The Forest (57 page)

‘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.

‘We rode together all this night. I was glad to have you at my side, my brave boy. The proudest, best night of my life. Always remember that.’ He smiled. ‘Now promise me.’

‘I promise, Father.’

‘Time to ride,’ said Wagstaff.

‘Yes,’ said Colonel John Penruddock.

*

Monday passed quietly at Compton Chamberlayne. Thomas slept in the afternoon. Just before dusk a horseman on his way up the road from the west towards Sarum brought news to Mrs Penruddock that her husband and his men had been at Shaftesbury, only a dozen miles away; but fearing that it might tempt Thomas to ride out there she did not tell him. On Tuesday a party of Cromwell’s horse arrived in Sarum. Within hours, they had ridden on, westward. When asked what their mission was they replied: ‘To hunt down Penruddock.’

Wednesday passed. There was no news. Somewhere over the big chalk ridges that swept towards the west, Penruddock was collecting troops, perhaps fighting. But although young Thomas stopped every horseman coming from the west and his mother sent three times a day to Sarum for news, there was none. Only silence. Nobody even knew where they were. Penruddock’s Rising had rolled away out of sight.

Why was it happening? Why had the members of the Sealed Knot decided they could strike now and why was level-headed Colonel John Penruddock involved in this perilous business?

Whatever the king’s faults, the shock at the execution of Charles I had been widespread. Tracts describing him as a martyr had sold in such huge numbers that there were almost as many in circulation as Bibles. Nor was it long before the Scots – who had no more wish to be ruled by Cromwell and his English army than they had to be subject to Charles I and his bishops – had crowned his son as Charles II on condition that in Scotland, at least, whether he liked it or not (and the jolly young libertine didn’t like it at all!), he would uphold the rule of their dour Calvinistic faith. Young Charles II had promptly tried to invade England, been completely routed by Cromwell and, after hiding in an oak tree, fled for his life. That was four years ago, but from his exile abroad the young king had been busily preparing to regain his kingdom ever since.

As for Cromwell, what sort of government had he offered? A Commonwealth, it was called. But take away the mask of a Parliament of squires and merchants hand-picked by himself and it was clear that the power was still entirely with the army. Not even the one that had won the Civil War, though, for the democratic Levellers had been crushed and their leaders shot. Cromwell was called Protector now and signed himself Oliver P., just like a king. Three months ago, when even his own chosen Parliament had refused to increase his army, he had dissolved it. ‘He’s a worse tyrant than the old king ever was,’ they protested. With the royalists still plentiful on the one hand, Parliament men and even army democrats furious on the other, it was not unreasonable to hope that Cromwell might be toppled. As always in the affairs of men, however, the outcome would have nothing to do with the merits of the cause and everything with timing.

The news came on Thursday.

‘They’ve been broken.’ It had happened during a night-time skirmish in a village down in the West Country. ‘Wagstaff got away, but Penruddock and Grove are taken. They’re going to be tried. For treason.’

It was only gradually that the full story emerged. The Sealed Knot’s great rising had not exactly failed: it had never really started. Despite the fury of the Parliament men at being dismissed, despite the fact that some of Cromwell’s army was still in the north pacifying the Scottish Highlands, the senior men of the Sealed Knot had concluded, quite rightly, that their organization wasn’t ready for a full-scale rising. A flurry of confused messages to and fro between the Knot and the king in exile had not only left some agents, like Wagstaff, believing the rising was still on, but had also alerted Cromwell who had promptly brought extra troops into London and other key points. At one rendezvous after another the conspirators had either failed to turn up or quickly gone home. By the day before the events at Salisbury the whole thing had been completely called off.

But nobody had told Penruddock. It was just a question of timing.

Thomas had never seen his mother like this before. Although she had passed on the saturnine looks of the Martells to her son, she herself had a broad, open face with a mass of chestnut hair. She was a simple soul, she understood her household, but she had always left all matters of business and politics to her husband and followed behind him. She had seen him spend over a thousand pounds in the king’s cause, and suffer a fine of thirteen hundred more. The last few years had been hard as they struggled to pay this off. But a trial for treason, as even Thomas knew, could mean stiffer penalties for the family. They could lose Compton Chamberlayne and everything they had. As his mother fussed about her household daily tasks, supervising her children, the kitchen, the larder, household servants and now estate workers too, he wondered if she knew and was trying to carry on as normal, or whether she just closed her eyes even to the thought.

But above all, he watched her for signs of what was happening with his father.

His first letter had been brought to them on Thursday night. It begged her to remain where she was and await further word. Within days another came with instructions.

Thomas could see his mother doing her best. His father asked her to use all her influence on his behalf, to approach all sorts of people. Such business did not come easily to her. She asked friends for help. The trouble was, almost all of them were among the gentry with royalist connections. After a fruitless week of seeing friends who couldn’t help and writing to others who probably wouldn’t, his mother announced to the family one day: ‘We’re all going to the Forest tomorrow.’

‘Whom are we going to see?’ Thomas asked.

‘Alice Lisle.’

‘At least she can see us,’ his mother declared as the old carriage rolled across the Forest. She had learned that Alice Lisle was at Albion House, so they had spent a night at Hale before setting off again at dawn. ‘She may have married Lisle, but she’s still an Albion. We used to know them,’ she had remarked plaintively.

By late morning they were at Lyndhurst and by noon they had passed Brockenhurst and were crossing the little ford from which the track led down towards the house in the woods.

As he looked at his two younger brothers and three sisters, Thomas thought of the conversation he had had with his mother the night before. ‘I think Mrs Lisle hates us, Mother,’ he had suggested.

‘Perhaps, but she’s a woman with children too,’ his mother had replied in her simple way. And then, with a sudden vexation he had seldom seen before: ‘Oh, these men! I don’t know. I really don’t.’

So they rolled in through the gateway to Albion House and the surprised servants told their mistress who was there; and after a short pause Alice Lisle gave orders that they might come in. They were escorted into the parlour.

Alice Lisle was dressed in black, with a plain white apron, a big linen collar and cuffs. Her reddish hair was tucked into a linen cap. She looked every inch a Puritan. Mrs Penruddock had dressed as simply as she could, although her lace collar showed plainly enough that she was the wife of a cavalier. What’s the use of pretending, she had thought?

Alice Lisle looked at Mrs Penruddock and her children. She was standing herself and she did not suggest they sit down. She had understood, of course, at once. The Penruddock woman had come to plead and was using her children. She didn’t blame her. She supposed she’d have done the same. She saw the other woman look round for her own children but she had already had them swiftly taken to another part of the house. She didn’t want the children to meet because it might suggest an intimacy that was impossible. She stood stiffly. She dared not show any weakness. ‘My husband is in London and will not return this month, I think,’ she said.

‘It was you I came to see.’ Mrs Penruddock had not prepared a speech because she didn’t really know how. ‘I remember your father very well. My grandfather and old Clement Albion were friends, you know,’ she blurted out.

‘That may be.’

‘Do you know what they’re doing to my husband? They’ve accused him of treason!’ Her voice went up at this last as though it were something outrageous.