Ludlow’s alleged involvement in imaginary insurrections showed that he retained his status as one of the Crown’s main bogeymen, his hand inevitably seen in the darkest of deeds. They said he had landed in Essex with Major General Whalley, another feared and elusive regicide. A further false report had him hiding in the City of London. Most fantastically, he was said to be preparing to rise up with an army of 40,000 disbanded Parliamentarian troops; all this, despite his reality being that of a distant and powerless refugee.
While peddling such fictions at home, the King’s men were working to arrange the death or capture of Ludlow where they now knew him to be – in Switzerland. Fortunately for the lieutenant general, he had loyal local support: this was something he first appreciated when a merchant from Lausanne revealed to him that Charles I’s youngest daughter, Henrietta, the Duchess of Orléans, had offered a man of his acquaintance 10,000 crowns to have him assassinated.
In the autumn of 1662, Ludlow and his associates were joined in Lausanne by eight other fugitives, several of them legal officers who had acted in the case against the late King at his trial: Edward Dendy, who had found his way safely south after his speedy flight from Rotterdam; William Say, who had, with Harrison and Lisle, been one of the first three to be excepted from the Act of Indemnity, and who had helped frame the warrant of Charles I’s execution; Cornelius Holland, who had worked alongside Say, and amassed a fortune during the interregnum; Andrew Broughton, the clerk of the Court in January 1649, who had read out the charge against the King; John Phelps, the acting clerk of the Commons at the trial, who had quit England before the Restoration; Nicholas Love, a diligent member of several of the committees of the High Court of Justice, whose escape route had taken him to Norway, then Hamburg, and who had survived attacks by pirates and terrible storms along the way; Slingsby Bethel, a republican merchant who had not been involved in the King’s death, but who, because of his recent support for Lambert’s attempted rising, thought it wiser to be abroad than not; and a single military man, Lieutenant Colonel Biscoe, who had been part of the storming party at Basing House and an MP in Richard Cromwell’s Protectorate, and who was a known conspirator against the Stuart Restoration.
The settling in one area of so many wanted men made for an irresistible target. All were aware of the great rewards given to Downing for apprehending Barkstead, Corbet and Okey. Fortune-hunters and fervent Royalists made plans to strike. On advice, Ludlow and five other regicides – Bethel, Cawley, Holland, Lisle and Say – moved eleven miles south-east from Lausanne to the town of Vevey. The remainder elected to stay in Lausanne: Biscoe and Phelps decided to use Switzerland as the base of their new trading activities, which they planned to operate throughout Germany and the Netherlands; Broughton and Dendy promised to keep in close touch with their friends in Vevey.
The wanted men gravitated towards the most sympathetic Swiss communities for, as one who was engaged in tracking them down wrote, ‘the people in the cantons of Fribourg, Lucerne and those others which are not Puritan would hang these assassins, if they had it in their power.’4 Even the Protestant cantons contained many citizens ‘earnestly desiring a good correspondence with that King [Charles II],’ as a burger of Zurich wrote, ‘who is the crown of our head, and to be as well beloved of his Majesty, as we have been of all his predecessors ever since [the] Reformation’.5
In Vevey the regicides were warmly received and given ready reassurances as to their safety. The magistrates explained that, as Ludlow wrote: ‘the principal motive that inclined them to offer their services in so hearty a manner was the consideration of our sufferings for the liberties of our country.’6 They moved into a house at the southeast corner of the town’s marketplace, before relocating to a more secure property abutting the town’s eastern gate. Ludlow was told to sound the alarm bell next to their lodgings if they ever felt in danger. More importantly for the pious group, their religious needs were also met, with places quickly arranged for them in Vevey’s two churches, St Claire’s and St Martin’s.
The refugees thought it correct to go to Berne to express their gratitude and relief at the sanctuary offered by the canton. Here they were feted by members of the senate, who felt great sympathy for the English refugees and expressed their dismay that the Dutch had sacrificed three of the regicides’ comrades in return for mere trading rights. In a public demonstration of their pride at providing sanctuary to such esteemed guests the lords escorted the regicides to church, and insisted they take the principal seats during the service.
Over dinner that evening, Ludlow and one of Berne’s senators, Colonel Weiss, discussed the situation in England; Weiss asked how it was that the Parliamentarians had been removed from power without a fight? Ludlow explained that ‘most of those persons who had first engaged in the war, having made their own peace, had endeavoured to deliver us and the cause itself into the hands of our enemies; and though they had many opportunities to have ended the dispute by destroying the King’s army, they neglected all, and only endeavoured to reduce the crown to their own terms.’7 He remained convinced that he and his fellow regicides were true believers in the cause, offered up for sacrifice by self-seeking comrades who had betrayed them and forfeited their honour.
The Englishmen returned to troubling news in Vevey. Major Germaine Riordane, an Irishman who had served under the Duke of York when fighting for Spain against the French and English in the 1650s, was reported to be in Turin. There, he had let slip that his mission was to capture or kill the regicides being harboured by the Swiss.
Reports of other such plots came in from several cities in nearby cantons, as well as from Italy and France: assassins were heading towards Switzerland, eager to make their names and their fortunes by harvesting regicides. Ludlow learnt that the French had written to the senators of Berne, asking what might persuade them to hand over the exiles. Charles II had also communicated with Louis XIV, claiming he could never feel that his life was safe while such prominent traitors were still alive and at large. He would be grateful for his cousin’s aid in seizing and killing those within France’s reach. The sheer number of threats was overwhelming, and for none more so than Ludlow. A friend passed him stark advice from an anonymous source: ‘If you wish the preservation of the English general at Vevey, let him know that he must remove from thence with speed, if he have any regard for himself.’8
The Englishmen met to discuss their predicament. All agreed they should not move to any country with a crowned head, since any such ruler might well feel he had common cause with Charles II and hand them over. After further discussion they decided that Vevey was the safest haven they knew of, and they resolved to stay there. The town’s upcoming fair, when the place would be awash with strangers, was identified as a potential opportunity for assassins to gain access to them. They would find new lodgings for that night and ask the magistrates to double their protection.
On the evening of the fair, 14 November 1663, the assassins made their move. A dozen men arrived in Vevey at six o’clock, an hour after sunset, having crossed Lake Geneva from the Duchy of Savoy – where the nobility was sympathetic to the English Crown. They separated from their boatmen, divided into two groups to lessen suspicion, and took rooms in separate inns. Some claimed to be Catholics, en route for Fribourg, where they would be honouring a saint renowned for miracle-working. To lend credibility to this ruse, they hired horses for the journey that they knew they would never make.
Informants reported that the strangers stayed up all night at an inn, and were ‘being instructed by a spy (whom we had observed sometimes in the town)’. The men seemed to have good knowledge of the regicides’ routines and daily lives. The plan was to strike the next day, a Sunday, when the assassins ‘placed themselves upon the avenues from our house, some before and some behind and some upon the crossways, that they might fall upon us, [and] surprise and assassinate us, going to the church’.
The owner of the lodgings where the regicides had been staying was a Monsieur Dubois
. It was his custom to set off for church after the majority of the congregation had assembled there. That Sunday morning he left later than was usual for him, in the company of a friend. Dubois was surprised to see a boat by the lake, with four men standing nearby, oars at the ready. He noticed six other strangers, loitering in pairs, trying to look nonchalant. These were, in the words of one of the regicides, ‘ruffian-like fellows, desperados with long cloaks and carbines under them . . . and looking behind him he [Dubois] saw more of the like crew, and walking a little further perceived the avenues of his house guarded, and the way to the church beset with the rest’.9 Dubois pretended to have forgotten something and doubled back to alert the Englishmen.
After discussions the regicides elected to attend church that morning, but to go by a different route to normal. One of them could not resist going to get a glimpse of their would-be murderers, and so he ‘walked some few steps towards them, as if we intended [to go] the usual way, and having seen what we were informed of we suddenly returned another way, and so disappointed the surprise’.10 The regicides were sitting safely in church when they noticed one of the gang creep in to check where his intended victims had gone. He then left to report back to his colleagues that their prey had already reached the shelter of the service. The twelve would-be killers were later seen at an inn, ‘where they sat disconsolate for losing their enterprise’.11
On leaving church, and hearing that those sent to kill him were busy indoors, eating lunch, Ludlow took the opportunity to steal down to the lake with some men, to examine the waiting boat. He noted that the gang’s boatmen remained at the ready, next to their oars, and saw that the bottom of the boat contained a generous amount of straw. Beneath this, he could make out a large cache of weapons. Ludlow also noticed that the boatmen had cut the ropes securing the oars of all the other boats along the lakeside, so they would be unable to give pursuit to the assassins’ vessel. When the local people saw this had happened they tackled the boatmen and threatened to have them arrested, ‘which made them presently call their masters, who made great haste to their boats, and rowed away with all speed, otherwise they would have been taken’.12
The regicides made immediate enquiries into this chilling incursion. Their contacts discovered that the plot had been masterminded by Major Riordane, who had paid for everything that the men had needed in Vevey. Other key figures included Louis Deprez, a ne’er-do-well from Savoy, and two inhabitants of Lyons. The whole endeavour had been funded by Charles II’s sister, the Duchess of Orléans, just as she had been behind the earlier, aborted, plan to pay 10,000 crowns for Ludlow’s death.
The people of Vevey treated the attempted assassinations of their English guests as an appalling affront to their community. The town’s leaders ordered a thorough tightening of security: all inn-keepers were obliged to give a nightly, sworn, account of those lodging in their premises. Vevey’s boats were to be kept in readiness for any attempted return by Riordane’s men, and all suspicious craft coming from Savoy would, from that point on, be searched. One of the boatmen who had transported the assassins was captured in the harbour of Morges, in the canton of Vaud. On 1 January 1664, Ludlow and his comrades were invited to this man’s interrogation by the bailiff of Vevey. His initial silence was broken by the threat of torture, and he was able to confirm the identity of the three main conspirators, while revealing that Deprez had told all aboard on their return to Savoy that the botched attempt had deprived them all of a very significant bounty.
Ludlow now received a fresh warning: it was he who was the assassins’ principal target. ‘You are hated and feared more than all the rest of your companions,’ a friend informed him; ‘your head is set at a great price: ’tis against you they take all this pains to find assassins, and ’twas on your account they contrived the late attempt; so that upon the whole matter I cannot but advise, that you would resolve to retire to some place where you may be unknown, there being, in my opinion, no other way to secure you from the rage of your enemies.’13 Meanwhile Edmund Steiger wrote from Berne, saying he felt responsible for being one of those who had recommended somewhere as exposed as Vevey for Ludlow’s asylum. He realised now that it was easy for the enemy to cross the lake from France or Savoy, and so be upon him and his comrades before anyone could spring to their defence. He urged them to move to somewhere more secure, and suggested Yverden, or a return to Lausanne, where he could provide more comprehensive security.
With his customary sangfroid Ludlow refused to run: he calculated that he was safe in Vevey; he knew the place and its people, and they knew him; it would be safer to stay put than to start again in a new place, ignorant of his surroundings, unprotected and distrustful. He formally released Steiger from any responsibility for his and his comrades’ safety. From now on they would be sure to look after themselves.
John Lisle listened to the repeated warnings with increasing fear. He felt that the other regicides would be left alone were it not for the feared and hated Ludlow’s presence in their midst. He therefore decided to return to Lausanne, pretending that this was because his wife, Alice, was coming to visit him that spring: if she came to Vevey she would most likely be spotted, and this could make life difficult for her on her return to England.
‘Before he left us,’ Ludlow remembered, ‘he made his will, and took leave of the magistrates and of all his friends in the town in a solemn manner.’ Ludlow knew that the leading lawyer, who had sat by Bradshaw’s side in 1649, was another prized scalp for the Royalists. ‘At our parting, I took liberty to desire him to take the best care he could of himself, and not to be too confident of his security, upon supposition that I was the only person marked out for destruction; since he well knew, that at a consult held by our enemies at Chatillon, they had enquired after him as well as myself,’ he continued.14 Ludlow’s last words to Lisle, before he left, were that he should never drop his guard.
In late 1663, Major Riordane travelled to France to meet with Henrietta, the Duchess of Orléans, and establish why Deprez had failed in his attempt on the regicides’ lives. Riordane next continued on to England, to pass on to Charles II the lessons learnt. The King welcomed him to court, listened to him with interest, and encouraged him to try again.
Riordane’s written report of 29 December15 most likely reflects his conversations with Henrietta and Charles II. It is interesting to note how flawed some of his basic intelligence had been, including incorrect identification of some of those hiding in Vevey. His letter mentions Ludlow first, and also accurately records John Lisle’s presence. The Irishman noted how impressed the Swiss were by the titles of these two men – Ludlow being a general, and Lisle still calling himself ‘Chancellor of England’ – and by the religious devotion of the distinguished pair. However, Riordane also stated, erroneously, that major generals William Goffe and Edward Whalley were part of the group in Vevey. Goffe, whose religious zeal had been so obvious at the Putney debates, and Whalley, from whose custody in Hampton Court Charles I had escaped, were not, and never would be, in Switzerland.
Riordane’s spies had carefully recorded the regicides’ activities: their reluctance to travel, except to and from church on Sundays – something they only did after careful reconnaissance of the safest routes by one of their number, in the company of Monsieur Dubois; their ingratiation to the citizens of Vevey, who seemed to be in their thrall; their regular receipt of large quantities of letters, by boat, from Geneva; and the enormous amount of time they spent composing their own correspondence. Riordane reckoned that these fugitives constituted a seditious cell, their numerous letters surely fanning the flames of future insurrection against Charles II. To illustrate his point, he reported that Ludlow had seemed close to death with sadness after hearing of the failure of a planned republican rising in Yorkshire earlier that year.
The Irishman urged Charles II to write to the cantons of Berne and Zurich, asking ‘with all the force of a sovereign power for the return of parricides to whom all of Europe has refused asylum’
.16 Riordane thought such letters would succeed because he believed the Swiss were easily influenced and, at heart, believers in justice. He also pointed out that Vevey was an easy place in which to catch the fugitives, since it only had two paths leading in and out of it, one of which was effectively closed now that the garrison commander at Fort l’Ecluse was actively looking out for suspicious Englishmen. This left Lake Geneva as the only means of escape. If the Swiss persisted in granting asylum to the fugitives, Riordane suggested the best plan would be to wheedle a spy into their group who could report back on the layout of their house – revealing where any hiding places and false doors might be. If he had this information, Riordane was confident he and his men could storm the building and do their worst, before any help arrived.
Riordane’s men returned to Vevey in the summer of 1664 with Ludlow uppermost in their minds. The main ringleaders met in woodland on the eve of their attack to discuss their options. Any approach by boat had a strong chance of interception, and a large band of men arriving in town would be bound to excite suspicion too. They therefore decided to access Vevey by foot, in a small group, with horses on hand to help aid their escape.
Those selected to do the killing arrived to find the regicides extremely well guarded and in the highest state of alert. Ludlow had been receiving excellent intelligence about Riordane’s plans from a disgruntled associate of Deprez; he knew the names of the six men most intimately involved in the hunting down of his colony of regicides, and he knew when they were on their way. When two of Riordane’s men tried to gain access to Sunday worship, Ludlow sounded the alarm and the town magistrate removed the assailants at gunpoint.
When Riordane arrived in the town, pretending to be a Burgundian, he found that he could move around incognito; but he was unable to penetrate the protective barrier constructed by the people of Vevey around their English guests. The watchfulness of Vevey’s citizens proved of repeated benefit to the regicides. One of them, a Monsieur Moulin, was riding towards Lausanne accompanied by servants when he saw four men coming the other way, three on horseback and the other on foot. Moulin got off his mount and pretended to find a problem in one of its hooves, before turning back to warn the Englishmen of the suspicious group approaching. By the time an armed posse had arrived from Vevey to apprehend the group of four, they had fled on a boat heading back towards Savoy. It was later established that their role had been to help the escape of two assassins in the town once they had completed their mission; but this duo also bolted for safety on realising their plans had been compromised. There were other attempts, but none were successful. The assassins now began to look elsewhere.
Killers of the King Page 25
