The Sunday Reflection #92 - Who are the traitors?

 I used to work a stones throw from the Tower of London. I had to actually walk through it to get to my office from Tower station. Oddly, I've never been inside to see the Crown jewels. In fact I have a deep aversion to the building and it gives me the creeps. I am not silly enough to want to see it demolished and replaced with a block of flats, that would be ridiculous, but the building has a terrible history. I am not quite sure whether this aversion dates from my times at St Vincent School, where Irish nuns would regale us with tales of British inhumanity and injustice, and how heads of 'traitors' would be placed on spikes outside the tower, as a warning to anyone who might consider opposing the monarch of the day. 

It may also have been down to the fact that an ancestoral relative of mine, Chidiok Tichborne, a poet and an opponent of Queen Elizabeth the first was held in the tower and hung, drawn and quartered for his role in the Babbington plot. For me, I have always felt an affinity with Chidiok. He is 400 years (almost to the day) younger than me. He was an idealistic young man, who wanted a better world. Chidiok joined the Babbington plot in response to Queen Elizabeth banning Roman Catholicism. It seems insane in this day and age that a Christian religion, which had recently been the state religion could be banned and the followers persecuted, but that was the climate in which Chidiok lived.

My father, a proud Roman Catholic, always mentioned with great pride that three Tichbornes are listed as official Roman Catholic Martyrs in the annals of the Catholic Church, Chidiok was the most high profle, but Thomas Tichborne, a Catholic Priest and Nicholas Tichborne, who helped spring him from prison, were also executed by the English state. Catholic worship was banned in England until 1781 and in 1829 Catholics were once again allowed to hold public office.

I am not a historian, however I think there are some important lessons to be learned from history. If we do not learn such lessons, then we may make the same mistakes again. I find the concept of people killing each other over religious differences to be completely sick. The fact that there are many places in the world this still happens is a stain on humanity. Fortunately, Catholics and Protestants seem to have moved on (although there are still tensions in places like Glasgow and Northern Ireland). In England, the main cause of the schism was the dispute between Henry VIII and the Pope over the annulment of his marriage. By most measures, now we'd consider Henry to be a psychopath and a sociopath. He had ultimate power and could exercise it in England as he saw fit. 

What the Nuns at St Vincents never really taught us was that there was more to the Potestant cause than just Henry's loins. The Vatican at the time was a deeply flawed institution. Many such as Martin Luther felt that it had lost its way and was more about maintaining unstitutional power than spreading the message of peace and love. When I researched the issue, I was quite disturbed to find that the deeper I dug, the more I agreed with Luther's criticisms of the Church. Had I been around at the time and heard Luthers criticisms, I may well have lined up on his side. As both the Pope and Henry weilded power without balances and checks, Europe descended into a dark period of religious war. 

Fast forward to 2026. We have Donald Trump as the most powerful man on the planet. He fires anyone who disagrees with him. He has launced a war against a theocracy in Iran, where the Mullah's control the country and have a despised religious police to enforce their edicts. The more I see of Trump, the more he reminds me of Henry VIII. He is partial to a wife or three. He portrays himself as a ' defender of the faith' whilst completely ignoring the basic principles of the religion (fhonesty, forgiveness, faithfulness). 

More worrying for me, is the demonisation of Islam on social media. I am not a Muslim, but I know many honest, decent and caring people who are. I believe that seeing their religion constantly being abiused by people who know nothing about it, is extremely dangerous. Given the history of this century, it would be naive and stupid to deny that there are a small minority of very dangerous radical islamists who have shown themselves to be hellbent on causing death and destruction. But they are a tiny minority in their community. There are similarly dangerous, mentally unstable people in all faith communities. The history of England has plenty of examples of religious crime. Sadly, if we look at nations such as the USSR and China, which adopted atheism as the national faith system, it is no better. 

To me, the lesson is that unchecked power is the problem. Whether that power is hard power, as used by Donald Trump, or soft power, where people submit to "infallible religious authority" my view is that without checks and balances, people are repressed and death and misery follows. 

I started this blog discussing The Tower of London. It's most famous entrance traitors gate, was where many entered to meet their fate. It may seem strange to some that the last person executed at the Tower was in living memory,  was Josef Jakobs, a German spy, who was shot by a military firing squad on August 15, 1941. I believe that the term traitor is much misused. To me, a traitor is someone who willfully sells out friends or a principle for a degree of personal gain. My ancestor Chidiok Tichborne did not betray his beliefs. Of course if you try and assinate a monarch and get caught, it will not end well. But to me he is not a traitor. His poetry, inspired the final song on my bands new album. His poem, written the night before his execution, makes up the middle eight. This one is for you, my spiritual brother.

Traitors (To The Tower)

 
The darkest secret is the one that you hide from yourself
You're terrified that it will emerge from the back of the shelf
We built those walls of stone to keep the fear in
But it's the cancer in our soul that denies the truth of our sin
 
The tower holds the jewels
But its meaning is a tool
And behind the smiling face
Are the darkest of places
 
The darkest secrets of our kings and queens
 
(The Tichborne Elegy)
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
 
The tower holds the jewels
But it's meaning is a tool
And behind the smiling face
Are the darkest of places
 
The darkest secrets of our kings and queens X 4