London in Chains (18 page)

The next few weeks were among the happiest of her life. There was now a real bond between herself, Jamie and Ned: she found that she trusted the other two more than she'd ever expected to trust men again. She woke every morning looking forward to the day, and every evening parted from her friends with smiles and laughter.

The city was bubbling with debate, with pamphlet countering pamphlet in a swirling battle. Presbyterian tracts furiously denounced the blasphemers in the Army; Royalist ballads mourned the sufferings of the king and called for his restoration; hopes of a settlement were raised, dashed and raised again. There were speeches and remonstrances, petitions and declarations and engagements. In the pulpits of City churches, preachers denounced toleration; in the conventicles of the sectaries, preachers denounced the intolerant. The City's apprentices held a violent demonstration, calling for peace, the disbanding of the Army and the restoration of the king. In the middle of it, Lucy's press laboured, banging out sheet after sheet – and the sheets
sold.
Distributed across the city through the regular meetings of the well-affected, they were taken up eagerly as soon as they appeared. The fourteen-shillings-a-week subsidy voted by the council was never needed; instead, a surplus was delivered to the fund for prisoners.

The negotiations between Parliament and Army went nowhere, but still the conflict remained poised short of bloodshed. The Army marched from St Albans to Uxbridge, but stayed out of London. It issued demands. Pay was no longer its first concern: it wanted the Committee of Safety disbanded and the Reformadoes dismissed; it wanted the old Parliament dissolved and a new one elected; it wanted religious toleration, reform to the system of justice, an end to monopolies and corruption. It presented charges of impeachment against eleven members of Parliament and called for their conduct to be investigated. It also demanded the release from prison of John Lilburne, Nicholas Tew, Richard and Mary Overton, and William Browne.

The House of Commons inclined one day towards resistance, the next towards compromise. It refused to investigate the eleven members, but it disbanded the Committee of Safety and dismissed the Reformadoes. Perhaps this was only because they'd proved so inadequate, but the news filled Lucy with huge relief: that vile oppressive force, gone! Swept away by the Commons as quickly as it had been set up! It was as though the kingdom had been released from shackles and taken two steps back from war.

Parliament, however, still refused to release Lilburne from the Tower or Richard Overton from Newgate. In another measured step back, though, it freed Mary Overton, Tew and Browne.

It was a result the well-affected had petitioned for again and again in anger and despair, and the news swept across the city. Ned announced it jubilantly to Lucy and Jamie when they turned up at The Whalebone for dinner late in July. ‘They were set free without warning, early this morning! They're
home
!'

Lucy's first reaction was happiness: now Liza could go home to her father, and soon there would be a real peace! Her second, however, was anxiety: she'd come to think of the illegal press as
hers
, but she hadn't forgotten that it was, in fact, the property of Nicholas Tew. What would happen to her when he reclaimed his own?

Her third reaction was shame. Nicholas Tew had been unjustly imprisoned: she should be glad that he was free. Instead, here she was, coveting his livelihood! She should repent and ask God to cleanse her sinful heart.

Ned hosted a celebration dinner for the freed prisoners, arranging it for a couple of days after their release, so that they could first have some time at home with their children. Lucy was invited.

William Browne was thinner and paler than he had been before his arrest. He was in better health than his fellows, however; he had only been in Newgate for three months. Tew had spent nearly five months in the dark, verminous prison; Mary Overton had been six months in Bridewell. All three were in high good spirits, though, laughing and joking, toasting the health of the Army and the release of Richard Overton and John Lilburne, which everyone was sure
must
come soon. Liza, smiling shyly, stayed at her father's side all evening; Mary Overton, little, thin and pock-faced, constantly had her arm about one or another of her three children. The baby that had been taken to prison with her had died there, and the children had been scattered among her friends and neighbours.

Lucy shyly went over to Mrs Overton and introduced herself: she was a little in awe of this fellow-printer who had suffered so much.

‘So you're the girl who's been in charge of the press since Will Browne was sent to Newgate!' said Mary. When she smiled, as she did now, her face became almost pretty. She was still only in her early thirties, though she looked older.

‘Aye,' agreed Lucy. ‘I . . . I'd heard you had a press, too, but it was seized.' Mary had, in fact, petitioned Parliament to get it back, on the grounds that it represented ‘her present livelihood for her imprisoned husband, herself and three small children' – a piece of insolence to which Parliament hadn't deigned to reply.

‘Aye,' agreed Mary with a sigh. ‘And I wish I had it back, for I'll have a hard time supporting these babes without it!' She hugged her youngest child, a solemn-faced girl. ‘Still, by God's mercy, we're together again!'

‘What will you do?' asked Lucy. A small reprehensible corner of her mind wailed that even the place of Tew's
assistant
would be taken.

‘I'll look for work bookbinding,' Mary said promptly. ‘It pays badly, God knows, but friends and neighbours will help, and the great advantage of it is I can do piecework in my own home. My poor children have suffered enough: I'll be their mother a while and have no more to do with unlicensed printing!' She gave Lucy another smile and added, ‘But if ever you need advice on it, that I'll give you freely!'

Relieved, Lucy thanked her.

There was to be music after the meal – two of the guests had brought lutes, and Samuel Chidley had a flute. While the consort was tuning its instruments, Browne came over to Lucy, leading Nicholas Tew. He introduced them, then said, as Lucy had feared, ‘I've told Nick that you've been minding his press for him.'

‘Aye,' Lucy agreed nervously. ‘It's safe, sir, and waiting for your return.' She had not entirely succeeded in suppressing her covetous desire to keep the press, but she was determined not to let it show.

‘Good to know,' said Tew, then paused to cough. He wiped his face and blinked at her. He was a small man and looked unwell: his dark hair was thin and dull, and there were sores around his mouth. ‘I have not the strength to work it, Mistress Wentnor. I mean to leave London for a month or two and stay with my brother in the country to recover my health. I hope you will see fit to continue in place for a little while longer.'

Lucy could scarcely credit her good fortune. ‘Aye, sir, I would be glad of it!'

The consort suddenly struck up ‘A Light Heart's a Jewel', and they all turned towards the players. Tew smiled, Browne beamed, and at the second verse Lucy joined in, singing with great gusto.

‘He's afraid,' Jamie Hudson told her next morning, when she rushed into the barn to tell him the good news. ‘He found Newgate not at all to his liking, and he won't resume his work until the Army has triumphed and there's no danger of being sent back there.'

‘Jamie, he was
ill
!' she protested, taken aback. ‘He really was; he
looked
ill!'

Jamie shrugged. ‘Aye, Newgate's no healthy place. But he might have offered to
hire
us, rather than leave London without so much as a glance at his press. He wants to keep his distance from illegal printing.'

About to protest again, Lucy reconsidered. Jamie was right.

‘I don't blame him, mind,' Jamie went on. ‘Once bitten, twice shy: for my part, I've not set hand to a pistol since Naseby. Only I think we should take it to heart, you and I, that he fears to do what we are engaged upon. We've grown careless of our danger, and if we don't mend that, we'll suffer as he did.'

She made a face, but nodded soberly.

In spite of that, she had hopes that the danger would pass. The crisis seemed to be dying down: the eleven members of Parliament impeached by the Army voluntarily withdrew from the House. The Army set up its headquarters in Reading and continued negotiations, not just with Parliament but with the king as well. The Council of the Army – a body that included the ‘Agitators' elected by the men – arrived at proposals for a settlement of government in line with the Army's recent demands: religious toleration, biennial elections for Parliament, a monarchy bounded by law. The document they drew up –
The Heads of the Proposals
– was formally presented to King Charles as the basis on which the Army would restore him to the throne. The Presbyterians in Parliament and the City were terrified that he would accept it.

It was undoubtedly this terror that drove what happened next. It was late in July. Lucy and Jamie were working the press, printing John Lilburne's latest missive, when Ned suddenly appeared in the doorway, flustered and worried. ‘Jamie,' he panted, ‘have you seen John Wildman?'

Jamie stopped, his bad hand resting on the handle of the press. ‘Not this week. I think he's still with the Army.' Wildman was always shuttling back and forth between the Army and Westminster: he was a messenger trusted by both the Council of the Army and by the Independents in Parliament.

Ned shook his head. ‘He arrived in London yesterday and stabled his horse with us. I fear he's at Westminster.'

‘What's amiss at Westminster?' asked Jamie in alarm.

It seemed that there was a mob there. Ned wasn't certain who it was composed of, but Reformadoes had been mentioned. The Committee of Safety's forces had been dismissed when the committee itself was disbanded, but the dismissed soldiers had not left London. They could be seen everywhere around the city, angry, resentful and not infrequently drunk. ‘What I heard,' Ned said grimly, ‘is that they mean to force Parliament to re-form the Committee of Safety. I pray to God that the captain isn't there – or that if he is, he can keep his business quiet!'

Jamie let go of the press and swore. ‘I'll go and look for him.' He marched over to the basin of dirty water they kept to rinse off the worst of the ink.

‘Nay!' cried Lucy in alarm.

He paused, smiling at her. ‘What, you're afraid for me? I'll be in no danger.' He swept his bad hand up and down, indicating his thin, scarred frame. ‘I'm villainous enough they'll think me one of their own.'

‘But how will you even find him?' asked Lucy. In her mind's eye a mob of Richard Symondses besieged Westminster.

‘There are two or three places I might look for him,' replied Jamie. ‘It might help him to have someone to back up his account of himself, or guard his back.'

‘I'll go with you,' offered Ned.

‘Nay, you go back to your tavern,' replied Jamie.

‘I'm a sergeant in the trained bands!' Ned objected. His voice had an edge that surprised Lucy.

It surprised Jamie, too, and he gave Ned a quizzical look. ‘I meant no slight to your courage, friend! You know very well that all of us rely on The Whalebone as a place to meet. If you are long gone from it, messages may go astray and plans miscarry.'

Ned grimaced, then nodded. Jamie rinsed his hands, buckled on his sword and set off.

Ned watched him go, then looked at Lucy. ‘Come back to The Whalebone with me,' he suggested. ‘Whatever the news, we'll get it quickly there – and you know you won't get much printing done alone.'

‘I must clean the type and lock up first,' she told him, ‘but I'll come join you then, and thank you.'

As she cleaned up, Lucy felt strangely empty. She kept thinking of Jamie, tracing his route in her mind: now he would be on London Wall; now he had come to Smithfield; now he was on Fleet Street; now the Strand. She wished she had offered to go with him – which was
stupid
. What did she expect to do in a mob of Reformadoes? She would have been not a help but a hindrance: a vulnerable, frightened girl whom Jamie would be obliged to protect. If she had offered to go with him, he would certainly have been sensible enough to refuse to take her.

She wished, nonetheless, that she was with him.

With Jamie Hudson?
she asked herself incredulously.
That scarred, hulking swill-pot?
To be fair, he wasn't drinking heavily any more – but still, he was a man without a trade or prospects, and hideous to boot.

She locked up and started off to The Whalebone, vexed with Jamie and with herself. The streets were quiet, but the tavern, when she arrived at it, was packed: the clientele had filled both the common rooms and spilled out into the yard. She waved at several people she knew, then pressed on inside to greet Ned.

He was in a huddle with William Walwyn and the soldier Edward Sexby, who was one of the Army Agitators. They all glanced up when Lucy appeared, and Sexby smiled. ‘Mistress Wentnor, well met! Thomas Stevens of Southwark is your uncle, is he not?'

‘Aye,' she said, taken aback.

Sexby shot a significant look at the other men.

‘It's too soon!' protested Walwyn unhappily. ‘We know not yet how Parliament will answer!'