The King's Revenge (9 page)

In March, Ascham disembarked near Cadiz. After bouts of illness and various administrative delays, he arrived in Madrid on
Whit Sunday, the day commemorating the appearance of the Holy Ghost to the apostles. In the meantime, Charles had also dispatched
emissaries to the Spanish court. Edward Hyde and Francis Cottington were ordered to drum up urgent financial support from
Philip. So severe was Charles’s shortage of cash to run his quickening campaign to regain the throne, the ambassadors were
instructed that in return for a large loan, they should offer to relax the penal laws against English Catholics in the event
of Charles acceding to the throne.

Prior to presenting himself at the royal court, Ascham established himself in rooms at a Madrid inn. Like Dorislaus’s choice
of lodgings in The Hague, this was a most unwise move. Ascham’s secretary, a man called Griffin, was so concerned he took
it upon himself to try to arrange a more secure base for his master. The events that followed bore a striking similarity to
the murder of Isaac Dorislaus. On the evening of 6 June, Ascham was having his evening meal when a group of seven Englishmen
arrived. Leaving a guard on the stairs, the party went up to the rooms where Ascham was dining. The assassins were ‘admitted
because they were Englishmen. The visitors took off their hats and one of them
said, “Gentlemen, I kiss your hands. Pray which is the resident?” Ascham rose from the table and gave a low bow. As he did
so, one of the attackers ran forward, grabbed him by the hair and stabbed him in the head with a poniard.’ An accomplice stepped
forward and stabbed the ambassador four more times.
³²
At this point, Ascham’s interpreter, a Genoese friar, tried to escape but was run through the stomach and also murdered.
Griffin, the secretary, survived to tell the tale.
³³

The assassins were later identified as John Williams (or Gwilliams), a twenty-year-old captain of foot from Monmouthshire;
William Exparch, aged twenty-six, from Hampshire; Sir Edward Halsall, aged twenty-three, from Lancashire; William Harnett
(or Arnett), a
trumpeter, aged nineteen, from Yorkshire; Valentine Progers, aged thirty-three, from Brecknockshire; his brother Henry Progers
(who, notably, was a servant to both Hyde and Cottington); and William Sparke.
³⁴
The men who stabbed Ascham were Williams and Sparke.

When the attackers fled from the inn they ran to a nearby church to seek sanctuary – all except Henry Progers, who went to
the house of Pietro Basadonna, the Venetian ambassador. The ambassador was in on the plot and sheltered Progers until he could
arrange for him to slip away for France. The fact that Progers alone had such an immediate escape plan, and that he was employed
by Hyde, points to one thing: he was the ultimate link from Charles’s court, through Hyde, to the murder squad.

The city authorities rounded up the rest of the gang at the church. No sooner had they done so than the Catholic hierarchy
complained that the ancient right of sanctuary had been breached. The Spanish court was left with a diplomatic dilemma. Philip
wrote to the English Parliament expressing regret at the envoy’s death. Though Hyde and Cottington distanced themselves from
the murder, any chance of a loan had evaporated.

The matter of what to do with the assailants dragged on. After many months of delay on the part of the Spanish, King Philip
IV received a letter from John Milton, written in Latin and demanding justice. Philip did not feel inclined to help a disenfranchised
prince whose chances of gaining his crown appeared slim; he had Hyde and Cottington expelled. After a while, the Spanish put
Ascham’s assailants on trial for murder, accusing them during the proceedings of acting on information from the exiled court
of Charles II concerning a treaty they believed Ascham was about to sign with Spain.
³⁵
Except for Valentine Progers, the accused were all condemned to death. Ultimately, the only one to be executed was William
Sparke, the sole Protestant among them. The rest escaped, perhaps with the help of the clerics who had given them sanctuary.

The death of Anthony Ascham had proved counterproductive for
Charles’s cause in Spain. However, this did not mark the end of clandestine murder plots on the Continent to enact revenge
for the death of his father.

At home in England, royalist plotters found it difficult to make headway. Royalist gentry and aristocracy suffered greatly
under penalties brought in to destroy their financial power base and deter action against the Commonwealth. Unless they swore
to take the ‘engagement’ to be faithful to the Commonwealth, the offices that had previously given them local power were closed
to them. A number of former royalists took the engagement – something that Charles II himself had given them permission to
do – rather than see their estates sequestered. Widespread sequestration of property, wealth taxes and fines meant that most
royalist families preferred to keep their heads down and hope for better days rather than involve themselves directly in intrigue.

A further deterrent to royalist scheming took place in February 1649. Several of the main royalist leaders in the second Civil
War were tried for treason before a court described by John Evelyn as the rebels’ ‘new court of injustice’.
³⁶
The following month, the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel were executed.

The brutality had its effect. Senior royalist grandees became reluctant to join a mooted secret committee to restore the crown.
The Commonwealth simply had too strong a hold on the country via the army and its intelligence network. The regime’s spymaster,
Thomas Scot, had informants throughout the land listening for any word of insurrection. Scot’s secret service had become adept
at intercepting letters, code breaking and the use of ‘decoy ducks’ or
agents provocateurs
to flush out royalists ready to engage in plots.

By now Charles II had gained some headway in making his own choices and was even putting together plans to encourage uprisings
at home. Thanks to the advice and guidance of several senior courtiers who had gathered around him, he began to take a grip
on his position and even plan ahead. In September, he landed on the island of Jersey, which was still under royalist control,
in the faint
hope that his appearance might help foment an insurrection in England. Despite schemes for uprisings around the land, including
the Isle of Ely, Cornwall, London, Shropshire and Flintshire in Wales, nothing more came of it and Charles sailed away.

In March 1650, with hopes of backing from major European powers fading, Charles went to Breda and opened new negotiations
with the Scots. In return for Charles embracing Presbyterianism, the Scots would invade England to help him gain the throne.
This was a contentious and high-risk plan. His father’s pact with the Scots only two years before had led to the second Civil
War and his trial for treason. Any new involvement of the Scots was anathema to the majority of Charles’s followers in England
and Presbyterianism was unthinkable to the Anglican aristocracy. The Scots, for their part, were uncertain about the reality
of Charles’s new enthusiasm for Presbyterianism.

Despite these problems, Charles arrived in Scotland in June to begin his campaign. In London, the Council of State decided
to mount a pre-emptive invasion. Fairfax declined to lead the invasion force and, rather than fighting against fellow Presbyterians,
resigned his commission. Cromwell was appointed in his place. After much skirmishing, Cromwell decisively defeated the Scots
army at Dunbar. Five thousand prisoners were taken south in a notorious march during which many died. More expired of illness
and starvation while imprisoned in Durham. The survivors were shipped to the West Indies as slaves.
³⁷

Following this crushing defeat, Charles remained resolute and positive. Thanks to a new understanding with the Covenanters
(which would shortly lead to his being crowned king of Scotland) Charles believed a new and formidable army could be gathered
up in Scotland. While recruitment gathered pace north of the border, in England royalists remained largely subdued. Thanks
to the efforts of a secret agent close to Charles II named Thomas Coke, activity slowly began to pick up. Coke criss-crossed
England, quietly garnering support. He was hampered in his work by Scot’s network of agents. There were arrests and some hangings.
In the closing days of
1650, Coke’s efforts led to a vainglorious uprising of two hundred or so in Norfolk. The participants ran away across open
fields pursued by a small company of cavalry troopers.

In January 1651, Charles was crowned king of Scots at Scone, the ancient site of Scottish coronations. He now became the commander
of the Scottish army, taking over from the experienced Scottish grandee David Leslie. This would have a profound effect upon
the outcome of Charles’s campaign to win the English throne.

In March, a plot was uncovered in the north-west of England after a Captain Isaac Birkenhead confessed to being a go-between
for the Earl of Derby and the Scots. Under interrogation, he revealed the identity of the secret agent who maintained contact
between Charles II and his supporters in England – Thomas Coke. Coke was cornered in a house in the Strand and during interrogation
in the Tower decided to co-operate. He revealed conspiracies in Kent, London, Worcestershire, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and
the south-west. As a result, Scot was able to send out forces to mop up a collection of mainly armchair insurrectionists.
More importantly, in May, the Scilly Isles surrendered to the Commonwealth.

Against the advice of David Leslie, Charles now decided to launch the invasion of England. With an army of 14,000 men, he
marched south from Stirling. Within a week, he had crossed into England and camped at Carlisle. English support was almost
completely absent.

Charles saw a way clear to march south down the western side of England. He was falling into a trap. At Worcester, he came
up against an army commanded by Oliver Cromwell, with several of the New Model Army’s finest officers in attendance. The battle
commenced with the parliamentary army staging an audacious crossing of the River Severn by a pontoon bridge. The Scottish
army’s Highland brigades fought well and drove the parliamentarians back. As the battle swayed one way and then the other,
it gradually became clear it was going in favour of the English. Charles left his vantage point on top of the tower of Worcester
Cathedral and headed into the fray to rally his troops. He acted valiantly, with little thought for
personal safety, leading a counter-attack and, when all seemed lost, attempting to rouse his men one last time. Finally, the
Scots had to admit defeat against Cromwell’s superior force. Three thousand Scotsmen died. On the parliamentary side, only
two hundred were killed. Despite the crushing defeat, Worcester was a remarkable day for Charles. True, he had proved himself
hopeless as a military strategist, but he had demonstrated that the impulsive bravery he had exhibited as a boy at Edgehill
was no flash in the pan. There was something excellent about Charles that day, something he would not be called upon to find
within himself ever again.

But bravery turned quickly to bathos with Charles’s ridiculous escape through England; his flight turned royalist mythology
into something miraculous. In its way, it
was
miraculous. Like an inanimate parcel, the royal personage was passed from the retreating Scottish army into helping royalist
hands, hence to various recusant Catholic families who stuffed him into priest holes and the trunk of the famous oak tree,
before being passed on to what remained of the royalist rearguard in the south-west, until he pitched up on the quayside at
Shoreham like a sad old package. He left England in disguise as a ‘broken merchant’ fleeing from his creditors.
³⁸

Back on the Continent once more, Charles had to face the fact that he might never have the English crown placed on his head.
At the age of twenty-one, this was a heavy load to bear. He was not entirely broken, but from now on he would focus his attention
as much on pleasures of the flesh as on plotting how to gain the throne. This did not mean that all royalist activity ceased,
but with a military attack out of the question for now, royalist resistance in England was channelled into subversion and
plots to strike at the heart of the republic and kill Oliver Cromwell.

April 1653—August 1658

Having come into existence following one
coup d’état
, the Rump Parliament was sent packing in another. On 20 April 1653, Oliver Cromwell chased the sitting Members of Parliament
out of the chamber following a protracted failure to reform and organise fresh elections. On 16 December, Cromwell was installed
as Lord Protector for life. The concentration of power in his hands caused an explosion of bile. Many republicans and other
mainstream supporters felt Cromwell had betrayed ‘the Good Old Cause’ of liberty and the Commonwealth.
^*
For royalists, he had not only presided over the execution of the king but had now assumed the pomp and power that traditionally
went with the throne. Plotters in both camps set out to displace or kill Cromwell.

In the anti-monarchy camp, the political revolutionaries the Levellers were horrified at the destruction of the Commonwealth.
Their ground-breaking pamphleteering had been banned by the new republic and now they watched as the republic itself was quashed.
Driven underground, they made contact with even more shadowy figures on the royalist side. The fact that those from apparently
irreconcilable camps could consider working together was quite an achievement on both sides. It seems royalists were keen
to gain allies of any sort in England, while the Levellers felt that after Cromwell’s death a resurgence of the monarchy would
quickly become anathema and they would step into the ensuing political vacuum.

The Levellers’ fear that their egalitarian dreams were slipping away was confirmed when a new national constitution emerged
the day before Cromwell was made Lord Protector. According to Edmund Ludlow, whose Leveller sympathies were well known, this
came about in a way that might have been worthy of the Levellers themselves: ‘in a clandestine manner carried on and huddled
up by two or three persons, so more they were not who were let into the secret of it, so that it may justly be called a work
of darkness’.
¹

The new constitution disqualified from voting anyone who did not have property worth at least £200. Ludlow, the manor-house
hearty turned man of the people, was disgusted. The Levellers’ wish for universal male suffrage was crushed. The offending
document was called
The Instrument of Government.
²
Despite the misgivings of radicals, the charter was an historic milestone – it was Britain’s only written constitution. By
comparison with government under the Stuarts, it marked a great leap forward in ensuring a free Parliament and a wide degree
of public representation and fairness.

The Instrument of Government
was drawn up chiefly by Major-General John Lambert, the energetic soldier and politician from Yorkshire who was increasingly
thought of as a possible successor to Cromwell. Cromwell’s new spy chief John Thurloe also advised on
the constitution. He was the ultimate back-room civil servant and apparatchik. In the summer of 1653, he replaced Thomas Scot
as head of the intelligence service. He would go on to become Cromwell’s secretary of state, while carrying on with his duties
running intelligence gathering abroad and counter-espionage at home. As Protector, Cromwell would rely on no one more than
Thurloe.

In its final form, the
Instrument
gave executive power to the Lord Protector, supported by a Council of State which the Protector did not appoint. This executive
power was separated from the legislature, a reformed single-house Parliament to be elected every three years, with the power
to pass laws and to levy taxes for a standing army. Religious toleration was permitted, with exceptions for Roman Catholics
and those guilty of licentious behaviour – a reference to extreme sects thought to condone immoral sexual activity.

Importantly, the constitution set out for the first time a binding legal framework for the laws and taxes imposed upon the
people: ‘That the laws shall not be altered, suspended, abrogated, or repealed, nor any new law made, nor any tax, charge,
or imposition laid upon the people, but by common consent in Parliament …’
³

Although this was a considerable advance on anything that had gone before, for the radicals, with their wider agenda of social
and political change, it was not nearly enough. The fact that executive powers rested with the Protector was anathema.

Unsurprisingly, some of the plots against the Protectorate, and the Protector, had more substance or were better organised
than others. Royalist plotters fell into two main camps: those who felt it best to organise and bide their time and those
who wished to bring about an uprising immediately.

The Sealed Knot was most definitely in the former category. It was set up by Charles II in 1653 as a secret society of aristocrats
expressly to nurture royalist resistance.
⁴
It reported to Charles through Edward Hyde, who ran a small number of messengers slipping between England and the Continent.
Both Hyde and the main members of
the Knot were cautious men. On 2 February 1654, one of its members, Edward Villiers, wrote to Hyde in Paris: ‘The Sealed Knot
still meet with an intention to design somewhat for his service.’
⁵
In other words, the Knot was discussing insurrection or assassination, but had no actual plans to report. The Knot communicated
by letters written in code. These were often intercepted by John Thurloe and the contents deciphered by a new type of specialist
– the code-breaker.

There were probably only three founding members of the Sealed Knot. Their appointment came directly from Charles, who wrote
in code asking them to ‘make another venture in trade’.
⁶
Lord Belasyse was the second son of Thomas, Lord Fauconberg, and was related to both Fairfax and Lambert. At the outbreak
of war, he had fought on the king’s side, like his father and brother. In 1644 he was defeated in battle by Fairfax at Bradford
and at Selby by Lambert.

John Russell was the third son of the Earl of Bedford. He had fought at Naseby, where he was wounded. While there was no doubting
Russell’s allegiance to the crown, his elder brother William (who became the 5th Earl) changed sides between Parliament and
king with bewildering regularity.

The third of the founding members, Sir Richard Willys, was a professional soldier who had fought on the Continent before returning
to join Charles I’s campaigns against the Scots and again during the first Civil War. His membership of the Sealed Knot was
unexpected because he had once challenged Belasyse to a duel.

There were three other members: alongside Edward Villiers were Lord Loughborough and Sir William Compton, the latter described
by Samuel Pepys as ‘one of the worthiest men and best officers … of the best temper, valour, abilities of mind, integrity,
birth, fine person and diligence …’

Despite the excellent Cavalier credentials of its members, the Sealed Knot proved to be so tightly bound that it could move
neither against the Protectorate nor the Protector. Hyde said the Knot ‘would not engage in any absurd and desperate attempt’.
⁷

The truth was that the Sealed Knot was too languid to plot – or at least to do so vigorously. It met irregularly and did very
little except vigorously enquire around the estates of old royalist families as to whether they would be prepared to answer
the call if and when it came. Charles had inadvertently created a turkey.

It was hardly surprising, then, that in 1654 a secret proclamation appeared in Charles’s name, offering £550 a year and a
knighthood to anyone who would kill ‘a certain base mechanic fellow called Oliver Cromwell’. The purpose was clear: wilder
men should take up the challenge.
⁸
Edward Hyde was later to claim that he and the Earl of Ormond had vetoed such outrageous ventures.

At around the same time as the Knot was formed, another set of plotters came together. Because of the timing, it was often
thought the two groups were somehow connected,
⁹
but the men who met in the Ship Tavern in Old Bailey in the City of London could not have been more different from the genteel
members of the Sealed Knot. Their reckless and drunken wrangling brought them to the attention of Thurloe’s agents.

Among those plotters arrested in February 1654 was one Roger Coates, who admitted the existence of a plot. Coates was turned
by Thurloe and paid £12 for his information, with more promised later. Fanciful pictures were painted of the nature of the
plot. There was supposedly a grand council composed of eminent and proven Cavaliers including Lord Loughborough, a member
of the Sealed Knot. The grand council existed only in the minds of the conspirators. Loughborough later managed to convince
the State Council he had nothing to do with the Ship Tavern group.

However, two names mentioned by the conspirators made Thurloe sit up. The first was that of Roger Whitley, a brother-in-law
of Lord Gerard who was a senior figure in the circle of Charles II’s cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a military expert.
The second was John Gerard, a cousin of Lord Gerard, also with connections to Prince Rupert. The participation of the Gerards
indicated that this conspiracy might possibly have been set up in direct opposition to
the Sealed Knot. It could be that Prince Rupert was trying to prove he was better than Hyde.

Thurloe rounded up conspirators but let them go without trial over the following months.
¹⁰
No sooner had that plot subsided than a second one arose in its place, also involving the Gerard cousins but this time much
more serious.

In Paris, three English soldiers of fortune went to see Roger Whitley and John Gerard with a scheme to kill Cromwell and bring
down the Protectorate. Thomas Henshaw and his half-brother, John Wiseman, had fought for foreign princes, while the third,
Colonel John Fitzjames, had previously been employed by the Commonwealth. Their scheme was taken to Prince Rupert and Lord
Gerard. John Gerard and Henshaw then sailed for England.

As befitted a king in all but name, Cromwell had moved into Whitehall Palace. It was common knowledge that every Saturday
morning he left Whitehall to spend the weekend at Hampton Court. The plan was that Cromwell and his mounted escort of thirty
men would be surprised in a narrow street, and that in the melee the Lord Protector would be shot down. The ambush was set
for 13 May.

On the appointed day, Cromwell changed his plans. He did not ride out of the palace at Whitehall but instead set off by boat
to Chelsea, where he alighted and rode the rest of the way. Meanwhile, his would-be assassins waited and waited. When the
penny dropped they went home. Undaunted, they planned to make another attempt a few weeks later. This time they intended to
shoot Cromwell at prayer in his chapel in Whitehall. On the morning allotted for the operation, several key conspirators were
arrested. A well-prepared trawl around the capital resulted in dozens being detained. Henshaw escaped to France but Gerard
was arrested and taken to the Tower.

Thurloe’s intelligence operation had triumphed. It transpired that the general calibre of those involved in the enterprise
was low. Henshaw had failed to gain support among the gentry, while even the
Londoners involved were mostly apprentices, with an odd assortment of co-conspirators including a brewer, a schoolmaster and
a blind clergyman.
¹¹

The government-controlled news sheets went wild: the plot was all that London wished to read about. There were reports in
the
Weekly Intelligencer
and
Mercurius Politicus.
¹²
Thurloe interrogated the conspirators. Gerard denied all knowledge of the plot. Others were not so reticent. A Leveller named
John Wildman, who had colluded with the royalists, confessed. As they made their statements, Thurloe would have marvelled
at their naivety:

Due to the discrepancy between the serious nature of the plot and the rather pathetic nature of many of the plotters, very
few were actually charged. However, the authorities continued to round up suspects in what became an intelligence-gathering
exercise. Members of the Sealed Knot, including Sir Richard Willys and Edward Villiers, were arrested and held in the Tower.
At the conclusion of the security sweep, only three conspirators were arraigned for trial: John Gerard, Peter Vowell and Somerset
Fox. The court hearing made sensational headlines for the news sheets and a special account was rushed to the presses to satisfy
demand.
¹⁴

The trial took place in the Painted Chamber. The court heard
from many of the conspirators how they had plotted to overthrow the government and install Charles as monarch. As the attorney-general,
Edward Prideaux, set out the case, there grew an inescapable sense that
agents provocateurs
had been at work. Henshaw, who had fled, was the chief suspect.
¹⁵
He had promised his fellow plotters the backing of unrealistic numbers of continental troops: ‘Mr.
Hinshaw
declared to his confederates here in
England
what overtures had been with
Charles Stuart
and that Prince
Rupert
had engaged to send ten thousand
Scots, English
, and
French
, and the Duke of
York
to come with them to land in
Sussex
, and other places …’
¹⁶
The assertion that Charles’s brother James would come with an invasion force was clearly designed to stiffen the resolve
of the deluded conspirators.