by Ann Swinfen
‘The guards stood firm at Haberdashers’ Hall and Goldsmiths’ Hall,’ said Jacob. ‘But at Weavers’ Hall they fled or were driven away by the soldiers, who battered down the door and have been carting away the money ever since.’
‘Ah,’ said John, ‘so that’s the meaning of the procession of carts I’ve seen going into Whitehall Palace. I thought they were carrying victuals.’
‘The army’s everywhere,’ said Jacob, a note of panic in his voice. ‘They’ve the artillery drawn up at Blackfriars. From what I’ve heard, there are detachments in Cheapside, Paternoster Row, Lombard Street. The very heart of the City is heaving with them like a stinking, maggoty cheese.’
A little later, John Crewe received a bundle from his wife. She had little book-learning and had only managed to write a note of two lines, expressing her relief at knowing he was safe: fore alle doe wondir qwhat is becom of you. She sent him two clean shirts, a pair of woollen stockings and a large fruit cake, which he generously shared with his fellow prisoners.
‘This puts me in mind of my student days at Cambridge,’ said John, dusting cake crumbs off his doublet. ‘Whenever a parcel came from home: Would it be money or would it be food? I think my mind hasn’t dwelt so much on food since those days, until now.’
‘It’s hard for a man not to think of food in prison,’ said Prynne, ‘for meals mark out the hours and help the days to pass.’
Afternoon grew towards evening and the light began to drain from the sky all the more rapidly because of the gathering storm. Five of the prisoners in the room had received some acknowledgement of the letters they had sent. They became more relaxed and cheerful now that their families knew where they were. The air grew heavy with thunder, night closed in and the storm broke, but no word had come to John.
All went well enough as the hackney carriage drove down from Bishopsgate to Corn Hill and Cheapside, where the streets were now mostly empty, even of soldiers, but as they drew near St Paul’s and Newgate Market, Anne could hear, even with the windows closed, that there was a noisy disturbance outside. The driver reined in the horses. Anne lowered the window and leaned out as far as she could without disturbing Nan. There seemed to be some kind of brawl further ahead in the street. The driver called out to a group of citizens standing in the doorway of a tavern watching the fight but keeping a safe distance.
‘What’s afoot over yonder by the market?’ he asked.
A man in a greasy workman’s cap stepped up to the carriage and rested his hand on the lowered window. Anne immediately sat back in the seat, retreating into the corner. He had a face brutally marked with the smallpox, and a mouthful of blackened, pointed teeth.
‘A fight, that’s what’s afoot,’ said the man, enveloping Anne in the sour smell of cheap drink and too much of it. He was addressing the driver, but his eyes were fixed on Anne, assessing her.
‘Aye, a fight,’ said the driver in exasperation, ‘but who is fighting?’
‘A crowd of butchers from Newgate Market who take it ill that the soldiers should help themselves to their best beef. And a crowd of soldiers who think ’tis their right to take what they please.’
The man’s hand began to feel forward into the carriage, groping for Anne. She shrank back, and Nan stirred and moaned in her sleep.
‘Where are you bound for?’ It was a plump man in an apron, most likely the tavern-keeper, stepping forward.
‘Holborn.’
‘Then you’d best avoid St Paul’s. It’s swarming with soldiers. You must press on along Cheapside and Newgate Street, unless you want to turn back and find your way west along the river, by Thames Street and Blackfriars. I’d go by Newgate. If you move fast, they’ll scarce notice you, being too much took up in their fight.’
The driver jumped down and came to the window, pushing the workman aside.
‘Well, mistress, which is it to be?’
‘I think we should go by Newgate,’ said Anne, ‘if you think you can drive past them without danger. We’ve no time to go wandering all over London.’
The driver climbed back up into his seat and set off again at a smart pace. Anne pulled up the window by its strap and hooked it in place. Her heart was beating painfully, yet the ruffian from the tavern had done nothing, despite his frightening appearance, save lean too close into the carriage. She had no time to think about it further, because they had drawn level with the brawl between the butchers and the soldiers. There were men battered and bloody on the ground, and several knots of struggling bodies. It was almost impossible to tell, in the near dark, which were the butchers and which the soldiers. Neither side seemed to be winning.
They were nearly past when someone noticed the carriage and gave a yell. Two men, soldiers by the helmets they wore, broke loose from the melee and ran towards them. Anne saw one swing his arm back. There was a crash as the small rear window of the carriage smashed. Fragments of glass flew everywhere, and a large stone, just missing Anne’s head, fell between her feet. The driver whipped up the horses to a gallop, sending the carriage careering behind like a small boat in a choppy sea.
‘Peter!’ cried Anne. ‘Are you hurt?’
Nan woke with a wail.
Peter was fingering his face. ‘I don’t think so, mistress. I’ve a graze here by my ear, but it don’t seem much.’
The old man had been facing the window and might have lost an eye. Anne felt the back of her head. Her hat had fallen backward when the driver set off at speed from the tavern and now she found that there were knife-sharp bits of glass lodged in her hair. She began to pick them out, throwing them through the window. Nan was so swaddled in blankets that she was untouched, but the blankets were sprinkled over with glass like sugar on a cake. Peter and Anne were still clearing away the pieces when the carriage crossed the Fleet, mounted the hill beyond and drew up in Holborn.
Anne stopped the carriage only for a moment at the Colemans’ house and sent Peter in with a message that Dick was not to be allowed to come home from Charterhouse. While he was gone she shook out the blankets and the driver helped her to wedge one of them in the broken window, for the driving rain was soaking the seat. Doctor Coleman followed Peter out into the rain and wind to beg Anne not to continue any further with her perilous journey.
‘I was ill-used by a band of ruffians myself,’ he said, ‘on my way home from Whitehall. They knocked me about and stole my purse. I beseech you, Anne, don’t carry on with this foolishness. You can spend the night here and go home to Westminster in the morning.’
Anne laid her finger on her lips.
‘Hush, Charles, Nan has fallen asleep again. I must go back. There’s none in charge at home but Patience Wyatt, who’s little more than a child herself, with all the younger children and servants in her care. And Francis has been ill. I couldn’t rest easy here.’
‘It will be curfew in less than half an hour. You’ll be arrested.’
‘They’ll not arrest a woman great with child.’
‘You think not? You have more confidence in their decency than I have.’
‘I thank you for your kindness, Charles, but I must go. Get in, Peter. The quicker we’re on our way, the sooner we shall be there.’
As they drove away, Charles stood before the door of his house, still shaking his head at her folly.
From Holborn back down Chancery Lane and the turn right into Fleet Street and so on to the Strand. It was full dark now, and the darkest night Anne had ever seen in London, for not a single torch was lit before any citizen’s door and few windows showed even the pale glow of candle-light. The only lights to be seen in the streets were the watch fires of the soldiers mounting guard at street corners. The driver kept up a brisk pace. Once or twice some of the soldiers stepped forward as if they would stop the carriage, but its air of purposefulness made them hesitate. It neither rushed past with frantic haste nor crept furtively along. The soldiers looked at each other and shrugged, then let it pass. It might have been one of the army offic
ers’ carriages going about the business of the state. Inside the carriage, Anne kept as deep in the corner as she could, in the hope that they might not be made curious by the sight of a woman travelling about the streets after curfew.
All continued well until they reached the Cross at Charing, not far past the King’s Head, where, had she known it, John was eating his supper in silence, worried that he had still received no reply to the letter he had sent nine hours earlier. At Charing Cross a troop of cavalry was drawn up, as well as infantrymen on guard, with a grey-haired captain in command. The carriage was ordered to halt, and the captain came to the carriage and flung the door open so that Anne all but fell out. He glowered at her and at the nervous figure of Peter who, in the light of the candle lantern held by the officer, looked ill and exhausted. The captain turned to Anne with a haughty expression. Panic seized her. Imprisonment, even death, might be the penalty for breaking the curfew.
‘And where do you go, mistress, at this hour of the night, against the orders of the Army Council?’
Anne cleared her throat and tried to speak, but could make no sound, as if she were trapped in some nightmare. ‘We were caught by the storm and delayed,’ she managed to whisper at last.
He stared at her, saying nothing.
‘We’ll be home in ten minutes, captain,’ she pleaded. ‘I need to put my little girl to bed, and I have another sick child at home.’
The man leaned into the carriage. He had not noticed Nan. His lantern, lighting up the inside of the carriage, set off glints from pieces of broken glass that Anne and Peter had overlooked in the dark.
‘What’s this?’
‘Someone threw a stone at us by Newgate Market,’ said Anne.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Nay, God be thanked. But I beg you to let us continue. I’m weary to the bone, and nearly eight months gone with child.’
He lifted the lantern higher and studied her shape, then gave a grunt.
‘And your name?’
Anne thought quickly. Best to be careful.
‘Mistress Grace Coleman. Wife to the musician Doctor Charles Coleman.’
Safer than mentioning John’s name. Surely the army had no grudge against a musician?
The captain stood back, considering. ‘Very well, you may continue. And you,’ he said, looking up at the driver, ‘where’s the station for your carriage?’
‘Just beyond you here, sir, at Whitehall.’
‘Very well. If you’re not back here and your horses stabled within twenty minutes, I’ll have my troopers after you and confiscate your horses.’
‘Never doubt it, sir.’
The weary horses clopped over the cobbles past Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster, and a few minutes later came to a stop in front of the house in St Ann’s Lane. The driver carried Nan into the house, followed by Peter with the blankets and the empty food basket, and the footwarmers, now cold as poverty.
Anne caught hold of the door frame to steady herself, for she could barely keep on her feet. As the driver came out again she touched his sleeve.
‘I’m grateful to you, friend, for without your courage and steadiness, we could never have accomplished this.’
He pulled off his cap and smiled for the first time that day.
‘We must help each other in these troubled times. I pray Master Swynfen comes home safe.’
‘You know who I am?’
‘There’s not much the hackney drivers don’t know, mistress. Master Swynfen is well loved. And I hope all goes well for you.’
Anne felt in her pocket with her cold fingers and pulled out a half-crown piece.
‘Money is poor reward for your help, but I hope you will take this.’
‘You’ve already paid me for the full day’s hire.’
‘Nay!’ She laughed. ‘Don’t be so proud!’ She pressed the coin into his hand, which was callused from the reins and blue with cold. ‘It will buy a little extra meat and drink for your loved ones.’
‘I thank you, mistress.’
He put his cap back on, climbed up on to the seat and drove swiftly away back towards Whitehall.
Patience rushed out of the door and put her arms around Anne.
‘Oh, Mistress Swynfen, I’ve been quite frantic with worry. Come in by the fire. Hester is putting a supper for you in the parlour.’
‘I must see to Nan.’
‘Bess has already taken her off to bed. She’s walking in her sleep.’
‘And Peter?’
‘Sitting in the kitchen, telling his adventures.’
‘Francis, how is Francis?’
‘Much better. He’s done nothing all day but eat like a very soldier. He’s truly better. Come.’
She tugged at Anne’s arm. As soon as they were through the door she slammed it closed and shot the bolts, then sighed with relief.
‘I’m glad to shut the world out this night.’ She turned to look at Anne and gave a cry of distress. ‘Mistress Swynfen, your face! What has happened? Your face is cut!’
Anne put her hand to her cheek where Patience pointed, and it came away sticky with blood.
‘I didn’t think I was hurt. The window was broken by a stone and glass flew all about the carriage. I must have been cut then and knocked it again just now, when I was getting out of the carriage.’
‘I’ll bring water to bathe it.’
Patience guided Anne to a chair beside the parlour fire, where she sank down gratefully, spreading out her damp skirts to the warmth.
‘But first, there’s a letter come.’ Patience handed it to Anne. ‘It was brought this morning, soon after you left, by the kitchen boy from the King’s Head in the Strand. I couldn’t get much sense from him; he was a mite simple. But I think it must be from the master.’
Anne gave a suppressed cry.
‘Just after I left? Oh, that I might have seen this first, before this terrible day!’
‘You’re safe home now.’ Patience busied herself heating a poker in the fire to plunge into the bowl of spiced wine to heat it. ‘And Nan home, too. But what of Dick?’
‘The Master of Charterhouse refused me leave to bring him away. He was most offensive.’
Anne slipped a sharp knife under the wax on the letter, which bore the mark of no seal. John had been wearing his seal-ring when he left home on Wednesday morning. The letter was certainly addressed in his writing, but he might have felt it safer not to seal it with his mark. She unfolded the rough sheet of paper and quickly read the few lines it contained.
‘God be praised, he’s safe!’ She pressed her hand to her heart. A sudden sharp physical pain had stabbed her in the chest like a knife. ‘He’s safe! They’re held now at the King’s Head—he doesn’t say where they were before. He wants clean linen.’
Patience brought a tankard of the hot wine and set it on the table beside her.
‘Here. Drink this. If he can think about clean linen, all must be reasonably well.’
‘He says: Send what else yu please for my comfort, but noe more than I can easily carry, for if wee are mov’d again, I wou’d not wish to bee burden’d. So he doesn’t expect to remain there long, I think. Nor to come home. Somehow, I must contrive to send him money, for they must pay for their own food.’
She pondered as she sipped the wine, which was heady with cloves and cinnamon. Patience had added pieces of dried apple and slices of Spanish orange which bobbed against Anne’s lips like sprightly fish. The drink tasted of Christmas festivities in happier times. Hester brought in a tray of supper—lamb cutlets and pease pudding and an apple tart. Anne fell upon it, aware suddenly how hungry she was.
‘I think we’ve work to do this night, Patience. We must sew coins into the bands of his shirts. That way, the money may have some chance of reaching him safely. I suspect the army guards will search any parcels for weapons or money.’
‘It’s a good thought,’ said Patience. ‘I’ll fetch some of Master Swynfen’s shirts at once and set about unpicking th
e sleeve bands.’
When she had left, Anne laid aside the tray and lowered herself with difficulty to her knees on the carpet before the fire. She was stiff with the long day’s journey in the carriage and heavy with the child, who kicked and turned as though it too was exhausted and fretful, and wanted to sleep. But they must both of them watch out the night until the task was complete. Anne prayed, as she had prayed in the Chapel at Charterhouse, not in the words of some set prayer, but in silent yearning. John was alive. He was, for the moment at least, safe. Gratitude warmed her from within. How long he would remain safe seemed to rest on the fickle spin of fortune’s wheel. She prayed for God’s protection. She prayed to hold John in her arms again, to wipe out the terrible memory of their parting.
Yet John’s future, and hers, depended on the actions and fates of so many others. This army cabal, suddenly powerful, with England cowering before the swords of its soldiers—how would it act in the next few days and weeks? Would its leaders ally themselves with the most violent of the sectaries and put the king on trial? If they did, it would be nothing but a mock trial whose outcome was decided in advance.
The king would die.
Like some ancient sacrifice, the king’s death would be as the sprinkling of sacred blood on his people, to bring forth a new age. Anne had no love for Charles Stuart, but she prayed for him that night. And if the king were to die, what would be the fate of those who had believed they could make peace with him? John was famed as one of the leading advocates for peace with honour. But in the eyes of Cromwell and Ireton, Anne knew, men like John would remain the hated enemy, because they spoke for tolerance and moderation, two ideas which were anathema to the fanatics who had now seized power.
John too might have to die.
When Patience returned, she found Anne still on her knees, shaking, her hands over her face.
‘Come, mistress,’ she said gently. ‘Let me put you to bed. You’re in no fit state to sit up all night at this work. I’ll sew the coins into the master’s shirts. Do you but find me the money and I can do it.’