The Puritan Princess

by Miranda Malins

  The news of Lambert’s coup plunges Harry into an agony of incapacity. ‘Monck cannot let this stand,’ he declaims, pacing around the library. ‘I can do nothing; I have lost my command in Ireland. Montagu has lost the fleet and Lockhart is in Dunkirk. But Monck can still act. He has five thousand foot and two thousand horse under him in Scotland, loyal to him above all others. He is the only one who can stop Lambert and Charles now.’

  In the midst of all this, my concern for Mary grows. Harry’s friends in London report that there is a rumour Mary’s husband Thomas is to be arrested for working to help restore the exiled king and I write to her, careful to say nothing that would incriminate any of us should a government agent read my letter, but urging her and Thomas to stay safe and watch the road from London. I wait anxiously for her reply and when it finally comes, read it even as I run to find Harry who is playing with his son in the garden.

  ‘Thomas is safe,’ I say, the words tumbling out of me as I breathe deeply. ‘He is safe because Monck has declared his support for the dissolved Parliament and is on the march, as far now as Yorkshire: he brings his army south to face Lambert, just as you hoped.’ Perhaps Monck will bring Lambert his Scottish falcons too, I almost add, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  Harry grins, his face almost splitting in two, before a frown replaces the smile as quickly as it came. ‘It’s what I wanted but even so.’ He pulls his little boy close to him and he grips his father’s leg.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is civil war again. And even if Monck prevails and can restore the Parliament and break the power of the senior officers, what then? The Parliament he returns may demand the king returns in kind.’

  I look at him in horror but have no words to offer in response. All I can do is shrug hopelessly. The great wheel of events has turned so many times in my short life; I can no longer keep up. Besides, what can the Cromwell family do about any of this now? How can I reclaim control of my own life, let alone anything else?

  Each day after that we wait for news of a great battle but it never comes. Though the interim Committee of Safety dispatches Lambert in command of an army to meet Monck in the battlefield and although he has the larger force, Lambert delays and prevaricates throughout November. I read between the lines of Bridget’s letters that Charles and Uncle Desborough, left behind in London, swiftly lose control of events as first the port of Portsmouth, then the fleet, declare for Parliament and the troops in London allow the Rump Parliament to reassemble on the day that used to be Christmas Eve. Charles is removed as Commander-in-Chief of the army and withdraws into Wallingford House like an injured fox.

  Yet Lambert and his troops remain at large, skulking around the country, waiting for their chance. ‘Surely they’ll give battle?’ I ask Harry, but we hear nothing until we receive a most unexpected visitor late one evening.

  I almost sense the little secretary before I see him, as if I feel his shrewd, silent gaze before I enter the parlour, where I find him standing with Harry warming himself by the fire.

  ‘Lady Frances.’ Thurloe bows, smiling kindly as he takes my hand to kiss it. It is months since anyone has done this and the back of my hand tingles strangely. ‘I have been visiting family in these parts and thought I would call in and bring you the news myself before I return to London.’

  ‘News?’ Harry asks as he motions Thurloe into a chair I know to be far too comfortable for his liking.

  Thurloe removes his travelling cloak before sitting, gingerly, in the deep armchair. ‘News, Lord Henry, that Major-General Lambert and his version of the Good Old Cause is finished.’

  It is such a powerful statement that I gasp. ‘What do you mean? What has happened?’

  Thurloe considers me carefully. ‘Nothing and everything. Lambert made a stand but when the great parliamentary commander ‘Black Tom’ Fairfax, who won the civil war with your father, marched out of his long retirement to lead the Yorkshire gentry in support of Parliament – your brother-in-law Thomas, Viscount Fauconberg, newly created colonel by General Monck, among them I might add – it was all over.’

  I think of John Lambert as Thurloe’s familiar waterfall of clauses washes over me, of his pride and his skill, his ten children and his Scottish falcons, and in that moment I feel pity for him even though I count his downfall – and ours before it – in large part of his own making.

  ‘God’s teeth.’ Harry stands up and runs his hands through his hair. ‘Well, it is good news and bad, is it not?’ He looks to Thurloe for guidance as if we were back at Whitehall with Father alive and Thurloe still his chief minister.

  ‘You are correct, Highness,’ Thurloe says and I note the title that no one else now dares to use to address us. ‘Good news to have Parliament returned and the army’s power broken once and for good …’

  ‘But bad news if the MPs choose to bring back Charles Stuart,’ I finish, and my old ally nods at me approvingly. ‘And which outweighs the other?’

  Thurloe spreads his hands in the familiar gesture and smiles. ‘The good news,’ he says with quiet confidence. ‘General Monck trusts me and I can work with him and the new Parliament. I will have some influence again and I will devote it – as will my allies – entirely to restoring your brother and the Protectorate.’

  At this Harry springs forward and clasps Thurloe by the hand, but I do not move. Great though I know Thurloe’s skills to be and much as I long to take heart from him, I cannot believe it. Too much has happened; we have fallen too far and too hard and, in Dick’s case as well as mine I would guess, broken too many bones to ever get up again.

  At last 1659 comes to an end and with the year turned to 1660, I fall into a strange philosophical mood as if I have finally accepted that the world goes on without me. Harry watches for letters from Thurloe but I have no more stomach for politics. I wish rather for quiet companionship and find myself drifting into John Russell’s company as neither of us has a spouse of our own to turn to. He joins forces with Harry to persuade me, finally, to fly Venus again and we take her out into the fields together, though the limp enjoyment this gives me pales against the memory of the joy I had felt when I first flew her in St James’s Park, with the beautiful husband who named her waiting for me in our bed. I ask John often of his schooldays at Felsted, urging him to tell me stories of Robert. He in turn asks me of life at court, and I tell him of my days in the sun, of my courtship by the exiled ‘king’ and my friendship with Signor Giavarina. Of Father and how the world seemed to mould itself around him.

  ‘You must find it a dull life here after all of that,’ John says rather sweetly as we return with Venus from one of our walks.

  ‘Some days I do,’ I reply, always surprised and relieved by the open and artless way I feel I can talk to him; free to be my adult self, liberated by any need to impress or desire to flirt. ‘I did love the attention, I can confess it now, but it was the excitement of being so close to great affairs that intoxicated me as much as the fine clothes, the music and dancing. But I do not miss the pain, the pressure; the great grief I faced. It was never the same after Robert died. Now it is balm to my soul to be out in the open countryside of the fens again, to wander as I please and have space to think.’

  ‘Really?’ He seems pleased by my answer, for all its frankness. ‘You are fond then of Chippenham and of our family?’

  I look around the orchard as we pass through the gnarled, sleeping apple trees, which will spring into unimagined life in only a few months. ‘Yes. I love it and your family. I would stay here for ever.’

  John does not speak again for a few moments and my attention wanders away from him and into the past as it usually does.

  ‘You could stay here for ever,’ he says at length, his voice soft and low.

  I hardly hear him and only notice the words after he stops walking. I take a few steps before realising his steps aren’t continuing beside mine and so I stop and turn back towards him. He takes off his hat then, twisting it in his hands as he does when
he is nervous.

  ‘You will always be welcome here of course, as Henry’s sister and a member of the family. But I meant … I meant that you could make a life here with me; it will all be mine one day.’

  It takes me a few moments to grasp his meaning.

  ‘Marry you?’ I shake my head in bewilderment and Venus gives a little cry from my hand. I place her down on a fence post while I struggle to think. ‘But John, I have never thought … I could not marry anyone. You and me? I …’ My head keeps shaking even as the words dry up.

  John sighs then smiles, though the smile does not reach his eyes. ‘I knew it was too soon to speak but I could not help myself. Forgive me,’ he hurries on in sudden embarrassment, ‘do not trouble yourself about it, I hardly expected an answer.’ Replacing his hat, he moves away from me towards the house, cutting a path through the long, frosted grass. I turn to my bird and we stare at each other in confusion.

  It is time to move on again. Although John is kind and endeavours to regain something of our carefree friendship, I cannot help my embarrassment at his unsolicited proposal. I had so enjoyed speaking to him without forethought, without the need to weigh and measure my words and with that lost to me, I feel my loneliness return, just in time for the next anniversary of Robert’s death in February – a painful reminder of how impossible it would be for me to ever marry again. I cannot even comprehend the notion, let alone consider a flesh-and-blood candidate. I think of visiting his tomb again, perhaps calling on his family at Leighs Priory, but I am crippled by embarrassment: I cannot face the visit so soon after my family’s disgrace. And besides, I have heard that Robert’s father too has died so I would only find his stepmother and half-sisters there. All the Rich men have gone.

  It is Harry who makes up my mind for me. ‘It would be a good time to go to Mary at Newburgh,’ he says, folding a news broadsheet after breakfast one morning. ‘There was a great revelry in London last week: the people roasted haunches of meat on every street corner, crying out that they were roasting the “Rump”. The MPs who sat throughout the civil war, including all those who objected to the king’s trial and execution, are to be reinstated. And if Thurloe’s efforts come to nothing, I fear the young exiled ‘king’ won’t be far behind it. Viscount Fauconberg is the only royalist in the family and we all know Charles Stuart has a fondness for him. If King Charles is restored, Newburgh would be the safest place for you.’

  I break my journey north at John Claypole’s manor house at Northborough. I cry with relief to see Mother again and am delighted to see dear John himself and my nephews and niece, who have each grown into quite different children in the months we have been apart. Their home is a medieval fortified manor house in the centre of the village, older and more modest than the estates my brothers married into at Hursley and Chippenham. Still, it is grander than our old timbered house at Ely and I think how the young Elizabeth would have thrilled to be brought back here a bride, leaving her childhood behind in Mary’s and my small hands. Mother is clearly at home here, managing the servants and slipping back into running a prominent market-town household, her former life as de facto queen fading in her wake.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ I ask her, our arms around each other on the couch, my cheek resting on her neck, breathing in her familiar scent of soap, lavender and pearls.

  ‘As happy as I could be anywhere without your father,’ she replies, twirling a ringlet of my hair around her finger. ‘I have the children to take care of, and John and I have always been close.’

  ‘And the locals? Poor Richard does not know who he is down at Hursley and no one knows how to treat him.’

  ‘Oh, poor Dick.’ I feel Mother’s thoughts fly to her eldest boy in his sorrow. ‘I will visit him before long. But here, we keep ourselves to ourselves. I do find people staring in at the windows sometimes, knocking at the door to catch a glimpse of me in my scandalous wretchedness: “the Lady Protectoress as was” they call me, or “the Housewife Joan”, which they used to call me in London when they ridiculed me for a country bumpkin.’ She sighs and kisses my forehead. ‘But I manage, darling, I always have.’

  John comes in then and flops into a chair by the fire, a glass of claret in his hand and the hound Badger collapsed across his boots. Just for a few precious moments it feels like old times.

  I stay but a few days; the latest letters John receives from London are full of the restored Long Parliament’s clamouring for the exiled king’s return and Lambert has been captured and imprisoned in the Tower – Charles too for all we know. I have the sense once more of history tumbling away from me and I am determined to fly ahead of it: if the pretended king is to come over the Channel, I want to be as far away from him as I can.

  And so, to Yorkshire. I depart in the rain, leaving my nameless puppy behind with his father Badger: there is a joyful life there for him, settled in his own home and among children, which I cannot give him.

  Venus, though, comes north with me.

  Mary, Mary, Mary.

  There she is, standing in the great doorway of Newburgh Priory, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun as my carriage sweeps around the drive; her figure so small against the vast, grand canvas of the stately home. My heart aches for her and I leap out of the door almost before the horses have stopped, flying into her arms. We are as lovers reunited and cover each other’s faces with kisses as tears stream down our cheeks.

  ‘My darling.’

  ‘My own.’

  Mary gives me time to recover some composure before taking me in to Thomas, who rises from his desk in one smooth, courtly action.

  ‘My dear sister-in-law, what a great pleasure to have you come to us at last.’

  I take his proffered hand and smile, determined to get to know him better on this visit; to unpeel the many layers to him to get at the truth, whatever I learn of his real loyalties in the process. Without Robert beside me, I see how central my brothers-in-law, like my own brothers, are to my life. They are the pillars around which our households exist, the arbiters often of our fortunes and the gatekeepers to my sisters. John Claypole is as dear to me as Charles Fleetwood is lost to me. But I will make a friend out of Mary’s Thomas, I decide, if it the last thing I do.

  ‘How have you managed with the family?’ I ask Mary as she fusses around my room, tweaking it into perfection. ‘Do they accept us – as Father said – warts and all? Are you allowed to remain a Cromwell in any way among these royalists?’

  She smiles, turning from the vase of freshly picked daffodils on the nightstand. ‘They are not so bad, once you get used to them. And while, I admit, I do not express myself as staunchly as I might in the company of the Fleetwoods, the Claypoles or the Russells, I keep faith with Father’s memory and I think they respect me for it. No one dares to speak ill of him before me.’

  ‘Hmmm. So – keep to family loyalty rather than political fervour.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ I say. ‘But if the “king” does return, what then? Will Newburgh Priory hang out the royal banners in welcome? You know what they used to say of Thomas at court – that he had never fully crossed over to our side. That he was selling information to the French in return for jewels for you and Barbary horses for himself.’

  Mary’s hand flies to the ruby at her throat and her face creases with pain. I regret my words immediately and remember in that instant what Bridget had said to me once: how I did not know what it was to be torn in loyalty between my family and my husband. She was talking of Charles’s treachery, of course, but was Mary facing the same challenges at the opposite end of our great conflict?

  Mary sighs. ‘You cannot know what it is like here in Yorkshire, Fanny. Everyone in these parts was for the old king – it is not like how it is where we grew up in the eastern counties. At Ely, at Chippenham and Northborough you can be sure you are surrounded by those loyal to Parliament. But up here …’

  ‘… It is different, I see that; most people are still royal
ist – you have to adapt accordingly.’

  Mary sits down on the bed beside me. ‘Exactly. And Thomas’s family is so important here – you should have seen the crowds who greeted us when we first journeyed into the county after our wedding. Hundreds of them lined the streets and we went from town to town to be welcomed like a royal couple.’

  ‘I wish I could have seen it’, I smile, though with a greater measure of sadness than pleasure. ‘And Thomas?’

  ‘We both knew Father had matched us in an attempt to reconcile his Protectorate with the old royalist nobility.’ Mary goes on. ‘It took us many months of marriage before we faced this: as if Thomas couldn’t really talk to me about the gulf between us – reveal his whole self to me – before we really knew each other as man and wife, before we truly loved each other.’

  ‘And you do love each other now?’ I delight at her words, for all the unsettling context. ‘You trust each other?’

  ‘We do. Perhaps Father could see that we would.’