London - Edward Rutherfurd [387]
A chance? What was the solemn young man talking about? “Take it elsewhere,” he said curtly. But he still wondered afterwards. Giving him a chance: it was a strange expression. Soon he learned another.
Parliament now turned to impeach Strafford, but its legal grounds were unclear. “We’ll accuse him of unspecified crimes and the king must sign his death warrant.” To which the city of London added a gentle gloss: “We lend no money till his head is off.”
King Charles resisted. In the midst of all this, one April day, when a large crowd had gathered to make their feelings known at Westminster, Julius happened to encounter Gideon. Not wanting to seem discourteous, he remarked to him that, whatever one thought of Strafford, it was hard to see the business going as far as execution. The king just wouldn’t have it. So he was astonished when Gideon, instead of arguing, merely smiled and asked:
“Which king?”
“Which king? There is only one king, Gideon.”
But Gideon shook his head. “There are two kings now,” he said. “King Charles in his palace, and King Pym in the Commons.” He grinned. “And I think, Master Ducket, that King Pym will have it so.”
King Pym? The parliamentary leader. Julius had never heard the expression before and found it distasteful. “You should be careful what you say,” he cautioned. Yet the very next day, he came across a printed broadsheet plastered on the cross in Cheapside, whose heading declared in bold letters: “King Pym Says . . .” And within a week he had heard it a dozen times. Gideon was proved right as well. Within a month, bludgeoned by Parliament and without any funds, King Charles was forced to give way. Strafford was executed on Tower Hill.
But there was still one last, and terrible word that Julius had to learn.
During the summer, little changed. King Pym sat tight in his Parliament. King Charles made one, futile journey north to try to strike a bargain with the Scots, but the Presbyterians did not budge: King Charles remained caught in the vice. The Ducket brothers meanwhile had their own affairs to attend to. Julius and his little family joined Henry at Bocton for the summer, bringing with them several families of children from the parish – including, to his surprise, Gideon’s wife and children – to help with hop-picking. In the great peace of the Kent country, even Sir Henry and tiny O Be Joyful seemed to strike up a friendship as the little boy toddled about in the sun.
As soon as they returned to London, however, it was clear that more trouble was brewing. News had just arrived of a disturbance in Ireland. People had been killed, property burned. King Pym and King Charles alike agreed that troops must be sent to quell the unruly province. But there agreement ended. “I shall control the troops,” King Charles declared. It was what kings had always done. “In no circumstances,” the parliament men replied, “are we going to pay for troops that the king will surely turn against us.”
“To limit the king is not enough,” Parliament then argued, “for he could always strike back. We must control him.” King Pym, in effect, must be greater than King Charles. Every week some new and more radical proposal was raised. “The army must answer to Parliament alone,” they declared. “We should be able to veto the king’s ministers too.” And, hardly surprisingly, the Puritans among them urged: “No more bishops, either.”
By November Gideon was collecting signatures for another petition. “We’ll get twenty thousand this time.” At Westminster a huge mob was in regular attendance, which Pym and his friends did nothing to discourage.
“I was with some of the sounder parliament men today,” Henry told Julius one evening. “And they’re getting uneasy too. They want to control the king, but they think Pym is leading them towards mob rule. They’d rather reach some accommodation with the king than go down that slippery slope.” At the end of the month, when Pym and his