by Ann Swinfen
He came back down the stairs and took her hands.
‘I’m truly sorry to have frightened you, Anne. Don’t be angry with me. And I can send to them not to come tonight, if you would prefer.’
She gripped his fingers hard.
‘I was very afraid when you didn’t come home.’ She choked back a sob, the frozen calm of her face shattering as her eyes searched his. ‘And Francis was so ill in the night. But of course your friends must sup with us. Won’t you tell me whether the votes have been cast?’
‘But of course!’ He laughed at himself. ‘It has all been so . . . And I’m half asleep with debating all night. We’ve won! The House has accepted the Treaty as a basis to negotiate for peace with the king.’
She hugged him briefly.
‘That’s wondrous news. Whatever may happen now, you know that Parliament has voted as you knew it should, as all right-thinking people want—for peace. Now, go and see Francis and I’ll bring you something myself. The girls are too busy.’
‘They’re upset?’
‘They lose their places if we leave, and they’re afraid of the soldiers. I’ll do what I can to find them something, but I don’t know if there will be time.’
‘Perhaps it’s all for nothing. We’ve sent a committee to parley with the General Council of the Army.’
Suddenly he yawned so wide his jaw gave a cracking sound.
‘Go to bed,’ she said.
The small house in St Ann’s Lane was a warm haven that evening amidst the snow which had begun again and now fell thick, soon settling on rooftops and streets, hiding the soot-blackened walls, laying a soft blanket over the grotesque protuberances that sprouted from the huddled buildings of this stifled city, sweetening the muddy shores of the river, where a few families were still taking boat for the south bank. All was quiet in Palace Yard and in the narrow streets round about. The Swynfens’ guests came in stamping their boots and shaking snow from their cloaks. Beside the roaring coal fire Peter had built up in the parlour they steamed gently as they toasted the back of their breeches and drank generous tankards of spiced wine.
The mood was uproarious. Refreshed by a few hours’ sleep, all the guests were full of optimism. After the long tragedy of war, it seemed they might at last have secured an end to hatred and bloodshed.
‘The people of England will thank us for this day’s work!’ Crewe exclaimed. ‘Mark my words.’
‘Our names will go down in the history of England,’ Stephens said, somewhat thickly, for he had stopped off at a tavern on his way. ‘We are the men who ended the Civil War.’
‘Your meeting with the Army Council, Birch,’ said John, refilling the colonel’s tankard, ‘how did you fare?’ Birch, the member for Leominster, loomed against the ceiling, his big body tight in its costly doublet.
‘We fared ill,’ said Birch bitterly. His voice had never lost its flat Lancashire vowels during his years as a merchant and soldier in Bristol and Herefordshire. ‘Kept us kicking our heels in a royal waiting-room at Whitehall, like poor suppliants for the king’s favour, then sent us away, saying they were too busy to see us.’
There were exclamations of anger from the others.
‘They are become puffed up with monstrous pride,’ Crewe said. ‘How dare such men as Ireton and Fairfax and Ludlow behave so towards a committee of Parliament!’
‘They’re indeed prideful,’ said John, ‘but perhaps also they don’t know what to do. They may have believed they would win the vote in the House. Having lost, they must devise a new strategy. Now, if you’re all warmed through, come and eat.’
As John and his friends sat down to supper in St Ann’s Lane, a few streets away six men assembled around another table in a private chamber near the Long Gallery in Whitehall Palace. A fire had been hastily lit, but the room remained dank and chilly, abandoned since the royal family had fled London. The Lord General Fairfax, commander-in-chief of the army, was conspicuously not present. Ireton took the head of the table, and glanced around at the small group of like-minded men, appointed by the larger gathering of the army party which had met immediately after the session in the House finished.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We have determined the conditions for placing a member on this list. Let us proceed through the alphabet. Ludlow? Any names amongst the A’s?’
Ludlow had spread out in front of him the printed register of the members of Parliament. He studied it and shook his head. ‘None amongst the A’s. The B’s? Aye. Birch. Boughton. Browne. Bulkeley . . .’
Ireton dipped his pen in the ink and began to write.
Chapter Seven
John started early for the Commons that cold Wednesday morning. There had been shouting in the streets during the night and he was anxious to discover what was afoot. When he kissed Anne absent-mindedly at the door, she held him back by the arm.
‘John, must you go to the Commons today?’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘Aye. Don’t worry.’ He patted her cheek. ‘Peter? Give me my thickest cloak. The wine velvet with the cream silk quilted lining. This winter grows more bitter with every day that passes.’
She stood watching him put on his cloak, her hands clenched together and pressed against her chest as though in pain. Her face was pinched with lack of sleep, dark smudges beneath her eyes as blue as ink.
‘The soldiers . . .’ she pleaded, ‘and Francis so ill. Surely, now the vote is safely passed, you could stay at home for just one day?’
He buckled on his sword, half turned towards the open door.
‘Keep the door barred,’ he said. ‘And Francis is a little better, surely? Of course I must go to the Commons, there’s much still to do. The war party may try some trickery.’
Peter handed John his hat, but Anne seized it and threw it on the stairs.
‘Listen to me, John!’
He turned back to her in astonishment.
‘What ails you, Anne?’
‘Nothing ails me! Rather ask, what ails you? Your children need you! I need you!’
Tears were pouring down her cheeks and suddenly she was shouting. She never shouted. John drew back a step.
‘I have my duty, Anne. I must go to Westminster. This is no time for hysterics.’
‘I am not hysterical!’ she cried. ‘I am begging you this once, the only time I have ever begged you, to forget your duty to Westminster and remember your duty to your family.’
She had seized his arm again and was shaking it, her face blotched with anger and weeping.
John withdrew his arm and picked up his hat.
‘I cannot forget my duty to Westminster,’ he said coldly, though his heart was pounding fast and erratically, and his breath caught in his throat. ‘Calm yourself, Anne. This is not like you.’
‘Perhaps I am always too calm,’ she shouted. ‘Ever since you came to Parliament, we have been like two ships drifting further and further apart on a rough sea. I think we have almost lost sight of each other.’
She drew a long shuddering breath and went on more quietly, although her hands were shaking.
‘There was a time when we had one mind, one heart, in two bodies. Even when we were children. And when we were wed—we shared everything. I don’t mean only a bed. We used to share our thoughts, we talked to each other.’
‘Anne,’ he was growing angry himself, ‘we still talk. Have I not been telling you everything that is happening in Parliament?’
‘Parliament!’ she said drearily. ‘You really do not understand what I am saying, do you?’
‘No,’ he answered curtly. ‘I do not. Nor, I think, do you understand how your behaviour must seem, to the servants,’ he nodded towards Peter, who was pressed back uncomfortably against the wall, ‘and to the children, who will hear you, and the neighbours.’
‘Dear God!’ she cried, ‘What care I for that? I am begging you, one last time, stay here with us today and let the Commons survive, if it can, without your p
resence.’
He shook his head and turned away.
‘I cannot.’
She fled up the stairs and before Peter closed the door behind him he could hear her break into great wracking sobs.
It was an ominous start to what should be a joyful day. In truth, he realised with a sense of guilt, he wanted to go to the Commons not so much out of duty as from eagerness to triumph in yesterday’s victory over the war party. Yet this strange behaviour of Anne’s filled him with anger and apprehension. They almost never quarrelled, and he could not remember a time when she had ever attacked him with such passion. As he approached Palace Yard, his sense of dread deepened. He could hear shouting in the distance. There were soldiers everywhere and no sign of the London militia. Troops of the New Model Army, both cavalry and infantry, patrolled Palace Yard and blocked the entrance to the Court of Requests. John made his way round to the door of Westminster Hall and found that the hucksters and small shopkeepers who did business there had all been turned out in the snow, where they stood about in an angry crowd, complaining loudly. He could see no other members of Parliament, but a double row of armed soldiers lined the approach to the Palace of Westminster. All wore swords and carried muskets. He accosted an officer standing, apparently on duty, near the foot of the steps.
‘Who are these men?’ John demanded angrily. ‘You have no business here, surrounding this free Parliament.’
The man stared at him insolently. ‘And what’s that to you, fellow? We are Colonel Rich’s horse and Colonel Pride’s foot. We’re here carrying out the orders of the Army Council. Now get along out of here. Go home to your shopkeeping.’ He raised his hand to push John in the chest. John’s hand went to the dagger in his belt, but he bit down his anger.
‘I am an elected member of the House of Commons,’ he said coldly. ‘Get out of my way, or I will summon the Sergeant-at-Arms and have you thrown in prison for interfering with the business of government.’
‘Aye, sir!’ shouted someone from the crowd of tradesmen. ‘You tell him where to stick his musket!’ Several others cheered.
‘Member of Parliament, are you?’ said the man with a grin, showing blackened teeth. He seemed not to care a fig for John’s threats. ‘Then you’d best speak to Colonel Pride. He’s waiting at the top of the steps into the House.’
Colonel Pride was a bumptious, self-important little fellow, whom John had encountered once or twice before. He was a man from nowhere, though it was whispered that he had been a foundling abandoned in a basket on the steps of St Bride’s church, which had bestowed on him his name. But over the years Bride had become Pride, and the man now made a pretence of being a gentleman, dressing like a fop and speaking with exaggerated care to cover his humble origins, having progressed from brewer’s drayman to officer in the New Model Army. John could admire the man for making something of himself after such a sorry beginning, but he despised the affectation and hypocrisy which sought to conceal it.
Pride was indeed standing at the top of the steps, with a confused and worried-looking doorman beside him, and a group of armed troopers, with their swords drawn, standing behind. As John climbed the steps, he was seized with misgiving. He did not care for those drawn swords at Parliament’s door. His steps slowed as he mounted higher. This show of military strength could mean only one thing. The army was prepared to enforce its will at sword point, in defiance of legitimate government. To make an armed attack on Parliament! Was the coterie of army officers planning to force the dissolution of Parliament? Or had they something even more dangerous in mind, the trial and execution of those who opposed them? In these lawless times, it was more than a possibility.
Cromwell believed himself to be the instrument of God. It was his contention that anything he set his hand to, if it prospered, must be the will of God, for God spoke to him directly, bidding him what to do. By this argument, if he succeeded in killing his political enemies, even members of the Commons going about their lawful business, the deed must be virtuous and providential, because he was God’s chosen one. A man like Cromwell would contend that the destruction of Parliament by the sword was righteous merely because he ordered it. Against such spiritual arrogance, a man like John, who did not believe himself to be God’s hand on earth, had little defence.
He found that he had stopped halfway up the stairs. Fearing to appear a coward, he ran up the remaining steps. Colonel Pride held a long sheet of paper in his hand, which flapped and struggled in the wind, so that he had to fight to hold on to it. He muttered something to the doorkeeper, who glanced at John, then slid his eyes away, as if ashamed, as he answered. Pride swept off his hat and bowed low to John.
‘Sir,’ he said courteously. ‘Master Swynfen, Member of Parliament for Stafford?’
John looked at him stonily, but did not reply.
‘Sir,’ said Pride, his obsequious smile slipping a little and showing a brief flash of something satisfied and malicious in his eyes. ‘I have orders to prevent you from entering this House and to place you under immediate arrest.’
Two of the armed men moved forward and seized John by the arms.
‘I claim the privilege of this House,’ said John levelly, although his heart was beating fast. The men were large, tough-looking rogues. ‘You have no power to arrest an elected Member of Parliament without authority of this house. You are guilty of treason, colonel.’
‘Take him away,’ said Pride, waving his hand. He dipped his quill in the portable ink well he wore at his belt and made a mark on his paper.
Before John could be led away, Lord Grey of Groby came out to join Pride and whispered in his ear. A parliamentary clerk was sent inside. Then, at the door leading to the Commons, there was a brief commotion. Edward Stephens and John Birch, who must have arrived too early for Pride, or somehow slipped in unnoticed, were looking round the door to discover what was happening outside.
‘Seize them!’ cried Pride.
‘Privilege! Privilege!’ the two members yelled as they were grabbed by the armed soldiers. The crowd below began to shout and the mounted troopers rode forward to herd them back, away from the steps. Scuffles broke out. John saw a man struck down by a sword thrust from a trooper. Women started to scream. There was blood on the snow. Then he lost sight of the injured man as the crowd surged protectively around him. The troopers halted, but remained confronting the people, their swords held ready.
John Birch, a colonel of the army himself and no coward, broke free from the soldiers who had seized him and leaned back into the chamber.
‘Do you sit there still?’ he shouted to those few members who had been permitted by Pride to take their places in the House. ‘Will you suffer your fellow members to be pulled out thus violently before your faces, and yet sit still? For shame!’
As John, together with Stephens and Birch, was hurried away from the steps, a loud altercation broke out behind them. Both they and their guards halted to watch. No one would expect William Prynne to accept such treatment quietly. Pride was barring his way up the stairs.
‘Master Prynne, you must not go into the House.’
‘I am a member of this House, sir,’ Prynne shouted furiously, ‘and I am going into it to discharge my duty.’
Prynne pushed up a step or two more, but Sir Hardress Waller came to Pride’s assistance with more armed men and began dragging Prynne down and away towards the entrance to the Court of Requests. Prynne fought them angrily.
‘This is an high breach of the privileges of Parliament,’ he yelled, so that he could be heard by all around, ‘and an affront to the House.’
He turned and waved his arms at the gaping bystanders. The crowd of tradesmen had not dispersed but had been swollen by many more citizens, astounded and furious at these actions taking place before the very doors of Parliament. Prynne was a popular hero, recently fêted, on his release from prison, by these same citizens dancing and cheering, and wearing festive rosemary and bay in their hats. They stared at him, thus violently arrested, in
dismay. There were more angry shouts from the crowd, defying the troopers.
‘Take note, you citizens of London and people of England,’ Prynne cried, ‘how these lawless men seek to replace one tyranny with another, the tyranny of the Stuart king with the tyranny of armed might! I am a man unarmed, going about my duties as your elected representative to this lawful Parliament. These men, being more and stronger than I, and all armed, may forcibly carry me whither they please. But stir I will not from this place of my own accord.’
At that, the soldiers put an end to it by picking him up roughly by the legs and shoulders, and carrying him off.
John and the others were hustled away, but not far. They were thrust into the open yard of the Queen’s Court, which was ringed by a hundred or more soldiers with drawn swords. John was stripped of his sword and dagger, leaving him with nothing but the small pocket-knife he used to cut up his food. A few fellow members were already there, moderates and some of the more outspoken Presbyterians. Prynne was carried in amongst them, still struggling, and was dumped without ceremony on the snowy ground, where he lay a moment, regaining his breath. Birch helped him to his feet.
‘Save your strength, man,’ he said to the still expostulating lawyer. ‘You are among none but friends here.’
Soon afterwards, the Sergeant-at-Arms hurried into the Queen’s Court. He announced that Master Doddridge, who had arrived in company with Master Prynne, had informed the House what was happening. The Sergeant-at-Arms himself had been ordered by the House to come to the members here gathered, and invite them to return and take their seats. There was a surge forward amongst the prisoners, but the guards rushed to surround them tightly with a clash of their drawn swords. The low winter sun glinted on steel blade and breastplate. A surly-looking fellow dressed as a captain bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the Sergeant-at-Arms.
‘I regret, sir,’ he said, ‘that you must inform the House that I cannot release these malefactors without orders from my superior officers.’