A PRECIOUS CARGO.
THE sight of the Gospels printed in English, made Margery Paton more
eager than ever to teach some of the girls and boys of the village to
read. There had been a school at the Monastery, where one or two of
the monks undertook the task of teaching those who liked to come and
learn; but it was closed when the tenants left their holdings, and the
brethren did not seem disposed to re-open it again, although Sir Miles
and his wife had both asked if it could not be done, now that so many
had returned.
It may have been that the monks thought their school might only be
turned against them, if this new learning spread much further. At any
rate they declined to move in the matter, and so Mistress Margery Paton
undertook the task, and by the end of that winter of 1524-5, nearly
a dozen of the elder boys and girls were able to read from the New
Testament for themselves. Margery wanted to lend one of the copies her
brother had brought from Oxford, among her scholars, that they might
take it home and read it to their parents. But her brother thought
it would not do to press this part of their work too rapidly. It was
enough to teach them to understand what they themselves read, and
to make them see that it was a book whose teaching must be put into
practice in their every day life.
And Margery tried to show them what to choose, and what to reject from
the Mass book, which was used at the Monastery, and by the Church all
over the land.
Altogether it was a very busy season, both indoors and out; for when
the weather permitted, there was work on the land to be done, to bring
more into cultivation; and when this could not be done, there was
work on the houses,—strengthening the walls with baulks of timber to
support a properly thatched roof, and make the whole wind and water
tight in the face of any storm. Then there was the weaving for those
who had the aptitude for this work. The craftsman, who had been sent
over from Ghent by the Cardinal's agent, was a man who could build a
loom as well as use one; and having brought one with him for a pattern,
he soon set the men to work to fashion the frames of others, that more
workmen might be employed in weaving, when they had once mastered the
difficulties of learning.
The Cardinal himself took a great interest in this experiment, and had
offered to bear the cost of the trial if it should prove a failure; for
the workman from Flanders asked a high rate of remuneration, being a
skilful workman.
But before the close of the winter, Sir Miles felt assured that the
attempt would prove very successful in the course of another year;
and that, from doing their own shearing, they would be able to carry
through every process in the manufacture of the cloth, and without
actual waste either; for the learners' efforts, if not fit for
clothing, could be used for bed-covering for the old and feeble.
So, here in the heart of England, was a self-dependent, self-supporting
little colony of working folk, trying to better their condition by
using the means close at hand; and if More's Utopia was not realised,
as Sir Miles often felt it was not by a very long way, still, he
thought he had set the feet of these people on the first rung of the
ladder towards its attainment, and he could scarcely hope to do more,
and must not attempt too much at once.
The following summer proved a terrible one for the nation at large.
Pestilence and famine stalked through the land, as the inevitable
result of the policy of the landlords. Corn had to be brought from the
Continent, and sold for almost fabulous prices, so great was the demand
for it, and so short was the supply.
This state of things forced Miles to take a step he never dreamed of
doing when he set about bringing the land into cultivation again.
The news that they had had a plentiful harvest, brought them customers
for more rye and wheat than they could possibly spare, so that at last
he had to refuse to sell a peck of wheat, even for its weight in gold,
for fear his own tenants should want it before the next harvest came
round.
Then came rumours of a deadly sickness, known as "the Black Death."
Some said it had been brought over from France by some of the troops
who had returned from the war. But, however it came, it spread with
awful rapidity through the length and breadth of the land. The poor
creatures, who had been driven from their holdings to find shelter
in the woods, were its first victims; for hunger and exposure had
enfeebled them, and they died at the first touch of the plague. In
their selfish panic to escape, their companions left them to lie
unburied, and thus spread the contagion through the air tenfold, so
that towns and villages were almost depopulated in the course of a few
weeks.
In the midst of the sickness Cicely's first baby was born, but mother
and child were unaffected by the sickness around, which was in part
due to the fact that in his anxiety to keep out all contamination, Sir
Miles had banished rushes from the floors of the house, and even the
arras was pulled down from the walls of the chamber where Lady Paton
lay when her baby came. This was one of the secondary causes; but the
chief was doubtless the fact that Cicely had learned to trust in the
loving care of God, who ruled her life and that of her husband too.
"For your sake I hope the sickness will not come near me," she said to
him one day; "but if it should, I know it will be because our Father in
heaven sees that you can work for Him better without me than with me."
"Hush, hush, my darling," said Miles imploringly; and when he was
compelled to go out among the plague-stricken people, he would not go
near the room where his wife and child lay, until he had changed his
clothes and washed himself, in a fashion that few Englishmen did at
that time.
By the time the pestilence was over, so many rules as to cleanliness
had been adopted at Paton Hall and the surrounding village, that it was
scarcely likely that master or peasants would ever quite relapse into
the old state of dirt and accumulated filth again, especially when it
became known that they had lost fewer people from the pestilence than
any other place of a similar population.
They were just recovering from the panic caused by the plague, and had
gathered in another plentiful harvest, when Sir Miles received a letter
from London, that made him decide to go there later in the year.
Of course Lady Paton and Mistress Margery were taken into the
confidence of Sir Miles as to his journey to London, just before
Christmas; but the servants and tenants supposed that their master was
going to have a little junketing at Court, for they knew the position
that Lady Paton's father held, and they were not surprised that their
master should go to visit his relatives at Greenwich, or that their
mistress should stay at home, seeing she had a young baby to care for.
So Sir Miles and one trusty servant went to London, and took up their
quarters at "The Sign of the Golden Fleece."
Here Sir Miles learned that the King had gone to spend his Christmas at
Eltham, and so it would be useless to go to Greenwich; and he decided
that Thames Street would suit best, for the business that had brought
him to London, which, his servant learned, was to watch for the arrival
of corn ships from the Low Country.
Sir Miles found the neighbourhood of Thames Street much more cheerful
than any other part of the city, although his servant rather despised
this neighbourhood of wharves and ships.
His master left him free to do as he liked, and as the curate of All
Hallows in Honey Lane seemed to be sufficient attendance for his
master, the servant left these two to themselves.
And so at last they were left to welcome the grandest cargo that had
ever reached the English shores. The merchants and captains who had
brought over this carefully-hidden store of English New Testaments were
glad enough to get them out of their hands; and Sir Miles, and the
rector and curate of All Hallows, were ready enough to do the work of
actual labourers, and lift and haul the heavy packages, until all were
stored in a place of safety.
A few parcels of napery had been put up at "The Golden Fleece" for
him to take home; but the strong mules that had been bought to carry
back his London purchases, carried New Testaments for the most part,
and these were to be hidden in a secure hiding-place in his own house,
until it should be seen what the authorities were likely to do when
some of the copies were sold in the open market, as it was intended
they should be. A good many London merchants were ready to take copies
to sell privately among friends; for some of these who had been
educated at Colet's school were heartily tired of the Church and its
teaching as they knew it, and ready to risk something for the sake of
a purer faith and worship. Many were not without hope that the King
and Cardinal, too, would also favour the new departure. But whatever
hopes were based on the Cardinal's remaining neutral—at least in this
"Quarrel of Friars," that was bound to follow, sooner or later,—were
very quickly dashed.
It had been arranged with Master Garrett, the curate of Honey Lane,
that as soon as he had disposed of some of the books in London,
he should take a parcel of them to Oxford, and also send a trusty
messenger with some to Cambridge. The secret was therefore obliged
to be entrusted to several people, and, as might have been expected,
the Cardinal's spies soon scented it, and then went in search of the
treasure. They managed to trace it to Master Garrett's house, but by
that time he was at Oxford, and most of the books either securely
hidden, or in the hands of those who would value such a treasure.
There were, however, enough found for a bonfire to be made of them,
and the Cardinal read enough to fill him with rage and disappointment,
especially when he heard that the poison, as he chose to consider it,
had been taken to Oxford—his own Oxford, where he had spared no pains
to secure that learned and enlightened men should be gathered to teach
in the halls of his own college.
No time was lost in sending the necessary authority to seize all who
were known to be favourers of this onslaught upon the authority of
the Church; and it may be imagined what the Cardinal's feelings were
when he heard that Master Clark, John Fryth, and eight others of his
own college had been arrested, and New Testaments found in their
possession. Magdalen, Corpus Christi, and St. Mary's, all furnished a
contingent to this noble army; but he heard to his chagrin that his own
college had been a hot-bed of heresy for a long time. This filled the
Cardinal with such rage that all were thrown into prison and treated
with the utmost rigour. Sir Miles Paton heard of it, and rode in hot
haste from Woodstock, hoping and believing he would be able to arouse
a public display of feeling on behalf of the prisoners, such as he had
seen that May-day at Westminster, so that the authorities would be
compelled to release them.
But alas, his words only aroused little interest. A few shrugged their
shoulders, and said they were very sorry; but public protest, such as
an illegal tax would have raised, was out of the question.
He was almost heart-broken as he went about from one to the other,
trying to enlist their sympathy, for he saw in this apathy of the
people themselves, a sure precursor of the persecution of those who
would dare to do the right in the face of King and Cardinal.
In vain he told them that the balance of English liberties trembled,
and if the scale went down on the wrong side now—if they would not
speak up for God and conscience now—so surely would they lose that
civil liberty,—that right for which they had contended again and again
in recent years.
But he might as well have preached to the dead. At the time of trial
two only of the prisoners were released, and the rest sent back to
their foul prison, where, in a few months, evil smells and want of food
did their deadly work, and four of them died, Clark among the number.
Strong as he was, the Cardinal did not dare to go further in his
persecution, even of priests, until he saw what the temper of the
people at large was likely to be. He knew as well as his old secretary,
that if the voice of the people made itself heard, he dare not
persecute the servants of God; but they suffered these men to die in
the prison without protest, and for a generation English liberty, civil
and religious, was lost, and England passed through such a reign of
terror under her despots as has not been equalled in Europe since, not
even by that better known terror that desolated France a hundred years
ago. She knew not the time of her visitation; she refused to listen
to the voice of those who would have led her into the path of peace,
liberty, and progress. She chose darkness rather than light, and only
through the mighty struggles and sore sufferings of a few of her heroic
children in after years, could she regain the treasure she allowed to
slip through her nerveless fingers in this fateful year, 1526.
Sir Miles Paton returned to his home after his unavailing efforts to
befriend the prisoners, almost wishing that his own work on earth was
done. But he remembered there were those at home who would need his
care more than ever now, and for their sakes he resolved to be cautious
and keep his Testaments hidden for the present. He could guide his
household and his tenants on the law of the new learning and the new
commandment given by Christ, and with this he must be content for the
present, he decided. And although the monks only half-believed in
Sir Miles and Lady Paton being true to the Church, they could prove
nothing against them, and Sir Miles was allowed to carry on his work at
Woodstock until brighter days dawned.
Wolsey may have thought, when the last of these silent martyrs died in
his pestiferous dungeons at Oxford, that he had made an end of this
unauthorised attempt to circulate the Word of God, and reform the
Church. If he did, he soon had cause to know that he was mistaken.
This fountain of the water of life,—the Word of God,—being once opened,
could never again be closed. God's Holy Spirit had inspired Tyndale to
devote his life to the perfecting of the translation of the Scriptures,
and though he was hunted from city to city on the Continent,—where
alone he could get his New Testaments printed,—still he always
contrived to carry his treasure with him.
Edition after edition, thus revised and rendered into clearer English,
was poured into the various ports of the kingdom; and though some of
them fell into the hands of the Cardinal's spies, and were publicly
burned, these burnings served to arouse the desire of the people to
know more of this condemned book. And so the numerous copies that
escaped the vigilance of the Cardinal's agents were eagerly sought for,
and found their way into many a quiet English home, both in London and
the country.
In this way the seed of the Word was sown broadcast through the land,
and brought forth fruit in the hearts and lives of many who counted not
their lives dear to them, but for the truth and liberty of the Gospel
were ready to suffer for the sake of conscience, and the true English
Reformation, of which Tyndale's New Testament was the corner stone.
Meanwhile social and political changes were slowly developing in a
fashion that must have been bewildering to an onlooker, and many may
have doubted whether England was being ruled by God or by Satan at that
particular juncture. But we, looking back to this dark page of English
history, can see that an all-wise Providence controlled and guided
tyrant and victim alike, although it may have seemed that God had
forgotten His people for a time.