Rebels and traitors

by Lindsey Davis

  Winstanley's writings envisaged an ideal relationship between humans and nature. Like many radicals of the period, he promulgated the theory that a golden age had existed in England before the Norman Conquest, after which the common people had been robbed of their birthrights and exploited by a foreign ruling class.

  With a view to overturning this centuries-old social injustice, Winstanley joined a community founded by a neighbouring idealist, William Everard, a former soldier and lay preacher. The Diggers occupied St George's Hill in April 1649, at a time when war, floods and bad harvests had pushed food prices to an all-time high. It seemed the right moment for a new democratic society established for the common man, instead of the existing pattern which was based on privilege and wealth. Winstanley deplored the plight of the people at the lowest levels of society, whose dismal existence was bemoaned and yet overlooked by most of the protagonists in the civil war — the poor, sick, hungry, and destitute. Some of them would join the Diggers. Other members, like Anne, were drawn there through having a conscience about their own good fortune.

  The Diggers immediately aroused suspicion in the authorities. Lord Fairfax was instructed by the Council of State to remove this threat to public order. He sent a captain to inspect what they were up to, who said that they had invited 'all to come in and help them, and promise them meat, drink, and clothes'. Captain Sanders reported darkly to Fairfax, 'It is feared they have some design in hand!'

  At the behest of furious local landowners, the lord general eventually arrived in person. Initially, Everard made himself the official spokesman. He described a vision telling him to plough the earth as an attempt to 'restore the Creation to its former condition'. However, it was now claimed that the Diggers did not intend to knock down enclosures or touch other men's property; they would simply till the common land until all men joined them. During the interview Winstanley and Everard refused to remove their hats, because to them, Lord Fairfax was 'but their fellow creature'.

  As they were questioned there, Everard — who had been summed up by Fairfax's captain as a madman — decided that the Diggers were in serious trouble and evaporated away. Actually Fairfax viewed the Diggers as harmless, called this a civil dispute and advised the local landowners to use the courts for remedy. Gerard Winstanley stuck by his convictions, remained with the group and complained about the treatment they received.

  Anne Jukes arrived at St George's Hill two months after the colony started. She could not have had a worse welcome, for the community was attacked by thugs hired by the local lord of the manor, the incongruously named Francis Drake. Scenes of chaos greeted her. In the systematic mistreatment and bullying meted out by the landowner, Diggers had been carried off as prisoners to Walton Church. Others were beaten up by local people, with the sheriff disdainfully looking on, then five were carried to the White Lion Prison for weeks. Goods were stolen from them. A young boy was attacked and had his clothes taken.

  In this notorious attack, four Diggers had been battered by William Starr and John Taylor, with other men, who were all disguised as women. Anne heard from excited community members how Starr and Taylor set about their victims with long staves, leaving three badly beaten, a fourth in danger of death, so badly wounded he had to be brought home in a cart. As their wounds were tended, the bloodied survivors told how they had asked to be brought properly before the law, a suggestion ignored by the thugs. Afterwards, they were not vengeful, but issued a statement: 'Let the world take notice that we that do justify this cause of digging have obeyed the Lord, in setting forward this work of endeavouring to bring the earth into a Community, and we have peace and purposes to go on.'

  It was a frightening reception for Anne Jukes, who had gone there alone and who in any case was unused to the bone-hard grind of country life. She had, however, helped dig London's fortifications, the Lines of Communication. She could endure hard labour in biting wind if she had to.

  Molestation continued. Digger houses were pulled down. Their tools were destroyed — spades and hoes cut to pieces or wrenched from them by force and never seen again. Cartwheels were damaged. Vegetables were uprooted. Growing corn was spoiled. They accepted these trials philosophically and, as they had promised, continued.

  The landowners tried legal measures. Members of the community were arrested and charged with trespassing. Following a court case, in which the Diggers were forbidden to speak in their own defence, they were found guilty of being Ranters, an eccentric sect associated with free love. In fact Gerard Winstanley had reprimanded the Ranters' leader for his sexual practices.

  'If, as I have heard, the Ranters run out into the streets naked to proclaim their visions, then to call us Ranters is madness,' Anne joked to her new comrades. 'Nobody would stand in the middle of a frozen field tending parsnips without clothes!'

  This was not received with the humour she had enjoyed among the Jukes family. Her first pang of homesickness struck.

  Once they lost the court case, the army could have been used to evict them, so the Diggers abandoned St George's Hill in August and set up again nearby at Cobham. There they repeated their efforts: tilling, planting and building shelters. Their reception was no better. In October, the local authorities tried to have them removed. In November, soldiers were dispatched to assist the local justices of peace. Members clung on, but their situation was worrying.

  Despite this, Anne lived at Cobham for over six months, in one of the communal houses. Most of the other members were couples or families, although some were very elderly. Anne felt out of place. Forty years of age was a bad time to take up farming. Some male members naturally assumed that women members would be held in common — these were men who would have attempted liberties whatever society they lived in, Anne reckoned. Meanwhile, female members were suspicious of the motives of an unaccompanied woman. Married female members were certain Anne Jukes was after their husbands. Saying what she really thought of those husbands would only have caused friction.

  There were disadvantages to communal life. Bursting with people, the houses were noisy. Occupants stayed up late, banging about while others were longing for rest after hard work in the fields. Idealistic principles made little impression on human nature. Food and belongings were shared, but bitterness sometimes festered over perceived hoarding, with dark suspicions about exactly how equal the sharing-out was.

  Division of labour was fraught too. Some people were so overwhelmed and exhausted by their need to expound ecstatic visions, they left all the hard work to others. There had never in the world been a rota for wood-chopping that satisfied everyone named on it. Ideas varied widely on how full a fetched water-bucket should be. Born organisers do have to comment frankly on the deficiencies of lesser mortals, whereas, having taken courageous decisions on their way of life, some mortals are resistant to listening. Who, thought Anne Jukes irritably, having thrown off the Norman yoke of tyranny, then wants to be given instructions about chicken-feathers by a prissy confectioner who has clearly never plucked a fowl or stitched up a seam in linen in her life? A woman who does not even know the difference between a pillow-and a bolster-case?

  Human endurance has limits. The Diggers were testing them.

  That winter was bitter. Water froze in the pail. None the less, with the spring their crops flourished on Cobham Heath. Their hard-working community had eleven acres under cultivation and had built six or seven shelters. But local pressure against them continued relentlessly, and their situation became desperate. There was encouraging news that other Digger communities had developed and were doing well elsewhere, but they needed funds. A letter was sent out from Surrey requesting financial assistance from the other Diggers. Winstanley then discovered that impostors were going about soliciting donations with a forged letter which purportedly bore his signature.

  The movement declined in early 1650. In March remnants were driven off St George's Hill. The government was becoming increasingly concerned. Throughout the spring the Diggers continued their work, des
pite harassment. Then, in April, the movement collapsed. The lord of the manor at Cobham was a Parson Platt. With several others he destroyed the Diggers' houses, burned their furniture and scattered their belongings. Platt threatened the Diggers with death if they continued their activity and hired guards to prevent their return.

  With legal actions pending and dwindling financial resources, the Surrey Diggers quietly disbanded their community. Some were now in such reduced circumstances, they left their children to be cared for by parish welfare, which attracted much righteous criticism. By July, everything was over. It had been a brave experiment, but it had failed.

  Anne Jukes had to find somewhere else to go. After three-quarters of a year away, she acknowledged to herself just how reluctant she was to slink back humbly to her no-doubt crowing husband.

  Chapter Sixty-Two — Lewisham: 1650

  One evening, Juliana Lovell opened her door at dusk and was startled by another visitor. Standing on the step with a bundle of possessions at her feet, which appeared to include large pieces of a demountable truckle bed, was Mistress Anne Jukes. Under a decent brown cloak and safeguard overskirt she wore a plain dress in a demure shade of grey, buttoned to her neat white collar, a coif over her hair and a broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat topping everything. She looked lean, fit and suntanned, yet quite exhausted. She tottered inside and kicked off her iron-soled country pattens. When she said she had tramped on foot all around the south of London to get here, the reason for her weariness was clear. It must be over twenty miles from Cobham in Surrey to Lewisham in Kent.

  'Was there no kind person with a cart to give you a lift some of the way?'

  Anne massaged her feet through extremely worn stockings. 'Would you take up a woman with her bed on her back and a sow on leading reins?'

  'Oh! Where is the pig?' snapped Juliana, too poor to be polite.

  'She collapsed by your gate. Your boys are cajoling her into a shelter.'

  Juliana took in this runaway without question. Apart from their existing friendship, a result of war was that one woman without money or support instantly recognised the plight of another and opened her arms. They would struggle together. Moreover, Anne had brought a pig.

  They shared what they had for several weeks, in an easy, companionable relationship. Once she had settled down and felt secure in this refuge, Anne decided she must write to tell Lambert where she was. She mentioned in passing that it would soon be her birthday.

  In the Jukeses' house in London, the brothers were bereft. They had run through a period of complete anarchy, when nothing was cleaned or tidied up, but had grown tired of that, neither being a lad any more. Living on baker's pies and muffins had given Lambert indigestion on a monumental scale. They were now just about managing with a new hired cook and maid, though both women despised them, stole from the store cupboard, and let dishes and beakers slip through their clumsy fingers to shatter on the floor. The Jukes were subjected to a cuisine of boiled mutton and veal, with the scum never skimmed off even though Parthenope's graded set of brass skimmers hung right by the fire. Every day's grey and greasy dinner made the pair more despondent, especially since they were both aware how much their meticulous mother would have grieved over their sufferings.

  This was not Lambert's only misery, however. He and Anne had married for true affection; they had been married for fifteen years, which was a long time in an age when death lurked at every wainscot corner. Though Lambert nostalgically remembered himself as a practised ladies' man, running through the sprightly Cheapside wenches with dash and just a hint of dishonour, Gideon suspected Anne was the only woman he had known — or ever wanted. She was good-looking, even-tempered, able to manage Lambert so he never minded being bossed; Lambert had genuinely admired her spirit when she began to take part in extreme religion and politics. His gratitude for the way she had run the grocery business for him was heartfelt. If he had known matters would come to this, he would have worked with her. He would have allowed her anything she wanted. He was accustomed to her being always there, and felt lost without her daily presence. If this was not love, it was as close to love as anything could be.

  He would not say so. Lambert never denied his feelings, but he rarely mentioned them. Fortunately, his brother knew. Gideon was truly moved by Lambert's misery.

  Their army experiences had left them with a bond, a greater tenderness for each other in time of trouble. When Anne wrote from her new home in Lewisham, Lambert let Gideon read the letter. It was couched in neutral language and could pass merely for what it said: information of her whereabouts. Nonetheless, Gideon suggested that although she had issued no specific invitation, Lambert should visit on her birthday — perhaps around luncheon time? — and try to persuade Anne to return to him. Lambert's enthusiasm was touching — but he wanted his brother to go with him in support.

  Gideon cursed and said no. Then the ground was cut from under him. He received a deputation from a florid apparition: Elizabeth Bevan, his great-uncle's widow. Elizabeth believed God put men on earth for her personal assistance, and she had an unexpected request: she begged Gideon to visit the Keevils at Eltham — 'For I am certain they have another daughter, just the age to be brought to London to look after my piteous orphaned brood, even as poor dear Lacy cared for them, until you whisked her away from us.'

  Gideon gazed out of the window, unsympathetically. He would never forget how Lacy had been placed in front of him like a piece of moist seed cake on a silver platter. He said coldly, 'That is not quite how I remember it, madam.'

  He meant Elizabeth to see that he suspected her and Bevan of duplicity. Seated unflustered at the Jukeses' dining table, she rested her formidable low-slung bust upon the board. Age had bloated her. Though she was not breeding, since it was now two years after Bevan Bevan drowned in the Thames, she still exuded helplessness. She sighed with valiant self-pity. 'To say truth, he was never the same, after he was squashed into the horse-trough at your wedding, Gideon.'

  'I was never the same after my wedding,' retorted Gideon frankly.

  Elizabeth ignored that. She glossed over her desperate need for a new, cheap girl to bully in her tumultuous nursery; instead she claimed she was perturbed about the Keevil family's fortunes. 'We have heard nothing of them recently, and times being so hard, especially for country folk, I fear the worst… I cannot go, but it would surely be no burden for you to ride out to Eltham and see how they manage? Robert Allibone will lend you his horse.'

  Gideon was impressed by how far she had thought this through. Still, Elizabeth and Bevan had always been great imposers.

  He stood up, arms folded, and stared down at his bothersome great-uncle's untrustworthy wife.

  'Lord, you are a long lad! I swear you were begot by a beanpole; you will have cost your dear mother some pain in bearing you…'

  'I want to know the truth,' Gideon said.

  'Why, whatever can you mean?'

  'I mean this, madam. I say it without vindictiveness towards my late wife, for I believe she was abused just as much as me. I owned the child, and I would have set myself to be a good father all her days…'

  'Yet Lacy said you never set the baby once upon your knee!' interposed Elizabeth waspishly.

  'The more blame is mine!' Gideon believed himself older and more tolerant now. Perhaps he was. 'Is it any wonder though? I believed Lacy Keevil was fumbled by someone and got with child dishonestly, before I was ever introduced to her. I was duped. You know it — and you should now tell me how it happened.'

  Elizabeth Bevan stood up too. Gathering herself together, which took some moments, she looked Gideon over just as disdainfully as he was surveying her. 'That is a terrible thing for anyone to think or say. May God forgive you for it, Gideon Jukes!'

  She swept out. Gideon experienced one short moment of doubt — then apocalyptic certainty.

  Which was why, when his brother was yearning to travel to Lewisham to plead with Anne, Gideon organised a cart to take them, then brought Robert's
peculiar horse as well. Though he did not admit it to himself, and he certainly would not tell Elizabeth Bevan, he would be free, if the mood took him, to leave Lambert with Anne while he went off on his own to find Lacy's family in nearby Eltham.

  'Write and warn Anne you are coming. Then you should take a gift for her birthday, Lambert.'

  Lambert looked horrified. 'That has never been a tradition between Anne and me!'

  'You great mutton-pasty! We live in a new world, brother,' argued Gideon, with great patience (he thought). 'Consider that we may therefore have a new situation between your wife and you.'

  Lewisham was about to present Gideon Jukes with a much newer situation than he foresaw.

  They turned up, trying not to look too stiff in their best suits. They were close-barbered, with well-brushed hats, cunningly arriving an hour before mealtime. Gideon sent his brother indoors alone, bearing the birthday present. He waited with the cart long enough to be sure Lambert was not to be sent packing. Then, since there was a paddock, he set about unharnessing the horses.

  Two small boys walked out and stared through the hedge at him. They were lean-limbed, pleasant-featured, intelligent children. Their dark-haired locks curled on their collars — longer hair than Gideon approved of, though he was in a scratchy mood since he knew that the woman Anne lived with was a Royalist. These tidy little mother's boys had been dressed in two suits of the same ochre-coloured material, with brown braid trimming. The elder, about seven years old, looked a lad of spirit, the younger more withdrawn. They watched, as the ancient grey mare from Benjamin Lucock's cart rolled on her back on the grass, full of joy, then struggled herself upright to gallop around crazily. Rumour stood by the hedge looking sorry for himself. 'So much a city horse, he will not play,' commented Gideon to the older boy, who remained there watching, while Gideon followed the younger one indoors.