The Clerkenwell Tales

the Clerkenwell convent, certain Londoners might have been seen entering a round stone tower of Roman construction; it stood a few yards north of Castle Baynard near the banks of the river by Blackfriars. It had one great portal, around which were inscribed certain words in Latin which might be translated thus – “I am not open to them that knock as they pass by, but to those who stand and knock.” Each of these evening visitors was greeted at the entry by a liveried servant, and led down a winding stair to a vaulted chamber beneath the ground. Some of those present at the dinner of the Guild of Mary the Virgin, the previous month in the Hall of the Mercers, were also in attendance here; among them, for example, were the knight, Sir Geoffrey de Calis, and the canon, William Swinderby. But they were not dressed in the robes of their degree. Their cloaks and hoods were of some striped cloth; their colours were blue and white crossing diagonally, which to a trained eye were the tokens of time crossed with patience.

A sergeant-at-law, Miles Vavasour, had joined them, together with one of the two under-sheriffs of London. This was a high meeting but curiously enough it was the knight, Sir Geoffrey de Calis, rather than the under-sheriff who called them to order.

He summoned them with a Latin invocation. “Hoc est terra quaestionis . . .” This is the ground of our seeking. This is the ground, the beauty and beginning of all good order. It was not a prayer of the Church, but they knew it well and joined in all of its responses.

After these preliminaries the knight turned to one of them.

“Well achieved, William Exmewe,” he said.

The friar, Exmewe, stepped forward, among the men of high degree, and bowed towards Geoffrey de Calis. “The game is begun,” he said in a low voice. “The oratory was well burned with Greek fire. The death in the cloister of St. Paul’s came by chance, as I believe, but it served our purpose well enough.”

“Who are these people you lead?”

“Broken-down people. The helpless and hopeless ones of this world. There is Richard Marrow, a carpenter who would creep to the cross if he could. Emnot Hallyng, whose head is higher than his hat. Garret Barton, a malignant man who fights the world. There is one of Paul’s manciples.”

“Oh?” Geoffrey de Calis raised his head. “Which one is that?”

“Robert Rafu.”

“I know him to be cowardly disposed. He eats too little.”

“Hamo Fulberd, a marvellously ill-favoured youth. He is marked down for an especial doom.”

“And they know nothing of our purposes?”

“Nothing whatever. They have not the least suspicion of me. They believe me to be, like them, a foreknown one.”

Miles Vavasour raised his voice from the back. “The common report is that your people are Lollards.”

“No matter.” Geoffrey de Calis put his hand on Exmewe’s shoulder. “If Lollers are blamed, so much the better. The Lollards have not hearts or livers great enough to burn down churches, but let them be burdened with the guilt. They will arouse the people. The king will be considered weak and foolish in the face of these violations. If he cannot protect Holy Mother Church, he is the shadowy one who cannot bear the sun. The anointed one will fall. Not even Christ and his holy blood can save him.”

They laughed at the allusion to Christ’s holy blood, for they were neither deceived by nor afraid of the tricks and japes of the Church.

These men comprised a group known as Dominus¹³ which had been secretly assembled eighteen months earlier, with the sole purpose of dethroning Richard II. In this company were well-known clerics as well as several of the king’s councillors. There were also dignitaries of London, including an under-sheriff and two eminent aldermen. Geoffrey de Calis himself had been appointed by King Richard as Constable of Wallingford and the Chilterns, a sinecure which he had successfully “farmed” for an annual payment. Yet now, as a result of the king’s depredations, their lands and their wealth were not safe; Richard demanded new taxes, and confiscated property on mere pretext. So they were willing to risk all in order to destroy him. It was they who had agreed to finance Henry Bolingbroke’s invasion. It was they who, a year before, had persuaded William Exmewe to establish a group of rebellious ones who would be willing to challenge the pope and the bishops within the city of London; they had decided that outrage and confusion among the citizens would speed their course and the destruction of the king. William Exmewe had by chance found Richard Marrow, in the refectory of St. Bartholomew, and had conversed with him on matters spiritual; Marrow had in turn informed Exmewe about the group of foreknown men to which he was joined. Exmewe eventually accompanied Marrow to the meetings of these men, and soon gained mastery over them with his rhetoric and his piety.

“And how is this gear to proceed?” Miles Vavasour took pleasure in asking questions.

“I have spread the report among the predestined men,” Exmewe replied, “that there must be five wonders to hasten the day of deliverance. You know the old device of the five circles interlinked?” It was the sign used by Joseph of Arimathea, and a token of the early church. “It has wonderfully impressed itself upon them.”

“So there are three remaining?” Miles Vavasour, as a sergeant-at-law, prided himself upon his quick wit. “The oratory and Paul’s have been first and second.”

“There then follow St. Sepulchre, St. Michael le Querne and St. Giles. At all points of the city.”

They murmured approval. Their voices had the confidence of power, and they were on easy terms with one another. They were jovial, almost careless, in their demeanour; they were frank, and confiding and free. The unstated belief among them would have been that, just as there was nothing before birth, so there was nothing after death. It were wise, therefore, to enjoy