Charles the King (29 page)

When Lord Bristol came into the tent, Charles looked up at him, his face weary and drawn, and spoke with a visible effort.

“What is the news, Bristol? Is there any sign of Prince Rupert?”

“A messenger has just arrived, Sire. The Prince and his men are returning now. They found Essex's baggage train outside Kineton village and looted it. He should be here within a few moments.”

“Does he know how the battle went in his absence?”

“No more than we, Sire,” Bristol answered with some bitterness. “If he hadn't taken all the horse with him, we'd have gained a certain victory. As it is, we've lost more than the enemy and gained nothing.”

“Nothing!” No one had heard Rupert come through the flap-door. He stood in the flickering candlelight like a giant, covered with dust and blood, and the Prince of Wales jumped up with a cry of relief and ran to him.

“Cousin! Oh, cousin, we thought you were dead.”

“Dead?” He laughed and put his arm round the boy's shoulders and together they came up to the King's chair, and Rupert knelt to him and lifted his hand to his lips.

“Greetings, uncle. I return with hardly a man lost and most of my Lord Essex's ammunition, guns and supplies. I hear the infantry did not fare quite so well.”

“They fared better than anyone had a right to hope,” Charles said. “On your way here, you must have seen how dearly they yielded every foot of ground. It's been a massacre, Rupert. A massacre on both sides.”

Rupert stood up and looked suspiciously at Bristol. After three months with the King's army, he had hardly a friend left among his officers or the Councillors. To Bristol he looked like nothing so much as a swaggering mercenary as he stood there, one hand on his sword hilt.

“If a battle has been a massacre for both, then it's achieved its purpose,” he said curtly. “Who been whimpering about losses into the King's ear? Was it you, my Lord? As I came in I heard you say we had gained nothing!”

“I'll say to your face what I said behind your back,” Bristol replied coldly. “We've suffered terrible casualties and there's been no victory. You must forgive us, Highness, if we don't take the loss of life as lightly as you seem to do. We haven't your long experience of bloody wars … As I said, we have gained nothing from today.”

“Nothing but the open road to London!” Rupert swung round on his uncle in amazement. “Has no one thought of that? Essex is crippled, mutilated, exhausted. And we are in front of him! All we need do is gather our forces tomorrow and march on the capital, and it's ours! The war will be over, Sire, over with one battle! And you say we have gained nothing …” He glared at Bristol and turned his back on him.

“Rupert,” the King spoke very quietly. “Sit down. Lord Bristol, send for Lord Digby and Sir Jacob Astley. My sons, say goodnight to your cousin and retire. You must take what rest you can before morning.”

The young Princes kissed their father's cheek and were embraced by Rupert, as they left the rest of the King's Council of War came one by one into the tent, and sat down to discuss what should be done.

“Go on to London,” Rupert insisted. “We'll never have such an opportunity again.” He did not address the other lords; his eyes were fixed on his uncle who seemed so pale and distracted that he doubted if he were even listening.

“Verney is dead,” Charles said in a low voice, “and Lindsey and my kinsman D'Aubigny. Willoughby was captured.”

“All the more reason not to waste their lives,” was Rupert's answer. He had always loved and admired his uncle, but he found his sentimentality infuriating. He had no sympathy with shaken nerves; he had been risking his own life since he was fifteen and when his enemies said that he loved fighting and sought out trouble, they were telling the truth. There was an instinct for killing in Rupert, but it found no counterpart in Charles's nature on that evening in October after he had witnessed the slaughter of five thousand of his subjects, loyal and rebel alike. Charles was sickened by it, grieving for the loss of men he had liked, pitying even those who had fought against him and were lying stark under the evening sky.

“What do you suggest, Highness,” Bristol demanded. “Taking the King on to London with an exhausted army to lay siege to his own City without even giving them to chance to negotiate? I for one am utterly opposed to it. Have you forgotten that they hold two of his children as hostages there?”

“I have forgotten nothing,” Rupert said savagely. “Even Pym won't harm the King's children, it's madness to put that forward as an excuse. If we stop now, we lose an opportunity that may never come again.”

“If we go on, we risk another frightful battle,” Charles said slowly. “If London does not submit I shall have to lay it waste or retreat. Bristol is right.”

“Then lay it waste!” Rupert sprang up, unable to contain himself. “Destroy its defences and occupy it. Good God, uncle, this is a war, not a game of chivalry …”

“This is a war between rebels and their King,” Charles spoke with a sharpness that surprised him. “I am not an invader, ravaging and burning … I will not march an army against my capital without putting my case to my people once again. If they refuse to submit we will have all the bloodshed you could wish. But it is my duty to give them that chance. We will not march on London, my Lords. I have decided. We will go to Oxford and establish ourselves there and I will make a last appeal to Parliament.” He stood up.

“Nephew, and my Lords and gentlemen, my thanks for what you did today. Please God, it won't have to be repeated. I bid all of you goodnight.”

In February 1643, a Parliament force under the command of Oliver Cromwell occupied the university city of Cambridge. Five troops of cavalry came riding through the quiet streets, watched by a crowd which was curious and apprehensive. War had not touched the University; though its sympathies were with Parliament, it had not yet been infected with the fever of partisanship which raged in Oxford where the King had made his headquarters and established his Court. Cromwell's was an orderly occupation; the men kept to themselves, there was no drunkenness or rioting, no repetition of the unruly high spirits associated with the Cavaliers who frequented the Oxford taverns, brawling and baiting the citizens.

Cromwell began fortifying the city. He never seemed to tire. He spent hours drilling his men in the fields outside Cambridge, and more hours inspecting the horses and equipment and talking to the officers and troopers individually. His business was war and war was his only occupation. His critics at Cambridge were aware that he would blow the Colleges to pieces rather than let the city fall into the hands of the King's army. By the end of the month he was satisfied that Cambridge was properly fortified against siege or attack, and he entertained his cousin John Hampden and his officers to dinner in his lodgings.

Eight officers were seated at a long table, with Cromwell at the head and Hampden on his right hand. It was a plain table set with plain food in wooden dishes; there was no wine and the spoons and mugs were country pewter and the drink was local beer. Tallow candles burnt round the walls, smoking and spluttering and dripping their strong-smelling grease and some of the officers were men of such rough manners that they ate with their hands and threw their leavings on the floor. It was not a hilarious meal, the only laughter came from Cromwell who was in a boisterous humour, talking across his neighbours and thumping Hampden playfully on the back. Hampden had seen him in many moods; he had seen him sunk in apathetic depression from which nothing could rouse him, sometimes angry, at other times humble and quiet, but never noisy and confident and loquacious, dominating and overbearing with the sheer force of a personality which had suddenly found release. Cromwell was happy for the first time in his life; he was at ease and at home in the shabby lodgings surrounded by his dour soldiers, with the whole of the university city under his command.

Hampden was a Puritan, but he was also a gentleman, accustomed to refinement and good manners. He had never thought of his cousin as a boor before, but there was no other way to describe him—or to describe his officers. Four of his captains were relatives, including his own son; of the rest, Henry Ireton was gentle born, and his immediate neighbours were a former clerk in an iron foundry and a yeoman farmer who had obviously never used a knife and fork.

“Eat heartily,” Cromwell said to him, “and fill your tankard.” He looked at him slyly and grinned. “I daresay it's a change from the dainty fare you've had in London, but it's wholesome and the beer's good.”

“No more, thank you, cousin,” Hampden protested, but Cromwell filled his tankard just the same.

“And how is London?” he demanded suddenly. “While we've been putting Cambridge in good order for them, what has Parliament been doing for the Cause?”

“Arguing,” Hampden said wearily. “Quarrelling among themselves, pretending to negotiate with the King just as he's pretending to negotiate with us. And accomplishing little in the process.”

“They talk while we fight,” Cromwell said contemptuously.

“How does Pym fare? He was ill when I was last in London, and made iller still by that fool Essex bringing his rag and bobtail troopers back from Edgehill as if it were a victory. Is he worse then?”

“Much worse. He's so thin you'd hardly recognize him and I've seen him sit down after a speech and double up with pain. When he dies, Oliver, I dread to think what the confusion will be.”

“No man is indispensable,” Cromwell mumbled with his mouth full. “Certainly no politician sitting at Westminster, while the real business of victory or defeat lies with the army.” He brought one hand down on the table. “The army is what matters, cousin, and not the kind of army we saw running for its life at Edgehill!”

“No one could have withstood that charge,” Hampden had flushed. “I fought in the rearguard and I came up against Rupert and I know!”

“I'm not impugning your courage,” Oliver laughed and put his arm round Hampden's shoulders like an affectionate bear. His small eyes were bright, flickering along the lines of faces down the table.

“No one could have withstood it, you say? Well, I saw your troopers … old decayed serving-men and tapsters and fellows of that kind, while
their
troopers were gentlemen's sons and persons of quality … Do you think that mean, base fellows like those will ever be able to encounter gentlemen who have honour and courage and resolution in them?” He took his arm away from Hampden and spoke to them all, his son and his brother-in-law and his nephew, and the illiterate artisans he had made officers because he saw in them the quality he wanted in his soldiers.

“You must get men of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go, or you will be beaten still. Men like these, cousin. Captain Berry, for what Cause do you fight? Stand up and tell us!”

James Berry, the former clerk, rose to his feet. He was a thin, slight man with a pale face, his light hair cut close to his head. He faced Hampden, and his eyes were bright and burning. He was not drunk, but there was a strange intoxication in his manner.

“I fight for God and the true religion,” he said. “I fight to cleanse my countrymen's souls of Popish practises and to save them from the rule of an ungodly King. I fight for that and I will die for it. You know this, Colonel, for your Cause and mine are the same.”

Cromwell turned slowly to his cousin and said gently,

“That is the spirit you need. That is the spirit which will withstand the cavalry of Rupert. It's the spirit you'll find in every man of my regiment. I refuse the others. I want only those men who know that they are fighting for God—not for pay or for Kings or Parliaments, but for the Cause of the Divine. Such men will never lose a battle, cousin. Where even gentlemen will run, my men will stand. Sit down, Captain Berry. If all our soldiers had your mettle, the King would be defeated in six months. And that,” he said in a low voice, “is what we must have, if we are going to win. Cousin, listen to me. Pym is holding Parliament, but Pym is dying. Very well, that must be the will of God. And when he dies, what protection will we have from all the little men, full of fear and indecision and self-interest? Only the army! The soldiers who have fought and know what they are fighting for! Myself and others like me, men sitting round a humble board together, joined in loyalty to the cause of freedom, living and working and training as one … Tell me this,” he demanded, “what brought the King down? Taxes, loss of liberties, unpopularity? I tell you none of these alone would have brought men out to fight against their King, none of these would send sons into battle against their own fathers!

“We are not at war for any of them. We are at war for religion, cousin! Berry here has told you. Berry is fighting for the voice of truth in his conscience and that voice tells him that the children of Israel are in peril of their souls, that God's Holy Word is profaned and the Devil speaks from the King's pulpits. That is his Cause, and it is the only Cause for which we have a right to fight our own flesh and shed our brothers' blood.”

His voice rose to a shout. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out! That is God's command, Cousin. That is our Cause and that will be our victory.”

For some moments there was silence. Cromwell took a deep breath as if he were suddenly tired out. He was right and he knew it. In the confusion of his personal life, tortured by doubts of his own way of salvation, clever, ambitious, superstitious and supremely practical, at last he had managed to fuse all these separate conflicts into a single purpose, pitiless as fire and strong as steel. His path to God was the one he had ridden at Edgehill.

“What do you want me to do?” Hampden said simply.

“I want you to get me the authority to recruit as many men in East Anglia as I can get and to train them in my own way. I want absolute freedom to choose my own officers, equip and maintain my troops as I think fit. Do that for me, Cousin, and I promise you you won't regret it.”