A Corruptible Crown

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Jamie’s first thought was, He means, give over fighting for what you believe in. His second thought, though, was He’s the only brother I have left.

  He thought of Nick, rotting in an unmarked grave; the anguish was so intense that it almost blinded him. He reached up, caught Robert’s wrist in his good hand and clasped it tightly. The muscles and tendons shifted under his fingers, blessedly alive. All I need to do is to keep silent. ‘Amen to that,’ he whispered. ‘I should like nothing better.’

  Two

  Lucy stood by a bookstall in the churchyard of St Paul’s cathedral and pretended to look at its stock of religious tracts. At the other side of the bookstall, Cornish Jenny, a ‘mercury-woman’ or news-vendor, was gossiping with what appeared to be another of her trade. Her strong sing-song sounded clear against the other woman’s softer questions. ‘Nay, indeed, I know not! Oh, it came in a bundle with some others . . . from an old man by the ’Change.’

  Lucy picked up a volume of collected sermons and moved closer, holding the book up so that it concealed the direction of her gaze. The woman Jenny was talking to was about fifty, with a reddened face and hands and shrewd brown eyes. She was stout – which was very uncommon in a mercury-woman: they were generally rake-thin and ragged, like Cornish Jenny. The stout woman’s woollen gown was of unusually good quality, too, and her cap and apron were clean.

  ‘I’ve heard it sells well,’ said the stout woman.

  Cornish Jenny laughed and shook her head. ‘Not so much well as dear!’ She held out the piece of merchandise they were discussing: eight pages of smeared type on cheap greyish paper. ‘There’s plenty will pay sixpence for this, smudged as it is!’

  ‘This old man by the Exchange,’ said the stout woman. ‘Do you mean Peterkin Evans?’

  ‘Oh, not he!’ replied Jenny easily, and launched into a description of a – completely fictitious – old man who could supply the newsbook.

  ‘But who’s the printer?’ asked the stout woman, giving up on the old man.

  ‘How should I know?’ Jenny didn’t so much as glance at Lucy – who was, in fact, the printer. ‘It’s no one licensed by the Stationers, that’s certain, else it would be cheaper!’

  The stout woman took the newsbook and wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Phew! You know what this trash is?’

  A less canny woman might have paused and looked sober; Cornish Jenny just laughed again. ‘How could I, when I cannot read a line? I do but sell newsbooks, to earn a few pennies for myself and my poor fatherless children.’

  The stout woman tossed the newsbook into the dirt of the churchyard. ‘You’d do better to keep to the Diurnall!’ she said severely. ‘Your “poor fatherless children” will go hungry if you’re caught with this one. It’s seditious, a mouthpiece for the malignants. Parliament hates it above all its kin, and would pay good money to shut it down. You could be whipped for peddling it.’

  At this Jenny did look sober. She stared at the newsbook and wiped her hand on her ragged apron. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘You know now,’ said the stout woman. She strode off.

  Lucy put down the book of sermons and went round the stall. ‘That was more than I expected,’ she observed.

  Jenny snorted. She bent down and retrieved the copy of Mercurius Pragmaticus, brushed off the dirt and set it carefully back in the voluminous pocket of her apron. Dirty as it was, it would still sell for four or five pence – which was four or five times as much as a licensed newsbook, and, more to the point, what she’d paid Lucy for it. The profit she made on each copy was the main reason she took the risk of selling Pragmaticus – but Lucy knew that she sympathized with the politics as well. The husband who’d left those children fatherless had been killed fighting for the King.

  ‘So that was Parliament Joan, the great she-spy!’ Jenny said, and shook her head in wonder. ‘I’d never have guessed it. She looked like an alderman’s housekeeper!’

  Lucy shrugged. Parliament Joan had gained some notoriety among the Royalists of London: she made her living by informing on them. She’d been known to use the trick of pretending to be a vendor of unlicensed newsbooks to smoke them out. When Lucy had heard reports of an unusually respectable-looking mercury-woman asking questions about Pragmaticus, she’d decided to get a description to give to her vendors. Despite this, she felt some sympathy for the spy. ‘She was willing to give herself away to warn you about the dangers,’ she pointed out. ‘She thought you were an innocent involved unwittingly.’

  Jenny spat. ‘Why should she worry about giving herself away to the likes of me? It’s easy charity that doesn’t cost a penny! She has a quarry in view that would bring her forty pounds. “Parliament would pay good money to shut it down.” Indeed it would! It’s you she’s after, you and Prag. And if I’d be whipped just for selling it, what do you think would happen to you? You take care, and tell Prag to do the same!’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Lucy promised. He’d be pleased, she thought sourly: any evidence of how much Mercurius Pragmaticus annoyed the authorities brought a smirk to the face of its author. ‘Thank you, Jenny. You have a care of that woman henceforth, for you won’t fool her again.’

  ‘Go teach fish to swim!’ said Jenny scornfully. ‘Have a care yourself, girl!’

  The retort, I’m not a girl! rose to Lucy’s lips. She swallowed it. She took her leave politely and headed west, up Ludgate Hill, walking quickly and keeping an eye open for anyone following her.

  She should not feel so angry, Lucy told herself. It didn’t mean that Jenny doubted Lucy’s claim to be married – and even if she did, that didn’t mean she thought ill of her. Any lone woman would pretend she had a husband, in the hope that it would keep the predators at bay.

  Sometimes Lucy herself doubted that she was married. Marriage, after all, was supposed to be a transformation: from girl to woman, from dependent child to guardian of her husband’s house and honour. Lucy, however, was still living with married friends, sharing a bed with their young daughter like an impoverished relative, supporting herself by printing a newsbook whose politics she despised. The handful of nights in her husband’s bed seemed like something from a dream.

  The memory of her wedding night returned to her with a tingle. She’d been sick with fear beforehand: her only experience of sexual congress had been a bloody and brutal rape. What she’d discovered with her husband, though, had no more to do with rape than singing had with screaming. Jamie had been infinitely tender and reverent, and she’d felt as though her whole body was bursting into flower.

  I want him back! she thought fiercely, and bit her lip. She wouldn’t get him back any time soon. Indeed, since he was tangled in the war – that great blind wrecker of lives – she might not get him back at all.

  Always, always, every misery and grief in England seemed to flow from the loathsome war. For six years now it had plagued the country, and even a resounding victory by one side hadn’t been able to end it. The King’s fault, Lucy thought angrily. He’d been offered fair and reasonable settlements, but he’d been unwilling to accept any constitutional limits to his own power. Instead he’d engaged the Scots to begin the war all over again – and he probably intended to double-cross them, too. How could Mercurius Pragmaticus call for that bloody-handed man’s restoration to the throne? Why in the world did so many people want to buy it? What on earth was a Leveller like Lucy doing printing it?

  She had no answer to the first two of those questions, and a short, disreputable one to the last: money. It was hard for a lone woman to find work that paid well.

  By the time she reached Convent Garden she was in a foul temper, furious with the King, his supporters, and herself, for printing weekly salvoes in his defence. She turned north from the paved space of the plaza, then followed a muddy alley between narrow houses whose upper stories overhung the path, shutting out the light. It stank: neighbours had emptied their chamberpots into it. Lucy kilted her skirts up and picked her way gingerly along to where the alley ended in a ho
usewall. There she paused, checking that there was no one behind her. The alleyway stretched dark and empty to the road. She took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door on her left.

  When she started on Pragmaticus, the press had been in the kitchen of an empty house to the south of Convent Garden; after two months it had been moved to a warehouse by the Thames. This – a disused storeroom – was its third home. She didn’t know who owned any of the premises: that was the business of her employer. He had the other key, and even as she closed the door behind her the scent of tobacco told her that he’d used it to let himself in.

  ‘There you are!’ Marchamont Nedham exclaimed cheerfully. He knocked ash from his pipe and got up from the table where he’d been writing out the latest instalment of the week’s news. He was a short, swarthy man; his long black hair and the gold earring in just one ear gave him a piratical look. He advanced on her with outspread arms and she hastily backed against the door with her hands raised to shove him off.

  He halted. ‘It’s naught but a friendly salutation!’ he said, sounding hurt.

  She gave a snort of contempt. ‘And do you salute your men friends thus? They must think it strange!’

  ‘You’re no man,’ he said, with a leer. ‘God he knows, I’m willing to be a very good friend to you indeed.’ He hadn’t gone back to his table, so she stayed where she was, back to the door. If she stepped forward he’d be sure to deliver his ‘friendly salutation’ and a good grope.

  ‘Oh, you call that “being a very good friend”?’ she asked tartly. ‘And to think that in Leicestershire we called it “fornication”!’

  ‘You’re a cruel woman, Lucy,’ Nedham said reproachfully. He went back to his table.

  Lucy advanced cautiously into the room, then sidled past the writing table and over to the printing press. It was standing idle, the canvas tympan resting on the bed. Sheets of inked paper hung on lines all around it. Lucy checked one, but it was not yet dry. ‘Where’s Wat?’ she asked. Thirteen-year-old Wat was her assistant at the press.

  Nedham waved a hand vaguely. ‘I sent him to market.’

  Lucy made a face. Whatever errand Wat had been sent on, he’d take his time over it. The streets were far more interesting than inking.

  ‘Well, he could hardly work the press on his own!’ Nedham said reproachfully. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Taking measures to protect your business,’ Lucy replied at once. ‘And you, little as you deserve it! There’s a pretended mercury-woman nosing about for the printer and author of Pragmaticus, and I asked our people to send to me if they saw her. Cornish Jenny sent, and I went to St Paul’s and listened while they talked. The woman wanted to know where to find us. Jenny pretended not to know, so the woman warned her off, saying that Parliament would pay good money to shut us down. I’ve no doubt that she was Parliament Joan, the she-spy. She’s searching for you, Mr Nedham.’

  Nedham blinked – then, as she’d anticipated, smirked. ‘Not all those who seek will find! You had a good look at her?’

  ‘Aye. A stout red-faced woman of about fifty, too well-dressed to be a true mercury-woman. Jenny said she looked like an alderman’s housekeeper, which is not a bad likeness.’

  Nedham sniggered. ‘So. Parliament Joan unmasked!’ He looked down at the sheet of paper on his writing table, then dipped his pen in the inkwell. ‘Have care of a fat woman,’ he muttered, writing, ‘aged about fifty, by name Parliament Joan . . .’

  ‘I doubt it’s her real name,’ said Lucy.

  Nedham crossed out. ‘. . . her name I know not, she is called by many Parliament Joan. The old bitch can smell out a loyal-hearted man as soon as the best bloodhound . . .’ He paused suddenly, looking up. ‘The mercury-women. Will any of them betray us?’

  Lucy wrinkled her nose. ‘They earn too much by selling Pragmaticus. Besides, the reward money would have to come from Parliament, which means it wouldn’t be seen for months, if at all. They all know that.’

  Nedham smirked again. ‘It’s astonishing how Parliament can never find money for its servants when it has plenty for its members’ expenses. Well done, my girl! We’ll print this warning. That’ll put a stop to her tricks!’

  Lucy said nothing. She suspected that she had more in common with Parliament Joan than with Nedham . . . not that Joan would see it that way, of course. Any meeting between the two of them would end with Lucy flogged at the cart-tail and thrown into prison – as a Royalist, which would be unbearable! Well, this public exposure ought to make the spy look for a less wary quarry.

  ‘You say the mercury-women earn a lot by our efforts?’ Nedham asked, his tone not quite one of idle curiosity.

  Lucy snorted in contempt. ‘If you want to increase our charge, you can find yourself another printer! Their profit is our safety.’

  ‘Hear the child!’ Nedham exclaimed in irritation. ‘Thinking to instruct her master!’ He gazed up at the sheets of newsprint for a moment, undoubtedly calculating how much profit he was losing to the mercury-women, then sighed. ‘You’d not leave me, anyway.’ He gave her a sly look. ‘You like me too well.’

  Her temper snapped. ‘I would gladly leave, if I could earn elsewhere even half what I earn here!’

  He merely smirked. ‘Your husband, of course, cannot provide for you.’

  She glared. ‘How could he, when Parliament won’t pay the Army?’

  ‘Oh, come!’ Nedham got to his feet. ‘This husband of yours is an invention. You never said aught of him when I hired you. I’ve never seen hide nor hair of him. He never had any house or lodgings that anyone has heard tell. He’s a word – a prayer you say like a child at its bedside, hoping it will protect you against the night’s dangers. I’ve told you before, I don’t believe in him!’

  ‘He’s no invention,’ Lucy said grimly. ‘He’s with the Army in the west. He stands a good head taller than you, and he’s a deadly swordsman. But I don’t need a word like “husband” to protect me against you, sir, for there’s another word would do. It’s “Pragmaticus”, and all I’d need would be to whisper it to the Licensor.’

  ‘You won’t, though,’ Nedham said confidently.

  Lucy gave a snort of contempt. ‘I hate your malignant politics – and your lechery!’

  ‘You like my wit,’ replied Nedham.

  It was, unfortunately, true. Nedham was the cleverest of all the London newsmen, the most inventive, the one everyone else imitated. Lucy could thoroughly enjoy delivering his wit to an eager audience – when his target was somebody other than the Levellers. To be fair, that was usually the case.

  ‘I’d like it better in a better cause!’ she managed at last.

  He looked at her with unusual soberness. ‘I was of Parliament’s party in the first war, as everyone knows. I marched to the tune of “England’s Freedoms” until I found myself less free under Parliament than ever I was under the King. You Levellers think that if you keep on marching to the same tune you’ll eventually come to paradise, but I say you’ll end up mired in war with the wolves of anarchy howling all around you. When you’ve lost your way the safest course is to retrace your steps.’

  ‘So you changed your coat purely from a belief in the virtues of the King’s cause?’ Lucy asked sarcastically. ‘The very large salary he offered you had nothing whatever to do with it?’

  Nedham smiled. ‘“Money, thou soul of Men and Wit, but yet no Saint of mine!”’

  It was a piece of doggerel he’d written himself. Lucy gave another snort. ‘I think you were more sincere in the rest of it: “Thou art Religion, God, and all that we may call Divine.”’

  He laughed. ‘You have it by heart! I’m deeply touched! Ah, Lucy, let’s be friends!’ He swept forward and took her in his arms.

  She turned her face away from his kiss and kicked his ankle hard. He yelped and let her go, then bent and rubbed the ankle, glaring. ‘You didn’t need—’ he began.

  ‘I’m not your whore!’ she spat. ‘I told you that when you hired me! I’ve told you
again at least once a week ever since! When will you believe it?’

  ‘It was only a kiss,’ he said, glowering. ‘A man gives the like to his friend’s daughters!’

  Her eyes stung. She was so tired of this! ‘Aye, if they’re pretty maids, and their father isn’t watching! You touch me again and you’ll have to find another printer this very afternoon, for I swear I’ll walk out and not come back!’

  He went back to his table sullenly. ‘God damn all Puritans, all Levellers, and all chaste women!’

  Lucy’s face tingled where he’d kissed it, and she could feel the imprint of his body on her breasts. An undesired thought strayed across her mind: Thank God he always tries to conquer by storm. A loving siege would be harder to fend off. She pushed it angrily away. She was married, and she loved her husband! She wiped her face with the back of her hand and went back to the printing press. She lifted the tympan, took out the forme with the previous day’s news, and went round the other side of the table from Nedham to clean and set the type for today’s story.

  It was late in the evening by the time she finished printing. Wat had trailed back to the printworks shortly after Lucy finished her typesetting, and between them they took down the still-damp sheets, sprinkled them with sand, and added the new columns of print. Nedham left as soon as the press began its scrape-creak-scrape. He said the noise made it impossible to concentrate, though Lucy knew he had no trouble concentrating in noisy taverns.

  With the sheets of newsprint once more hung up to dry, Lucy picked up the wicker basket she’d stowed in a corner when Cornish Jenny sent to her. She locked the door of the printworks behind her, picked her way through the alley, and trudged eastward. The long June day meant that, despite the late hour, there was still plenty of daylight left. The streets were noisy and crowded, as they always were in London: throngs of men and women jostled along the Strand, never looking one another in the face; beggars cried for alms on every corner; street vendors howled their wares; horse-hooves and iron-shod cart wheels rattled on the cobbles. The occasional coach sailed past, its windows shuttered, the coachman flicking his whip at the rabble to urge them out of its way. Lucy followed the Strand until it became Fleet Street, then continued onward across the stinking sewer that was the Fleet River. The dark bulk of the Fleet Prison loomed on her left. She turned up the street that ran beside its blank wall. The stench of the river was thick on the air, and she breathed through her mouth.