What happened to Father Andrews?

June 1679

Marged rushed back from the market with the news. She burst into the lean-to where her husband, Dafydd, was chopping wood. “What do you think I’ve just heard?” Dafydd looked up at her, long in his patience of her dramatic presentations. “Father Andrews’ body has been found!” Dafydd nodded. He had thought it would be eventually. He and Bran, another servant from his Master’s employment, had buried the poor man, emaciated, old and worn out, in the best place they could find – in the floor of a disused chapel at *Wengothan, near Abergavenny. 

They had laid him to rest with his crucifix and his rosary on his chest, his arms crossed beneath them. The chapel had been fairly full of hay then in March, but apparently, according to his wife’s account, had been nearly empty when the outline of the grave had been discovered in the floor. The farmer first excavated a little (hoping for treasure) and then, when he found a body, called the Justice of the Peace, fearing murder. The Justice, having looked at the body in its now swollen state, had pronounced it poisoned. “Bloody fool,” said Dafydd, “bodies always swell up like that before they decay. Shows how often he’s looked at the dead.” Marged looked at him disapprovingly, “You had better let Master Andrews know the body’s been found.” Dafydd sighed, nodded and stretched his body before walking up to his Master’s house.

Dafydd went to the kitchen of the main house and said to the housekeeper that he needed to see Master Thomas Andrews. She told him that he was with his son and daughter-in-law looking at the accounts. “He’ll be glad to leave them to it,” she said and went off to let him know. Master Andrews arrived in the kitchen, pulling on his cloak. “We’ll take a turn around the woodland then, shall we? You said you thought the pigs were getting in through the hedge?” 

His Master ushered him quickly out of the house – although Dafydd’s face showed little emotion, his Master must have picked up some urgency or tension, and wanted him out of the house and the ears that might take information back to his daughter-in-law. She was well known for her disapproval of everything the older man did and had wanted rid of him ever since his own wife had died and she had become mistress of the house.

Once they were out of earshot of the house, Dafydd broke the news that Master Thomas Andrews’ brother’s grave had been found. Master Andrews said urgently “Will there be any way it can be traced back to here? To you or Bran?” Dafydd made calming motions with his hands, “No, no. We laid him in a blanket from the house where he was lodging. We had wrapped him in that when we went to move him before John Arnold and the posse got there. But he was so ill by then we just had to put him in the cart in the darkness and pull him off to hide him. But he was dead not long after. It was all too much for him, poor old fellow. Then we left him hidden until we could talk with you about what to do. We knew that deep frost would keep the body cold until we could bury it. And when we got back, it was frozen solid in that cold weather. We put him in that grave in the chapel, nearest we could do to a blessing with no other priests and Father Lewis in Usk gaol. They might know the blanket, but they’ve still got that poor widow woman, Jane Harris, where he lodged. She’s locked up in Usk, so they won’t get no further there.” 

Master Thomas Andrews was quiet for a while, then burst out, “What else could we have done? I couldn’t have him here at the farm – Anise would have informed and would be glad to implicate me too! She thinks the worse of me because my brother was a catholic priest. And him being in the forest for nigh on three months in that weather, the snow and the cold…I couldn’t think straight for worry. When that Father Hills came and said he would find lodging for him, I was pleased to give him the money to arrange for the rent - and money to buy some better food to try to build him up. Then that stupid woman telling the butcher that she was buying the meat for her new lodger but wouldn’t need any on Fridays! Of course, the butcher went and told John Arnold he thought that the widow woman had a Papist lodging! If only Father Lewis had been able to help, he’s always been so sensible.”

There was a long pause while they walked up to the edge of the forest and made their way along the path by the palings and laid hedge at the edge. It looked very different now in its early summer foliage from the desolate snowy landscape it had been in the hard winter. Dafydd looked at his miserable master, “You did try and ask for help when your brother first came in December last year. That was after he had had to flee from the living at Hardwick and he had come to you. You remember, you asked if Marged could go? Marged walked in all that snow to the inn where they stopped with Father Lewis – it was snowing something terrible and they had to break the journey from Monmouth. Marged, she got in to see him – they don’t take no notice of women looking like serving women – and asked Father Lewis if he would come and minister to Father Andrews. But, of course, Father Lewis was under arrest, on his way to the prison at Usk and not free to help. And then the winter was so hard, everything frozen, and your brother not used to looking after himself, so even though we could take pottage, bread and cheese to him after dark, he was always so cold.”

There was a long silence, then a deep sigh from Master Andrews, “Perhaps it was for the best. If John Arnold had caught him, he’d have been shut up in the gaol and faced being hanged, drawn and quartered, like Father Lewis - and those other priests in Cardiff. That poor man, he’s still seeing people visiting him in his cell there and he gives comfort, although I wouldn’t risk going myself. That John Arnold is mad with power and wanting to catch all those of the Hen Ffydd. You’d be bound to be a marked man. Best keep a low profile.” He put out a hand and rested it briefly on Dafydd’s shoulder, “You’ve been a good servant to me, I shall remember that.” They walked in silence for a while. Dafydd said, “I’ll put a few new palings in along here, shall I? These look as though they gone rotten at the bottom now. The pigs will be in there if we don’t.” They parted and Dafydd watched Master Andrews walk slowly back towards the house, stooped over now with his fifty odd years and his troubles.