by Ann Swinfen
They stayed a week at an inn in Shrewsbury. John spent much of the time at his preferred place near the window, looking out on those streets full of the destitute. The most remarkable thing about them was their silence. He thought they should have raised up their voices in lamentation, a roar against the injustice and cruelty of war, which had brought them to this state; aye, even a raging blasphemy against God Himself, who could so turn away from His children. John could not rid his mind of their faces, and in sleep he dreamt of them.
From Shrewsbury they followed the Roman road north and west into the wild northern parts of Wales. The difficulty of the country had defeated even those Roman engineers, who had laid their roads all over the Empire as straight as a builder’s plumb line. For now the road began to twist and turn like a writhing snake, as if, once they were in amongst these remote mountains, the Romans themselves had become infected by some fantastical Celtic dream. The road was ill-maintained, so the horses were hard put to draw the carriage, and the progress they made was so slow that they might as soon have walked. In Shrewsbury Captain Godbarrow had collected half a dozen musketeers from the garrison, who rode beside the carriage, with their guns at the ready, because this territory was notorious for brigands. Godbarrow and Hughes, who rode inside with John, were nervous, jumping at the sound of every crashing stone or branch snapped under the horses’ hooves. It was clear they had no liking for their task, and would have preferred facing a clean-cut enemy on a battlefield to travelling in this enclosed carriage, whose very strangeness in these savage parts drew attention to itself, making it a prison and a trap for them as much as for John. If travel through these mountains was terrible in the late summer, what must it be in winter?
Occasionally they passed through vile huddles of cottages, too mean to be distinguished with the appellation of village. The houses were built of rough stones prised from the ground, unshaped by mason’s chisel, piled up like any heap of rocks and plastered over with mud and dung. Their roofs were a kind of poor rush thatch bundled anyhow over the low dwellings, not skilfully cut and shaped like the straw thatch of the Midland counties, but a thatch so blackened and rotten, with time and the endless rain amongst these mountains, that it was indistinguishable from the surrounding mud. Indeed, from a few yards off, these squat hovels were almost invisible, except where a thread of smoke escaped through a hole in the roof.
The serpentine road wound its way through the mountains, following the natural crevices and valleys, but also climbing over precipitous outcrops. At night there were no inns, not even a miserable wayside tavern. They merely stopped beside the road wherever there was a semblance of shelter. Half the soldiers kept watch, while the rest tried to sleep, sitting up in the carriage with John.
It seemed impossible that the road could grow any worse, but at last they were obliged turn off the Roman road, which continued westwards, and head north on a track that was barely discernible. For four days they followed this track, in country so remote from human habitation that John began to wonder whether they could possibly still be in Britain, but instead were wandering through some deserted mountain range from the realms of legend. They passed a lake amongst the crags, sinister and silent, as though no boat had ever sailed upon its surface, as though it had never been visited by man since the dawn of Creation. At last, however, they came down into a pleasant, fertile valley, where there were a few scattered villages whose houses resembled the dwellings of men rather than of wild beasts. And so, on that evening of early autumn light, they drove up the steep approach to the castle of Denbigh, which, in all its battlemented might, was to be John’s new prison.
It was no worse a place than Stafford. And at first, at least, it appeared he was not to be subjected to torture. It almost seemed that his captors had forgotten why they were holding him. He was not summoned to an interview with the governor, although he did encounter the captain of the guard on the evening he arrived. A vicious, drunken brute, he looked. The demand that John should write a statement of compliance was not repeated. No one took much interest in his arrival. He was thrust into a cell in the prison tower and left, so it seemed, to rot at his leisure.
This prison cell was by no means as comfortable as his chamber at Stafford, nor was it as bad as the underground dungeon he had first occupied there. The walls were dry, there was a straw palliasse on a wooden shelf that served as a bed. And there was a window of sorts. This was not much more than an arrow slit, doubtless used in time of siege to shoot at any enemy attempting to storm the gate. Thus it was low enough for John to look through, making the place seem far less confined than that Stafford dungeon.
On his first morning, he gazed out upon a wide vista of rich farmlands in the valley below the crag on which the castle was built. Beyond, and closing in the view as far as he could see, were great mountains whose peaks, even on this warm autumn day, bore patches of snow. The prospect was both fearsome and awe-inspiring. Although he had been travelling in a carriage which had struggled through such mountains for days past, he had never been in a position to appreciate their size, whilst blundering about amongst their rocky crevasses. Now that he could see them whole and majestic, they took his breath away. Never before had he seen such mountains. He knew well the hilly country of Staffordshire, had travelled in the Cotswolds and visited the South Downs, but he understood now that those were mere wrinkles on the earth’s surface, compared with these geological colossi. They were both terrible and remarkable, and he felt humbly that his knowledge of God’s creation was paltry, a boy’s knowledge. If ever he were set free, scant though his hope was, he would make it his business to devote less time to the petty political affairs of men, and study more widely in the book of divine riches—the diverse and various earth he had so little appreciated before.
A long monotony of days began. He had his two books, his Bible and his Boethius, from which he read every day. He had brought with him from Stafford the small supply of paper which had been in his chamber there, and on this he began to set down his thoughts, a kind of continuous meditation, which he wrote in a very small hand, hoping not to use his paper too quickly. Apart from the loneliness and the boredom, it was not, at first, a difficult time, and the damage to the soles of his feet, and to the joints of his legs, which had begun to heal during the journey into Wales, was almost repaired, although his feet retained scars and he found when he rose from bed in the morning, or from sitting too long, that his joints were painful and stiff, like those of an elderly man. The old wound, from Tize’s musket ball, had healed over with a thin layer of skin, pale and glassy, and ached when he put his weight on that leg.
The most outwardly trying aspect of his new imprisonment was the captain of the guard, who had some particular hatred which he fixed upon John. There appeared to be no reason for it. The man was a total stranger. Yet he would come to John’s cell from time to time, generally when he had been drinking heavily, merely in order to curse the prisoner. He call him ‘king-lover’ and ‘boot-licker’ and ‘thieving rascal’, and many worse, foul-mouthed names. And first John tried to explain that he was no Royalist, but he might as well have addressed his remarks to one of the great boulders protruding from the mountainside. The man was deaf to everything he said, and gripped by some strange fanatical obsession. In the end, John learned merely to sit stony-faced through these assaults, or to stand, when he was ordered to stand. He even contrived not to flinch when the man pushed his face into John’s, his breath heavy with the stink of rotten teeth, and swore at him, his spittle spattering John’s face. The unexpectedness of these assaults unnerved him at first, but he grew accustomed to it. There is much, he had found, that a man may grow accustomed to.
Yet he was not at ease with his own mind. His scarred and abused body was but the outer shell of a mind bruised and darkened by these months of imprisonment and torment. He looked back at the self who had walked that last morning out of his home in Westminster as at a stranger, an innocent, blind fool of a man, wh
o believed peace could be won by reason and the goodwill of men. The innocent folly of that man had brought him to this, and at what cost? He had refused to set his hand to any document for Danvers, but for what gain? The incorruptibility of his own soul? A poor excuse for a soul, then, if it had cost his family dear. And of what value was his high-minded stance? He was no better than a pawn in Cromwell’s game. If he could have been turned to use, well and good; if not, he was lightly cast aside and disregarded. A worthless piece. A man easily forgotten. Diminished now, in his own eyes, to a useless scrap of detritus cast up on this remote shore. There seemed little to live for. He waited with grim patience for a final ending in death.
e
A change came in his circumstances after he had been in his cell at Denbigh for several weeks. He no longer attempted to keep track of the days, merely noticing the subtle changes in the season, which was moving surely through autumn now, the leaves beginning to flame red and gold in the orchards in the valley and in the forests on the lower mountain slopes.
About noon on a bright, crisp day, there was a stir of activity outside the gate as a cart was driven up. Carts arrived regularly with supplies for the garrison, but this cart had an escort of soldiers, and when it stopped a man was thrown out upon the ground, his wrists and ankles bound with chains. John’s heart stirred with both pity and alarm, for he knew what that man must feel, and he feared that the chaining of another prisoner might mean the same for him.
After a good deal of noise and shouting around the gate, the soldiers heaved the man to his feet and the cart drove off. He was a man who might once have been of impressive build, but he was gaunt and hunched now. Some years older than John, he had a great mane of greying dark hair, and a short, dense, curly beard. He was so tightly chained that he could only shuffle in small steps, like a bear John had once seen led through the streets of London. Indeed, there was something altogether bear-like about him, a trapped, humiliated bear, seemingly tamed by cruel keepers, but possibly dangerous yet.
Once the prisoner and his escort had disappeared from sight inside the gate, John heard no more of them until about an hour later, when the key grated in the lock of his cell door, and it was flung open. The new prisoner, who was even larger than he had looked from the window, was pushed into the cell with John, and the door slammed shut. The two men regarded each other warily. Then the newcomer spoke, using a language that was certainly not English.
John shook his head.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, speaking slowly. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘As well as you,’ said the other. ‘I thought, as we are in Wales, that you would be a Welshman.’
‘And you?’ said John. ‘Are you a Welshman?’
‘One half of me is Welsh, the other half English, and the two of them always at war. I have the heart of a Welshman and the head of an Englishman, and there’s a dangerous combination for you.’
He shuffled slowly across the room, his chains dragging and clanking behind him, and sat down on the bare wooden shelf opposite the one that served as John’s bed.
‘My name is Dafydd Williams,’ he said, ‘and I would shake your hand, as a fellow prisoner in this infernal place, were I not too weary to rise again.’
John smiled and crossed the room to him.
‘John Swynfen,’ he said, taking the man’s manacled hand, ‘and I’m proud to meet you, sir, though we be in like dire straits. And I must tell you that there are worse places than this, for we have light and air, and the food, though plain, is nourishing, and plentiful enough for a man who can take no more exercise than to walk ten paces in one direction, and then ten paces back again.’
‘You’ve been here long?’
‘A few weeks only. Before that I was in Stafford, and before that, London.’
‘I was held in Monmouth, crowded in amongst many prisoners, but I escaped twice. Once I was free for three whole days. But after that I was chained and they brought me here. No doubt they think I’ll not attempt to escape from this place.’
‘It would be difficult indeed. And if you escaped, where would you go? I’ve pondered on this. For there are terrible mountains between here and England.’
Dafydd gave a low, rumbling laugh.
‘I would have no need to escape to England. I could melt away into the Welsh hills and these English soldiers would never find me. But to escape the castle itself, that would be a challenge for any man.’
As if by mutual agreement, neither of them asked the other why he was imprisoned, or who he was in the world outside, or what enemy he had offended. They skirted around these subjects with the courtesy of well-bred dogs, each sizing the other up. When their evening meal arrived, it was brought by one of the younger guards, a pleasant lad whom John had found to be kind and thoughtful. He asked if the other prisoner’s chains might be removed.
‘He can’t escape from here, chained or unchained, through an arrow slit a child of ten might not climb through. Nor can he break down that stout oak door. Surely he’s secure enough? Don’t ask the captain, though. Ask one of the other officers.’
The boy grinned. It seemed the soldiers had no more love of the captain than John had.
‘I’ll ask, sir. But will you not be afraid to share a cell with him, if he be unchained? He’s a terrible fierce man.’
‘I’ll take that risk,’ said John.
When the young soldier had gone, and they had begun their meal—Dafydd much hampered by his chained wrists—he inclined his head.
‘I thank you for that, John Swynfen. There’s not many would ask such a favour for a stranger, who might be any kind of a rogue and a murderer.’
‘I think you are neither of those things,’ said John.
When the boy returned to remove their dishes, he brought keys with him.
‘The captain is away in the town this evening, so I asked Sergeant Conway, and he said I might unchain him. But the captain may order them back again when he learns of it.’
John noticed that the boy always spoke to him and not to Dafydd, as if the new prisoner were deaf or stupid. However, he unlocked the chains and carried them away, leaving the two men with the single smoky rush dip that John was permitted in the evening.
‘I fear, as the autumn nights draw in,’ said John, ‘that the light of one rush dip will illuminate very little of the evening.’
‘A prisoner can always sleep,’ said Dafydd. ‘What does that Warwickshire poet say? “Sleep—is it not?—that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.”’
John was surprised. He had not taken Dafydd Williams to be a man who read poetry.
‘True,’ he said, ‘or a man may engage in conversation with a friend. That needs no light of rush dip or candle.’
‘Only the light of the mind’s illumination,’ Dafydd agreed.
He seemed much restored by the food, which he had fallen upon ravenously, and much cheered by the removal of his chains. He began to pace up and down the cell, stretching his arms above his head, and bending and flexing his whole body, which had strangely the appearance of filling out as he moved about. John was reminded of a butterfly, newly emerged from its chrysalis, which patiently eases open its wings to the sunlight, and fans them gently until they fill and spread, enabling it to fly. So Dafydd spread out his great arms to embrace life again.
The two men spoke little that night. John offered Dafydd the one straw mattress to lie upon, but the other refused it, saying he had slept much harder than upon bare wood. Long before the rush dip was burnt out, he had slumped into a heavy sleep, in which he neither stirred nor made any sound.
On the following day, they ventured to tell each other a little of their histories, John beginning, sensing somehow an obligation on him as the first inhabitant of the cell. When he explained that he was one of the secluded Members of Parliament, Dafydd made a small explosive noise, but did not interrupt until John’s account of how he came to be in Denbigh was at an end.
‘And now I see,’ said Da
fydd, ‘why that boy thought you shouldn’t trust yourself alone with me unshackled. You—a gentleman landowner and a Member of that Parliament which would not pay its army? Should I not seize you by the neck and break it between my bare hands, like a chicken’s?’
John regarded him steadily. If Dafydd so desired, he was easily capable of such a thing.
‘I’ve done you no harm. My land is inherited from ancestors who have held it and farmed it generation upon generation. I’ve stolen no man’s land. We have enclosed no common grazing land, nor drained any common marshes to rob the poor of fish and fowl. My tenants have always had fair treatment at my hands. When times are hard, my family has always protected them. Try me before the court of your conscience if you will, but let my people speak in my defence.’
‘And what of the army’s pay?’
‘That’s an issue which is far from simple. I’ve never served in the army. However, the grandees recruited and forced men into the New Model Army and promised them both pay and booty, without ever calculating the cost or reckoning where this money should be found. You know as well as I that near ten years of war have cost the country dear, trade ruined, the wool trade in especial, on which so much of the country’s wealth depends.’
John stood up and walked to the window, then turned around, leaning against the wall.
‘Terrible harvests have left us with food in short supply and many starving. With so many away at war, or killed, or ruined, the public moneys gathered in taxes or tithes have dwindled away—so where is the money to be found to pay the soldiers? In time, the profits from the Royalists’ sequestrated estates might have been used for the purpose, but I don’t know what this new government of Oliver Cromwell intends.’