Apples and Prayers (2 page)

‘…which confirms that war is on the point of breaking out with France,' the gentleman was saying, gulping down a mouthful of wine and wiping at his whiskers with a napkin. It seemed to be going down agreeably enough with him, although the news they were discussing wasn't so well received by my Lord.

‘And with Scotland also?' he replied.

‘Indeed,' the guest said. ‘And all of this with Cornwall on the march into Devon.'

‘The Cornish have been restless the whole year, ' my Lord said.

‘Word comes they're near upon Crediton,' said the visitor, ‘and some armed detail broken off to Plymouth. Even now they're at Plymouth Cross.' 

He appeared well-informed about rumblings among the common people and uprisings around the country and I wondered if he was captain of some band of radicals. There was, we knew, unrest from east to west. 

‘Further abroad,' he went on, ‘disturbances in the home counties. Spreading through Oxfordshire. Somerset. Wiltshire. Over towards Wellington. The whole, determined country!'

‘And there,' my Lord paused, ‘we have the proof of this new tax on sheep and the increase in prices on cloth.' 

The visitor held his gaze and the two men nodded in agreement. His serving man gave me another sidelong glance that lingered too long, a look I shrugged off as I cleared their dishes. I leaned across the equerry, who had to slide along the bench to give me room, pouring wine to satisfy the thirst of my Lord and his visitor. The equerry I gave none. 

‘It doesn't go down well with the commons...' the visitor said.

‘It doesn't go down well with me, Sir!' said my Lord.

Now, my Lord was a law-abiding nobleman and loyal to the King, it needs no saying. But this talk of risings in the Cornish lands far west of here, their following march into Devon and my Lord's annoyance at the taxes and the rising price of cloth, all this made me think he might, just might, desire to befriend the rebels' cause. 

Trouble had walked through our door. 

My own man, John Toucher, was right; it would serve our county poorly if such tithes and taxes mounted any further. No wonder then that restlessness had stirred our people's hearts.

June is the season of feasts and carnivals and, with little labour underway in the fields, we celebrated our Saints' days. We reveled. The harvest comes later and with it the busiest time of the year – the corn sheaves will be gathered in and stored in the threshing barn over the winter. But with the harvest some time ahead, all things need to be ready and in their proper place. June is the month to make such preparations and the men of our village were filling their time with these tasks. Johnny Voun, the cooper and wheelwright, repaired the wheels on the wagons and handcarts, mending their struts and iron rims, while Dufflin and Coleman fashioned tools and fittings in their busy forge. The carpenters were also well employed. Coppin and Woodbine mended boards for the floors of the carts, so none of the harvest would spill to the ground, while the humble task of greasing pins and axles was given to the simple Sidney Strake, who managed this chore throughout the day, at ease, without becoming bothersome and getting in the way of working men. 

Around the fields, other small jobs could be attended to at this time, like pruning back unruly shrubs and bushes. The sun and the drought finishes them off, driving back unwanted scrub. Children were also clearing briars and bracken and scooping ditches to drain the waterlogged corners of fields, spreading the mud from the trenches for next year's richer pasture. Such tasks are vital and filled our days of waiting when the crops were ripening.

It was while all these tasks were ongoing, that incidents and accidents gathered up our community. 

Across the lanes and meadows in the parish of Sampford Courtenay, where sometimes we went to hear the Sunday Mass, Whit Sunday was observed by bubbling crowds beneath the tower of St. Andrew's. 

There the village priest, father Harper, dutifully said the new English service of the Mass, as priests across the country were commanded by King's Council. The reverend father stood there in his new, plain robes; such dullness that held nothing of the customary colours, all bleached and white as the hairs on the old man's head. He also gave his reading from the Book; this new tome of Prayers that Royal instruction had decreed. And, as he was bidden by these new laws, he also spoke the service in the vulgar tongue, in place of the sacred Latin that we've always venerated. 

Other than these perversions to our faith and the mutterings and protests that came with them, the gossip was that everything went by that certain day without event, ignominy, or strife.

The following day being Whit Monday, a troupe of us from Buckland set out early on ponies and carts to go to the Sampford fair. It was, again, a Holy Day and set to begin with Mass in Church, before the village fair upon the green. 

The congregation was larger even than the day before. The crowd stretched back, out of the village and into the country lanes. There they stood beneath the protection of the boundary's granite crosses, set in place to ward away the Devil, where weary rovers stopped to say their prayers.

By mid-morning we were ready to make our way into the church, following the lead of father Harper along the path to life eternal. Harper was an old, distinguished priest, nearing four-score years in age, long in the beard and wrinkled greatly across his brow, like the shell of a seasoned nut. And yet, although now old, he still seemed every bit as robust as when he'd been half his age. 

We followed on his heels along the path to church, the way a flock is led to lusher fields by the shepherd. 

It was then he was stopped in his tracks. Two eager kinsmen.

The first of them spoke and set an awkward question. ‘Will you speak the Mass today, father, as we've always had it, or are we going to get that English stuff you gave us yesterday?' 

It was surely the thought on everyone's minds, though none so far had dared to voice it. From my place in the ranks, I heard father Harper's reply. 

‘In obedience to the law,' he said regretfully, ‘in English, sons.'

The two men – Underhill the tailor and the yeoman Segar – looked to each other and nodded. The first who'd spoken, Segar, then continued.

‘King Edward's been enthroned for three years now,' he said. ‘Just three. And already in that time, against the wishes of his dying father, he's made these changes before he's come of age. What does a boy know of our ancient customs?' 

His voice and his concerns commanded our attention from the first. 

‘What is this ‘Book of Common Prayer', anyway?' he asked us, turning from the priest to face his audience. The way he said its name made it seem nothing more than a collection of nursery rhymes, nothing like our blessed breviaries, missals, psalters.

‘We'll stand by our religion, as appointed by King Henry,' said Underhill, joining him. ‘Speak the Mass in Latin, today and hereafter, with all the ceremonial as normal.'

We waited nervously upon the priest's reply. When it came it was carefully measured.

‘Your words are steered by passion, sons and, were I yet a freer man, I'd warm to their commitment. But I am poor already and, if I don't present English prayers today then, no doubt, I'll find myself fined my yield and poorer for it tomorrow.' 

The priest then bade them move aside, with unrushed gestures.

Underhill, however, wasn't to be moved and stepped across the priest's path. 

The old man looked him down, but the dissenter continued. ‘Isn't your faith worth more than your wage, father Harper?'

‘It may well be, master Underhill,' he said. ‘But it isn't worth imprisonment for life. Nor loss of all I own. You also might take heed of the Law, my fellows. Those found persuading priests to break the Law will also lose possessions, or be jailed.' 

Segar and Underhill looked at each other, an eyebrow raised in hesitation here, a hairline scratched in perplexity there.

But the assembled were now behind the two men's boldness and, perhaps sensing a greater discord in the air, the priest resigned himself to meet their will, despite his better private judgment.

He retired for some moments to his vestry, to dress himself in his usual Catholic cope. We stood and talked together about occurrences. He soon reappeared, greeted with cheers and hollers of relief. 

Things were once again as they should be. 

We followed him into the church, where we heard our Latin prayers and Mass,
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto
… divine, delightful words we valued highly.

Afterwards we poured back out, exultant and excited onto the green. When the few stray sheep had been cleared, who'd wandered here through some tenant's broken fences, there followed much by way of entertainment, games and amusements, with Church Ale ladled out by wardens at the Church House and, with it all, a share of spirited debate on matters of faith and Holy rites.

‘That other Mass would have us believe the Sacrament's no different from any other flaming common bread,' said Segar.

‘And why should our children be only baptised Sundays? What's wrong with their birth day as usual?' 

The people were stirred into shouting out their grievances at random:
Our Holy shrines and rood screens ruined… images of Christ and Mary turned to flames like heretics themselves… I'll still use my beads, despite whatever ban… I'll still recite the Rosary for succour…
and as the mood intensified, Underhill pulled himself up onto a platform of boards on the back of a cart and commanded the crowd from this makeshift dais.

‘Listen to me,' he urged us. ‘We're all, without exception are we not, good Catholics in this shire?'

We cheered and gave him our assent.

‘So what in Hell's this English Book foisted here upon us? Isn't Our Lord any longer present in the eucharist? Isn't the body and blood of Christ present truly in the bread and wine?'

We quieted at his thoughts and, in that hush, the speaker rallied. 

‘The sacrament's a sacrifice to God, of Jesus Christ, who's present in that bread, that wine. This book would have us believe these changes of bread to flesh, of wine to blood, don't ever take place! They'll not even let us take wafers, but rather say you'll receive everyday bread!' 

Another cheer rose. Now that he said it like that, these changes were a sham of our convictions.

‘This English Mass is an insult to our faith. Our prayers before communion, our matins and our evensong, these things are nothing when spoken in English. Yes, we love our country's tongue, but sacraments were made to hear in Latin and in Latin we will hear them!'

‘Oh, right, Mister Underhill,' a voice called from the back. ‘And what do they mean, exactly, these Latin words, pray tell me if you wouldn't mind? I've never understood them myself…' 

The laughter moved among us like a wind through stooks of corn. Moments later we settled.

‘In truth I don't know the meaning of
all
the words,' Underhill replied, ‘but I do know they're the language of the soul divine and, being so, I couldn't hope to grasp their every meaning.' 

His answer was considered. We applauded. 

‘I also know these Holy words are safeguards of our faith,' said Segar. ‘Take them away and you take away the very grounds on which our lives are built!' With this, he too clambered up onto the pedestal and joined his partner there above our heads.

‘They don't even say that marriage is sacred,' he said. 

Beside me stood our village newly-weds, sweet Alford from my Master's house and Dufflin the blacksmith's boy. They held each other's fingers loosely amongst the close-packed crowd.

‘Such ceremonies see us through from crib to coffin,' he continued. ‘They mark the passing of our lives and give us our Holy Days. Days like today. Days when we can take a hard-earned rest...' 

With sentiments like these, they couldn't fail to win their fellows' trust. Yet the rest of their speech came at us like a torrent. I wasn't sure if we were hearing the balanced flow of reasoned thought, or the sound and passion of some waterfall come crashing down around us, meaninglessly on the rocks. There was so much noise by now that all I heard was fragments bashing round like boulders clacking in a torrid stream…
no candles at Candlemas,… no ashes on Wednesday… no palms on Sunday… rob you of your hallowed rights as soon as rob your land…
the whole thing made me feel unwell and giddy. For steadiness, I filled my mind with thoughts of our Holy Mother and of my own mother.

It was Segar who then rounded his attack on the King's Law. ‘I tell you now, we
will
have all such laws as made by the late King and none other. Not til that boy King comes of age!'

The crowd then burst forward and carted their spokesmen around the green, high on their shoulders. Afterwards, the talk burned on and smouldered like the very oil of baptism itself, which these apparent laws would see abolished.

Events happened in some muddle after that. 

We saw a play of mummers set in a foreign land. There were two comical kings played by the travelling troupe of Manning and Byerd, who came from habit to these parts on festival days. The kings brought down a terrible destruction on their land by their foolish fighting. Then there were dancers and entertainments from a troupe of mountebanks, tumblers and jugglers. There was even a dancing dog who walked around on his back legs in a doublet, ruff and cape like a proud and haughty courtier. I thought of the recent visiting equerry and laughed at the lapdog.

We saw a competition with the bow and arrow and a great deal of hurling was played, with many hobbling from the field, nursing their shins. Sweet Alford and I were ready with a bottle of witch-hazel which, for a coin, we anointed on their wounds with a prayer as a measure for fail-safe healing. It brought us some small profit and harmed no one; the men believed themselves to be in the presence of healers. They also drank a deal of ale and cider, which more than likely numbed their pain more powerfully than our lotions ever could.