Guildhall, and true bills were found against him for arson and
sacrilege. He is described during the examination at the Guildhall as
having been perfectly placid, and as having smiled occasionally.
When the Court adjourned for rest and refreshment to the Mansion House
during the proceedings, he engaged in conversation with the parties near
him, and laughed at their observations. A lady said to him--"In
destroying that beautiful pile of buildings you inflicted no real
punishment on its clergy."
Martin laughed, and answered--"Eh, but it may mak' them stand and
consider their ways. All those who are really converted will think I've
done reight enuff."
The trumpets soon after sounded, heralding the approach of the judge.
The prisoner said--"Hark, how the watchman cries. Oh! attend to the
sound." The crowd was so dense in the hall that it was with difficulty a
passage could be made for his lordship. Martin laughed, and observed to
Mr. Kilby, "They'll have t' ould man down." A gentleman asked him if he
was not afraid. He said, "No, not at all."
The populace entirely filled the hall and part of the yard; and Jonathan
turned his face towards them, frequently laughing, and talking to those
with whom he came immediately in contact. He said he "believed he was
the most righteous man in court"; adding, "I have made as much noise as
Buonaparte ever did. I think this is a very throng day." He then turned
round to the counsel and reporters, and said, "I keep them very busy; I
have given them all a job. I'll put their hands in by-and-bye." When the
judge returned he said, "Here's t' ould man coming again." He seemed
quite pleased at being the object of such universal interest, and
repeatedly laughed at the attempts of the people to get a sight of him.
The trial of Jonathan Martin took place in the Crown Court of York
Castle before Mr. Baron Hullock, on Monday, March 30. The Court was
crowded. When placed at the bar, and the first charge, that of having
feloniously set fire to the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's, York, had
been read to Martin by the clerk of arraigns, and he had been asked the
usual question whether he were "guilty or not guilty," he placed himself
in a theatrical attitude, and said, "It was not me, my lord, but my God
did it. It is quite common to Him to punish to the third and fourth
generation, and to show mercy to all that fear Him and keep His
commandments."
A plea of "Not guilty" was entered.
The second indictment was then read over to him, charging him with
feloniously stealing a quantity of crimson velvet and gold fringe and
two gold tassels, the property of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral
and Metropolitical Church of York. He was asked whether he was guilty or
not guilty. Throwing out his left hand, he replied--
"My God gave me that for my hire. The Lord gave the silk to mak' a robe,
like David the King, and the velvet to mak' a cap, and the tassels I
took from the pulpit to hang down over my right and left ear."
THE CLERK OF INDICTMENTS.--"Are you guilty or not guilty?"
MARTIN.--"I had it given me for my hire."
This was taken as a plea of "Not guilty;" and Mr. Baron Hullock
addressing him, said, "You will be tried to-morrow morning at nine
o'clock." He bowed, and said, "Very well, my lord;" and was removed from
the bar.
The crier of the Court then announced, at the desire of the judge, that
the trial of Jonathan Martin would not take place till Tuesday morning
at nine o'clock.
On Tuesday, March 31st, the Court was as crowded as on the preceding
day, and great confusion was the result; this seemed to cause Martin
much amusement, and he laughed repeatedly at the struggles of the crowd
at the door, and leaped on a seat to observe it.
After the hearing of the evidence, the substance of which has been
incorporated in the narrative, Jonathan Martin was called upon for his
defence. Martin, who had become very listless during the examination,
seemed at this moment full of animation, and in a very vehement manner
uttered in broad Northern dialect the following words in his defence:--
"The first impression that I had was by two particular dreams, sir; and
after I had written five letters to warn the clergy. I think the last I
wrote was a very severe one. I believe I wrote in it all the curses of
the Scripture to warn them, and likewise signed my name to every letter,
and the place I lodged at, No. 60, Aldgate. I never received any
letters, which I was anxious to have from these clergymen, to speak to
them by mouth, but there was found none among them that dared to answer
me. I prayed to the Lord what I was to do. The next night I dreamt that
a wonderful thick cloud came from heaven and rested upon the Minster."
[Here the prisoner gave a long account of his dream, mentioned above,
and about the cloud resting over the house.] He continued:--"The house
was so shook that it awoke me from sleep. I was astonished, and began to
ask the Lord what it meant. I felt a voice inwardly speak that the Lord
had chosen me to destroy the Cathedral for the wrong that was doing by
the clergy in going to plays, and balls, and card-tables, and dinners.
Different things impressed my mind that the Lord had chosen me, because
the house shook and trembled. I thought it resembled the pillar of
smoke, and fulfilled the prophecy of Joel, that God would pour out His
Spirit upon all flesh, and the old men should see visions, and the young
men dream dreams, and that there should be signs in the heavens, blood
and fire, and vapour and smoke. I thought that I should be fulfilling
the word of God, and it was so impressed on my mind I had no rest night
or day; for I found the Lord had determined to have me to show this
people a warning to flee from the wrath to come. I was rather at a loss,
and astonished about my wife lest she should attack me, for I could not
do it without being all night from her. After I had considered a while
and got everything in order, I began to think it was impossible for me
to do it, as if I was away without my wife knowing where, she might
conceive I was about the Cathedral, and come and put me out. Therefore I
thought of this, to take my wife's ring off her finger, and tie her over
to this concern, which I did, as I have mentioned before, and the
circumstance of my wife's keeping the vow. After I told her the
circumstance she was much grieved, and strove to get me away to Leeds,
to get me from the purpose I had informed her of. We went to Leeds and
stayed a few days there, but I could get no rest to my mind till I had
accomplished the deed. I was obliged to take leave of her on the
Saturday morning. I had a severe contest between flesh and blood. It was
a sair contest, especially when she asked what was to become of her, and
of my child Richard I had at school at Lincoln. I thought she would have
nailed me to the spot; but after a moment a passage of Scripture struck
my ears, and it cried out like a whisper, 'What thou doest, do quickly.'
I heard another--'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not
worthy of me.' And I heard a third whisper--'Even thine own life.' I
tore myself from her arms. I said--'Lord, not my will, but thine be
done.' I then felt the love of God in my heart. I thought I would go to
Tadcaster, and took twenty books with me. When I got them the Spirit
told me to go forward. I had no money to keep me over the Sunday. I had
only fourpence-halfpenny." The prisoner then gave a minute detail of his
proceedings, and the different expedients resorted to in order to set
fire to the building, which he described as having been a work of great
labour and difficulty. He said, at the evening service he was "very much
vexed at hearing them sing the prayers and amens; he thought the prayer
of the heart came from the heart, and that they had no call for
prayer-books." He observed--"The organ then made such a buzzing noise, I
thought, 'Thou shalt buzz no more--I'll have thee down to-night.' Well,"
he continued, "they were all going out, and I lay me down aside of the
bishop, round by the pillar." [The prisoner concealed himself behind a
tomb.] "I lay here till all went out. I thought I heard the people
coming down from ringing the bells; they all went out, and then it was
so dark that I could not see my hand. Well, I left the bishop, and came
out and fell upon my knees, and asked the Lord what I was to do first,
and he said--'Get thy way up into the belfry and cut a rope;' and I had
never been there, and I went round and round; I had a sort of a guess of
the place from hearing the men, as I thought, come down. Then the Spirit
said, 'Strike a light.' And I then struck a light with a flint and razor
that I had got, and some tinder that I had brought from my landlord's. I
saw there were plenty of ropes: then I cut one, and then another; but I
had no idea they were so long, and I kept draw, draw, and the rope came
up till I daresay I had near 100 feet. I have been a sailor, and thought
to myself, this will make a man-rope, a sort of scaling-rope, and I tied
knots in it. Aye, this is it, I know it well enough (pointing to the
rope which lay upon the table). So I went down to the body of the
Cathedral, and bethought me how I should go inside. I thought if I did
so, by throwing the rope over the organ, I might set it _ganging_, and
that would spoil the job. So I made an end of the rope fast, and went
hand-over-hand over the gates, and got down on the other side, and fell
on my knees, and prayed to the Lord, and He told me that do what I would
they would take me. Then I asked the Lord what I was to do with the
velvet, and He told me," (the prisoner here repeated what he had before
stated in his plea about the robe, cap, and tassels.) "The fringe, I
thought, would do for my hairy jacket that I have at Lincoln. I have a
very good sealskin one there; I wish I had it with me, that I might show
it you. Then I got all ready. Glory to God! I never felt so happy; but I
had a hard night's work of it, particularly with a hungry belly. Well, I
got a bit of wax-candle, and I set fire to one heap, and with the
matches I set fire to the other. I then tied up the things that the Lord
had given me for my hire in this very handkerchief that I have in my
hand." He then observed that he had "hard work" while engaged in making
his preparations; "but," said he, "I had a glorious time of it; and many
a time I called 'Glory be to God' in a way which I wonder they did not
hear on the outside." He left the pincers, he said, because the old man
with whom he lodged could not afford to lose them, and he knew he would
get them again. He thought it a work of merit to burn prayer-books and
music-books, but not to burn the Word of God, and he appeared to regret
that he could not save the large Bible by getting it over the gates and
putting it outside. He detailed the particulars of his journey to the
North; and described himself as having, from his arrival at York till he
reached Northallerton, had very little food, but "t' Lord refreshed my
soul on t' road wi' t' snow upon t' ground." He then went on with his
story till he reached Mr. Kell's house, and "t' Hexham man came, tapped
me on t' shoulder, and took me to t' lock-up." He concluded, after
speaking twenty minutes--"I am almost tired of talking, but I will
efterwards tell ye a bit more."
A minute or two after, he said to the reporters--"An' you have been
writing down what I said--I think I talked o'er fast for thee!" He then
espied one of his publications, and said--"I see the'se gotten one of my
bukes. I wrote mysen at different times, and have sold 10,000 copies."
The defence set up for the prisoner by Mr. Brougham, acting for Jonathan
Martin's brother, was that Jonathan had perpetrated the deed when in an
unsound state of mind. The jury returned the verdict--"We are of opinion
that he set fire to the Cathedral, being at the time insane, or of
unsound mind."
Baron Hulloch:--"Then your verdict must be _not guilty_ on the ground of
insanity; and the prisoner must remain in close custody during his
Majesty's pleasure."
Martin was highly irritated at the line of defence adopted by Mr.
Brougham; but that some suspicion of his lunacy was entertained by
himself at an early period appears from his own words in his
autobiography, written before he set fire to York Minster:--"The devil
suggested to me that the people would think me mad. My wife endeavoured
to comfort me, as she feared for my head."
After the sentence he was handcuffed and conveyed into the Castle. He
made no observation, but was evidently disappointed and dejected at the
result. For some days after this Martin seemed rather despondent, but he
soon resumed his activity, pacing up and down at the rate of five miles
an hour, and at an average of twenty miles per day. He asked some one
he knew, who visited him, after his son, who was at school at Lincoln,
and said--"I'm thinking that God ha' used me varry badly."
He was removed from York Castle to St. Luke's Hospital in London, where
his conduct is described as having been generally rational. He seldom
spoke on the subject of his crime. Towards his brother he entertained
the bitterest enmity for having had him proved insane. But he consoled
himself in his confinement with the thought, "The Lord will take His own
time to deliver me, and that will not be long, for He has a great work
which cannot be done without me."
When he heard of the death of Baron Hulloch, before whom he was tried,
and which took place the same year, he seemed much agitated, walked
about a while, as if talking to himself, but made no observation. It
transpired afterwards that he looked on this as a signal instance of the
Lord punishing one of his enemies.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Authorities for this memoir:--"A Full and Authentic Report of the
Trial of Jonathan Martin for setting fire to York Minster; with an
Account of the Life of the Lunatic." York: Bellerby, 1829. His own Life,
written by himself, 1828, 1829. "York Castle in the Nineteenth Century;
being an Account of the Principal Offences Committed in Yorkshire from
the year 1800." By L. T. Rede. Leeds, 1829.
[25] In Yorkshire this prejudice exists strongly. A Yorkshireman once
pulled down my hand as I pointed to the Great Bear, saying that if I
pointed to a star I should be struck dead--it was a sin.
[26] Neither Mr. Nicoll nor the other pensioner assert that Martin was
guilty of a loose life. Perhaps this was only on the occasion of his
visiting London with the sailor who mentions it. Mr. Nicoll says Martin
was a moral man.
[27] As an instance of Martin's carelessness of expression, I may say
that he relates in his own biography that he attended the love-feast at
Yarm half-an-hour after Communion at the church at Norton. Yarm is four
miles from Norton. This mistake arose from the Life being written from
his dictation by a second, who wrote half-an-hour per afternoon.
[28] Nicholson, the keeper of the Gateshead Asylum before the Ortons,
said at the trial: "Martin was under my care eleven or twelve months. He
conversed very rationally. I should not have thought him fit for a
lunatic asylum."
BROTHER JUCUNDUS.
At York were two religious houses--St. Mary's Abbey and St. Leonard's
Priory--so close together that their walls abutted. The magnificent
ruins of St. Mary's Abbey Church, the heavy fragments of the Priory
Church of St. Leonard's, now stand in the gardens of the Botanical
Society, and resound no longer to the sound of psalmody, but to the
strains of the band playing marches, waltzes, and overtures.
At the close of the fifteenth century, before the Dissolution was
thought of, there lived, and fasted, and prayed in St. Leonard's Priory
a fat monk named Brother Jucundus. He had not been long in the house. He
had joined the order in a fit of headache and remorse, after heavy
potations on the occasion of the installation of a new Lord Mayor, and
it is possible--probable, I suspect--that he somewhat regretted his
precipitancy. Yet there was no escape. The irrevocable vows were on him;
for life he was bound to eat only vegetables and bread, drink very small
beer, and sleep only six hours in the night.
Convivial songs floated through his mind when he ought to have been
chanting the Psalms of David, and the flavour of old sack rose upon his
palate when he looked dolefully down at dinner-time into his mug of
"swipes."
A year passed. The full paunch of Brother Jucundus began to subside; his
fat cheeks to fall flabby, like the dewlaps of a cow; a dispirited
expression took the place of the watery twinkle which had once animated
his eye.
Come what might, Brother Jucundus felt he must have a fling. He should
die without it. Just one jolification in the twelvemonth, and then he
would put up for the rest of the year with beans and cabbage, small beer
and matins before dawn.
York fair approached. York fair! of all that is ravishing! The shows of
dancing dogs, the whirli-go-rounds, the giantesses and dwarfs, the
"spice" stalls, the drinking-booths! To York fair he must, he would go,
if condemned to a bean and a thimbleful of water for fasting dinner ever
after.
And go he did. He managed it in this way:--After dinner the whole
community took an hour's sleep. As they rose at midnight and dined at
mid-day, this was very necessary, and the Priory was silent, save for
snores, from one o'clock to two. At half-past one Brother Jucundus stole
to the porter's lodge, found the porter asleep in his chair--so took
possession of his keys; went to the Prior's apartment; the Prior was
asleep; pocketed a crown from his money-box, and left the Priory.
At two o'clock the community awoke. The porter missed his keys. The
Prior missed the crown. All the monks were summoned into the
chapter-house, and all missed Brother Jucundus.
After long deliberation it was decided that two sedate and trusty
brothers should be sent out in quest of him.
It was a bright, sunny afternoon. Jucundus had enjoyed himself
amazingly. The amount of gingerbread horses and men he had consumed was
prodigious. He had seen "The Spotted Boy" and "The Bearded Woman;" he
had gone round in the whirligig on the back of a wooden horse; he had
shot for nuts at a mark, and won his pocket full, which he cracked every
now and then, and washed down with a draft of really good ale. And now,
just now, he was going up in the boat of a great see-saw, with a
foaming tankard in his hand, his jolly red face illumined with glee, and
his ample throat thundering forth--
"In dulce jubilo-o-o,
Up, up, up we go-o-o;"
when his sweet jubilee was cut short by the sight of two monks from his
Priory, with grim faces, making their way towards the see-saw.
Brother Jucundus tried to scramble out, and in so doing tumbled down. He
was picked up. Either his libations, or the fall, or disinclination to
return to St. Leonard's weakened his legs, and he tottered so much that
the reverend fathers were obliged to put him in a wheelbarrow and roll
him to the Priory gate. At the entrance stood the Prior with a brow of
thunder.
Brother Jucundus looked pleasantly up in his face from out of his
conveyance, smiled benignantly, and piped--
"In dulce jubilo-o-o,
Up, up, up we go-o-o."
The chapter was still sitting, stern and threatening.
The helpless monk was trundled in his barrow into the midst of the
assembled fathers, to be tried and sentenced.
He had been caught, _flagrante delicto_, in a see-saw, drunk, riotous,
and incapable. Nevertheless, Brother Jucundus was not disposed to view
his case unfavourably. He looked round on the chapter with an
affectionate glance from out of his watery eye, and the kindest, most
winsome smile on his ruddy cheeks.
He was asked at once for his defence. He murmured, with a hiccup--
"In dulce jubilo-o-o."
The sentence was unanimous, and unfalteringly given. He was to be
walled alive into a niche in the Priory cellar. The execution was to be
carried into effect immediately.
As he was helped down the cellar stairs, some glimmer of his situation
came in on the mind of Jucundus, and he sadly trolled out--
"Down, down, down we go-o-o."
A convenient niche was soon found. A cruse of water and a loaf of bread,
with cruel mockery, were placed in the recess. The ready hands of
zealous monks mixed the mortar, brought the bricks, and in a quarter of
an hour Brother Jucundus was firmly walled in to his living grave.
Now for the first time did the extreme inconvenience of his position
break upon the unfortunate monk. In the wheelbarrow he had been able to
sit; here he was walled upright. It was cramping, intolerable. He
kicked, he pressed backwards with all his might; and suddenly, with a
crash, the wall behind him gave way, and he rolled backwards over a heap
of fallen bricks into a cellar.
The shock brought him completely to his senses. Where was he? Now he saw
the gravity of his offence--the terrible fate that had been prepared for
him. Escape was fortunately open to him. He ran up the cellar stairs,
and found himself in the Abbey of St. Mary's. The cellars of the two
monasteries had adjoined; a wall alone had divided them. He had tumbled
out of St. Leonard's into St. Mary's.
St. Mary's Abbey belonged to the severe Cistercian Order. Complete
silence was one of the rules of the society. Except on Easter day, no
monk might speak; on Easter day every one talked, and nobody listened.
When Brother Jucundus accordingly appeared in the cloisters, no monk
turned to look at him, or asked him "how the saints he had come there?"
but swept by him like a ghost. Jucundus made himself as much at home as
was possible. He took his place at table, ate and drank what was set
before him, occupied a pallet in the common dormitory, lifted his voice
in concert with the others in the Abbey choir, and nobody meddled with
him. The monks, if they thought about him at all--and it was against
their rules to think of anything but their own spiritual
affairs--thought he was a new monk just joined in the usual accepted
manner.
A twelvemonth passed. It had been dull in St. Leonard's; it was duller
in St. Mary's. The day came round on which York fair was held, the day,
that happy day, which had ended so dolorously.
Now the day before York fair the office of cellarer fell vacant in St.
Mary's Abbey by the death of the monk who had presided over the wine and
beer. The Abbot by a happy inspiration committed the keys to Brother
Jucundus. Here was an opportunity! If York fair might not be enjoyed in
the market-place and the Pavement, he would at least commemorate it in
the Abbey cellar.
On York fair day, accordingly, Brother Jucundus, after having seen all
his fellow monks safe in bed, stole down the stone steps into the vault
where were the barrels, with a tankard in his one hand and a lantern in
the other.
St. Mary's Abbey was often called upon to receive noble, even royal
guests, and entertain them nobly and royally. It therefore contained
barrels of very prime wine and very strong audit ale. Brother Jucundus
went along the range of barrels trying one tipple after another. There
is nothing so dangerous as mixing your drink, and this the reverend
brother discovered at last, for he sat down, unable to proceed further,
by the best cask of Malmsey, and turning the tap, filled his tankard.
Next day at noon the Cistercians assembled in the refectory for their
frugal repast, dinner and breakfast in one: and as they had been up
since midnight, and had eaten and drunk nothing for twelve hours, were
tolerably hungry and dry. But the mugs were empty. At the Abbot's table
even was neither wine nor beer. The silent fraternity bore with this
some time, but at last even the rules of the Order could not keep them
perfectly silent. They shuffled with their feet, growled and grunted
discontentedly. At last the Abbot, in a voice of thunder, shouted--
"I want my beer!" and the example of the head becoming infectious,
"Beer, beer, beer! we all want our beer!" resounded from every part of
the refectory.