Charles the King (36 page)

“And you are going to give me to them, are you not?”

“No!” Lothian exploded, stung by the truth in that question. “No, never! Sign the Covenant—promise to establish the Presbyterian worship in all your kingdoms and you shall come back with us in triumph. And return with us at the head of an army before the year is out! That is all we ask of you!”

“And all I ask,” Charles said, “is that you will trust me. I cannot sign that Oath without breaking a trust which is not mine to break. I will not promise to enforce upon my people something which I believe to be wrong. But I will promise to allow those who want to worship in this way full freedom to do so without hindrance from their King. And in return I ask of you that you will honour the trust I placed in you when I came here as a fugitive, and not sell me to men who are my enemies and will soon be yours. Cromwell does not want your Church in England, any more than he wants mine. He wants neither Bishops nor Church Assemblies, but licence for all his free thinkers to interpret the Bible as they think fit. You do not want that, my Lords, and nor do I. Nor, I suspect, do most of the people in England at this moment. But I have discussed this with you over and over again, and you must know your own peril as well as you seem to know mine.”

“Your peril has been coming closer every day,” Lothian said. “And now it is upon you. This will be our last meeting before an English garrison enters Newcastle, and then we cannot take you with us even if we would. When we leave, Sire, you will be left behind. That is not a threat, though you have accused me of making it before now. It is a fact. You cannot come back to Scotland with us unless you come on the terms I have laid before you. You cannot expect to come, and have every Catholic rebel in the Highlands marching on Edinburgh to release you.”

“What Catholic rebels?” Charles asked quietly. “I ordered Montrose to disband and exile himself to please you, and he obeyed me. Huntly is in arms, but that is a private quarrel between Catholics and yourselves. I am not a Catholic. I am the Head of the Church of England, and what you are asking is what my Parliament asked before this war began. I give you the same answer as I gave them. I will never abandon my Church or my friends.”

Charles stood up.

“That is your last word, Sire?” Lauderdale asked him.

“It is,” the King said. “Except for one thing. How much are the English paying you?”

In spite of himself, Lauderdale, his implacable enemy and the rudest of his interrogators, hesitated and his heavy face flushed.

“Four hundred thousand pounds, Sire.”

Charles smiled at them; it was a slight, wry smile, and for the first time he permitted his disgust and contempt to show in his eyes as he looked at them one after the other.

“As one Scotsman to another, my Lords, you've made a poor bargain. You sold me far too cheap.”

They came and kissed his hand, Lauderdale, Lothian and Hamilton, who had been his friend, indeed his intimate in early years, and he said farewell to them with dignity. It was a dignity that brought tears to Hamilton's eyes; he tried to stammer an excuse, but Charles merely shook his head and repeated his dismissal. When the door closed, he heard the sentries posted outside saluting the Lords and then the metallic sound of their crossed pikes as they barred the entrance again. The light was fading fast, and he hesitated, wondering whether to ring for Parry, who had followed him to Newcastle, or draw the curtains himself. He went to the window and looked out on to the courtyard below. The rooms allotted to him were high up; too high for anything but a suicidal jump, and the troops marshalling below looked very small, as small as the men he had seen running and falling in battle. And now there would be no more battles.

Oxford had surrendered, and his nephew Rupert, the invincible General with whom he had felt such a sense of love and union, had laid down his arms and been permitted by the enemy to march out of the City with all the honours of war. He had sailed for France, and with him one of the saddest of Charles' memories, for in the stress and agony of that last year of conflict, he and Rupert had quarrelled, and it was a quarrel which had not really healed. He had quarrelled with Rupert because Rupert had surrendered Bristol, and Bristol was his only seaport and his last remaining stronghold of importance.

The breach which had opened between them had caused him bitter regret and self-reproach, but now they were separated, and it was unlikely that they would ever meet again.

Down below he watched the preparations for the Scots' departure. They had been taking place for the past week, all during the Christmas celebrations, when a horrible, forced atmosphere of gaiety among his attendants and his captors placed an intolerable strain upon his self-control. But greatest of all was the burden of Henrietta's letters to him.

For the first time in twenty years he had begun to dread the couriers who carried news from her, because the content of her letters was an unvarying demand that he should perjure himself and take the Covenant oath.

He could not make her understand that what she asked of him was quite impossible, and just before Christmas he had written her an angry, bitter letter, begging her to stop tormenting him. The Prince of Wales was with her, and Rupert had joined her too, and was adding his advice to hers. There was not one person to sustain him, even among those he loved most in the world. And by tomorrow, January 28th of the year 1647, the English troops would enter Newcastle and he would be in the hands of his mortal enemies.

He pulled the curtains, closing out the last of the fading winter daylight, and rang his bell for Parry. When the valet came into the room, he found the King sitting by the fire; his eyes were closed and he was so quiet that Parry thought he was asleep. He began to light the candles, and the room filled with a soft light, a light that threw his moving shadow on the tapestried wall as he removed the King's papers and set out the table for his supper.

When he turned, Charles was sitting up and smiling at him.

“I thought you were resting, Sire. Forgive me, did I wake you?”

“No, Parry, I was not asleep. What time is it?”

“Almost five o'clock, Sire.”

“It grows dark so early now,” the King said. “When I have supped, I think I'll go to bed. The nights are cold here. Thank God we will be moving soon.”

“Where will we go, Sire,” Parry asked him.

“Somewhere in England, God knows where. We'll know more tomorrow when the Parliament garrison arrives.”

Parry came to him, and going down upon one knee he knelt beside his master's chair.

“Then they are not taking you to Scotland?”

“No,” Charles answered. “Four hunded thousand pounds is worth more to them than the person of their King. By tomorrow the last of them will be gone, and we will have new captors. They tell me Colonel Skippon will be in command.”

“Who is Colonel Skippon?” Parry asked; “do you know him, Sire?”

“I know of him,” Charles said quietly. “He is a personal friend of General Cromwell. Are you afraid, Parry?”

“Only for you,” the valet answered, and his voice quavered. “Oh, God, Sire, if only there was anything that I could do to help you—I'd gladly give my life!”

“I know that,” Charles said gently. “I'm very fortunate to have you Parry; whatever befalls, I know I have one friend. Will you stay with me to the end?”

The valet took his hand and kissed it.

“To the end of my life, Your Majesty!”

“Say rather,” the King said, “To the end of mine. That is enough.”

Chapter 13

The spring months of 1647 had been mild and by August the summer had come with a long spell of hot, dry weather which turned the roads to baking dust. It was so hot for the rest of that month that Cromwell gave orders to leave London at dawn to avoid travelling in the full heat of the July day. He rode out towards Hampton Court, taking the route worn flat by generations of courtiers who had gone seeking favours of the Kings of England and a troop of a hundred and fifty horsemen escorted him. Colonel Ireton, who had married his daughter Bridget, and was the General's closest friend, rode at his right.

The Army had won the war, but the reward it demanded was not one which the English people or the English Parliament sitting at Westminster felt inclined to grant. They wanted their pay, and they wanted it before disbandment. They also wanted laws passed guaranteeing the right of all the free-thinkers among them to worship God in their own way. They wanted yearly Parliaments elected by the people, and full voting rights for every adult male. They wanted liberties and innovations which were as abhorrent to the middle classes as the restrictions once imposed upon them by the defeated King. And when they were refused and ordered to disband, they mutinied and Cromwell had taken the King into Army custody. He was then on his way to Hampton Court to offer him a separate peace.

His mood was optimistic that morning: Ireton heard him humming as they rode up to the splendid gates of Hampton Court, and the soldiers on guard swung back the heavy wrought-iron gates and let the cavalcade pass.

They crossed the stone bridge over the moat and Cromwell came out into the bright sunshine of the outer Base Court, walking his horse carefully over the cobbled ground. Colonel Skippon met him at the entrance to the Palace and saluted.

“Your servant, General. Yours, Colonel Ireton. The King is expecting you.”

Cromwell dismounted and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve.

“Have the men water their horses and see that they are given food and drink. Colonel Ireton and I are in need of a wash and something to take the dust out of our mouths before we see anybody. Tell the King I will wait on him in an hour. Come, Ireton.”

They looked round their quarters in the Palace with interest; the lofty rooms with their magnificent painted ceilings and delicate furniture were very different from the rough bivouacs of the battlefield and the homely house at Ely where Cromwell had spent the years before the war.

“So this is how Princes live,” Ireton remarked, sitting on a spindle-legged chair with a bump that nearly broke it under him. “There's enough of value in this room alone to give my troop six months' back pay!”

“Hampton Court was built by a Cardinal,” Cromwell reminded him, “and a King took it from him as we have taken it from the King. Don't lose your common sense, my son. A few chairs and a bed with hangings on it don't alter the fact that the King is our prisoner. And be civil when you meet him. He may be your King and mine in more than name if all goes well today!”

Ireton looked at his father-in-law, the commander in battle whom he idolized, the profoundly religious man whose fervour made him almost a saint in the eyes of his family, and could not restrain his astonishment at this complete revaluation.

“I see the necessity for treating with him,” he said slowly, “but I don't like it and I don't expect to hear you speak as if you do! You've talked of a Republic for as long as I've known you—you've said over and over that Kings and Bishops and these trappings are no part of a Godly community! Wasn't it you who said if we'd fought this war to restore the King, we'd have fought it for nothing? For God's sake, father-in-law, tell me how far you mean to go with this thing before I come face to face with him!”

Cromwell had been lying outstretched on a large fourposter bed; they were in the Prince of Wales's Cabinet, and the motif of the three plumes was embroidered on the canopy above his head. He had been squinting up at them while he talked to Ireton. Now he sat up and swung his legs over the side, pushing aside the table on which there was the remains of the meal they had eaten.

“What I said at the time was what seemed right at the time,” he answered. “I said we must depose the King and live in Christian freedom with each other. I never said we must depose him in order to live under the tyranny of Parliament and have a Presbyterian Church established on the Scottish model! That's not the Lord's intention! Better the King, chastened and powerless, ready to be converted to the truth, with the power of the army to govern, than no King, and those rogues at Westminster dissipating all the benefits we've won. Listen to me. Have you forgotten how they've treated us? Have you forgotten the men denied their pay and ordered to lay down their arms and go back to their homes with nothing to show for their service but promises? And when they wouldn't, what became of the promises but they turned into threats!”

He stood up and began fastening the collar of his hide jacket, stooping to a polished steel mirror to see himself. His face was red with anger and the small green eyes were so narrow that they seemed as if they were shut.

“By God, they shan't cheat the Army! I'd rather put up a thousand dummy Kings than lie down meekly under that pack of aldermen and turncoat aristocrats who see their chance to be rid of us and go their own way now that the fighting's done for them! Button yourself, Ireton, and come. We're going to the King!”

Charles had been given the Royal suite of rooms on the inner courtyard; in spite of the fact that he had given his word not to escape, his captors decided that it was not safe to lodge him near the river, and he had no view except the fountain Courtyard, where a beautiful display of three tall jets rose in the stifling air and cooled the paved yard below his window. He had been the army's prisoner since January, and even before he knew of the friction between the soldiers and the Parliament, he had noticed with surprise how generous his captors had become. He was treated with every courtesy due to him; he was served and waited upon by Cromwell's stiff-faced soldiers as if he were in his own court at Whitehall, allowed his Church of England chaplains to comfort him, and given access to his correspondence. And now the army had sent his three children, so long the hostages of Parliament, on a day's visit to him. It was a gesture that totally disarmed him—even when he heard from Skippon, who had become quite talkative since Newcastle, that there was mutiny among the troops and fierce quarrels between Cromwell, Fairfax, and the civilian leaders of Parliament, Charles felt inclined to accept their kindness without suspecting that it had a motive. And now Skippon had taken his children away and told him that Cromwell himself was at Hampton Court and on his way to see him. The young Princes, James and Henry, had distressed him by crying and kicking out at the soldiers who led them away, but his daughter Elizabeth had curtsied to him with a tragically unchildlike dignity and whispered that she would be brave and pray for him.