‘It will work,’ Bridget says, the usual fierce edge returned to her voice after only the briefest moments of supplication. ‘It must.’ Her cheeks are burning now though I cannot tell if it is from shame or determination.
I don’t want to hear any more. I rise to my feet and move to follow Dick from the room, though I cannot resist a parting shot: ‘It will not last, Biddy. The pretended king will return and God help you and Charles then. God help us all. You have ruined everything – for us and for England. All Father fought for, all of our hopes and dreams will end in devastation, you mark my words.’
Richard spends the remainder of the day with Thurloe receiving visitors and well-wishers while I spend my last day as a princess wandering around the palace, saying goodbye to friends and to rooms alike. My journey must serve a double purpose: bidding farewell to my other home, my beloved Hampton Court, which I will never now see again. After a tearful plea to the guards, they let me out into the privy gardens where I walk for the last time through the box hedges and around the sundial. I think of Robert standing there in the moonlight, scuffing the toe of his shoe in the gravel as he waited for my maid to meet him, and plant a kiss from my fingers onto the stone of the sundial.
I go next to the stables and then the kitchens, bidding farewell to Father’s horses and hounds, to the grooms and the servants. Some avoid my eye; a few of the friendlier ones bob curtseys and bows in my direction before going about their business. I go to the chapel, the Great Hall and the offices of the secretariats, finding Master Hingston and Master Marvell, who are even now compiling their curricula vitae and assembling references as they look for new employment. I wish them both luck and kiss their cheeks. Thinking of my friends, I wish I had seen Signor Giavarina again but the ambassadors have melted away from the palace in recent weeks and I do not see how I could send for him in my newly reduced state. Perhaps I will write to him, I think, though as ever, without a sense of where and what I will be, I struggle to pin down any thought of my future self and what I might do.
Passing now into the Banqueting House, I am startled to see men removing sconces and tapestries and packing them into boxes. I think for a mad moment that they mean to send them with us but of course this cannot be the case: they belong to the nation, not to us. I approach a man holding a board with papers clipped to it who seems to be directing the operation, and ask him why they are removing everything.
‘To be sold,’ he answers shortly. ‘It’s all to be sold; the palace and everything in it, sold to pay the wages owed the army.’
‘What? The palace itself?’
‘Whitehall and Somerset House both, I believe. What’s the need of them now we have no king or Lord Protector neither? What need has a republic of great palaces with no Stuarts or Cromwells to live in them?’
I am stunned into silence, baulking at his cheek before realising with a start that he probably has no idea who I am. I look around the room where I danced as a goddess before the court and my new husband, and breathe it in one last time before stepping quietly out through the door.
Lying in bed that night, I look at the beautiful tapestries that cloak the walls of my room and watch their story unfold for the last time. They tell of an ancient Greek prince who was fated to die when the fire he nursed dwindled into nothingness. I wonder if I am fated in the same way. Does our God play with our lives in the way the pagan gods did? I think now that the answer must be yes, that God’s Providence – the light Father had us all live our lives by – is no more than a parlour game.
I try and banish these bleak thoughts by thinking instead of where I have been happiest: the Fridays I spent snuggling against Mary in our barge as we waited for the forest of red-bricked chimneys of Hampton Court to appear around the bend in the river; at Father’s investiture, watching him laughing with Elizabeth and her baby in his ermine robes; in the Banqueting House dancing in Robert’s arms with seashell pins in my hair before we fell into bed together. Thinking of Robert lying beside me, I summon him to come to me once more, and keep the candles in my room alight all night so I can see him clearly. He comes and I watch as he perches on the end of the bed unbuckling his shoes, as he soaks in the bath before the fire, as he plays cards at the table. He comes and goes before my eyes, opening and closing doors, laughing, talking to me over his shoulder, sometimes pausing to drop a kiss on my upturned mouth. I watch in agony and as the dawn light creeps around the curtains I bury my face in my pillow and cry as I did the day he died. It is fear that grips me; fear that he will not come to me again once I leave our rooms today, fear that for the rest of my life hereafter I will not be able to see Robert again so clearly. Surely my memories of him are so much stronger when they are attached to the real floor and furniture he touched, when I can remember scenes I have already seen, not have to create new ones in my imagination.
That morning, Richard and I leave together; the last of the Cromwells to go. Two of our household servants accompany us and, as they climb up next to the coachman, I settle beside my brother in the carriage with my puppy on my lap and Venus in a cage at my feet, listening to the City bells as they ring in the distance. I take little else with me, just some clothes and a few jewels, my books and papers, the copy of Augustine Robert gave me and his mother’s emerald ring: I will not be accused of stealing government property. I take Richard’s hand in mine and with the other pull Robert’s miniature out of my bag, cradling it in my palm as the carriage lurches off from the palace gate and makes for the road south to Hampshire.
PART FIVE
August 1659–January 1661
CHAPTER TWELVE
How strange it is to be in an ordinary house in the proper countryside again. Before I came to Richard’s house at Hursley, Hampton Court was the furthest out of London I had been since we moved down to the capital from Ely when I was eight. It is so quiet, so remote; the only noise I can hear from my bedroom window is the birds in the garden, occasionally a distant pheasant calling from the farmland beyond. There are no guards outside my room, no nightwatchman marking the passage of time, no bells to wake me in the morning. In this eerie stillness, I might almost believe the last twelve years of my life had been a dream turned to nightmare.
But it is not so simple to return to an ordinary life you hardly remember, in a house you do not know with a family that is not your own. How am I to conduct myself now? How do I speak to others of what has happened to my family? I do not even have our name to cling to any more, but am called by that of the husband I no longer have: I am Lady Rich now, not Frances Cromwell. Not Your Highness. Never again Principessa. If I wanted, could I shed my Cromwell self like an old skin, now it has been shamed? But I do not want to when it still means the world to me. I must think of the great Queen Elizabeth, I tell myself in moments of weakness: of how she went from princess to bastard to prisoner to queen, never once losing her sense of herself or her dignity.
If I struggle to remember who I am, it is far worse for Dick. He has been shaken clean out of himself by the extraordinary events of his recent life. No one knows how to treat him: not the servants, not his neighbours or local friends. Men bow then look uncomfortable, women keep their eyes lowered. Even his position within the household itself is an anomaly: the house belongs to his father-in-law, yet Doll’s father calls him ‘Highness’ and defers to him, ceding his rightful place at the head of the table. And Dick in turn is at a loss. Each movement is a struggle for him: a need to unlearn the behaviour of a monarch which he had only lately begun to master. I watch as he forgets to stand when a woman enters the room or waits by a door for a few moments, expecting it to be opened for him by a footman who is not there. He still receives petitions of support and letters from those who would see him restored to power and he seems to exist in a half-life, not certain whether to move forward or back or even which is which. He has a haunted look, twitching with every knock on the front door or fresh packet of post, though I know his fear is as much of his creditors as of any opponents or assassins.
‘If Parliament does not honour its promise to pay my debts, I will be ruined,’ he says to me over and over again. ‘I am receiving invoices for the salaries of the palace servants, bills for official entertainments for foreign ambassadors – how am I, now a private citizen, possibly expected to meet what were formal expenses of government?’
I have little comfort to offer him. Though I am treated as an honoured guest at Hursley, I feel entirely helpless without position or money of my own.
We are all in a muddle.
I do not linger long. My brother Harry is now safely returned from Ireland and living with his in-laws the Russells at Chippenham in Cambridgeshire and I am desperate to see him. He sends his brother-in-law John Russell to fetch me, wary of my attempting the substantial journey with only servants to accompany me so soon after the latest royalist uprising, when the roads are still dangerous. Though I know that Lambert – sent to quash the rebellion by a Parliament as nervous of him as of any royalists – has prevailed, still I am grateful for Mr Russell’s protection. He is a countryman of mine, I remember, as he hands me up into the carriage, and no one can match a fenlander for steady strength.
I pay little attention to the journey until John Russell comments that we are skirting the border of Essex and I feel my pulse quicken.
‘Essex? Will we pass Felsted, do you know?’
John examines me carefully. ‘Not closely; we’ll come within a half day’s ride of it, I should guess.’
‘Could we make the diversion? Would you mind? It would mean so much …’ Words pour out of me urgently. ‘Felsted village is close to my husband’s family home at Leighs Priory. And the church at Felsted …’ The words stop as quickly as they began.
‘… Is where he is buried.’ John finishes the sentence I cannot and I smile at him in hopeless thanks. ‘Of course we can go there, Lady Frances, if you wish it.’
We reach the church of Holy Cross, Felsted, in the twilight of the early evening. A lone blackbird calls from the pitched top of the lychgate as we enter the churchyard but I struggle to hear his song above the pounding in my chest. I walk as if asleep, threading through the ancient graves of the long-dead towards the church. Inside an old man is lighting candles and he and John exchange a few words. The man gestures as if to direct us, but I do not need his help to find Robert, I can feel where he is. I hurry over to the south-eastern corner of the church and, passing through a stone arch, find myself in the Rich family chapel. And there along the near side is the stone that bears his name. With no thought in my head but a great yearning, I lie down on the floor and press my cheek onto the cold marble, spreading my arm across the space above where his body must lie.
‘Hello, my darling.’
I have no more words, neither to say nor to think. Instead I close my eyes and sink myself into the stone, willing my love and my vitality to travel downwards and into him. I smile even as my cheeks dampen with tears; I can feel him close by.
I do not know how long I lie there but darkness presses against my eyelids by the time I hear a soft voice calling my name and a light hand on my shoulder. For a moment I think it is Robert come back to me and I almost cry out, but I open my eyes to find John Russell crouching over me with a candle.
‘Frances. Lady Frances, it grows late; we should go.’
I do not move but stare at him, confusion pinching the place between my brows.
‘Come.’ He offers his hand but I close my eyes, wishing him to disappear. A moment later I feel gentle arms under my neck and around my waist and then I am lifted, vanishing into the air itself.
‘Thank you,’ I say, coming to in the carriage. ‘I am so sorry for my unladylike behaviour.’
‘Tush.’ John Russell smiles gently at me. ‘You could never be unladylike; you will always seem a princess to me.’
It is my turn to smile, warmed by the forgotten feel of a compliment. ‘Nevertheless,’ I continue, ‘I can only plead a great love for my husband as my excuse.’ I look out of the window then, embarrassed by my admission and fully expecting it to halt our conversation.
‘That I could see clearly on your wedding day, Lady Frances, and I understand. Lord Robert was a good man.’
My head snaps back. ‘You knew him? I did not realise.’
‘I did.’ John Russell nods. ‘We were at school together.’
‘What?’ I am astonished. ‘I had no idea! Do you mean here in Felsted?’
‘Indeed. At the school founded by Robert’s own family.’
‘Then you were at the same school as my brothers too! How extraordinary.’
‘Yes. They were a fair bit older than me so I knew them less well. I was a new boy, seven and in my first term, when your oldest brother died so unexpectedly in the school infirmary. I still remember the shock that ran around the school – he was such a bright lad, so sure of himself at seventeen.’
‘I was but a baby then,’ I reply, thinking of how poor Father had talked about his dead sons when he himself was dying. ‘Though Bridget and Betty remembered it well and often spoke of him. But tell me about Robert.’
‘No other boy could match him at football,’ John says, smiling shyly with his schoolboy memoires. ‘Or at word games, I remember that. How he loved puns and tricks: always trying them out on us. He was the golden boy – son of the school’s chief benefactor. A couple of years younger than me. But we became good friends nonetheless, kept in touch after we left.’
My heart thrills at the discovery – as if I have found another path back to Robert, discovered another chapter of his life.
‘What was he like as a boy?’ I lean forward urgently, intent on gorging on this new information. ‘Who were his friends? What did he enjoy at school? Tell me everything!’
John Russell leans slowly back against the seat, twists his old-fashioned hat in his large hands and begins.
My reunion with my big brother Harry is joyful. With so much passed since we were last in each other’s arms, we laugh and cry in equal measure. I think he looks older, more like Father. He thinks I have suffered. It has been four years since we were last together: I was a girl then and he a young man setting out on an adventure. We are both wiser now.
I find a happier atmosphere at Chippenham than at Hursley; the Russell family are warm and I feel a strong sense of home to be back in the fens so close to where I was born. From the house which sits grandly at the top of a three-mile rise, I can even see the towers of Ely Cathedral rising above the flat plains to the north – the same ageless cathedral in whose shadow I spent my childhood. The same fenland mist creeps around the house in the early morning and the servants speak with the familiar cadences I remember from childhood. Harry is by turns cheerful and despondent, his natural good humour in constant conflict with the incontrovertible fall of our family. Though he had not so far to fall as Richard, still Harry is cast low; his promising career also cut short.
‘If only Dick had recalled me from Ireland,’ he muses again and again, pacing up and down as Father used to do, ‘I could have helped to stop Charles and Uncle Desborough. But they were too clever – kept me away deliberately. Every time I asked to return to London, the Council found a way to block it. And so I could do nothing.’ Harry’s words catch in his throat and I wonder, as I feast my eyes on his strange yet familiar face in the firelight, at the peculiar sadness he has had to bear: would it have been worse to be so far away when Betty and Father died? Never to have seen them again nor been able to say goodbye? Worse to receive the fateful news of each death so many days later in the pages of a letter long after their souls had flown?
‘And not to be able to help Dick in the end,’ Harry adds to my unspoken thoughts. ‘I could have done – even after the generals had seized power – had he taken a stand, sent orders to me, to Montagu, Monck and Lockhart to rally our troops and the fleet behind him. But once he had capitulated, what choice did I have but to fall in line?’
‘You think you could have done better than Dick?’ I wa
tch him closely, thinking back to the time when dear John Claypole speculated that Father might make him his heir instead of Richard and I had protested that Harry would never betray his brother for his own power. How very long ago that seems now.
‘No, no. Well …’ Harry shifts in his chair, uncrosses his legs then crosses them again. ‘This was how Father left things. Dick did his best and I was always staunch for his interest. But we must shift for ourselves now.’
The weeks and months pass at Chippenham with little to distinguish each day from the next. I write to Mary and Mother often, regularly to Richard and very occasionally to Bridget, though I hardly know what to say to her. One day a letter arrives for me from Signor Giavarina, its scribbled and scratched out addresses revealing the journey it has taken following me from house to house to finally reach me here. It is but a few lines addressed not to Principessa but to bella Francesca and wishing me well; I know he can write nothing more revealing for fear of embarrassing his Venetian masters, who must even now be paying court to the new government. But the gesture moves me deeply and I repeat his last line over and over to myself with its glimpse of future escape: ‘If Venus should ever wish to see Venice, she will find a friend there …’
We learn of the growing crisis in government as the days shorten, curling into autumnal sleep. In October the tension between the army and Parliament comes to a head, as I warned Bridget it would, when Lambert leads a coup against the Rump Parliament, his soldiers preventing the Speaker and other MPs from entering the House. I write to Bridget demanding to know what has happened but she merely replies that Lambert is driving events now, Charles and Uncle Desborough trailing in his wake – Charles trying his best to conciliate. She tells me that the Rump has tried to assert control over Charles as Commander-in-Chief of the army and that the senior officers have responded by dissolving the Council of State and once again resurrecting the Committee of Safety; a bad sign which all of us at Chippenham shake our heads to hear. Bulstrode Whitelocke is once more a member and I smile to myself amid my concern at my friend’s diplomatic skills, even as I pray that he can be a force for good in government. Again and again I return to Bridget’s letter, looking for the worry in her words – for the embarrassment or apology – but she writes as cleanly and dispassionately as ever, her loyalty to Charles ceaseless.
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