Pistoleer: Edgehill

by Smith, Skye

  "Covenanters, peace, Ireland?" Daniel couldn't believe his ears. "I have met the men who wrote the Scottish Covenant. They are Bible thumping, Catholic killing, nut cases. Peace is not what they will take to Ulster." Everyone ignored his protest. Hampden would get his way. Hampden always got his way, eventually.

  * * * * *

  "Women,” Daniel mouthed soundlessly to John Hotham as they left the port of Lynn on the Wash for the port of Hull up north on the Humber. The one word said it all, and it made the old man crack a grin. Hotham was the MP from Beverly to the north of Hull, and until he had refused to pay the Shipmoney tax had been the governor of the fortress at Hull on the Humber. Warwick had invited him along on his journey north.

  Hotham was supposed to have gone to Hull in January to become the governor there again, this time to take over the garrison, the fortress, and the arsenal on behalf of parliament, but he had been ill in January. Instead he had sent orders to his very capable eldest son in Beverly to march the militia into Hull and take it over on his behalf. Because of his health, Hotham had still been shying from the long journey, so Warwick had offered him a passage by sea. They had both climbed aboard the Freisburn One in London for a journey to Lynn to intercept the Swift which should have been back from the Netherlands by now.

  Not only did Daniel carry Warwick and Hotham as passengers, but Sarah and Teesa as well. Sarah because she felt uncomfortable in the company of her nieces at Warwick House, and Teesa supposedly because she was homesick for Wellenhay, but really to stay near to Warwick. Britta and Warwick's wife Susannah had stayed in London. Susannah because she suffered terribly from sea sickness, or so she said. Britta because she wasn't finished with London yet. As if anything could tear the lass away from the silk and satin lifestyle of Warwick House.

  Even though Hotham's son and several companies of the East Riding Trained Band now controlled Hull, he was anxious to arrive with the paperwork to prove that he was to replace the king's chosen governor. Hull had been the main supply depot for the armies that Charlie had sent to invade Scotland. It was a formidable arsenal and Hotham's appointment was to ensure that Charlie was refused its use in the future. This change of command at Hull had pleased the Scottish Covenanters so much that they agreed to send an army of two thousand over to Ulster, on English ships of course.

  As soon as Hotham was comfortable in Hull, the king would officially be notified of his appointment. That was typical of the agreement between the ignore-the-king factions and the involve-the-king factions of parliament. Be open and honest with the king as if it were governance as usual, but only once the deeds were done.

  Hotham laughed aloud at Daniel's mouthing of the word 'women' as he nodded to his comely kinswomen. They had both refused to be left behind by the Swift at Lynn. "Relax,” he whispered to Daniel. "Would that my women were as easy in the company of wealthy men such as Warwick, or as easy on the helm of a ship. If they want to come, then let them. What does it matter?"

  "What it matters is that my wife will skin me alive for coming this close to our village without making a visit."

  "Your wife?" Hotham said in a confused voice, "I thought Sarah was your wife." This sent Warwick and some of the crew nearby into gales of laughter, because of course Daniel wouldn't have told an upstanding Christian like Hotham that two sisters each claimed him as their husband.

  "Teesa's mother,” Daniel stated and left it at that on the excuse of going to explain everything to Anso who had just skippered the Swift back from the Netherlands. The Swift drew too much water to travel all the way up to Cambridge on the Rivers Ouse and Cam so Anso had already arranged to unload his cargo of guns into the much smaller Freisburn One, as well as onto a local ship about the same size as the One. Guns for the Cambridge Trained Bands, and to paid for by Oliver the city's MP in silver plate. Or hopefully to be paid for, because despite his promises, Oliver had still neglected to bring the silver to the village.

  The Swift had been built in Cadiz, Spain as a shallow draft, two masted, lateen galliot for the purpose of chasing similar ships used by the pirates of the Corsair Republic of Sale and the west coast of Morocco. It had been captured by the Dutch Navy at the Battle of the Downs, but they had no use for it so it had been traded off to Daniel and his clan. During a stopover in Bermuda last year its lateen sails had been re-rigged in the Bermudan way, so now it could be run by as few as five or six men in good weather, or ten in bad weather.

  It took a while to organize a combined crew of ten for the Swift from the men who had just brought her back from Holland, and the men who had just sailed in on the Freisburn One. Once that was done, and the cargo offloaded, Daniel wasted no time in heading the Swift north across the Wash. At the speed the Swift sailed the voyage to Hull may take as few as twelve hours. Perhaps less since the onshore wind meant that their triangle sails could pull the ship faster than the wind.

  Ten hours later the light in Hull's church tower told them it was time to make a turn across the current of the River Humber and enter the well guarded harbour that Henry the Cock had created. This had been done by building a modern bastion wall on the east side of the harbour over top of the hamlet of Drypool, so between the new wall and the older town wall, the harbour was surrounded. Officially the town was called Kingston, but the locals and the navy all called it Hull. It was near midnight by the time they tied up at the quay, so Warwick and Hotham slept aboard the Swift with the crew and waited for daylight before venturing into the town.

  It was just forty miles by river, or thirty overland, from Hull to the king's court that was now assembling in York. For that reason no one in Hull, not the aldermen, not the navy, and not the governor of the fortress had been told that Hotham was the new governor, not even when Hotham's son, John Junior, had brought the Trained Bands down from Beverly. Now that the father had arrived with the paperwork, the change in governorship could be done officially.

  By afternoon of that day, the governance of the fortress and the arsenal had been changed and nary an arguement had been raised against it. No one in the fortress or the town questioned the parliamentary decree that Hotham showed them. No one on the naval ships questioned the Lord High Admiral Percy's orders which Warwick showed as proof that he was now the Admiral of the Summer Fleet. No one in the town questioned anything once Warwick made it known that the Summer Fleet would begin provisioning a month earlier than usual, and therefore would be spreading plenty of the ready around to local businesses.

  Neither of the Hothams, nor Warwick could believe that the king had allowed Hull to be taken over by Parliament without a struggle, not with his own forces only thirty miles away in York. For that reason, the next day they spent walking the walls, and then riding all around the outside of them so that they could gauge the defenses and find any weaknesses. Teesa stuck with Warwick for she had no interest in helping Sarah organize the new governor's household. Daniel rode along just to stay out of Sarah's whirlwind.

  Both John Hothams had seen service in the Netherlands, and they explained that the fenlands of Holderness along the north shore of the Humber were very similar to where they served, though not as populated. Two hundred years ago a series of dikes and canals had been built to dry the land all around Hull for grazing. The mouth of the River Hull had even been diverted to allow a larger harbour at its mouth. The most recent and most formidable of the battlements were the ones that protected each side of the harbour entrance. They had been built by the Tudors out of fear of the Spanish Navy.

  Hotham senior was their guide for he had once before been the governor of Hull and the Sheriff of the East Riding of Yorkshire. As they walked the battlements he told them that walls of the town and harbour had been built on land raised higher by the sweat of peasants, and that the lower land was only dry because of the canals and dikes. The salt still in the soil spoiled the land for anything but use as a common grazing area for the drovers who moved great herds of cattle south to London every year.

  They began their ride around t
he outside from the fortress tower that protected the east side of the harbour entrance. On the fortress side of the harbour there were few shops or homes and there was no moat around the fortress walls like there was around the town walls. Being the newest of the walls they were also the heaviest and rose at a slant which caused cannon balls to deflect.

  They crossed a Rotterdam style lift bridge that spanned the river narrows at the north end of the harbour. It was well protected by the corner towers of the walls on each side of the river. The tower on the town side also protected a sluice gate. The sluice was closed to keep the town's moat filled during low tides, and opened when the moat needed flushing by a high tide.

  "Only the towers that protect the harbour mouth were built to withstand modern cannon fire,” Hotham told them. "The walls that protect the town and the harbour from the land side look formidable, but they are thin and old and would be quickly be pounded to dust by modern cannons." The men all nodded. Most of the defensive walls in England, both of castles and towns, were built before the continental wars between Catholics and Lutherans had improved the science of artillery.

  After circling the outside of the walls, the governor turned to go back into town through the gate in the south west tower, the tower with the sluice gate at the other end of the moat. Daniel begged his leave to explore some more, and Teesa joined him for she was enjoying the feeling of having a spirited young stallion between her legs again, not that she would ever say such a thing in public. Warwick longed to join them, but he was being taken to meet the town council.

  Teesa raced her stallion across the absolutely flat common meadows and Daniel knew better than to try to keep up to her. The lass rode like she was a part of the horse. Instead he turned his mare to ford a shallow drainage canal that ran along the inside of the dike that kept the Humber from flooding these meadows at high tide. The dike had been built by piling up the silt excavated to create the canal. There was a bridle path along the top of it which gave a better view of the Humber and of the meadows. That was where he rode while the lass put her stallion through his paces.

  Eventually the bridle path led down to the flats on the Humber side of the dike to get around a wooden dam a dozen feet across which held a sluice gate. The tide was ebbing and a local was lifting the gate to drain the water that had accumulated in the canal behind the dike. Daniel got down and went to help the man.

  "Thankee stranger," the man grumbled, "any help is welcomed by my back."

  "How many gates are there?".

  "A dozen on this side of the harbour and a dozen the other side, and only one of me to walk the dikes to open them, and then again to close them. Some day I will put my back out and will be lying helpless in the ditch and no bugger will miss me until the meadow becomes a marsh again."

  "Why don't you put a hinge on the gate so that it is opened by the canal water, but closed by the tide?"

  The man looked at him like he had two heads. "And put me out of work? The devil you say. Don't you be saying such evil things in the town, yee hear me."

  Teesa rode up and dismounted with a handspring just to show off. "So this is what the drainers want to turn our Wellenhay fens into ... a sparse meadow and nothing more. It is a sin to dry out the wetlands. They are a gift from Freyja. A nursery for all the creatures of the river and sea and sky."

  "Don't you be speaking the great green goddess's name too loudly round these parts, lassie," the local told her, "else they'll be decrying yee as a witch. The fishing has been getting worse and worse and there's more than a few sayin' it's from unnatural curses and witchcraft."

  "And they never thought that these meadows used to be where the fish laid their eggs and the fry were nurtured?" Teesa was amazed. "Pah, they would do better to burn men for stupidity than burn women for witchcraft."

  With a worry that perhaps Teesa was condemning herself as a witch to this old man, Daniel hurried to mount up and get back to the town, which forced her to leave off her tirade of logic and chase after him. When they got back to town and to Warwick the first thing Teesa told him was, "The meadows around the town should not be used for grazing cattle."

  "Aye, I agree,” Warwick replied, not just to her but to Hotham. "Think how the king would be tempted if by coming to Hull he could not only take control of the arsenal, but also claim the great herds bound for London. Perhaps you should close the meadows to the herds."

  "Ach, the cattle drovers from the north would lynch me if I did that,” the governor replied. "These pastures are where they fatten up their cattle while they wait to barge them across the Humber. It's a long way to London, and there are fewer and fewer common pastures along the way."

  "Tell them to sell them in York instead. With the king, his court, and his army in residence they will get a good price."

  "You must be jesting," Junior laughed. "No one trusts the king's tally sticks anymore, and he is reluctant to part with silver." The tally sticks were marques of credit against taxes owed to the king's treasury. With the king now separated from his treasury in London, no one in their right mind would trust his credit sticks.

  "He needs what silver he has to pay his mercenaries,” Warwick replied. "Then tell the drovers that the Summer Fleet will buy some of their cattle with silver, but not here. What other deep sea ports are there on the Holderness coast?"

  "Hornsea is the closest place on the coast to Beverly,” Junior replied.

  "There is no harbour at Hornsea. Bridlington is the best choice,” Daniel corrected.

  "Bridlington it is then,” Warwick said. "Tell the drovers that the Summer fleet will buy cattle in Bridlington, but warn them not to expect London prices."

  * * * * *

  With the two Hothams and their East Riding lads firmly in control of Hull, and Warwick's business with the fleet captains at Hull complete, the Swift set sail out of the Humber and south, for it was time that Warwick took control of the great naval depot at Chatham in Kent. What should have been an overnight sail took them four days. Not only did they put in to Lynn to drop the women off, but Warwick used the speed of the Swift to chase down every naval ship they saw along the way so that he could introduce himself to the officers. With each introduction, the great chest of silver shillings that Admiral Warwick had brought along with him, got a little bit lighter.

  Warwick and the other directors of the Providence company viewed the chest of silver as an investment because if Warwick was accepted as admiral by the fleet's captains then this was the profit opportunity of a lifetime. Control of the Summer Fleet meant that Providence ships returning from the Caribbean would not be inspected by the coastal patrols or by customs. The directors had no way of knowing for sure, but they had deep hopes that by now those ships would be on their way home filled with Spanish treasure captured with the help of the boucaniers of Tortuga.

  Having the Swift become known to the fleet as their admiral's yacht would have a similar effect on Daniel's trading business. No longer would this ship need to sneak into creeks and rivers to offload guns and liquor, but would openly sail into any port, or so Daniel hoped. The clan's ships were trying to make as much profit as possible before they got on with their master plan ... their move to Bermuda and away from the ever more brutal winters of the Fens.

  * * * * *

  By April, Warwick had shaken the hands of every naval officer of Chatham on the Medway, and of the Thames Squadron, and was working his way along the south coast squadrons based in the Downs, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. He kept promising the Swift's crew a week ashore once they reached Bristol, before he went glad handing up the Irish Sea.

  The luxury of Warwick's Bristol manor was most welcome, but not the news that was waiting for them there. Prince James, the kings' son, accompanied by Prince Rupert had paid a visit to Hull and were welcomed and shown around, but the next day the king and three hundred courtiers had also arrived. In reaction to the arrival of such numbers, Hotham had locked the gates and raised the drawbridges. The king in his fury had pronounced Ho
tham a traitor and promised a reward to any man who would rid Hull of him, by any means. The very next day they got word that parliament had declared that Hotham could not be pronounced a traitor without due process of law.

  The other news was that the Scottish Covenanter army that had crossed to Ireland now had the rebels retreating, but that more Covenanter volunteers were needed. Warwick was torn between sailing to Hull to support Hotham, or sailing to the North Channel of the Irish Sea where the navy was shuttling Covenanters to Ulster, or returning to London to help his partners in the Providence Company to control Parliament against the king.

  The Irish Sea was immediate, so that was what they did, but without Daniel. At his request his friend and one time skipper of the Swift, Robert Blake, came from Bridgwater to Bristol to take command of the Swift. Blake had not hesitated, for he too wanted to be on the good side of the new Admiral, for he too made his profit from running small ships into shallow creeks in the dark of night. As for Daniel, he took post coaches to London and then Cambridge, for he felt pressed to get the clan organized for their move to Bermuda.

  Meanwhile the politicians both for and against the king were playing political word games in an ever increasing spiral of sanctions and threats. One day the parliament would declare that the king's evil councilors were dragging him towards a war, the next day the king would pronounce that any parliamentarian who spoke against him was committing treason. One day parliament would declare that under the Militia Ordinance only they could appoint the Lord-Lieutenants of the Trained Bands and call them out, which the king countered with the pronouncement that any obedience to the Ordinance was treasonous. While parliament was using the Militia Ordinance to take control of militias and their arsenals, the king was trying the same thing by pronouncing a Commission of Array that allowed Sheriffs to call out any and all able bodied men to support the king.