TREASON OF THE CLERKS
I have lived most of my life in the suburbs
of the ancient city of Chester, with its
walled centre of Roman, Saxon, and Norman
ramparts of cut sandstone. Even though
the city, a Royalist stronghold, was besieged
during the English Civil War, the walls
remained more or less intact until
the road traffic demands of commerce.
I went to a school in the old city,
a coveted school with two entrance exams.
It was one of many such establishments
in market towns across England created
by Thomas Cromwell from the assets
of the monastic abbeys his master,
King Henry, had seized: schools to manufacture
Protestant clerks to collect the King’s taxes.
The building, as our head master – himself
an Anglican cleric – used often to say,
was ‘in the shadow of the cathedral’ once
an abbey church. Was that pulpit rhetoric,
or an unintentional irony?
The city’s four main streets follow the routes
of the thoroughfares of the Roman Camp,
each leading to one of the four main gates.
The meet at The Cross. Nearby, in Northgate Street,
there used to be a tobacconist who sold
small Cuban cigarettes in packets of five.
Armed with supplies we doughty band of smokers
would leave the school premises each break,
cross Abbey Square (past the Bishop’s House),
down Abbey Street (past the Dean’s and Archdeacon’s),
and onto the walls near the Kaleyard Gate –
a postern, originally for the monks
to daily access and tend their rows
of vegetables outside the city walls.
Come shine or rain, tourist crowd or none
we would walk quickly to Phoenix Tower,
which has a phoenix – then the emblem
of the Painters’ Guild – carved above the door.
The tower is popularly known as
King Charles’ – for Charles I is said to have
stood on the roof and watched his cavalry
routed by the Roundheads on Rowton Moor.
More likely he had climbed the narrow, spiral
staircase in one of the cathedral’s towers
to get the best view. After the regicide,
the Dean and Chapter, no doubt, made up
the story about the Phoenix Tower
I am sure we spoke of little else but
the Reformation and its aftermath –
the doomed monarch, the brief Commonwealth,
the cynical Restoration, those
centuries of violent bigotry in these
Celtic Islands, and England becoming
a global trading power – as we stood there,
privileged white boys in striped ties and blazers,
hurriedly inhaling cheap tobacco
from the Caribbean.
Alex Cox
October 13, 2023David, you have ‘knocked it out of the park’. Five out of five great poems, all very specific and rich in content and perception.
Harvey Lillywhite
October 14, 2023Such history. I, who grew up in the Rocky Mountains, think of peaks and glaciers and the valleys they scooped as history. Yes, there were people dotted here and there, but it was the crumpled and gouged and uprising earth that was our kingdom under the sky which we served, watched by sun and moon and stars, the deer and rattlesnakes, and a bobcat moving in and out of invisibility that were our partners, our heroes, our wary companions. To have lived in the richness of Celtic history must have been enchanting. I do remember wondering if I could pull a sword from a stone or be lucky enough to meet a Merlin. What different worlds! When I went to Piccadilly Circus to see Lillywhite’s and connect with the cricket legends I’d heard about growing up, I was amazed. Thanks for this pageant poem.
Elise Oliver
October 14, 2023The irony embedded in the entire poem, but particularly the last verse, made me smile in recognition and empathy. Moreover, I’ve always thought that Charles I must have been to Specsavers.
Sarah Selzer
October 15, 2023I love this. So many layers! It got me thinking what the headmaster or in fact Thomas Cromwell would make of the school today with girls allowed. I like to think the TC of the late Hilary Mantell would approve as the father of daughters.