Chapter Seventeen
The Squire’s Tale
Some children were singing at the foot of the Cross in Cheapside; they came from the neighbouring streets and by unspoken consent gathered here in the late afternoon, where they played top and penny-prick. They engaged in tugs of war and in the game of pig on the back. Some would pull their hoods over their faces to take part in “I Tell On Who Strikes Me.” Others would bring their toy horses, or their lead images of knights in armour. They formed a circle, holding hands, and chanted the old verse:
“A cow has stolen a calf away
And put her in the sack.
Forsooth, I sell no puddings today.
Masters, what do you lack?”
The sun was slowly descending, on this last day of August, casting long shadows of the Cross over the cobbled stones.
“How many miles to Babylon?
Eight, eight, and another eight.
Might I come there by candlelight?
Yes, by God, if your horse be light.”
Their voices rose into the air and travelled through the spheres towards the fixed stars, brightness mingling with brightness.
And then there was commotion. The sound of horses’ hooves drowned their singing, amid cries of “Haste! Make haste!” Two heralds mounted the lower steps of the Cheapside Cross and shouted out “Oy! Oy! Oy!” until a crowd had assembled. The sheriff of London climbed to the highest step, from which the proclamations of the city were made, and declared himself bound to the Bishop of London, mayor, under-sheriffs, aldermen with all other spiritual lords and gentles as well as commoners of the city of London. “For as much as full great and sorrowful malice, trespass and wicked conjectures have been procured and done by the nun of Clerkenwell known as Clarice, to the great and perpetual confusion and reproof to the said evil-doer, and the great villainy and shame of all those maintaining her in her said malice, wherefore the nun deserves hard and wicked chastisement and punishment.”
Sister Clarice had been arrested by the officers of the Guildhall and sent to the prison of the Bishop of London; she was accused of starting vexatious reports against the king, and of inciting the citizens of London against the spiritual lords of the city.
It was a dangerous and uncertain time. Henry Bolingbroke had halted with his army in Acton, the king closely guarded, only a half day’s ride from the city. It was widely believed that King Richard’s next home would be the Tower. In fact the aldermen were not particularly concerned with the nun’s prophecies against the king; only a few days before a group of citizens had travelled to St. Albans in order to offer submission to Henry Bolingbroke. They were, however, deeply fearful of her power to incite popular riot and discontent at this time of general instability.
The night before the announcement of her imprisonment, Clarice addressed the citizens and their wives from the site of London Stone. “I am right poor,” she said. “I have ugly sights in my sleep. Now I stand a deadly creature, and every day my body draws to the earth as a child to its mother. Yet I must live to warn you. They say that this is a fair city but among fair herbs creep adders, snails, and other venomous worms. There are nests of these worms among you. You know that I set so little by myself that I have become a finger of the right hand of God, pointing to you the way. Take weapons and shields, therefore, and rise in help to me.” It was not clear, from her sometimes confused syntax, who or what needed to be attacked with weapons and with shields. But the mayor and under-sheriffs believed that it was a call to some general revolt – against the city, against the Church, or both equally. So, on the following morning, she was arrested and taken under guard to the bishop’s prison by Paul’s Bars.
By the time the sheriff was making his proclamation by the Great Cross of Cheapside, however, Sister Clarice was already being questioned in the main hall in the keep-tower of the bishop’s palace; the cells were immediately below. Her interrogators were the bishop himself and a squire, Gybon Maghfeld; he was present by virtue of his position as judge of the county of Middlesex, in which Clerkenwell was deemed to be, and as a member of the parliament house for the same county. His interest lay in maintaining order at all costs.
She stood barefoot upon the flagstones before them.
“I must ask you first,” the bishop began, “if you have any stone of virtue upon you, or herb of virtue, or charm, or any other enchantment by you or for you?”
“I am no conjuror or quack-salver, my lord bishop.”
Gybon interjected, his eyes surveying the wall just above Clarice’s head. “But it is said that you hold nightly conferences with spirits.”
“So a poor woman who speaks the word of God is to be condemned as an enchantress.”
“Let us say, rather,” the squire replied, “that you are a troublous woman who has caused much clattering among the common people.”
“Is it clattering to ask them to confess their sins and to pray for mercy at the fast approaching day of doom?”
“What doom?” The bishop was putting on gloves of white kid, in ritual acknowledgement of his role as disputator. “You are out of your wit, girl.”
“I tell you this, lord bishop. Cleanse your sheep from the scab lest they infect others.”
“You will throw words at me, will you?”
“It is the hurling time.”
The bishop spat upon the cold floor. “I see that your sore is full of
