by Ann Swinfen
Men grew hot and angry, throwing their hats on the ground in disgust. Once or twice, scuffles broke out and members had to be separated by force, swearing. One of the war party got a black eye. One of the peace party had to staunch a bloody nose on a handful of handkerchiefs passed along by his neighbours on the benches. Sometimes it seemed that a riot would develop and that the Speaker’s call of ‘Order!’ would be lost forever in a furious brawl.
But order was restored and the speeches continued. Many spoke for peace: the Presbyterians whose principal goal was now within reach, the older men with no thirst for war and violence, men of sense and judgement, men who were sickened past bearing by the long slaughter of the last six years. As it grew dark and the violent winter wind rattled the windows, a motion for candles was carried and the members accepted that they would have a long evening of it.
On Saturday the army party had already derided and opposed the Treaty, but today there were many more of them who wanted to speak. The overt republicans knew, if this opportunity slipped through their fingers, they would not have another chance to stop all dealings with the king through the legitimate processes of Parliament. The so-called ‘Independents’, the war party, the allies of the army, and the radicals who wanted fundamental change in government, along with the self-serving war profiteers, all ranged themselves against the members who urged this last opportunity for peace. While John and his party believed that Parliament could so hedge the king about that he would be forced to keep to the terms agreed, their opponents were convinced, or pretended, that he would not.
‘Charles Stuart,’ shouted Sir Henry Mildmay, throwing his hat on the ground and stamping upon it, as if it were the king himself, ‘Charles Stuart is no more to be trusted than a lion that has been caged, and is let loose again at his liberty.’
The furious arguments raged back and forth for many hours, but when at last William Prynne managed to secure Speaker Lenthall’s nod, some members groaned aloud, not all of them on the benches of the war party.
‘Trust Will Prynne to have his say,’ John muttered to Edward Stephens, Crewe’s brother-in-law, whose own speech had been mercifully short. ‘What o’clock is it, do you think?’
‘I heard ten strike long since,’ said Crewe, on his other side. ‘Best catch some sleep if you can.’
It was a poor jest, for no one could have slept through Prynne’s thunderings. He was a clever and crafty lawyer, and a passionate speaker, if he could but have learned the virtue of brevity. He rehearsed, one by one, all the arguments for accepting the Treaty, down to the smallest details, and discussed and enlarged on each at length. Next, one by one, he listed the opponents’ arguments, which he demolished less with the grace of a Cicero than with the brute force of a charging bull. He then proceeded to anatomise the character, antecedents, legitimacy and motives of all those who spoke against the Treaty.
‘These men,’ said Prynne contemptuously, with a wide flourish of his arm, ‘who pretend aloud that the king’s offer to grant Presbyterianism on trial for three years is the crucial issue at debate here—these men desire no ecclesiastical settlement at all! They come into this House with their false devotion and their pious faces, when all they desire is to seize Church lands, or to hold on to what they have already seized in the course of these bitter times, at a fairground huckster’s price. Oh, yes! War breeds fine profits for unscrupulous men!’
Prynne’s loss of teeth during the torture he had endured meant that he spat as he spoke. Men ducked whenever he reached a crescendo. He drew a deep breath now and glared around the chamber. He lifted his hands heavenwards and raised his voice so that it rang out in that candlelit gloom.
‘Let the army do its worst. This House should respect only its own conscience and integrity!’
Prynne sat down at last, after a speech lasting three hours, amidst the relieved cheers of the peace party and the booing of their opponents, who had been bludgeoned into silence while he spoke.
‘Note the Speaker, his looks,’ Prynne hissed to his friends, with smirking satisfaction. ‘The man is quite overcome with admiration at the cogency of my arguments.’
Speaker Lenthall was certainly overcome by the duration of Prynne’s oration. He granted the Commons a few minutes’ pause while he hurried off to refresh himself. There was an undignified scramble as the members made for the doors and the chamber pots kept in the close cupboards. Outside, at the bottom of the steps leading to Parliament, an enterprising costermonger had set up a cart from which he was selling hot pies and ale. Even the most law-abiding members were prepared to ignore the fact that the man had no licence to sell ale, since there was no time to repair to one of the celestially named inns nearby.
John bought two pies and a wooden tankard of ale and stood in Palace Yard devouring the food ravenously. It was as well that it was too dark to inspect it closely. The pies were tasty if somewhat tough, and the ale was watered, but he had eaten and drunk worse in London. The snow had ceased falling. The household fires, smoored down for the night, were no longer filling the air with their greasy smoke and sulphurous fumes. The night was frosty and clear, so that he could see the stars pulsing high in the heavens, a rare sight in London’s usual fog and filth. If only, he thought, with that familiar sickening spasm of hope and dread, if only the desire for an honourable peace shone as clearly in the minds of the men now pacing and shivering in Palace Yard.
The house in St Ann’s Lane was bitterly cold. In the cramped chamber occupied by the three little boys there was no hearth, so Anne told Peter to bring in a small brazier of coals, in a futile attempt to hold the winter at bay. The inside of the window glass was thickly sculpted with leaves and curling fronds of ice, so thick that, when Bess warmed a ha’penny in her hand to try to make a peephole for Ralph, the coin did no more than blur the pattern slightly. Last night they had made up a pallet for Jack and Ralph on the floor, so that Francis might have sole use of the bed they usually shared. Now, in the dead watches of the night, the two other boys were curled up together so silent in their sleep than Anne found herself holding her own breath to hear if they were breathing still.
Francis was restless, twisting this way and that until the blankets and the pieced quilt tangled his limbs. He fought against them then, coughing and moaning, but still half sleeping, half waking. The smouldering coals in the brazier gave off an ochre-yellow smoke than wound lazily about the room in the draughts from the ill-fitting window, until it settled about the beams of the ceiling, whose plaster bore the traces of other braziers which had been lit here by other tenants. Anne feared that the coal smoke would aggravate the congestion in Francis’s chest, but could think of no other way to keep him warm. She had packed him about with warmed bricks wrapped in flannel, but he fretted at their hard edges and pushed them away.
He had refused food all day, except for a little broth at supper time, but he had vomited that almost at once. His eyes, dark and reproachful, had watched her as she cleaned him and fetched fresh bedding.
‘I said I didn’t want to eat,’ he complained, ‘and now see what’s happened.’
‘You’ll grow weak if you eat nothing,’ she said, keeping her voice brisk. The smell of vomit still soured the air. ‘We’ll try again later. Now, you must drink this infusion, and then you’ll feel better. Feverfew to ease the fever, sage for the thickness in your chest, and meadowsweet to chase away your pain.’
‘I don’t want it!’ he wailed, but submitted in the end as she spooned the bitter liquid into his mouth.
Afterwards she rubbed his chest and his aching joints with a salve made from nettles, monkshood and other warming herbs. He tried to resist as she rubbed and turned him, but he was grown as weak as an infant and soon fell into a troubled slumber.
Now, with the household all asleep around her, Anne rose stiffly from her chair beside the bed, pressing her hands into the small of her aching back. She stepped over to the window and tried to peer out through the armour of frost, but
could make out nothing but one small glow where a single pitch torch burned at the end of the lane.
‘Mama?’
She started and turned. Francis lay very still, his thin body barely visible beneath the bedclothes, but his eyes were wide, reflecting the light from the candle on the coffer beside the bed.
‘Yes, my pet?’ She sat down beside him again, and took his hand in hers under the blankets. It was cold and limp as a wet dishclout.
‘Mama, am I like to die?’
He was regarding her steadily, with no expression on his face save in those eyes, darkened and enlarged with fever.
‘Nay, of course not, dear heart.’ She brushed back the damp hair from his forehead and kissed him lightly. ‘You’ve nothing but a tiresome fever and cough. If you’re a good boy and take my potions, you’ll soon be well again.’
‘I’m not afraid to die. Everyone must die, must they not?’
‘Aye, but not for a long while yet. You must grow to be a great man like your father first. And marry, and have children of your own.’
‘Swinfen won’t be mine, though. Dick will have Swinfen.’
‘Aye, Dick will have Swinfen. But we have other manors. Perhaps you’ll live at Thickbroome.’
‘I liked it when we lived at Thickbroome.’
He shifted restlessly, pushing away the blankets. Anne pulled them up and tucked them in again.
‘Do you remember Thickbroome? You were only a little lad.’
‘Aye. I remember the Black Brook, and how it roared after rain. I mislike London, Mama.’
‘I too. Well, we may soon be going back to Swinfen.’
‘I’d like that. Can I sit on your lap, Mama?’
She drew her chair closer to the brazier, then gathered him up in his blankets and settled him on her lap. He was silent for a long while, gazing at the changing landscapes of the fire with his head resting on her shoulder. Then he sighed and nuzzled his head against her neck.
‘You mustn’t be sad if I should die, Mama, for truly I’m not afraid.’
One of the Commons’ clerks came and rang a handbell at the top of the steps up to the Palace of Westminster, and the members trudged wearily back to the chamber just as the Abbey clock struck two of the morning. The green benches were less crowded now, for some of the members had taken advantage of the few minutes’ break to slip away home. At the time of the earlier vote, there had been three hundred and forty present. John scanned the slumped figures and reckoned that not many more than two hundred were still in their seats.
The debate dragged on with desultory speeches, but Lenthall would not allow the vote until every man who wished to speak had had his chance. Despite his attempted impartiality, it was clear to any who knew him that he wanted the motion to fail. When at last all the members had fallen silent, the window behind the Speaker’s chair was turning slowly from black to grey, and the candles, renewed twice during the hours of darkness, dulled as the chamber grew a little less dark. The increasing light revealed a crowd of exhausted men wan and dishevelled from watching out the night in disputation. Some had kept themselves awake by taking a pipe of tobacco, adding to the closeness of the room and the stale, sour taste of the air. Some had loosened the strings at the necks of their shirts and unbuttoned their doublets, so that the Speaker was moved to reprimand them for their slovenliness. Some had kicked off their shoes and found their feet so swollen with sitting that they struggled to pull them on again.
When John judged that the debate had at last died from exhaustion, he caught the Speaker’s eye. He had not thought he would have to wait nearly twenty-four hours before putting the final case for the peace party. This was no time for speech-making. Even his friends eyed him sullenly as he stood up, stiff with sitting on the backless bench. His head throbbed with the foul air and lack of sleep, and he could barely focus his eyes on the Speaker, who seemed to swim in a miasma of pale light and smoke. He spoke for less than five minutes, doing little more than summing up what Nat Fiennes had said four days earlier—that the concessions made by the king with regard to the bishops, to the offices of state, to the army, and to the powers and prerogatives of Parliament, met all the principal demands made by this House. He cleared his dry throat, trying to marshal the thoughts in his weary brain after two sleepless nights, one spent in tending his sick child, one in caring for his ailing nation.
‘I beg of you,’ he said, his voice cracked with passion, ‘I plead with you, fellow members of this great House, in whose hands the fate of England rests: Reflect before you vote! A vote to reject this motion, a vote against proceeding on the basis of the Treaty to procure an honourable settlement for the peace of the kingdom, is a vote that will call down upon you infamy, and the curses of your children’s children! I beg you not to take actions which will prolong the bloody war that has set neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend, brother against brother. Vote for the motion, and let us embark on the road to a just peace, with honour and integrity. I move that the motion be put to the vote.’
And it was so put. The tellers returned the verdict of the House: the Ayes were one hundred and twenty-nine, the Nays were a mere eighty-three. It was a famous victory for the peace party, since many of their number, the older men, had long before this collapsed with fatigue. The Commons had voted for good sense and an end to war. Tired as they were, the moderates broke into riotous cheers, they clapped each other upon the back, they threw their hats in the air. But the opposite party did not slink away defeated. They cursed their enemies and shouted that the business was not settled, that those voting for peace had the army still to deal with, and they should look to the safety of themselves and their families.
Lenthall imposed order on this angry pandemonium, but when he had restored quiet he made his own comment on the outcome.
‘The vote of this House is duly recorded. But,’ he warned, ‘if you adhere to the vote, it will inevitably mean your own destruction.’
What would the army do next? That was the question on everyone’s lips. The members decided that the Commons must maintain contact with the General Council of the Army. As their final action before rising, they appointed a committee to go to the royal Palace of Whitehall, which the army had seized yesterday to serve as its headquarters, ‘for the keeping and preserving a good correspondence between the Parliament and the Army’.
The strength of John’s party remaining in the chamber ensured that they were able to appoint four of their own to this committee. Two staunch Presbyterians were also appointed. They were more extreme against episcopacy than the moderates were, but both were friends of John’s: Maynard and Colonel Birch. The radicals secured one place, Prideaux, who had spoken against the motion.
‘Prideaux may be of the opposite party,’ John said to Crewe, who was sagging on the bench beside him, ‘but although he has many friends in the army, I think he has no wish to see the House destroyed, whatever he feels about treating with the king.’
Crewe grunted in reply. He seemed to have aged twenty years during the night and looked old and frail.
Lenthall ruled the session at an end.
‘As far as I can judge,’ he said, looking around at the weary men on both sides of the chamber, ‘this has been the longest session ever held in the entire history of the House of Commons.’
The mid-morning winter sun surrounded his chair with a dusty halo as he rose and left the chamber. John gave his arm to Crewe as he got groaning to his feet with a snapping of his knee joints. They walked out of the House together, with Fiennes and Stephens and Clotworthy in a group behind them.
Out in the thin sunshine, John turned and smiled at his friends, suddenly revived by the cold wind and the sight of the new day.
‘We have won!’ he cried. ‘God be praised, we have won the day and the vote is for peace!’
When John reached home late on Tuesday morning, he found it all in a bustle with the maids packing chests and bundles, their fac
es tear-stained. He had been gone for more than a day. The business of the House had so absorbed him that he had quite forgotten the instructions he had left with Anne on Sunday, and for a moment he wondered what could have happened in his absence. Then he remembered, greeting Anne somewhat shame-faced.
‘You are busy about the packing, then?’
The look she turned on him was strained and not altogether friendly.
‘Those were your orders, husband.’
‘Come now,’ he said, kissing her cheek, ‘are you not pleased to see me? And can a man not find a bite to eat when it’s Tuesday and he has had naught but scraps since Sunday?’
‘And could not a man send to his wife to say that he will not be home all night, with the army roaming the streets and rumours flying through the air? I thought some terrible disaster had befallen, until John Crewe’s man brought me word this morning that the House was still in session.’
‘I’m sorry, Anne.’ He was contrite. He had never thought of how she would worry when he had not come home the previous night. ‘How is Francis? Did you send for the physician?’
‘He’s a little better,’ she said, looking only somewhat mollified. ‘My home-brewed physic has eased the fever and loosened the cough. There’s no need to have him bled.’
‘I’ll go up and see him. Will you send me something to eat in our chamber? I must sleep or I shall fall down here where I stand.’
He started up the stairs, then called after her as she hurried towards the kitchen.
‘Anne? I’ve asked some friends to take supper with us tonight. Crewe and Fiennes and Clotworthy. Stephens and Birch may come as well.’
She stopped and looked up at him. Her face was blank and her eyes somewhat chilly.
‘As well we have food enough in the house. It’s said the soldiers will eat all London out of victuals.’