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The Abbot

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The most fatal symptom of the whole appeared to be, that, though this
violence had now been committed for many months, the Fathers had lost
so totally all heart and resolution, that they had not adventured even
upon clearing away the rubbish, or restoring the church to some decent
degree of order. This might have been done without much labour. But
terror had overpowered the scanty remains of a body once so powerful,
and, sensible they were only suffered to remain in this ancient seat
by connivance and from compassion, they did not venture upon taking
any step which might be construed into an assertion of their ancient
rights, contenting themselves with the secret and obscure exercise of
their religious ceremonial, in as unostentatious a manner as was
possible.

Two or three of the more aged brethren had sunk under the pressure of
the times, and the ruins had been partly cleared away to permit their
interment. One stone had been laid over Father Nicholas, which
recorded of him in special, that he had taken the vows during the
incumbency of Abbot Ingelram, the period to which his memory so
frequently recurred. Another flag-stone, yet more recently deposited,
covered the body of Philip the Sacristan, eminent for his aquatic
excursion with the phantom of Avenel, and a third, the most recent of
all, bore the outline of a mitre, and the words _Hic jacet Eustatius
Abbas_; for no one dared to add a word of commendation in favour of
his learning, and strenuous zeal for the Roman Catholic faith.

Magdalen Graeme looked at and perused the brief records of these
monuments successively, and paused over that of Father Eustace. "In a
good hour for thyself," she said, "but oh! in an evil hour for the
Church, wert thou called from us. Let thy spirit be with us, holy
man--encourage thy successor to tread in thy footsteps--give him thy
bold and inventive capacity, thy zeal and thy discretion--even
_thy_ piety exceeds not his." As she spoke, a side door, which
closed a passage from the Abbot's house into the church, was thrown
open, that the Fathers might enter the choir, and conduct to the high
altar the Superior whom they had elected.

In former times, this was one of the most splendid of the many
pageants which the hierarchy of Rome had devised to attract the
veneration of the faithful. The period during which the Abbacy
remained vacant, was a state of mourning, or, as their emblematical
phrase expressed it, of widowhood; a melancholy term, which was
changed into rejoicing and triumph when a new Superior was chosen.
When the folding doors were on such solemn occasions thrown open, and
the new Abbot appeared on the threshold in full-blown dignity, with
ring and mitre, and dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers
and his juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the
venerable train of monks behind him, with all besides which could
announce the supreme authority to which he was now raised, his
appearance was a signal for the magnificent _jubilate_ to rise
from the organ and music-loft, and to be joined by the corresponding
bursts of Alleluiah from the whole assembled congregation. Now all was
changed. In the midst of rubbish and desolation, seven or eight old
men, bent and shaken as much by grief and fear as by age, shrouded
hastily in the proscribed dress of their order, wandered like a
procession of spectres, from the door which had been thrown open, up
through the encumbered passage, to the high altar, there to instal
their elected Superior a chief of ruins. It was like a band of
bewildered travellers choosing a chief in the wilderness of Arabia; or
a shipwrecked crew electing a captain upon the barren island on which
fate has thrown them.

They who, in peaceful times, are most ambitious of authority among
others, shrink from the competition at such eventful periods, when
neither ease nor parade attend the possession of it, and when it gives
only a painful pre-eminence both in danger and in labour, and exposes
the ill-fated chieftain to the murmurs of his discontented associates,
as well as to the first assault of the common enemy. But he on whom
the office of the Abbot of Saint Mary's was now conferred, had a mind
fitted for the situation to which he was called. Bold and
enthusiastic, yet generous and forgiving--wise and skilful, yet
zealous and prompt--he wanted but a better cause than the support of a
decaying superstition, to have raised him to the rank of a truly great
man. But as the end crowns the work, it also forms the rule by which
it must be ultimately judged; and those who, with sincerity and
generosity, fight and fall in an evil cause, posterity can only
compassionate as victims of a generous but fatal error. Amongst these,
we must rank Ambrosius, the last Abbot of Kennaqubair, whose designs
must be condemned, as their success would have riveted on Scotland the
chains of antiquated superstition and spiritual tyranny; but whose
talents commanded respect, and whose virtues, even from the enemies of
his faith, extorted esteem.

The bearing of the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial
which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of
the peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better
days they had seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of
mingled terror, and grief, and shame, which induced them to hurry over
the office in which they were engaged, as something at once degrading
and dangerous.

But not so Father Ambrose. His features, indeed, expressed a deep
melancholy, as he walked up the centre aisle, amid the ruin of things
which he considered as holy, but his brow was undejected, and his step
firm and solemn. He seemed to think that the dominion which he was
about to receive, depended in no sort upon the external circumstances
under which it was conferred; and if a mind so firm was accessible to
sorrow or fear, it was not on his own account, but on that of the
Church to which he had devoted himself.

At length he stood on the broken steps of the high altar, barefooted,
as was the rule, and holding in his hand his pastoral staff, for the
gemmed ring and jewelled mitre had become secular spoils. No obedient
vassals came, man after man, to make their homage, and to offer the
tribute which should provide their spiritual Superior with palfrey and
trappings. No Bishop assisted at the solemnity, to receive into the
higher ranks of the Church nobility a dignitary, whose voice in the
legislature was as potential as his own. With hasty and maimed rites,
the few remaining brethren stepped forward alternately to give their
new Abbot the kiss of peace, in token of fraternal affection and
spiritual homage. Mass was then hastily performed, but in such
precipitation as if it had been hurried over rather to satisfy the
scruples of a few youths, who were impatient to set out on a hunting
party, than as if it made the most solemn part of a solemn ordination.
The officiating priest faltered as he spoke the service, and often
looked around, as if he expected to be interrupted in the midst of his
office; and the brethren listened to that which, short as it was, they
wished yet more abridged.[Footnote: In Catholic countries, in order to
reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion,
it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass,
abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity
of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the
audience.]

These symptoms of alarm increased as the ceremony proceeded, and, as
it seemed, were not caused by mere apprehension alone; for, amid the
pauses of the hymn, there were heard without sounds of a very
different sort, beginning faintly and at a distance, but at length
approaching close to the exterior of the church, and stunning with
dissonant clamour those engaged in the service. The winding of horns,
blown with no regard to harmony or concert; the jangling of bells, the
thumping of drums, the squeaking of bagpipes, and the clash of
cymbals--the shouts of a multitude, now as in laughter, now as in
anger--the shrill tones of female voices, and of those of children,
mingling with the deeper clamour of men, formed a Babel of sounds,
which first drowned, and then awed into utter silence, the official
hymns of the Convent. The cause and result of this extraordinary
interruption will be explained in the next chapter.




Chapter the Fourteenth.


Not the wild billow, when it breaks its barrier--
Not the wild wind, escaping from its cavern--
Not the wild fiend, that mingles both together,
And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest,
Can match the wild freaks of this mirthful meeting--
Comic, yet fearful--droll, and yet destructive.
THE CONSPIRACY.

The monks ceased their song, which, like that of the choristers in the
legend of the Witch of Berkley, died away in a quaver of
consternation; and, like a flock of chickens disturbed by the presence
of the kite, they at first made a movement to disperse and fly in
different directions, and then, with despair, rather than hope,
huddled themselves around their new Abbot; who, retaining the lofty
and undismayed look which had dignified him through the whole
ceremony, stood on the higher step of the altar, as if desirous to be
the most conspicuous mark on which danger might discharge itself, and
to save his companions by his self-devotion, since he could afford
them no other protection.

Involuntarily, as it were, Magdalen Graeme and the page stepped from
the station which hitherto they had occupied unnoticed, and approached
to the altar, as desirous of sharing the fate which approached the
monks, whatever that might be. Both bowed reverently low to the Abbot;
and while Magdalen seemed about to speak, the youth, looking towards
the main entrance, at which the noise now roared most loudly, and
which was at the same time assailed with much knocking, laid his hand
upon his dagger.

The Abbot motioned to both to forbear: "Peace, my sister," he said, in
a low tone, but which, being in a different key from the tumultuary
sounds without, could be distinctly heard, even amidst the
tumult;--"Peace," he said, "my sister; let the new Superior of Saint
Mary's himself receive and reply to the grateful acclamations of the
vassals, who come to celebrate his installation.--And thou, my son,
forbear, I charge thee, to touch thy earthly weapon;--if it is the
pleasure of our protectress, that her shrine be this day desecrated by
deeds of violence, and polluted by blood-shedding, let it not, I
charge thee, happen through the deed of a Catholic son of the church."

The noise and knocking at the outer gate became now every moment
louder; and voices were heard impatiently demanding admittance. The
Abbot, with dignity, and with a step which even the emergency of
danger rendered neither faltering nor precipitate, moved towards the
portal, and demanded to know, in a tone of authority, who it was that
disturbed their worship, and what they desired?

There was a moment's silence, and then a loud laugh from without. At
length a voice replied, "We desire entrance into the church; and when
the door is opened you will soon see who we are."

"By whose authority do you require entrance?" said the Father.

"By authority of the right reverend Lord Abbot of Unreason,"

[Footnote: We learn from no less authority than that of Napoleon
Bonaparte, that there is but a single step between the sublime and
ridiculous; and it is a transition from one extreme to another; so
very easy, that the vulgar of every degree are peculiarly captivated
with it. Thus the inclination to laugh becomes uncontrollable, when
the solemnity and gravity of time, place, and circumstances, render it
peculiarly improper. Some species of general license, like that which
inspired the ancient Saturnalia, or the modern Carnival, has been
commonly indulged to the people at all times and in almost all
countries. But it was, I think, peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church,
that while they studied how to render their church rites imposing and
magnificent, by all that pomp, music, architecture, and external
display could add to them, they nevertheless connived, upon special
occasions, at the frolics of the rude vulgar, who, in almost all
Catholic countries, enjoyed, or at least assumed, the privilege of
making: some Lord of the revels, who, under the name of the Abbot of
Unreason, the Boy Bishop, or the President of Fools, occupied the
churches, profaned the holy places by a mock imitation of the sacred
rites, and sung indecent parodies on hymns of the church. The
indifference of the clergy, even when their power was greatest, to the
indecent exhibitions which they always tolerated, and sometimes
encouraged, forms a strong contrast to the sensitiveness with which
they regarded any serious attempt, by preaching or writing, to impeach
any of the doctrines of the church. It could only be compared to the
singular apathy with which they endured, and often admired the gross
novels which Chaucer, Dunbar, Boccacio, Bandello, and others, composed
upon the bad morals of the clergy. It seems as if the churchmen in
both instances had endeavoured to compromise with the laity, and
allowed them occasionally to gratify their coarse humour by indecent
satire, provided they would abstain from any grave question concerning
the foundation of the doctrines on which was erected such an immense
fabric of ecclesiastical power.

But the sports thus licensed assumed a very different appearance, so
soon as the Protestant doctrines began to prevail; and the license
which their forefathers had exercised in mere gaiety of heart, and
without the least intention of dishonouring religion by their frolics,
were now persevered in by the common people as a mode of testifying
their utter disregard for the Roman priesthood and its ceremonies.

I may observe, for example, the case of an apparitor sent to Borthwick
from the Primate of Saint Andrews, to cite the lord of that castle,
who was opposed by an Abbot of Unreason, at whose command the officer
of the spiritual court was appointed to be ducked in a mill-dam, and
obliged to eat up his parchment citation.

The reader may be amused with the following whimsical details of this
incident, which took place in the castle of Borthwick, in the year
1517. It appears, that in consequence of a process betwixt Master
George Hay de Minzeane and the Lord Borthwick, letters of
excommunication had passed against the latter, on account of the
contumacy of certain witnesses. William Langlands, an apparitor or
macer (_bacularius_) of the See of St Andrews, presented these
letters to the curate of the church of Borthwick, requiring him to
publish the same at the service of high mass. It seems that the
inhabitants of the castle were at this time engaged in the favourite
sport of enacting the Abbot of Unreason, a species of high jinks, in
which a mimic prelate was elected, who, like the Lord of Misrule in
England, turned all sort of lawful authority, and particularly the
church ritual, into ridicule. This frolicsome person with his retinue,
notwithstanding of the apparitor's character, entered the church,
seized upon the primate's officer without hesitation, and, dragging
him to the mill-dam on the south side of the castle, compelled him to
leap into the water. Not contented with this partial immersion, the
Abbot of Unreason pronounced, that Mr. William Langlands was not yet
sufficiently bathed, and therefore caused his assistants to lay him on
his back in the stream, and duck him in the most satisfactory and
perfect manner. The unfortunate apparitor was then conducted back to
the church, where, for his refreshment after his bath, the letters of
excommunication were torn to pieces, and steeped in a bowl of wine;
the mock abbot being probably of opinion that a tough parchment was
but dry eating, Langlands was compelled to eat the letters, and
swallow the wine, and dismissed by the Abbot of Unreason, with the
comfortable assurance, that if any more such letters should arrive
during the continuance of his office, "they should a' gang the same
gate," _i. e._ go the same road.

A similar scene occurs betwixt a sumner of the Bishop of Rochester,
and Harpool, the servant of Lord Cobham, in the old play of Sir John
Oldcastle, when the former compels the church-officer to eat his
citation. The dialogue, which may be found in the note, contains most
of the jests which may be supposed, appropriate to such an
extraordinary occasion:

_Harpool_ Marry, sir, is, this process parchment?

_Sumner._ Yes, marry is it.

_Harpool._ And this seal wax?

_Sumner._ It is so.

_Harpool._ If this be parchment, and this be wax, eat you this
parchment and wax, or I will make parchment of your skin, and beat
your brains into wax. Sirrah Sumner, despatch--devour, sirrah, devour.

_Sumner._ I am my Lord of Rochester's sumner; I came to do my
office, and thou shall answer it.

_Harpool._ Sirrah, no railing, but, betake thyself to thy teeth.
Thou shalt, eat no worse than thou bringest with thee. Thou bringest
it for my lord; and wilt thou bring my lord worse than thou wilt eat
thyself?

_Sumner._ Sir. I brought it not my lord to eat.

_Harpool._ O, do you Sir me now? All's one for that; I'll make
you eat it for bringing it.

_Sumner._ I cannot eat it.

_Harpool._ Can you not? 'Sblood, I'll beat you till you have a
stomach! (_Beats him._)

_Sumner._ Oh, hold, hold, good Mr. Servingman; I will eat it.

_Harpool._ Be champing, be chewing, sir, or I will chew you, you
rogue. Tough wax is the purest of the honey.

_Sumner._ The purest of the honey?--O Lord, sir, oh! oh!

_Harpool._ Feed, feed; 'tis wholesome, rogue, wholesome. Cannot
you, like an honest sumner, walk with the devil your brother, to fetch
in your bailiff's rents, but you must come to a nobleman's house with
process! If the seal were broad as the lead which covers Rochester
Church, thou shouldst eat it.

_Sumner._ Oh, I am almost choked--I am almost choked!

_Harpool._ Who's within there? Will you shame my lord? Is there
no beer in the house? Butler, I say.

_Enter_ BUTLER.

_Butler._ Here, here.

_Harpool._ Give him beer. Tough old sheep skin's but dry meat.

_First Part of Sir John Oldcastle_, Act II. Scene I.]

replied the voice from without; and, from the laugh--which followed,
it seemed as if there was something highly ludicrous couched under
this reply.

"I know not, and seek not to know, your meaning," replied the Abbot,
"since it is probably a rude one. But begone, in the name of God, and
leave his servants in peace. I speak this, as having lawful authority
to command here."

"Open the door," said another rude voice, "and we will try titles with
you, Sir Monk, and show you a superior we must all obey."

"Break open the doors if he dallies any longer," said a third, "and
down with the carrion monks who would bar us of our privilege!" A
general shout followed. "Ay, ay, our privilege! our privilege! down
with the doors, and with the lurdane monks, if they make opposition!"

The knocking was now exchanged for blows with great, hammers, to which
the doors, strong as they were, must soon have given way. But the
Abbot, who saw resistance would be in vain, and who did not wish to
incense the assailants by an attempt at offering it, besought silence
earnestly, and with difficulty obtained a hearing. "My children," said
he, "I will save you from committing a great sin. The porter will
presently undo the gate--he is gone to fetch the keys--meantime I pray
you to consider with yourselves, if you are in a state of mind to
cross the holy threshold."

"Tillyvally for your papistry!" was answered from without; "we are in
the mood of the monks when they are merriest, and that is when they
sup beef-brewis for lanten-kail. So, if your porter hath not the gout,
let him come speedily, or we heave away readily.--Said I well,
comrades?"

"Bravely said, and it shall be as bravely done," said the multitude;
and had not the keys arrived at that moment, and the porter in hasty
terror performed his office, throwing open the great door, the
populace would have saved him the trouble. The instant he had done so,
the affrighted janitor fled, like one who has drawn the bolts of a
flood-gate, and expects to be overwhelmed by the rushing inundation.
The monks, with one consent, had withdrawn themselves behind the
Abbot, who alone kept his station, about three yards from the
entrance, showing no signs of fear or perturbation. His
brethren--partly encouraged by his devotion, partly ashamed to desert
him, and partly animated by a sense of duty.--remained huddled close
together, at the back of their Superior. There was a loud laugh and
huzza when the doors were opened; but, contrary to what might have
been expected, no crowd of enraged assailants rushed into the church.
On the contrary, there was a cry of "A halt!-a halt--to order, my
masters! and let the two reverend fathers greet each other, as beseems
them."

The appearance of the crowd who were thus called to order, was
grotesque in the extreme. It was composed of men, women, and children,
ludicrously disguised in various habits, and presenting groups equally
diversified and grotesque. Here one fellow with a horse's head painted
before him, and a tail behind, and the whole covered with a long
foot-cloth, which was supposed to hide the body of the animal, ambled,
caracoled, pranced, and plunged, as he performed the celebrated part
of the hobby-horse,

[Footnote: This exhibition, the play-mare of Scotland, stood high
among holyday gambols. It must be carefully separated from the wooden
chargers which furnish out our nurseries. It gives rise to Hamlet's
ejaculation,--

But oh, but oh, the hobby-horse is forgot!

There is a very comic scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "Woman
Pleased," where Hope-on-high Bombye, a puritan cobbler, refuses to
dance with the hobby-horse. There was much difficulty and great
variety in the motions which the hobby-horse was expected to exhibit.

The learned Mr. Douce, who has contributed so much to the illustration
of our theatrical antiquities, has given us a full account of this
pageant, and the burlesque horsemanship which it practised.

"The hobby-horse," says Mr. Douce, "was represented by a man equipped
with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder
parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long
mantle or footcloth that nearly touched the ground. The former, on
this occasion, exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In
Sympson's play of the Law-breakers, 1636, a miller personates the
hobby-horse, and being angry that the Mayor of the city is put in
competition with him, exclaims, 'Let the mayor play the hobby-horse
among his brethren, an he will; I hope our town-lads cannot want a
hobby-horse. Have I practised my reins, my careers, my prankers, my
ambles, my false trots, my smooth ambles, and Canterbury paces, and
shall master mayor put me beside the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the
fore-horse bells, his plumes, his braveries; nay, had his mane new
shorn and frizzled, and shall the mayor put me beside the
hobby-horse?"

--_Douce's Illustrations_, vol. II. p. 468]

so often alluded to in our ancient drama; and which still flourishes
on the stage in the battle that concludes Bayes's tragedy. To rival
the address and agility displayed by this character, another personage
advanced in the more formidable character of a huge dragon, with
gilded wings, open jaws, and a scarlet tongue, cloven at the end,
which made various efforts to overtake and devour a lad, dressed as
the lovely Sabaea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled before him;
while a martial Saint George, grotesquely armed with a goblet for a
helmet, and a spit for a lance, ever and anon interfered, and
compelled the monster to relinquish his prey. A bear, a wolf, and one
or two other wild animals, played their parts with the discretion of
Snug the joiner; for the decided preference which they gave to the use
of their hind legs, was sufficient, without any formal annunciation,
to assure the most timorous spectators that they had to do with
habitual bipeds. There was a group of outlaws with Robin Hood and
Little John at their head

[Footnote: The representation of Robin Hood was the darling Maygame
both in England and Scotland, and doubtless the favourite
personification was often revived, when the Abbot of Unreason, or
other pretences of frolic, gave an unusual decree of license.

The Protestant clergy, who had formerly reaped advantage from the
opportunities which these sports afforded them of directing their own
satire and the ridicule of the lower orders against the Catholic
church, began to find that, when these purposes were served, their
favourite pastimes deprived them of the wish to attend divine worship,
and disturbed the frame of mind in which it can be attended to
advantage. The celebrated Bishop Latimer gives a very _naive_
account of the manner in which, bishop as he was, he found himself
compelled to give place to Robin Hood and his followers.

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