Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

When all the visitors had gone, the great cell door opened again, and a plump, bewigged man in a frock coat came in, with soldiers to guard him. The cell fell silent, and Adam watched dully as he began to speak, only half hearing what he said.

  “ … tomorrow you will be tried for the heinous offence of armed rebellion against the King’s Majesty ... in my office as Deputy Clerk of the assizes ... to tell you that the King is very gracious and merciful, and will cause none to be executed but such as have been officers or capital offenders. And if you would render yourselves fit objects of the King’s grace and favour, your only way is to give a full account of where you joined the Duke’s army and in what capacity you served him. Otherwise ... no mercy or favour from the King ... certainly punish all such wilful and obstinate offenders. So think on this, those of you who might have been minded to take up the court’s time with needless and lying pleas of not guilty, for your trial begins tomorrow.”

  The man read out a list of a dozen men who were to accompany him now, to give their confessions to him and his clerks, and indicate how they would plead, and the soldiers dragged them to their feet and marched them out. As they left, the heavy cell door slamming behind them, the silent cell burst into an uproar of excited speech. John Spragg clapped Adam enthusiastically on the shoulder.

  “What did I tell ‘ee, boy? You see, you see! You’ll be out there before the end of the week, free, as like as not! I knew they couldn’t hang so many as this! We’ll get a pardon, man, a pardon!”

  Adam stared at his usually phlegmatic friend as he banged his hand excitedly up and down on his knee, his dirty, bearded face creased with desperate joy. He did not know what to think. It seemed too good to be true.

  “You’ve got to plead guilty, though, John,” he said at last. “You’ve got to throw yourself on their mercy and tell ‘em what you done in the war.”

  John looked at him, his eyes shining with tears. “There’s no harm in that now, is there, boy? ‘Tis easy enough - I’m not ashamed of it.”

  “No harm so long as you don’t tell on your friends, who might still be free.”

  John Spragg paused, a frown disfiguring his joy. “They wouldn’t ask us to do that, would they? They’ll just want to know about us.”

  “And about what we’ve seen and done, likely, and who with. The whole thing could be a trick, John. You must know that.”

  The two men stared at each other, seeking to believe what they had heard and yet afraid, one of fifty similar conversations that buzzed all around them in the cell. Half the night the arguments went on all around them, especially amongst those, like Adam and John, who were not to be interviewed till morning, and few could sleep for thinking.

  After midnight a wind got up and swept some of the foul air out through the high-barred windows, disturbing the citizens in the houses nearby and bringing a few prisoners welcome relief. But to others it brought the unsettling, unwelcome scent of life beyond the walls, the smell of stables and the fields beyond, and later, towards morning, the smell of wood fires heating the ovens to provide fresh bread and breakfast for the visiting judge and the other citizens of the town.

  The wind blew the seagulls in from the coast, so that in the early morning they cried and screamed over the rooftops, their lonely, free voices reminding Adam of the days when it had blown in over Colyton. He thought of the times as a young man when he had taken Mary and the toddlers down to the little cove at Beer to buy fish, and watch the little boats drop their brown sails and be dragged up onto the pebble beach. He remembered how the gulls had screamed and squabbled over the boats, and how a tiny, red-headed Ann had screamed back and thrown stones to protect what they had bought. It was strange, he could not remember having taken Oliver and Rachel and Sarah there, though it was so near. And now ... now he would never do it.

  As the morning light grew on the damp grey walls in the cell, and a shift in the wind brought the stink of the night’s excreta and the hot bodies around, he knew that the little, tormenting light of hope that Ann and the court official had tried to bring him was false, and must be ignored. The only hope could be for a quick trial and a short pain before the end, and a merciful God thereafter.

  As John Spragg woke from a troubled, restless sleep, and turned to him with his eager, tormented eyes, Adam screwed his new-found courage up to his final resolve, and listened with pity to the hopes he did not share.

  46

  “PRISONERS AT the bar, listen to me, and listen carefully!”

  A hush fell over the court, but it was still not silent, despite all the shouts and earnest banging of the gavel by the clerk of the court, and the threatening looks from the pale, bilious judge. People were still trying to push in and out behind Ann and Tom, and those inside were murmuring and shuffling as they tried to find somewhere to see or at least a place to stand, while the chains on the legs of the two dozen prisoners herded into line before the dock clattered and crashed on the wooden floor.

  Ann craned her neck desperately to look through the forest of hats and wigs in front of her to see if her father was there.

  “In a moment you will be asked how you plead.” The judge winced, as though he were in pain, and took a hurried, deep draught from a bottle in front of him. His voice, when he spoke again, was powerful, yet high and full, more like a woman’s than a man’s.

  He paused, to take another swig from the bottle, and a well-dressed woman in front of Ann turned to whisper to her husband.

  “Poor man! He suffers terribly from the stone, they say. It must be cruel hard to have to do such a job with that pain.”

  Her husband nodded. “Look at that rogue in chains there! He looks a filthy devil enough!”

  Ann stood on tiptoe and craned to see where they were pointing, but could only see a few heads that she did not recognise. Tom, to her left, had a better view, but he was separated from her by a further influx of people.

  The clerk of the court banged his gavel, and the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys resumed.

  “My advice to you is this: that if you will plead Guilty, the King, who is all mercy, will be as ready to forgive you as you were to rebel against him; yea, as ready to pardon you as you are to ask it of him. But if you choose to plead Not Guilty, then justice will take its course. Now the clerk of the court will read the charge and put the question to you.”

  Ann saw a gap open in front of her, and pushed her shoulder forward into it, wedging two backs aside. There were cries of surprise and protest, but she was through; she slipped past a little fat man who turned to help his wife, and found herself at the back of the two rows of seats, with an almost clear view of the court ahead.

  “Prisoners at the bar, it is hereby charged that you did present yourselves in armed rebellion against His lawful Majesty, King James the Second ... “

  Yes! Her father was there, in the middle of the second row, staring quietly at the clerk of the court as he droned on with the formalities of the charge. How still he looked, how small beside some of the other men in the line - even John Spragg who stood beside him. But it was his quietness that impressed and frightened her most; there was an anxiety, a tormented fear and hope on the faces of most of the other men, that was quite absent from her father. It was as though he were dead already.

  But had he not heard what the judge had said - that the King was all mercy - ready to pardon, even?

  “Now, how do you plead? David Hoskins, first.”

  “I? Well, er … “ A big, red-faced man like a farmer shuffled his feet awkwardly, so that his chains rattled.

  “Come on, man, don’t make a meal of it!” The voice of the judge stung like a lash, and the man looked up at him, frightened.

  “Guilty, my lord.” It was more like a croak from an old man than the deep, resonant voice one might expect.

  “Good.” The clerk of the court wrote on the paper in front of him, and moved on to the next. “Daniel Lee?”

  “Guilty, my lord.”

  As the clerk moved along the line Ann look
ed away from her father to the watching judge, perched silently behind the great imposing desk, raised high above the rest of the court like the King, or God himself. She could only see his hands, and his young face under the huge wig, and she searched them earnestly for signs of mercy or compassion. The hands, playing with the quill pen and occasionally straying nervously towards the bottle, were thin and surprisingly small, sticking out of his huge sleeves like a child’s or a woman’s. The face, too, seemed dwarfed by the huge wig, and was striking as much for its weakness as its strength; the big nose and wide, heavy-lidded eyes contrasted with the puffy, bilious cheeks and soft lips that he constantly sucked and chewed as he listened, like a baby’s mouth seeking some comfort from the pain of the stone within. His formidable eyes burned their way steadily into each man as the clerk of the court questioned him, ignoring the rising hubbub in the well of the court behind.

  “John Spragg, of Colyton?”

  “Guilty, my lord.” John Spragg looked up hopefully at the judge, almost smiling as he spoke.

  “Adam Carter?”

  “Guilty.”

  Adam looked briefly at the clerk as he spoke, then back down at the ground.

  “Guilty, my lord, Mr Carter.” The clerk of the court paused indignantly, his quill poised above the paper.

  Adam looked up slowly, surprised that the process had stopped. His quiet, weary voice carried into the hush of the court.

  “I plead guilty and there’s an end to it. He would not be anybody’s lord if we’d won.”

  The court burst into uproar, cheers and loud laughter mingling with the cries of fury and indignation. The clerk banged loudly with his gavel, and Ann clutched the back of the bench in front of her for support. The judge raised an eyebrow and glared coldly at Adam, waiting for silence to return.

  “You are a vile, seditious rogue, Adam Carter. I shall not forget you.”

  “Christopher Battiscombe?”

  Ann felt sick, as though she had been hit in the stomach. She clutched the back of the bench to avoid falling. How could her father be so foolish as to speak like that? To draw attention to himself out of all the crowd, when after what the judge had said surely only a few at most would be hanged! He must be mad - he must be repenting it by now! But when she looked, she saw him only looking quietly at the ground, while John Spragg stared at him in concern.

  “They all plead guilty, my lord.”

  “So. I see my advice did not fall on deaf ears, for once.” Judge Jeffreys smiled briefly. “Is there anything any of you wishes to say in his defence before I pass sentence?”

  There was a silence, then the clerk of the court picked up a piece of paper in front of him.

  “There is one here, Michael Johnson, my lord, who pleads that he is very poor, and maintained by the parish.”

  Jeffreys raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? And that is his defence? You need not worry, Mr Johnson. I shall endeavour to relieve the parish of its burden.”

  He smiled, and Ann looked around in amazement at the laughter of the court ushers.

  “And there is one Edmund Malachi of Axminster who has given most useful information concerning traitors not yet apprehended.” The clerk passed a sheet of paper to the judge, who skimmed through it briefly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he did so.

  “Is this true, Mr Malachi? Edmund Prideaux of Ford Abbey was with the Duke? You signed your name to this?”

  “Yes, my lord.” A short, pale man answered, almost apologetically, looking intently at the judge and away from his fellow prisoners.

  “Then what I have to say does not concern you. Bailiff, take him away. I will see him later.”

  As the man was led away, the chains clashing between his legs, the judge grimaced again and took a hasty swig from his bottle. Then he slammed it down on the desk and bellowed at the men in front of him.

  “And none of you other rogues has a thing to say? No excuses, eh? No plea for mercy? No in - for - ma - tion?” He dragged the last word out long, and temptingly, but there was no reply. The judge grimaced again, and turned to lift something from his desk.

  Ann would not have known what it was but for the indrawn gasp of fascinated horror all around her. A handkerchief - a black handkerchief - that he lifted lingeringly, as though enjoying the reaction, and put carefully on his head. He grimaced again, and sucked his lips angrily as he faced the men before him. His strong, high voice echoed hollowly from the panelled walls of the court.

  “Prisoners at the bar! You have without exception pleaded guilty to the dreadful crime of armed rebellion against His Majesty the King. For such a crime no sentence can be too harsh. I therefore, in the name of His Majesty King James the Second, order that you be carried back again to the place whence you came, and from there be drawn upon an hurdle to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck ... “ He winced again, and paused, as though he had something in his throat he was trying to swallow. Ann could hear someone crying in the court, and her own heart beating so loud she thought everyone would hear it. The judge belched, took a sip from his bottle, and then resumed. “But then be cut down alive, your entrails and privy members cut off your bodies and burnt in your sight ... “

  “No! No!” A louder voice than the judge’s suddenly filled the court. “You can’t do that! You said you’d give mercy!” Ann saw the clerk of the court banging his gavel, and the judge, her father - everyone was staring at her. A hand grabbed her shoulder roughly.

  “Be quiet, girl! He hasn’t finished!”

  “... your heads to be severed from your bodies, and your bodies to be divided each into four parts, and disposed at the King’s pleasure.” Judge Jeffreys looked away from the prisonert for a moment, directly at Ann. “No doubt His Majesty would be pleased to send you a part, young lady, if you would indicate to him which would give you most pleasure.” He turned back to the prisoners, smiling at his own wit. “And may the Lord have mercy on your souls.”

  “But not on yours!” But Ann’s cry was lost in the uproar as the men were led away. As the crowd moved around her so the whole courtroom seemed to swirl too, and even as she reached out to come nearer her father and the judge she could not prevent the crowds of people pushing her back, or the floor suddenly rising up to hit her.

  47

  SHE WONDERED if it would matter that it was the afternoon. There was so much clatter and bustle all around her in the little cobbled inn courtyard; ostlers leading horses in and out for their important guests, tradesmen hurrying through to the side door, cleaners and potboys scurrying past on mysterious, important errands of their own. It seemed unlikely, somehow, to be here on an errand such as hers; and yet it was a simple matter of trade, after all.

  Every now and then a group of guests, often officers, would swagger in noisily from the hubbub of the street outside, and Ann would look up anxiously from her seat in the corner, and then shrink back to her book as she saw Robert was not among them. She was not reading the book, but she had to have something to seem to occupy her. Once or twice she heard men talking curiously about her, and trembled lest they should come over and disturb her; but so far they had not, and surely Robert must come soon.

  It had been hard enough to come at all. It was Sunday, and after they had been to see her father in prison that morning, Tom had insisted they go to church, for all it was only an Anglican service. Then he had heard there was to be a dissenters’ meeting that afternoon to pray for the souls of the condemned men, in a private house right under the nose of the army, and only her protestations of a sick headache had persuaded him to let her stay behind. Then she had had half an hour to improve her looks as best she could before slipping quietly down the stairs and out of the back door of the little lodging-house where they were staying.

  She wondered about her dress. She did not want to appear conspicuous and indeed could not afford to, but her only asset in this was her looks. Before she had come to Dorchester she had known it might come to this, and had spent an afternoon
mending tears and rubbing at the bloodstains in the brown riding dress she had had from Marianne, in the hope that it would look a little more presentable in his eyes than the plain frocks and aprons she wore at home. Her hair was carefully combed, the curls teased into ringlets that hung daintily around her face, in a way that filled her with delight and apprehension, and would have scandalised Tom had he seen it. But then what he would have said would have been right; she did want to dress like a whore.

  Robert was there, quite suddenly, and alone - better than she could have hoped! But he was striding quickly across the courtyard, deep in thought; in a moment he would be inside and have missed her.

  She stood up. “Robert! Robert, stop!” His coat-tails and wig swirled as he turned briskly about, looking to see who had called; and then he saw her. The serious, freckled face opened in a smile of wonder.

  “Ann!” He came forward and took her hands, and ... it was an effort of will to give them to him. “Annie! What a glorious surprise! What brings you here?”

  “I ... I have come to see you, Robert.” It was strange how false she felt her smile, how hard it was to say the lines she had practised. His eyes searched her face eagerly to understand her.

  “To see me? After you fled from Marianne at Bath? Why, what has happened?”

  “I have a lot to say, and ... something to give you, Robert. But I can’t do it here; is there somewhere private we could go?”

  “I don’t know. There is my room, if you trust me, but ... “

  He looked at her questioningly, and again she felt how false was the alluring smile she had practised.

  “That will do. If you are not busy now?”

  “I? No. I was going to wash and change before dinner, but there is something over an hour before that.” He ushered her before him into the inn, and Ann saw a couple of potboys who had seen her in the courtyard look up at her curiously. Robert beckoned one of them over.

  “Here, fellow - Richards, isn’t it? You’ll be serving here for the next hour?”