A Fine Madness by Alan Judd (best classic books TXT) 📕

When most of the house was asleep he crept out of the kitchen and up to the attic stairs. The sentry was slumped at the bottom, his back against the wall and his head on his shoulder. Christopher stepped over his legs and carried on up the stairs, stopping at the door to the attic. There were voices within, low and male. He could not distinguish the words but from the rhythm he judged they were praying together. At the end he heard the Amen, then Jane Yate’s voice.

There was a pause, followed by sounds of movement and a murmured conversation. As his ear became attuned he recognised Campion’s voice from having heard him preach. There were also the voices of two other priests, one urging that they should leave now while the house was in slumber. The other asked whether there were still guards outside. Mrs Yate said they should stay, that this attic had been searched before and their hole undiscovered, they would be safer here and could leave when all the searchers had gone. Campion agreed.

Christopher crept back down the stairs and felt his way through the dark house to find Frizer, who was sleeping on the kitchen floor, across the door. I can recall for you exactly what he said to me, his very words even after these many years. He said: ‘I stood by Frizer’s sleeping body, making up my mind. I had in my hands the power of life and death. I could wake him and tell him and the fugitives would be found and executed. Or I could say nothing and they would probably escape. I hesitated long, waiting to see whether I cared. And I concluded I cared little whether they lived or died. I was indifferent. Does that shock you, Thomas? Some would say I should have shown mercy to a good man, others that I should have rejoiced at unearthing the fox. I liked Father Campion, a powerful and compelling preacher. Yet I remained indifferent. What does that say about me, do you think? For a long time – well, a minute or so – I stood still, waiting to hear how my heart spoke, whether my heart should sway my mind. But I heard nothing. Feelings are poor guides. Thoughts alone should guide us. And thought told me that these men would force us back to the old religion, with all its priests and Popery, its sale of relics, its superstitions, its wine-is-blood and bread-is-flesh magic, its laws and tithes, and foreign rule. Foreign rule, that was the thing. That would not do. Yet still I hesitated, feeling what it is like to exercise power.’

To me, that last sentence is telling. He saw it not as his duty to his country and the rightful worship of God but as a kind of game, a game of dalliance with himself. Years later he told me that the making of his characters and plays was the nearest he came to that early exercise of the power of life and death. But doing it in his plays was more interesting than the reality of that occasion. ‘Reality lacks reality,’ he said more than once in later years, ‘until it is imagined.’

At that time I was encouraged by what he said because it meant he had no secret longings to return us to papal rule. We could trust him. Of course, it did not follow that he was therefore of the Godly party, like me and Mr Secretary and those we worked with. Indeed, it did not follow that he was of any party – or perhaps it did follow that he was of no party. But I was not troubled about that in those days.

The rest of the story has little to do with Christopher. He roused Frizer who roused George Eliot who called for men and a smith’s hammer. They clumped upstairs to Mrs Yate’s attic chamber and accused her of hiding the priests. She protested and denied it, then wept when one of the men swung the hammer against the wooden partition behind her bed. It yielded and there, lying together in a dark narrow cell, lay Campion and the other two priests. They were brought out as dawn was breaking.

Christopher did not witness the unearthing, wisely choosing not to associate himself with the discovery. The arrested men were roped together and brought down and the sheriff sent for. Jane Yate was not arrested despite her crime, nor were any of the nuns who were surely complicit. But some of the other men in the house were, including an unsuspecting priest who happened to call that morning. Christopher slipped away, taking advantage of the fact that the young, like the old, are often little regarded.

The prisoners were held for days in the house in reasonable comfort, with Campion even allowed place of honour at the table so that he could hold forth. Eliot and Frizer stayed with them – I never knew Frizer absent himself from free food and drink – and it was reported that Eliot rashly challenged Campion to theological argument. He was confounded when Campion worsted him, graciously forgave him, drank to him and promised to absolve him if he confessed and repented, provided he paid a large penance. I never heard which of those conditions most deterred the sheriff’s man.

But everything changed when orders from the Privy Council reached the house. The prisoners were placed under close arrest and taken to London on horseback, their elbows roped behind them, their wrists before them and their feet tied beneath their horses’ bellies. In this manner were they paraded through the city to the Tower. A note was pinned to Campion’s hat, inscribed, ‘Campion, the seditious Jesuit’.

Christopher and I saw them, briefly. I was bidden to take him to Mr Secretary’s house in Seething Lane to be thanked and paid for his work. There was a great throng in the streets, with much shouting at the prisoners and