London in Chains (31 page)

Cotman looked at the wild Leveller friends but said nothing. He hadn't shared his father-in-law's politics but he hadn't been entirely unsympathetic, either.

‘I will tell you the whole tale later, sir,' Susan assured him, ‘but it
is
true that Lucy's da won't want her home again.'

Cotman sagged. ‘Very well!' He stared unhappily at Lucy. He was, she knew, torn between a desire to avoid the shame of sending his wife's cousin to live with strangers and his horror at the thought of having Lucy and Agnes under the same roof.

‘I will be well, sir,' Lucy told him. ‘I will live much more peaceably with Mrs Overton than ever I would with Aunt Agnes.'

‘You've a cursed ill-natured mother-in-law there, Cotman,' said Will Browne. ‘I'd not take her in for all the gold in England!'

Lucy left Southwark that afternoon, walking over London Bridge between Will Browne and Mary Overton, carrying her small case of luggage. She and Susan had parted with hugs and tears. The maid was going to stay to keep watch over the house until it could be rented. Lucy didn't like to think of her there alone, but Cotman had at least agreed to provide money for coal and food. He'd also given Lucy threepence so she could post a letter to Leicester. She hadn't liked to ask him for money, but she knew Nat Cotman had already written to her father, and, without word from her, Paul would make another descent on London.

The Overtons' house was on Coleman Street, a block to the south of the Brownes'. It was of a good size, but Lucy had gathered that it was underfurnished: Mary had sold most of the furniture while Richard was in Newgate, and the Stationers' men had stolen everything movable when they arrested Mary. The whole party paused outside it, and Liza hugged Lucy again. ‘I'm glad we'll be neighbours!' said the girl happily.

Lucy hugged her back, then followed Mary into her new home.

The first thing she noticed was the smell of tobacco; the second was the sound of men's voices, low and angry. Mary stopped short in surprise, then pressed anxiously on into the house.

The next room was the kitchen. Two men were sitting by the fire smoking pipes. One of them was Richard Overton; the other, to Lucy's astonishment, was John Lilburne.

‘Dick!' cried Mary, hurrying to her husband. ‘What's amiss? Why are you home so soon?'

Richard Overton groaned and stood to put his arms about his wife and hold her close. Lilburne got to his feet and knocked the ashes from his pipe into the fire. ‘I've stayed long enough,' he said. ‘I'll hie me home to my own wife and children. Why, Mistress Wentnor! What are you doing here?'

‘Oh!' exclaimed Mary breathlessly, disentangling herself from her husband. ‘Dick, Thomas Stevens is dead, and poor Lucy is cast upon the world without a penny since we've taken her place at
The Moderate
! I told her she could stay here with us until she finds another place.'

Richard was taken aback and stared at Lucy in obvious misgiving. She clutched her luggage, acutely embarrassed. It had seemed natural to accept Mary Overton's offer, but she should have wondered whether Richard would approve. She barely knew him: by the time he was released from Newgate she'd ceased to attend meetings at The Whalebone.

Then he gave her a tired smile. ‘And so she can, of course! I hope you've no objection to sharing with the children?'

‘No, sir,' murmured Lucy, relieved.

‘Tom Stevens is dead?' asked Lilburne. ‘I pray God give him rest! How did that come about?'

‘It was the smallpox, sir,' replied Lucy. ‘He died most like a Christian, praying that God would forgive his sins.'

‘He had but few of those,' said Lilburne. ‘I've no doubt, Mistress, that he is entered into the joy which our Lord has prepared for those who love him, while we are left to struggle in the darkness of this benighted earth. I'll home to my wife and children; I bid you all goodnight.'

He left. Mary gave her husband a questioning look.

‘We were deceived,' said Richard Overton heavily. ‘Defrauded by those we'd set up to govern us. Outflanked, overrid and brought down even unto dust.'

‘What!' cried Mary.

‘Aye.' Richard sat down again, pulled his wife on to his lap and wrapped her in his arms. ‘When we arrived, we found that Cromwell was before us. He had had another proclamation made up in place of the
Agreement
, and he'd had it circulated through the ranks. It claimed to come from the Lord General and the Council of the Army, but the Council never saw it – at least, the full Council never did; it came from Cromwell and his cronies. In it Lord General Fairfax threatened to
step down
, unless
discipline was restored.
Why should it be
restored?
When and where did it
break down
? The rendezvous had been
agreed
by the full Council of the Army, and arranged by the Army's officers and Agitators! But the men are in awe of Fairfax. The threat frightened them, and the rest of the proclamation contained enough of the
Agreement's
provisions to satisfy them, especially since they believed that it had the blessing of the full Council. When poor Colonel Rainsborough tried to give a copy of the
Agreement
to Fairfax, he was waved aside: the new proclamation supplanted it entirely. Fairfax and Cromwell demanded that all the men sign it, saying that unless they did, they would not receive any of their arrears of pay. Those who tried to stand by the
Agreement
were branded as rebels and disturbers of the peace and were put under arrest.

‘Then two more regiments arrived at the field, Colonel Harrison's and the one belonging to John's brother Robert, both zealous for our freedoms. They had copies of the
Agreement
in their hats, with “England's Freedoms, Soldiers' Rights!” in bold type above the heading. Cromwell at once declared that they had
mutinied
, forsooth! – because Harrison's regiment was supposed to have attended a
different
rendezvous, and Robert Lilburne's had been ordered north without being assigned a rendezvous at all! Robert Lilburne wasn't there, nor any of the officers above the rank of captain: the men had been extremely indignant when they were ordered to march north without any opportunity to support the
Agreement
, and when their officers tried to enforce the order they sent them off – but
otherwise
they were orderly enough. They wanted only to claim their right to speak their minds!

‘Cromwell and Fairfax ordered the men to take the papers from their hats. When they refused, they rode into the midst of them with swords drawn, snatching the papers and trampling them underfoot. God help us, these men whom they had branded
mutineers
would not lift a hand against their commanders: they yielded, and took the papers from their hats and cast them aside. Then Cromwell was pleased to have those he termed the “ring-leaders” arrested for mutiny – men whom the soldiers themselves had elected to represent them! Three of them were sentenced to death on the spot, but – oh, the Great Man is merciful! – were allowed to cast dice for their lives, and only one of them was shot. They marched him out before the assembled regiments and shot him dead. Arnold, his name was; Private Richard Arnold: may his blood be on Oliver Cromwell's head before the throne of God Almighty!'

Richard delivered all this in a rush, clinging to his thin, pock-faced wife as though she was his only support and he adrift in a raging sea. Lucy struggled to make sense of it: she'd heard no news since Thomas fell ill. She still had no idea why Lilburne wasn't in the Tower, but that had become a secondary matter. Richard Overton was talking about the Army rendezvous which should have determined the fate of
The Agreement of the People
: it had been subverted by Cromwell, branded a mutiny and ruthlessly suppressed. Richard and John Lilburne had gone to – wherever it was – hoping to speak in favour of the
Agreement
, and had instead been forced to watch as all their hopes were crushed.

‘
Our ancestors' blood was often spent in vain for the recovery of their freedoms
,' said the
Agreement
itself, ‘
suffering themselves through fraudulent accommodations to be still deluded of the fruit of their victories.
' Now more blood had been spent, and still in vain. She remembered Thomas, on the first day of his illness, exclaiming eagerly that they would have a settlement of the government by the new year; at least he'd escaped having his hopes dashed yet again. Now the horrible tussling for power would go on and on, and there would be no settlement at all.

A horrible new possibility chilled her: Richard had said one of the regiments labelled as mutinous was Colonel Harrison's. ‘
Col Harrison's rgmt is astirr for our Liberties, and I am held in Honour as one that has spent Ink as well as Blood in their defence.
'

‘Sir,' she said in an ragged whisper. ‘Do you know if Jamie Hudson was arrested?'

Richard looked round at her dazedly. ‘Who?'

He didn't know Jamie; of course he didn't. He'd been in Newgate all the time Jamie was working on the press. Lucy would have to discover Jamie's fate from someone else. ‘One you never met,' she said numbly. ‘Forgive me: I intrude.' She felt ashamed to be standing in the Overtons' kitchen with her little package of luggage, like a poor orphan, especially since she was no relation at all.

Mary Overton kissed her husband. ‘I must fetch the children home,' she said. ‘We'll talk at supper.'

The Overton children had been left with a neighbour when Mary went to the funeral. She brought them home and introduced them to Lucy: Faith, a girl of eight; six-year-old Dickon; and Judith, who was four. Their mother explained Lucy's presence, and the children asked her how long she would stay with them, and why she'd come to London, and how she meant to find a job printing. Their questions were at least a distraction from Lucy's raw grief and her gnawing anxiety for Jamie.

There was, as Mary had promised, more serious talk at supper. Quite a lot seemed to have happened while Lucy was locked away. Apparently Lilburne had been released from the Tower on bail, ostensibly so that he could prepare his case. Some might say he'd been allowed this because he'd been ill – he had collapsed in front of a Parliamentary hearing – but Richard Overton had dark suspicions that his friend had not been released because of any sudden accession of mercy in his keepers.

‘The stratagem at Ware could have failed,' Richard said bitterly – Ware, in Hertfordshire, was where the rendezvous had taken place. ‘If it had, why, there was John, conveniently at hand to take the blame!'

‘You were there, too,' said Mary and squeezed his hand.

Richard made a face. ‘So I was. If he couldn't suppress the
Agreement
in the Army, Cromwell would at least have had the pleasure of discrediting us and discovering another reason to jail us. And there's the business of the letter, too.'

‘The letter' was another piece of news Lucy had missed. It had been left anonymously for the king at Hampton Court: it warned him that ‘eight or nine Agitators' were planning to murder him. The king had fled the palace precipitously, leaving the letter behind. It was rumoured all over London that Lilburne was the driving force behind a real conspiracy to murder the king, or alternatively, that he'd sent the letter to get the king away from London to forestall a settlement with the Army Grandees. Richard Overton was scathing about both alternatives. ‘John wasn't released from the Tower until the day
after
that letter was delivered!' he protested. ‘Is he supposed to have conducted his conspiracy under the warden's eyes? And as for wanting the king away from London – Charles Stuart is further from accepting any proposal of Cromwell's than he's been all this year! And John was—' He stopped abruptly, with an uneasy glance at Lucy.

And John was trying to deal with the king himself
, Lucy guessed suddenly. She remembered the Royalist prisoner who'd been so friendly with Lilburne in the Tower. She wasn't sure whether she should be indignant or not. Not, she decided. If the king could be brought to accept the
Agreement
as the basis of a settlement, it would solve everything: an alliance between Levellers and Royalists would be invincible.

Of course, a king who wouldn't accept Cromwell's
Heads of the Proposals
would never accept the
Agreement
, which offered him much less in the way of privileges. She couldn't blame John Lilburne for trying, though – nor, with the sentiment among the Agitators running so strongly against the king, could she blame him for wanting to keep his negotiations secret. Richard Overton was right, too: if Cromwell knew that Lilburne was trying to deal with Charles Stuart, then it wasn't
Lilburne
who wanted the king away from London.

‘The letter was sent by some other person,' Richard resumed in a low voice, ‘and John was released to be a scapegoat. Now, look well at what came of the king's flight! King Charles hied himself to the Isle of Wight because he thought that the governor there, Robert Hammond, would favour him. Why should he think that? Because he'd heard some word, evidently; and yet in the event, of course, Hammond proved himself Cromwell's man. Now the king is locked up in Carisbrooke Castle, a long way from London! Who's benefited from all this hugger-mugger dealing? Oliver Cromwell. The man is as subtle as a serpent, and as cold!'

‘What do we do now?' Mary asked, after a silence.

Richard sighed deeply and pushed his dish of pottage aside. ‘We protest. We petition. We print copies of the
Agreement
and circulate it, in the City and in the Army. We must hope and endure all things, dear heart! What else can we do?'