Come Rack! Come Rope! By Robert Hugh Benson, Post #2

This is second post of a series on the historical novel Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson. 

You can find Post #1 here. 

 

Part 1, Chapters 1 thru 4

Summary

We meet the Robin Audrey and Marjorie Manners, two seventeen year old Catholics who are in love and have secretly sworn to marry.  Robin tells her that his father, frustrated with the taxes and difficulties and harassment of keeping Catholic, has decided to turn Protestant.  It was a shock to both, and they decide that if he does Robin is to quietly go away.  Robin goes away with Marjorie’s gift of a rosary and meets Anthony Babington, one year older than Robin, and passionate about his Catholic faith.  Babington seems to understand the politics that has circled around the Catholic oppression.  Robin, with “black shame,” tells Babington that his father intends to leave the Church.

On the next day, Robin on his way to Babington’s house meets a number of people who are also to meet with Anthony.  They meet with a secret priest.  When Robin returns home and his father and mentions of a Mass to be celebrated, his father asks where the Mass will be said, Robin refuses to tell him, and coldness comes between the two.

A few days later, his father confronts Robin at dinner.  An argument ensues because Robin has refused to be open to his father.  The argument escalates into a verbal confrontation, Robin admitting he loves Marjorie and that he told her of his plans to turn Protestant.  Ashamed at confronting his father, Robin leaves a note of apology. 

Robin meets with his Catholic friends again.  He returns to find the note crumbled and tossed.  He meets with Marjorie.  He tells her what has happened between him and his father.  He tells her about the traveling priest.  It seems a person who is a fine horseman and knows the area would be best suited to be priest.  Marjorie intimates of a coming sorrow and holds Robin close.

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Joseph Commented:

I really enjoyed these opening chapters. We quite often read about the immediate back and forth under Henry VIII, Edward V, and Mary I but outside of knowing that Catholicism was illegal under Elizabeth I we don't usually read much about the persecutions. A few years ago I was game master for the Solomon Kane RPG and I tried to work some of this history into the play, but Robert E. Howard didn't discuss it much in his original stories so it's not well fleshed out in the setting itself even though the stories take place about the same time as this.

My Reply to Joseph:

Yes, I particularly enjoyed the scenic descriptions. I went back to my comments on our first novel of Benson's we read, Lord of the World, and I particularly highlighted how good Benson was at drawing scenes and describing narrative. I did say his drawing of characters was a bit two dimensional, and while it is too early in the novel to tell I get the same impression. For instance, Robin's father's anger and confrontation seems a bit too out of nowhere. Here is a loving father of seventeen years and a good Catholic for all his life and he turns from Dr. Jeckyll to Mr. Hyde rather suddenly. There's no sense of depth to his flip, no compunction of his reaction to his son. But I'm being picayune. It's enjoyable.

Joseph Replied:

I would quibble with that as the first couple of chapters point out that the families have been selling off their estates in order to pay the penalty for not attending Anglican services. They're out in Derbyshire so their income is entirely from the rents paid by the farmers on their estates so we're talking about a few, small farming villages. If there are a couple of years of poor harvests then that income is going to take a major hit and it sounds like the penalties for land owners were pretty steep though I would need to do more research to be sure.

My Reply to Joseph:

I wasn't criticizing the fact that he intends to convert - I understand that - but that there is no regret and that he has a total lack of understanding it seems for Robin refusing to follow in his conversion. If money were the sole reason for converting, then you would expect a person to have a sense of sadness over it all and he would have some empathy for Robin. If not empathy, at least understanding.

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I did get lost with some of the characters we meet in the scenes away from Robin’s home or his time with Marjorie.  I’m going to list them, and where I can give a one line summary of who they are I will.  On those I can’t, see if you can help out and provide that one line summary.  I would like to keep a running list of the characters.

Mr. Barton – Protestant minister

Thomas FitzHerbert - ?

Anthony Babington – Young, Catholic man involved in the Catholic/Protestant politics.

John Merton – Owner of a farm in Dethick; Catholic.

Mr. Thomas – Is that the same person as Thomas FitzHerbeert?

Mistress Westley – Mr. Thomas’s wife.

Mr. Fenton - ?

Mr. Bassett - ?

Mr. Garlick - ?

Mr. Simpson – Secret Catholic priest.

Cuthbert Maine – Recently executed Catholic priest.

Dick Sampson - ?

John FitzHerbert – Thomas’s father.

Mr. Nelson - ?

Mr. Ludlam - ?

That’s all I can find for now.  Were there others?  Strange, I could not find Robin’s father’s first name.  Did I miss it?

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Peej reminded me that I wanted to mention Shakespeare, in a historical context rather than literary.  These early scenes are set I think in the 1580s.  Has anyone pinpointed a date or a marker that would indicate a rough time frame?  Shakespeare was born in 1564 and did in 1616.  His life overlaps the novel’s setting.  He would have been sixteen in 1580 and twenty-three in 1587 when Mary Queen of Scots was executed.  He was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is about an hour’s drive south from Derbyshire where these early scenes take place.  This was the heart of the Catholic resistance, and Shakespeare lived through it, and I am convinced was a Catholic himself.  Whether he actively participated in the resistance is hard to tell.  So much of his personal life is unknown.  There is no question that in his plays he frequently ridicules the Puritans and there are a number of sympathies to Catholic or Catholic themes.  The fact that so many of his plays are set in Italy and France is startling when you think of the international politics going on.  The fact that his histories glorify a pre-Protestant England is also telling.  But it’s more than this.  He had family members, including his in-laws, who were known recusants.  The fact that as a playwright in England there is no record of him attending Anglican services is noticeable.  Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna married a recusant.  His father left a last will and testimony proclaiming he was Catholic.  While there is no smoking gun evidence that Shakespeare himself was Catholic, there is no smoking gun evidence he was not, and there are just too many connections to Catholics and Catholicism for it to not be so.  A book that pulls this all together, and which I highly recommend, is Joseph Pearce’s The Quest for Shakespeare. It is a great read and might be a nice complement to this novel.

Joseph Pearce summarizes the case for Shakespeare's Catholicism in this National Catholic Register article.

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Frances Commented:

This is a book I have only heard of, not read: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt. In one fascinating chapter, Greenblatt imagines that young Shakespeare met Edmund Campion (martyred in 1581). Is anyone in our group familiar with the book?

My Reply to Frances:

I have not Frances. I have yet to find a book on Shakespeare that address the strong possibility of his Catholicism. It's as if they don't want to admit it because a heck of a lot of literary understanding of his plays would go out the window. For instance there are Catholic readings of King Lear and Hamlet which flies in the face of the existential, skeptical readings of those plays that has dominated secular criticism for the past hundred plus years. A lot of modern readings of his plays should go out the window. If the Greenblatt book addresses Shakespeare's Catholicism, then I might pick it up. Otherwise I'm done with secular misreadings of Shakespeare.

Frances Replied:

I haven’t read it, Manny. This week I did some reading about it. The NYTimes reviewer seems to conclude that speculation about Shakespeare’s religion is just that—speculation. I went to Amazon and read reviews of the book, made by people who thave read it. They’re very interesting reading; Shakespeare always seems to elude us, though.

 

References to a meeting between S. And Edmund Campion appear in several places in addition to Will in the World, but not — at least from what I read — definitively. One Jesuit who does stand out as a direct influence on Shakespeare was a surprise to me: Robert Southwell, also martyred. I have to go back and look but in one place I read direct comparisons between Southwell’s writing and scenes in King Lear.

 

I’m sorry not to be of more help. Joseph has read Will in the World. He’d undoubtedly be a better person to ask. What I find most interesting are the many mentions of Catholic influence on Shakespeare in a number of scholarly works.

 

I discovered this today: in the February 21, 2021 issue of The Catholic World Report (online), Joseph Pearce gives a striking interview concerning Robert Southwell and Shakespeare. Southwell, although he’s recognized as a Jesuit martyr, isn’t recognized nearly enough for the brilliant poet he was. And he died at age 33.

 

Why not look at the reviews of Greenblatt’s book and see what you think?

My Reply to Frances:

Frances, do yourself a favor, read Joseph Pearce's The Quest for Shakespeare. Look at all the evidence from a Catholic's perspective. And by that, I mean by a perspective that has not been tainted by secularist and/or anti Catholic bias. Not only that, you will love the book.

 

Frances, that is an excellent article. I highly recommend reading it. It really does pertain to our Come Rack! Come Rope! read in that it sketches the life of the secret priests in the day and of what hung, drawn, and quartered actually was. Here is a link to the article.  

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Robert Hugh Benson is such a fine writer of prose.  I want to present a lovely written  passage in each of the sections that we fragment for our reading purposes.  In chapter two, I was struck by this passage as Robin goes to Dethick, John Merton’s estate.  Here has dinner with Merton, Anthony Babington, and Thomas FitzHerbert, key members of the local Catholic families.

 

It was a great day for a yeoman when three gentlemen should take their dinners in his house; and the place was in a respectful uproar. From the kitchen vent went up a pillar of smoke, and through its door, in and out continually, fled maids with dishes. The yeoman himself, John Merton, a dried-looking, lean man, stood cap in hand to meet the gentlemen; and his wife, crimson-faced from the fire, peeped and smiled from the open door of the living-room that gave immediately upon the yard. For these gentlemen were from three of the principal estates here about. The Babingtons had their country house at Dethick and their town house in Derby; the Audreys owned a matter of fifteen hundred acres at least all about Matstead; and the FitzHerberts, it was said, scarcely knew themselves all that they owned, or rather all that had been theirs until the Queen’s Grace had begun to strip them of it little by little on account of their faith. The two Padleys, at least, were theirs, besides their principal house at Norbury; and now that Sir Thomas was in the Fleet Prison for his religion, young Mr. Thomas, his heir, was of more account than ever.  (p. 22)

Not only is that lovely but I think it fills in the novel’s key characters.  The Catholic characters come from rural families who own a good deal of property, and have a lot to lose by refusing to join the Protestant supremacy. 

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Part 1, Chapters 5 thru 9

Summary

Marjorie’s parents learn of Robin and Marjorie’s love and intent to marry, and they learn of Robin’s father’s intent to apostasy.  When Mr. Manners questions Marjorie, the daughter confesses but insists that Robin may not ask her to marry despite his love, and this confuses the parents.  Marjorie doesn’t tell them that she fears Robin will become a priest instead.

On Easter Sunday we see Mr. Audrey attend the Protestant services and partake of Protestant communion.  He is picked up by his servant Dick and brought back home, where the rest of the servants notice a difference in their master.

At the same time the Catholic Easter services take place at Padley, where an Easter Mass is celebrated by Mr. Simpson.  In attendance are all the Catholic families and their servants.  Robin and Marjorie have time after the Mass to speak privately where Robin reveals he has not made up his mind about the priesthood.  Robin gets angry when he suspects Marjorie is pushing him away, though it’s more a reaction to the stress than to really believing Marjorie wants him gone.  He apologizes.

Mr. Simpson, the priest, reads a letter from a friend who witnessed the execution of two Catholics in London by being hung, drawn, and quartered.  One was a priest, which was sad but not surprising, and the other was a layman which surprised and sent shivers down the congregation.  It seems as if the persecution of Catholics had returned.  Queen Elizabeth had not initially returned to the persecutions that were common under Henry VIII, but now it seemed circumstances had changed.

A week later Robin returns home where another confrontation with his father takes place.  Babington tells Robin of Mr. Audrey’s anger beforehand.  The father’s verbal attack then on Robin is merciless, belying any fatherly love for his son.  The father refuses to pay the Catholic tax the son would owe and gives him until Pentecost to leave.  In a dream, Robin receives a singular grace to be a priest and accepts it and wakes his father to tell him and that he is leaving for Rheims.

That same night, Marjorie also has a grace, an insight that Robin has chosen the priesthood.  She wakes her mother to tell her, and she cries at her feet.  Two days later Robin rides to Marjorie to tell her.  On telling her, it puts an end to their relationship.  He kisses her goodbye.

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Kerstin Commented:

So far the focus hasn't been on Mr. Audrey's inner struggle to become Protestant. Aside from the hardships, which were not inconsiderable, how did the average person deal with all the changes that shook a person's very core? Fr. Benson touches on this when he attends Easter services:

Yet here he sat—a man feared and even loved by some—the first of his line to yield to circumstance, and to make peace with his times. Not a man of all who looked on him believed him certainly to be that which his actions professed him to be; some doubted, especially those who themselves inclined to the old ways or secretly followed them; and the hearts of these grew sick as they watched.

 

Here is the scene when Mr. Audrey takes the Protestant communion. He seems a bit hesitant at first, but then stoically and quickly, as if to get it over with, takes it. What is remarkable here, is that the pastor, Mr. Barton, hesitates before offering the bread and cup. With everyone watching, it seems everyone present knows what is happening here is just an imitation, done for theatric's skake.

 

For a moment the minister stood before the seat, as if doubtful what to do. He held the plate in his left hand and a fragment of bread in his fingers. Then, as he began the words he had to say, one thing at least the people saw, and that was that a great flush dyed the old man's face, though he sat quiet. Then, as the minister held out the bread, the squire seemed to recover himself; he put out his fingers quickly, took the bread sharply and put it into his mouth; and so sat again, until the minister brought the cup; and this, too, he drank of quickly, and gave it back. Then, as the communicants, one by one, took the bread and wine and went back to their seats, man after man glanced up at the squire. But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of stone.

 

I wonder if Mr. Audrey's abrupt manner isn't just a cover to hide the immense tension he is buckling under. A person doesn't do an about-face like this out of nowhere. Perhaps he pushes Robin so relentlessly so as to gain an ally, that his apostasy isn't as glaring to the life-long friends he is turning his back to.

My Reply to Kerstin:

Good observation Kerstin. It's hard to say what Benson is trying to convey about Audrey. I could read his hesitation as habit being tough to overcome, but his desire to join the Protestants is there. There is nothing in all the scenes where we have seen Audrey that he in any way has qualms about his apostasy. If anything he is bullheaded about it, so bullheaded that he doesn't seem to mind the loss of his son.

 

The drawing of Audrey's character is the one aspect of the novel I think weak.

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For this section of chapters, I want to highlight the Easter Mass, which ends chapter seven.  It certainly contrasts with the Protestant Easter service from the chapter before, but I think more importantly it coordinates with the novel’s themes.  Pay attention to the priest’s homily.  Whenever you get a sermon in literature, it almost always echoes the themes in some way.

 

It was a strange and an inspiriting sight that the young priest (for it was Mr. Simpson who was saying the mass) looked upon as he turned round after the gospel to make his little sermon. From end to end the tiny chapel was full, packed so that few could kneel and none sit down. The two doors were open, and here two faces peered in; and behind, rank after rank down the steps and along the little passage, the folk stood or knelt, out of sight of both priest and altar, and almost out of sound. The sanctuary was full of children—whose round-eyed, solemn faces looked up at him—children who knew little or nothing of what was passing, except that they were there to worship God, but who, for all that, received impressions and associations that could never thereafter wholly leave them. The chapel was still completely dark, for the faint light of dawn was excluded by the heavy hangings over the windows; and there was but the light of the two tapers to show the people to one another and the priest to them all.

 

It was an inspiriting sight to him then—and one which well rewarded him for his labours, since there was not a class from gentlemen to labourers who was not represented there. The FitzHerberts, the Babingtons, the Fentons—these, with their servants and guests, accounted for perhaps half of the folk. From the shadow by the door peeped out the faces of John Merton and his wife and son; beneath the window was the solemn face of Mr. Manners the lawyer, with his daughter beside him, Robin Audrey beside her, and Dick his servant behind him. Surely, thought the young priest, the Faith could not be in its final decay, with such a gathering as this.

 

His little sermon was plain enough for the most foolish there. He spoke of Christ’s Resurrection; of how death had no power to hold Him, nor pains nor prison to detain Him; and he spoke, too, of that mystical life of His which He yet lived in His body, which was the Church; of how Death, too, stretched forth his hands against Him there, and yet had no more force to hold Him than in His natural life lived on earth near sixteen hundred years ago; how a Resurrection awaited Him here in England as in Jerusalem, if His friends would be constant and courageous, not faithless, but believing.

 

“Even here,” he said, “in this upper chamber, where we are gathered for fear of the Jews, comes Jesus and stands in the midst, the doors being shut. Upon this altar He will be presently, the Lamb slain yet the Lamb victorious, to give us all that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.”

 

And he added a few words of exhortation and encouragement, bidding them fear nothing whatever might come upon them in the future; to hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, and so to attain the heavenly crown. He was not eloquent, for he was but a young man newly come from college, with no great gifts. Yet not a soul there looked upon him, on his innocent, wondering eyes and his quivering lips, but was moved by what he saw and heard.

 

The priest signed himself with the cross, and turned again to continue the mass.

 Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.  (pp. 67-68)

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Kerstin Comment:

There is another aspect that is worth looking into, which I find we don’t do often enough when reading literature: the meaning of the names of the main protagonists.

 

Robin is a version of Robert, and it means “fame” and “bright”. How this will unfold in our narrative has yet to be revealed.

 

Marjorie is a version of Margaret, and it is the Greek word for pearl. There is a lot of Christian symbolism to unpack here.

 

Pearls are formed in various species of shells and have always been very precious, as they are very rare in nature. For pearls to form they need the shell, no shells, no pearls.

 

The shell is a symbol of the Virgin Mary because she carried Jesus, the precious pearl, in her womb. So Jesus is identified with the pearl. The shell also became a symbol of Christ’s sepulchre and of the Resurrection in the Middle Ages. In art when Jesus gets baptized the water is often poured from a shell. Many priests use shells during baptisms. Baptismal fonts are often shaped in the form of a shell or have them as ornamentation.

 

Jesus reminds us to safeguard what is holy in Matthew 7:6

 

Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.

 

Dogs in Jewish culture were largely stray scavengers, and swine considered unclean. In other words, the Gospel should not be profaned.

 

Then Jesus compares the Kingdom of God with a pearl in Matthew 13: 45-46

 

”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it”

 

And the last quote, in Revelation 21:21 when the New Jerusalem is described,

 

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.

 

Now what does it mean for our story that Marjorie is a living pearl, what does she represent?

My Reply to Kerstin:

That too is spot on Kerstin. On Robin, also I think there might be an allusion to Robin Hood in some way, though I haven't seen it yet. When I did a search, Derby is only 32 miles from Sherwood Forest