Act of Oblivion, page 30
Cornet George Joyce had five hundred men near Oxford. He was like-minded. He could seize the King.
An order was drafted.
Ned had drawn Cromwell aside. ‘You cannot do this, Oliver.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you do not have the authority.’
‘You are a milksop. What is the point of winning fight after fight if Parliament loses us the war?’
‘Fairfax is commander-in-chief, not you.’
‘Fairfax is a lion on the battlefield – I’d follow him into hell – but in politics he’s a dormouse. He’ll thank me for forcing the decision on him.’
At the conclusion of the meeting, I returned to the army, now at Newmarket. A few days later, I was summoned to see General Fairfax. He had just received a message that the King had been forcibly removed from Holdenby by Cornet Joyce and was being brought to Newmarket.
‘Your cousin is behind this.’
An awkward moment for Ned, standing at attention in front of the commander-in-chief, his helmet in his hand.
‘General Cromwell must answer for himself, Your Excellency.’
He ordered me to proceed with my regiment at all speed to intercept him and to ensure His Majesty was well treated and given the chance to return to Holdenby.
He had come upon Joyce’s column the following afternoon, on the road about four miles west of Cambridge. Joyce was a young hothead, still in his twenties, well puffed up by the fact that he had the King of England in his custody. Ned showed him Fairfax’s order. ‘I’ll take over from now on, Cornet.’
‘You’re welcome to him, Colonel.’
‘You’d better introduce me.’
As they walked along the halted column, Ned said, ‘What’s his mood?’
‘He’s polite enough, if you handle him firmly.’
Ned had never seen the King before. He seemed a tiny figure, surrounded by his attendants, seated on his big horse, gazing bemusedly around him at the summer country hedges, filled with creamy hawthorn and pink dog roses.
Joyce announced, without preliminaries, ‘This is Colonel Whalley, Your Majesty, sent by General Fairfax to ensure your safety.’
Ned removed his helmet and bowed. The King stared down at him for a moment, then extended his hand. Ned hesitated. He detested the man, yet Charles was still his sovereign. He was also, although he took care not to show it, nervous. He stepped forward, took the royal hand, and kissed it – very soft and white and delicate it had been, like a lady’s hand. Sitting now in his snowbound bedroom at the frontier of civilisation, he could hardly credit the memory.
Dear Frances, you may imagine my feelings. I made myself known to the King, conveyed General Fairfax’s compliments, said that I was at his disposal, and stood ready to conduct him back to Holdenby, to which he replied firmly that he preferred to go on to Newmarket, as Cornet Joyce had promised him, and meet the leaders of the army. His answer was unexpected and placed me in a quandary. The day was ending, and it would be necessary for me to find shelter for the King in a suitable place while I awaited fresh orders.
He had stood, uncertain, in the lane.
‘Might we offer a suggestion, Colonel Whalley?’ The King seemed amused at his predicament.
‘Your Majesty?’
‘Childerley Hall is quite close by. Sir John Cutts died a few months back, but we are sure Lady Cutts will be honoured to entertain us.’
Honoured or not, the widow Cutts had little say in the matter, as a regiment of cavalry poured onto her estate. That evening, Ned stood at his bedroom window and surveyed the deer park, in which five hundred of his troopers were bivouacked, their horses grazing on the short grass, with sentries posted at the park gates and at every door of the house, while the King kept to his own suite of rooms.
The following day, the Sabbath, after Ned had attended a prayer meeting under the trees with his men, and the King had observed his own devotions in private with his chaplain, he had been invited into the royal presence.
The King repeated his desire to press on to Newmarket as quickly as possible; he preferred to negotiate with the army than with Parliament. Ned asked him to wait until he had received a reply to the dispatch he had sent to Fairfax, requesting further instructions.
On Monday, Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton rode up to the house with their bodyguards. Fairfax kissed the royal hand; Cromwell and Ireton conspicuously did not. After the interview, which was polite but cold, Cromwell took Ned for a walk in the garden. ‘See how cunning he is? He pretends to be amenable, while all the time he plots to drive a wedge between us and Parliament. Stay by his side as much as possible. Pay him all due respect. But in the name of God make sure he does not escape.’
My child, you will surely find it hard to picture your old republican father with the King of England, and yet I saw him almost every day for the next seven months – far more than anyone else on the Parliamentary side during the whole course of the war. What a curious mixture he was – good-humoured one minute, haughty the next. He seemed to observe the world through a thick pane of glass, set apart from other mortals. I can remember only one disagreeable occasion. That was on the day when he was visited by an officer who wished to return the ensigns of the Order of the Garter belonging to the late Prince of Orange. As they walked back and forth, it seemed to me that they were engaged in some manner of secret conference, but when I tried to interpose myself, the King pushed me away with both his hands and raised his cane as if to strike me on the head.
My orders were to keep him always within easy reach of the army, for ease of negotiations and in case some attempt was made at rescue. Finally, when the army reached the outskirts of London, the King returned to his former home at Hampton Court. Here he was allowed to receive his friends and younger children, to have his old servants around him, and to ride about the royal park as he pleased. He met often with Cromwell to discuss a lasting settlement that would preserve the peace – that would allow him to retain his throne, guarantee the rights of Parliament, and permit liberty of religious belief. Some characteristics of the King appealed to Oliver – his obvious love for his children, his deep religious feeling, even his refusal to bend his principles, whatever the personal cost. Indeed
He stopped.
Indeed . . .
Indeed . . . what?
Indeed, His Majesty had privately hinted he might create Oliver an earl and give him command of the nation’s army once a constitutional settlement had been reached. Imagine it – Cromwell the Earl of Ely, and Betty a countess!
Indeed, relations became so dangerously friendly that one evening in September, after the King had been playing with his children and Ned was escorting him back to his private apartments, he deigned to engage him in a personal conversation.
‘Do you have a wife, Colonel Whalley?’
‘I do, Your Majesty.’
‘And children?’
‘Four, sir.’
‘You should bring them here. We have fifteen hundred rooms and no longer a court worth speaking of, so it’s certain we have space. Speak with Sir Jack.’
Sir Jack was Sir John Ashburnham – handsome, rich, dim, former Groom of the Bedchamber, the King’s closest courtier.
Naturally, Ned did no such thing. But a day or two later, Ashburnham sought him out and told him that His Majesty had commanded him to invite Mrs Whalley and her children to stay at Hampton, ‘if that would be agreeable to you?’ He was also commanded to say that the King would like to invite the colonel and his wife, ‘and General and Mrs Cromwell, and General and Mrs Ireton’ to dine with him.
And so, the unbelievable had happened – unbelievable at the time, even more so at nearly twenty years’ distance – that after months apart, Ned and Katherine had been reunited on the freshly laundered, lavender-scented sheets of some courtier’s apartment in a deserted wing of the palace, and he and the creator of the Ironsides had later sat down with the King to be formally feasted. A grand table, with chairs along one side, faced out to the large hall, where courtiers stood watching the spectacle. Betty Cromwell had been seated on His Majesty’s right, Katherine on his left. Bridget Ireton – Oliver’s eldest daughter – had been placed further along the table, next to Ned. Oliver was next to Katherine. On Ned’s other side, however, was an empty seat: Henry Ireton had refused to come.
Your mother looked most beautiful, the King was charming to her, the wine and food were of the highest quality, the evening convivial . . .
When word of it reached the army, only seven miles from Hampton, along the Thames at Putney, there had been outrage, whipped up not least by the young and radical – and now Lieutenant Colonel – William Goffe.
That night, after supper, they sat in front of the fire in Ned’s room and smoked their pipes as snow fell in the darkness outside. Such silence.
Ned said, ‘I was thinking today about the army’s debates at Putney.’
‘Were you ever present? I thought you were always at Hampton with your friend the King.’ A slight bitterness in Will’s sarcasm, even after all this time.
‘I was there at the beginning. I still remember your speech on the first day.’
‘Did you approve?’
‘It was . . . fiery.’
‘I spoke as the Lord directed me.’
The army leadership had assembled in the Putney church, St Mary’s, to determine what their policy should be – Cromwell presiding. Will had marched up to the pulpit like a man going into battle. He declared that their victories had shown that God was ‘throwing down the glory of all flesh’, that he had been granted a vision in a dream that they should not be negotiating with the King at all, that ‘a voice from heaven has come to us, that we have sinned against the Lord in tampering with his enemies’. His words had been met with a roar of approval. It was for this that Cromwell had demanded – and received – an apology.
At the end of the first session, Ned had walked with Oliver away from the church, and made some comment about the ugly mood.
‘Ugly? By God, it is! And angry – and perhaps with some justice. It was a foolish vanity to have allowed ourselves to be publicly feasted. Henry was wise to have had nothing to do with it. Did you hear I have been threatened with impeachment? I have even been warned of a Leveller plot against my life.’ Ned had never known him so troubled. ‘The army is God’s instrument. In its temper we catch the echo of His voice. If we cannot bring the army to our sense, we must go to theirs. You had best get back to Hampton tonight, and I shall see what may be done with our friends here tomorrow.’
Ned leaned forwards and poked the fire. ‘I meant no offence, Will. Oliver always respected you for your godliness.’
‘But we were right,’ said Will fiercely. ‘We could never have reached agreement with Charles Stuart. We should never have even tried.’ He gave Ned a suspicious look. ‘I wonder sometimes what you are putting in that book of yours.’
He finished his pipe and went back to his room.
For two weeks the army debated in Putney, seeking guidance from God, while I remained at Hampton. I received reports most days of how strongly the mood ran against the King. At the conclusion of their deliberations, on November 11th, General Cromwell sent me a letter which he directed me to show him. I have reason to remember its exact words – ‘Dear Cos. Whalley, there are rumours abroad of some intended attempt on His Majesty’s person. Therefore, I pray have a care of your guards, for if any such thing should be done, it would be accounted a most horrid act.’
I made haste to show the letter to the King that afternoon. I told him, on my word of honour, that I was sent to safeguard not to murder him, that he could be sure no such thing would be done on my watch, and that I would die at his feet in his defence. For this he thanked me. ‘You have always treated our person most respectfully, Colonel Whalley.’
I increased the guard as ordered, but in truth it would have required four or five hundred soldiers to secure every entrance of such a vast palace, and I had barely a quarter of that number.
It was the King’s habit to spend Thursdays – which day this was – writing letters to be sent to foreign parts, emerging from his bedchamber between five and six in the evening, afterwards going to prayers, and following that to supper, before retiring for the night. It was a blustery, rainy evening, a high storm raging. At five, I came into the room next to his bedchamber and asked his servants for the King. They told me he was still writing. At half past five, and then at six, I enquired again. At seven, with my fears increasing, I told one of his bedchamber men, Mr Mawle, that I wondered if the King might be ill and asked him to go into his room. He replied that the King had given him a strict command not to disturb him, that he dared not disobey, and besides the door was bolted. I looked in at the keyhole to see if I could perceive His Majesty but could not.
When it drew towards eight, I went to Mr Smitheby, Keeper of the Privy Lodgings, desiring him to go along with me the back way, through the garden – where I had sentinels – and up the stairs, from chamber to chamber, till we came to the room next to His Majesty’s bedchamber, where we saw his cloak lying in the middle of the floor, which much amazed me.
Now I ordered Mr Mawle to go in. He said he would do so, but that I must stay by the door. I said I would and did. Mr Mawle immediately came out and reported the King was not there. We all went in, and someone said, ‘It may be that the King is in his closet.’ Mr Mawle went to check, and presently replied, ‘He is gone but he has left a letter for you.’
Ned could taste the dryness in his mouth as he relived that moment – how he had read the King’s message thanking him for his service (‘I assure you it was not the letter you showed me today that made me take this resolution but rather must confess I am loth to be made a close prisoner under pretence of securing my life’), how he had ordered parties of horse and foot to search the park in the wet and windy darkness of the November storm, and had sent immediate dispatches to Fairfax and Cromwell alerting them to the King’s escape.
Oliver had arrived from Putney at midnight. To Ned’s surprise, the general was calm, cheerful even. Once he had heard a full account, he put a consoling arm around his shoulders. ‘Don’t take it too hard, cousin. It was an impossible task we set you – to hold him a prisoner yet let him live freely in this great place. Besides, it may work to our advantage. He has betrayed our trust, showed the kind of man he is, and relieved us of the burden of these negotiations. In the matter of Charles Stuart, we can all be Levellers now.’
‘And what if he succeeds in fleeing abroad?’
‘So much the better – we shall be rid of him. But I doubt he’ll get that far.’
Of course, he had been right. Like so much else in his reign, the King’s escape was rash in conception and slipshod in execution. Fleeing the grounds of Hampton Court, he met by prearrangement Ashburnham and two other loyal supporters, Sir John Berkeley and William Legge. The four at once rode south through the royal forest towards the coast, the King swearing he knew the way. But on that foul night they became lost, and by daybreak had proceeded only as far as Sutton. His Majesty then proposed they make for Southampton, but Ashburnham admitted no ship had been arranged to carry him to France. Accordingly, they diverted to Lymington, and sent word to the governor of the Isle of Wight, Robert Hammond, whom the King believed to be a loyal supporter. Hammond agreed to receive him, but upon his arrival confined him in Carisbrooke Castle and sent word of his prisoner to London.
Later, we discovered the full extent of Charles Stuart’s treachery. He had made a secret agreement with the Scotch to invade England and restore his position. He also wrote to the Queen in France that he did not consider himself obliged to keep any promises extracted from him under compulsion, and that ‘he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues who, instead of a silken garter, should be fitted with a hempen cord’.
That was the kind of man he was. Do you wonder, daughter, why we had to kill him? There would never have been peace as long as he lived.
Ned looked up. The day had dwindled into darkness. Shadows clustered in the corners of the room.
He did not want to write any more. It was troubling to disturb the sediment of the past, to stir up old fears and suspicions. That letter of Cromwell’s, for example, which he had told Ned to show the King – it occurred to him now that it might have arisen less from a desire to warn the King of his peril and more from a calculation that it would provoke him into trying to escape. In which case, did it mean that Cromwell had been willing to risk exposing his cousin to humiliation – perhaps to a court martial, possibly even a firing squad – purely in order to extricate himself from his negotiations with the King and restore his relations with the army?
He blew on the ink to dry it, put the thick pile of pages back in his bag, and lay down on the bed. He closed his eyes. One could never be sure with Oliver. Ambition and godliness, self-interest and the higher cause, the base metal entwined with the gold.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
AFEW DAYS LATER, an event occurred that was to change his relations with Will.
It was the middle of the afternoon, the bitterest day of the winter so far, a hard, light snow – tiny flakes whipping like musket pellets in a blizzard across the dead white fields. Will had been driven indoors by the cold and was in his room. Ned was at his own window. It looked south, as did Will’s, across the yard and the street to the distant houses. He was watching the snow, his mind as blank as the view, when a figure emerged, struggling along the side of the road, obviously male, his head bent against the wind, a burden of some sort across his shoulders. He stopped at the Russells’ gate and looked up at the house. Ned drew back out of sight. When he looked again, the man was through the gate and approaching the door.
