'Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.' The priest's hymn of praise to a thrice-holy God was taken up by the choir, their singing welling up to fill the huge nave of St Paul's Cathedral. Beneath its canopy of carved stone and wood, Walter de Montfort, Dean of St Paul's, with other canons of the cathedral began the incantation which marked the beginning of the important part of this solemn High Mass. The celebrant's gold and gem-encrusted vestments dazzled the eye, their colour and light being magnified by the hundreds of beeswax candles which stood upon and around the huge, high altar. The damask white altar-cloth with its gold fringes and purple tassels was already covered in pools of pure wax. The incense rose in huge fragrant clouds, warming the cold air and doing something to hide the stench of the populace packed in the cathedral. On the right side of the sanctuary sat Edward of England in his robes of state, a silver chaplet on his steel-grey hair. His face modelled itself in a look of piety as, under heavy-lidded eyes, he watched his opponent the dean celebrate the mass of peace before that same dean launched into a lengthy sermon on whether the Church should pay its taxes.

On either side of Edward sat his temporal and spiritual lords of England. On his immediate right was Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal mover behind this morning's pageant, a defender of the Church's right to grow wealthy but pay nothing. Edward disliked the man, a born conniver, who hid his political ambitions behind the intricacies of Canon Law, scriptural quotations and, if these failed, appeals to Rome. Edward should have drawn comfort from his great barons but these too he did not trust.