The Rebels of Ireland (20 page)

After a while, he said, “We should go back,” and she said, “Yes, we should,” but neither of them moved. Finally, after what still did not seem so long a time, he glanced up at the sun, which was getting lower in the sky, and rose, and gave her his hand to help her up.

And so they walked slowly back, still talking, to the boat where the fisherman, having mended his nets, had fallen asleep.

When they got back across the water, they found only Walter and Orlando waiting for them. Neither was smiling.

“Where are Lawrence and Cousin Doyle?” she asked. “Did he shoot any duck? I didn't hear the gun go off.”

“They got tired of waiting and went home,” said Orlando bleakly.

Brian O'Byrne immediately apologised for keeping them waiting.

“We weren't so long,” said Anne.

Orlando and Walter glanced at each other.

“You were two hours out there,” Orlando said quietly.

“Oh, I don't think so. We can't have been. It didn't seem any time at all,” Anne answered brightly. “He told me all about Wicklow.”

“You could see a hermit like Saint Kevin living out there,” said O'Byrne quickly. He turned to Walter. “I took Orlando up to Glendalough once, you know. He prayed for nearly an hour at the shrine of Saint Kevin.”

“I'll walk with you now, Brian,” said Orlando as soon as O'Byrne had paid the fisherman. “Anne and Walter will want to walk together.”

On the way home, Anne took Walter's arm and squeezed it gently.

“I didn't realise we were so long,” she said. “I thought you were looking for duck down on the marshes.”

“We were,” said Walter.

“You know, I should like us all to visit Rathconan one day,” she said.

But Walter did not reply.

On a bright Sunday morning in June 1627, Doctor Simeon Pincher made his way from Trinity College to Christ Church. It was normal for the doctor to walk with a stern purpose in his step; but today he strode like a champion of old, a Hector or Achilles, going into battle. And indeed, he was going into the greatest battle of his life, from which, he had no doubt, he would emerge victorious.

For today Doctor Pincher, by a single daring action, was going to place himself at the head—the moral head, at least—of the entire Protestant community of Dublin, and even perhaps of all Ireland.

As he passed through the eastern city gate and started up Dame Street, he noted with approval that the great bell of Christ Church had already begun to toll. “I shall be ringing the bell an extra ten minutes, Your Honour, on your account,” Tidy had promised him the day before. “It'll be a great day when you preach your sermon, Sir.” He must remember to give Tidy a shilling for his kindness, Pincher thought. Perhaps even two.

If Pincher was committing himself to a mighty battle, he had also, like a good general, made careful preparations. Firstly, his timing was excellent. For months now, the Church of Ireland's senior men had been aware of the growing hopes of the Catholic community for some help from the king; and in recent months, while men like Orlando Walsh were drawing up proposals, concern in these Protestant circles had turned to alarm. Something had to be done—they all agreed.

Next, Pincher had chosen his battleground carefully. He was not mounting an invasion into unknown territory. The bridgehead had already been established when, during the month of April, no less a person than the uncompromising Protestant Bishop of Derry had come down to Dublin and preached a scathing sermon on the sinfulness of tolerating Catholicism. “To tolerate Catholics,” he had firmly announced, “is to dishonour God.” The sermon had been much admired, but had not been followed up with anything practical. Pincher had also made sure that his troops were all prepared and his allies in place. For a month now, he had been quietly talking to friends in Trinity and the sympathetic administrators in Dublin Castle. The Lord Deputy himself was away that week, but many of his officials would be attending the service, and the congregation would be judiciously packed with supporters. Word had also been leaked to men like Doyle that something dramatic was going to happen in Christ Church that morning, for to achieve the effect he wanted, Pincher needed a large audience.

As he came in sight of the cathedral precincts, he was pleased to see that a number of the Catholic aldermen—the very fellows who would normally be drinking at the inn until the sermon was over—were also gathering there out of curiosity. By the end of the service, some of those men would be his mortal enemies. So much the better. That was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to be the one they hated. That would make him the leader.

The Protestant army was waiting to be led. If his sister in England still had doubts about him, if perhaps he had even once or twice had doubts about himself, his actions today would put those doubts to rest forever. This, it must be, was the predestined role for which the Lord had kept him in waiting. He was chosen not only to be one of the Elect, but to lead them.

Yet when, a little later, Pincher took his seat in the cathedral, even he was astonished by the success of his preparations. The church was packed. It was one of the largest congregations he had ever seen—from loyal souls like Tidy's wife and his Trinity friends, and the Church of Ireland regulars like Doyle, to such frankly Catholic merchants as Walter Smith and his wife. Dublin Castle, as he'd hoped, was well represented, too. The plan had worked. They had all come to hear him.

The morning service at Christ Church was an impressive affair. The choir was excellent. As well as the modern organ, which had been installed a decade ago, the precentor and organist also employed other musicians to enrich the sound. Today there were viols, sackbuts, and cornets. Pincher could not entirely approve of these extra embellishments, which he thought too rich and pompous for a Protestant service; but in other respects the arrangements at Christ Church were to be commended. The communion table was plain and simple and stood modestly in the centre of the choir. There were few candles, little ornament. And above all, there could be no doubt about where the true focus of the whole proceedings lay: not in the choir, not upon the altar, not even in the prayers, important though these were. The focus of a Protestant service was the pulpit.
Catholics might go to church to see flickering candles and the sacred host, miracle and mystery; but Presbyterians came to hear the preacher preach.

And a preaching they should have. When the appointed time came, Pincher rose from his seat and ascended the stairs to the pulpit. His face was pale, his Geneva gown all black as ink. During an expectant silence, he surveyed the multitude. Having done so, he opened his arms wide, like an avenging angel, then, lowering them, he clasped the edge of the pulpit in front of him and, leaning out into space towards the congregation as though he were now a bird of prey straining forward from its perch, he cried out in a terrible voice:

“I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

The word of the Lord. The tenth chapter of Matthew. The Saviour's most fearful words. The congregation gave a collective shudder.

A sermon in the Stuart age was an impressive thing—a mighty structure, constructed like a building. First came the foundation, the biblical text. Then, like so many columns and arches, transepts and chapels, came related texts, learned allusions, and subsidiary themes—for the congregation liked their preachers to be learned—stated and repeated, amplified, piled one on top of the other, and all set forth with the muscular magnificence of Protestant prose. And thereby was raised up a rhetorical temple so huge, complex, and echoing that by the end it might almost be wondered whether the authors of the sacred texts themselves could have imagined the mighty structure of which their humble words were now a part.

Why, Pincher asked his hearers, why was it that Our Saviour came not to send peace? Because such a thing was impossible: by the very fact that He was good and holy—here followed several learned allusions—it was impossible that He should do so. Were not all things possible to God? All except one, for He had established it so, and that was that He should sin. But we know sin. He looked sternly at the congregation. They knew sin. Mankind had known sin from the first, since the Serpent—here followed several allusions to the Prince of Darkness—since the Serpent had beguiled Eve and
she had tempted Adam. “Since Man's first disobedience and the fruit of the forbidden tree brought death into the world,” he cried, “we have no peace.” Peace will come only at the end of the world, when the devil at last is vanquished by Our Saviour. Sin shall be destroyed. There is no other way to deal with the devil but by striking him down.

“I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

Man had fallen, he continued, Paradise was lost. Like Adam, we wander the world, where the devil has set snares and temptations for us—forbidden trees—at every turn. Eat of their fruits, and we shall be snatched away to everlasting hellfire, with no further hope of salvation. Adam was warned by God not to eat of the tree, but that benefit has been removed from us now that we have fallen, and often as not, the devil has made the forbidden trees to be fair-seeming. “The serpent is sapient and subtle,” he informed them. “He speaks sweetly and softly.” He makes use of Eve, the eternal temptress. She shows us fruit, fair without, yet corrupt within. How, therefore, shall we know the temptress and the fruit for what they are? He would tell them, he declared. A tree is known by its fruits: that was how they could know. And now he paused and looked around them all.

“There is a tree in the world,” he cried out loudly, “whose fruits we know.” Superstition, idol worship, blasphemy, hypocrisy: of what tree was he speaking? What else could it be? What yielded these fruits, if not the Church of Rome?

“The Church of Rome,” he shouted, “the painted whore, with her incense and images, her liturgies and lurries. Beware, I say, of the papist Eve, the harlot and the Jezebel. Turn your face from her. Strike her down!

“I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

The congregation had given a little gasp at this. The sentiments were familiar enough, but to hear such a virulent attack, in the presence of so many Catholic gentlemen of Dublin, was more than a sermon. It was a declaration of war. Pincher was in full flood, however, and was moving inexorably to his next topic.

The sword, he reminded them, was a weapon that made clear divisions. Good was divided from evil, and the distinction was absolute. Let them beware, he cried, let them not believe that any man can serve two masters. Those who compromise with evil—he gave his audience a terrible look—partake of evil, and are divided clearly by the sword from the good. They shall be damned. Damned utterly, damned eternally. There were some—he let his eyes travel round them all accusingly—sinners here present who were willing to compromise, and who counted the devil amongst their friends. What did he mean? he asked rhetorically. Had he examples in mind? And now came the moment he had prepared for. Yes, he had.

The list of sinners was long. Apart from his supporters, there was scarcely a person in the congregation who was without blame. There were those who tolerated the presence of Jesuits living openly near the cathedral itself; those who winked at the keeping of papist priests in chapels, private houses, and even city churches. Church land was being let or sublet to Catholics who kept their priests upon the proceeds. Recusants were escaping fines. The entire way of life that had made the religious division in Ireland bearable was mercilessly exposed, and condemned. “Our Lord has promised that the meek shall inherit the earth,” he thundered, “but in Ireland, instead, it is inherited by traitors.”

The congregation understood all too well. A shocked silence seemed to roll through the sea of faces like a wave. But Pincher had prepared for this also. For now, from twenty or thirty Protestant lips came an echoing “Amen.”

“Repent!” he cried back in answer. For what, he demanded, would be the fate of the city of Dublin if they failed to enforce the Protestant faith? Had not the Lord foretold the fate of the cities which heard the word but repented not? He had indeed, in the Gospel of Matthew. “Woe unto thee,” Pincher called out in a loud voice, “it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgement than for thee.”

“Amen,” called back his chorus.

“I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

“And yet…” The doctor paused, and to the congregation's surprise, gazed at them benevolently. “The way is hard.” What if, perhaps, a Catholic is our neighbour, a man to whose company we have grown accustomed, to whom we are bound by daily courtesy, even affection? What must we do then? We may preach the true faith. There can be no harm in that. We may reason with our neighbour, urge him to repent and to forswear his foolish ways. We may pray for him. We should pray for him. But if after all this, if still in his obstinacy he continues in his sin, then no matter what the ties, we must sever them, we must turn from them lest we be contaminated ourselves; we must divide them utterly from the body politic and even strike them down. For what did Our Lord say?