Goldsmiths Hall was less than twenty years old, a large foursquare building with a lofty entrance, pillared and fanlighted in grandiose style. The monumental livery hall stood in the traditional heart of the City of London, occupying an enormous block between Foster Lane and Gresham Street. In close proximity to Guildhall and St Paul's, this was an area of great bustle and commerce, peopled by aldermen, clergymen, booksellers, jewellers and cut-purses. Juliana had lived in London for a while with her grandmother, though not since she was a child. The frenzy and noise now came as a shock.
Appellants had to mingle with goldsmiths and silversmiths bringing work to the Assay office, and the tough servants who acted as their bodyguards. When Juliana presented herself there was a queue, mainly of other women, most of them looking strained, some definitely viewing this occasion as beneath them. One extremely haughty lady in yards of black figured silk came stalking in, took a fraught look at the situation, then left again as if she could not demean herself. Juliana had been brought up to do whatever was necessary to survive. She quietly ascertained the system from a man she assumed to be a clerk, who nodded to the line of other supplicants. 'You will catch a strong whiff of lavender, for they have all dug into chests for finery, in order to seem more important… the sensible ones come looking as poor as possible.' His eyes lingered on Juliana; she had no finery to draw upon. 'You may present yourself first, madam.'
Despite this good start, the process was long and slow. The papers Juliana had obtained from the Hampshire committee the previous year were out of date; new enquiries had to be made about the rents. This was done by correspondence, but she needed to wait in London until answers came, and nobody seemed to hurry. Then there was a question whether, while he was a prisoner after Naseby, Lovell ever gave his parole, an officer's word that he would not try to escape. Records had gone missing. If he had not bound himself, escape was allowed and even admired; otherwise, Lovell had perjured himself fatally when he wriggled out of Lambeth Palace. Juliana stuck to her guns: 'My husband assured me particularly: he did not give his parole.' Did the committee read her thoughts as she wondered whether he had told her the truth?
'Where is your husband now, madam?'
Juliana saw she must fudge the fact that Lovell had been on the Isle of Wight. Fortunately, in news from Sussex she learned that Lovell had since transferred to 'an errand' in Kent. She could honestly deny any knowledge of what he was doing there, though she was starting to suspect. 'He works now; he is an estate manager for Sir Lysander Pelham, who has retired from all active support of His Majesty, due to old age, physical infirmity and heartbreak after losing all his sons in the late war.'
'Oh we know Sir Lysander Pelham!'
Not a good answer. After Sir Lysander was fined heavily, he refused to submit, but sued the tenants of his confiscated lands in the civil courts for rents they had paid to Parliament. He knew of other Royalists who had used the legal process in this way, some of whom won favourable rulings; this encouraged him. Both the courts and the members of Parliament who served on committees were so respectful of the law that they could be persuaded to uphold Royalists' claims. It was thwarting Parliament's plans to pay off the New Model Army using confiscated property — and it was embarrassing. Ruefully Juliana acknowledged that the situation worked against families like hers; Lovell had no resources to start risky lawsuits. If wealthier Royalists overturned decisions, larger fines would be levied on others.
As the weeks dawdled by, she began to fear that their request to compound would be refused. Then perhaps the question would be remitted to another, more shadowy body called the Treason Trustees, who met at Drury House. Lovell's chances there were nil. Juliana had been instructed not to court attention from that body. In her worst moments she dreaded finding out just why Lovell wished to be unobtrusive. His absences had always made her fearful, but now she grew more anxious about the consequences for her and the boys.
The Committee for Compounding liked to delay until they had made supplicants despairing and submissive. Juliana was now sick of looking humble. She was becoming resentful of the position in which Lovell had placed her. She had assumed he was comparatively unimportant but the degree of suspicion his name aroused was starting to alarm her. The committee seemed obsessed with where he was and why he was seeking to compound now. Thinking on her feet, Juliana fed them excuses about family needs and Orlando's desire to settle down. She managed to conceal her own despair at just how little he really wished for quietness and domesticity.
As she was constantly questioned about her husband's activities, Juliana scrutinised the news-sheets. Sir Lysander had told her, in strict confidence, that in December at Carisbrooke the King had formally signed an agreement with the Scots. Charles had committed to a promise that in return for an armed invasion to restore him to the throne, he would institute Presbyterianism for three years. He would then outlaw free-thinking sects, a colourful cliche collection of: 'Anti-Trinitarians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, Familists, Brownists, Separatists, Independents, Libertines and Seekers'. Although the 'Engagement' with the Scots had been secretly buried in a lead casket in the grounds of Carisbrooke Castle, Parliament discovered what had happened. They broke off all negotiations. Members passed a 'Vote of No Addresses', refusing any further contact. How the nation was settled would now be decided by Parliament alone — at least, it would be unless a new Royalist rebellion changed everything. Such a rebellion was in hand.
The King had been christened a Man of Blood by the New Model Army; he was proving it. The Scots began to prepare their invasion force. A countrywide new civil war was being co-ordinated by the King from Carisbrooke.
Dreading what it meant to her personally, Juliana noticed how even in London there was increasing Royalist support. Whether it was enough to achieve anything, she doubted. In a clampdown on troublemakers, John Lilburne and John Wildman had been arrested after addressing a large Leveller meeting in Smithfield, whilst a regiment of foot soldiers was now billeted in Whitehall to control Royalist demonstrations. By April the apprentices were rioting and the Lord Mayor took refuge in the Tower of London. As Juliana made her trips to Goldsmiths Hall, she was aware of the disturbed mood on the streets. Although she was missing her children, she was grateful she had left them in the security of Sussex. In mid-May she heard musket fire when pro-Royalist petitioners from Surrey and Essex tried to force their way into the House of Commons; guards who were pelted with missiles responded with bullets. Juliana heard that ten people were killed and a hundred more wounded.
Upheaval became country-wide. Rebellions began in Wales, where Parliamentary officers refused orders. In the north, the King's devoted supporter Sir Marmaduke Langdale took Berwick while Sir Philip Musgrove took Carlisle, in order to provide a clear invasion route for the Scots. They had been promised that the Prince of Wales would sail from Holland to join them. Rioting occurred in Norwich. Then throughout Kent — where Lovell was — a major uprising flared: Rochester, Sittingbourne, Faversham, Chatham, Dartford and Deptford were seized and the fleet was restive in the Downs, its anchorage off Kent. In May, nearby at Deal, a strange youth appeared, 'on foot, and in an old black ragged suit, without any companions but lice'. Keen locals welcomed this unlikely pretender, accepting his claim to be the Prince of Wales. Thomas Rainborough, then Parliamentary Vice-Admiral of the Fleet, rightly believed him to be an impostor, but the incident led to outright naval mutiny in which Rainborough was refused boarding of his own flagship. Although the sailors conceded he had been 'a loving and courteous colonel to them', they paid to send him (at the cost of sixpence) in a Dutch fly-boat, back to London with his wife and other relatives. The mutineers took nine warships and sailed to the Netherlands.
There were rumours that a large Royalist army, ten thousand men, had gathered in Kent. Juliana Lovell now believed Orlando was there, organising. If so, he probably wanted his estate back so he could sell or mortgage it to raise funds. He had deceived his wife, using her to achieve this f
or him, planning that if she succeeded, he would bankrupt them and destroy whatever inheritance their children might have had. Juliana seethed.
As the atmosphere in London became tumultuous, Juliana almost hoped the committee might refuse her plea. She wanted to return to Sussex. After a fruitless wait at Goldsmiths Hall one morning, she walked out for air and instead of taking her usual route to the bookshops around St Paul's, where she habitually window-shopped, her steps took her along Lothbury. It was a main thoroughfare, though notorious for its racket of metal-workers. She turned off for more peace into Basinghall Street, a narrow, winding cut-through that bent around Guildhall. From an overhead window, the measured notes of a tenor viol playing an air like a love song caught her attention. Attracted by the music, she entered a small print shop.
It was slightly dark and extremely busy. The great press dominated, with a tall desk for compositing. Papers were hung to dry on long wires. On the walls were large, faded publications, nailed up like posters, most of them about two years old as if someone had decorated the shop then: lists of two or three hundred victories ascribed to General Fairfax, surrounding large equestrian portraits of him or smaller busts of all the Parliamentary generals; memorials and elegies for the Earl of Essex, who had died in September 1646; she read: flnnals and most remarkable records of King Charles' reign… Wherein we may plainly see how the Popish, Jesuitical and Prelatical Malignant party have endeavoured the ruin of this church and kingdom but was by God's mercy most miraculously prevented…' There could be no doubt where the printer's sympathies lay.
They were selling a news-sheet called The Public Corranto. Juliana began to read the front page. The big-eared, buck-toothed apprentice clearly thought her a time-waster. Deeply suspicious, he operated the big press slowly as he watched her. He was eating slices of fruit pie from a delft plate. In a corner, almost unnoticed at first, a good-looking, dark-eyed woman in her late thirties was giving him a fractious look, as if she wanted him to save the pie. She was stitching together pamphlets; it was hard work, hardly a dainty thimble job. She had to press down the eye of the needle on a piece of slate to force it through the pages. Her fingers were red and sore, though she seemed to know what she was doing.
Juliana approached and smiled. She preferred doing business with a woman. They got into conversation, pleasantly enough, though both were wary. Holding a copy of the Corranto, Juliana asked after the latest news.
'Cromwell has been sent to Wales; the Lord General is taking men to Kent. The Earl of Warwick has succeeded Rainborough as admiral and gone to deal with the navy.'
'Do you think they will be successful?' Juliana asked, wondering what would happen to Lovell. 'It sounds as if the King has very great support now.'
'War will be short and brutal, so says Robert Allibone, the printer here.'
'Your husband?'
'No, no!' The woman blushed, and seemed conscious of the apprentice listening in. Before she looked down quickly, she glanced up to the ceiling, whence the sounds of the viol could still be heard, now playing a fugue. 'My name is Anne Jukes.'
'You work here?'
'I run my husband's grocery business, while he is away' In the New Model Army, thought Juliana nervously. Then, looking at the woman, and hearing that soulful music, she wondered on a whim, Perhaps her husband being away is convenient for her and she loves another… 'I come here to help with certain publications.'
Juliana nodded to the pamphlet Anne Jukes was now putting into piles. 'Revolutionary publications?'
Anne had identified this customer as a Royalist. Long-faced, despondent women in faded gowns often came into the print shop alone, after they had taken a bruising in committees. 'In the City, women are allowed to think!' And preach if we will, and make petitions, and pay our fees and join the Levellers… 'This is a discussion of Leveller principles, for those who sympathise. Our new newspaper called The Moderate will start next month.'
Since it was so heavily implied that Juliana would not want a Leveller pamphlet, she bought it anyway, and also The Public Corranto. Surprised, the woman offered her a slice of pie; it was of her own making and extremely good. She told Juliana the recipe. As Juliana walked back to Goldsmiths Hall, she continued to wonder for whom at the print shop Anne Jukes had brought in the pie.
Astonishingly, right at that moment when it seemed as plain as day Lovell must be engaged in the Kent rebellion, the Committee for Compounding agreed a fine and gave him back his lands. Juliana had been authorised to arrange the fine through Sir Lysander's bank, so she spent the rest of the afternoon making arrangements; she obtained a certificate of exemption from sequestration and as dusk fell she left Goldsmiths Hall for the last time.
Approaching the town house, she was trying to remember Anne Jukes's recipe for sweet pastry until she had a chance to write it down. She became aware of a young woman keeping step with her, a little too close behind her shoulder. Juliana's purse was empty, though to lose the hard-won land certificate would have been tedious after months of work to get it, and she would have been even more annoyed to have The Public Corranto snatched before she had read it. She could see the front doorstep of Sir Lysander's house, which she knew was a dangerous position where many householders were mugged as they struggled with their keys. Abruptly, she turned round and stared out her shadower.
It was a thin, pale urchin, dressed in a ragged shawl over a dirty yellow petticoat. The creature affected innocence and walked off. A man who had been following her then caught up and spoke. Safe from the intended theft, Juliana lost interest.
Chapter Forty-Seven — Covent Garden: 1648
Her name was now… something new. Who needed a name? She worked alone these days, swooping about the arcades at twilight like a bat, hunting. She had made Covent Garden her roost, homing in on this grand place as ideal for her purposes.
The Italian piazza in the old convent kitchen garden of Westminster Abbey had been designed in 1632 by the King's surveyor, Inigo Jones, for the Earl of Bedford, one of the main conspiring aristocrats who organised the Long Parliament and the King's downfall. Despite growing antagonism between them, the King had been one of the chief supporters of this first experiment of town planning, with the creation of the first public square in London. The square was surrounded on two sides by tall terraced houses, intended for fashionable society — 'the habitations of Gentlemen and men of ability'. To the west was the new church of St Paul, and to the south stood the existing mansion of the Bedford family, which faced onto the Strand, the major artery connecting the City of London with the court at Whitehall, or with Parliament at Westminster.
As with so many ambitious projects, money ran out. By the time Inigo was commissioned to build St Paul's Church, Lord Bedford ordered that he should make it no more expensive than a barn. The architect bravely responded, 'You shall have the handsomest barn in England!', but he had to endure further interference when William Laud, then Bishop of London, insisted that the church's altar should be on the east side, where an enormous Tuscan portico was designed as the main entrance. Two insignificant doors were added either side of it while a new entrance had to be made at the back, leading ignominiously from a small graveyard and a muddy field path.
Surrounding the piazza was a grid of straight roads, short but wide, quite unlike the winding lanes to which Londoners were accustomed: King Street, Charles Street and Henrietta Street were named for royal patronage while Bedford Street, Russell Street, Southampton Street and Tavistock Street paid tribute to the earl's own family and connections.
People cannot be made to behave in accordance with a chart. The original grand plan failed in its lofty intentions. Despite the elegant housing for wealthy people, the square was a public area so undesirables rapidly colonised it. The presence of wealth was a lure for underworld skulkers of all sorts, who either provided the gentry with vice or simply robbed them. The famous vegetable and flower market began in a very minor way in the 1640s, before the Earl of Bedford capitalised on his investm
ent with a full market permit; even the scatter of early stalls attracted both ordinary members of the public and criminals. The well-built new taverns in Inigo's beautiful streets instantly became a haunt of idlers, rakes and ne'er-do-wells. There were drunks. The drunks had fights. There were duels. At night the area had a noisy threatening quality which offended the refined householders beneath whose curtained sash-windows hubbubs took place. By 1648, the words 'Why do we pay our rents for this?' were uttered in strained aristocratic accents, and as soon as other, more peaceful private squares with greater security were built elsewhere, they superseded Covent Garden's attractions.
At the moment it still was a fine haven for a street urchin. She had unwary people to prey on and warm taverns to retreat to if she was in funds, which at first she was. Once her money ran out, the vegetable stalls reminded her of her upbringing; she knew how to chivvy or trick stall-holders into letting her have bruised or unsold wares. She went back to her childhood ways of looking out for dropped apples and carrots. To the huge piazza came strollers to jostle and steal from, with escape routes all over the place. She could leap the low wall that surrounded the central area, or dive away down uncluttered side streets. The noble arcades, with their round-topped Roman arches and sturdy brick pillars, provided opportunities to lurk. Designed to provide shade from the hot Italian sun, in England these Palladian corridors were shadowy and dank, with little street trade; unlit at night, they were full of menace.
Here the scavenger eked out her living, though with diminishing returns. She had soon wasted away all the funds she earned on the road with Jem Starling. She blew it on drink, or had her cash pilfered while she slept. Untutored in money-management, she was easily conned out of precious coins by street tricksters. Pawnbrokers diddled her when she turned in trinkets, then if she bought herself a fine jacket or a pair of gloves, they were ruined or stolen. Older now, she could not face going back to life as a highway robber, even if she could have found her way out of London to do it. So she stayed where she was, lurking in Covent Garden, where her descent into misery was rapid. Here, one day in summer 1648, she followed a young woman who appeared usefully preoccupied, until the mark turned around suddenly and stared straight at her. She had been spotted.
Rebels and traitors Page 48