The Forest (62 page)

‘The king has gone?’

‘Yes. On his way.’

She nodded sadly. ‘John,’ she said suddenly, ‘whatever God tells you must be done, we are with you, I and your children. You must do what you must do. I am your wife.’

Dear heaven, he thought, what a fine one. He embraced her and entered the house with a new joy in his heart.

Thomas Penruddock would never forget the first time he saw Alice Lisle. He had been ten. That was two years ago.

They had set off from Compton Chamberlayne early in the morning. The village and manor of Compton Chamberlayne lay in the valley of the River Nadder, about seven miles west of Sarum, and the journey into the old cathedral city was easy and pleasant. After a rest and a brief visit to the ancient cathedral with its soaring spire, they had proceeded south, following the River Avon’s course, past the Gorges
family’s great estate of Longford Castle and then, crossing the river a few miles further down, they had made their way up on to the plateau of wooded ground that is the northernmost corner of the huge New Forest.

The village of Hale lay just at this corner. From the manor house, set right on the edge of the ridge, there was a lovely view westward over the Avon valley floor. Two generations ago the Penruddocks had bought the manor for a younger son, and the Penruddocks of Hale and their cousins had always been on friendly terms. On this occasion his parents had taken Thomas to stay at Hale for a few days.

As it happened, Thomas had never been to Hale before. Their cousins welcomed them warmly, the young ones took him to play, and his first evening only seemed likely to be spoiled for a moment when an elderly aunt, looking at him intently, suddenly declared: ‘Dear heaven, John, that child looks exactly like his grandmother, Anne Martell.’

It was from his mother’s side, from her mother’s family the Martells of Dorset, that Thomas had taken his dark, rather brooding good looks. The light-haired Penruddocks were a handsome family too. His father, whom Thomas idolized, was thought especially so and it had always saddened the boy that they did not look exactly alike. So his saturnine face broke into a smile when the elderly aunt continued: ‘I hope you’re proud of him, John’ and his father replied: ‘Yes, I think I am.’

Colonel John Penruddock. To Thomas he was the perfect man. With his brown beard and laughing eyes, hadn’t he been one of the most dashing commanders on the royalist side? He had lost a brother in the war; a cousin had been exiled. His own gallant loyalty to the king had cost him dear – both in money and offices – when Cromwell and his wretched crew had triumphed; but Thomas would rather the Penruddocks lost every acre of their land than have his father any different, any less splendid than he was.

The next morning, to his great pleasure, he was allowed to join the men when they went for a ride.

‘I think’, their host said, ‘we’ll start across Hale Purlieu. Do you know’, he asked kindly, ‘what a purlieu is, Thomas?’ And, when Thomas shook his head: ‘No reason why you should. A purlieu is an area at the edge of a royal forest that used to be under forest law but isn’t any more. There are several places along this edge of the Forest that have been in and out, as the boundaries change down the centuries.’

The Penruddocks had ridden across Hale Purlieu and had started up over a high, wide tract of New Forest heath when they saw the two riders coming from their right on a track that ran directly across their path a little below them. Thomas heard his father mutter a curse and saw his cousins pull up sharply. He was about to ask what it meant, but his father looked so grim that he did not dare. So the Penruddocks watched silently as the figures, a man and a woman, passed two hundred yards in front of them without a sign or a word and continued across the heath.

He had a good look at them as they rode by. The man, quietly dressed, was wearing a high-crowned, broad-rimmed black hat of the kind favoured by Cromwell’s Puritans. The woman was equally quietly dressed, in dark brown with a small lace collar. Her head was bare, her hair reddish. They might be simple Puritans, but the quality of their clothes and their splendid horses indicated clearly that they were people of considerable wealth. Nobody moved until they were almost out of sight.

‘Who were they, Father?’ he at last ventured to ask.

‘Lisle and his wife,’ came the bleak answer.

‘They’ve got Moyles Court,’ his cousin remarked, ‘but they don’t come up here much.’ He sniffed contemptuously. ‘We never speak to them.’ His eyes rested upon the two figures as they finally disappeared. ‘Damned regicides.’

Regicides: the people who had killed the king. Not all the
Roundheads had been for it. Fairfax, Cromwell’s fellow commander, had refused to take part in the trial of the king. Several of the leading men were unwilling to sign the death warrant. But John Lisle had shown no qualms. He’d been at the trial, helped draw up the documents, argued for execution, shown no remorse when the king’s head was cut off. He was a king-killer, a regicide.

‘And profited by it handsomely,’ his cousin added angrily. When royalist estates were confiscated by Parliament, Cromwell had given Lisle the chance to buy up land cheap. ‘His wife’s no better,’ Penruddock of Hale went on. ‘She’s in it as deep as he is. Regicides both.’

‘Those people’, his father said quietly, ‘are your family’s mortal enemies, Thomas. Remember that.’

‘They have the power, John,’ his cousin remarked. ‘That’s the trouble. And there’s not much to do about it.’

‘Oh,’ Colonel John Penruddock said thoughtfully, ‘I wouldn’t be sure of that, cousin. You never know.’ And Thomas saw the two men look at each other, but no further word was spoken.

He had wondered what it meant.

And now he knew. It was a Monday morning. They had been out all that damp March night, gathering parties of horsemen around Sarum; but Tom didn’t feel tired for he was too excited. He was riding with his father. It was still dark, an hour to go before dawn, when the cavalcade – almost two hundred strong – rode in beside the old Close wall, under the high shadow of the cathedral spire. At the head rode his father, another local gentleman named Grove and General Wagstaff, a stranger who had come with messages and instructions from the royal court in exile.

Passing the corner where the cathedral’s walled precincts met the town, they rode up the short street that brought them into the broad open ground of Salisbury market place. As puzzled heads popped out from shuttered windows,
awakened by this unexpected clatter in the dark, the men-at-arms went quickly about their work.

‘Two men to each door,’ he heard his father order briskly. Moments later they had set guards by the entrance of each of the market place’s several inns. Next, his father sent patrols down the streets and to the gates of the cathedral Close.

It was only a few minutes before a young officer rode up and reported: ‘The town is secured.’

‘Good.’ His father turned to his friend Grove. ‘Would you go door to door? Let’s see how many of the good citizens of Salisbury are ready to serve their king.’ As Grove went off, Penruddock turned back to the young officer. ‘See how many horses you can find. Commandeer them, no matter whom they belong to, in the king’s name.’ He glanced across at his fellow commander. General Wagstaff, a rather hot-headed man, had served valiantly in the Civil War. With a trace of irritation Penruddock asked him now: ‘Where’s Hertford?’

The Marquis of Hertford, a mighty magnate, had pledged to join them with a large troop, perhaps a whole regiment of horse.

‘He’ll come. Have no fear.’

‘He’d better. Well, shall we look at the gaol? Wait here, Thomas,’ he instructed and, taking twenty men with them, the two commanders rode off into the darkness towards the city prison.

The Sealed Knot. Young Thomas looked around him at the shadowy horsemen in the market place. Here and there he could see the faint glow of a clay pipe that had been lit. There were soft chinks as a horse chewed its bit or a sword tapped against a breastplate of armour. The Sealed Knot – for two years the loyal gentlemen of this secret group had prepared to strike the blow that would restore England to its proper ruler. Even now, across the sea, the rightful heir, the eldest son of the murdered king, was waiting eagerly to cross. At strategic points all over the country, towns and
strongholds were being seized. And his own gallant father was leading them in the west. He felt so proud of him that he could almost die.

It was not long before the two cavalier commanders returned.

His father was chuckling. ‘I found it hard to tell, Wagstaff, whether those men were more pleased to be let out of gaol or sorry to be made into soldiers.’ He turned as the young officer he had sent off came back to report on the horses. ‘We’ve just acquired about a hundred and twenty gaolbirds who are fit for service. Have we mounts for them?’

‘Yes, Sir. The stables at all the inns are full. So many people in town for the assizes.’ The judges from London had just arrived in Salisbury to hold the periodic sessions there. The place was packed with people who had business with the courts.

‘Ah, yes,’ Colonel Penruddock continued, ‘that reminds me. We’ve got the justices and the sheriff to deal with.’ He nodded to the officer. ‘Find them, if you please, and bring them here at once.’

Thomas found it hard not to laugh a few minutes later when the gentlemen in question appeared. For the officer had taken his father’s words quite literally. There were three men, two judges and the sheriff, all taken straight from their beds, still in their nightshirts and shivering in the early morning cold. A faint light was appearing in the sky. The expressions of angry dismay on the pale faces of the three could be clearly seen.

Up to now, Wagstaff had been content to confer quietly with Penruddock. After all, he had only come there as the representative of the king, whereas Penruddock carried all the weight of local respect. But for some reason the sight of these three important persons in their night attire seemed to stir him into a sudden access of irritation. He was a short, peppery soldier with a small beard and a long moustache. This last seemed to quiver with disgust as he glared at them.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ asked one of the judges with as much dignity as he could muster.

‘It means, Sir,’ replied Wagstaff furiously, ‘that you are arrested in the king’s name.’

‘I think not,’ replied the judge with a composure admirable for a man standing in a public place in only his nightshirt.

‘It also means’ – Wagstaff’s person bristled until his small body seemed to turn into a shout – ‘that you are about to be hanged.’

‘That isn’t quite the plan, Wagstaff,’ Penruddock gently interposed.

But for the moment it seemed Wagstaff wasn’t listening. He turned upon the sheriff now. ‘You, Sir,’ he barked.

‘Me, Sir?’

‘Yes, Sir. You, Sir. Damn you, Sir. You are a sheriff?’

‘I am.’

‘Then you will swear your oath of loyalty to the king, Sir. Now, Sir!’

The sheriff in question had previously fought as a colonel in Cromwell’s army and, whatever his situation, he was not going to be browbeaten. ‘I will not,’ he replied stoutly.

‘God’s blood!’ Wagstaff cried. ‘Hang them now, Penruddock. God’s blood,’ he added again for good measure.

‘That is blasphemy, Sir,’ observed one of the judges. It was a frequent complaint of the Puritan opponents of the loose-living royalist cavaliers that their language was blasphemous.

‘Damn your snivelling cant, you flat-faced Bible thumper, I’m going to hang you. Bring ropes,’ Wagstaff cried, casting about in the dawning for a promising point of suspension.

And it was several minutes before Penruddock could persuade him that this was not their best course. In the end, the judges had their official commission documents burned in front of them and the sheriff was put on a horse, still in
his nightshirt, to be taken with them as a hostage. ‘We can always hang him later,’ a rather grumpy Wagstaff muttered with a small revival of hope.

It was getting quite light now and the enlarged forces had gathered in the market. There were nearly four hundred in all. To Thomas they seemed a huge army. But he saw his father purse his lips and quietly enquire of Grove: ‘How many citizens did you get?’

‘Not many,’ Grove murmured.

‘Mostly the gaolbirds, then.’ He looked grim. ‘Where’s Hertford?’

‘He’ll join us. Along the way,’ Wagstaff grunted. ‘Depend on it.’

‘I do.’ Colonel John Penruddock beckoned Thomas to draw close. ‘Thomas, you are to go to your mother and give her a full report of all that has passed. You are to remain at home until you receive my word to join me. Do you understand?’

‘But, Father. You said I could ride with you.’

‘You will obey me, Thomas. You will give me your word as a gentleman to do exactly as I say. Remain guarding your mother, your brothers and sisters, until I send for you.’

Thomas felt his eyes growing hot. His father had never asked for his word as a gentleman before, but even this tiny thrill of pleasure was swamped by the great wave of disappointment and misery that had just broken over him. ‘Oh, Father.’ He choked back the tears. He felt a huge sense of loss. He had been going to ride with his father, a fellow soldier at his side. Would the chance ever come again? He felt his father’s hand on his arm. The hand squeezed.