London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  She ignored him and turned to cross the street again. He grabbed her arm, jerking her hand upwards to show the ink stains on her fingers. ‘Why, Mistress!’ he exclaimed in mock-amazement. ‘However did you get such dirty hands?’

  She tried to jerk her arm free, couldn’t, and screamed. The effect was striking: the Reformadoes recoiled in alarm, and everyone within hearing looked round at them. Her very real fear was joined by hope, and she screamed more loudly: ‘Help! Let me go! I am an honest woman, an honest woman, let me go!’

  The man who had hold of her slapped her. ‘Quiet!’ He glared at the passers-by, who were frowning in shocked concern. ‘This woman is being arrested for seditious printing!’

  ‘Lies!’ she replied. ‘Does he look like a Stationer? I beg you, sirs, help me!’

  ‘We’re taking her to the Committee of Safety!’ protested the Reformado.

  ‘When was a committee a court of law?’ cried Lucy. ‘You lewd rogue! Please, somebody, help me!’

  The Reformado swore, put his hand over her mouth, and he and his friend frog-marched her back along the street. They were followed, though – at first just by a couple of the worried passers-by, but those couple drew in more, and by the time they reached the Guildhall they were trailed by a large and indignant crowd.

  One of the soldiers turned on the Guildhall steps. ‘See?’ he shouted. ‘We’re arresting the wench, as I said!’

  Lucy didn’t hear the crowd’s response because by then she was inside.

  There was a disconsolate crowd of militia deserters in the foyer, sitting in leg-irons against the wall. The soldiers hesitated, glanced back, then bundled Lucy through into a small committee room panelled in dark oak. Four or five men were seated around a paper-covered table. They all looked up frowning.

  ‘Excuse us, sir,’ panted the lead Reformado, ‘but the wench made a disturbance, and—’

  ‘Do you think I have time to deal with some shrieking slut?’ asked one of the gentlemen with distaste. He was about fifty, richly dressed, with heavy-lidded eyes and a long nose.

  ‘You said you wanted Lilburne’s press shut down,’ replied the soldier. ‘This is the wench that works it.’

  ‘Let me go!’ cried Lucy. She finally succeeded in jerking her arms out of the soldiers’ grasp. As on the other occasions when she’d been attacked, she was so full of outrage that there was little room for fear. ‘You have no right to bring me here! You have no warrant, you have no charge . . .’

  ‘One of Lilburne’s get, all right!’ said one of the other gentlemen.

  ‘You found the press?’ asked the lead gentleman eagerly.

  The Reformado hesitated. ‘These two rogues seized me on the street,’ Lucy cried furiously, ‘– with many foul lewd words, but not one about printing! God knows what they would have done to me if I hadn’t “made a disturbance”!’

  The gentleman turned an indignant glare on the soldiers. ‘Sir!’ protested the Reformado. ‘We waited at The Whalebone and followed her, but she spied us, so we thought it best to take her up before she alerted her friends. She matches the description, and she has ink on her hands.’

  ‘Well, girl?’ asked the gentleman. ‘Where is the press?’

  ‘How should I answer such a question? You have no right even to ask it! I’m an honest maid, seized in the street by two great rogues, and yet I am to be questioned, and not them? You had no cause to take me up: I was doing nothing amiss, nothing!’

  ‘Where is the press, girl?’ repeated the gentleman impatiently. ‘If you will not answer, you must go to Bridewell.’

  ‘I must go to Bridewell for having ink on my hands?’ she cried incredulously. ‘Then your clerk there must needs go to Newgate!’

  One of the men smiled at that, but the lead gentleman was annoyed. ‘You proud, saucy strumpet! This is easily settled: what’s your name, woman?’

  ‘Lucy Wentnor, sir, of Southwark, sir – which, sir, is no concern of the Committee of Safety of London!’

  ‘Denzil . . .’ began the gentleman who’d smiled. The other waved him aside. Lucy stared hard. The only Denzil she’d ever heard of was Denzil Holles, the leader of the extreme Presbyterians, the chief of the eleven impeached members of Parliament. She’d heard that he’d withdrawn: now, it seemed, he was back again.

  ‘That was the name, I think,’ said Holles. ‘This is the woman said to be working the illegal press.’

  ‘Said by whom?’ asked Lucy at once. ‘And you think that was the name? You would send an honest maid to Bridewell, without even checking that you remember rightly?’

  ‘Honest!’ spat Holles in contempt. ‘No more honest than a maid! This wicked impudent disputation is a harlot’s trick!’

  ‘Indeed it is not, sir! If a maid won’t resist when a man tries to dishonour her, then indeed she will be a harlot, very quickly!’

  ‘Dishonour!’ exclaimed Holles in disgust. ‘You flatter yourself, wench!’

  ‘You would lock me up with whores!’ replied Lucy. ‘For having ink upon my hands! Is that honourable treatment?’

  ‘Denzil . . .’ said the other gentleman again.

  ‘That damned press is behind half our problems in London!’ exploded Holles. ‘Every other militia deserter we take has one of its impudent sheets in his pocket, and the rest have one at home!’

  ‘But you’ve no certainty that she’s even the right woman!’ protested the other man.

  Holles grimaced. ‘She’s one of Lilburne’s get! It was plain the moment she opened her mouth! But very well! Weller, check that you have the right wench and then send her to Bridewell.’

  The older Reformado took Lucy’s arm again. ‘How is he to check?’ she asked. ‘What about a trial, Mr Holles; what about evidence and the process of law? Have you never heard of such things?’

  ‘You, wench, have evidently heard too much of them, from your friend John Lilburne!’ snapped Holles. ‘This is what comes of it: the lowest of the people prating of law while they strain to get the power in their own hands and lord it over their betters!’

  ‘I have never even met John Lilburne,’ said Lucy loudly, ‘but I wonder, sir, that you should boast of caring less for the law than he!’

  Holles got to his feet. ‘Take her to Bridewell!’ he roared.

  The two Reformadoes pulled Lucy out of the committee room.

  The deserters in the foyer were all sitting up straight: the door had been left ajar and they had heard everything. When Lucy appeared between her two captors, one of them applauded and cried, ‘Brave girl!’ The others took it up, and she walked out of the Guildhall to a chorus of cheers, her head held high.

  That triumph helped to sustain her during the three days she spent in Bridewell.

  It was a foul place: crowded, noisy and reeking of overburdened privy and damp. Most of the female inmates were whores, which added shame to the wretchedness. Lucy spent her first couple of hours there in tears, imagining what her mother would have said.

  Work helped, though. Bridewell was officially a ‘house of correction’ rather than a prison, and the distinction meant that the inmates were required to work, the men shaving wood and the women spinning and sewing. Lucy was assigned to spin thread in a workroom under the watchful eye of a warden. The work was mindless and soothing, and the young women spinning beside her, whores or not, were friendly and helpful. By the time Jamie and Uncle Thomas came to visit her that evening, she was calm and able to put a brave face on it.

  It was just as well, because Thomas was distraught: he embraced her, choked an apology, then stood wringing his hands and lamenting that he’d ever permitted her to risk herself. Jamie was much more helpful.

  ‘Take heart,’ he told her seriously. ‘You’ll not be here long.’

  ‘Stark contrary to the law!’ choked Thomas. ‘Worse even than poor Mrs Overton: they caught her with the pamphlets!’

  Jamie gave Thomas a pained look: there was a warden supervising the meeting. He said emphatically, ‘The Army will soon be in
London.’

  The warden asked indignantly, ‘Here, fellow! What do you know of the Army?’

  ‘Only what any man knows, that has his wits about him,’ replied Jamie levelly. ‘The Army is on the march, and if you think the militia will fight it, you’re blind and deaf, while if you think the Reformadoes can hold the city alone, you’re a fool. Soon the Committee of Safety will be gone. What will you say to the new authorities if they ask for the warrant committing this gentlewoman to your charge?’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Lucy asked him.

  He smiled. ‘You caused enough stir. Did you really spit in Denzil Holles’s face and tell him he cared nothing for the law?’

  ‘Indeed I did not spit!’ she said indignantly. ‘The other, aye, I did.’

  The smile broadened. ‘And I suppose it never even occurred to you to buy your safety by naming friends?’

  ‘Nay!’ she said, startled. Give away the press, her livelihood and freedom? Give away Ned, too, come to that: if he was wanted as ringleader of a mutiny, he could be shot. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘You’re a bright light in this dark world, Lucy Wentnor.’

  Jamie’s words about the warrant had evidently struck home: after he and Thomas left, the warden was subdued. Lucy had been assigned a foul mattress in the main barracks, but suddenly a chamber was found for her, comparatively clean and shared with only three other women. That might have been the result of a bribe – Thomas must have supplied one to be allowed the visit – but what happened the next morning was not. She was brought before the Governor of the prison, who asked about her meeting with the Committee of Safety. He was unhappy with her replies.

  ‘That I’d been sent to him without warrant or charge would not have troubled him,’ she told her friends later, ‘except that he feared that those who sent me were not sat firm in the saddle.’

  Over the next two days nothing happened to reassure the Governor of Bridewell. The members of Parliament who’d fled from London turned out to have fled to the Army: since they included the Speakers of both Houses, their presence there seriously undermined the Committee’s claim to represent the only legitimate authority. Meanwhile, the Reformadoes were becoming increasingly unruly and increasingly unpopular throughout the city. The borough of Southwark – urged on by Uncle Thomas and his friends – publicly dissented from the City of London. The Committee of Safety remained as belligerent as ever, but London’s Common Council, with its support fracturing fast, discovered, as Edward Sexby had predicted, that it had no stomach for fighting against the odds. A delegation was sent to Lord General Fairfax, asking for peace.

  The Army was still some two days’ march from London, but the gesture was enough to decide the Governor of Bridewell. Lucy was shown the gate and told that, since she had not been lawfully committed, she was free to leave.

  It was about noon. Lucy stood outside the gate of Bridewell and tilted her face up towards the hazy sunlight. She was exhausted, filthy and crawling with lice from the prison, but all of that was swallowed up by incredulous triumph. The Committee of Safety, the gentlemen of Parliament – they were going to lose, and her side was going to win!

  She thought about going straight to her friends, but she was worried that she might be followed, and, anyway, she was desperate to wash and change her shift. She went home.

  Uncle Thomas was out, talking to his Southwark friends. Aunt Agnes was sitting outside the shop, darning socks. When Lucy appeared she gave her a look of disgust. ‘So,’ she said bitterly, ‘back you come like a bad penny, with the stink of Bridewell on you!’

  Lucy hadn’t expected her aunt to be pleased to see her, but this was worse than she’d anticipated and it left her speechless.

  ‘Were it mine to say,’ Agnes continued, in low-voiced malevolence, ‘I’d never let you bring that foul smell into my good house. But you’re the apple of Tom’s eye, and he’ll hear no word against you, so all I ask is that you keep quiet about where you’ve been. I’ve told my gentlewoman-lodger and the neighbours that you’ve been visiting a sick friend, and I trust you’ll confirm it!’

  Still unable to speak, Lucy ducked her head and went on into the house, walking wide around Agnes as though she were a dangerous dog. Susan was in the kitchen; when she saw Lucy she dropped the dough she was kneading and rushed over. ‘Oh, Lucy!’ she cried, hugging her. ‘We’ve been so worried for you!’

  Lucy burst into tears and hugged her back. She let the maid’s affection soothe her and sat in the kitchen drinking a hot posset, waiting while the big kettle heated water for washing. Mrs Penington’s maid came in just as the water boiled, and Lucy agreed that, yes, her sick friend was getting better. When Uncle Thomas came in, she welcomed his exclamations of delight and tried to forget about Agnes.

  Three days later, Lucy stood watching beside Uncle Thomas as the New Model Army marched through Southwark and across London Bridge.

  Southwark had invited them and had opened the city gates. The Committee of Safety had broken in dismay, and its members fled abroad or went into hiding.

  Lucy was still nervous of the soldiers, but she had to admit that they appeared well-disciplined. They marched in neat ranks: the horsemen four, the infantry six abreast, each man with a sprig of laurel in his hat. After the vanguard came the Independent members of Parliament, returning in triumph, led by the two Speakers in a grand coach. Behind them came an open carriage, drawn by six matched bays, which was greeted with cheers. A dark-haired man sat there with two women. Several men in the crowd took their hats off. ‘That’s Black Tom!’ one informed Lucy and Thomas.

  She stared at the man with interest: so that was the much-discussed Lord General Fairfax? He looked tired and ill, though he smiled and waved at the crowd. ‘Who are the gentlewomen?’ she asked.

  The man hesitated. ‘His wife and . . . and her maid.’

  There couldn’t be much question which was which: one of the women was an elegant aristocrat, at ease in her fine gown; the other was stout, red-faced and nervous in a clumsy imitation of it. Lucy later learned, however, that while the elegant woman was indeed Lady Fairfax, the awkward ‘maid’ was actually Mrs Cromwell.

  The carriage rolled by. Another troop of horse followed it; at their head rode a middle-aged man in half armour. The crowd cheered again: ‘Cromwell! Cromwell and the Ironsides!’

  Cromwell looked disconcertingly ordinary: without the armour he might have been any solid, red-faced farmer come to spend a day in London. The iron ranks of his horsemen followed him, though, row after row of buff coats and hats decorated with sprigs of laurel, an endless beating of hooves on cobblestones. They passed under the decaying heads displayed above London Bridge and racketed on, on, into the City. Lucy had expected to feel triumph, despite her fear of the soldiers, but there was something terrifying and relentless about their progress, and she couldn’t help remembering that this was a triumph of the sword.

  To the citizens’ relief, Lord Fairfax did not garrison the City: the Army departed from London again, peacefully and in good order. War had been avoided, and the right side had won. On her way to the next meeting at The Whalebone, two days later, Lucy wondered why she still felt so much disquiet.

  She had not crossed the Thames since being freed from Bridewell, and the reformers’ council hadn’t met for several weeks because of the disturbances. When Lucy and Thomas arrived, Ned hurried over grinning. He flung his arms around Lucy and kissed her.

  ‘God bless you!’ he said, while she gasped and gaped at him, torn between pleasure and alarm. ‘I’ve not had a chance to thank you, Luce. You went to Bridewell for me!’

  For the press! she thought, but it seemed churlish to say so. She gave Ned a flustered smile and nervously checked that her hair was tucked safely under her coif. Uncle Thomas stared at Ned, equally flustered, evidently wondering if he ought to object to a young man’s kissing his niece.

  ‘I wished to visit you there,’ Ned went on, ‘but Jamie said I would waste your sacrifice if I we
re taken.’

  ‘Aye,’ she agreed. ‘It was no great sacrifice, Ned. I was only in the place three days!’

  Someone coughed, and she looked round and saw Nicholas Tew. He looked alarmingly healthy, in a new coat with his hair tied back. ‘Mistress Wentnor!’ he said, extending his hand. ‘God keep you well! I’ve heard of your brave stand and I must thank you for it. Your courage is much above your sex.’

  Lucy wasn’t sure how to respond to this: she didn’t think she’d been particularly brave and she disliked the assumption that courage was a purely masculine virtue. The last thing she wanted to do, though, was offend Mr Tew, so she shook his hand and smiled.

  ‘I am glad to say you will be spared such dangers in future,’ Tew went on. ‘Now that I’ve recovered my health I can take up my trade again. I can even bring my press back to its right home and soon, God willing, print lawfully!’

  Lucy felt her smile congeal. Her hands searched nervously for her apron, but, this being an evening meeting, she wasn’t wearing it. ‘Sir? You’ll shift the press back into the City?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Tew happily. ‘Tomorrow or perhaps the day after.’

  ‘And . . . and will you need any help with it?’

  He frowned at her. ‘You seem troubled, Mistress.’

  She muttered something incoherent. Surely she couldn’t be dismissed from her job so quickly, with such complacent goodwill?

  Tew glanced at Thomas uncertainly. ‘I hope the loss of the girl’s wages won’t cause any hardship to your household, Master Stevens.’

  Thomas grimaced uncomfortably. ‘Ah, not as such. That is . . . of course I can provide for my sister’s child! It’s only that this is sudden – and Lucy’s a good, sweet girl who’s taken great delight in paying her keep.’

  ‘Well, then, I am sorry to deprive you of that pleasure, Mistress Wentnor,’ said Tew earnestly. ‘I fear that I need no more help than my own household can supply, but, if you like, I can ask among my acquaintance in the trade to see if any of them need assistance, and recommend you highly to all who do.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Lucy’s heart gave a lurch of hope. ‘Aye. Please.’