Martyrs in Rochester

Already I’ve learnt to savour the moment of the first sighting, and the rising excitement of approaching, the great place. England’s cathedrals are magnificent repositories of faith and history, of architecture, story, and meaning. Every visit, and every visitor, is unique; but every visit and every visitor is completely insignificant in the great sweep of their history, their space, their enduring grandeur. I like this balance: for me today is utterly special – my first visit to this sacred place, and my creation of a holy sound that will fill it – but in the scheme of things it’s devastatingly ephemeral. I’m a dandelion pappus that drifts inconsequentially by, hesitates for a moment, and is swept away on the wind. So I’m learning not to take myself too seriously.

Unlike, of course, old Henry VIII. He spent a certain amount of time in the draughty-looking castle just across the road. Rochester, strategically positioned on the Medway, and only two days’ march from London, has perhaps had more than its fair share of military to-ing and fro-ing, since the Normans built that castle. Periodically the cathedral has been requisitioned by military forces of one flavour or another, fighting variously for and against kings and would-be kings. Imagine it full of rude medieval infantry, or as a barracks for a few hundred mounted knights. The smell still lingers a bit, I think.

All of the best cathedrals have to hone their claims to fame. It still is, at least quietly, a slightly competitive game. Well, Rochester is the second oldest foundation in the country, just seven years younger than Canterbury. And it boasts the first English-born bishop, Ithamar, consecrated in 644. King Aethelred harried the church a great deal in the years around 676, before his strongly persuasive wife Queen Bertha turned him from a pagan into a Christian. (Don’t confuse King Aethelred with King Aethelberht, fifty years older and fighting on the other side; come on, read your Saxon history.)

But in my view it is the bishops who were martyred in Rochester that give the place its most relevant claim to fame. In 1535 Henry VIII had Bishop John Fisher’s head cut off when he couldn’t persuade Fisher to recognise him as the proper head of the English church. Fisher was a Catholic, he said, and would remain so until his death. So Henry decreed the death should be sooner rather than later.

Twenty years after this, Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor, executed Bishop Nicholas Ridley, and for the opposite reason. Ridley would be a Protestant until his death, and even being burnt at the stake wasn’t going to change that. There might be some lesson for the modern world in this particular vignette of religious history, I feel.

Anyway, on with the show. Rochester is a beautiful place to play a cello. The Norman nave is not too wide, and lit by a big clerestory. It’s warm and friendly. There are two short flights of steps up to the quire behind me, where the real glory seems to be hidden. There, the other side of an opaque organ screen, the old monastic buildings are full of extra aisles and transepts and chapels, a tower, a presbytery, and an oddly placed Chapter house.

But here, on the elevated platform halfway up those stairs to the quire, with a high and bright transept on either side of me, I can fill the space with sound. I’m given a warm welcome by Neil, a residentiary Canon, in front of a significantly larger audience than I’ve had to date. This is the first time I feel the performance of the Meditation is meeting the heavy expectations I’ve laid on it over so many months of preparation. The applause is loud, and long, and I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and happy. Would it be too much to say I feel I’ve found a vocation?