by Stella Riley
Garland of Straw
A Novel of the Second English Civil War
Stella Riley
Garland of Straw
Stella Riley
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2013 Stella Riley
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Front cover
Cromwellian Soldiers by Ernest Crofts
Holdenby House
Northamptonshire
June 4th, 1647
Abundance of the common troopers and many of the officers, I have found to be honest, sober, orthodox men … but a few proud, self-conceited, hot-headed sectaries had got into the highest places and were Cromwell’s chief favourites.
I perceived that they took the King for a tyrant and an enemy and really intended absolutely to master him or to ruin him.
Richard Baxter, Army chaplain
PROLOGUE
On the day he was about to leave his thumb-print on the page of history, George Joyce stood outside Holdenby House looking his sovereign in the eye and trying to quell the faint queasiness in his stomach.
It wasn’t that he was a nervous man. Far from it. He was an Agitator; one of that resolute body of men, recently elected by their various regiments to represent them. He had zeal, determination and the stirring ideas of other, more original minds to inspire him. But when your fellow Agitators had singled you out for a mission of such massive importance that it would either make or break both your military career and your reputation in the ranks, it really wasn’t surprising that your palms started to sweat.
It had all seemed so simple when Edward Sexby had first proposed it – and even simpler, that evening in Drury Lane, when they’d put it to the Lieutenant-General. George was to stop the Parliament denuding the Army of artillery [and thus hastening its disbandment] by securing the Oxford magazine; and then, with a troop of volunteers at his back, he was to proceed to Northamptonshire and prevent a second civil war by making sure that neither the Scots Commissioners nor their Presbyterian allies in the Commons put an ace up their collective sleeve by carrying off the King. Bold, radical and gloriously straightforward. Or so George had thought.
The Oxford magazine had been no problem. The stout lads in charge of it wouldn’t surrender their guns to St Peter himself without something tangible in the way of back-pay. No. The problems had begun here at Holdenby when, out of all the sixty-strong garrison guarding the King, just one loyal Presbyterian had slipped the net and escaped.
One man – only one. It ought not to matter. But if that man was going to reappear at the head of a royal rescue party, it most assuredly did. And therein lay George’s quandary. Old Noll had only agreed to the securing of the King’s person. Neither he nor Ned Sexby had said anything about removing him. But the difficulty, as things stood, was in doing one without the other.
George scoured his brain for a directive and eventually found it in the Book of Solomon as quoted in Free-Born John’s last pamphlet.
‘Take the wicked away from the King and his throne shall be established in righteousness.’
It was enough. More, it was like being spoken to by the master himself from his lonely cell in the Tower.
So George had wasted no more time. He’d made his decision and obtained the King’s agreement to it – with the result that here they all were, at six o’clock on a June morning outside the convoluted turrets of Holdenby House. Charles Stuart, flanked by General Browne and his fellows; and himself, backed by the neat ranks of his five hundred volunteers. And still things weren’t going according to plan.
George didn’t know whether the night had brought the King fresh counsel or whether the man just liked playing games. But whereas last night His Majesty had seemed quite happy to quit Holdenby, he was now standing his ground and demanding to know who had issued the order. The whole enterprise once more looked doomed to crumble at a touch … and George could feel all his muscles going into spasm.
‘W-well?’ prompted the King with arid composure. ‘I ask you again. What authority do you have to take me away?’
‘The soldiery of the Army,’ replied George uneasily. ‘We only wish to avoid further needless bloodshed.’
‘We all wish that, Mr Joyce. But have you nothing in writing from Sir Thomas Fairfax, your General, to do what you do?’
George could see the ground being cut from beneath his feet. He couldn’t very well say that Fairfax knew nothing about it – any more than he could admit that Cromwell did. And he certainly couldn’t mention the Council of Agitators. So, as sharply as he dared, he said, ‘Your Majesty must cease these questions. I’ve already given a good enough reason.’
The royal brows rose.
‘I am afraid that I can’t agree. Come now, Mr Joyce – deal ingenuously with me and tell me what c-commission you have.’
There was a brief, tricky silence, broken only by the jingling of harness and the shuffling of hooves. Then, with flat desperation, ‘Here is my commission,’ said George, gesturing to his troopers. ‘Behind me.’
The dark Stuart eyes looked them over with something that might have been wry humour.
‘It is as fair a commission and as well-written as any I have seen in my life. But I hope you will not force me to go with you – for you ought not to lay violent hands upon your King.’
‘And we will not. But we humbly entreat Your Majesty to go with us.’
For a moment, it seemed that Charles was going to refuse point-blank and George waited, his pulse beating uncomfortably fast. But then, with an almost imperceptible sigh, the King allowed one of his servants to help him into the saddle and said, ‘Very well. But I would know where it is you intend to take me.’
George expelled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.
‘I had thought Oxford … or perhaps Cambridge.’
The King considered it.
‘I like neither,’ he announced at length. ‘I would prefer, I believe, to go to Newmarket.’
A rush of heat seared George’s neck. Newmarket was where the Army was even now making a general rendezvous. If the King did go there … why, that would fix those thrice-damned Presbyterians in Parliament who thought they could make peace without bothering to consult the lads who’d won the war for them – or even paying them, come to that.
Exultation burst along his veins like bubbles in wine and bells were still chiming inside his head long after his cavalcade had swung into motion. He’d done it. He’d actually done it! For once the King was in their hands, the future of every man in the Army would be brighter … and it was Cornet George Joyce they’d have to thank for it!
Not bad for a one-time apprentice tailor, he thought dizzily. Not bad at all. And it only went to show - not just how much the war had changed things – but how much more a properly managed peace might change them yet.
*
At a suitable point along the road, a solitary trooper slid discreetly from the column and headed off on a different route. Once out of sight, he removed the disguising helmet and ran a hand through sweat-dampened, mahogany hair.
Having got wind of what might be afoot, his colonel had sent to him to observe – and he’d done it with no o
ne any the wiser. Frowning thoughtfully, Major Maxwell set spurs to his horse and prepared to make his report.
~ ~ ~
A REVERSAL OF FORTUNES
July to December, 1647
‘You cannot do without me,’ the King told the Army officers. ‘You fall to ruin if I do not sustain you.’
‘Sir, you have an intention to be the arbitrator between the Parliament and us,’ replied Commissary-General Ireton, ‘and we mean to be it between Your Majesty and Parliament.’
Said the King, ‘I shall play my game as well as I can.’
‘If Your Majesty has a game to play,’ returned Ireton, ‘you must give us leave to play ours.’
ONE
In the county of Yorkshire, roughly mid-way between Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, lay the tiny village of Stavely. And overlooking the village, from a slight rise in the ground some two miles away, stood the imposing structure of Brandon Lacey.
It had not always been imposing. In 1377, when it had fallen into the gift of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, it had merely been solid, unpretentious Lacey Manor. But then, for reasons of his own, John had bestowed it on Hugh Brandon; and from that day, its metamorphosis had begun.
By the time Sir Robert Brandon inherited it in 1625, it had become a sprawling, inconvenient pile in which numerous conflicting styles battled for supremacy. More recently, thanks to four years of civil conflict, Sir Robert had re-built the gatehouse, reinforced the walls and turrets, and added sentry-walks and cannon – all of which gave it an appearance of being less a home than a fortress. Now, however, with the war over more than a year, the walkways were deserted, the sakers and culverin lay gently rusting and doves nested again in the ugly stone dovecote in the court. A hatchment hung on the huge, iron-studded door to the house, the stone-flagged hall was draped with black and a pall of silence lay over every dark, winding corridor.
Sir Robert was dead.
Inside the oak-panelled parlour, Lawyer Crisp re-assembled his papers with an air that was part-fussy, part-nervous and covertly observed the persons gathered before him. By reason of their station, three of these sat at a discreetly respectful distance from the rest and looked scarcely more at ease than he was himself. Of the remaining five, four were clad in funereal black and bore expressions ranging from vacuity to intense impatience; the fifth, looking singularly out of place and at the same time supremely oblivious of the fact, wore the buff coat and tawny silk sash of the New Model Army.
The lawyer heaved a morose sigh. There was going to be trouble; he had always known it and had told Sir Robert so – but to no avail. It was an unworthy thought … but he couldn’t help wondering if Sir Robert had not counted on the sure knowledge of being safely in his grave before his bombshell burst upon the world in all its sinister glory. For bombshell it undoubtedly was. Let those who would call it a will; Mr Crisp knew better. And the explosion when it came, would emanate not from Sir Robert’s sister nor his trio of faithful retainers – nor even probably from the soldier at the hearth – but from that piece of razor-tongued wilfulness with the misleading pansy eyes.
The girl upon whom these dire forebodings were centred sat impeccably straight in her chair and continued to stare disparagingly at the man standing by the empty fireplace. He remained impervious to her regard and, realising it, her mouth compressed into a contemptuous line. Since entering the house, he had spoken to none of them – not even Sir Robert’s sister, Mistress Sophia – and indeed, seemed scarcely aware of their presence. He had simply arrived late at the graveside and then, after exchanging a mere two words with Lawyer Crisp, followed them back to the house for the reading of the will. Now he leaned carelessly against the ornate stone mantel, his arms folded above that offensive orange sash and surveyed the shabbily comfortable parlour of Brandon Lacey as though he owned it. A stranger, an interloper and – to her, at least, thought the girl bitterly – an enemy.
It was all very well for Mother to complain that such thoughts were unsuitable in a lady, or for Uncle James to say that the war had been over for more than a year and was therefore best put behind them. It was not over for her and never would be until the King occupied his rightful place again. And since the war had cost the lives of her father and eldest brother and kept her from the man whose wife she should have been these last five years, she had no more intention of forgetting it than she had of being civil to a Roundhead upstart who – if he had the sensitivity of a rat – should have had the grace to make himself less obvious.
Animosity ran flickering through her veins and she began to tap an impatient tattoo with one foot. Ellis should be here, she thought with an anguish that bordered, as it all too often did these days, on irritation. With Sir Robert’s death, Brandon Lacey was now his and he would soon have dealt with the oaf on the hearth. Of course, it was useless to expect Sophia to assert herself for, despite being the only Brandon present, she existed largely in a world of her own. And Uncle James – once a bishop but now, thanks to Parliament’s persecution of the episcopacy, prematurely retired – was bent on preserving his peace by assiduously avoiding her eye.
Switching her attention from the despised Parliamentarian sash, she turned fathomless violet eyes on Mr Crisp and said, ‘Surely your documents must be in the proper order by now, sir? Or are my mother, my uncle and myself to resign ourselves to spending the night here?’
‘Not at all, Mistress Clifford,’ came the repressive reply. ‘Not at all. Indeed, if everyone is ready, I will begin directly.’
‘Please do,’ she invited acidly. ‘For if we’re given much more time in which to prepare ourselves, I fear we shall all be asleep.’ She watched the little lawyer flush with annoyance, aware of a saturnine gaze from the hearth turning on her for the first time. ‘Well?’
Mr Crisp nodded curtly and then looked enquiringly at the deceased’s sister.
‘With your permission, Mistress Brandon?’
‘Of course.’ Draped in innumerable scarves and beset with three tabby kittens, Sophia gave her sweet, myopic smile. She had loved her brother deeply and sincerely mourned his loss but, in her usual fashion, had little interest in the practicalities. ‘I hope it won’t take very long. Trixie is whelping, you know.’
This caused Ellen, Lady Clifford to frown delicately. Much of an age with Sophia but infinitely better preserved, she did everything delicately and thus did not allow her frown to deepen when her daughter said, ‘Really, Sophy? If the pups were sired by Dante, I’d like one.’
‘Of course, dear.’ Sophia gently disengaged a kitten from her hair. ‘Come over in a couple of weeks or so and take your pick. They’re as likely to be pure-bred as not, I suppose.’
Accustomed to Sophia’s haphazard and ever-increasing menagerie, the girl accepted this with perfect calm. ‘I’ll come then. But it’s a wolfhound I want – so I hope Trixie hasn’t been consorting with one of your stray mongrels. And now, Mr Crisp,’ she looked once more at the lawyer, ‘you were about to begin, I think?’
He cast her a glance of acute dislike, cleared his throat and embarked, with understandable reluctance, upon his duty.
‘This is the last will and testament, duly attested and signed, of Robert William Brandon, Knight; master of the estates known as Brandon Lacey in the County of Yorkshire, Steeple Park in the County of Oxfordshire and Ford Edge Manor in the —’
‘I beg your pardon?’ demanded Mistress Clifford indignantly. ‘You know as well as I do that Ford Edge has no place in Sir Robert’s will. It’s Clifford land.’
Mr Crisp opened his mouth, closed it again and then directed a glance of resentful appeal at the girl’s maternal uncle. James Bancroft stared carefully into the middle distance and said nothing. But Ellen Clifford murmured, ‘Do be still, dearest. You know how things were arranged.’
‘Only too well,’ responded her daughter tartly. And with complete disregard for both soldier and servants, added, ‘My father made over Ford Edge to Sir Robert to prevent it being purloined by those rogues
in Westminster who call themselves a Parliament. But it was only on paper – a mere ploy, devised because Sir Robert’s reputation as a Parliament-man enabled him to protect the Manor from sequestration. It had no meaning beyond that – as Sir Robert would have been the first one to admit!’
‘Unfortunately,’ began the lawyer cautiously, ‘the fact remains that —’
‘The fact remains that Sir Robert was no more than keeper of Ford Edge – and that document should say so.’
Small measures of Mr Crisp’s patience and nervousness deserted him in equal parts.
‘With respect, Mistress, it cannot say so for it is not legally true. Your father entered into this agreement with Sir Robert in 1644 on my advice. At that time, it was the only means of saving Ford Edge from the Sequestration Committee. Such arrangements were not entirely uncommon but they were useless if not protected by the full weight of the law.’ He paused to mop his brow and glance furtively at the Parliamentarian officer before whom he was being forced to make these disclosures. ‘Both Sir Charles and Sir Robert understood this and acted accordingly.’
There was a brief silence before the girl said flatly, ‘You’re saying that, because both my father and Sir Robert died without either terminating or re-structuring their agreement, Ford Edge is as much Brandon property as is this house?’
‘Yes,’ said the lawyer. ‘It is.’
‘I see.’ She sat back in her chair with an air of dangerous calm. ‘Then I can only assume that Sir Robert’s will makes whatever provision is necessary to rectify the situation.’
An unpleasant chill travelled the length of Mr Crisp’s spine and a tiny tremor afflicted his left eye. ‘J-just so.’
‘Then you had better enlighten us. Fond as I was of Sir Robert personally, and despite his – his near-kinship to us, I never liked the arrangement and will be glad to see the end of it.’ She directed a brief, distasteful glance at the man in the orange sash. ‘Ford Edge is a loyal household and I dislike both the subterfuge and the appearance of having colluded with rebels.’
