The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [229]
Always there had been the hope: one day the king will return. What joy there would be, then. The faithful would be rewarded; and who had been more faithful, who had suffered more for the king’s cause, than the family of Penruddock? When the Restoration came, therefore, seventeen-year-old Thomas Penruddock was beside himself with excitement. Even his mother said: ‘I’m sure the king must do something for us now.’
They heard of the festivities in London, of the loyal new Parliament and the bright new court. They waited for a message, a call to come and share the triumph of the king. And heard – nothing; not a word, not a whisper. The king had not remembered the widow and her son.
They sent word by friends. They even wrote a letter: which was answered with – silence. Friends explained: ‘The king hasn’t any money to give, but there are other things he can do.’ An application was prepared, asking the new king to grant this Penruddock a monopoly for making glasses. ‘In other words,’ a worldly friend explained, ‘anyone who wants to make glasses has to pay you for the licence to do it.’ This was a popular way of rewarding a subject, since no money had to come out of the crown coffers.
‘I’m sure I shan’t know how to do all this,’ Mrs Penruddock fretted, but she needn’t have worried. The monopoly wasn’t granted. ‘I can’t understand why he does nothing,’ she cried.
For young Thomas, despite all he had been through, this was his first and very important worldly lesson: he could trust no one, not even a king, to look after him if he did not look after himself. Those in power, even anointed kings, used people and then forgot them. It was the nature of their calling. It could not be otherwise. He had gone back to work with a vengeance.
And in the last ten years he had succeeded very well. Slowly, bit by bit, the estate was reverting to its former condition. Lost acres were being recovered. At twenty-seven, Thomas Penruddock was a toughened and successful man.
Today he wanted something specific. Already a captain in his country’s local cavalry, he knew that his colonel, a pleasant old gentleman, meant to give the thing up shortly. He had let it be known that he wanted the colonelcy, but there were other older men who could quite reasonably expect to come before him. He was determined, though. It was not a question of profit: if anything, this colonelcy would cost him money. It was a question of family honour: the day he got the post, there would be a Colonel Penruddock at Compton Chamberlayne again.
‘The lord-lieutenant of the county makes the appointment,’ he told his cousins. ‘But, of course, if the king says he wants me to have it then I’ll get it.’ When he considered his family’s sufferings and the fact that this would cost the king nothing, it seemed to Thomas Penruddock that it was the least the king could do. Nonetheless, he had felt uncertain of his reception, as he prepared to meet his monarch for the first time.
There was no mistaking him: the big swarthy fellow surrounded by women. Thomas doffed his hat politely as he drew up and received a nod in return. He saw Howard, whom he knew, and therefore guessed that the king had already been told who he was; he scanned his face for a sign of recognition – a welcoming smile for a loyal family, perhaps. But he saw something else. There was no mistaking it. King Charles was looking embarrassed.
As indeed he was. It had been one of the humiliations of his royal Restoration that his Parliament