‘A terrible business, this.’ My neighbour, a corpulent grocer, opened a whispered conversation. ‘In all my forty years in the City I’ve never heard the like.’
‘Aye,’ I agreed. ‘Know you if the magistrate has made any progress tracking down the culprit?’
‘I think not. Mind you, we all know who was behind it, do we not? ’Tis another clergy plot, like the old Hunne affair.’
‘Hunne affair?’ I queried. ‘What was that?’
‘Of course, you are too young to remember. It was… what… let me see, twenty years ago, mayhap more. Richard Hunne was, like Master Packington, a highly respected member of our merchant community. He had little love for the clergy and fell out right royally with his parish priest. He was going to take the fellow to court. The next we heard, he’d been arrested on a charge of heresy and clapped in Tunstall’s prison. He was found there in his cell — hanged by the neck, like a common sheep-stealer.’
‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I think I remember something about it now. The bishop’s people were suspected of murder but it never came to trial.’
‘That’s right. The bastards hushed it up. Had it judged in Tunstall’s own court and acquitted the killers. Suicide, they said. Bastards!’ He scowled. ‘One law for them and another for the likes of us. Look at them.’ He pointed to the clergy in their cassocks and copes, who were filing into the stalls on the other side of the screen. ‘’Tis always the same. They think their “holy orders” make them better than other men. Any breath of criticism or scandal and they close ranks. But times have changed. They won’t get away with it now.’ He fell silent as the choir began the Dirige Domine.
The doleful ritual followed its course and eventually reached the place allotted to the sermon. As the preacher — a tall figure in the habit of an Austin friar — climbed into the pulpit, a murmur of recognition and surprise rippled through the congregation. The man chosen to deliver the oration was one of the most controversial figures in London. You either liked or loathed Robert Barnes. His many enemies dubbed him a pestilential, argumentative Lutheran. The bishop had banned him from City churches but he was powerless to prevent private citizens nominating him to preach at their funerals. Robert, I knew, looked up to Barnes as a champion of the new, radical religion and that was why he was here this morning to speak at my friend’s obsequies. The king had, apparently, wavered in his opinion. He had, on more than one occasion, had the friar thrown into prison but latterly had appointed him an ambassador to the German princes who espoused Lutheranism and were in league against the Emperor. Like many of my neighbours, I had long abandoned the effort of trying to understand the toings and froings of royal policy. Like them, I, too, wanted to hear what Barnes had to say. Would it bring me any nearer to understanding what Robert believed and what might offer some clue to his murder?
The preacher clutched the reading desk and for several moments gazed keenly round the congregation. Not a sound disturbed the expectant silence. When, at last, he spoke it was in a strong, deep, booming voice that brooked no contradiction. ‘The fifteenth of St John in the fine English of William Tyndale, which I would that you all did read:
“The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, so will they persecute you; if they have kept my saying, so will they keep yours. All these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they have not known him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they should not have had sin; but now have they nothing to cloak their sin withal. He that hates me hates my father.”
‘Christ here speaks to us of masters and servants and enemies and I would that we dwell briefly on each of these. What, then, do we know of masters? “Why”, you say, “they are even those that give us orders.” Aye, and so they do. Yet do they not also feed you, pay your wages, commend your diligence and chastise your indolence? Even so, does our heavenly Lord, for sure it is you never had nor can have a more just, a more generous or a more caring master…’
Barnes spent several minutes on this theme before moving on to his next heading.
‘But what said this good Lord, this best of all lords, about servants? “The servant is not greater than his lord.” You all know that to be true. What a topsy-turvy world that would be where servants tried to rule over their masters. Yet what do we see in our own land today? A rebel rabble in the North who would dictate to our sovereign lord the king the membership of his Council, the laws to be passed by his parliament, the ordering of worship in his church! Yet is there more to Christ’s words than this: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you… If they kept my saying, they will keep yours.” The servant is identified with his master. He wears his livery. He is known for his lord’s man. He carries his lord’s messages. He defends his lord’s honour when others seek to besmirch his name. He goes to war in his lord’s army. Mayhap he will die for his lord… as has honest Master Packington. For why does his cadaver lie there?’ Barnes made a dramatic gesture towards the coffin. ‘For loyally serving his Lord Christ — even unto death. Be not deceived, good neighbours.’ Barnes paused again to glare at the congregation and it must have seemed to every person present that the preacher caught his eye, and his alone. ‘Be not deceived. Master Packington was slain for being good servant to his heavenly Master, for openly wearing Christ’s livery. For speaking Christ’s truth to all who would hear. And, even now, his spirit stands before his Lord to hear his gracious commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”’
It was true, then. For all his outward respectability, Robert had been a member — and, seemingly, a prominent member — of this heretical underworld. My mind recoiled at the thought but could no longer reject it.
Barnes was now working up to his peroration. The words tumbled excitedly from his lips and were reinforced by dramatic gestures. ‘Thus we come to the third type of whom Christ spoke: his enemies. These are they, he says, who hate him and hate his Father. Why did men hate the good Christ? Who could possibly hate our good Lord? Hear again what he says: “If I had not spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now have they nothing to cloak their sin withal.” Christ denounced the priests and Pharisees of ancient Jewry for what they were — hypocrites, blind guides, men who paraded their false piety before the world to win the praise of the common people.’ Barnes turned to gaze on the rows of clergy in their chancel pews. ‘These were his enemies; sinners who were struck to the quick by his words of truth. Scripture tells us “He knew what was in men’s hearts” and it was because Christ revealed to his enemies the truth about themselves that they tried to silence him.
‘What is the question on every Londoner’s lips in these days? Is it not, “Who has done this monstrous thing? Who has struck down our beloved Master Packington?” Well, I will give you now the answer: it is the enemies of Christ. The servant is not greater than his master. Robert Packington was proud to wear his Lord’s livery and it was his Lord’s sworn foes who set another to silence him. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would not soil their own hands with Christ’s blood; they had the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, do their evil work for them. Our modern hypocrites, the Roman priests of London, who are enemies alike to Christ and to King Henry, paid a desperate villain to slay Christ’s servant, Robert Packington. So, my neighbours, as you pray for the soul of our dear brother departed, pray also that his enemies may be brought to justice. But pray, above all, that the true Gospel, for which Master Packington died a holy martyr, may be set forth among us with the blessing of our sovereign lord, the king, and to the confusion of Christ’s enemies.’