Rebels and traitors

by Lindsey Davis

  They were still being menaced. At the end of December, the little fleet was chased until five or six ships were 'defunct': two ran aground, one was set ablaze, two were captured. Rupert, temporarily separated from Maurice, escaped in a 'nimble sailor', the Rainbow. Maurice only caught up with him later at Toulon.

  Intrepid piracy now became the way of life for the princes and their tattered band. They were outcasts, rarely permitted to land in European harbours and never again allowed to establish a base. Poverty-stricken and in constant danger, they were forced to hunt for prizes in shipping lanes where Blake patrolled and harried them.

  They preyed not only on English merchantmen but on those of any country allied to the English Commonwealth. Only the Dutch saluted them as allies. Even countries that were hostile to the Commonwealth were nervous commercially, because the Rump Parliament was strengthening its navy, building new ships, appointing experienced New Model Army veterans to command and looking overseas for trade and position. The tiny Royalist flotilla made little impact and, apart from a general hope of seizing ships and treasure, their wanderings became troubled and aimless.

  As they struggled, Lovell did not make a good pirate. There were intensely long periods when the ships were either moored or cruising on the lookout for prey, often pointlessly. While they were not fighting, he loathed the inactivity. Aboard ship or just as uncomfortable ashore in filthy taverns, he kept to himself, which made him unpopular, then he let it show that he despised people he had offended. He would not fawn on the princes; he would not cosy up to the men. Lovell could cope with deprivation; he prided himself on his hardness. But he regretted his decision to join this outlaw navy and he showed it. Always critical, he grumbled until he fell out of favour with Maurice. Though never as seasick as Rupert, he was frequently queasy, which did nothing to improve his sour mood. If he could have thought of anything better to do he would have left, but very few opportunities existed for landless cavaliers.

  So, to his own surprise, he stayed with the princes for the three or four years they were at sea. As an existence it was hard and brutalising. Men ran a constant risk of being drowned or shot. Lovell lost colleagues he did respect to filthy weather, bad food and water, scurvy, other diseases and wounds. The group were denounced as common pirates. They had no letters of marque to validate them; no nation protected them under its flag; all ports offered an uncertain reception, so finding food and water was a constant anxiety. They committed brave acts of plunder, taking thirty-one prizes altogether, but were so hard pressed they never managed to sustain their good luck. Some of their ships were wrecked; some crews mutinied and deserted.

  In November 1650 at Cartagena, Rupert managed to sell some valuable bronze cannon so was able to refit his little fleet, but the refurbished vessels still failed to prosper. Six months later, the French allowed him to berth at Toulon, where he bought stores, though on massive credit. He pinched together enough money to buy a ship he named the Honest Seaman; another they called the Loyal Subject joined them as they set off on travels that now took them through the Straits of Gibraltar and away from Europe. Rupert wanted to sail to the West Indies, where he believed there were Royalist supporters and rich pickings, but through 1651 was held off the west of Africa by endless wrangles among his men as they struggled to beat bad weather, the uncertainty of finding supplies and their own disagreements. Open plotting broke out among the officers on board.

  Rupert's own ship, the Constant Reformation, had been leaking, and in a violent storm off the Azores the situation became desperate. His men were unable to plug the rift; they manned the pumps, heaved guns overboard to lighten the ship and used everything to hand to make a barrier against incoming water. Rupert even ordered them to force in 120 pieces of raw beef from their victuals but the storm battered through and poured in. The vessel was doomed — and so was the crew. Alerted by cannon-shots, Maurice brought the Honest Seaman as close as he dared, hoping to take people off. Rupert refused to leave the comrades who had been through so much with him, but a group of men jumped him and dragged him to the single lifeboat. They rowed him to safety. A couple more rescue trips were bravely made, Lovell supervising one, but the task was hopeless. The remnants of Rupert's crew kept their ship afloat until nightfall, but soon those with Prince Maurice watched the Constant Reformation go down, taking over three hundred men. Most of the treasure the fleet had acquired went to the bottom with her.

  Limping to the Barbary Coast of Africa, they made repairs and tried to assemble supplies and water for an Atlantic crossing. During their refit they had various adventures with the local inhabitants. Sailors were killed or captured. Locals were taken as hostages. Peace overtures were misunderstood; there were pointless skirmishes. Rupert was struck by an arrow, which he cut out of his chest himself. At one point they made an incursion far up the Gambia river, where Prince Maurice captured two Spanish ships; one was broken up, the better vessel being taken by Maurice as his flagship, renamed the Defiance.

  At last, in summer 1652, the tiny squadron crossed the Atlantic.

  They had misjudged the moment. They found that the last Royalist enclave, in Barbados, had been extinguished by the Parliamentarian navy. The other islands and the American colonies saw where the future lay; they were coming to terms with the Commonwealth. There was no Caribbean safe haven. Instead of enjoying a tropical welcome, the Royalists found themselves isolated and at risk. Late summer was the season for heavy weather too, as fierce storms formed over the warm oceans. After sailing north past unfriendly islands, taking a few prizes, bartering glass beads for fruit and obtaining water — but no other supplies — at an anchorage controlled by the French, they sheltered in a bay called Dixon's Hole in the Virgin Islands. There they rationalised their motley collection of ships and prizes, while they prepared for the bad weather they knew was coming and considered their options. Provisions ran low, and there were many complaints about the local staple, cassava, a root for which they had to forage in dense undergrowth and which, even when they managed to find it, made unpalatable tapioca dumplings or a bitter bread; eating too much of it was poisonous.

  Rupert had decided they were at risk of discovery by hostile Commonwealth patrols. He had set sail for Anguilla. Their situation worsened dramatically when, in the middle of September, a hurricane blew up. They were caught at sea; it was on them with frightening suddenness. They had seen enough bad weather, but this was far outside their experience. Apocalyptic winds howled in the sky. Enormous waves, fuelled by the great winds' passage over the mighty Atlantic, surged ever and ever higher. They had no chance to outrun the weather or to find shelter. Ships which had seemed perfectly substantial on a dock-side now felt like fragile toys; they became unmanageable. Helpless, they slid down vast swells of water as if they were heading inevitably to the bottom, then when they somehow cheated death and were driven up again from terrifying troughs, unrelenting water swept across their decks so powerfully neither man nor gear could withstand its power. Anyone carried overboard was gone in seconds. Lifeboats, sails, masts and rigging were torn away. Loose barrels rumbled to and fro and crashed about dangerously in their flooded holds. Even with barely a shred of canvas, the waves forced ships to careen sideways so steeply their spars seemed ready to touch the water and drag them under. Every rib and joint of their wooden hulls groaned in agony, as if the tormented timbers were being crushed in some giant ogre's paw. The soldiers cursed the sailors and the sailors, when they had breath to do it, cursed them back. Everyone was exhausted within hours, but they knew they would have days of this to endure.

  Orlando Lovell played his part, as crews and troops fought heroically to survive. It was impossible to see from one end to the other of the small ship he was on. Dim figures loomed through spray, gesticulating wildly. Lovell worked now without complaint, soaked through to his shirt, long hair flying in wet strands as he fought to bail water, help reduce sail, clear spars, bolster holes. Now the men with him remembered why they had deemed him a good collea
gue. He lacked no courage in a disaster. Released from lethargy and ill-humour, he showed strong mental toughness. He bawled or signalled frantic orders above the howls of the wind, while he strove against their coming doom, using all his strength physically and encouraging others. They hardly heard a curse from him; he would not waste the energy. As the ship staggered and risked foundering, he was a desperate participant. Lovell was now a fierce man of action who fought strenuously, tirelessly, ingeniously for his own life and the lives of everybody with him.

  The hurricane roared up to a climax. On the second day, the ships lost sight of one another. Unable to steer in the pitch darkness, they had to battle on, every ship independently, and every man for himself. Even the best captain in the sturdiest vessel could not help his craft survive the damage they were suffering. Rupert's ship was driven helplessly towards ferocious jagged rocks and his appalled men must all have perished, had not the wind then abruptly changed. They were flung into a safe harbour on an uninhabited island, where they made anchor in complete exhaustion.

  When the hurricane finally passed over and made landfall far in the west, Rupert's battered vessel was alone. Somehow they crawled back to Dixon's Hole for repairs, intending to wait for any other survivors to reconnoitre at their last-known berth. As the last rags of storm blustered under grey skies, Rupert then searched desperately for his brother Maurice. One other ship of theirs was picked up, but of the Defiance no trace could be found.

  Rupert was devastated. The Defiance and the other ships must have been wrecked on the treacherous reefs and rocks of the low-rising, sparsely populated Anegada, in the north of the Virgin Islands, or perhaps they came to grief on Sombrero Island, above Anguilla. Rupert hunted the region, fruitlessly seeking answers. Rumours would persist for years that Maurice was still alive, perhaps a prisoner of the Spanish, but eventually Rupert abandoned the search. He returned to Europe.

  No word ever came. Only many years later did Sir Robert Holmes, who had served with Prince Maurice, learn from some Spaniards that shattered pipe-staves had been seen, washed ashore in great quantities on the beaches of Puerto Rico. Pipes were huge nautical barrels, the size of two hogsheads. These had been branded MP, which was the mark Prince Maurice used.

  Long before that, early in 1653, just two ships crept back to France, with Prince Rupert. He was depressed, ill and exhausted. He lay sick for weeks, before his cousin Charles II sent a carriage and he rejoined the court. By then Rupert had accepted that his brother had perished. The Defiance was lost: utterly lost, with no survivors.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight — The Middle Temple: 1653

  In England, Juliana Lovell consulted a lawyer.

  It came about by accident. Juliana did not go to the Middle Temple in order to enquire about her personal position. She thought she knew that all too well: a married woman, with two children to support, having no money — but a fixed intent to lead a life of the utmost simplicity. What else could she do? Since Edmund Treves first said her husband had sailed with Prince Maurice, she had had no news. The princes' movements were sporadically mentioned in news-sheets, so as the years passed, Juliana became familiar with foreign affairs as she scanned reports from France, Holland, Spain, Naples and anywhere else that might be relevant. Early in 1653 she saw mention that Prince Rupert and perhaps ten ships had been glimpsed carrying out repairs at Guadeloupe, then she read of a rumour he had been shipwrecked. In mid-February the Weekly Intelligencer gave her dark news:

  It was this day confirmed by letters from Paris that Prince Rupert landing a few days before at Brest in Brittany, did take his journey from thence to Paris. Some letters make mention that he came only with two ships, some say three, the only relics of the storm. There is nothing yet certain of his brother Maurice, but some say that both he and his ship were devoured by the sea in the great tempest.

  Juliana went to the Middle Temple because she was invited. Mr Abdiel Impey who had already informed her of her guardian's death, was searching for a document one day in spring 1653 and came upon the long-forgotten papers of Mr William Gadd, deceased — deceased, in fact, in 1649. Mr Impey kept an extremely cluttered office, where his rule was the good one that whenever he wrote a letter he placed a copy handy in a mountainous document tray; if nobody replied within two years, or when the pile grew so tall it toppled over, he dropped the copy into the basket of papers which his clerk was allowed to use to light the fire.

  However, Mr Impey had known and liked William Gadd.

  Extensive exploration among pleas, draft wills, receipts for embroidered waistcoats and vintners' price lists revealed that Mistress Juliana Lovell had answered his first letter with a polite acknowledgement; at the time she had said she would come to discuss matters as soon as it was convenient. This phrase either meant the party would turn up within three days, hoping money had been willed to them, or if they were frightened off by officialdom they would never come at all. Being in a kindly mood the day he found the papers, Mr Impey had his clerk dispatch a reminder.

  This time, Juliana came. She worked on the principle that one invitation was mere etiquette, but two indicated something important.

  Besides, she needed to cling to this last link with the people she had known during her marriage. Now Lovell was permanently missing. Mr Gadd was dead. So too, killed in 1651 at the battle of Worcester, was poor Edmund Treves. One of his sisters had sent Juliana a locket with his portrait, which apparently Edmund had wished her to have, and a jewelled watch for his godson Valentine; there was mention of a small legacy, though it had not arrived. Worcester had been the most desperate of battles. The young King's troops were outnumbered almost three to one and despite successful cavalry sallies in the early stages, they ended up bottled in, short of ammunition, lacking support from the Scots, and completely overwhelmed. It was thought that Edmund Treves had died below the castle during the last courageous struggle, when cover was being provided for the King's dramatic escape through the one city gate that remained open. True details of Treves's fate would never be known.

  His sister railed bitterly in her letter about the waste of his life. He had spent the ten years when he could be called an adult fighting for the royal cause. He never finished university, never married nor had children. His family had barely seen him. When he finally went home in 1649, his mother was so ill she took no pleasure from his presence. She died, two years later, just before Edmund answered the call and went west to join Charles IFs army as it marched down from Scotland to the Midlands. At least his mother never knew he was killed, though Juliana thought Alice Treves may have guessed what would happen.

  Juliana herself was seriously depressed by losing him. His honest heart and unchanging affection had always given her comfort. He was her only real link to Lovell.

  She had scanned the list of Royalists killed at Worcester, just in case, but found no Colonel Lovell named. A year later, in September 1652, came the hurricane. The following March she read that Prince Rupert had returned to France, depleted in spirit though more glamorous than ever: tall, handsome, honed, dark, weather-beaten, fashionably morose and tragic. He had lost eleven ships, including his brother's Defiance. Now thirty-three, Rupert had an exotic household of richly liveried Negro servants, parrots and monkeys — and exotic debts to match. Juliana would have liked to imagine Lovell in the same state, but she could not do it.

  It seemed reasonable to suppose that any of Rupert's men who had families in England would, on returning to France, communicate with them. If no word came, presumably the man was dead. Juliana still heard nothing from Lovell, so had to face this thought. She hardly dared to address a letter to Prince Rupert and she knew no other Royalists from whom she could beg for news. Lovell congenitally managed without friends. Edmund Treves was the only one she ever knew him to have.

  She presumed Lovell drowned with Prince Maurice. She became haunted by bad dreams in which the man she had married, and believed she loved, was a lost soul who spun helplessly in surging waves, caught up amidst
a tangle of ropes, perhaps wounded by a fallen spar, until his strength failed and he drifted in the merciless cold water.. She did not know if Orlando could even swim. She had heard that drowning was better — quicker and easier — for those who could not.

  If this was what had happened, Juliana pitied Orlando and genuinely grieved. The only other alternative was bitter for her: that whatever had befallen him, he had now deliberately chosen to abandon his wife and children.

  It happened. It had happened throughout history. However, Juliana knew there was a long tradition in European folklore of soldiers who had been away for decades returning unexpectedly to startled wives who barely recognised them.. Losses like hers were in fact so frequent, the situation was recognised by Parliament in compassionate legislation. Juliana discovered this, during her visit to the lawyer.

  Mr Impey inhabited a ramshackle first-storey chamber above Middle Temple Lane. He was of lizard-like appearance, completely bald, with a great nose and deep-cut lines to a receding chin. At first he appeared to have no idea who she was or what she wanted, but Juliana patiently accepted that lawyers were overwhelmed by the volume of business they had to remember (only privately thinking, the man was an idiot; the clerk had written his reminder, but Impey had himself signed it, and only last Wednesday…).