Gilpatrick looked at his father affectionately. In a way, it seemed to him, the older man represented all that was best—and worst—in the Celtic Irish Church. Half hereditary chief, half druid, he was an exemplary parish priest. He was married with children, but still a priest. These traditional arrangements extended to his ecclesiastical income as well. The lands with which his family had anciently endowed the monastery—and Conn had added those valuable lands at Rathmines as well—had passed into the parish, and so they technically belonged to the Archbishop of Dublin now. But as the parish priest, his father received all the revenues from these lands himself, as well as those from the family’s large estates down the coast. In due course Gilpatrick himself might succeed him as priest, and in all likelihood one of his brother’s children, assuming this uncanonical marriage produced sons, might follow on after. It was so in churches and monasteries all over Ireland.
And, of course, it was a scandal. Or so, at least, thought the Pope in Rome.
For during the last century or so, a great wind of change had been sweeping across western Christendom. The old church, it was felt, had become too rich, too worldly, lacking in spiritual fire and passionate commitment. New monastic orders dedicated to simplicity, like the Cistercians, were springing up. The Crusades had been launched to regain the Holy Land from the Saracens. Popes sought to purify the Church and to extend its authority, even issuing peremptory commands to kings.
“You have to admit, Father,” Gilpatrick gently reminded him, “that the church in Ireland lags behind our neighbours.”
“I wish,” his father replied gloomily, “that I’d never let you go to England.”
For one country in particular that had felt the force of this vigorous new wind had been the kingdom across the water. A century ago, the old Saxon Church had been notoriously lax. When William of Normandy began his conquest, he had easily obtained a papal blessing by promising to clean it up. Since then, the Norman English Church had been a model, with archbishops like the reforming Lanfranc and the saintly Anselm. Not that Gilpatrick was the only Irishman to catch the reforming contagion there. Quite a number of Irish churchmen had spent time in the great English monasteries like Canterbury and Worcester. The ecclesiastical contacts were many. For a while, indeed, the bishops of Dublin had even gone to England to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Though they only did that,” Gilpatrick’s father had remarked with some truth, “to show that Dublin was different from the rest of Ireland.” As a result, many of the leading churchmen in Ireland now had a sense that they were out of step with the rest of Christendom and that they ought to do something about it.
“In any case,” the older man said irritably, “the Irish Church has already been reformed.”
Up to a point, it had—the administration of the Irish Church was certainly being brought up to date. The ancient tribal and monastic dioceses had been redrawn and brought under four archbishoprics: the ancient seat of Saint Patrick at Armagh, Tuam in the west, Cashel down in Munster, and lastly Dublin. Archbishop O’Toole of Dublin had set up new monastic houses, including the one at Christ Church, which followed a strict Augustinian rule that couldn’t have been bettered anywhere in Europe. In Dublin, at least, many of the parishes now paid taxes, known as tithes, to the Church.
“We’ve made a start,” Gilpatrick said. “But much still needs to be done.”
“You would consider my own position needed reforming then, I dare say.”
It was a tribute to Gilpatrick’s filial respect that he had always managed to avoid discussing this issue with his father. There had been no need to discuss something that wasn’t going to change anyway. It was the realisation that the discussion of his brother’s marriage might lead to such larger issues that had made him dread this meeting with his father in the first place.
“It would be hard to defend outside Ireland,” Gilpatrick said gently.
“Yet the archbishop has made no objection.”
It was one of the great wonders of the rule of Lawrence O’Toole that, like many great leaders, he had the genius—there was no other word for it—to live in two contradictory worlds at once. Gilpatrick had been given a number of tasks by the archbishop since his return and had had the opportunity to study him. He was saintly—there was not a doubt of that—and Gilpatrick revered him. O’Toole wanted to purify the Irish Church. But he was also an Irish prince, every inch of him, a poetic soul, full of a mystical spirit. “And it’s the spirit that matters, Gilpatrick,” the great man had often said to him. “Some of our greatest churchmen, like Saint Colum Cille, were royal princes. And if a people revered God through the leadership of their chief, there surely can be no harm in that.”
“That is true, Father,” Gilpatrick now replied, “and until the archbishop does object, I shan’t say a word about it.”
His father looked at him. On the face of it, Gilpatrick was being conciliatory. But did he not realise, his father wondered, how patronising that answer was? He felt a flush of anger. His son was patronising him, telling him he would tolerate his position in life until such time as the archbishop called it in question. It was an insult to him, to the family, to Ireland itself. He felt like hitting out.
“I’m beginning to see what it is you want for the Church, Gilpatrick,” his father said with a dangerous gentleness.
“What is that, Father?”
The older man looked at him coldly. “Another English Pope.”
Gilpatrick winced. It was a low blow, but telling. The previous decade, for the first and only time in its long history, the Catholic Church had had an English Pope. Adrian IV had been unremarkable, but for the Irish at least he had done one thing that made him remembered.
He had recommended a Crusade against Ireland.
It had been at a time, just after his accession, when King Henry of England had briefly considered an invasion of the western island. Whether to please the English king, or whether he had been misled about the state of the Irish Church by Henry’s ambassadors, Pope Adrian had written a letter telling the English king that he would perform a useful service in taking over the island “to increase the Christian religion.”
“What could you expect from an English Pope?” men like Gilpatrick’s father had asked. But though Pope Adrian had now departed this life, the memory of his letter still rankled. “We, the heirs of Saint Patrick, we who kept alive the Christian faith and the writings of ancient Rome when most of the world had sunk under the barbarians, we who gave the Saxons their education, are to be taught a lesson in Christianity by the English?” So Gilpatrick’s father would storm if ever the subject came up.
Pope Adrian’s letter, of course, had been an outrage; Gilpatrick wouldn’t deny it. But that wasn’t really the point. The real issue was larger.
“You speak as if there were such a thing as a separate Irish Church, Father. But there is only one Church and it is universal: that is its great strength. Its authority comes from the one Heavenly King. You speak of the past, when barbarians were fighting over the ruins of the Roman Empire. It was only the Church which was able to bring peace and order because it had a single, spiritual authority beyond the reach of earthly kings. When the Pope calls upon the knights of Christ to go on Crusade, he calls upon them from every land. Disputing kings set aside their quarrels to become warriors and pilgrims together. The Pope, the heir of Saint Peter himself, rules all Christendom under Heaven. There must be only one true Church. It cannot be otherwise.”
How could he convey the vision which inspired him and so many others of his kind—of a world where a man might walk from Ireland to Jerusalem, using a common Latin language, and finding everywhere the same ordered Christian empire, the same monastic orders, the same liturgy. Christendom was a vast spiritual machine, an engine of prayer, a universal brotherhood.
“I will tell you what I think,” said his father softly. “The thing which these reformers love is not a matter of the spirit. It is power. The Pope does not take hostages
like a king, but takes spiritual hostages instead. For if a monarch disobeys him, he excommunicates him and tells his people, or other kings with a power to do it, that he should be deposed. You say such things are done to bring the nations of the earth closer to God. I tell you they are done from a love of power.”
Gilpatrick knew that his father had a point. There had been many clashes of will between popes and monarchs, including the kings of France, England, and even the Holy Roman Emperor about whether the Church’s vast lands and its army of churchmen were subject to royal control. At this very time King Henry of England was locked in a furious dispute with Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury over just this issue—and there were senior churchmen in England who thought that the king was in the right. It was the ancient tension between king and priest that was probably as old as human history.
“And I will ask you one thing more,” said his father. “Have you seen a copy of Pope Adrian’s letter in which he tells the king to come to Ireland?”
“I believe I have.” The letter had become widely known.
“What is the condition that the Pope makes, what thing must the King of England do to obtain a blessing for his conquest? It is mentioned not once, but twice,” he added nastily.
“Well, there is the question of the tax, of course …”
“A penny to be levied upon every household in the land, and sent to Rome each year. Peter’s Pence!” the older man cried. “It’s the money they want, Gilpatrick. The money.”
“It’s only right and proper, Father, that …”
“Peter’s Pence.” The older man raised his finger and stared so fiercely at his son that Gilpatrick could almost imagine that he was being admonished by a grey-bearded druid from ancient times. “Peter’s Pence.”
And then, suddenly, the older man turned away from his son in disgust. If Gilpatrick did not understand even now, then what could he say? It was not the money. It was the spirit of the thing which offended him. Could Gilpatrick really not see that? For seven centuries, the Irish Church had been an inspiration to all Christendom because of its spirit. The spirit of Saint Patrick, of Saint Colum Cille, Saint Kevin, and many others. Missionaries, hermits, princes of Ireland. It had always seemed to him that the Irish had been touched in some special way, like the chosen people in ancient times. Be that as it might, Christianity was a mystic communion, not a set of rules and regulations. It was not that he was ignorant of the ways of other countries. He had met priests from England and France in the port of Dublin. But he had always sensed in them a legalistic mentality, a love of logical games that repulsed him. Men like these did not belong in the beloved silences of Glendalough; they could never fashion the Book of Kells. They might be priests but they were not poets; and if they were scholars, then their scholarship was dry.
It was therefore with a sense of bitterness towards more than just his son that the old man now, standing in front of the Thingmount where Fergus himself lay buried, hotly declared, “You will come to Lorcan’s wedding, Gilpatrick, because he is your brother and he will be hurt if you do not. You will come also because I order you to do so. Are you understanding me?”
“Father, I cannot. Not if he marries his brother’s wife.”
“Then you needn’t trouble,” his father shouted, “to enter my house again.”
“Surely, Father …” Gilpatrick began. But his father had turned on his heel and walked away. And Gilpatrick knew, sadly, that it was useless to follow him. A week later, the wedding was announced. In June it took place, and Gilpatrick was not there. In July, seeing his father by the entrance of Christ Church, Gilpatrick started towards him; but his father, as he saw him coming, turned away, and Gilpatrick, after a moment’s hesitation, decided not to follow him. August passed and they did not speak. September came.
And then there were other, more urgent matters to think about.
It was still quiet when Kevin MacGowan awoke that September morning. The sky was grey. His wife was already up; from the oven in the yard came the faint smell of baking bread. The slave girl was sweeping near the gate. The two boys were playing in the yard. Through the open doorway he could see the steam of their breath. Autumn had come to Dublin. There was a chill in the morning air.
Automatically, as he always did, he reached under the bed and felt for the strongbox. It was reassuringly there. He liked to sleep with it close to him. There was another place, under the bread oven, where he usually concealed it. Only his wife and Una knew about that. It was a good hiding place. Not as secure as the cathedral perhaps, but cleverly disguised. You could look there a hundred times and never guess there was a hiding place. But when he slept in the house, he kept the box under his bed.
He looked across the room. In the far corner, in the shadows, he could see another form gently stirring. It was Una. Normally she would have been at the hospital, but with all the recent events, she had preferred to remain at home with her family today. She was sitting up now. He smiled. Could she see his smile from over there in the shadows? He wondered if she knew what happiness her presence gave him. Probably not. And probably better if she didn’t. One mustn’t burden one’s children with too much affection.
He got up, went over to her, and kissed her on the head. He turned, felt a slight constriction in his chest, and gave a little cough. Then he walked to the entrance and looked out. It was certainly getting cold.
His gaze went out towards the gateway. He saw a neighbour go past with a wooden bucket of water from the well. The fellow seemed in no hurry. He listened. Some sparrows were chattering in the branches of the apple tree in the yard next door. He heard a blackbird. Yes, everything seemed to be normal. There was no hint of any commotion. That was a relief.
Strongbow. Nobody really thought that he would come. His uncle and the FitzGeralds had stayed down in the south all summer and the people of Dublin had reasonably assumed they would be there for the rest of the year. But then in the last week of August the news had arrived.
“Strongbow is in Wexford. He’s arrived with English troops. A lot of troops.”
Two hundred fully equipped mounted men and a thousand foot soldiers, to be precise. They were mostly drawn from the family’s huge holdings in England. It was a force that only one of the greatest magnates in the Plantagenet empire could have collected. By the standards of feudal Europe, it was a small army. By Irish standards, the armoured knights, the highly trained men-at-arms, and the archers, who shot with mathematical precision, represented a disciplined military machine beyond anything they possessed.
Within days, news came that the port of Waterford was in Strongbow’s hands as well; then that King Diarmait had given Strongbow his daughter in marriage. And soon after this: “They’re coming to Dublin.”
It was an outrage. The High King had allowed Diarmait to take Leinster; but Dublin was another matter, specifically excluded from the agreement. “If Diarmait wants Dublin, then he means to take all Ireland,” the High King judged. “And didn’t he give me his own son as hostage?” the O’Connor king continued. If Diarmait broke his oath under such circumstances, O’Connor had the right under Irish law to do what he liked with the boy, even execute him. “What kind of man is it,” O’Connor cried, “that sacrifices his own son?”
It was time to put a stop to the ambitions of this turbulent adventurer and his foreign friends.
There was no doubt about the feelings of the Dubliners either. Three days ago, MacGowan had watched the King of Dublin and some of the greatest merchants ride out to welcome the High King as he came down to the Liffey. It was said that even Diarmait’s brother-in-law the archbishop was disgusted with him. The O’Connor king had brought with him a large force, and it was quickly agreed that the Dubliners would prepare to defend their city while the High King would march a day’s journey to the south and block the approaches up the Liffey Plain. A day later, MacGowan heard that not only was O’Connor camped across the route but he had ordered trees felled to make every track in the region im
passable. Dublin made preparations, but the consensus was clear; even with Strongbow and all his men, King Diarmait would give them no trouble. “They’ll never get through.”
Except on the coldest winter days, when he might be forced to retreat indoors, Kevin MacGowan always worked in an open-sided shed in the yard. That way he had daylight to see what he was doing. To stay warm he kept a small brazier at his feet.
He sat down at his workbench that morning with a contented smile. He never ate much, but his wife had given him fresh bread, piping hot from the oven and served with honey. The smell and the taste of it lingered in a delightful way as he set to work. His wife and Una were spinning wool in a corner by the oven. His two sons were busy with a wood carving. It was a perfect family scene.
A merchant came in to talk about a silver brooch for his wife. Kevin asked him if all was quiet in the town and he said that it was. After a while the man left, and for some time Kevin went on with his work in silence. Then he paused.
“Una.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Go to the south wall, by the main gate. Tell me if you see anything.”
“Couldn’t one of the boys go? I’m helping Mother.”
“I should prefer it if you went.” He trusted her more than the boys.
She glanced at her mother who smiled at her and nodded.
“As you wish, Father,” she said. She put a saffron-coloured shawl over her head to keep out the cold and set off along the street.