By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson (large ebook reader txt) 📖

trampling from within, the bolts creaked, and the gate rolled back; a company of halberdiers emerged, and in their midst the three priests in laymen's dress; behind followed a few men on horseback, with a little company of ministers, bible in hand; and then a rabble of officers and pursuivants. Anthony edged his horse in among the others, as the crowd fell back, and took up his place in the second rank of riders between a gentleman of his acquaintance who made room for him on the one side, and Sir Francis Knowles on the other, and behind the Tower officials.

Then, once more he heard that ringing bass voice whose first sound silenced the murmurs of the surging excited crowd.

"God save you all, gentlemen! God bless you and make you all good Catholics."

Then, as the priest turned to kneel towards the east, he saw his face paler than ever now, after his long fast in preparation for death. The rain was still falling as Campion in his frieze gown knelt in the mud. There was silence as he prayed, and as he ended aloud by commending his soul to God.

"In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum."

* * * *


The three were secured to the hurdles, Briant and Sherwin on the one, Campion on the other, all lying on their backs, with their feet towards the horse's heels. The word to start was given by Sir Owen Hopton who rode with Charke, the preacher of Gray's Inn, in the front rank; the lashed horses plunged forward, with the jolting hurdles spattering mud behind them; and the dismal pageant began to move forward through the crowd on that way of sorrows. There was a ceaseless roar and babble of voices as they went. Charke, in his minister's dress, able now to declaim without fear of reply, was hardly silent for a moment from mocking and rebuking the prisoners, and making pompous speeches to the people.

"See here," he cried, "these rogueing popish priests, laid by the heels--aye, by the heels--at last; in spite of their tricks and turns. See this fellow in his frieze gown, dead to the world as he brags; and know how he skulked and hid in his disguises till her Majesty's servants plucked him forth! We will disguise him, we will disguise him, ere we have done with him, that his own mother should not know him. Ha, now! Campion, do you hear me?"

And so the harsh voice rang out over the crowd that tramped alongside, and up to the faces that filled every window; while the ministers below kept up a ceaseless murmur of adjuration and entreaty and threatening, with a turning of leaves of their bibles, and bursts of prayer, over the three heads that jolted and rocked at their feet over the cobblestones and through the mud. The friends of the prisoners walked as near to them as they dared, and their lips moved continually in prayer.

Every now and then as Anthony craned his head, he could see Campion's face, with closed eyes and moving lips that smiled again and again, all spattered and dripping with filth; and once he saw a gentleman walking beside him fearlessly stoop down and wipe the priest's face with a handkerchief. Presently they had passed up Cheapside and reached Newgate; in a niche in the archway itself stood a figure of the Mother of God looking compassionately down; and as Campion's hurdle passed beneath it, her servant wrenched himself a few inches up in his bonds and bowed to his glorious Queen; and then laid himself down quietly again, as a chorus of lament rose from the ministers over his superstition and obstinate idolatry that seemed as if it would last even to death; and Charke too, who had become somewhat more silent, broke out again into revilings.

* * * *


The crowd at Tyburn was vast beyond all reckoning. Outside the gate it stretched on every side, under the elms, a few were even in the branches, along the sides of the stream; everywhere was a sea of heads, out of which, on a little eminence like another Calvary, rose up the tall posts of the three-cornered gallows, on which the martyrs were to suffer. As the hurdles came slowly under the gate, the sun broke out for the first time; and as the horses that drew the hurdles came round towards the carts that stood near the gallows and the platform on which the quartering block stood, a murmur began that ran through the crowd from those nearest the martyrs.--"But they are laughing, they are laughing!"

The crowd gave a surge to and fro as the horses drew up, and Anthony reined his own beast back among the people, so that he was just opposite the beam on which the three new ropes were already hanging, and beneath which was standing a cart with the back taken out. In the cart waited a dreadful figure in a tight-fitting dress, sinewy arms bare to the shoulder, and a butcher's knife at his leather girdle. A little distance away stood the hateful cauldron, bubbling fiercely, with black smoke pouring from under it: the platform with the block and quartering-axe stood beneath the gallows; and round this now stood the officers, with Norton the rack-master, and Sir Owen Hopton and the rest, and the three priests, with the soldiers forming a circle to keep the crowd back.

The hangman stooped as Anthony looked, and a moment later Campion stood beside him on the cart, pale, mud-splashed, but with the same serene smile; his great brown eyes shone as they looked out over the wide heaving sea of heads, from which a deep heart-shaking murmur rose as the famous priest appeared. Anthony could see every detail of what went on; the hangman took the noose that hung from above, and slipped it over the prisoner's head, and drew it close round his neck; and then himself slipped down from the cart, and stood with the others, still well above the heads of the crowd, but leaving the priest standing higher yet on the cart, silhouetted, rope and all, framed in the posts and cross-beam, from which two more ropes hung dangling against the driving clouds and blue sky over London city.

* * * *


Campion waited perfectly motionless for the murmur of innumerable voices to die down; and Anthony, fascinated and afraid beneath that overpowering serenity, watched him turn his head slowly from side to side with a "majestical countenance," as his enemies confessed, as if he were on the point of speaking. Silence seemed to radiate out from him, spreading like a ripple, outwards, until the furthest outskirts of that huge crowd was motionless and quiet; and then without apparent effort, his voice began to peal out.

* * * *


"'Spectaculum facti sumus Deo, angelis et hominibus.' These are the words of Saint Paul, Englished thus, 'We are made a spectacle or sight unto God, unto His angels, and unto men';--verified this day in me, who am here a spectacle unto my Lord God, a spectacle unto His angels, and unto you men, satisfying myself to die as becometh a true Christian and Catholic man."

He was interrupted by cries from the gentlemen beneath, and turned a little, looking down to see what they wished.

"You are not here to preach to the people," said Sir Francis Knowles, angrily, "but to confess yourself a traitor."

Campion smiled and shook his head.

"No, no," he said: and then looking up and raising his voice,--"as to the treasons which have been laid to my charge, and for which I am come here to suffer, I desire you all to bear witness with me, that I am thereof altogether innocent."

There was a chorus of anger from the gentlemen, and one of them called up something that Anthony could not hear. Campion raised his eyebrows.

"Well, my lord," he cried aloud, and his voice instantly silenced again the noisy buzz of talk, "I am a Catholic man and a priest: in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. But you have now what you desire. I beseech you to have patience, and suffer me to speak a word or two for discharge of my conscience."

There was a furious burst of refusals from the officers.

"Well," said Campion, at last, looking straight out over the crowd, "it seems I may not speak; but this only will I say; that I am wholly innocent of all treason and conspiracy, as God is my judge; and I beseech you to credit me, for it is my last answer upon my death and soul. As for the jury I do not blame them, for they were ignorant men and easily deceived. I forgive all who have compassed my death or wronged me in any whit, as I hope to be forgiven; and I ask the forgiveness of all those whose names I spoke upon the rack."

Then he said a word or two more of explanation, such as he had said during his trial, for the sake of those Catholics whom this a concession of his had scandalised, telling them that he had had the promise of the Council that no harm should come to those whose names he revealed; and then was silent again, closing his eyes; and Anthony, as he watched him, saw his lips moving once more in prayer.

Then a harsh loud voice from behind the cart began to proclaim that the Queen punished no man for religion but only for treason. A fierce murmur of disagreement and protest began to rise from the crowd; and Anthony turning saw the faces of many near him frowning and pursing their lips, and there was a shout or two of denial here and there. The harsh voice ceased, and another began:

"Now, Mr. Campion," it cried, "tell us, What of the Pope? Do you renounce him?"

Campion opened his eyes and looked round.

"I am a Catholic," he said simply; and closed his eyes again for prayer, as the voice cried brutally:

"In your Catholicism all treason is contained."

Again a murmur from the crowd.

Then a new voice from the black group of ministers called out:

"Mr. Campion, Mr. Campion, leave that popish stuff, and say, 'Christ have mercy on me.'"

Again the priest opened his eyes.

"You and