The Two Confessions by John Whitbourn (good books to read for adults .TXT) 📕

from the initial anecdote retained inorphanage memory, Samuel competed - and nothing else but first and bestwould do. Even these victories, once achieved, were not celebrated but justshrugged at: transient stepping-stones on the way to greater things. SamuelTrevan never played childish games just for fun.

Hewas focused. Whatever he set himself to do expanded in size to eclipse the restof the universe and, for the most part, whatever he required he obtained. Notoverly blessed in academic skills, Samuel would sacrifice sunny holy days towrestle with his books, his lips moving as he repeated the words till they madesense. Contrary to each successive tutor's expectations, he graduated fromclass to class. Whatever Father Omar and other priests told him about theordering of the cosmos, he took in without challenge as in accord with hisworldview. It just made sense that there be a no-nonsense Pope, and then God,to cap the hierarchy he saw about him. At sports and amidst his peers Samuel'swidth and strength made him unstoppable. It was not in him to be a bully or bebullied. From under heavy brows and from an already bulldog-ugly, intimidatingface, Trevan looked out upon the world without fear.

Andif any went in fear of him, it was only because they were up to fightingback, were in the way, and had been warned. He was very keen on 'justice', bothreceived and meted out, and didn't see the need to be fairer than that.

Inlife therefore, as at orphanage mealtimes, Samuel ate every scrap set beforehim, without comment as to quality, and extracted maximum benefit from it.

Forhis part, Father Omar felt it almost a sin to cavil at such a success story.Some of his charges would perpetually lag in the game of life thanks to thepoor initial hand dealt them. Samuel Melchizedek Trevan, by comparison, lookedfit to cause Life problems, rather than the usual contrary. There was nogood reason why so spirited a boy should cause his brow to furrow in projectedconcern. Yet he did.

Samuel'sstart in life comprised the first horse hitched to his cart: a spirited beastas it turned out, but not quite up to gallop speed alone. The second member ofthe team arrived by chance. Thereafter, with ambition as his fuel and a prizein sight, he required a lot of stopping.

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OnSt Guy's Day Lewes came to a halt - or came to life, depending on your point ofview. Business paused in despair and put up the shutters. Liberated from themundane, most others were glad. Approving or not, every thought tended towardsbonfire and anarchy.

LewesTown had been rough-handled by the 'Reformation' (or 'TheDevastation' as popular usage now termed it). Whereas Henry 'VIII-and-last'ransacked a monastery or two, Edward, his son, closed churches, and Mary 'theGreat' burnt a few fanatics for reneging on the faith of their fathers, 'BlackBetty', Elizabeth I, had visited the Downs and Weald country with a scourgeof iron. For all that it had been sacked and burnt after smallpox calledher to judgement, Lewes still bore scars from that reign. Later historianswould note a centuries long absence of 'Elizabeths' from the Town's baptismalregisters, a small token of their memory and appreciation.

Worsefollowed. Cecil's rebels briefly held Lewes, attempting a 'Protestant' utopiaby fiery purging of 'ungodly' elements of the population. The unceasing sicklysweet pall over the Town provoked its besiegers to assault and massacre.Likewise, Spanish volunteers and the furious English amongst the royal armywere not always able to distinguish between oppressors and oppressed. Firebroke out with no one minded to control it. Lewes almost died that day andsurviving Lewesians, even the priests amongst them, wondered in their hearts ifGod slept.

Theirwaking nightmare continued, though with less intensity, through 'Armada'and 'King Essex' days. There were both good and bad years, but men weremore inclined to repair town walls than their houses, and to stockpile armsrather than children. Lewes, in common with many places, grew grim.

ThenGuy or ‘Guido’ Fawkes and his band of heroes blew the whole establishmentasunder, beheading the state.

Headlessnations may feign frantic activity, just like chickens in a similar predicament- but death is on its way all the same. After final paroxysms of violence bornof fear, better times eventually returned - and the Church came with them sothat the two appeared connected.

Lewestown had suffered more than most and keenly recalled the event that heraldedliberation. On St Guy's Day, November the fifth, the daytime was thereforespent in holiday and pious remembrance. A sense of anticipation then grew asthe hours passed and authority and propriety alike prepared for temporarywithdrawal. Nightfall saw town-wide surrender to wild indulgence; to maskedprocessions, bonfire and licence. Glass was broken and wild oats sowed, butnothing worse (generally). Good St Guy was toasted again and again and the 'BlackBetty' atop each towering bonfire damned to hell in chorus. The next daywas an unofficial holiday, devoted to repairs and repentance.

Everyparish in the town had its own bonfire confraternity, joined at birth and foreternity, thanks to the obit Masses they also arranged. In-between thosetwo alpha and omega events, the organisation was always there to be turned toshould poverty or sickness descend on any 'bonfire brother'. Over the centuriesthey acquired land from bequests and invested the means-tested subscriptions ofthe brethren, and thus came to prosperity. In Sussex County life they occupieda curious position; as institutions of great age and wealth and benevolence -yet still a league short of respectability, akin to a banker with bothphilanthropist and hooligan tendencies.

TheCliffe Bonfire Society chanced to own the land on which Samuel's orphanagestood, and had granted it in long, free, lease to the Church for that purpose. Accordingly,all the boys within were honorary members of 'Cliffe' and marched beneath itsskull-and-crossbones black banner on the great and glorious day. It was alsocustomary for each society to construct huge effigies ('Black Bettys' ofcourse, but also others) to parade behind and confine to the fire. Every groupvied to produce the biggest, most life-like, most insulting, figure, and painswere taken to ensure secrecy around it until unveiling. The walls of 'St PhilipHoward's offered ideal concealment and for decades past the orphanage servedtheir benefactors in this way. It was the merest return it