Charles the King (23 page)

He glanced across at Jermyn, and grimaced.

“Gentlemen,” Charles said at last.” I rebuked you for taking action without my consent. Now I should like to thank you for the courage and the loyalty you have shown. I must tell you honestly that the use of force against my subjects does not recommend itself to me in any circumstances, even the most extreme. What I will say to you is this: if Lord Strafford is convicted, I will think of you again. I may have need of your men and yourselves, and for the moment I should like to study this plan in more detail and possibly suggest some changes. Your oath of secrecy must be kept from everyone at Court as perfectly as you kept it from me. You may retire now.”

They bowed low and backed out of the room, and Jermyn nudged Goring.

“What do you think? Will he agree? I swear the Queen will persuade him before the week is over …”

“Maybe,” Goring shrugged. “She has the more spirit of the two. There's nothing we can do but wait and see.”

He saluted Jermyn and walked away. He was frowning. Wait and see while the King vacillated, advised one way by his wife, another by that old idiot Laud, who was in hourly fear of impeachment himself, and yet again by someone else. And while they waited, the risk of discovery increased. Oaths of secrecy were only binding for a time. Inaction loosened tongues; doubt and confusion encouraged people to hint and eventually to confide. Goring looked up as the first spots of rain began to fall, and pulled his cloak round him and began to walk quickly back to the Palace. He was not going to wait till someone told Parliament, and find himself accused and arrested for the sake of a man who had not the courage to make up his mind. He went up to his rooms and sent a note to the Earl of Newport, the estranged husband of Henrietta's faithful lady-in-waiting, who had never forgiven her or the King for his wife's conversion to Rome, and was now one of Pym's most powerful supporters.

They met at Newport's house in the Strand that evening, and Goring betrayed the conspiracy to him.

A shuttered coach bumped and rattled down the cobbled road from Tower Hill and passed under the main gate of the Tower. Its escort of soldiers dismounted and the doors were unlocked; no one gave a hand to the old man who hesitated on the step; he climbed down uncertainly and nearly stumbled. Lord Newport, Governor of the Tower, came out of the Governor's house on the Inner Green and saluted him.

“My Lord Archbishop, your lodgings are ready. Be good enough to follow me.”

He stared at his prisoner keenly, and there was no sympathy in his eyes. Laud hesitated and looked round him, blinking in the weak sunlight. The tall stone walls of the fortress rose like cliffs on either side of him. His round face had sunken, the ruddy skin was grey and his hands moved uncertainly as if seeking for support. He had been arrested by order of Parliament and conveyed to the Tower in the darkened coach, its windows shuttered, and he had sat in the dark listening to the ferocious yells and curses of the crowds gathered to watch him pass, the English crowds to whom he had tried to teach beauty and uniformity in worship and who would have stopped the coach and torn him to pieces if they had been allowed to see his face. He had aged in the time it took to bring him from Westminster to the Tower of London, but he was already old and beaten on the day Strafford went to the place to which he had come at last himself.

He looked into the stony face of Newport.

“Where are my lodgings?” he asked. “Are they close to my Lord Strafford?”

“As close as you're likely to be,” Newport snapped at him. “I have prepared a room for you in the Beauchamp Tower. Have no fear, my Lord, it's not as dark and noisome as the cells in Newgate and the Marshalsea where you sent so many honest Churchmen!”

“They are revenged,” Laud said quietly. “And they are all alive to enjoy it. They left Newgate and the Marshalsea, and if I cropped a few ears it was no more than they deserved. But no man leaves this place until they've cropped his head. Lead the way, my Lord Newport, lead the way to my resting-place. I welcome it as a refuge after that journey, believe me.”

“You were lucky to survive it,” Newport said angrily.

“I know,” Laud answered. “I heard those gentle Christians screaming for my blood and I thank God for the silence of the Tower.”

Newport turned away and Laud walked slowly after him, surrounded by soldiers on either side. He held a prayer-book in his hands pressed close against his breast, and as he walked he prayed, his grey head bent and his eyes half closed, until he passed under the narrow entrance to the Beauchamp Tower. To the annoyance of Newport and some of his escort who were Puritans, the Archbishop looked round the dismal room, lighted by one wretched window high up in the wall, furnished with a mean trestle bed, a table and a stool, and nodded as if he were pleasantly surprised. He turned to Newport whom he had known well in the old days when they had both been close to the King. There was a gentle expression on his tired face and a flickering of his old boisterous humour.

“I see no rats and fetid walls—not even an instrument of torture. You have indeed been generous, my Lord, and I am grateful. I already feel at home. If you will leave me now, I'd like to be alone and pray.”

“Make particular mention of Lord Strafford,” Newport said sarcastically. “Perhaps a miracle might save him yet.”

Laud said clearly “His Majesty the King will save him. And all my prayers are for the King, my Lord. Strafford and I are safe in here, while he stands unprotected from such men as you.”

Newport did not answer. He snapped an order to the guards and left the room. The door was closed and Laud heard the key turning and the bolts grinding into their sockets. After a moment he sat on the edge of the hard bed, and, holding his prayer-book to catch the light, he began to read.

On May 8th, Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford was condemned to death for Treason. The Bill of Attainder was passed in the House of Lords by thirty-seven votes to eleven, and as the count was taken a mob of yelling Londoners was beating on the doors, demanding the sentence of death. In this atmosphere of terror and coercion, it was a miracle to the distracted King that eleven nobles had been brave enough to make their protest at the sentence.

There was a reason for the mobs, a reason for the outburst of popular fury against the fallen Minister who had done so much to discredit Pym and the Commons during his trial. By sheer courage and integrity the accused had come close to being the accuser, and at the moment when the outcome was in doubt, Pym announced the existence of the Army Plot and called for an enquiry. He was never called upon to prove it, because the principals, Goring excepted, fled for their lives, leaving Charles in the frantic position of not knowing how the intrigue had been discovered or how much was known of Henrietta's part in it. Immediately, public opinion veered violently against the King and the Court and the man that the treacherous army was planning to release. There was no hope for Strafford, and on May 9th, as Charles and his Queen sat at dinner in Whitehall, the London crowds stormed the outer reaches of the Palace and clamoured round the Gatehouse leading to the royal apartments. He had stood in the room, his arms round Henrietta and his eldest son, comforting her and her trembling ladies, telling them not to be afraid, until the shouts grew less and Lord Clare reported from the window that the crowds were being driven back by his personal guards.

That same evening, he was presented with the warrant for Strafford's execution, and received a deputation of his Bishops, all trembling for their own lives and for his, begging him to sign it.

He had been sitting in his room alone for nearly two hours when Henrietta came to him.

It was quite dark, and the candles on his writing table had burnt low. The warrant was in front of him, and beside it a long letter. As she came to his side, Henrietta recognized the familiar, ugly writing.

“Why are you reading that?” she whispered. “Why do you torment yourself?”

He looked up at her; his face was pale and lined with weariness. “Thomas has my letter, giving my word of honour as a King that I will never let him suffer. And I have his, absolving me from that promise. What is my torment besides his, at this moment?”

She went on her knees and put her arms around him.

“Thomas is lost,” she said. “If you do not sign that warrant Newport will execute him on his own authority—he has said so. There's nothing you can do to save him. All you can hope is to save yourself and me and all our children.”

“That was the choice he put to me at York,” Charles answered. “He delivered himself to his enemies for our sake and I let him go with the promise that he had nothing to fear. He believed me.”

“He has exonerated you,” she said, and she took the letter up, and after a moment she read a part of it aloud. “Listen, my love, for this is Thomas speaking, Thomas who loves you and knows you have done all that any man can do. ‘
Here are before me the many ills which may befall Your Sacred Person and the whole kingdom should yourself and Parliament part less satisfied with the one than the other … To set Your Majesties' conscience at liberty I beseech you to pass this Bill, and as by God's Grace I forgive all the world with calmness and meekness, so, Sir, to you I can give the life of this world with all the cheerfulness imaginable … To a willing man there is no injury done
.' He is willing to die, Charles, for your sake. He understands what you must do. How can you refuse his offer when all you can achieve by it is the loss of his life and probably your own?”

Charles put his hands over his face and she knew that he was weeping.

“If he dies because of my weakness, I do not want to live,” he said. “If it were not for you I would have had that rabble fired upon and been glad to take the consequences.”

“And surrender your rights and the rights of our son?” she demanded. The warrant was in front of him; the life of one man was the alternative to revolution.

“Sign it,” she repeated. “For the love of God sign it now and have done! What are you waiting for—another demonstration like today to make you see you have no choice? What is the life of any man compared to losing your throne? Strafford has got to die now and nothing you can do can stop it. Here.” She leant across and dipped the pen in the inkpot and put it into his hand. He raised his head and for a moment they looked into each other's eyes, with all the years of love and trust between them, and at that moment when he was torn by self-doubt and agony for his friend, Henrietta's will was stronger. She saw it and she made it easier.

“For my sake, Charles, I beg of you.”

He signed, and as he did so Henrietta rang the little silver bell for his Gentleman in attendance. A moment later Lord Clare came in from the ante-room.

“Are the Bishops still in the Palace?” she asked. Clare glanced at the King and saw him slowly sanding the ink on his signature. Without even seeing his face he knew what had been done.

“Yes, Madam. They were afraid to leave Whitehall, the streets are still full of people.”

“Send for them. His Majesty has signed the warrant.” She went back to Charles and bending down she kissed him. His cheek was cold and wet with tears.

“Come, my darling,” she said, and she was as tender as if she were speaking to a child. “We will see them together and then you must rest. You haven't slept for days.”

Early on the 12th of May, Thomas Wentworth, stripped of his titles and estates, left his prison in the Tower for the last time to walk in procession with the Constable, his own few friends and servants and the chaplains sent to comfort him, to die on Tower Hill in the presence of two hundred thousand hostile people. He limped painfully as he walked, a stooping grey-headed man in his last sickness, dressed in sombre black, but fortified with dignity and a peace which abashed the vindictive peers and officials who had come to see him die. At the base of the Beauchamp Tower he paused. He had not been allowed to see Laud who had gone arm in arm with him through the gardens at Whitehall and Lambeth so many times in the past, and walked with him on the final parting which ended in the Tower. Laud's prophecy had been fulfilled; he knew that Laud would take the same path for the same end, and his heart yearned for a last sign of him and a last word. The King had abandoned him and in a moment of human frailty he had cried out aloud, “Put not your trust in Princes …” But Laud had not failed him. They had been friends in the deepest sense of companionship and humour and genuine love, and it was Laud he looked for on that last morning of his life. In the window above him he saw the familiar figure. Before anyone could stop him, Wentworth knelt.

“Your prayers and your blessing,” he called out, and the Archbishop, too far away to answer him, raised his hand and made a trembling Sign of the Cross. As he finished he fell back unconscious. Again Wentworth's voice rose strongly, unaware that Laud could not hear him.

“Farewell my Lord. God protect your innocence.” He stood up and addressed the soldiers who were waiting by his side.

“Proceed,” he said. “My business is done on this earth.” When Laud recovered consciousness his friend had been beheaded to a roar of cheering that was heard as far away as Whitehall.

Chapter 9

Strafford had been dead for three months and as if the shedding of his blood had exhausted their violence and suspicion, the people of England were strangely quiet.

The crowds who had rushed the gates of the King's Palace dissipated like leaves before a squall of wind; the armies of the Covenant who had given the support of the sword to Pym and his Parliament, were persuaded to return across the border with a handsome indemnity. Parliament sat at Westminster voting away the King's powers with a succession of Bills which he made no attempt to veto. They had no fear of dissolution. Pym had presented one which deprived him of the right to dismiss them without their consent and Charles signed it without protest within days of the warrant for Strafford's death. It was a strange situation in which the King, so long the obstinate champion of his rights, and to some the trespasser on his country's ancient liberties, submitted patiently to every limitation his Parliament imposed upon him.