Traitor's Field

by Robert Wilton

  He shakes his head.

  It’s a decent face in front of him: not handsome, but good. The siege has turned it inside out, the flesh becoming hollow. He has marked the change day by day, complacency becoming piety, for that is what hunger will do to a man, and it’s somehow more noble now. Something flickers, uncontrolled, around the mouth. The decent man breaks his gaze and looks down at the paper.

  Hamilton’s army destroyed. Invasion scattered.

  In the third week of August 1648, a stranger was travelling the land around Preston. North to Kendal, east to Skipton and Halifax, and south to Wigan, he moved from tavern to tavern and to the occasional sympathetic private house. He asked after friends who had been involved in the fighting, selecting the army according to the likely inclination of his host.

  Where he found a soldier – a fugitive Royalist seeking some kind of absolution, a Roundhead ready to take a drink and give his opinions – he gathered details of the Preston campaign: the men and the movements, the manoeuvres and the tactics.

  It was a waiting time, a time of frustration, worse because Shay didn’t know what he was looking for in the conversations. They were merely a way to pass the hours, and to do so as productively as possible. He was storing up facts and ideas, as if for winter. Information, like Oliver Cromwell, had a way of coming back at you when you didn’t expect it.

  Thus Colonel Thomas Rainsborough: a pale, domed head with golden-brown hair falling in thick waves behind it; the crown hairless and so emphasizing the strange pallor. Hooded hawk’s eyes under high brows, a small vivid red mouth. A golden wisp of moustache brushing the lips. An elegant angel of a face.

  Colonel Thomas Rainsborough at prayer: the eyes lightly closed, the face even more uniformly pale, the lips flickering with devotion, nibbling at the words and whispering them intimately to the infinite.

  Colonel Thomas Rainsborough at the siege of Colchester. On 21st August the defenders sent out five hundred of their womenfolk to beg for food. For there might – even after the frenzied skirmishes, after the starvation and the barrage, the endless mad explosions of stone as the balls shattered the fabric of the old town, shattered history itself, after the bitter heckling and the nasty violences, after the poisoned bullets and the thumbscrews and the matches lit under fingernails, the violation of the tombs, the desecration of the bodies – even after all this there might still be pity and charity and a gentleman in the besieging force.

  Uneasy, frightened, ashamed at their weakness as beggars and their implied weakness as women, the crowd drifted towards the besiegers’ lines. There was an uncomfortable shifting among the encircling forces as they realized what was happening, shouts and gallops and hasty consultations. Colonel Rainsborough, roused from prayer by an orderly who knew that of all things one never roused the Colonel from prayer, ordered a volley of musket fire over the heads of the women.

  Still the herd shuffled forwards, leaderless and random and faces down, towards the Parliamentarian lines. Four of the women were grabbed – a shifting, a murmuring of alarm, a nascent moaning among the others – and Colonel Rainsborough had them stripped naked. Laughter across the field, the unbeautiful animal laughter of men as men, and fear: nakedness is what comes before violence; nakedness is what comes before violation; nakedness is what comes before death. After nakedness, anything is possible.

  Then he sent the women back. Lost between worlds, dumb and hungry and stripped of humanity and hope, the herd drifted back into the besieged town.

  The things I have suffered for Charles Stuart.

  James, Duke of Hamilton sat heavy on his horse. The compact body was slumped, the clothes battered. A hard freakish wind threw gusts of rain at man and horse, blustering and dropping, roaring in the ears then vanishing, and as suddenly launching the deluge from some new quarter. The road east from Uttoxeter rises gently, and the Duke found himself at the top of a shallow hill, surrounded by the incessant, exhausting storm and the surly remnant of his army.

  There was some further obstacle, some new delay. His mind was numb to it all now.

  Another flurry of wind and rain at his back, and his neck hunched instinctively. The large eyes flicked around. It had been a long time since he’d really looked at his army. Too much mutual resentment. Too much shame. Now that he glimpsed it, he realized how small and straggled it had become. The regiments empty-ranked and intermingled. The few horses hang-necked. The riders slumped like their commander. The weapons carried careless and awry. A musket dropped at the roadside, a ribbon trodden in the mud, a blanket wrapped around a shivering head, the wordless squelching trudge, and the faces that would not look back at him: drowned faces, sullen, beaten. The unearthly force that was Cromwell, the long meandering flight across the country, the sudden alarms and the sleepless nights, and the eternal furnace of wind and rain, had eaten and shrivelled the army like some vicious plague.

  ‘The men’ll go no further, your Grace.’ A voice at his side.

  Head up suddenly with the anger and the pride, and damn the rain. ‘The hell they won’t! I’ll talk—’

  ‘Your Grace!’ The hand white on the Duke’s arm – uncontrolled, improper. An uneasy release. ‘That would be. . . perhaps a risk. And beneath your dignity.’

  ‘Then they can rot here. We’ll away!’ The wind blustering up around his face, catching the words and swallowing them. ‘Come on, then!’

  But again the wrong hand on the Duke’s arm. ‘They won’t. . .’ The words caught. ‘They won’t allow us, your Grace. Too many of the officers have already fled.’

  ‘Aye, I wondered where Langdale had got to.’ The Duke’s heavy features dark and scornful.

  ‘The men. . . insist that they will keep us here at any hazard.’

  James, Duke of Hamilton: a low black cloud, hanging solitary on the little hill.

  In the final week of August, the stranger shifted base eastwards, from the districts around Preston to the districts around Leeds. It was unlikely that a reply would come yet – there was certainly no chance of anything from Amsterdam or Paris – but something was just possible from London or Edinburgh. He read news-sheets and pamphlets wherever he could find them, for they were all the information he could get for now. As he travelled, he sounded casually the opinions and loyalties and characters of innkeepers and farmers, shopkeepers and clergymen. Where they were promising, he probed – tested, challenged, encouraged, reached out. One never knew when one might need a good hand or a good heart.

  ‘George Astbury is dead. On the field at Preston.’

  ‘What cause had he for that? It was neither his inclination nor his duty! The man who holds that office is supposed to stand above the fray, to work outside the world. What did he think he was playing at?’

  ‘You must ask him when you see him. Until that time, we who are left must shift to survive as we can.’

  ‘We always thought him an uneasy choice. Who is to follow?’

  A pause.

  ‘Shay.’

  ‘Shay? Do you offer me an opinion or a decision?’

  ‘I offer you a fact. Shay is in possession of the field. He has the experience. He is reassuming control of the organization. He fulfils the office.’

  ‘Mortimer Shay is a living chaos. Shay is misrule; Shay is mayhem; Shay is blood.’

  ‘These are not settled or normal times. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.’

  Uttoxeter’s main street was slick with mud, dragged on a thousand boots and softened and smeared over the ground by the rain that still fell steady.

  In the middle of the street, face to another of the sky’s grim clouds and cloak gusting and whipping around him, James, Duke of Hamilton stood silent and defeated.

  In front of him, watching uneasily and trying to maintain his composure, was a Roundhead trumpeter: the most junior of soldiers, the most humiliating of conquerors.

  This, then, was the final illumination of the character of the men who had beaten and hunted him. This shaming was more ruthless than anythin
g inflicted in the fields around Preston. The old world and the old ways were to be dismantled and trodden into the dust.

  The storm battered and soaked the two men, the Duke and the soldier, facing each other in the mud and unable to speak, watched by a thousand empty eyes in windows and gutters.

  The things I have suffered for Charles Stuart.

  Sir, these are the news from Colchester, this day the 27th August. The town is very like to fall tomorrow, so this may be my last despatch to you. If you have not already, please now consider this knot of the net broke. The besiegers cut our water three weeks past, fresh food as I told you is long become fable, and I doubt that there remains one solitary dog horse etc living and if it does so it must be the miserablest scrawny beast and still sold for a King’s ransom. We are become, all of us, from Lord Norwich down to the lowliest, miserable scrawny beasts, and I fear we would fetch no price, nor may we avail that King no ransom of hope or support. Lord Norwich and the aristocrats and Sir Charles Lucas and the soldiers are agreed that the routing of the Scotch army at Preston, which I learned privily four days past and which Sir Thomas Fairfax in the besieging lines around was blithe to let us know one day later with much cannonado of celebration and sending of kites into our walls, renders our endurance futile. There is none to come to our aid, and none to whom we might provide aid. For weeks past we have convinced the people of this town and the soldiers among them to endure the worst privations that ever civilised Christians saw, such that all that inhabit this place be nothing but maggot-fed ghosts and skeletons, and the extremity of their suffering and this with much sickness and outrage from our foes leaving them in their spirits closer to beasts than human souls. Now even the smallest child if it yet draw breath knows of the rout of his Grace at Preston, and no longer will they accept any entreaty to logick or to honour to undergo one further minute of privation, nor in truth dare we offer such entreaty. For sake of duty to Christian mercy we are obliged to end the great sufferings of these honest people, not the least of which have been our ever more desperate and brutalised soldiers who have not scrupled to use violence and fire to secure for themselves what little sustenance there may be, and offer ourselves to the hands of our besiegers and the will of God.

  Discussions began between Sir T. Fairfax and our own Council shortly after the news of the disaster at Preston had spread, and the terms of surrender are near agreed. There was a movement by some of the hotter bloods in the leadership to cut their way out of town and force the parliamentarian lines, but it was thought that the people of the town would thwart this purpose and in truth I doubt the strength and spirit of those who would have attempted it, so frail and so forlorn are we become. From Fairfax the men are promised fair quarter, the town must pay a fine, and the Lords and Gentlemen must become prisoners of mercy and trust that there yet be Gentlemen in the armies of our enemies in this God-forsaken time. General Fairfax is known for a good man but much worn down by this decade of war, as might be any man with half of his sensitivity, and among his officers Colonel Rainsborowe is held as an epitome of pitilessness and implacable cruelty, a self-reputed breaker of inequalities and instrument of God. If I have sure means of saving for you my papers and the Directory I will do so, otherwise according to our practice I will ensure their destruction at any cost. For myself, I may have no certain expectation. I hope that I have done my duty, and I hope that I may meet my fate with honour. I give this message into our usual trusted means, and myself into the hands of the Lord. My respects and humble services to you, Sir. Most faithfully, A. P.

  [SS C/S/48/9]

  Leeds on the point of evening, turning cold as the sun drops behind the buildings: a rider out of the far north appeared in Eastgate Street with the first candles. He held his horse at a walk, inconspicuous and able to keep alert to the town around him, to read the faces and mood. He only once had to ask his way, quietly, of a shopkeeper on his way home.

  Having seen the Sign of the Boar, he kept the horse walking, passing the inn without breaking step. He only stopped when he reached the next inn: took a room; saw his horse lodged.

  Then, in the first gentle gloom of evening, he walked back along Eastgate Street and stepped cautiously into the Sign of the Boar. He bought a drink, watched the room for half an hour. Only then, and with the inn room quieter now, did he step to the bar and ask for Francis Padget.

  ROYALIST THREAT IN THE CITY: RESULTS OF INTERROGATIONS CONDUCTED AUGUST 16. 1648–AUGUST 20. 1648

  There is wide expectation in the city of some tumult, in the favour of the King and the Prince of Wales and the Royalist cause. There has been yet no effect of the battle fought at Preston, and the City remains uncertain in its loyalties and restless for some improvement in its conditions. Significant preparations have been made for a rising, presumably rallying the trained bands to their formal allegiances. Browne is spoken of as commander, or perhaps Hollinge, and there are wild rumours of secret preparations of yet unidentified infantry and cavalry detachments. Such forces would of course enable the King’s adherents to dominate the wealth and importance of the City of London, and would present a grave danger to General Fairfax at Colchester while General Cromwell remained so far from the capital.

  [PAPERS OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, M/48.102,

  PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY TAKASHI COLLECTION]

  Dearest Cromwell,

  this by way of caution or encouragement, for as usual our Parliament does not act with the same vigour, clarity, and integrity as our Army. Notwithstanding your victory of the week past, for which every man here has given his thanks to God humbly and right heartily, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords have this day repealed the Vote of No Addresses, thereby enabling their negotiations with King Charles to resume immediately, and I think that this be their aim. I perceive no sign that the approach or the ideals of Parliament’s commissioners in treating with the King would display any of the strength appropriate to our cause, to your recent success, or to the slippery history of the King in such proceedings, and I rather think that as usual they hope to hurry to a compromise by the straightest route.

  My love and my duty to you,

  O. St John

  August 24. 1648

  [NALSON COLLECTION 24, BODLEIAN LIBRARY]

  Fleet report, August 26.: inshore scouting vessels report that the ships of the Prince of Wales, which were thought to be making eastward for the continent, have turned and are bound for the mouth of the Thames. We can report no healthy spirit among the crews of our own craft anchored in the river, and beg leave to present our most urgent concern at the uncertain and ominous prospect.

  [ADMIRALTY PAPERS (EARLY MSS P.10.B.6)]

  The preacher’s voice soared and rasped, his shoulders rising and falling and his hands conjuring the words out of his chest. From the doorway, many of the actual words were lost, but the tone of the voice was clear, its exhortations and accusations, its bitter denunciations and soft prayers.

  There were two men in the doorway, one in the uniform of a Roundhead cavalry officer, the other in heavy practical civilian clothes.

  ‘You want him?’ murmured the first.

  A shake of the head. ‘No need to interrupt. No point in making it worse.’

  The man in question could also be seen easily from the doorway. Seated in one of a semicircle of chairs, the most powerful man in England stared with rigid attention at the preacher, jowls slumped and swarthy and large eyes unblinking.

  The cavalry officer murmured, ‘Not good?’

  Another shake of the head. ‘The south’s alive with Royalists, and while the Army’s fighting up here the Parliament’s getting ready to give it all away again. He’s going to be furious.’

  When he visited the Sign of the Boar again the next day, the rider found a message for him from a man passing as Francis Padget. An hour later, he was out of the city and trotting steadily towards a certain crossroads.

  He slowed the horse as he came within a hundred yards of the crossroads. It
was a well-chosen spot. The land was flat and open all around; nowhere for either party to have set a trap. He kept the horse at a walk, peering ahead to the crossroads, around him, occasionally unobtrusively over his shoulder.

  At fifty yards he saw the shape of a man on a horse, under an oak by the junction. His own horse’s ears pricked up, and the rhythm of the walk altered for a moment. He checked that the bag slung by his right leg was open, and let the horse walk on.

  Mortimer Shay watched him come: watched the rhythm of the horse, watched the posture of the man, checked all around himself, focused on the road beyond the rider leading back to Leeds. Eventually he eased his horse out away from the tree and into the roadway. As it emerged from under the shadow of the branches, the animal shied at the sunlight, and the hooves stuttered on the ground. Shay found himself blinking in the sudden glare too, forced himself to keep his gaze on the approaching rider despite the orange pain in his eyes.

  The two horses edged closer to each other, hoof-beat by hoof-beat on the uneven ground, the men watching each other with the same rhythm: the face, the body, and quickly around; the face again.

  Shay said, ‘Have you travelled far, pilgrim?’

  ‘I have, and I’ve farther still to go.’

  ‘God and the King’s justice go with you.’

  ‘God save the King.’

  They had stopped still, close enough for the horses to be sniffing at each other’s manes.

  Shay scanned the face again, and the poised body. He saw the bag slung loose at the other man’s knee, and stiffened as he saw the pistol butt protruding from the opening.

  He forced his eyes up to the man’s face. The envoys of the Committee were implacable. If Shay had been marked for death, no words would save him now.