The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy and her Lover

by Simon Parke

  ‘I know not how filing can be done without much noise and time,’ he said to the captain through his half-opened bedroom door. ‘But if you can clear this doubt, I absolutely conceive this to be the best way.’

  ‘I will consider this matter, your majesty.’

  ‘I think we must do more than consider. I hear the axe has fallen for you here.’

  This was true. They’d heard that morning that Captain Titus was to be escorted off the island shortly.

  ‘I have been told I am leaving, sir, though a date has not been set.’

  ‘Then you must begin work on the bars without delay . . . but in a quiet manner.’

  There was indeed urgency, for it was not only Titus who was to be removed from the castle. Firebrace was also to go.

  ‘Why they have picked on you two, I am at a loss to know.’

  ‘Because we work for your escape, sire.’

  ‘Indeed. But how do they know that?’

  ‘I imagine the walls have eyes.’

  They had been busy with escape plans. When he wasn’t testing the file against the king’s window bars, Titus was organizing a ship to cross the Solent and a relay of horses on the mainland. And then Firebrace had come up with another escape plan.

  ‘We use the window on the back stairs,’ he told the captain. ‘This will mean the window bars can be dealt with by others before the event.’

  ‘Thus not involving the king in their removal?’ said Titus.

  ‘It does seem wise,’ said Firebrace.

  Titus nodded. And again, Charles warmed to the idea. He preferred the window on the stairs to the window in his bedroom, and wrote his approval to Firebrace.

  I do extremely well like your newest way, for if you can make me room enough to go out at the window you mention, I warrant you, by the grace of God, that I shall get down the hill and over the works well enough. But I pray thee – for my satisfaction – ensure I am given the full breadth of the window when the bar is taken away, that I may be sure not to lodge, as happened previously.

  Firebrace was also concerned about the king ‘lodging’ again. He’d put on a little weight at Carisbrooke, his days consumed by spiritual writing, which had made monks fat down the years. He’d been cheered, though, to hear that two guards had taken a bribe of £100 to look elsewhere as the king made his way to the back stairs. Where did Mrs Whorwood find the money? A remarkable woman . . . and he’d heard she was now in position on board a boat in the Isle of Sheppey, ready to take the king to Holland.

  The courier from London was the last piece in the jigsaw.

  *

  Jane was desperate.

  She’d been imprisoned on board this ship for five weeks, ready to depart. Five weeks on the Isle of Sheppey! It was time the king was in France, and this boat – hired and cajoled at considerable expense – would ferry him there. But where was he?

  Mr Browne, the ship’s master, had been as patient as any man could be, really a very dear man. But ever since the navy went over to parliament, no ship could dawdle for long on the coast, where seagulls and suspicion flew free and nothing remained unnoticed.

  ‘We sit most obvious on the water, madam,’ said Mr Browne.

  ‘I know how obvious we sit.’

  ‘We cannot stay.’

  ‘We have to stay. We must wait for the king.’

  But they couldn’t stay and she needed to know what delayed the royal presence. She wrote a letter to Firebrace, who’d been strangely quiet, as had the king. Were they unable to communicate? Had their letters been seized? Or had hers? The delay and unknowing was making her ill.

  It is both my grief and my wonder that the king has not yet appeared, when that is what he wills the most. What delays his majesty? In the meantime, we sit very obvious on the water and yesterday, our boat was searched by the intolerable Vice-Admiral Rainsborough, a blood-stained republican.

  I need hardly tell you of this unspeakable man. I do not judge – but really! He is of the mad Ranter persuasion – those who believe God is in every creature and quite against organized religion. He told me this himself, he does not hide it – and asked me where I stood on the matter. I confess I could only laugh with a hysterical sound – which I hope was goodly cover. He may have thought me fit for Bedlam, and if he does, I’m glad. He also believes the king should be elected by common vote, Firebrace. We must return our king to the throne – or we’ll have a Ranter there!

  In the meantime, Rainsborough is brusque in his manner and asks why we do not sail. We claimed a contrary wind, though there is a kind south-westerly almost every day. Mr Browne does all he can to find cause for delay, with repairs to the hull invented daily. But Rainsborough sniffs around with republican malice and we need news about how things stand. We need good news.

  And how true that was, for she didn’t mention the oyster poisoning, which had laid her very low for these past ten days. Only now was she emerging from the lower decks, which had been her own privy hell. But forty-eight hours later, there was light: a courier arrived, with a message from the king via Captain Titus.

  ‘Guard rotas changed. Sunday 28th is the day of our endeavour. We hope to be with you on the 29th.’

  Jane’s heart leapt on the Sheppey waters. This was it.

  *

  All was set fair for the king’s escape; this was the view of Firebrace from his new accommodation in Portsmouth.

  He had left Carisbrooke, but not the king’s service. It was 11 on a starless night. what better omen could there be? The first relay of horses was ready at Titchfield on Southampton Water, a fishing boat quietly anchored in a private creek near Wootton Park, and a party of horsemen, with Edward Worsley in charge, were gathered near the castle to take him there.

  Inside the castle, Abraham Dowcett, Clerk of the Kitchen, faced the moment of truth alone. He approached the king’s bedchamber, down the dark corridor with its creaking boards, ready with his cord of silk, reckoned to be kinder than rope to the king’s soft hands. He entered the king’s bedchamber without a knock, as planned; it was his task to let the king down from his window. They had returned to the idea of using the bedroom window, rather than the stairs, but all was prepared and nothing seen by Hammond. The files had done their work, leaving generous space for the king’s frame. He was not a large man, and there was a considerable gap between the bars. Dowcett was to see him to the ground, then go down the back stairs and meet the king in the courtyard. From there, he would guide him to where the horses were waiting.

  The king feigned sleep as Dowcett entered. Wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove, as he’d said to Dowcett, who had nodded without comprehension.

  *

  ‘What is it?’ said Hammond with irritation. He’d been woken from a deep and unhappy sleep. He was dreaming of his sacked mother – the moment of the sacking, which troubled his dreams more than any duel or battle he’d fought.

  ‘I have with me two guards with a story to tell,’ said Rolphe.

  ‘What story? What’s going on? Is she here?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My mother. Is she here?’

  ‘Are you awake, sir?’ said Rolphe, wondering if the colonel was still in a dream.

  ‘Is it about my mother?’

  ‘It does not concern your mother, sir.’

  ‘Quite.’ Hammond was waking now. He was talking to Rolphe; he was awake now. ‘I’m awake, Rolphe.’

  But he was angry about the men in his doorway and Rolphe led them in. What was Rolphe doing bringing them here? He was definitely awake now.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘These men, sir – they have been paid to be slack in their duties tonight.’

  ‘Who has been paid?’

  ‘These guards.’

  ‘Paid by whom?’

  ‘By the king, Colonel.’

  ‘And
to what end?’

  ‘The escape is tonight, sir.’

  ‘The escape is tonight? Have you seen a plain fat man?’

  *

  The king was sitting in the window, where once there were bars, but he could see that matters were not right down below. Dowcett had fixed the cord and left the bedchamber, but had not reappeared in the courtyard – so where was he? And while Charles had managed to place his body some way through the window, he discerned more people than normal in the courtyard tonight; and still no sign of Dowcett.

  ‘Dowcett?’ he hissed from the window ledge.

  Nothing . . . and he decided against further action; there were too many figures in the shadows below. Cautiously, he slowly withdrew himself back inside, inch by inch, but a task harder than expected, with his legs waving in the outside air for a little while, as he fell backwards, before recovering his balance. He then tumbled down inside, clinging on to a chair to break his fall but landing awkwardly. He gathered his soiled self, listened for voices, placed the bars back in the window as best he could and retired to his bed.

  And he was lying awake, clothed for day and with sore arms and ribs, when there was a knock on the door. Before he could answer, Hammond was standing there, a silhouette in the passageway candlelight. The king did not like the dark – though neither did he care much for the light on this occasion. Hammond bowed before going over to the window to inspect the bars, all askew. He touched one and it fell to the ground with a clatter and much dust.

  ‘They appear to have suffered some wear,’ he said, noting the effects of the files. He shook his head.

  ‘How now, Mr Hammond?’ says Charles. ‘You wake me for what purpose?’

  ‘I heard you were going away, your majesty.’

  ‘I know nothing of that.’

  ‘So I came to say farewell. Or perhaps to persuade you to stay. I hope I can.’

  ‘I believe, Mr Hammond, I speak from my bed, rather than a horse.’

  ‘Though you were recently dressed and in your window, your majesty. Your legs waved cheerily to us all. And I am told that your horse is still waiting.’

  ‘If it is, I know not of it.’

  ‘A sad day, your majesty.’

  ‘Every day is sad, Mr Hammond.’

  ‘Then we must hope sleep makes tomorrow a better day for us all.’

  ‘Indeed, quite so.’

  Hammond walked towards the door, and then turned. ‘And perhaps saddest for you, your majesty, is that not even two hundred pounds can buy you the loyalty of your subjects now. What happened to our king?’

  August 1648

  ‘Rats and dry biscuits, Charles! And a malicious oyster.’

  She had never before called him Charles, but she did so now as his fingers moved eagerly over her uncovered breasts. He thought more of the consolations of sex than escape these days. Fantasies of Jane ballooned in his head, spilling endlessly through his imagination and beyond.

  ‘I am surrounded by fools,’ he said, ‘your good self excepted, my little princess, my dear sweet Jane.’

  He greatly enjoyed the feel of her flesh on his cock as they lay on his bed.

  ‘Five weeks in the Isle of Sheppey, waiting.’

  ‘I did not receive your letter until late. Perhaps the courier chose to crawl the journey, not wishing to be seen; and then there was trouble with the files and one plan became another, each with a new difficulty. What Firebrace and Titus were doing, I have no idea. And Dowcett! Well . . .’

  There was a short pause between them.

  ‘Do you wish to escape?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Of course I wish to escape!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure! How could you—’

  ‘That’s all I need to know, your majesty,’ she said, quietening his lips with her finger. ‘We’ve just been unfortunate. You’ve done your best – I’m sure you have. Surrounded by fools, as you say . . .’

  Though Firebrace, melting with frustration, saw it another way. He was quite clear about who was to blame, as he told Dowcett.

  ‘Really, if it was anyone else!’ he would say in his despair of the king’s vacillation.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ said Dowcett, who’d visited him in Portsmouth on his half-day; he supposed he must miss him in some manner.

  ‘Because he is the king, Dowcett, God’s anointed one!’

  ‘If you say so, Henry, though I don’t smell God here myself – just a lecher much absorbed with his own self.’

  But Jane trusted the king. They’d just been unfortunate and their luck would change, of course it would. And now they lay together in his room, the king’s treasure aching.

  ‘Your husband – he is still in Holland?’ he asked, wishing to move matters away from Jane’s five wretched weeks in Sheppey.

  ‘Why do you ask, Charles?’

  ‘I wonder that a man is fool enough to leave you for so long!’

  ‘He’s back in England,’ she said quietly.

  ‘He’s back?’ Charles pulled his body from her, as though the jilted partner now stood in the doorway with a sword in hand.

  ‘Though still a fool. He’s been back for a year.’

  ‘A year?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh! Yet still you—’

  ‘What difference does that make to me?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘He comes back and swives with his kitchen maid.’

  ‘He does not . . . miss you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Apparently not; he does not say as much. And I don’t miss him – though that might change if I had a pistol.’

  Did Charles miss Henrietta? Of course he did, for they were very much in love. Jane merely served the king in her absence, though she served him well.

  ‘And he does not know?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Know?’

  ‘About our . . . merriment.’

  ‘How would he know?’

  ‘Then I am glad. My cock shall enjoy you in secret.’

  He was swollen and now quite desperate; he tried to move on top of her again.

  ‘Firebrace knows,’ she said.

  ‘Firebrace?’

  ‘He knows.’

  Charles was not pleased but would calm himself. ‘Henry is most discreet. Now—’

  ‘Henry and I, we work together for your release.’

  ‘I need only your cunny for my release today, Jane.’

  He smiled naughtily and indulged himself quickly inside her, while she remembered feeling sorry for Charles, all those years ago.

  At court, people had only ever spoken of young Henry; it was ‘Henry this’ and ‘Henry that’. Always of Henry they spoke, his older and ‘better’ brother. No one spoke of Charles, or if they did, they spoke for mocking amusement. But when Charles was a sickly twelve and Henry eighteen, the better brother died of typhoid fever, and the shock was profound in the kingdom. Henry had such gifts, such presence. He was a leader of men, a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh and young Charles had adored him . . . though whether Henry adored Charles, there were doubts.

  Jane had heard the rumours . . . rumours of cruel teasing by the older brother, a rather harsh Protestant, no question of that; and then the awful story of the bishop’s hat. Was there a crueller story on earth? When Charles was nine years of age, so it went, Henry snatched the hat from a bishop and placed it on his young brother’s head, telling him that when he became king, he would make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury, and then Charles would have a long robe to hide his weak rickety legs. Charles is said to have stamped on the cap before being dragged away, crying uncontrollably.

  But this was how it had been at court, where she’d lived almost next door to the princes. Behind Maxwell’s courtyard wall at Charing Cross were the Spring Gardens of St James�
��s Palace, where the diminutive Charles played in his platform shoes. There were twelve years between them, but he’d always felt close, even through the wall. To others, though, he was the sick boy, always second best, and nothing changed when Henry died. If anything, the chasm in popular assumption widened; Henry grew and Charles lessened. Archbishop William Laud, a supposed friend, had not helped. He’d chosen to describe Charles as ‘a mild and gracious prince who knew not how to be – or how to be made – great’. If that was meant as a kindly word, it rather failed.

  So while others had cheered for Henry, Jane had always cheered for Charles, and still did. It was no crime to be mild and gracious; these were virtues that drew Jane in. So she would always help the lost soul who lay asleep on her now, his breathing deepening, a king made captive.

  *

  Hammond did not rush to break the seal.

  A letter from Cromwell was a bad start to any day. He could expect exhortation of some sort: encouragement to hold fast or to clamp down or to do the honourable thing, which Hammond was trying to do, despite not knowing what it was. When did he last know the honourable path? Did he ever? And if he did, when did he lose sight of it? He needed to untangle his loyalties. It would help to know who he served these days.

  And parliament was his master, surely? That was the plain fact; it was they who paid him, at least. But was money the root of loyalty? For he still felt allegiance to the king, as any subject must. Who could not be loyal to the one who wore the crown, to God’s anointed one – even if he had punched him in the face? He tried not to dwell on that, though the scene returned at night.

  But there were other memories: his soldiers’ faces, for instance, as they buried their friends after battle. The bravery of these men surpassed all things, as did the lack of appreciation for their work; parliament had been mean and cheap in its treatment of the soldiers. Hammond had never known courage, camaraderie or purpose like he knew in the army. Once a soldier, always a soldier; maybe this was so.