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By Root 1221 0

Five chaplains followed, then more musicians, officers of the Trained Bands, and musicians with other heraldic arms to which the earl had claim. A riderless horse, led by a groom, and an effigy of the earl preceded the coffin, which was borne by prominent Presbyterians. There followed eminent mourners, then members of both Houses, the Recorder and Aldermen of London, the Assembly of Divines and fifty or sixty cavalrymen. In all, over 1,000 processed, and up to 10,000 soldiers had either processed or guarded the route. As a result there was a problem of fitting everyone into Westminster Abbey, even though the Lords had ordered that the multitude and all women ‘of whatsoever quality’ were barred (chivalric funerals were in any case, by custom, all-male affairs). An eloquent sermon by Richard Vines was heard by those fortunate enough to cram in, before they processed back to Essex House for a funeral banquet. That evening, five hours after the procession had begun, the bell at St Margaret’s, Westminster, tolled twice. A signal was then given to the Stone Fort at Southwark to fire its great cannon, and each of the forts around the eleven-mile defences fired its great cannon in turn. This was done three times.40

But this was a more ambiguous affair than this ritual suggested. Controversially, it had been ordered that those who had been in arms for the King should not attend and almost all the chief mourners were prominent Presbyterians: Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton were all absent. The effigy, which had become an important site for those wishing to reflect on the contribution of Essex to a noble cause, was attacked on the night of 26/27 November. John White, using an axe acquired from a Ludgate ironmonger, wrecked the elaborate catafalque erected in the abbey in the earl’s honour, hacked the head off the effigy, with seven or eight blows, ripped off the buff coat the earl had worn at Edgehill, slashed his breeches and boots, and stole his golden sword. In his excitement he also took the nose off an image of Sir William Camden, a relatively blameless antiquarian, whose tomb was nearby. White claimed that an angel had directed him ‘to cut all the said image, hearse and all that was about it in pieces, and to beat down the rest of the images in the said church’. In his defence he said it was a dishonour to Christ to introduce the effigy of a man into a sacred building. The repaired image was placed behind glass, and lasted to the Restoration, when the effigy was destroyed at the command of Charles II, although the corpse was left undisturbed.41

Dubbed by the press a disaffected Cavalier, White expressed a line of argument that might not have been so far from that of some members of the parliamentary coalition – there were those on Essex’s side, after all, who had smashed funerary monuments and supported his replacement at the head of the parliamentary army. Even if they would not have desecrated this particular tomb, the point can hardly have been lost on contemporaries. This appeal to a grand chivalric tradition appears elegiac – the Self-Denying Ordinance, which had ended Essex’s martial career, had also diluted the importance of baronial and aristocratic images in the promotion of the parliamentary cause; the unity it proclaimed, if it had ever existed, belonged more to the beginning than the end of Essex’s career. Certainly, if Cavaliers could turn the language of reformation against the images of parliamentary virtue then this was a more contested vision than that of Charles healing the sick.

While the politicians wrangled there had been no peace dividend and, on the evidence of the Newcastle negotiations, military victory had not produced a political breakthrough. Worse, there had been numerous disorders in the provincial armies. Anti-war and anti-army feelings were of prime political importance during 1647: to those who wanted to reduce taxation, re-establish legal and constitutional forms of politics and to set clear limits to further reformation, it seemed obvious that the armies had to be disbanded.42 At the same time,