by Simon Parke
‘He would have preferred your religion, if that’s your meaning, and been a more assured leader of men.’
‘And taller.’
‘But weak against typhoid, Oliver, and so a passer-by in our history. It’s not the dead who disturb us today.’
‘You were saying,’ said Cromwell, feeling put in his place.
‘As Black Rod, Maxwell is Charles’ private money man, a fat rat in the sewer of royal finances. Suffice to say his stepdaughter will be well versed in double-accounting and commercial trickery.’
‘Not such feminine traits, perhaps.’
‘He worked closely with merchants, as does she.’ Oliver did not warm to this talk. He liked battles between men. ‘And she laughed at you in Oxford.’
‘Laughed at me?’
‘During the war, she smuggled gold into the city, while you besieged the place! All given by London merchants.’
‘How?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘How was it done?’
Wood was enjoying this. ‘She had it hidden in bars of soap and then taken into the city via the laundress, an Elizabeth Wheeler. Perhaps she walked past you and waved, for who gives a woman a second glance? And it was gold well spent – used to effect the transportation of the queen and the Prince of Wales to France.’
‘I was only there at the end,’ said Cromwell, defensively. ‘At the siege, I mean, and somewhat distracted by family affairs – the marriage of my daughter Bridget and Henry at nearby Holton Hall.’
‘Holton, you say?’ Now Wood looked surprised.
‘The Whorwood home, yes. You did not know?’ He liked it when Wood didn’t know. ‘And I remember Lady Ursula as a most forceful woman.’
‘Then remember also her daughter-in-law, Jane Whorwood.’
‘I do remember her – a rather distant girl, there but not there.’
‘It is Jane I speak of, Oliver.’
A pause.
‘Jane Whorwood, a spy for the king?’ Wood nodded. ‘But she was at Henry and Bridget’s wedding!’
*
Wood held back amid Oliver’s confusion.
‘Always important to get the oldest married first, Oliver. Bridget is your oldest, isn’t she?’
It was offered as a kindness, to ease the sting, a chance to speak of family – but Cromwell sat in silence. He felt foolish . . . made foolish by a woman with gold hidden in soap, walking past him with a smile and a wedding invitation in her hand, when all the time, she’d been . . .
Wood continued, angling his eyeglass towards his notes, like an advocate in court. ‘They say other things.’
‘And what do they say?’
‘Jane made money for the king by defrauding parliament’s revenue committee and corrupting its chairman.’
‘I see.’
‘You see only a little.’ Cromwell was angry now, angry that a woman whose family he knew should behave in this way. ‘And she is a most busy postal service,’ added Wood. ‘She has couriers of her own – good men, not vermin – relaying intelligence between the king and his followers, and between the followers themselves. They reach as far as Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh? Well, we will deal with Scotland.’ The Scots would be a good vessel for his rage.
‘And her sister – Elizabeth, Countess Lanark, you will know of her – she intrigues with Jane. It is a family affair – and then—’
‘And then what?’
‘An affair of a different hue . . . Sir Thomas Bendish.’
‘What of Sir Thomas?’
Sir Thomas was presently in Istanbul. He’d been sent there by the House of Lords earlier in the year, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. What had he to do with this awful woman? Bendish was a royalist to his belt buckle, but not a bad man. His lands in Essex had been confiscated after his support for the king in the civil war, but there was a sense he’d paid his dues – £1,000 to get out of prison. It was now felt he was ready for service again.
‘He had relations with Mrs Whorwood.’
‘Had relations, Mr Wood? Sir Thomas is married.’
‘So is Mrs Whorwood. Such things occur, Mr Cromwell.’ He was aware they occurred, but they puzzled him. ‘The two of them were part of the royalist ring in Oxford; lust and politics walk hand in hand.’
‘This is the same Jane Whorwood of Holton Hall, you’re quite sure.’
‘The same. They make jokes about her name.’
‘Jane?’
‘Whorwood.’
‘What jokes? And is the king made aware?’
Wood removed his glasses. That was enough for today.
‘The king drinks from the same trough, Oliver.’ Did Oliver understand? ‘Jane is now the king’s watering hole; and her name, in the king’s ciphered love letters, is seven-one-five.’
‘Seven-one-five?’
‘Seven-one-five is the king’s naughty number.’
*
They met together again, sooner than expected. Hammond had gathered the gentlemen of the island to explain the situation, now much altered.
‘The king has arrived among us,’ he said, and knew he had their attention; they looked like a circle of surprised frogs. The king had been scared away from Hampton Court by extremists, he said . . . no, not scared, but ever mindful of the danger to his royal person, he’d felt it best to leave. There was no need for alarm, he assured them, thus causing alarm – but certain security measures had been taken, given the fear of a Leveller presence on the island.
‘Levellers?’ No one liked to hear that word.
‘They may secretly be plotting his assassination,’ said Hammond, adding that his majesty must be kept safe, this was paramount: ‘For posterity would be unforgiving if harm came to him while among us.’
So the gentlemen of Newport had been warned. Colonel Robert Hammond, governor of the island, would do his best, but he would not take sole responsibility for the welfare and whereabouts of the king. They must sweat a little too – though excitement trumped sweat today. And when the meeting was over, Sir Robert Dillington was the first to ask Hammond if he might be allowed to see the king after dinner.
‘By all means, Sir Robert,’ said Hammond, who then had a good idea. ‘Of course, I would invite you all to dinner with the king, had I fit entertainment and some fowl for his majesty!’
He was soon overwhelmed with culinary offers, generous in the extreme, with many birds and several fish made available; after which Hammond returned to the castle in good spirits, buoyed by the promise of provisions from the local gentry.
His mother would be pleased . . . perhaps even proud of her boy.
*
The gentry arrived at the castle with various forms of fowl. Charles kept them waiting, writing in his room. Charles always kept people waiting, finally appearing two hours after the agreed time. After they had kissed his hand – the gentlemen of Newport unanimous in their kneeling – the king made a short speech. He used this moment to outline his reason for leaving Hampton Court and to speak of his future hopes. They were eager to hear him, and Charles expanded a little in the light of their adoration. They would not only kiss his hands. The gentlemen of Newport would eat from them.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I must inform you that for the preservation of my life, I was forced from Hampton Court, for there were bad people, agitator fellows, who had both voted for and resolved upon my death, so I could no longer dwell there in safety.’
There were outraged grunts of support, though cautious, as none wished to interrupt his majesty.
‘And desiring to be somewhere secure, until happy accommodation may be made between myself and my parliament, I have put the royal person in this place, for I desire not a drop more Christian blood to be spilt.’
Hear, hear! He had touched a nerve there. The civil war had been brutal, as
nations are when they turn on themselves.
‘Nor do I desire to be chargeable to your good selves, really not; so I shall not ask so much as a capon from any of you. My desire in coming here is simply the security of my person until the river of sweet resolution flows in our midst.’
‘I toast the end of the king’s retirement!’ said Hammond, caught up in this most moving of moments.
‘Let me be heard with freedom, honour and safety,’ declared Charles, ‘and this cloudy path shall become clear!’
With his personal safety assured, he was now ready to reassure parliament, the army and the Scots of his undiluted loyalty to their cause.
*
Robert Hammond came to the Isle of Wight for a quiet life, after the madness of war and the insane peace that followed. There was agitation and confusion everywhere, and of course the king must be protected from the ghastly Levellers. All this was self-evident.
But should the king take a degree of responsibility as well? There was something of this unformed thought lingering in Hammond. If the king had chosen the army when they entered London at the end of August, he’d be back on the throne by now and all would be well with the world. A king was the natural shape of things, after all, and Charles was a decent man. But he hadn’t sided with the army; he’d merely strung them along. He’d preferred genteel captivity to reasonable compromise because as well as being decent, he was also a slippery fellow.
‘He muddles the clearness of any argument,’ as Oliver once said to him. ‘I offer him what he desires and it somehow becomes a confusion.’
Cromwell and Charles, a most unlikely couple, had conversed favourably at Hampton Court, as Hammond knew – too favourably for some. The king had even made an impression on Elizabeth Cromwell, who was introduced to him that summer, in the palace gardens.
‘May I introduce my wife Elizabeth, your majesty,’ Cromwell had said with pride.
Elizabeth curtsied in the August sun and walked forward towards the king, holding court beneath the oak tree. She curtsied again on arrival at his side. ‘A great honour, your majesty.’
‘The honour is mine, Elizabeth. I do believe your husband has been hiding you from me!’
Elizabeth blushed a little, for Charles was a handsome man, if small, and Oliver smiled uncomfortably at the flirtatious comedy of the moment.
‘My family keeps me busy enough, your majesty,’ she said brightly.
‘Indeed, Elizabeth, and what great credit that sentiment bestows on you. Where would we be without our families?’
‘Quite so, your majesty.’
‘I long for peace in this land. Your husband knows this better than any man.’ He looked at Oliver, who nodded gravely.
‘But, dare I say, that I long even more to see my children, and to delight in their growing ways.’
Elizabeth felt much moved. She was not one for tears – that was her husband – but her frame heaved a little. ‘Then I hope both your longings are fulfilled, your majesty, for they do you equal honour.’
They talked a little more before Charles withdrew, leaving Elizabeth in a state of some euphoria.
‘I wish there were more like him,’ she said. ‘Men who cared about their families. He is a true king.’
*
In the months that followed this garden encounter, summer into autumn, Charles had done everything asked of him by Cromwell – except come to an agreement. And then parliament quibbled about paying the army the money they were owed; a foolish move, ruinous really, in Hammond’s eyes, for now the army distrusted both parliament and the king, who already distrusted each other . . . a country governed by distrust.
And into this discontent there stepped the leafleting Levellers.
They weren’t army people, these agitators; they were London people, theorists from the city, with no place for a king. They claimed the people were the ultimate source of political authority. Hah! And they spoke wildly of ‘free-born Englishmen’ who would decide for themselves who should sit on the throne. As if you could choose a king! And then Harrison, a man much listened to, referred to Charles as ‘a man of blood’ and suddenly everyone was calling him so. It was hardly a surprise when these mad fellows started calling for the trial of the king. But could you really bring a king to trial? What in the constitution allowed for that? The whole idea was entirely mad. In the circumstances, Oliver had been most restrained. Hammond would have shot more than one mutineer in Corkbush Fields.
So the Levellers were a scandal; all right-minded people knew this. Charles was correct to remove himself from danger. But . . . well, if only he could take a little responsibility for these outcomes. This thought did nag a little in Hammond.
And then suddenly, and without warning, his study door opened.
*
It was his mother, standing in the doorway of his study – like she’d stood in the doorway of his childhood bedroom.
There had been no knock; but then, why did he imagine there would be? Mothers don’t knock, especially when ruffled by the king’s dietary demands, and she arrived early at her point.
‘No larder could satisfy that man’s cravings!’
Hammond hoped they would not fall out during her stay on the island. He would need patience, of course. He had become used to her absence, even fond of it; it had been one of the blessings of the battlefield.
‘This is not the king’s court, where he can demand as he will,’ she continued. ‘He is a prisoner here.’
‘He is a prisoner, I know – no one knows this better than I, Mother. But—’
‘There is no “but”.’
‘But he is also the king, and we must feed him well; which is why I brought you here, for you are a fine cook.’
He risked a compliment. She normally got angry when praised, as if it was quite misplaced. And in truth she wasn’t a fine cook, no one would call her that, but she was competent around the kitchen and worked hard . . . just what he needed.
‘I won’t be flattered, Robert.’
‘I do not flatter you.’
‘He is a feckless waster, who insists on fourteen courses! What would the Lord say to that?’
Hammond had no idea of what the Lord would say but opened his mouth anyway: ‘Surely our Lord said that it is not what goes into our body that is sinful, but what comes out of it?’
‘You’ve quite lost me, Robert.’
‘I believe he was saying that no food is unclean in itself, mother. It’s about the words we speak rather than the food we eat – however many courses.’
Robert was pleased with this reply, for he too liked his food; though his mother was unmoved.
‘Fourteen courses go into his mouth, and dissimulation comes out of it! I don’t see St Paul applauding.’
Robert should never argue scripture with his mother, for she paid more attention to it than he did. She could always find a fitting piece, especially a judgement, and he had endured a great deal of that down the years. One day he would please her.
‘Perhaps we can reduce the number of royal courses a little,’ he said, willing her to be gone. ‘I could have a word.’
‘You speak as if it is a polite discussion.’
‘He is king, Mother.’
‘He is King Ahab, sure enough.’
‘Hardly.’
‘In the thrall of his very own Jezebel, Henrietta Maria, the Roman whore.’
‘Charles is no Catholic. Absolutely not; he’s Anglican to the prayer book in his pocket, it is well known.’
But Ruth hated Anglicans as well. ‘Ahab was a man judged by God in battle: felled by an arrow and the dogs licked his blood. Kings come and go, Robert, and the worst kings find judgement awaits them.’
‘I will speak to his majesty about his food.’
‘Tell him not to turn away from the eel merely because the sauce has no garl
ic.’
‘He may have been turning to speak with someone.’
‘He could have twenty courses and still be a dissembler.’
And with that, she was gone, returning to her duties in the kitchen, while Hammond pondered the wisdom of inviting his mother to Carisbrooke.
December 1647
‘Charles tries to calm the Scots,’ said Wood.
‘No one has ever managed that,’ replied Cromwell. ‘They don’t have a calm bone in their bodies.’
‘In negotiations, I find people believe what it suits them to believe, do they not, Oliver?’
Cromwell felt the words like a scrape of ice on the heart. Was Wood mocking his talks with Charles as naive? He’d undertaken them with an honest will, a will for reconciliation . . . and Wood could be scorn incarnate. Elizabeth hated the man, wouldn’t allow him in the house. She said he liked information because it gave him the power to mock; he delighted in ‘spring flowers and ridicule. He could make everyone a fool,’ she said.
She did have a tongue, Elizabeth. Sometimes Oliver would not enter the kitchen if he knew her to be there, and she was there a great deal. The kitchen was her domain: the large pots on chains hanging over the open fire, the long family table down the centre, the water pump with its large brass tap, always dripping, the mangler for the washing, the smell of meat and soap – here she made the rules and most freely spoke her mind on Wood and other matters. In the parlour, it was Oliver who had the final word; but in the kitchen, his wife.
‘How does the king calm the Scots?’ asked Oliver. ‘I know only cavalry.’
‘He writes smooth words,’ said the spymaster.
‘And you have seen these words?’
‘I possess an interesting letter.’ He always possessed an interesting letter. ‘A copy . . . a copy is taken before it continues its journey.’
‘You have a long reach, Mr Wood.’
‘He tells them not to concern themselves with anything he might or might not have said to parliament.’
Cromwell looked blank.
‘The Scots are to know that his heart lies with them, he says; that he is a man of his word and that – how does he put it? – “many things may be fitly offered to obtain a treaty, that may then be altered when one comes to treat”. The Scottish commissioners in London were much smoothed by that.’