‘But withal I give both of you prisoners this intimation. You shall have pen, ink and paper brought to you in your place of confinement, and if, in the time left to you, that pen, ink and paper is employed well by you it may be that you hear further from me in deferring the executions.’
When they had been taken back to the prison and the writing materials promised by Jeffreys had been produced, Jonathan Piper looked glumly at the clean sheets of paper, and asked McFeeley,
‘What does this mean, sir?’
‘It would seem that he is suggesting that our only hope of mercy lies in petitioning the king.’
‘Will that work, sir?’
‘No. The rebellion has been put down, so we are expendable, Piper.’
An expression of hope grew on Piper’s thin face. ‘Lady Sarah and Rachel, sir! They saw us! They know what’s happening and they can help!’
‘I will give petitioning the king a try, Jonathan,’ McFeeley said to pacify the young soldier.
At Stawell Manor on the outskirts of Dorchester, it was taking some time for Sarah and Rachel to recover. The two gibbets that had been erected on the estate, and the pieces of bodies scattered around among entrails and blood had once been two human beings. Lord Stawell, getting on in years, was trembling as he explained that Judge Jeffreys deliberately had the two executions carried out in the grounds of Stawell Manor because he, Lord Stawell, had refused to accept Jeffreys’s invitation to take a drink with him.
‘You could apply for an interview with Judge George Jeffreys,’ Stawell said when they had told him the story of seeing the two wrongly imprisoned king’s soldiers, ‘but I can’t guarantee that he’ll see you. The whole Assize is a reprehensible thing.’
Hearing this did nothing to lift Sarah’s spirits. She had hoped that Lord Stawell, whom she had first met at her wedding, might have been able to intervene on behalf of McFeeley and the other man, and it was a blow to learn that he was at odds with Jeffreys himself.
‘The judge has no better nature to appeal to, my lord?’ she asked.
‘Most definitely not,’ Stawell replied. ‘But I’m told that he has a pocket that is accessible!’
‘Bribery!’ Lady Sarah breathed the word contemplatively.
‘Exactly. There was a young fellow at the club two evenings ago actually boasting of having eluded a charge of high treason by paying Jeffreys a sum of £15,000,’ Lord Stawell shook his head in disbelief at such corruption. ‘It was the drink talking, and we advised the young fellow to keep his mouth shut. But then he started bragging of how he had been given a discount of £240 by Jeffreys for prompt payment. Foolish fellow, I pity his poor father, Sir Edmund.’
An animated Rachel breathlessly asked Stawell, ‘Do you speak of Edmund Prideaux, sir?’
‘That’s the young bounder,’ Lord Stawell exclaimed, surprised that Rachel knew the man.
‘Listen to me, Sarah,’ Rachel began excitedly. ‘Leave this to me, I will first make an appeal to the judge, and if that should prove to be fruitless I will find Edmund and have him arrange for us to pay for the release of McFeeley and Jonathan.’
‘But I must come with you, Rachel!’
‘No, my dear Sarah, it is best that I go alone,’ Rachel was adamant.
‘No,’ Lord Stawell corrected Rachel, ‘it would be best for neither of you get involved.’
‘We have to, my lord,’ Sarah said, her face serious.
‘Are these two men worth it. You must take that into consideration,’ Stawell advised.
‘One of them saved our lives, my lord, several times.’
Accepting this from Sarah as sufficient cause, Lord Stawell told Rachel, ‘I will have you taken to George Jeffreys’ lodgings, young lady, but my man will have instructions only to guide you there. He will not be able to assist you further.’
‘I do appreciate that, sir,’ Rachel said with a smile, keen to start out on her mission.
Her enthusiasm hadn’t waned when she was helped out of the carriage in Dorchester and Lord Stawell’s driver pointed across the road to a covered alleyway. In the fast thickening dusk it had a sinister appearance for Rachel but she didn’t let it deter her.
‘Go into the archway, my lady,’ the nervous carriage man instructed, ‘and ask at the first door on the right for the judge. I will return to the carriage, my lady. The instructions given me by my master is to wait one hour for you, but no longer.’
‘Thank you, I shall be with you in that time,’ Rachel told the driver, feeling some trepidation for the first time as she started off across the road. There were few people about. Two begging children accosted her at the centre of the street. Three ruffians, young men given licence by the turbulence of the post-rebellion period, loitered by the entrance to the alleyway. They leered at Rachel through the growing darkness, and she felt they would have caused her trouble had it not been for Lord Stawell’s footman standing watchfully beside the carriage across the street.
Passing them by, she went into the archway, a little unnerved and disorientated by stepping into the dense blackness of the alleyway, She was making her way to the entrance when a door opened and closed on her left as someone stepped out into the alleyway. The size and shape of the silhouette told her that it was a man, and she was relieved as he started to pass with no more than a glance at her.
Then her nerves jangled as the figure paused, head thrust forwards as he peered at her, saying politely, ‘Forgive me should I be mistaken, madam, but are you perchance Rachel?’
‘Edmund!’ Rachel was uncertain whether this unexpected meeting was for good or for bad.
‘My dear, sweet Rachel!’ he cried, taking both of her hands in his. ‘The good Lord has answered my prayers and sent you to me. What in the world are you doing here in Dorchester?’
‘That is a very long story, Edmund, but I will tell you my reason for being in this place at this very moment,’ Rachel replied before going on to explain about McFeeley and Piper and her proposed audience with Judge Jeffreys.
Not interrupting, Prideaux listened intently. When Rachel had finished, he offered his help. ‘I have met the Lord Chief Justice, Rachel, and must caution you that unless a particular approach is made to him he can be a most obstinate and unhelpful fellow.’
‘Then will you assist me, Edmund, possibly even come with me to the judge?’
‘I would be unwise to accompany you, but I give you all the help that I can,’ Edmund assured her. ‘I have a room here, so let us go there and plan the right approach to make to Judge Jeffreys.’
Initially, the room Prideaux took her to gave Rachel a feeling of security after having been out alone in a strange town. She was relieved to think that her path to Judge Jeffreys was to be eased by Edmund. The Lord Chief Justice was a man with a formidable reputation.
Everything went wrong immediately after Prideaux had lit two candles that showed the room to be a small but pleasant one. A small dresser stood against one wall on the left of the door, and a single bed was positioned against the opposite wall. A poorly executed portrait of King Charles II adorned the wall above a small grate in which a fire was retreating into grey and barely glowing, embers.
‘It’s been so long, too damned long, Rachel!’ Prideaux complained, taking her into his arms, becoming rough when she tried to struggle.
‘My frock, Edmund,’ she said, a trace of anger in her voice as his fumbling became violent and a tearing of material bared her bosom. ‘Will you please stop!’
‘You’ve never wanted me to stop before,’ he told her mockingly, striving for a kiss, but Rachel avoided his mouth by twisting her head vigorously from side to side. Prideaux caught and held her chin in a vice-like grip between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Rachel, unable to move, kept her lips tightly closed and stiff when he lowered his mouth onto hers.
A moment later she began to respond and she knew that she was going to lose. As he held her tightly and manoeuvred her towards the bed, Rachel spoke to him pleadingly around their
unbroken kiss. ‘I have to see Judge Jeffreys, Edmund.’
He replied in a muffled murmur. ‘In the morning, my sweet Rachel! In the morning I will go with you, Rachel.’
‘Do you promise, Edmund?’ she asked worriedly.
‘I promise.’
Reassured, she gave way to her passion. Closing her eyes, Rachel relaxed against her lover, her arms going round him.
A boot nudging into his ribs awakened McFeeley. It wasn’t really a kick, but a toe-twisting covert move of torture delivered by an expert. The pain brought him round angrily. Jerking himself up into a sitting position, ready to spring onto his tormentor, he was halted by a muzzle of a musket being pressed against his forehead. In the dim light of a dawn filtered through a small window, he saw that Piper was already on his feet, a gaoler on each side of him.
‘On your feet!’ McFeeley was ordered, and he had no choice but to obey.
‘We didn’t buy a lot of time, sir,’ Piper made a laconic comment.
A few hours, McFeeley thought grimly. Had they not petitioned the king it would have been all over now. Never a coward, McFeeley had always expected to die on a battlefield.
There was just the two of them. Their unsuccessful petition to the King had separated them from others to be executed. They walked along the street which they had taken to the court. There were no crowds as there had been then, but they drew glances from townsfolk made curious by the unusual sight of just two men being escorted to the gibbets.
Trudging along a street that was given an illusion of length by the tall buildings that stood on either side, they came out into open ground. A gentle slope ahead led up to some kind of earthworks dating back to the Romans. Grassed over now, the area had three closely grouped gibbets on it.
McFeeley saw that they were now collecting would-be spectators at a fast rate. McFeeley breathed in the aroma deeply. A sideways glance at Piper, impassive, lean-faced, he was proud of the young soldier. Both of them had much to endure in the minutes to come, but he knew that Jonathan Piper would be just as determined as he was not to afford their executioners or their audience one iota of pleasure by giving any sight or sound of fear or weakness.
McFeeley was fortified on his last walk on earth by the possibility that he might well be re-united with Rosin. His thoughts turned to his foster mother, the huge-hearted Philomena O’Driscoll. Unable to find out what had happened to her in this world, McFeeley hoped he would in the next.
‘What wouldn’t I give to snatch a musket and go out fighting!’ Piper said softly but longingly.
‘They’ll make sure that we’ll never have the chance,’ McFeeley said, knowing how Piper felt.
There were two men by the gibbets. From the talk heard in prison McFeeley identified the executioner Jack Ketch. His assistant Pascha Rose was, fittingly, a local butcher.
As they neared the gibbets the now considerable crowd was held back into what was judged to be a reasonable viewing distance. Piper had a sardonic smile on his face as he asked McFeeley a question: ‘Do I have to address you as sir when we say goodbye, sir?’
‘Colm will do, Jonathan,’ McFeeley answered easily, adding, ‘but if I still have my rank when we get to the other side, go back to calling me sir.’
The escort halted them and Jack Ketch stepped forwards to give them a look over with a cold and professional eye. He had the appearance of a man you would be happy to take a drink with if you served together. At that very moment he was displaying a state of nerves that made him seem like the condemned rather than the cool McFeeley and Piper. The jittery executioner signalled to Rose, who brought a noose and dropped it over Piper’s head.
‘Do you have any religion at all, Jonathan?’ McFeeley inquired in a light tone.
‘No,’ Piper shook his head inside of the noose ‘but I was at the funeral of Oliver Cromwell. Do you think the angels might take that into consideration?’
‘I would not risk mentioning it,’ McFeeley advised dryly. ‘I am told that none but the dogs cried!’
‘No more talking,’ Ketch ordered in a surprisingly high voice.
‘These two prisoners made a similar claim to me, Lady Churchill,’ Judge Jeffreys said in a surprisingly gentle tone.
Sarah was worried about Rachel who had failed to return to Stawell Manor the previous night. The wayward Rachel at the mercy of her own sexual needs, had probably spent the night with a man, she thought. In contrast, McFeeley had no control over his destiny, so he was Sarah’s major concern this morning.
‘You will reconsider this case, my lord?’ she inquired.
‘Good Lord, my dear Lady Churchill, we most assuredly will. The gentleman you first approached,’ Jeffreys indicated the grey-haired man who had brought her to him on her arrival, ‘is Sir Henry Pollexfen, the Crown Prosecutor. We have delayed the court sitting in deference to you.’
There were impatient sounds from the court that reached the anteroom to make Jeffreys agitated. Even so, Sarah wanted some firm commitment from the judge before she left. She inquired, ‘Now that I have vouched that the two men are soldiers of the king, my lord, will they be released?’
‘Of course, of course,’ Jeffreys shuffled some papers, selected one and picked up a pen. ‘You will be happy to sign for the release of the two men per pro Brigadier-General Churchill!’
This was something that Sarah would not do. With a new king and unrest throughout the land, there was much intrigue and jostling for high positions. She didn’t trust Jeffreys, whose words of a fair administration of justice were cancelled out by the grisly scenes now evident throughout Dorset.
To sign anything on behalf of her husband now could well mean having it used to the detriment of Lord Churchill in the near future, so Sarah said, ‘I will not give my signature in Brigadier Churchill’s name, my lord, but I will sign anything to you that the two men are soldiers of the king.’
Unable to conceal his annoyance, Jeffreys gave a grudging nod, screwed up the sheet of paper he had been writing on, replacing it and writing rapidly. ‘If you so wish, Lady Churchill.’
A stocky man appeared in the doorway, and Jeffreys issued an order that had Sarah filled with relief. ‘Mr Sheriff, I want you to take this immediately to the executioner. It countermands the order which has the two men taken to the Rings this morning.’
‘I’ll do as you command, my lord, but I fear that I will be too late!’
‘Then you must go in all haste, Mr Sheriff,’ Jeffreys urged.
When Sarah stepped back out into the covered alley the area was crowded by sightseers ready for the first batch of prisoners of the day to be brought along. The sound of a door opening on the opposite side of the alley attracted her attention. Looking casually in that direction she was startled to see a frantic Rachel come rushing out to fall tearfully into her arms.
‘Oh, Sarah!’ Rachel wailed mournfully, ‘I’ve let you and them down so badly!’
They were both in position under separate gibbets. Their farewells had been in the form of a short but firm handshake. Ketch and his assistant were busy with Piper, who was to be executed first. Both executioners were pulling on the rope around Piper’s neck when McFeeley, who had averted his gaze, heard a shout and looked back to see a stocky man running to the gibbets, waving a document.
‘Hold on, Mr Ketch, hold on! I have orders with me for the two men to be released!’
Releasing the rope they were holding so that Piper’s feet came unsteadily back down onto the ground, Ketch and Pascha read the paper held by the sheriff then slashed the bonds holding McFeeley and an ashen-faced Piper, freeing them.
Giving the shaky Piper support, McFeeley hurried with him out to the road, running until they were clear of the crowd and had become anonymous and of no interest to anyone. Piper, who was rapidly regaining his strength, made a comment through a sore throat, ‘That was close – too close!’
‘So close that I want to get away from here in case our luck changes,’ McFeeley replied.
‘Which co
uld be right now,’ Piper said ominously as a pony and trap came towards them.
The driver was an elderly man with a heavy, lined face. Dressed in the livery of a servant, he reined in beside them. The driver asked, ‘Would one of you gentlemen happen to be Lieutenant McFeeley?’
‘I am,’ McFeeley volunteered.
‘I bring the compliments of Lady Sarah Churchill, Lieutenant. ‘My lady asks that you and your companion be kind enough to grace her with your presences at Stawell Manor.’
The miracle that saved them had been wrought by Lady Sarah, McFeeley realized. He questioned the elderly driver. ‘Where is Stawell Manor?’
Raising up a little on his seat, the servant used his whip as a pointer as he gave instructions. ‘Go back down through the town, sir, past the court, then turn right and go down to the river. Don’t cross over the bridge, but turn left, walk along the river-bank and you’ll come to Stawell Manor. That is the shortest way on foot, Lieutenant.’
‘Thank you,’ McFeeley said, waving a hand as the trap was pulled round and driven away.
They walked at a steady pace, finding it odd that none of the people they passed took any interest in them. Passing the court caused neither of them the trauma they had anticipated, but they were saddened and stood quietly and reverently as a line of wretched creatures passed by on the way to execution.
They were on the river-bank when a woman accosted them. Straggly hair awry, her clothing was dirty and dishevelled in a way that said she had been living rough. She beseeched, ‘Could you spare a coin or two for a poor woman seeking her man, young sirs? He was with Monmouth and I have not seen—’
Stopping her talk she stepped closer to peer up at McFeeley. She clasped his hands, crying, ‘I know you, don’t I? You were a soldier, sir! You came to my home! We lay together, sir!’
‘Lucy Yates!’ McFeeley recognized the woman, pulling his hands from her grasp. There was a wafting of alcohol around her that rode on a stale, unwashed smell. It didn’t seem possible she was the same desirable woman he had known. ‘What are you doing here in Dorchester, Lucy?’
McFeeley's Rebellion Page 21