And then their captain arrived. He horsewhipped the mercenary and they scattered. He threw me in a tumbril cart, packed with other prisoners. We puked and gibbered there together in a bloody heap for the whole ride back to Exeter.
That journey to gaol was bitter. Our hands secured behind our backs, they packed us in, the living and the half-dead, the walking and the mutilated, carting us over the moor to the city we’d only just deserted. It was a crushing return. Already, they’d started on the hangings. Gallows lined the roads and greens of every village on our way. I’m sure I saw the bodies of men and women I knew. Thank God I didn’t see John’s.
On arrival, the body of one of our priests was hanging from the spire of his church at St. Thomas. They’d hung him there in vestments, with his properties: his bell and beads, his holy-water stoup. They’d even hung a stray, a dog with paws folded across a semblance of the Sacred Host, in mockery. I thought of my Lord’s hound, Listener, and felt my tears coming.
Our trial next day was short and brutal, truth and fairness never on their minds. I heard the words of our sentence but, for my part, felt myself already dead. I saw a girl, like Alford, no more than fifteen years old, piss her skirts. The guards beat her until she lay without moving. Then they carried her away.
Tomorrow the barbarities are enacted. Blessed be God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. Blessed be Jesus Christ upon his throne of Resurrection. Blessed be the Virgin Mary, Mother of all things. So help me God that there might be some delivering angel beneath our own legs tomorrow, to pull on our shins and snap our spines before the executioner gets his bloody blade into us. Death doesn’t come with a fall from the gallows. They say the hangman cuts you down before your breath has faded. They say he digs his knife inside and quarters you, removing the innards while the heart still beats, burning up your organs in the fire.
God’s blood, have they lost their minds! It makes me want to vomit at the thought.
Jump hard from the ladder you men and women. Break your necks and save yourself the torture. Yet if your present trembling is a sign, you’ll be shitting and pissing with fright and too frozen to make the leap.
Merciful Mother, break our necks in those nooses as we fall. Protect us from the blades and irons tomorrow.
As for my own grave, Ben Red’s a long time gone. I die tomorrow to lie in ground I don’t know where. And who’ll be there to place coins on our eyes once we’re gone? Who to keen our way to the grave? Who to shroud us in blankets and tributes of flowers? No one. Tomorrow is the day of cruel disposal.
The summer is past and fading. The harvest should be in by now, but I hardly know if even the simplest of tasks has been settled. It saddens me to think of all we leave behind this Lammas-tide. To taste once more the sweet-smelling corn bread. To once more make a dolly of corn from the stook. To ride once more as Harvest Queen upon the cart, green with boughs and strewn with flowers. To taste one final Harvest Supper – meats, cheeses, pies and puddings, plaited loaves and dishes piled with apples, roasted, studded sweet with caraway. Ale and cider by the gallon.
Close my eyes and I can taste it, trickling down my throat like a sweet river. Close my eyes, I can feel John’s hand in mine.
God be in my heart and in my thinking. God be at my end and my departing. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Pray for us in our hour of need, my Lady. Amen.
Author’s Note
Although there are several excellent primary and secondary sources relating to the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, there are no existing accounts of events from the side of the Catholic Western Rebels. This novel is an imaginative account of possible events. I have been as accurate as possible with regard to the chronology and placing of recorded events, but have taken liberties in almost everything else. The village of Buckland and its surroundings are entirely fictional.
All characters, place names, episodes and many turns of phrase, are directly derived from the names of 144 breeds of Devon apple, or apples which have a close and historic association with the county. A list is given, although this is not exhaustive, as varieties come and go. Existing lists also disagree as to the exact provenance of particular breeds, but I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible. While certain historic varieties of apple have been associated with the county since before the times of the Tudors, a good number of the others, however, did not exist until the twentieth century – the intention, therefore, is not to be chronologically accurate, rather to let the historic association of the fruit with the county to speak for itself.
List of Apple Names
The following list was compiled using What is a Devon Apple: Provisional list of apples with close associations with the county, (Dartington North Devon Trust (1992)), as main source, alongside lists in other reference books. The letter (c) denotes a variety that is known to be a cider apple. In some cases in the novel, I have only used the first part of the name – dropping qualifiers such as ‘apple’ or ‘pippin’ – or have made minor changes to the name for sense.
All Doer Alphington
Barum Beech Bearer
Beef Ben’s Red
Bickington Gray Billy Down
Billy White Bittersweet
Blue Sweet Bowden
Breadfruit Brimley (c)
Broomhouse Whites Brown Snout (c)
Browns Apple (c) Buckland
Butterbox Buttery d’Or
Captain Broad Catshead
Cerif Chisel Jersey (c)
Coleman Seedling Costard
Court Royal (c) Crimson King (c)
Crimson Queen Crimson Victoria
Devonshire Red Don's Delight
Dufflin Duke of Devonshire
Early Bowers Ellis Bitter (c)
Endsleigh Exeter Cross
Fair Maid of Devon Farmer’s Glory
Gilliflower Glass Apple
Golden Ball Goring
Halstow Natural Hangy Down
Hoary Morning Hollow Core
Honey Pin Improved Pound
Jacob’s Strawberry John Toucher
Johnny Andrews Johnny Voun
Keswick Codling Killerton Sharp
King Byerd King Manning
Kingston Bitter Kirton Fair
Langworthy Leathercoat Russet (1600)
Limberland Limberlimb
Listener Long Bit
Longstem Loral Drain
Loyal Drong Lucombes Pine
Lucombes Seedling Major (c)
Moore's Seedling Morgan Sweet (c)
Nine Square No Pip
Northcott Superb Northwood (c)
Oaken Pin Old English Pippin
Old Pearmain Payhembury
Peter Lock Pig Snout
Pig’s Nose Pine Apple
Plumderity Plymouth Cross
Pound Quarrenden
Queen Caroline Quench
Quoinings Rawlings
Red Jersey Red Ruby
Reine des Pommes Reynold’s Peach
Royal Russet Royal Somerset
Sercombes Natural Sheep’s Nose
Sidney Strake Slack My Girdle
Sops in Wine Sour Bay
Sour Natural Spicey Pippin
Spotted Dick Star of Devon
Stockbearer Stone Pippin
Stubbard Sugar Bush
Sugar Loaf Sugar Sweet
Sweet Alford (c) Sweet Bay
Sweet Bramley Sweet Cleave
Sweet Cluster Sweet Coppin (c)
Tale Sweet (c) Tan Harvey
The Rattler Thin Skin
Thomas Rivers Tidicombe
Tom Putt (c) Tommy Knight
Tommy Potter Town Farm
Tremletts Bitter Upton Pyne
Veitches Perfection Venus Pippin
Wellington Whimple Wonder
White Close Pippin Winter Peach
Woodbine Woolbrook
I also wish to acknowledge the use of the following texts in researching this novel. In particular, John Hooker’s
Description of the City of Exeter, a contemporary account of the siege of Exeter from the point of view of the Protestant besieged and Thomas Tusser’s contemporary Five Hundred Pointes of Goode Husbandrie. Joan Morgan and Alison Richards’ Book of Apples and James Crowden’s Cider provided excellent secondary source material, while Beverly Pagram’s Heaven & Hearth was invaluable in matters of Tudor women’s folklore.
Cider, James Crowden (Cider Press 2, 1999)
English Social History, G.M. Trevelyan (Longman Green, 1944)
Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, Thomas Tusser (1573)
Heaven & Hearth, Beverly Pagram (The Women’s Press, 1997)
Lady Jane Grey: The Setting of The Reign, David Mathew (Eyre Methuen, 1972)
Latin Mass Society, http://www.latin-mass-society.org
Plants and Gardens in The Tudor Years, John Griffiths (pamphlet)
The Book of Apples, Joan Morgan and Alison Richards (Ebury Press, 1993)
The English Apple, Rosanne Sanders (Phaidon Press, 1988)
The English Reformation, A.G. Dickens (Batsford, 1964)
The Revolt in the West: The Western Rebellion of 1549, John Sturt (Devon Books,1987)
The South-Western Rebellion of 1549, Joyce Youings (in Southern History, Vol.1, 1979)
The Tudor Revolution in Government, G.R. Elton (Cambridge University Press, 1953)
The Western Rebellion of 1549, Frances Rose-Troup (Smith, Elder, 1913)
The Western Rising 1549, Philip Caraman (Westcountry Books, 1994)
Tudor Cornwall, A.L. Rowse (Jonathan Cape, 1941)
Tudor Rebellions, 4th Ed, Anthony Fletcher and Diarmaid MacCulloch (Longman, 1997)
About The Author
Andy Brown is the Director of Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. A well-known poet, he has published seven highly praised collections of poetry, including Exurbia (Worple 2014) and Goose Music (with John Burnside, Salt 2008). He is co-editor of a major new poetry anthology, A Body of Work: Poetry and Medical Writing (Bloomsbury 2015). Apples and Prayers is his first novel.
Published by Dean Street Press 2015
Copyright © 2015 Andy Brown
All Rights Reserved
The right of Andy Brown to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover by DSP
ISBN 978 1 910570 11 1
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk