A Falling Star, page 28
part #3 of Wintercombe Series
Bram stayed unmoving in the saddle, one fist on his hip, his eyes still hostile. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Tom. And if I were you, I wouldn’t go rushing off to Lyme just yet. You’ll undoubtedly run the risk of being taken up for a suspected rebel before you’ve got as far as Chard, and you won’t be much use to Monmouth in prison.’
‘Perhaps I’ll wait,’ Tom muttered reluctantly. ‘But when Monmouth comes, I’ll be the first in line to join — and so should you.’
‘By then, it’ll make sense,’ Bram pointed out. ‘There’s no point in taking up arms in a rebellion if there are so few of you that there’s no hope of success. If all these people here are willing to risk their lives for the Protestant cause, then I’ll do no less, and gladly.’
‘So will I,’ said Tom with fervour. ‘Monmouth!’
‘Monmouth, and the Protestant religion,’ Bram said, and they clasped hands. Then, with a friendly wave, he urged the chestnut further up East Street, seeing everywhere the crowds of excited, eager people, drawn from work and duty to discuss this astonishing and longed-for news with friends and neighbours.
Despite his cautious words to Tom, he was sorely tempted to turn his horse’s head around and gallop for Lyme, to offer his services to the man who had come to deliver them from popery. But he had a duty to his parents, as well as to the Duke of Monmouth. He was their only surviving son, for his two younger brothers, Joseph and Jeremy, and a sister, Ruth, had died in the terrible fever that had killed so many in Taunton only two years ago. His father, he knew, had plans to set up a printing press in the town, with Bram to manage it, to expand the business and to make the name of Loveridge synonymous with bookselling in Somerset, perhaps even further afield. There had also been talk of opening up a shop in Bath, where the fashionable gentry who flocked to the waters every summer would doubtless prove much more generous buyers of books than the sober, thrifty and earnest merchants and craftsmen of Taunton. Without Bram to inherit, all this glittering and enticing future fell to dust: the business would be sold off, and the proceeds divided between Sue and Hannah.
And yet, and yet…what, indeed, was the point of talking sedition, of wishing the King to his Papist devil and campaigning for the freedom of every man to worship as he wished, when he was not prepared to hazard his life and his future in support? If not, he was, as Tom had said, just a tavern windbag, and no amount of secret and treasonous pamphlets smuggled from Holland could pretend otherwise.
Both his heart and his head knew what he should do. The trouble was that they each urged quite different things.
Caught on the horns of his dilemma, he left the chestnut at the Red Lion, and was drawn despite himself into a most animated conversation in the taproom, surprisingly crowded despite the absence of the militia, who were doubtless elsewhere, stopping potential rebels from running off to Lyme. It was with difficulty that he extracted himself, his head ringing with joyous words of treason, and ran across the busy street to his father’s shop.
Jonah had a customer, a portly and periwigged gentleman in the black cloth and plain bands of a clergyman, and both were bent over a book lying open on the table as Bram burst in, his enthusiasm fired by the talk at the Red Lion. Just in time, he recognised the jowled red face, and air of fussy disapproval. Master Axe was entirely loyal to the King and the Anglican church, and had no time at all for Dissenters, or for any who might favour rebellion. Despite Jonah’s reputation as a supporter of the Whig view, Axe was a regular customer, for the shop was the largest of its kind in Taunton, and the only one that could boast regular links with printers and booksellers in London.
‘Ah, Bram,’ said his father, as he sketched a breathless bow to Master Axe. ‘You have doubtless heard the news?’
‘Dreadful,’ said the clergyman, with an angry shake of his head that almost dislodged his wig. ‘The rabble, of course, are overjoyed — let us hope that Colonel Luttrell and his militia succeed in preventing them from flocking off to Lyme to join in treason and rebellion.’
‘I expect they will,’ said Jonah, noncommittal as ever. He glanced at Bram and gave a very slight, significant jerk of his head.
His son knew what he meant, but had no intention of disappearing upstairs just yet. He said innocently, ‘I thought I had seen no soldiers in the street. Is that where they have all gone, Master Axe?’
‘There will be plenty left here to keep the town in good order,’ said Axe. He fixed Bram with a protuberant and faintly fishy eye. ‘And what of you, young man? Which side of the fence do you fall, eh?’
‘I have no intention of rushing off to join Monmouth in Lyme, sir,’ Bram told him, with perfect truth. ‘My father has much work for me to do here.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said the reverend, with a sharp hostile glance that showed all too clearly how much he did doubt it. ‘Well, Loveridge, I’ll be on my way. I’ll take the Exposition but not the Commentaries — I fear that man’s ideas are sadly suspect. Pray have it sent round to my house later. Good day to you, sir — and to you, young man.’
They waited in silence until the shop door had banged uncompromisingly shut behind him. Then Jonah put the despised Commentaries back in its allotted place on the shelves, and gave his son a rather grim smile. ‘If that man had his way, I’d be in the Bridewell with poor Savage — and probably so would you. At least you have the sense to keep your mouth shut in his presence.’
‘Of course,’ Bram said cheerfully. He cast the empty bags down on the table, and added, ‘Everything delivered, and no trouble at all — though for a while I felt as if I must have a sign above my head reading, “This man carries seditious pamphlets”. I met Tom Dinham, and he told me the news.’
‘Did he, now?’ said Jonah. He picked up his pipe and began to fill it, absently, with tobacco, and then looked for his tinderbox. Bram found it for him under a pile of loose sheets, and watched as he lit the tobacco, puffing intently until the weed was well alight. His father dearly loved a smoke, but Tabby had asked that he restrict its use to the shop.
‘We agreed that Monmouth was certain to march this way, and that the militia are unlikely to stop him,’ said Bram, after a pause filled with clouds of blue smoke. ‘He also accused me of being a tavern windbag, because I didn’t share his burning ardour for the cause. I had to persuade him not to go to Lyme then and there.’
‘Good for you,’ Jonah said. He stabbed the stem of the pipe towards his son. ‘I hope you’ve more sense than to listen to that harum-scarum young fool. There are other ways of serving the cause than dying for it needlessly. And of course you could hardly tell him that distributing seditious pamphlets is as treasonable, and as dangerous, as actually taking up arms.’
‘Not very well,’ said Bram, with a reluctant grin. ‘And then John Savage was trying to persuade me to join him. He’s leading a band of a dozen or so down to Lyme tonight, he said.’
Jonah put the pipe down and looked him in the eye. ‘And did you succumb? I know you — there’s a deal of sense in your head, but not enough to resist the tide when it’s flowing in the right direction.’
‘I’m not a child to be dictated to, Father,’ Bram reminded him, trying not to reveal his sudden anger. ‘I’m of age, and a man, and I’ve held responsibilities for several years now. Whether I decide or not to join Monmouth is my own affair, and not yours.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Jonah said. The pipe forgotten, he walked up to his son, so like his beloved wife, and laid his hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s my affair, too, and Sue’s, and Hannah’s, and your grandparents’, and above all your mother’s. Think on her face, boy, when she discovers you’ve ridden off after a pretty courtier who seems to have appointed himself the saviour of the Protestant cause.’
Bram had flushed with annoyance. ‘You’re talking as if I’d already gone. I haven’t even decided yet, one way or the other. And don’t you think I’m old enough to make my own decisions as to what’s right and what’s wrong — whatever you and the rest of the family think?’
Loud girlish voices sounded outside, and the door was flung open. Sue, Hannah and Libby, flushed and laughing, tumbled through it, giggling and clutching each other. When they saw the sober faces within, they made an effort to be serious, and Sue, the eldest and supposedly responsible for the others, untied her hood, smoothed her plain everyday apron, and made a little curtsey which Hannah and Libby, rather belatedly, copied. ‘Hullo, Father. We have been excused school, on account of the good news. Mistress Musgrave has said that we need not come back until tomorrow.’
‘And she’s asked us to make colours for the Duke’s soldiers!’ Hannah asked breathlessly. ‘We have to have a piece of silk, as large as possible, with a motto that’s suitable, and a picture embroidered on it —’
‘We’re all going to work on it,’ Sue said. ‘Even Libby. Mistress Mary Blake suggested that we do a Bible, with a sword coming from it. I think “The Protestant Religion” would be very appropriate, don’t you, Father? And Mother has plenty of oddments of silk and scraps of material — it should be easy to find plenty to work with, and if we all three do it, I’m sure we’ll have it finished by the time Monmouth marches into Taunton!’
Something in the quality of her uncle’s face must have given Libby pause, for she glanced at her exuberant cousin and nudged her. Bram, standing beside Jonah, could not see his expression, but could sense the force of his feelings. There was a brief silence, time for the girls’ blazing enthusiasm to splutter and fade; then Jonah banged his pipe down on the table, with such force that the stem broke, and said in a low, furious voice, ‘Do I hear you aright? Is Mistress Musgrave — the woman I appointed your teacher in matters moral as well as educational, the woman whom I trusted to set a good example to her pupils — is she planning to involve you all in treason?’
‘It’s not only her,’ Libby said. ‘Mistress Blake and her sister are just as hot for the cause. When Monmouth comes, we’re to present him with our colours, and of course Mary Mead is working on a special one, with gold thread.’ She sounded rather contemptuous: Mary was the senior pupil, a little older than Sue, and favoured for her beauty, grace and undoubted skills of needlework, despite her unfortunate lack of sparkle or intelligence.
‘I don’t care if half of Taunton is embroidering colours for Monmouth,’ said Jonah. ‘But I do care if people who should know better encourage those who do not in an act of treason, and I shall call on your Mistress Musgrave this afternoon and tell her so.’
‘Oh, please don’t, Father!’ cried Hannah, who worshipped her teacher.
Sue, who was old enough for more reasoned argument, said more quietly, ‘But you used to go to the meeting-house, Father, until they closed it. You’ve always spoken up for the freedom to worship as we please, and for the Protestant religion. So does Monmouth. Surely you cannot go against him?’
Bram, a memory of those seditious pamphlets acute and vivid in his mind, added quickly, ‘And you’ve been peddling treason yourself for years. Don’t play the hypocrite now.’
‘Hypocrite?’ Jonah stared at him, his lean face flushed with unaccustomed anger. ‘There’s a world of difference, my boy, between spreading the Word of God and Justice by quiet, peaceful means, and fomenting open rebellion. And what if, by some unbelievable miracle, he does succeed, and King James is overthrown? All we’ll have is another King James, of Monmouth, and within a few years you won’t be able to tell them apart — save that one is a fanatical Papist, and the other a fanatic Dissenter!’
‘Are you a republican, Father?’ asked Sue, in the same tones in which she might have asked if he were a bigamist or a murderer.
‘In the sense that I don’t believe that one man by right of birth has any more authority over his fellows than another, yes,’ said Jonah. Bram grinned to himself: his father’s weakness, if it could be called such, was that even if he tried to lay down the law, his offspring could always tempt him into a spirited and sometimes heated debate. ‘And that the government of a country by a group of men who have been elected by their fellows to rule is, in justice, far preferable — since I believe that to be true, then yes, I suppose I am a republican. But I do not believe in force of arms and might, with power to the strongest. The will of the people should be enough to prevail — change should come about by peaceful means.’
‘And if it doesn’t? If rebellion is the only possible way to overthrow a tyranny?’ Bram asked. ‘What would you do then, Father? Groan under the yoke, but refuse for conscience’s sake to do anything to improve your lot?’
‘I would do all I could, short of taking up arms,’ Jonah repeated. He looked at his rebellious and treasonous children, and sighed. ‘And if I were in your shoes, I’d think more than twice before throwing in my lot with a penniless adventurer who is as likely to be his father’s legitimate son as I am to be the King of France.’
‘But everyone knows —’ said Sue, Monmouth’s passionate partisan.
‘Knows what? That he’s a pretty lad with nice ways and the knack of making himself agreeable to all, high and low? He was just another wild courtly rakehell until he fell in with Shaftesbury and the Green Ribbon Club. Don’t you think his father would have acknowledged him if he had been his legal son? And don’t you think, also, that if Monmouth had been any more than a handsome lightweight, he would have given him high office and real responsibilities in government? King Charles had the measure of him, right enough, and to follow such a man now would lead to certain disaster.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Sue fervently, her round eyes shining. ‘The whole country will rise — he’s the hope of the Protestant religion and all Dissenters — give us just a few weeks, Father, and we’ll see you eat your words!’
Jonah surveyed them, frowning. He said at last, ‘Perhaps I will — or perhaps you’ll eat yours. Oh, make your colours if it pleases you — I can hardly object after all. But if — if — Monmouth comes to Taunton, you will not see me amongst the first to welcome him. Just because I support the cause which he has appropriated does not mean I support him. But I would bid you, all of you — be careful. You may think your Protestant Duke is bound to triumph, but from where I stand, matters look a good deal less certain.’
*
The Protestant Duke, hope of all who feared King James and Papists, raised his standard at Lyme, and the countryside rose in enthusiastic response. The King in London received the news of the invasion with some surprise, for it had been assumed that Monmouth would sail for Scotland, or Cheshire. He hastened to put the south-west into a state of greater readiness and defence. Warrants went out to the Lord Lieutenant of Somerset to raise the militia and march upon the rebels. Troops of horse and dragoons and companies of foot from the regular army were ordered to Salisbury, to add expertise and equipment to the local soldiers under the command of the Duke of Albemarle, who was instructed to prevent people going to Lyme to join Monmouth, but not to attack him unless from a position of great advantage, until the professional forces should arrive.
There was little chance for the more hot-headed inhabitants of Taunton to hurry off to Lyme. Colonel Luttrell, in charge of the despised local militia, had already summoned his troop commanders to muster their men, armed and ready, in the marketplace of Taunton, and their chief task would be to watch the roads and highways to the south for intending rebels. The Bridewell and the castle were full of suspicious travellers, and the town waited in an atmosphere of high expectancy for the imminent day when their saviour should march up East Street and deliver them from the impositions of Bernard Smith, the mayor, and the menace of Colonel Luttrell and his militia.
In Lyme, Monmouth and his officers were busy consolidating their precarious position. As the word spread round the countryside, hundreds of men came to join them, evading the militia, and twenty-four hours after the Duke’s landing, he was in command of almost a thousand foot, and perhaps a hundred horse. Guards were posted behind the hedges lining the highways into the town, in case of attack: but the militia, obeying instructions, held back until the forces from London should arrive. There was a skirmish in Bridport, though, between a small force under the command of Lord Grey, Monmouth’s friend, and a band of Dorset militia. The rebel horses, unused to warfare, proved unmanageable and bolted, and the foot was brought off under fire by Nathaniel Wade, who had no military experience but an abundance of coolness and common sense. They had taken several prisoners, however, killed two militia officers and, most important of all, seized thirty or so horses. First blood had been shed, and the rebellion had begun in earnest.
All over the West Country, the news spread, related with joy or disgust or indifference or foreboding, according to the inclination of the informant. It was not very difficult to evade the militia, especially for men with local knowledge of every short cut and trackway, and a steady stream of intending rebels, mostly travelling at night, managed to slip past the part-time soldiers watching the roads, and to join Monmouth and his growing army at Lyme. Soon his force would be sufficiently large and strong for him to leave the town and begin his march through Somerset towards Bristol, the second city of the kingdom, noted for its Dissenting opinions, and a certain source of men, money and support. With Bristol taken, the west would be his, and with such a firm base at his back, he would strike at London, and the King.
*
The news of the invasion arrived at Wintercombe two days after it had happened. By this time, Louise had recovered from the first shock of her fall, and was no longer confined to her bed. But her left shoulder was still intensely painful, the flesh and muscles around it much bruised and inflamed, and her grandmother bandaged and strapped up her arm every morning, with a fresh application of a pungent embrocation which Louise suspected had been originally intended for equine use. It did seem to lessen the pain and swelling a little, but she was still forced to move with extreme caution, creeping round the house in a loose gown and tippet like an elderly invalid. Riding, of course, would be out of the question for at least ten days, if not longer.
