Skippon blockaded the Tower, attempting to oust its governor, Sir John Byron, loyal to the King. Though Skippon failed, he was establishing his troops as the guardians of London. On the 10th of May, he paraded the Trained Bands, now fleshed out with eager new recruits and numbering ten thousand. Skippon reviewed them for members of Parliament and other worthies, in the shadow of the great windmills at Finsbury Fields. It was like a summer festival, with a large tented pavilion where the visitors were grandly entertained. As the brave ranks displayed themselves, the colonel of the Red Regiment, Alderman Atkins, had the misfortune to topple from his horse — being, according to a Royalist news-sheet, afflicted with a bowel problem.
Among new recruits in the Green Regiment, grinning, was Gideon Jukes.
Since his brother was a pikeman, Gideon had chosen to be a musketeer. Since Lambert was in the Blue Regiment, Gideon made sure he joined the Greens. Robert Allibone had paid for his musket, four feet long and twelve-bore. Gideon's father had joyfully set him up with other equipment: a forked barrel-rest, bandolier, sword, swordbelt and hangers. A leather coat and metal helmet completed the uniform. The first time he tried on his helmet, painted black against the rust, its heavy enclosing weight reminded him of the costume head he had worn years before as Third Dotterel. Like most of his comrades, he soon abandoned the helmet and was content with a much lighter Monmouth cap, made of soft felt. So far, none of them had witnessed the hideous results of being shot in the head.
Gideon saw little action at first. The Trained Bands reckoned only to defend London; they played no part in the inconclusive manoeuvres that went on elsewhere in 1642. For several months, Gideon received training only. A national Parliamentary army was commissioned in July, but the Trained Bands stayed separate. As a Londoner, Gideon believed this was correct. Possession of the capital, the seat of government since Roman times, with its strategic importance and its commercial connections, was a vital strength for Parliament. To hold London, while the King could only wander about the country ineffectually, gave Parliament a vital edge. The Trained Bands had to be here on guard.
In August, the King, who was visiting the north of England trying to generate support, formally raised his standard at Nottingham. It was a procedural move, a rallying point for recruits. It was also decisive: he had declared war upon his people.
At that point Parliament issued an order for London's protection. Ten thousand citizens were mobilised. The city closed down. Assembling by trade or guild, shouldering whatever tools they possessed, the people marched out to the surrounding fields and, week after week until autumn and winter brought freezing conditions, they toiled to construct roadblocks and earthworks. Women worked alongside men; Anne Jukes was there regularly, wielding a mattock and ferrying baskets of earth.
By the end of the year, all the city gates were locked with their portcullises down, streets were barred with mighty iron chains, every household had weapons at the ready and the Trained Bands were on day and night call-out. Supporters made loans and gifts to Parliament. There was regular recruitment; there were censuses of horses. Royalist sympathisers were targeted. Parliament issued decrees to summon known 'malignants', and to confiscate their horseflesh, weapons, money and plate. Those who were absent with the King had their homes broken open and possessions ransacked.
Everyone waited anxiously. They heard of skirmishes and sieges. In July the Earl of Essex had left London to take up overall command of the main Parliamentary army. The son of Queen Elizabeth's disgraced favourite, this heavy-jowled veteran had more military experience than any in the aristocracy and was a leading figure in the House of Lords. Famously touchy, he had survived his father's execution, his own divorce on grounds of impotence and then the flagrant adultery of his second wife. His fighting career had been undistinguished, though he had always been popular with his soldiers for his humane treatment of them, and they called him, affectionately, 'Old Robin'. Escorted by the Trained Bands, Essex mounted up at Temple Bar, and rode into the City, past St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Exchange, then out through Moorgate on his way north through St Albans to Worcester.
The King eventually turned south, through the Midlands where he had a mixed reception. Up until that point there had been only manoeuvres. Then in October the King's army ran into Essex's forces near Kineton, at the foot of a ridge called Edgehill, and the first true battle of the civil war commenced.
The engagement was confused. Both sides claimed victory, though neither could capitalise on it. The two armies were traumatised by the confrontation, with their shocked commanders left temporarily at a loss. Essex withdrew to Warwick, the King to Oxford.
Exaggerating rumours in London claimed that Essex had won a great victory. Then it was said the King was racing south, with Essex in headlong pursuit. Their manoeuvres were more leisurely. But on the 6th of November, Essex and the Parliamentary army re-entered London, having marched straight down the old Roman highway of Watling Street. They were given a heroes' welcome and quartered out at Hammersmith, in preparation for an expected Royalist attack.
Meanwhile on leaving Oxford, the King ambled through Reading, besieging opponents' private houses more from spite than strategy.
Commissioners from Parliament rode out to try to negotiate peace. Despite their efforts, on the 12th of November the King's charismatic nephew Prince Rupert, a commander in the dashing Continental style, fell upon two Parliamentary regiments of foot that he encountered close to London at Brentford under cover of thick mist. Tales quickly arose of Prince Rupert's brutality. He was said to have massacred the garrison at Brentford; his men had tied prisoners head-to-toe and flung them into pigsties to endure the freezing night; the Royalists drove twenty Parliamentary supporters into the River Thames, forcing them into ever deeper water until they drowned. Whether true or not, such horrors reinforced opposition in London.
The Earl of Essex heard the guns from the House of Lords, where peers had been debating whether to order a cessation of hostilities. Essex galloped across Hyde Park to his army at Hammersmith. In the City a local deputation went to the Common Council, begging that the Trained Bands should now also be deployed.
Gideon Jukes was about to see his first military action.
Chapter Five — Turnham Green: 13 November 1642
Londoners loved a junket. Fairs and feasts had been part of city life since time immemorial. An excursion, with sightseeing, was bound to draw a crowd, especially if there might be gunfire. Parliament dispatched cheese, beer and bread to the army by road, with boats hauling munitions up the Thames. Mothers and wives of Trained Band members loaded carts with food and drink, while wiping away tears on their aprons as they waved off their men to protect the city. In case the defences failed, women boiled up cauldrons of hot water to pour down on attackers, and cluttered up the streets with empty barrels and old joint-stools, to get in the way of cavalry.
While drums beat to give them heart and to summon extra recruits, Skippon led out the Trained Bands, Gideon Jukes among them. From the east of the city particularly, where dirty and noisy processes were carried on, forges and foundries, dye works and tanneries fell silent and gave up their men. In the great markets, porters and stall-holders, fishmongers and slaughterers pulled on their boots and tightened their belts, then marched. From shops and from taverns came part-time pikemen and musketeers. Servants and their employers, apprentices and their masters poured forth until it seemed that all the males in London had been sucked from the streets, leaving behind an eerie quiet. Mothers with clenched jaws clutched their babies to their bodices, and listened to that stillness nervously. Only women, children and the old were left — the people that attackers would treat most cruelly.
Five of the six main regiments marched together westwards; one remained on guard. Sightseers who owned horses rode along with the departing troops. Girls pelted the soldiers with flowers, the boldest maidens running in among the ranks to press kisses upon them. The troops left the old city walls at Ludgate, moving
from the workshop and commercial centre across the unsavoury valley of the Fleet river, past legal haunts at the Temple and the Inns of Court, then along the Strand with its grand noblemen's mansions. They passed the Banqueting House, the sole monument in a royal rebuilding project that would never now be completed, and then the crumbling old Whitehall Palace where Gideon saw in amazement that grass grew around the buildings, abandoned only a year ago when the King fled. Passing under the Holbein Gate, which was now manned by citizens instead of royal guards, they were cheered at the Houses of Parliament, then marched on beyond the turbulent suburbs, past the Westminster horse ferry, through the marshes and into the open countryside.
Many of the Trained Bands, including both Jukes brothers and Robert Allibone, had never been so far out of London in their lives. They tramped through fields and market gardens for nine miles, half a day's journey and far enough from home to make the inexperienced grow jumpy. The weather was clement, though chilly. With colours flying, drums rattling and wagons of armour and shot rumbling amongst them, they stepped out cheerfully. The old hands had drilled and marched regularly for years; new recruits fell in with spirit, though many were apprentices, and extremely young. To encourage them, Skippon rode from regiment to regiment calling, 'Come on, my boys, my brave boys! Let us pray heartily and fight heartily. I will run the same hazards with you… Come on, my boys!'
They found Essex's forces, drawn up in a defensive line at Turnham Green. As the Trained Bands marched through Hammersmith they saw an array of artillery, waiting in a lane. Gideon found the big guns ominous. When they reached the army, they passed a heavily guarded wagon-park. He began to feel part of a great, professional occasion.
Now he and his colleagues came among seasoned troops. Infantry survivors from the battle of Edgehill had been positioned across the approach to London, their flanks protected by blocks of cavalry. All had flags and pennants. Every company in every regiment was marked. The drums never stopped their insistent, tension-making beat; there would be much more noise and a blanket of smoke, if it came to a battle. The field marshal carefully interleaved Trained Band regiments among the more seasoned troops of the main army, some of whom wore the orange sashes that had become the recognised colours of Parliament.
By the time the new arrivals stood in their stations among the blockade, their excitement was becoming more muted. Some had been on parade many times and had fought sham fights for public amusement, but never before had they stood together in such numbers, drawn up in battle array for hours, waiting for real opponents to appear and try to kill them.
The Earl of Essex cantered along the line on his charger reviewing the regiments. As their general passed, soldiers threw up their caps and shouted 'Hey for Old Robin!'
'Come, my brave boys,' urged Skippon calmly again to the Trained Bands. 'Pray heartily, and fight heartily, and God will bless us.'
Glancing sideways for some reason, Gideon saw his partner tighten his mouth in a curious expression, and wondered unexpectedly whether Robert Allibone believed in God.
From the direction of Brentford came movement. Sightseers upped and scattered like a flock of uneasy pigeons.
Even the newest recruits now became aware of the presence of a large body of troops ahead of them. The King's army had arrived. From time to time the feeble winter sunlight glinted off weapons and helmets. Gideon, who was keen-sighted, could make out forests of tall pikes, a constant flicker of regimental colours, the restless shifting of cavalry, the occasional traverse of a commander on horseback and in full body armour. On both sides the cannon remained silent, the gunners beside them itching to test their range.
Gideon was beginning to feel the weight of his armoury. The heavy musket's four-foot barrel lay on the forked ash-wood rest he had plunged into the turf in front of him, but he had to remain in position, supporting the hard butt against his aching shoulder. Bullets were twelve to the pound; their pouch increasingly dragged. Retrieving shot from the pouch was so slow that he had learned the trick of carrying two bullets ready in his mouth; he was trying to ignore the taste of the lead. Each bullet needed half its weight in fine powder and two-thirds in coarse; he carried both, the fine in a flat flask with a nozzle and the common measured out into a dozen containers popularly called the twelve apostles. This added to his burden and made his every movement noisy. Around him sounded the incessant commotion of metal flasks, since each man carried his twelve powder containers on his bandolier, and all the bandoliers were rattling. They were using up hundreds of yards of match, the lengths of tow twisted into cord and soaked in vinegar to use as a fuse; with the enemy so close they kept it lit ready for action, each holding a short length, which was burning at both ends. Going equipped with their cord alight would become second nature, in itself a cause of accidents as soldiers forgot they had match in their hands.
As the stand-off continued, they grew accustomed to the situation. They almost relaxed. Hours passed. Stomachs were rumbling. Some members of the Trained Bands slipped away in defiance of their officers and went home for supper and their own beds. The crowd of spectators thinned out too.
"What happens tonight?' quavered Amyas.
'We sleep in the fields.'
'On the ground?'
'On the cold ground, Amyas.' Gideon gave their apprentice an owly stare. 'Just as we are stood to in ranks here, we shall lie down in ranks, justified by our feet.' Justified was a printing joke; Amyas caught on, nervously. He had been complaining about his feet; he was unused to walking and had not yet worn in the new shoes issued to him as a recruit — two pairs, along with his cap, doublet, britches, two shirts and two pairs of stockings. He was in pain with his first wisdom tooth. Gideon wondered sombrely if he would live to complain about the rest, or even to wear his second new shirt.
'What if I need to piss?' Amyas demanded, with telling urgency.
'Don't piss on the rank in front.'
Amused, Gideon watched the boy working out that to be a soldier was to have no amenities and no privacy. Hardship already afflicted them. They received neither food nor water on the march or at battle stations. Armies fended for themselves. At least on this occasion Parliament had sent surgeons out to Hammersmith; those who had fought at Edgehill were saying that the wounded there had had to lie all night among the dead, without medical attention. Only the pity of local people had produced any succour.
Then as he stood in line of battle with nothing else to do, Gideon mused, if I die here today, what will my life have been? I shall never have known a woman… A strange panic gripped him. He determined to do something about it — if he lived.
He returned to the critical question of whether he should be bearded, and if so, in what style?
Causing muted catcalls, Lambert Jukes appeared and picked his way amongst their regiment. Lambert was always regarded as a good trooper, though known for his frisky attitude to discipline. He thought rules were for everyone else. Now, as the troops grew weary of waiting, Lambert had sneaked off from his own regiment. To Gideon's annoyance, he saw that his brother was sporting a full set of jawline whiskers coming to a jaunty point, with a neat chin stripe and a curled blond moustache.
That settled it. Gideon would shave.
Lambert lowered his pike casually. Pikes were supposed to be fifteen or even eighteen feet long, their main purpose being to nudge cavalry riders from their horses. Many soldiers trimmed the length, to make the unwieldy staves easier to manage. Lambert was no exception and had shortened his pike to little more than twelve feet. Gideon told him it was barely long enough to shove a milkmaid off a pony.
Lambert guffawed. 'What greeting is that, brother?'
'Should you not be at your station, soldier?' Robert Allibone resented association with this wandering fly-by-night.
Lambert soothed him: 'I'll be there when the shots fly. I see you brought your babe-in-arms?'
The big-eared, bandy-legged youngster Amyas raised his eyes to the heavens. He was grinning. This was all a big joke
to him.
'He would not be left,' answered Gideon tersely. He and Robert thought their apprentice was too young, but it was out of their hands; Amyas had come anyway. Parliament had issued an order that all apprentices who joined up would be relieved of their obligations to complete their indentures. When this war ended, the commercial trades would be awash with half-trained young men who thought they owned the world — assuming they had not been killed first.
Gideon gazed at his brother, all wide shoulders and wise-boy jests, and he marvelled, not just that Lambert had bothered to come and make friendly contact at such a moment, but at his self-confidence. The Green Regiment's colonel, Alderman John Warner, was giving them a filthy look, but Lambert saluted the colonel as jauntily as if he were the officer, graciously noticing some junior.
A man had been following Lambert. It was unclear whether they knew one another and had arrived together, but while Lambert gossiped, the man spoke quietly to Colonel Warner, and he stayed when Lambert left.
He wore black and behaved as if he were freely allowed to saunter among the troops. Perhaps he was a preacher. If so, he did not preach. Someone suggested he was a scoutmaster, in charge of intelligence agents and terrain scouts.
Robert muttered under his breath that the prowling visitor looked like a grocer. Gideon dismissed him as a Stepney innkeeper's pudding-featured bung-puller. The middle-aged man was overweight, or gave that impression as he leaned back on his boot-heels slightly. He had dark jowls and intent black eyes, but otherwise cut a figure anyone might pass in an alley without glancing back. It was hard to know why he fascinated the two printers, except that they were both observant by nature, and found his presence odd.
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