The King's Mistress

by Gillian Bagwell

  “Richard!” Jane’s mother shrieked. “What of Richard? Is he with you?”

  “Alas, no,” John said. “We turned back as soon as it was clear there was no longer a battle to go to.”

  “Cromwell’s men are scouring the country for the king’s soldiers even now,” Henry said. “It was all we could do to get back before we met any of them.”

  “And the king?” Jane cried. “What of the king?”

  John and Henry exchanged glances.

  “We heard that he was killed,” John said heavily. “But also that he had been taken prisoner.”

  Jane’s heart sank. If young King Charles had been captured, he would surely be executed as his father had been, and the Royalist cause would be lost indeed.

  “Everything is chaos.” Jane thought Henry seemed near tears. “All that is certain is that the king’s forces were greatly outnumbered, and the day was lost after fierce and terrible fighting.”

  Outside a gust of wind shook the trees, and Jane heard the patter of rain against the window, invisible against the icy blackness.

  “I’ll go into Wolverhampton for news tomorrow,” Thomas said at last. “Though I fear me none of it will be good.”

  ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT AND INTO THE NEXT DAY IT RAINED. IN the grey light of dawn, Jane stood huddled in her shawl, staring out an upstairs window. A quarter of a mile away, the Wolverhampton Road was thick with the traffic of the disaster. Wounded men limped or were carried by their fellows. The rain beat down relentlessly, turning the road into a sucking stew of mud. Jane hoped against hope that she would see Richard walking up the lane to the house, and prayed that he was alive and unwounded. She turned as John came to stand beside her, unshaven and with dark circles under his eyes. She was startled to see how grey was the stubble on his cheeks.

  “Can we not help those poor men?” she asked. “Give them water and food, at least? Perhaps somewhere someone is doing the same for Richard.”

  In a short time the bake house behind Bentley Hall was bustling as servants dispensed water, hot soup, bread, and ale to the stream of refugees, along with bread, cheese, sausages, and apples to carry away with them. In the kitchen, the women of the house did what they could for the wounded. Washing away the blood and mud and binding the men’s wounds with strips of linen and herbal decoctions to slow the bleeding and soothe the pain made Jane feel that she was making some difference, and it gave her the opportunity to ask about Richard.

  “Richard Lane? No, Mistress, I don’t know him.” The young soldier, one arm in a bloody sling and his face grey with pain and dirt, shook his head. Jane closed her eyes and tried not to imagine Richard’s body stiffening in the cold rain.

  “Though to be sure,” the lad continued, gulping water from a tin cup, “by the end it was like hell itself, and I would have been hard-pressed to know what happened to any man.”

  “Tell me,” Jane begged. She sat beside him on the bench next to the big kitchen table. Across from her, Nurse was sponging blood from the ragged scrap of flesh that was all that remained of the right ear of a redheaded boy who was doing his best not to cry.

  “I was just to the north of Fort Royal, up on the hill,” the young soldier said, “and when the rebels captured the fort, we were cut off from the rest of the king’s forces. Outflanked, and trapped outside the city walls. We tried to get to St Martin’s Gate, but Cromwell’s men—the Essex militia it was—came after us.”

  He shook his head, as if trying to puzzle something out, and his voice was hollow as he continued.

  “There was no question of capture. They just wanted to slaughter all of us they could. Of course, once they overran the fort, they had our cannons. Men were falling all about me and the dead were huddled in piles against the city walls. By some miracle I reached the gate and got through.”

  A heavy rumble of thunder sounded, rattling the windows, and the rain seemed to renew its fury.

  “And then?” Jane prompted gently.

  “All was confusion. The enemy must have broached the other gates of the city, for they seemed to be coming from all directions. They were riding men down, cutting them down as they fled. I saw the king almost trampled by our own horse, running in so great disorder that he could not stop them, though he used all the means he could.”

  “Alas,” Jane said. “Would they not stand and fight?”

  “I’m sure most did as well as they were able, Mistress. But by that time even those who still had muskets had no shot, and were trying to hold off the enemy horse with fire pikes—burning tar in leather jacks fixed to the ends of their pikes. Dusk was falling and with it the end of any hope. I fled out the gate, my only thought to head northward.”

  He drained the last of the water and stood, slinging his canvas sack on his shoulders.

  “I thank you for your kindness, Mistress. And I hope your brother is safe and on his way home.”

  Jane heard similar stories throughout the day. The king’s army had known to begin with that they were outnumbered, but fought with the desperation born of the knowledge that today was their only hope. At the fort, at the city walls and gates, in the streets, it had been brutal, exhausting, confusing mayhem, ending in defeat and despair.

  “We were beat,” a grizzled sergeant said. “It was not for want of spirit, nor for want of effort by the king. Certainly a braver prince never lived.”

  “What does he look like, the king?” Jane asked.

  The sergeant blew out his cheeks. “Like a king ought to, you might say. I was proud to look on him, and to be sure, I could tell that all around me felt the same.”

  Jane thought of Kent in King Lear. You have that in your countenance which I would fain call master … Authority.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “He’s a big man, over six feet, and well formed.” He noted the look in her eyes and smiled. “Yes, and handsome, too, lass.” Jane blushed. “Of a dark complexion, darker than the king his father. He was wearing a buff coat, with an armour breastplate and back over it, like any officer, but finer, you know. And some jewel on a great red ribbon that sparkled like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  Although the fight must have been terrible, Jane wished desperately that she could have seen the king.

  “He was right there among the men in the battle?” she asked.

  “Oh, to be sure, Mistress. He hazarded his person much more than any officer, riding from regiment to regiment and calling the officers by name, and when all seemed lost urging the men to stand and fight once more.”

  Exactly like King Henry V, Jane thought.

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

  Or close the wall up with our English dead …

  “He had two horses shot from under him, he did.”

  Jane could imagine the young king so clearly, and she choked back a sob as she remembered that he might well be dead.

  “I was there to near the end, I think,” the old sergeant went on. “When there remained just a few of us by the town hall.”

  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers …

  “All that kept us going was the word that the king had not been killed or captured, so far as any could tell. It was full dark by then, and I was able to slip away by St Martin’s Gate, which our horse still held.”

  MANY OF THE FLEEING SOLDIERS WERE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDERS, the upper part of their great kilts drawn up over their heads against the rain, and Jane fancied she saw in their faces bleak despair that went beyond their hunger, discomfort, and defeat in battle. By midday Parliamentary cavalry patrols thundered by on the now-deserted road, and in the afternoon Jane watched a detachment pass with a string of captured Royalist soldiers, their wrists bound, soaked to the knees in mud.

  “What will happen to them?” she asked John.

  “The Scots will likely be transported to Barbados, or maybe the American colonies. As slaves, more or less, to work on plantations.”

  “Inhuman,” Jane whispered in horror. “And the E
nglish?”

  “Prison. Likely execution for the officers. The men may be spared their lives.”

  “Richard,” Jane said. “It breaks my heart to think where he may be. Wounded, perhaps, lying in some field, wet and hungry and in pain.”

  Or worse, she thought, but did not speak the words, as if giving them voice had the power to make them real. John put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.

  “Let’s not think that yet. It may well be that he escaped in safety and is on his way to us even now.”

  He kissed the top of her head, and the familiar scent of him, the pungent smell of tobacco smoke, mingled with his own sweat and a slight layering of horse, made Jane feel calm and safe.

  THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND EVENING, NEIGHBOURS CAME TO CALL at Bentley to exchange news.

  “A Scottish soldier that passed this morning said he had heard the king had been taken prisoner near sunset,” said John’s friend Matt Haggard from Lichfield. “But another swore he had seen the king with his own eyes well after dark.”

  “A Parliamentary patrol stopped at the house just at dawn,” said old Mr Smithton. “The captain said he’d seen the king dead, wounded through the breast by a sword. But he looked like a lying whoreson to me.”

  Jane chose to believe what the grey-haired sergeant had heard late in the evening, that the king was still free and unharmed. For to let herself think anything else overwhelmed her with grief and terror.

  After supper Jane and her father sat side by side reading before the fire in his little study. His companionship, and the persisting in everyday activities, comforted her, helped her believe that all was well or yet might be. The rain beat down outside, and she tried not to think of where Richard might be. John came to the door, and smiled to see his father and sister look up with identical expectant expressions.

  “Mother’s gone to bed,” he said. “And Athalia and the girls.”

  “Good,” Thomas said. “Better to take comfort in sleep than worry needlessly.”

  Jane was surprised to hear the whinny of a horse outside. She ran to the window and peered out, and in a flash of lightning could make out a rider on the drive, leading a second horse behind him.

  “It’s not Richard,” she said.

  “Who can that be, now?” her father wondered.

  “I’ll see to it,” John said, and to Jane’s alarm he took a pistol from a drawer of the desk before he made his way downstairs. He reappeared a few minutes later with William Walker, an old Papist priest that Jane knew as a friend of Father John Huddleston, the young priest who acted as tutor to the boys at neighbouring Moseley Hall.

  “You’re wet to the bone, sir,” Thomas cried. “Come down to the kitchen to dry yourself.”

  “I thank you, Mr Lane.” The old man shivered. “But better I ask the favour I’ve come for and be on my way.” He glanced at Jane.

  “You can speak before my sister,” John assured him. “And to tell you true, if I send her away she’ll only pester any news out of me once you’ve gone.”

  Old Father William smiled at Jane, as a drop of water gathered on his nose and fell to the carpet.

  “Well, then. I’ve two horses below, and Mr Whitgreaves asks if you would take them into your stable for the night, and mayhap for a few days.” He lowered his voice. “There’s a gentleman at Moseley who’s come from Worcester fight. He can be hid well enough, but the house lies so close to the road that any strange horses are like to be noted.”

  “Of course,” said John, with a glance at his father.

  “Maybe this gentleman will know news of Richard,” Jane cried.

  “Just what I was thinking.” John nodded. “Of course we’ll take the horses, sir. But as Jane says, the household is in great fear for my brother, who was at Worcester. Pray tell Mr Whitgreaves that I’ll ride over tomorrow night, to learn what I can of the battle, and how we may help his fugitive. But come, let’s get those horses out of sight.”

  “Oh, Father,” Jane said as John and the priest disappeared down the stairs. “The poor old man, walking all that long way back to Moseley in the rain.”

  “Old he may be, but he’s a man still, and he’ll not melt. He’s doing what he can for our cause. I would I could do more, could have gone with your brothers to the fight.” Jane, standing behind her father’s chair, leaned her head onto his and put her arms around him. The thought of him fleeing from Worcester in the night was more than she could bear.

  “I know you’d go to fight, but I’m glad you didn’t. What would we do without you here at home?”

  He patted her hand and nodded. “Yes, yes. But it’s your brother I’m worried about.”

  “No doubt we’ll hear more tomorrow,” she said.

  JANE AND ALL THE HOUSEHOLD PASSED THE NEXT DAY IN A FEVER OF anxiety about Richard. John went into Walsall and returned with newly printed broadsheets.

  “‘A Letter from the Lord General Cromwell Touching the Great Victory Obtained Near Worcester,’” Jane read as Henry and her parents listened.

  “I’ll warn you, it makes grim reading,” John said, sinking into a chair before the fire in the parlour.

  “‘We beat the enemy from hedge to hedge, till we beat him into Worcester,’” Jane read. “‘He made a very considerable fight, and it was as stiff a contest for four or five hours as ever I have seen.’”

  “And I make no doubt he’s seen some bad fighting,” John said, his face grim.

  “‘In the end we beat him totally. He hath had great loss, and is scattered and run. We are in pursuit of him and have laid forces in several places, that we hope will gather him up.’” Jane read it over again. “Then they haven’t captured the king yet. At least that’s something.”

  “Not yet. It’s hard to see how he can escape being taken, though.”

  Athalia came in with a mug of something steaming. She brushed a lock of golden-brown hair from John’s forehead as she gave him the drink, and he kissed her hand and smiled up at her, his face tired.

  “Here’s another,” Henry said, “‘A Full and Perfect Relation of the Fight at Worcester on Wednesday Night Last.’”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Jane said. “It makes me too angry and sad.”

  JANE WAS EAGER FOR NIGHT TO COME SO THAT JOHN COULD MAKE HIS visit to Moseley Hall, and she waited up long after the rest of the family had gone to bed for his return, reading in the kitchen by lantern light. She found it difficult to keep her mind on The Aeneid, and realised that she had been staring unseeing at the same page for several minutes, filled with anxiety about what tidings John would bring. It was near midnight when she finally heard his horse, and ran to the kitchen door to meet him.

  “Richard’s alive and unhurt, or was two nights since,” John said as soon as he came in, unwrapping his heavy scarf and hanging his coat on a peg near the hearth.

  “Thank God,” Jane cried. “Where is he? Did you learn more news of the battle?”

  She added hot water and lemon to brandy and brought mugs to the table for both of them.

  “Ah, that warms me,” John said, drinking. “Thank you, Jane. Yes, there is much news. It’s my old commander Lord Wilmot who has taken refuge at Moseley. He was in the thick of the battle, at the king’s side.”

  He glanced around, as if spies lurked in the shadows, and lowered his voice.

  “Jane, the king is alive and nearby.”

  Jane smothered a gasp and leaned closer to John as he continued.

  “When it became clear that the fight was lost, the king took flight from Worcester with the remains of his cavalry. A few hundred men, Wilmot said. Most of them headed for Tong Castle, having got word that General Leslie and what was left of the Scots infantry had gone there. Richard went with them, but Wilmot heard that all were taken prisoner before ever they reached Tong.”

  Jane felt a cold knot form in the pit of her stomach. Richard a prisoner. He could be dead even now, perhaps shot or hanged with no deliberation or trial. She felt furious at her h
elplessness.

  “And the king?” She spoke so low that she could hardly hear her own voice.

  “The Earl of Derby urged the king to make for Boscobel, where Derby had been concealed after his defeat at Wigan. Charles Giffard of Boscobel was with them, though, and said that it had been searched but lately, and that Whiteladies might be safer. So the king, with only a few companions, rode through the night and reached Whiteladies about three in the morning.”

  The hairs on the back of Jane’s neck stood up to think of the king being so near. The old Whiteladies priory, now owned by the Giffard family, was only some dozen miles away.

  “There are cavalry patrols looking for him,” John continued, his voice rough with exhaustion and emotion. “So the Penderel brothers hid him in the wood nearby, and there he spent the day.”

  “Dear God, in the rain.”

  “Better wet than captured. Wilmot would not say more than that the king is now being helped by other good neighbours of ours, and with God’s grace will soon be on his way to safety.”

  “What will Lord Wilmot do?” Jane asked. “He, too, must be fleeing for his life.”

  John’s eyes met hers and he paused before he answered.

  “Now must I tell you that we can help him. That you can help him.”

  “How can I help him?” she asked in surprise.

  “He must get to Bristol, where he can arrange for a boat to take the king to France.” Bristol. Only a few short miles from Ellen Norton’s home.

  “My pass to travel.”

  “Yes. Wilmot must play the part of your serving man, and ride with you to Abbots Leigh.”

  The news took Jane’s breath away. She felt a thrill of fear, but it instantly gave way to excitement. An adventure. Lord Wilmot, friend of the king. She had never met the man, but his name conjured in her mind an image of a handsome and dashing officer. He would sweep her into his arms and together they would ride through peril. Once at Abbots Leigh, he could doff his disguise. By then perhaps he would be smitten with her … Jane checked herself. How ridiculous to be carried off in foolish fantasies, with all that lay at stake.