Cromwell's Blessing

by Peter Ransley

  I put out my hand to him. After a moment he put out his, and the sight of that ink-begrimed hand flooded me with so many memories of our working together that I gripped it warmly.

  The soldiers returned to their billets. I went with Will, Scogman, Joyce and Nehemiah up the hill to a barrow, an old burial ground with stones, once upright, which served as a convenient table. Put Scogman in a desert, and he would find food and drink. He produced rye bread, hard as the stones we ate from, and curious strips of dried, salted meat which he said was beef, but I suspected was horse. We scooped up water from a stream to wash it down.

  I told them what I had heard at Byford Hall. George Joyce was as eager and impulsive as the schoolboy he looked. He jumped up so quickly he almost choked on the meat he was chewing. ‘Then we must ride to my troops near Holdenby!’

  ‘To do what?’ Will, normally as impulsive as Joyce, seemed to resent losing that role to him.

  ‘Prevent them taking the King.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’ I said.

  ‘Take him prisoner,’ Nehemiah said matter-of-factly.

  He sat on a stone, above the rest of us, an alien presence in his brown fustian. Pollen drifting in the air made his nose run and he wiped it with the back of his hand.

  ‘On whose authority?’ I questioned.

  ‘Our authority,’ he said. ‘That of the … p-people.’

  He sneezed as he said it, turning what might have been impressive into something comic and absurd. I struggled not to smile. Nehemiah gave me a furious look. ‘I told you,’ he blazed at Joyce, giving me a venomous look. ‘He works for Lord Stonehouse.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Nemmy,’ Joyce said. ‘He’s with us.’

  ‘Is he? London says –’

  ‘Oh, London! This is nothing to do with Leveller talk, or people’s rights. It’s about soldiers’ grievances.’

  ‘Of course it’s about people’s rights! You have these grievances because you have no r …’ We looked away while he tried for the word. ‘… rights.’

  ‘We’re not in The Bull and Mouth. We’re on top of a hill in the middle of bloody nowhere. Without you and the Levellers we wouldn’t have got anywhere. But now we must do something. Look.’ He pointed to the sun, which seemed to be creeping down the sky even as we shielded our eyes against it. Joyce put his arm round Nehemiah with real affection, and drew him back into the circle.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ he said to me.

  ‘Go to Cromwell.’

  ‘Cromwell!’ Nehemiah spat the word out.

  Joyce held up his hand before Nehemiah could go on. He spoke quietly. He pointed out that the commander-in-chief of the army was Fairfax, not Cromwell. He had carried the standard in Fairfax’s own cavalry regiment and he knew Fairfax would have nothing to do with us. He went strictly by the rules.

  ‘Cromwell does not,’ I said. ‘He is the man people respect.’

  ‘F-fear,’ interjected Nehemiah. ‘Fear.’

  Joyce chewed on his salted meat and turned to me. ‘What will your father do?’

  ‘Take the King to Poyntz’s northern army under the pretext he’s in danger because we’re rebelling. Poyntz backs Holles. The City is already under his control. If Cromwell’s army breaks up, there’s nothing to stop Holles. He will let the King have what he wants.’

  I wished I had not put it so baldly. It deflated everyone, including me. It put us too sharply into perspective: an insignificant group, washing down horse meat with spring water, in a small corner of a remote hillside. How could we possibly affect these momentous events? They had been, were, and always would be a matter for King and Parliament – not even Parliament, I thought bitterly, but a small clique of it, controlled by the great nobles: Warwick, Bedford, Saye and Stonehouse.

  Swifts called shrilly, scything through the air over the stream in search of insects, a sign evening was approaching, but it was still oppressively hot. Our clothes stuck to us and the shimmering haze blurred the town below. Pollen reddened Nehemiah’s eyes. We were so still that a rabbit, a few feet away, was staring fixedly at us. Scogman gave us warning looks. Whatever the situation, his mind was never far from food. What mattered was not the thought of these great events, but that night’s supper. His hands crept silently over the grass to grab it. Nehemiah’s nose twitched. He struggled, but exploded in a violent sneeze. The rabbit shot away, his white bob vanishing into the hillside. Scogman swore in disgust, and said we could all catch our own supper.

  ‘What can Cromwell do?’ Nehemiah’s thickening, nasal tones dismissed the question as he uttered it.

  ‘Give us authority. A leader.’

  ‘Authority. A leader. That is exactly what we are trying to get away from. Cromwell is in the hands of the nobles. He wants to be a n-noble himself.’

  ‘That’s true. But I know what Tom means.’

  George Joyce’s youthful looks gave him a pretended innocence, behind which was a shrewd and calculating mind. Tom – a sop to me, but also one to Nehemiah, for he did not defer to my seniority. A prickle of resentment and envy ran through me. He did not lose his temper. He had a knack, which I lacked, of agreeing with both sides, or at least taking part of the argument of each, then turning it in the direction he wanted it to go; he managed to deny the need for a leader while becoming one. And he had a soldier’s grasp of essentials; he separated what people would like to do from what they could do.

  He picked up a pebble and put it on the slab we were eating from. ‘We are here.’ A large stone became London; another pebble in the middle of the slab, Holdenby. ‘We are sixty, seventy miles from Cromwell in London. It is the same distance from here to Holdenby. Even if Cromwell agreed we should act with our troops, we would have to ride nearly two hundred miles in less than two days. Your horse may be Pegasus, but mine is not.’

  ‘All right. You take the King. What then?’ I seized a small number of pebbles. ‘How many men are you? Five hundred near Holdenby. Will’s men – others you might raise?’

  ‘A thousand?’

  I picked up a handful of pebbles, then another, heaping them on to the slab until they fell back on the grass. ‘There are seventeen thousand men in the opposing army. A thousand against sixteen thousand.’

  Nehemiah spoke. ‘Regiments are breaking up, people will come to us!’

  ‘Most will listen to Fairfax and Cromwell. My father will let you take the King. You will have mutinied. You will have Holles, Cromwell, Fairfax and Parliament against you.’

  ‘Then what the hell do we do?’ Joyce cried. ‘Let the Presbyterians take him to Poyntz?’

  ‘Ride to Cromwell.’

  ‘It’s impossible!’

  ‘Not with fresh horses.’

  ‘Horses are like gold!’

  ‘I can get them.’

  ‘How?’

  I held out my hand with the signet ring on my finger. You can get anything you want with that, my grandfather had said laconically as laconically as he had once sealed my death warrant with his ring to have me thrown in the plague pit.

  ‘I told you,’ Nehemiah said. ‘He works for Lord S-tonehouse. Don’t trust him.’

  Joyce said, ‘Where can you get horses?’

  ‘Inns. He has people up and down the country.’

  ‘Part of his spy network.’ Nehemiah said. ‘We know them.’

  Joyce looked at the sun, then at the stones, whose shadows were lengthening. ‘We must move. One way or the other. Let’s take a vote.’

  ‘A vote?’ I said incredulously.

  ‘We all have a say.’ Joyce spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He put up his hand. ‘I vote for Holdenby.’

  So did Nehemiah. Will and I voted for London and Cromwell. We all turned to Scogman, whom we had forgotten about. Since losing the rabbit, he had lain in the grass, tipped his hat over his eyes and appeared to be asleep. But he declared that, while doing the important business of looking for his supper, he had been listening, on and off, and said he feared and distr
usted Cromwell, but he would much rather Cromwell was for us than against us.

  ‘I would like to ask Major Tom,’ he said – being Scogman, he hedged his bets between the deferential and the egalitarian – ‘the question no one has asked.’ I had been scornful of the vote, and frustrated by the length of the discussion, and now this. What could someone like Scogman contribute? Once again he confounded me, shielding his eyes against the sun, looking at me directly and speaking very softly.

  ‘You know Cromwell. Not the pictures. Not the stories. You know him as a man. Will he be with us?’

  It was the one question I could not answer. It was impossible to predict how Cromwell would react. He might imprison us on the spot. The only thing you could be sure of was that when the doubt, and the questioning, was over, Cromwell would act with a swiftness and certainty that made it feel there had only ever been one solution. And that was what we needed more than anything else. Decision. Action.

  I betrayed none of this as I answered, without hesitation, that Cromwell would be with us.

  ‘Then God go with you,’ said Scogman, ‘to London.’

  19

  We reached Aldgate as the sun was setting. There was an extra guard at the gate, suspicious of people entering as night was falling. Among a group of them I saw the old banner, under which I had fought at Edgehill: a red cross lettered with FOR GOD AND PARLIAMENT. But which Parliament? The Trained Bands were all Presbyterian now. Holles held the City. The great merchants, trade ruptured by war, and knowing that Holles, not Cromwell, would compromise with the King, were switching their allegiance to him. The signet ring, as it had got us horses, saw us through without real hindrance, but I could feel from the surly looks we received that its power was waning.

  The heat was still locked into the City streets and the stench unbearable, until we left Temple Bar and breathed the cooler air of Drury Lane. But there was heat here of a different kind. We felt it in the number of messengers hurrying in and out of Cromwell’s house, in the hum of conversation from the garden as we stabled our horses, in the tension in Mrs Cromwell’s normally unflustered voice: ‘Not more visitors! Is there enough bread?’

  She kept a frugal household. The servants were hurrying out to the garden with bread and butter and small beer. My house was at the top of the lane, and I sent one of the servants to warn Anne we would be staying the night.

  The conversation began to die down as we entered the garden. At first glance it might have looked like a social gathering. The air was sweet. The last of the blossom had fallen around the cherry and apple trees, picked up in the fading light. But it was no garden party. It was a council of war. There were a few MPs and army officers that Cromwell trusted. He was sitting at a table littered with despatches. Next to him as usual was Ireton, who smiled. I never liked it when Ireton smiled. He smiled with his mouth, his sunken eyes remaining black and watchful. I introduced George Joyce but there were no other introductions. No formalities. I told Cromwell what I knew, then George began to speak. Cromwell cut him short. He picked up a crumpled despatch.

  ‘You have five hundred troops near Holdenby?’

  George, overawed and stunned by the details Cromwell knew, nodded.

  ‘Why come to me and not your commander-in-chief?’

  George, looking like a frightened cherub in the half-light, swallowed. I had told him that nothing less than the truth would do. ‘Because General Fairfax would order me back to camp, sir.’

  ‘What makes you think I won’t do the same? Or send you to the Tower? If we still have the Tower,’ he muttered to Ireton. He turned to me. ‘When do you think they will move the King?’

  ‘In the next forty-eight hours.’

  Cromwell turned away so abruptly, he almost knocked over Mr Ink who had moved closer to make notes. Cromwell shouted for candles. Maids came scurrying out with them as Cromwell paced the length of the garden and back. He had caught the sun and his face was as reddish-brown as his jerkin, making the warts above his left eye and below his lip stand out in pale relief. Although I was taller than his five foot six or so, he seemed to tower over me, gripping the edge of a chair with hands as broad and coarse as a labourer’s.

  ‘Did you see the letters your father was carrying to the King?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did you see your father before you rode to Essex?’

  While I hesitated, Ireton spoke for the first time. He was consulting some notes. ‘May twelfth. Near the ’Change. Richard Stonehouse was seen with another man. They killed one of my soldiers. The other person was you?’

  ‘Yes. My father killed the soldier.’

  Cromwell sat down heavily. Mr Ink stopped writing. A moth hovered round the candle near him. I could hear Mrs Cromwell telling a maid to try to borrow some more bread from a neighbour. Ireton’s voice was flat and monotonous.

  ‘Did you try to stop Richard Stonehouse?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went with him. To an inn.’

  Somebody laughed, choking it off immediately when Cromwell glared round. Ireton gave his father-in-law an eloquent look: he had made his case.

  ‘To an inn.’ Cromwell raked his fingers through his long hair. ‘Why didn’t you bring him to us? We could have got hold of the letters. Stopped him raising money. Soldiers.’

  ‘I had no idea he was doing that. He – he wrote to me asking me to forgive him. I didn’t know whether to trust him or not, but … I had to find out. He – he is my father,’ I ended lamely.

  Cromwell sighed so heavily a candle flickered and went out.

  ‘Are you working for him?’ Ireton’s voice was flat and emotionless.

  I could not speak for a moment. ‘No!’

  ‘How do we know?’

  It was Ireton’s lawyer tone, dry, disbelieving, colourless, as much as the accusation, that made me move to him, hands clenched. George gripped my arm.

  ‘How do you know? Because I came here! Because I told you what he was plotting when I knew it.’

  ‘Sit down!’

  Cromwell waved me towards a bench outside the circle of lights. I was dismissed. In Cromwell’s eyes I was either a traitor or a fool. I had seen it all before. Once you lost Cromwell’s trust, you lost it for ever. CromwelI called George forward. I sat with my head in my hands, hearing nothing, until Cromwell sprang up. I had seen those signs before too, many times. Cromwell moved as if he had thrown off a heavy burden. His voice, always harsh, was injected with a kind of joviality. He had reached a decision.

  ‘Your troops are from Fairfax’s regiment?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The same regiment that is guarding the King – although they are Presbyterians under Colonel Graves?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I twisted my hands together, burning with envy, as Cromwell walked right up to him and asked him if he could be trusted. George stood ramrod-straight and saluted. If he had not been under Cromwell’s spell before, he was now. Cromwell began giving his instructions, stopping only to put his hand over Mr Ink’s quill.

  ‘No notes!’ A blob of ink smeared his cuff but he seemed unaware of it as he turned to George. ‘Avoid bloodshed. Some of the soldiers, Presbyterian or nay, will be old comrades. Use that. You are there to change the guard. Nothing else. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We change it from Holles’s guard to your guard.’

  ‘Not my guard! I know nothing of this. This is your initiative.’

  ‘My initiative, yes, sir.’ George swallowed. ‘What do I do when I have … taken my own initiative?’

  ‘You await my instructions.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s my initiative – but I await your instructions.’ His tone underlined the incongruity of the two orders, while his face kept a look of cherubic innocence.

  Cromwell stared suspiciously at him, before giving him the barest ghost of a smile. ‘Above all … you must not touch a hair of the King’s head. Is that clear?’

 
George looked as if it was as clear as a complex cipher, but he saluted. Cromwell wished him Godspeed and turned away, picking up the despatches. ‘Nothing from Holles’s reception at Derby House tonight?’

  Ireton shook his head. ‘Lord Stonehouse’s informer was taken.’

  George continued to stand there. ‘I would like Major Stonehouse with me, sir,’ George said.

  At first I thought Cromwell had not heard him. Then he whirled round, looking as if he had no idea who George was talking about. No one remembered his men and what they had done better than Cromwell. And no one could forget them more quickly when he had dismissed them from his mind. I winced when I saw the blank look on Cromwell’s face. Before he could speak, George told him how I had interrupted the muster with Colonel Wallace and kept the regiment together. Cromwell waved him away. Still George plunged on. I had made mistakes because of the feelings I had for my father, but it was precisely because of those feelings he needed me. I knew my father’s tactics, what he would do.

  ‘Will you be quiet!’ Cromwell roared.

  A maid dropped a platter of more bread and butter that Mrs Cromwell must have conjured up from somewhere. George stared at the ground as she scrambled to retrieve the loaf. Cromwell picked up some crumpled despatches, and wadded them into a ball. He tossed it from hand to hand. There was the rattle of a coach, the cry of the coachman slowing the horses, the squeal of brakes. Everyone was immediately on edge, still, staring towards the sound. Cromwell squeezed the paper ball, his other hand going to his side. For the first time I realised he wore a sword – strange, in his own house and garden.

  Only when the coach had passed did people turn to one another again, talking in low tones. Cromwell flung the paper ball into the bushes and beckoned to me.

  ‘How do you feel now about your father?’

  ‘I want to kill him as he once tried to kill me.’ I only realised how savage and violent my words had been when I saw the shocked faces around me.