London (112 page)

The actions of King Charles I of England in the first week of January 1642 did not show he was mad, but merely that he had not the faintest understanding of English politics.

On 3 January he sent the sergeant-at-arms to arrest five members of the Commons. The Commons refused him entry. The next day, breaching all etiquette, he turned up himself, and found that the five, including King Pym, and Pennington the Puritan of London, had departed. The Speaker would not tell him where they were – “Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as this House is pleased to direct me” – and balked of his prey the king remarked: “I see the birds have flown.”

Kings did not arrest members of Parliament for speaking their minds in the House. It was against all custom. It was a breach of Parliament’s privilege. From that day to this, when the monarch’s representative comes to summon the Commons to the yearly opening ceremony, the door is symbolically slammed in his face. When Charles went to the Guildhall the next day, even the mayor and aldermen, who disliked the radicals, could not help him.

“Privilege of Parliament,” they reminded him. “Privilege of Parliament,” people cried, as he returned through the streets.

Five days later, King Charles and his queen moved to the safety of Hampton Court. King Pym stayed in London.

All through that spring Julius waited. There were, perhaps, tiny grounds for hope. Parliament was at least maintaining the fiction of loyalty. It called for troops, but in the king’s name, saying they were needed for Ireland. But it was clear that Parliament had a much better idea of how to get the city’s support than ever King Charles had. A huge city loan, refused before, was now promptly granted – in return for another two and a half million acres of Ireland.

By April a new militia was being raised: six regiments, no less. “For the king’s defence,” of course. One day, Julius saw Gideon, solemnly carrying a halberd, leading a little troop of apprentices who were marching down Cheapside. Yet still he persisted in believing that common sense must prevail.

When Henry, who had left with the king at last returned, Julius plied him anxiously for news. “Will the king not seek a compromise?” But Henry shook his head.

“He can’t. Whatever his own mistakes, Pym has pushed him too far. You know very well, Julius, we have to maintain order. The Parliament must be taught a lesson.”

“He’ll raise troops?”

“The queen has left for France with the royal jewels. She’s going to pawn them to raise the money.”

He left after only three days and by the time he returned briefly two months later, he informed Julius:

“The king’s up at York. He’s calling all loyal members of Parliament to join him. Some of them are coming.” But he also confessed: “The eastern and southern sea ports are all closed to us. The navy seems to be disloyal too.”

“Parliament’s asked for voluntary contributions,” Julius had to tell him. “So much silver plate’s come in that they hardly know what to do with it.”

In the late summer, it seemed to Julius that a small sign of hope appeared. Some of the king’s supporters were producing sensible, reasoned pamphlets that seemed to open the door to compromise. “Perhaps,” he told his family, “a settlement will still be reached.” But in August, the mayor was removed, and Pennington the Puritan was chosen in his place. And meeting Gideon in Watling Street one day, the solid craftsman cheerfully told him: “We’re all Roundheads now.” A week later news came that the king had raised his standard in Nottingham. This was the traditional, chivalric way for a king to declare war.

It was in September that Henry came again. He came at dusk. Julius noticed that he now wore a breastplate of armour over his tunic. After a brief visit to his own house in Covent Garden, he spent the night in the house behind Mary-le-Bow and talked to Julius for long hours.

“The north and most of the west are loyal,” he told his brother. “Several great lords have promised troops. King Charles has summoned his nephew Rupert to come over from Germany.” Julius knew that Prince Rupert was a first-rate leader of cavalry. “There will be one short engagement,” Henry predicted. “The parliamentary levies are not properly trained. They won’t last five minutes against Rupert.” He smiled. “Then we’ll bring some order back.”

Soon after dawn, Henry quietly left. With him he took, sewn into his clothes and his baggage, no less than three thousand pounds worth of gold and silver coin. When Julius had looked doubtful about the amount, he had given him that splendid, proud look of his and remarked: “We are gentlemen, brother, and loyal to the king. Isn’t that,” he reminded him, “what father would have wanted?”

The next day, as if in anticipation of sombre times ahead, the mayor and council ordered all the London theatres closed. Before long, parties of trained bands started marching out of the city. The defences round the gate were being strengthened. By the early days of October, everyone was waiting anxiously for news of a battle. None came. Julius realized that he had not seen Gideon Carpenter for some time.

It was on the last Sunday in October that the extraordinary thing happened in St Lawrence Silversleeves.

There had been a battle of sorts in the West Country that week, but it had not been decisive. The trained bands had started trickling back into London to regroup, but King Charles and Prince Rupert were moving across the country very cautiously. News was still fragmentary.

Julius and his family had come into church at the last moment that morning because one of the children had been sick. Julius had hardly bothered to glance round as he hustled them all, as quietly as possible, into the family pew. He did notice, however, that the little church seemed unusually full. Only a minute later, as the silence before the service fell, did he realize something odd.

The altar table was in the wrong place. It had been moved back into the nave.

Then Meredith entered. He was not dressed in his usual gleaming cope. Instead, he was wearing a long black coat and a plain white shirt. He strode to the front of the church; but then, instead of sitting in his usual place, in the chancel, he mounted at once into the pulpit, as though he were about to preach. Julius could only stare as Edmund Meredith began the service.

Except, Julius frowned, that it was not the service. The words were wrong. What had come over the man? He knew the entire Prayer Book by heart. Had Meredith suffered some mental aberration? What the devil was he saying? And then he realized. It was the Directory: the order of service of the Presbyterians. Calvinism – here in his very own church! He glanced at his wife, who was looking shocked and mystified. He could not imagine what Meredith was about, but he knew his duty. He rose. “Stop this at once.” His voice rang out clearly and, he was glad to hear, with authority. “Mr Meredith, you have the wrong order of service, I think.”

But Meredith was only smiling, blandly.

“The Prayer Book, Mr Meredith,” he began. “As head of the vestry I must insist . . .” He was interrupted by the church door opening. Gideon Carpenter, in the dress of an officer, a sword at his side, stepped calmly through it, followed by six armed men. Julius gaped, opening his mouth to rebuke them too, but was pre-empted by Gideon. “You are no longer on the vestry committee, Sir Julius.”

“No longer . . .?” What did the man mean? And why on earth had Gideon addressed him in such a way? “Sir Julius?”

“You did not know? I am sorry. Your brother is dead. You are Sir Julius Ducket now.”

“Dead?” Julius just looked at him, taking it in, unable for a moment to speak.

“There is something more, Sir Julius.” It was said quietly, without malice. “You are under arrest.”

1649

January the 29th. Evening. It had been dark since five in the afternoon. Ahead, a long, star-chilled night, whose cold and silent hours would be a solemn vigil for many. In the grey, blank light of morning, in Whitehall, they would do such a thing as was never done in England before.

Edmund Meredith sat alone. His wife and children were upstairs but not yet abed. On the table nearby lay a stiff black hat with a tall crown and a wide, circular brim. He was still wearing his day clothes – a black, sleeveless jerkin, tightly buttoned down the front from his adam’s apple to below his waist; a black and white striped shirt with large, white linen collar and cuffs; black breeches, woollen socks, plain shoes. His silvery hair was cut so that it hung along the lines of his jawbone. This deliberately clumsy and unattractive arrangement was now the fashion amongst the Puritans and he had adopted it unhesitatingly three years before.

He sat in a heavy chair with a padded back, his long fingers pressed together in front of his aristocratic face, his eyes half closed, as though at prayer. But Edmund was not praying; he was thinking. About survival.

He was good at surviving. Though in his late seventies now, he looked twenty years younger. Of his five children living, the youngest was only six, and it seemed Edmund meant to live long enough to see even this boy into adulthood. As for the art of political survival . . .

“It’s all,” he once explained to Jane, “in the timing.” And as he looked back over the last seven years of conflict, he could certainly claim that his own had been good.

He liked talking to Jane. They had known each other too long to have any delusions or secrets. He enjoyed her gentle teasing and she was the only person in the world with whom he dared to be entirely frank.

The most important step had been the first, back in 1642, when he had so shocked poor Julius by switching to the Presbyterian camp. King Charles had still been advancing on London then; many had expected a quick royal victory. “So how did you know,” Jane had asked, “which way to jump?”

“I’d looked at the city militia,” he had said. “I didn’t think Charles would get through that year.”

“But what about the long run?” she had challenged. “The king might have defeated Parliament. Then you’d have been out on your ear.”

“True,” he agreed. “But in the long run I was even more certain Parliament would win.”

“Why so?”

“Supply,” he had said simply. “The Roundheads had the navy and almost all the ports. Hard for Charles to get reinforcements. Moreover, the ports gave Parliament the customs dues. Above all, the Roundheads had London.” He spread his hands. “Long wars take money. London’s where the money is.” He grinned. “I bet two-to-one on the Roundheads and became a Presbyterian.”

And how quickly he had been proved right. Only months later Parliament, dropping all pretence of royal authority, had abolished bishops and done a deal with the Scots: by a Solemn League and Covenant it was agreed that, in return for a Scottish army to defeat Charles, the English would become Presbyterian. Huge numbers of Church of England clergy were thrown out. The London parishes were in turmoil. But Meredith had survived. “Just in time,” he had remarked. That same year he had helped take down the old cross in Cheapside. “Such things are superstition and idolatry,” he told his congregation. As the dour Scots and the English Parliament slowly hammered out the details of an English Calvinist Church, and the first London council of elders was called, even the sternest Scottish visitors were agreed: “The man Meredith preaches a fine sermon. Very sound.”

But that had been some time ago, while the war between Charles and Parliament was still in progress. Things had changed since then – very much for the worse, in his view. And after tomorrow there was no knowing what might happen. He felt pretty sure he would find a way to survive. But then, as he sat alone in his parlour and considered the matter again, it was not himself he was worrying about.

It was Jane. Though God knows, he had warned her.

The candle was still burning in her chamber and by its guttering light Jane looked across at the sleeping form beside her. She was glad he was so peaceful.

But was Meredith right? Were they in danger? Dogget didn’t believe it; but then, she thought affectionately, he had always had a cheerful attitude to life. Meredith on the other hand might be a cynical fraud, but his judgement was good. So were they star-crossed lovers – Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra? A subject for a play? The idea amused her. Dogget and Jane: a strange pair for a tragedy since, when they actually became lovers, she had been sixty. Even then, she thought it probably only happened because of the war.

Strangely enough, during the entire Civil War, the thing that Jane and many Londoners remembered most was the quietness. For that very first spring the whole area had been sealed off behind a rampart. It was a vast affair. Week after week the Londoners had gone out to dig. Every able-bodied man, including older men like Dogget, had been conscripted and issued with a shovel. They had even toiled on Sundays; and one fine afternoon, when Jane was serving refreshments to the workers, she was told: “A hundred thousand are labouring here this day.” The result, completed that summer, was a great earth wall and ditch, eleven miles round, that enclosed the city, all the suburbs on both sides of the river, out past Westminster and Lambeth in the west and Wapping in the east. Not only the suburbs, but great tracts of open ground, orchard and field, even the reservoir for Myddelton’s New River water supply, were all within the vast enclosure. The ramparts had entrances, forts and batteries of cannon supplied by the East India Company. They were impregnable. And here, clamped like a tourniquet across the main artery of the nation, the parliamentary opposition made its headquarters for the duration of the war.

If Meredith foresaw the outcome of the Civil War, it was still a long time before he was proved correct. The conflict was slow and halting – a skirmish here, a town or fortified house besieged there, a few pitched battles. Yet, when they emerged from the royal base at Oxford, King Charles and Prince Rupert had proved formidable. In the north, the big port of Newcastle, which supplied most of London’s coal, was gained for the king. Also much of the west. Even after the Presbyterian Scots had come down and helped inflict a severe defeat on them at Marston Moor, the message came back: “The Royalists are still in the field.” Part of the trouble lay in the Roundhead troops. The trained bands from London were usually the best, but they had still struck their colours and marched off home whenever their pay was late.