Come Rack! Come Rope! By Robert Hugh Benson, Post #5

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

You can find Post #1 here.  

Post #2 here.  

Post #3 here.  

Post #4 here.  

 

Part IV, Chapters 4 thru 9 

Summary  

Marjorie hears about the two priests being taken at FitzHerbert’s.  Robin makes his way back to her home.  She arranges for him to hide out at a shepherd’s hut a couple of hours away.  He hears about the executions of those captured at FitzHerbert’s.  

He is called back to Marjorie’s but has a feeling of being followed.  He hears of the news the Spanish Armada has been destroyed by the English fleet.  At Marjorie’s a posse is heard approaching the house, and they rush Robin into the priest hole upstairs.  Leading the posse is Mr. Audrey, Robin’s father, who has no idea who the priest is hiding in the house.  Nonetheless he is reluctant to damage Marjorie’s house since he is on good terms with her.  She is shocked that the magistrate is Mr. Audrey and that he will be apprehending his own son.  She wants to warn him in some fashion but is powerless to do so.  Just as they are about to give up, one of the men from the posse strikes the wall of the priest hole, opening it, and finding Robin.  

Robin is taken to a jail in Derby.  He is hopeful they will not prove he is a priest.  He resolves to admit nothing.  The country people are exuberant from the news of the defeat of the Armada. 

Marjorie and Mr. Bidell try to formulate a defense for Robin.  Lord Shrewsbury and now Topcliffe, who has come to Derby for this, form the prosecuting opposition.  Marjorie realizes how events are conspiring against Robin.  What would be a first offense not punishable by death is being conflated with the Babington plot against the Queen’s life and the treason of coordinating with Spain.  

 Under Topcliffe’s interrogation, Robin is put on the rack and water tortured.  The pain is excruciating and the sense of drowning pushes Robin in and out of consciousness.  Still Robin refuses to admit anything, and he certainly denies involvement with the plot.  The torture goes on for three days and completely breaks Robin bodily.  

 Still Robin is condemned to being hung, drawn, and quartered.  His disfigured body can barely cooperate with the events, but he does not resist in any way.  Dragged by horses, his aching body reaches another level of pain.  Finally he is brought up to the gallows platform, not resisting but unable to climb up under his own power.  At the gallows he is allowed to make a last statement.  He freely and proudly admits he is a priest and that he dies for the Catholic faith, prays for England to return to the faith and for the Queen.  He leads the observing Catholics into an Our Father.  His last act was to forgive and absolve all those who are in attendance.  He is hung, goes out of consciousness, and for a moment awakes to realize the dismemberment before his death. 

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I'm late in posting this. I have to admit the sadness of the story had me delay completing it. I knew round about how it would end. I thought by spacing the chapters out it might not effect me as much. Still it did. To some degree it reminded me of the Endo novel Silence and even Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, though Winnie from 1984 survives but broken and mind-altered. Actually even Rodrigues from Silence survives but is emotionally broken from his apostasy. Nonetheless both novels share some heritage to Come Rack! Come Rope! I wonder if either Endo and Orwell had read it.

This was the tragedy of the Protestant Reformation.

Kerstin Commented:

This last part is hard to get through. Fr. Benson writes beautiful prose, but the ugliness of the subject matter is hard to stomach.

Casey Commented:

I happen to have just picked up Brave New World. You may recall a scene where Bernard and Lenina visit New Mexico and witness a young Indian boy being whipped as part of a rain ceremony. They meet another young boy who brags he could've done better etc. and Lenina says "Do you mean to say you wanted to be hit with that whip?"

 

There's part of me that feels the way the young man does about Robin's plight. Of course, one doesn't actually want to be tortured but there's such a paradoxical nobility in it that is admirably appealing. Oh, that I could give my all for Christ... but then I'll mindlessly forget to attend mass on a holy day or something.

 

What is the all that I can give? What is my limit? Everything, like Robin? Everything, like Marjorie? Everything?

 

Most probably I'm closer to Lenina that I'd like to admit.

Kerstin Commented:

In the second week of this reading I posted a comment on the meanings of the names Robin and Marjorie. Now that we’ve finished reading the book I want to go back and explore how this is significant. Both Robin and Marjorie are representations of Jesus and Mary; this is why they have a deep love for one another but can’t be married. As the novel moves past the opening chapters their initial romantic love, eros, is elevated by the extraordinary historical circumstances to self-sacrificing agape.

To recapture, the name Robin means “fame” and “bright”, and after he is ordained he takes on the last name of Alban. “Albus” is Latin for “white”. Robin, the Christ figure, is transformed by his ordination into a spotless sacrificial lamb. There are several parallels to the life of Jesus. Robin travels through the land with no place to put his head. And like John the Baptist paving the way for Jesus, the execution of Queen Mary of Scotts is pointing towards Robin's own martyrdom. On the scaffold Robin absolves his own father, an echo of the Good Thief.

Now let’s move on to Marjorie. I’ll repeat what I wrote before:

 

Marjorie is a version of Margaret, and it is the Greek word for pearl.

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 sepulcher 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.

Marjorie’s life parallels that of the Virgin Mary, and the intertwined imagery of the pearl - a hidden treasure - and the shell - shelter - are indirectly repeated throughout the novel in various ways.

When Marjorie as a seventeen-year-old senses that Robin is destined to become a priest she has to come to grips with that. She paces in the garden praying the rosary. She has to give her fiat first that when the time comes she can release him to be about his Father’s business. Her parents, like Anne and Joachim, are at this point only background figures, she steps out of their shadow. Later, when her mother dies, there is no priest. Just like there was no priest for Anne. All we know of her life was before Christ and the Church.

Marjorie, the Mary figure, becomes the mother of all the travelling priests and many of the recusants alike. The priests are her sons and she takes care of them. Her estate is a shelter for all of them, and for the longest time it isn’t even on the radar of the priest hunters. It is hiding in plain sight. Only when the one and truly special one, Robin, is hunted does her stronghold get breached. Mary can shelter Christ, but she cannot contain him. Hidden are also the myriad of communications she is engaging in to keep the priests safe and keeping the flame of faith alive. Robin rightly advises Marjorie not to hide herself away at a nunnery, she is needed exactly where she is at. Where is the pearl to hide if there is no shell? At Robin's martyrdom, ever faithful, Marjorie is present.
Even though the book ends, we know the Faith did survive the persecutions. It wouldn't have happened without Marjorie.

My Reply to Kerstin:

Kerstin this is excellent. I had forgotten you had mentioned the names. I picked up that Robin was a Christ figure, but I didn't think about Marjorie as the Blessed Mother. Yes, it fits very well. Very insightful comment.

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One could have many highlights from this concluding section, especially Robin’s capture, torture, and execution.  But I particularly like the letter Marjorie sends Robin while he is hiding in the shepherd’s hut.  The letter informs him of the three more priests who were executed.  It foreshadows Robin’s future and presents to Robin the ramifications for his holding to his conscience.

 

“Three more have glorified God to-day by a good confession—Mr. Garlick, Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson. That is the summary. The tale in detail hath been brought to me to-day by an eye-witness.

 

“The trial went as all thought it would. There was never the least question of it; for not only were the two priests taken with signs of their calling upon them, but both of them had been in the hands of the magistrates before. There was no shrinking nor fear showed of any kind. But the chief marvel was that these two priests met with Mr. Simpson in the gaol; they put them together in one room, I think, hoping that Mr. Simpson would prevail upon them to do as he had promised to do; but, by the grace of God, it was all the other way, and it was they who prevailed upon Mr. Simpson to confess himself again openly as a Catholic. This greatly enraged my lord Shrewsbury and the rest; so that there was less hope than ever of any respite, and sentence was passed upon them all together, Mr. Simpson showing, at the reading of it, as much courage as any. This was all done two days ago at the Assizes; and it was to-day that the sentence was carried out.

 

“They were all three drawn on hurdles together to the open space by St. Mary’s Bridge, where all was prepared, with gallows and cauldron and butchering block; and a great company went after them. I have not heard that they spoke much, on the way, except that a friend of Mr. Garlick’s cried out to him to remember that they had often shot off together on the moors; to which Mr. Garlick made answer merrily that it was true; but that ‘I am now to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my life.’ He was merry at the trial, too, I hear; and said that ‘he was not come to seduce men, but rather to induce them to the Catholic religion, that to this end he had come to the country, and for this that he would work so long as he lived.’ And this he did on the scaffold, speaking to the crowd about him of the salvation of their souls, and casting papers, which he had written in prison, in proof of the Catholic faith.

 

“Mr. Garlick went up the ladder first, kissing and embracing it as the instrument of his death, and to encourage Mr. Simpson, as it was thought, since some said he showed signs of timorousness again when he came to the place. But he showed none when his turn came, but rather exhibited the same courage as them both. Mr. Ludlam stood by smiling while all was done; and smiling still when his turn came. His last words were, ‘Venite benedicti Dei’; and this he said, seeming to see a vision of angels come to bear his soul away.

 

“They were cut down, all three of them, before they were dead; and the butchery done on them according to sentence; yet none of them cried out or made the least sound; and their heads and quarters were set up immediately afterwards on poles in divers places of Derby; some of them above the house that stands on the bridge and others on the bridge itself. But these, I hear, will not be there long.

 

“So these three have kept the faith and finished their course with joy. Laus Deo. Mr. John is in ward, for harbouring of the priests; but nothing hath been done to him yet.

 

“As for your reverence, I am of opinion that you had best wait another week where you are. There has been a man or two seen hereabouts whom none knew, as well as at Padley. It hath been certified, too, that Mr. Thomas was at the root of it all, that he gave the information that Mr. John and at least a priest or two would be at Padley at that time, though no man knows how he knew it, unless through servants’ talk; and since Mr. Thomas knows your reverence, it will be better to be hid for a little longer. So, if you will, in a week from now, I will send Dick once, again to tell you if all be well. I look for no letter back for this since you have nothing to write with in the hut, as I know; but Dick will tell me how you do; as well as anything you may choose to say to him.

 

“I ask your reverence’s blessing again. I do not forget your reverence in my poor prayers.”

 

And so it ended, without signature—for safety’s sake.

(pp. 284-286).

There is no question then that Robin knows exactly what fate awaits him.  He will heroically keep to his conscience.

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My Goodreads Review:

This a very good novel.  Four and a half stars to be precise but I rounded down.  Why round down?  It didn’t reach the sense of a classic for me.  I had the same Four and a half rating for Benson’s great novel, Lord of the World, but with that I rounded up.  I would say Lord of the World is an unheralded classic.  I think the difference is that Come Rack! Come Rope! is a historical novel, and so is fixed to historical events while Lord of the World was an imaginative creation and so requires a bit more artifice.  But if you love historical novels Come Rack! Come Rope! is definitely for you. 

Benson puts you right into the Catholic subculture of Elizabethan England and using an actual historical event: the Babington Plot to kill Queen Elizabeth and install the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. Benson develops a suspenseful tale of Catholic characters unconnected to the plot striving to exercise their faith but yet caught in the tragedy of their times.

The novel is set in the 1580’s in the English Midlands, the heart of the Catholic resistance to the Protestant wave.  Though he is not mentioned in the novel, the period and region overlaps with William Shakespeare’s life and hometown, which was also part of the English Midlands, though Stratford-Upon-Avon is a little further south than the Derbyshire of the novel.  Still it gives support to the theory that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic.  The region was populated with Catholics.

The novel centers on two fictional characters, Robin Audrey and Marjorie Manners.  The two intend to marry but events compel Robin to become a priest so that the recusant Catholics can secretly celebrate Mass and receive the sacraments.  In and about their lives is Anthony Babington, the real life person who plotted the assassination of Queen Elizabeth.  The novel mixes fictionalized characters and real life characters seamlessly. 

One thing you will not regret is reading Robert Hugh Benson’s prose.  He is such a wonderful stylist.  Let me provide an example.  Here is a scene where Robin, the central character of the novel and now secretly a Catholic priest, stands in front of the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots is held prisoner and expected to be executed.

 

Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of dark steel, glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. In front towered the twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward to its fall. Lights shone here and there in the windows, vanished and appeared again, flashing themselves back from the invisible water beneath. About, behind and on either side, there swayed and murmured this huge crowd—invisible in the darkness—peasants, gentlemen, clerks, grooms—all on an equality at last, awed by a common tragedy into silence, except for words exchanged here and there in an undertone, or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden murmured prayers to a God who hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from beyond the veiling walls came the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk notes blown on a horn; once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when the silence grew profound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that the murmur rose into a groan and drowned it again….

The dark steel of the sky foreshadows the blade that will behead the queen with the “gashes of pale light” suggesting the bloody nape of the severed head.  Benson puts the reader right into the spectacle, full of medieval horns and rustic peasantry.  Here is the climax of the scene later in the chapter.

 

Then suddenly the heads grew still; a wave of motionlessness passed over them, as if some strange sympathy were communicated from within those tall windows. The moments passed and passed. It was impossible to hear those murmurs, through the blare of the instruments; there was one sound only that could penetrate them; and this, rising from what seemed at first the wailing of a child, grew and grew into the shrill cries of a dog in agony. At the noise once more a roar of low questioning surged up and fell. Simultaneously the music came to an abrupt close; and, as if at a signal, there sounded a great roar of voices, all shouting together within the hall. It rose yet louder, broke out of doors, and was taken up by those outside. The court was now one sea of tossing heads and open mouths shouting—as if in exultation or in anger. Robin fought for his place on the projecting stones, clung to the rough wall, gripped a window-bar and drew himself yet higher.

 

Then, as he clenched himself tight and stared out again towards the tall windows that shone in bloody flakes of fire from the roaring logs within; a sudden and profound silence fell once more before being shattered again by a thousand roaring throats….

 

For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, black figure, masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a wide silver dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed with crimson….

The blare of music, the intervals of quiet hush and roar of the crowd, and the dramatic display of the Queen’s head, not even distinct, makes for such a dramatic scene.

His prose is exquisite, but I also find Benson to be masterly at plotting and pacing, masterly at descriptions, masterly at heightening suspense, and masterly at bringing abstract ideas into conflict in a narrative.  His one limitation as a novelist I think is character psychological depth.  His characters can be flat at times.  But don’t get me wrong; I still think this is a fine novel.

Finally, the subject matter is heartbreaking.  Family members in opposition with each other, even father against son.  Courtship is aborted with lovers separated.  Hopes are raised, but then shattered.  Traditions are uprooted.  An old way of life is persecuted and supplanted.  Those who want to hold on to their deeply held beliefs and stay true to their conscience are tortured and killed.  Say what you will about the Protestant Reformation, the human results were tragic.  Benson captures this all.