I dressed and took my breakfast, which was brought me by one of the slaves assigned me by Don João—I, a miserable prisoner, did have three slaves as servants!—and went forth into the center of things and looked about. The grand plaza was all but empty. A platoon of soldiers marched back and forth before the compound of the Jesuits, on which some new proclamation had been nailed. High above, at the presidio, other soldiers drilled. All work had ceased on the new constructions along the slopes, and very few natives could be seen anywhere. I thought to go to Don João’s palace to discover the turn of events, but I was halted by the captain of the guards, Fernão da Souza, who emerged suddenly from the commissary and said, “You would do well to stay to your house today, Englishman.”
“What has happened?”
“The governor has confined the Jesuits to their quarters, and says he will put to death any of the priests that comes into view. Father Affonso is said to be preparing a writ of excommunication against the governor, and shortly may appear to proclaim it in the plaza.”
“Madness!” said I.
“Which, the governor’s decree, or the prefect’s?”
“Both. What will be done when the priest steps forth. Is he to be shot down on his own doorstep?”
Captain da Souza—credit him with that much—did look dismayed greatly. “No one knows, my friend. We do not shoot priests. We do not disobey our governor. But we cannot hold faith with both factions at once.”
“If you were a common soldier,” I said, “and you were told to shoot down a priest, would you obey?”
“I think not,” he said after some pause.
“Well, then, Governor d’Almeida is lost.”
“So do we believe. But there may be deep dispute before that becomes clear to him, and I think there will be fighting, for the governor, when that he came from Portugal, brought troops who may be more loyal to him than to any Jesuits. We shall see. I advise you to keep yourself out of the path of the shot, eh?”
Which was not advice that I needed to hear twice over. I withdrew to my own place, and passed the time there, and during that day nothing of consequence happened, nor the next, nor the one after that. The Jesuits held to their compound, the governor to his palace, and soldiers were the chief occupants of the plaza. When I grew weary with the game of watching and waiting, I went down to the harbor, and fished and waded, and talked with the port officials, who were expecting the arrival of a ship from Brazil and held little concern for the matters going on in town. I fancied myself boarding that ship and seizing her captain and forcing him to sail me to England, but it was only the idle folly of a hot moist afternoon.
Then it came to be Sunday, and I wondered if the church would remain sealed, with no Mass offered. But on this day events began to occur. I peered into the plaza and saw troops here and there and there, all in some anxiety and suspense. Don João de Mendoça rode by, passing from the governor’s palace to his own, and though he saw me he did not speak, nor did he gesture. Then the governor himself emerged, in a group of his kinsmen. I had not yet ever spoken with this Don Francisco, though of course I had seen him many times from afar: he struck me just from the look of him as a coward and a weakling, with a soft face and heavy-lidded sleepy eyes, and a long thin beard that did not hide the outlines of his chin. He dressed in the most amazing fantastical way, a costume that might have seemed too pompous for an emperor, too gaudy for even Prester John, with yards of gold braid and a glittering helmet inlaid with rows of precious stones. This morning he strutted about, gesticulating grandly and showing the greatest animation as he inspected his troops, examined their weapons, spoke words of encouragement. Some dispute within his own advisers seemed to be in progress also, and from time to time men did come to him, and there were angry words shouted back and forth.
Dona Teresa appeared. She greeted me with high formality, and I the same to her, neither of us showing any hint of an intimacy. And she said, “They are going to do the excommunication this day. The Jesuits will come forth at noon.”
“And will Don Francisco defy them, d’ye think?”
“Would you? Defy the power of God? Aye, I guess you would, in that you are heretical.”
“I would not defy God, nay. But what proof have I that these Jesuits hold divine authority, other than they say they do?”
“Why, they are anointed priests!” she cried.
“They are but men. When they leave their proper province of sacred matters to meddle in affairs of state, they must set aside such cloak of holiness as they claim to wear. If I were Don Francisco and I meant to govern here, I would not let the Jesuits usurp my authority.”
“Now they will put the curse of God on him, though, and all will be lost for him.”
“Do you think King Henry of England feared the curse of God when he cast forth the Roman faith from our land in a similar struggle? Or did his daughter Elizabeth, when she did the same?”
“They were very rash. Unless they did so for reasons of state.”
“Indeed!” I said. “They were wise princes, and knew what was needful to defend their people against foreign tyrants. And so they feared not the curse, for God alone knows who He means to curse, and not any priest. And the dispute was not truly a question of forms of worship, that involved things of the spirit, but rather it was of matters temporal.”
“How so, do you say?”
“The Pope was making league against us with the Holy Empire, to hurt our trade, when Henry was King. This did Henry thwart by making Protestant alliances, and ridding our land of spies and traitors. And in my own time were we greatly threatened by Spain, and King Philip sought to rule over us, and wreck our England the way he has drained his Spain and now Portugal, too. We were full of conspirators in priestly robes, scheming to kill our Queen and give the land over to him. God’s death, woman, do you believe that these quarrels we have with the Papists are truly over niceties of prayer-saying? That we care so deeply whether we speak our service in English or in Latin? It is politics, Dona Teresa, it is politics, it is national interest that governs the way we church ourselves!”
She nodded. “So I do begin to understand.”
“And thus is it here. Don Francisco must fight, if he would remain governor. If he do not prevent the priests from denouncing him, then will his government here be broken.”
“That is what Don João believes is to befall. The power of God is too great for Don Francisco.”
“And is the power of a musket-shot not too great for the Jesuit prefect?” I asked.
“Don Francisco will not attempt to harm the priests,” said Dona Teresa calmly. “They are God’s messengers, and God would destroy him if he lifted his hand against them, and he knows that. Politics is not everything. There are false faiths and true faith, and when the true faith speaks, only a fool would offer defiance. So do I believe, Andres.” She smiled and took her leave of me, and moved on across the plaza to her dwelling-place.
To which I made no response but a shrug. I had heard before from believers in true faiths, and I knew better than to dispute with them. That disputation is folly. They will have no argument; their minds are set. If the number of our breaths is fixed at birth, it is wanton to waste any precious two of them on such debate as that.
As I stood alone at the edge of the plaza, though, meseemed me I had spoken some too strong on the political side of our break with the Church of Rome, and had not given enough weight to matters of faith. Not that I would ever hold that our faith is the true faith, and all others be wicked heresies. I merely feel that ours to be the better faith, the more effective one in yielding up the bounty of godly life. For I do believe the Papists long ago became deeply corrupt, and turned away from the way of Jesus, with their incense and their bright brocaded robes and their jeweled thrones and palaces for their Cardinals and Popes, and that we in our Protestant revolution have swept aside all such foulnesses, clearing a straight path between ourselves and God. I never knew Popery at home, born as I was with Queen Mary already in her grave, but my father did, and he spoke often of how under the old religion people were kept ignorant and helpless, not knowing how to read, not permitted even to know the Bible save as the priests would teach it, which was not always as it was written. That was a religion that did not let us speak outright with God, but forced us to go through intermediaries. That is not good: it discourages thinking. Why is it that we English are so bold and venturesome, and the Papist peoples in the main so sheeplike, so willing to obey even the falsest and most evil of leaders? I think it is because we have chosen a better way, that gives us a deeper comfort of the soul. And I know we were right to free ourselves from whatever ties of faith there were that put our England at the mercies of our enemies. Our change in religion does serve our national interests well; it also well serves our souls. It is no accident that all the seagoing men of England are staunch Protestants, and do so fervently hate Papistry: it is because we are patriots, and also because we have spirits that are clear and free, unfettered by superstition, that we have gone out to rove so widely in the world.