London - Edward Rutherfurd [394]
And certainly, most certainly, not the king. Endlessly prevaricating, trying to play one of his enemies against the other, promising anything in the hope that, in the end, he could still return to rule exactly as before, when finally King Charles had managed to foment another rising, the “Saints” had had enough. Despite the Londoners’ howls of protest, Fairfax had come down and quartered his army on the city. The treasure of several livery companies was seized to pay the troops. And just a few weeks ago, to Gideon’s huge satisfaction, Colonel Pride with a body of troops had gone to Westminster and thrown out all the members of Parliament who were too faint-hearted for the great cause, which was, quite simply, to rebuild England.
In the last two years another heady realization had come upon him. “There is no power left that can stand against us.” Cromwell’s army was the only true power left in the land. Disciplined and united, it could impose its will. A captive king, a flaccid Parliament: to the saints fell the opportunity, and the responsibility, of fashioning the old country again, on a new model.
But what exactly was that new model to be? Even now, Gideon was not quite certain.
When the Civil War began, he had been clear, like most Roundheads: the king must be reined in by Parliament; the bishops and all their works must go. Some sort of Presbyterian Church he had supposed – not quite so dour and rigid as the Scottish version, though – had seemed desirable. But as the war continued, and the fellowship of Cromwell’s army uplifted him, he had begun with his fellow saints to envision a still brighter and better hope. A new world, here in the old. How often, then, he had turned to the letters he had received from Martha; and how they had inspired him with their account of Massachusetts where, unfettered by bishops, the chosen men of each congregation elected not only their pastors but the governors and magistrates as well; where taxes were raised only by consent and where all men lived under strict biblical law. Surely, Gideon thought, this state of Massachusetts must be close to that godly kingdom, that shining city on a hill.
Some of his fellow saints, known as “Levellers”, wanted to go further than this, giving every man a vote and even abolishing private property. Cromwell was against this, and so, it was clear from her letters, was Martha.
Right or wrong on these or any other matters, she had been for him all these years like a beacon, steadfastly shining across the ocean; and how he wished she were at his side now, as, after the terrible deed of the coming morning was done, he and the saints prepared to enter the promised land.
So what, now, should he say to her? How much should he tell? Still, in a trembling of conscience, he hesitated before, finally, he began to write.
So it had come to this. Julius sat alone in the panelled parlour for the solemn vigil of the night.
They were going to kill King Charles in the morning. After a shameful mockery of a trial, the Roundheads were going to murder their anointed king.
If Sir Julius Ducket could find any consolation at all in that terrible night, it was this: he had been loyal. “I have kept faith,” he murmured, “until the end.”
And he had suffered for it. After his arrest by Gideon, he had found himself held under guard with three dozen other prominent Royalist citizens. When asked why, they were told, “You are Malignants,” as though they were some disease upon the body politic. The first week they had not even been allowed any visitors; but when at last his wife had been permitted to visit him, he had received another shock. When he suggested that she and the children should go to Bocton she replied: “Bocton? Didn’t you know? All the estates of the Malignants have been taken over by the Roundheads. We’re forbidden to go near the place.”
How depressing