"Welcome scaffold for precious Christ."
_Reverend James Renwick_.
It so happened that the 9th of February, to which the prisoners had been
remanded, was not a day devoted to baking, brewing, cleaning, or
washing, in the household of Mistress Winter; who, not in complimentary
language, gave Agnes her permission to spend half-an-hour in the
Chapter-house.
Already, before the sitting of the Consistory, Bishop Bonner had sent,
first for Pygot and Knight, and afterwards for Tomkins and Hunter, into
his "great chamber," and asked them if they were willing to recant.
They all refused, "not being persuaded in their consciences" that the
doctrines propounded to them were true. These four were then brought
into the Consistory, and a paper was offered them to sign, containing a
synopsis of their belief. The statement appears to have been a fair and
true definition of their creed, for all four attached their names to it
without hesitation.
It was just at this time that Agnes entered the Chapter-house, as these
prisoners were being removed, and John Laurence was brought forward.
"Pray you, come hither to me," said Bonner, with a show of friendliness,
due to his prisoner's priesthood.
Calmly enough, to outward show, Agnes looked on his face as he came up
to the Bishop,--that face so plain and uncomely to other eyes, so dear
and beautiful to hers. There would be time enough for weeping
hereafter, in that dreary future, of which the vista seemed to stretch
before her in illimitable desert: but now she could afford to lose no
tone of that yoke, no moment of the time permitted for gazing on that
face. She might never see him again until they should stand together
before the throne of God.
John Laurence answered every question asked of him calmly and firmly.
He admitted that he was a priest, eighteen years in orders, and sometime
a Black Friar professed. But Bonner's spies had told him more than
this; and it was not his wont to omit the wringing of a heretic's heart.
"Art thou not ensured unto a maid in way of marriage?"
"I am so, my Lord," said John Laurence.
"Didst thou truly propose to wed with her?"
"By God's leave, I did."
And Agnes Stone, standing in the crowd, heard herself thus confessed
before God and man--a confession which, she full well knew, stamped him
who made it, in the eyes of these his judges, with indelible disgrace.
"And what is thine opinion on the Sacrament?" inquired Bonner in a
confidential manner.
"It is a remembrance of Christ's body."
"Then what sayest thou of them which believe, as we do, that it _is_
Christ's body?"
"I say that they are deceived."
"Thinkest thou that all do err which believe not as thou dost?" said
Bonner with his usual bluster.
"I do say so, my Lord," was the determined answer.
Once more the prisoners were remanded, but only until afternoon. Agnes
did not dare to stay. She had ascertained from Cicely Marvell, whom she
saw in the crowd, that prisoners' friends were often permitted a
farewell interview between sentence and execution; and if she meant to
apply for that, she must not risk Mistress Winter's anger by remaining
now. Cicely promised to bring her news of the sentence.
"Lo' you now! here cometh my fair Lady Dominica!" was Dorothy's
salutation, as Agnes re-entered the kitchen. "What news, sweet Mistress
Blackfriars? Is thy goodly sweet-heart consecrate Lord Bishop of
Duneery, or shall he but be Master Doctor Dean of Foolscap?"
Agnes vouchsafed no answer.
"Woe betide us! here is Madam Gospeller hath lost her tongue!" cried
Dorothy. "Do but give me to wit, prithee, sweetest Sacramentary! So
dear love I all Black Friars, I may never sleep till I know."
"They be yet again remanded," replied Agnes dreamily.
Though she felt sure what the end would be, it was impossible to realise
it. Surely all that was passing must be some dreadful dream, from which
she would presently awake, perhaps in the little bed which used to be
hers in her aunt's pretty cottage, and find that all the past, for eight
years, had been a groundless vision.
Yet Dorothy's torturing pin-pricks were real enough. All day long she
persisted in worrying Agnes by pretended sympathy--so patently pretended
that it was excessively annoying. The towel was snatched from her as
she was washing her hands, with an entreaty that Dorothy might take that
trouble for her; the mop was hidden where she could not find it, with an
assurance that it would but increase the bitterness of her sorrow to
discover it; invisible strings were stretched across the kitchen where
she was sure to fall over them,--in order, as Dorothy tenderly
intimated, to turn her thoughts from the painful anxiety which she must
be enduring. It seemed to Agnes as if night and certainty would never
come. Yet how could she wish it, when she felt so sure what the awful
certainty would be? The hours wore on; the dark came at last; and when
the night had fairly set in, Cicely Marvell's soft tap was heard on
Mistress Winter's door. Agnes opened it herself. Dorothy had indeed
rushed to do it, but fortunately Agnes contrived to reach it before her.
It was evident that Cicely was loth to tell her terrible news, though
Dorothy begged her, over Agnes' shoulder, to relieve her heartrending
suspense. Was it from one faint throb of womanly feeling in her usually
hard heart, that Mistress Winter, in sharp tones, summoned Dorothy
within, and left Agnes to hear the news alone?
"Speak, Mistress Marvell," said Agnes, in that preternaturally calm
manner which she had worn from the first. "It is death."
"Ay, poor Agnes! It is death by fire."
"And in the meantime?--"
"They lie in Newgate. He shall be taken to Colchester to suffer, being
he was there born, the 28th of this March."
"Then he dieth on the 29th?"
"E'en so."
He was to die on the very day they had fixed for their marriage. To
_what_ had Agnes been looking forward so joyfully during those past
weary months?
When the prisoners had reappeared before Bonner in the afternoon, they
were asked, for the last time, if they would recant their heresy.
"We are not heretics," they replied; "the contrary is heresy."
Then, on these six contumacious men, was passed in due form the sentence
of death.
Each was to suffer at the place of his birth: Thomas Tomkins in
Smithfield, on the 16th of March; William Hunter, the poor
apprentice-boy, at Brentford, on the twenty-sixth; William Pygot at
Braintree, and Stephen Knight at Maldon, on the twenty-eighth.
It was only one interview with the prisoner for which Agnes dared to
hope, and she waited for it until the day before he was to be degraded
from his priestly office. Mistress Winter's momentary sympathy, if it
had existed, was over, and she grumbled a good deal when Agnes preferred
her request for a few hours' leave of absence. But she granted the boon
at last.
"It will be the last time," said Agnes quietly.
No more meetings at Paul's Cross,--no more summer walks to
Clerkenwell,--no more readings from the Cathedral lectern! Instead of
that, for him the chariot of fire, and then the King's welcome home, the
white robe, and the palm of victory, and the crown of life. And for
her,--ah! what? It might be a forty years' wandering in the Wilderness
of Sinai, with the River of Jordan at its close, ere she could come to
the shore of the Promised Land. Yet the Promised Land was sure, as was
the Promiser.
A strange specimen of human nature was Alexander, the keeper of Newgate
prison: a man who could request Bishop Bonner to burn some more heretics
because the cells were inconveniently crowded, and then, after a good
supper, sit down and play the fiddle. He was extremely fond of music,
though it scarcely exercised a soothing influence in his exceedingly
savage breast.
Happily for Agnes, this gentleman happened to be in a good temper when
she presented herself at his gates. He admitted her into the great
hall, and after a short delay took her down to the low damp cell where
condemned prisoners were confined. There she found John Laurence.
They were both very calm,--these two, to each of whom in that hour's
last meeting the bitterness of death was passing. Each tried to be
brave for the other's sake; each strengthened the other's hand in God.
"This is scarce what we looked for, sweet-heart," said the Black Friar.
"We had gathered a fair dish of honey, but our good Master saw it should
harm us, and appointed us in the stead thereof a dish of wormwood.
Neither is all the honey gone from us, for it is sweet to suffer for His
sake."
"I am glad thou hast stood firm," said Agnes quietly.
"Thou shalt have the bitterer portion, my poor heart! Yet it is for no
long season. We must meet soon, in our Father's House."
"Truly. And the time may be very short," she answered.
"And canst thou give me up, mine Agnes, for Christ's sake? For mark
thou, that which is wrenched away is not given."
She looked up with fixed, tearless eyes.
"Ay, John. I can give thee up for Christ's sake. But I could not for
any other."
So they parted--for the last time. For when they should meet again in
the Father's House, they would part no more for ever.
"Not for any other!" Is there no special tenderness in the heart of the
loving Saviour, for those who have given up that one thing which would
not, could not, be resigned for any sake but His?
The next day there was the bitter mockery of degradation. Every
vestment of the priesthood was put upon the martyr; one by one they were
torn from him with curses. The crown of his head, where the tonsure had
been cut, was defaced; the anointed head and hands were roughly scraped,
to deprive them of the sacred unction. But the unction from the Holy
One was beyond their reach.
Then came the journey to Colchester, and, lastly, the _auto da fe_.
"Not able to go, his legs sore worn with heavy irons, as also his body
weakened by evil keeping," John Laurence was borne in a chair to his
chariot of fire. We are told that at this martyrdom there were seen
little children running round the stake, crying, "Lord, strengthen Thy
servant, and keep Thy promise!" God did keep His promise, and
strengthened His servant.
It was soon over; and they had no more that they could do.
There were martyr-crowns for such men as John Laurence. But were there
none for women such as Agnes Stone, whose martyrdom lasted, not an hour,
but a lifetime,--who laid on the Lord's altar, not their lives, but all
that made life precious?
We are not told what became of her. Nor does it much matter. Rather
than sketch a fancy future for such a life as hers, let us remember the
true end, when that life was over. For three hundred years, more or
less, these two, who gave each other up for Christ, have been given back
by Christ to each other: together they have followed the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth; the Lord has been their everlasting light, and
the days of their mourning have been ended.