in Wonford, but we needed her freedom to become man and wife.’

‘A difficult ambition, Eric. Most marriages offer freedom only when one partner enters the grave,’ said John sonorously.

Gwyn thought that he spoke with too much feeling to make it a casual observation, and Matilda’s face swam briefly into his mind.

‘I know it’s difficult, John. An expensive process, with appeals to the King, to Canterbury and perhaps even to Rome. But it was the only route open to us.’

‘Until today, with Godfrey’s death,’ commented the coroner with no apparent irony.

The wine merchant shrugged resignedly. ‘I didn’t even contemplate that last night when I stood before his house. But, in any event, I got no answer there. I banged on his door endlessly and waited for a long time, but there was no response, no light behind the shutters. So I went away, despondent.’

The coroner waited expectantly until Picot continued. ‘I left Martin’s Lane, walked towards the cathedral and entered the Close. The moon was out and there was more light from those flares outside the farrier’s.’

John interrupted, ‘You were going home, across the West Front of the cathedral, then through the lanes to Southgate Street?’

‘Yes, but as I crossed the Close, I saw two men in the distance, in front of the canons’ houses. By then, I had turned down the path in front of the great doors of the cathedral and they were going back towards Martin’s Lane.’

He paused, then launched himself into the most difficult part of his story. ‘They didn’t see me, I’m sure. I always worry about footpads at night, so I stood still behind a great pile of earth from a newly opened grave until they passed, looking over my shoulder at them.’

‘And who were they?’

‘Undoubtedly one of the men was Reginald de Courcy – and the other the younger Ferrars, the one they call Hugh.’

There was a pregnant silence in the chamber.

‘You are sure of this, Eric?’

The dark head nodded emphatically.

‘As I said, there was a clear moon – and as they passed near your house, the yellow light from the farrier’s torches fell upon them. I have no doubt who they were.’ He rubbed a hand over his face in agitation. ‘As to why they were there, I have no comment. They may well have had legitimate business, but the fact is that they were hurrying at night from the place where the injured man was found next morning.’

Picot shifted uneasily on his stool. ‘That’s all I have to tell you, but de Courcy and Ferrars, even if they have nothing to hide, would be ill-disposed towards me if they knew I had told you about this.’

The coroner pondered a moment, ‘At the inquest, I can ask them about their movements last night. If they admit being in Canon’s Row at that time, there is no problem. If they deny it, then it’s their word against yours. Two of them to your one. And they might demand to know who challenges their denial.’

Gwyn rose from his seat at the window to ask a question. ‘Can anyone else back up your claim?’

‘I saw no one else at that moment. There was a beggar and a drunk further on, towards Bear Gate, but they would be no help as witnesses, even if they could be found.’

John stood up. ‘I’ll do my best to keep your name out of this, but I can’t promise it, Eric. It depends on what happens at the inquest. You’ll be there, no doubt?’

The wine merchant nodded unhappily. ‘This has released Mabel and we should be overjoyed, but we wouldn’t have had it happen in this unfortunate way, even though he made her life a misery these past few years.’ He replaced his cap and made his way out, promising to be back at the Shire Hall for the inquisition.

After he had gone, Gwyn pulled out the pitcher, which he had replenished that morning, and they sat for a time over a contemplative quart of ale.

‘What about Picot’s claim, Gwyn?’ asked John.

The Cornishman sucked the ale from the whiskers around his mouth before replying. ‘Firstly, is it true? If not, why should he come to tell us a string of lies? And if is true, were Ferrars and de Courcy walking the city at night in innocence or with malice?’

John nodded agreement. ‘So what do we do next?’ he asked rhetorically, as although he always valued his henchman’s unfailing common sense, the responsibility was his alone. He carried on, musingly. ‘The errand Thomas has undertaken includes the city households of the Ferrars and de Courcys. I doubt we need visit their habitations outside Exeter, as any signs of what happened last night must still be within the walls. So let’s wait until our ferrety little clerk returns from his adventures – hopefully with some intelligence for us.’

Late that afternoon, the Shire Hall was again in use, this time for an inquest rather than a trial.

The coroner occupied the centre chair on the dais, but Sheriff de Revelle sat alongside in a nonchalant posture that was aimed at suggesting that he who was presiding and that John de Wolfe was merely an underling.

Thomas de Peyne squatted on a stool slightly behind his master, quill and ink at the ready. Near him were Archdeacon John de Alecon and Thomas de Boterellis. On the floor below the platform, Gwyn of Polruan ambled about, shepherding the witnesses, the jury and the motley crowd of spectators that milled about the back of the hall. A more macabre duty was to guard the body of the dead man, which lay under a sheet on planks laid on trestles, immediately below John’s chair. The jury were legally obliged to view the body, as was the coroner, to examine the wounds visible on the corpse.

Gwyn now called out his summary demand to the effect that all those who had any business before the King’s coroner for the County of Devon, should ‘draw near and give their attendance’. Among those who were giving their attendance were Reginald de Courcy, Hugh Ferrars and his father, Joseph and Edgar of Topsham and Henry Rifford, the Portreeve. Eric Picot stood unobtrusively at the side of the hall, but Mabel, the dead man’s widow, was not to be seen.

These major players were standing at the front, just below the dais, and to their right stood some twenty jurors, those who may have had some personal knowledge of the affair. Most were in clerical garb, comprising several of the junior residents of the canons’ houses in the cathedral Close. The large contingent of vicars and choristers explained the presence of the Archdeacon and the Precentor, who were there jealously to guard their ecclesiastical rights against the secular authorities.

For the first part the inquest followed its usual course. The small boy who had found the mortally injured Fitzosbern was considered too immature to be called, though he stood at the side of the hall in fascination, his mother’s hand grasping him firmly by the collar. The dog still played around his feet. The young vicar told of his first view of the dying man, after which he virtuously described his attempts to raise the hue and cry by rousing most of the occupants of Canon’s Row.

The coroner himself then took up the story. ‘I was summoned myself at that point and can state that the injured man was alive when I saw him, but died shortly afterwards. I took a dying deposition from him about certain matters, but he was unable to say who had attacked him.’

At this a murmuring went around the hall. Everyone was well aware from local gossip that Fitzosbern had confessed to being Adele de Courcy’s lover and the instigator of her miscarriage. They knew equally well that he had denied ravishing Christina Rifford and that Garth, the silversmith’s man, had confessed to that particular crime, but John felt it no part of his inquest to go into those matters.

‘The identity of the cadaver as being Godfrey Fitzosbern is well known and no presentment of Englishry is necessary. The question of a murdrum fine will have to be left to the King’s Justices, unless a culprit is discovered in the meantime.’

The coroner stood up and hovered at the edge of the dais, the sheriff looking up at him, half amused. ‘The jury will now examine the body, as the law demands.’ John stepped down to the floor of beaten earth and advanced towards the crude bier, where Gwyn preceded him to whip off the sheet and expose the body down as far as the belly, leaving the lower part of the cloth in place for decency’s sake.

Thomas humped his stool nearer to the edge of the dais and hunched over his parchment, ready to write down the proceedings.

Hesitantly, the score of junior priests, servants and choristers formed a circle around the bier, as John began to point out the injuries. Fitzosbern lay with his head on a block of wood, face puffy, eyes almost closed by swollen bruises. Purple-red discolouration covered all the left side of his face, with some straight lines of contusion running down the cheek.

John prodded each injury with a long forefinger, in the manner of a pedagogue giving an anatomy lecture. ‘He has been sorely beaten on the face with some long object, maybe a stave or fence-post. See these splits in the skin.’ He poked a fingernail into a long gaping wound running diagonally up the left side of Fitzosbern’s forehead into the thick dark hair. The pallid vicars gaped at the sight and one chorister left the back row to go outside to vomit. ‘On the left side of the neck, there are several of these long straight bruises, but also some small round marks, perhaps from knuckle blows.’

John then turned his attention to the chest, where mottled areas of blue and red bruises showed some lines across the skin. ‘As well as these marks from a rod-like weapon, there are these crescents and large marks over the ribs. I suggest to you that they are from heavy kicks.’

‘What really killed him, Crowner?’ ventured a more robust juror, a servant from a prebendary’s house.

For answer, John pressed a strong hand downwards over the breastbone, showing how the front of the chest caved in. This was accompanied by a gurgling from the dead man’s throat and a crackling of bone upon bone as the broken rib-ends ground together. Another juror slipped outside to be sick, as John explained that stamping and kicking had crushed the front of the chest.

As the crowd stood in silent awe, he dictated a short account to Thomas, then climbed back on to the platform, as Gwyn drew the sheet discreetly up over Godfrey’s face.

‘So there is no doubt how he died,’ continued the coroner. ‘The question is, who caused him to die? Has anyone any information to give me?’ He scowled around the hall, almost as if to challenge anyone to offer information.

There was a silence, broken only by feet shuffling on the rough floor.

‘Did anyone see anything untoward in the cathedral precincts last night?’ he demanded. Strictly speaking, the whole area around the cathedral, apart from the paths, was outside the jurisdiction of the town, coming under ecclesiastical law – but John de Alecon had told him that the bishop had waived any right to challenge the coroner’s warrant where deaths were concerned. There was no answer to his question, neither from Picot nor from the two men he had named.

Never one to mince words, John stared down at Reginald de Courcy and Hugh Ferrars, who stood side by side in the front row. ‘I have had a report that you two gentlemen were abroad in that area last night. Is that true?’

Hugh Ferrars jumped as if stuck in the backside with a pike. ‘What? Do you know what you are saying, Crowner?’

De Wolfe gazed at him steadily. ‘I know what I am saying, sir.’

Hugh looked as if he was about to have a stroke. ‘Tell me what bastard spun you that tale!’ he yelled.

His father was also stung into instant response. ‘De Wolfe, are you mad? What nonsense is this?’ His face went puce, and both father and son marched up to the foot of the dais and confronted the coroner and the sheriff.

Amid the sudden hubbub in the hall, de Courcy added his voice in loud yells of protest and angry denial, as he joined the others below the edge of the platform.

Richard de Revelle, to whom this was equally a surprise, jumped to his feet and rounded on the coroner. ‘You can’t accuse people in public, man!’ he hissed. ‘Who gave you this scurrilous slander?’

John suffered the clamour for a moment, then threw up his hands and yelled, in a voice that could have been heard in St Sidwell’s, ‘Be silent, all of you!’

His outburst was so dramatic that there was momentary silence, into which he snapped out an explanation. ‘I accused no one. But information came my way which I cannot ignore. I asked a simple question, which requires a simple answer. Were you, Reginald de Courcy, and you, Hugh Ferrars, walking in the cathedral Close late last evening?’

Red in the face, the younger Ferrars glared up at him and shouted above the returning babble of voices, ‘No, I bloody well was not, Sir Crowner! You are too fond of baseless accusations. By Christ and Mary, Mother of God, and St Peter – and any number of damned saints you like – I was drinking in half the inns in Exeter last night – and none of those lie in the cathedral Close!’

There was a ripple of ribald laughter at this sally, but John was not amused. ‘And, no doubt, you conveniently walked half the town doing it, eh?’

‘With a dozen witnesses who caroused with me to prove it,’ retorted Hugh angrily.

His father pointed a quivering forefinger at the coroner. ‘You’ll regret this, de Wolfe. Your mouth will be the ruin of you.’

John ignored the threat and turned his gaze on de Courcy, who was similarly flushed with anger. ‘Do you say the same, Sir Reginald? I ask only for a yea or nay, there’s no accusation involved, at this stage.’

De Courcy was almost livid with fury. ‘To settle this once and for all, hear this, Crowner.’ He pulled out his dagger from the sheath on his belt and waved it aloft. Gwyn started forward, thinking he was about to plunge it into the coroner, but instead he grasped it by the blade and held it high above him. ‘By this Sign of the Cross, I swear once – and once only – that I spent the whole evening by my own fireside until I took to my bed.’ He lowered the knife and slid it back into its sheath, then turned on his heel and walked out, his brown surcoat pressed close to his body by the cold wind as he left by the open archway.

As if to emphasise their contempt, the two Ferrars followed him out without a glance at the coroner, stalking away in high dudgeon.

With a poisonous look at his brother-in-law, the sheriff stepped down from the platform and hurried after them.

The rest of the inquest was an anti-climax after the drama. Inevitably the jury returned a verdict of murder by persons unknown and everyone drifted off, including Godfrey Fitzosbern, who was trundled on a handcart across to St John’s Hospital, to await burial in the cathedral Close, where he had met his death.