Now she runs into an unexpected setback.
Jane has presumed that the soldiers will at least tell her if Nat is being kept here. Maybe they will let her see him. She wants to take in warm food and a clean shirt. Why not?
What happens shocks her. The harsh men on guard laugh at her requests. They say they do not know if Nat is there. It is all new to Jane, but she soon sees that they turn away the friends of their unhappy prisoners every day. The soldiers seem to enjoy rejecting applicants. Still, something about Jane Afton is winning. She is a dainty young woman, with steady brown eyes and a polite air. She does not curse the soldiers or insult them – not yet. She asks very quietly if they will explain, so she can understand.
Bored, one soldier tells her the rules, rules that he loves applying. He savours Jane’s disappointment. No one can go in. Even the wives of officers are kept out. No one can send in anything to help the prisoners.
Foolishly, Jane asks if she can speak to the person in charge.
When the soldier stops yelling with laughter, he describes the Provost Marshal and gives horrible details of how Smith treats his prisoners. In case Jane hopes she can ransom her brother, the soldier warns her off. ‘Do you have ten pounds?’
‘No, sir.’ Jane has never seen so much money. ‘But I will try to see what I can find …’
‘We had a Mr Edward Bradney here. He thought payment for his freedom had been agreed. But he offered Marshal Smith only four pounds, when he knew the price was ten.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Our Marshal snatched the four, and sent Mr Bradney back to prison. He escaped, but we easily took him again.’ Jane wonders if Nat could have escaped – but if so, why has he not come home? ‘No one escapes us,’ sneers the soldier. ‘Bradney has been here six more months. Now he is dying in his own piss and filth. That will teach him to rebel against the King.’
Shaking and upset, Jane tries mentioning Cirencester, and how the town has apologised to the King.
The soldier knows all about it. ‘Oh such a humble apology! All meekly done, to avoid your filthy town losing everything. “They admit that their own errors exposed them to the anger of His Majesty’s justly enraged army.” Well, His Majesty has shown them mercy and so the cowards have all crept home in shame.’
‘Not all. Not my brother. I do not understand why.’
‘He is a rebel and a traitor. He must have refused to swear the oath of loyalty to His Majesty.’
Jane knows that over a thousand men from Cirencester did sign that oath. She cannot imagine Nat taking a stand against it, not when so many caved in. He follows the crowd, to keep out of trouble. Nat would want to be safe back home as soon as possible; he must want to be sitting in a warm tavern, getting a free pot of ale for entertaining the landlord with his adventures.
‘That would be a mistake,’ Jane falters. ‘He cannot have meant it.’
‘I don’t think so!’ jeers the guard. ‘A man must answer for himself.’ A new thought strikes him. ‘Or here’s another reason, maid – your brother has died!’
‘If that were so, somebody would know, surely?’
As Jane falters, the heartless soldier sneers. ‘Who can say? We keep no count. The dead are left to rot up there among the living.’
At first Jane assumes he has invented this to scare her – then she grasps the truth. He means it.
Blinded by tears, she stumbles away.
Chapter 7
Jane Learns More
It was early morning when Jane came into Oxford with the farmer’s wife who sells butter. After her grim visit to the castle, she spends most of the day wandering about. What can she do now? Must she go home empty-handed, without even news?
Her two sisters have convinced themselves that Jane will find Nat and bring him back home with her. Having no idea of the truth, they expect this to happen quickly. Jane always had doubts. Now she feels the heavy burden of her new knowledge. The civil war will not be over soon. The huge earth walls she has seen around Oxford warn her that the country is in the midst of a great conflict.
Already it is six months since the King raised his flag and began to gather an army. Jane realises that the war has hardly begun. People will have to live with it for years. Life in quiet English towns like Cirencester will cease to be normal. Children will grow up never knowing peace.
And people will suffer. Young men like Nat, who thought they would lead simple lives, will find that all is changed. Many will suffer in ways they had never expected. Many will die – not from the usual causes of disease and poverty, but directly because of this war.
Jane thinks about her talk with the soldier earlier. The way the man spoke, it sounded as if it is a common event for a prisoner to die at the castle. Maybe – she makes herself face this terrible possibility – maybe her brother really is one of the dead.
********
The streets are packed with people. Many take no notice of Jane Afton. However, some of the men, the soldiers, eye her up. She starts to feel unsafe. She is carrying a bundle – a few things for herself and old clothes that the family put together for Nat. This luggage marks her out as a woman alone in a strange town – a woman who can be preyed upon.
She has nowhere to stay. The butter woman has warned her that houses here are crammed with too many people. There is no room for anybody new. Jane begins to feel anxious for herself.
In the afternoon, she treks back to the castle. The guards have changed, but their story stays the same. Pleading for news is hopeless. This time other people are there, people with the same request as hers. Among them are male friends of the prisoners, but most are women – wives trying to see their husbands. They all look strained. As they plead for access and are refused, Jane can tell that this hideous ritual happens every day. Over and over again, Marshal Smith is mentioned by the guards as the reason for their cruelty. Everyone seems afraid of him, even his own men.
As she waits her turn to be rebuffed, Jane takes more notice of the royalist soldiers. They are rough men, who lounge about and smoke clay pipes even while they are on duty. They wear poor clothes, but have guns and swords. Their manners are as crude as their task. And their task is simple: to make prisoners suffer, and even to demoralise the prisoners’ friends.
In war, as Jane starts to understand, armies want to reduce their enemy’s numbers. If it does not happen in battle, they will let it happen through neglect. That may be the easiest way. And taking away hope is a useful way to lessen any enemy’s will to continue.
As she listens and watches, she overhears a conversation. On the stairs that lead up into the tower, a man who must be one of the prisoners hoarsely pleads with a soldier for water. He sounds desperate. Still the reply comes that Smith has forbidden it. The soldier dare not give him a drink – ‘Not even though the river runs right at our door.’
Jane is sure she hears the sound of someone being beaten. She is relieved when a door slams shut, cutting off the noise.
One of the louts on guard sees his chance with Jane. He makes an attempt to put his arms around her. She cannot defend herself, except by breaking free of him and running from the guardhouse.
In tears, Jane bumps into a woman just outside. She is the wife of one of the officers who are being held. She is called Mrs Wingate. Seeing Jane’s distress, she takes pity and brings Jane back to her own lodgings. Although there are no beds free anywhere in that house, she says Jane can stay today. She may sleep on the tall wooden settle, by the fire in the kitchen – provided they can hide this from the landlord. So, for one night, Jane Afton will be safely off the streets.
********
That evening, Mrs Wingate provides a plain meal for them both and, as they eat it, she explains what Jane is dealing with.
‘Marshal Smith is killing them with his cruelty. He keeps even the captains and gentlemen locked up day and night, with sentries always on guard. Smith allows them no contact with the living or the dead, with men or books. He denies them pen, ink an
d paper to write to their friends for relief. They pine for bread and water. They cannot walk in the fresh air.’
‘Have you managed any contact?’ Jane asks, thinking that the wife of an officer surely must have better treatment. But her companion shakes her head.
Mrs Wingate is a well-spoken woman, with a little education. She has left her pantry and herb garden, her wash-copper and bread oven, even her small children, to come to Oxford and do what she can for her man. In her, Jane sees how women must now step out of the role normally given to them. Wives of prisoners have to take charge of their families in ways they never expected. It falls to them to try to help their men, to struggle to arrange a ransom or a prisoner exchange. Alone, they have to keep their families together. All the time, they know their men may never come home again.
Mrs Wingate tells what she knows about William Smith, the bully who holds such extreme power over the prisoners.
‘This is a degenerate and bloody fellow, Jane. He turned himself from being a mere cobbler to a position at the royal court. He was supposed to keep order among those who attended the royal court and to act as a bailiff. But Smith lost his place for bad behaviour. Then he took up as a go-between for thieves, pick-pockets and every kind of rogue. To this day, he keeps company with such villains. The worst thing about him is that he was arrested for having two wives. He could have been hanged for that. Indeed, he should have been!’
Jane is shocked. ‘And why is such a wicked man put in this position? Why does the King trust him?’
She observes how Mrs Wingate purses her lips. The two women sit in silence for a moment. Women are not supposed to engage in politics, nor even to hold opinions, but King Charles has hardened these two women’s attitudes. The King’s appointment of Smith may be mere lack of judgement – or a much worse decision on his part. The women know what they think.
Chapter 8
Worse News for Jane
Next day, Captain Wingate’s wife takes Jane with her for the rite of begging to see the prisoners. Now that Jane is braced for bad news, Mrs Wingate tells her more about how the men in jail are treated.
‘You must be prepared, my dear. They are starved, beaten, and many of them are chained up. There is a cruel way of doing that. The soldiers call it “neck and heels” – they are trussed up in iron chains like poultry, and unable to move. Sometimes as much as thirty-five pounds’ weight of metal is loaded on them. You cannot imagine their pain.’
‘And they must be weakened anyway by lack of food and drink.’ Jane describes how she heard a prisoner pleading for water.
‘I have heard some there are so thirsty they have drunk their own urine,’ Mrs Wingate tells her angrily. ‘Decent folk would not believe what is done to them. Once, when prisoners were fainting for lack of water, Smith took the keys from a guard who was about to give them some. He put his own man in chains for that, then later stripped him of his clothes and turned him out of doors.’
‘So his soldiers are taught never to show pity?’ Jane whispers.
‘His men have learned to be brutes from his example. He has a deputy, a man called Roche, who is as bad as him. Roche does sell beer to the prisoners, and then charges great prices, but mostly the guards take joy in refusing even water.’
‘But the prisoners will die!’ cries Jane, who is still very innocent. ‘Or is that the intention?’
‘I believe it is,’ confirms Mrs Wingate grimly. ‘With such abuse comes plague. Many of the men inside the tower are very sick. In that condition, they are forced to lie on bare boards, on or under tables, in the hearths, on the stairs, or even upon each other.’
‘No wonder they die.’
‘Indeed, Jane. Fever comes from being so close to sickness. Infection is also spread by their sad corpses – for Smith makes no arrangements to remove dead bodies or provide proper funerals. The prisoners are compelled to find money among themselves if they want the dead men removed.’
Jane cannot avoid the dreadful thought that Nat may have been one of those corpses – carried off by plague and buried only through the kindness of his companions.
With a lump in her throat again, Jane lets slip her fears that her search is hopeless. Mrs Wingate tries to cheer her. She points out a woman, heavily pregnant, who she says is Elizabeth Lilburne. She is a merchant’s daughter who last year married a well-known opponent of the King’s policies. Captain John Lilburne was in a rebel garrison at Brentford near London when King Charles’s men attacked the city. As the cavaliers approached, Lilburne tried to escape by jumping into the Thames, but was captured and brought to Oxford. At that time he was the most prominent opponent they had taken, so they planned to try him for high treason – which carried a sentence of death.
Lilburne already knew all about the harsh treatment the authorities gave anyone who defied the King. Arrested in the past for publishing unlawful writings, he had once been flogged with a three-thonged whip on his bare back. With his hands tied to the rear of a cart, he was dragged from prison to the pillory. Even when stooping in the stocks, he managed to campaign for freedom, until in the end he was gagged. Finally he was thrown back in prison, but even there he managed to write. He printed an account of his own punishment, which he called The Work of the Beast.
Now he is suffering in Oxford jail.
‘If they bring him to trial, Jane, they will hang him without mercy. So his wife has shown what a woman of spirit can and must do. She took herself to Parliament. Captain Lilburne is not popular there, because he holds extreme views. But Elizabeth brought a petition and insisted it be heard.’
‘So did Parliament respond?’ asks Jane, enthralled.
‘Yes, because if Lilburne were hanged, it would set a fatal precedent for all other prisoners. With only two days before the planned trial, Elizabeth – who is, as you see, carrying their first child – somehow raced back to Oxford and slipped through the lines.’ Jane raises her eyebrows, knowing how difficult that is. ‘Parliament declared that if Captain Lilburne, or any of his comrades, is killed, then an equal number of royalists will be put to death.’
‘And has it worked?’
‘Indeed. The trial was halted. John Lilburne now waits for an exchange of prisoners. Elizabeth stays here for his release.’
********
Because Captain Wingate’s wife has been in Oxford for many weeks, she has made contacts. She is able to find Jane a room to stay in, a poor place that Jane must share, but it is better than no place at all. Jane still wants to believe she will not have to remain in Oxford for long. She takes the offer. She has brought a little money, her savings.
Her hopes of a short stay soon seem foolish. But she will not wilt helplessly when fate seems against her. So Jane begins a determined search for information. All it brings is worse news of Marshal Smith’s degrading treatment of his charges.
From her poor lodgings in a tiny cottage in the backstreets, Jane learns where to find the women who once earned a few pence by helping prisoners. These thin, sad creatures are themselves close to starving. But in the past they took food and clean linen to men in trouble at the castle, also at the other prison called Bridewell, and in parish churches where the cavaliers hold many captives.
Smith has prevented the poor women’s work. They themselves are suffering now, having lost the tiny income upon which they once relied. They tell Jane that the prisoners are filthy and afflicted with lice, as well as starving and ill. Of those that have been beaten, some were hit with such force they have lost limbs.
********
Thinking that her brother may be ill, Jane sets out to learn what happens to the sick. She hears of a surgeon whom Marshal Smith engaged at one time for the men from Marlborough. Jane is not afraid of asking, so she tracks down where the man lives.
His name is Mr Betterise. At first he seems wary of talking to her, but he quickly becomes indignant at how Smith treated him.
‘He gave me five shillings at the start.’ This is no small sum. Jane wants to feel encoura
ged that money was provided – though she fears she will hear worse news. She is right. Mr Betterise cannot give her good cheer. ‘I was to bring warm food and dress their wounds. I spent two shillings, which I gave to those poor women who used to feed the prisoners in the churches. But one day I ran into that monster in the street.’
‘Marshal Smith?’ Jane feels her heart sink. ‘What did he do? I know he is unreasonable.’
‘He is vile and dishonest.’
‘Tell me the worst, sir, please.’
‘When he saw me in the street, suddenly his mind changed. He demanded that I give him his money back. Even though I had spent some, he wanted the full five shillings.’
‘So you could not help the poor wounded men?’
‘Worse than that. I made the mistake of complaining to my neighbours of how Smith mistreats the men, how he denies them water. Smith heard of it. He came for me and threw me too into prison. I was lucky. Sir Jacob Astley, the King’s commander, ordered me to be set free – but after that Smith would never let me in to attend to the wounded.’
His face clouds. He tells Jane sad stories he has heard. Two men who escaped were recaptured; Smith had their hands burned to the bone between their fingers. No surgeon was allowed to help them. Then they were each loaded with twenty-eight pounds of iron chains until they ended their days in torment. A captive brought in from Banbury had been wounded in the head with a poleaxe – a vicious cavalry weapon. The captains and gentlemen begged for medical help, but it was refused and the man died.
‘I heard of men beaten with canes, maybe sixty times, beaten on the head until the blood ran down over their ears. Men made to stand on the cold stone of the castle yard for three or four days and nights, in bitter winter. It is said men are dying in the foul dungeon at Bridewell – as many as two or three every day. There is no way I can help these poor wretches, if he will not let me in.’
A Cruel Fate (Quick Reads 2014) Page 3