Traitor's Field (7 page)
Authors: Robert Wilton
Uttoxeter’s main street was slick with mud, dragged on a thousand boots and softened and smeared over the ground by the rain that still fell steady.
In the middle of the street, face to another of the sky’s grim clouds and cloak gusting and whipping around him, James, Duke of Hamilton stood silent and defeated.
In front of him, watching uneasily and trying to maintain his composure, was a Roundhead trumpeter: the most junior of soldiers, the most humiliating of conquerors.
This, then, was the final illumination of the character of the men who had beaten and hunted him. This shaming was more ruthless than anything inflicted in the fields around Preston. The old world and the old ways were to be dismantled and trodden into the dust.
The storm battered and soaked the two men, the Duke and the soldier, facing each other in the mud and unable to speak, watched by a thousand empty eyes in windows and gutters.
The things I have suffered for Charles Stuart.
Sir, these are the news from Colchester, this day the 27th August. The town is very like to fall tomorrow, so this may be my last despatch to you. If you have not already, please now consider this knot of the net broke. The besiegers cut our water three weeks past, fresh food as I told you is long become fable, and I doubt that there remains one solitary dog horse etc living and if it does so it must be the miserablest scrawny beast and still sold for a King’s ransom. We are become, all of us, from Lord Norwich down to the lowliest, miserable scrawny beasts, and I fear we would fetch no price, nor may we avail that King no ransom of hope or support. Lord Norwich and the aristocrats and Sir Charles Lucas and the soldiers are agreed that the routing of the Scotch army at Preston, which I learned privily four days past and which Sir Thomas Fairfax in the besieging lines around was blithe to let us know one day later with much cannonado of celebration and sending of kites into our walls, renders our endurance futile. There is none to come to our aid, and none to whom we might provide aid. For weeks past we have convinced the people of this town and the soldiers among them to endure the worst privations that ever civilised Christians saw, such that all that inhabit this place be nothing but maggot-fed ghosts and skeletons, and the extremity of their suffering and this with much sickness and outrage from our foes leaving them in their spirits closer to beasts than human souls. Now even the smallest child if it yet draw breath knows of the rout of his Grace at Preston, and no longer will they accept any entreaty to logick or to honour to undergo one further minute of privation, nor in truth dare we offer such entreaty. For sake of duty to Christian mercy we are obliged to end the great sufferings of these honest people, not the least of which have been our ever more desperate and brutalised soldiers who have not scrupled to use violence and fire to secure for themselves what little sustenance there may be, and offer ourselves to the hands of our besiegers and the will of God.
Discussions began between Sir T. Fairfax and our own Council shortly after the news of the disaster at Preston had spread, and the terms of surrender are near agreed. There was a movement by some of the hotter bloods in the leadership to cut their way out of town and force the parliamentarian lines, but it was thought that the people of the town would thwart this purpose and in truth I doubt the strength and spirit of those who would have attempted it, so frail and so forlorn are we become. From Fairfax the men are promised fair quarter, the town must pay a fine, and the Lords and Gentlemen must become prisoners of mercy and trust that there yet be Gentlemen in the armies of our enemies in this God-forsaken time. General Fairfax is known for a good man but much worn down by this decade of war, as might be any man with half of his sensitivity, and among his officers Colonel Rainsborowe is held as an epitome of pitilessness and implacable cruelty, a self-reputed breaker of inequalities and instrument of God. If I have sure means of saving for you my papers and the Directory I will do so, otherwise according to our practice I will ensure their destruction at any cost. For myself, I may have no certain expectation. I hope that I have done my duty, and I hope that I may meet my fate with honour. I give this message into our usual trusted means, and myself into the hands of the Lord. My respects and humble services to you, Sir. Most faithfully, A. P.
[SS C/S/48/9]
Leeds on the point of evening, turning cold as the sun drops behind the buildings: a rider out of the far north appeared in Eastgate Street with the first candles. He held his horse at a walk, inconspicuous and able to keep alert to the town around him, to read the faces and mood. He only once had to ask his way, quietly, of a shopkeeper on his way home.
Having seen the Sign of the Boar, he kept the horse walking, passing the inn without breaking step. He only stopped when he reached the next inn: took a room; saw his horse lodged.
Then, in the first gentle gloom of evening, he walked back along Eastgate Street and stepped cautiously into the Sign of the Boar. He bought a drink, watched the room for half an hour. Only then, and with the inn room quieter now, did he step to the bar and ask for Francis Padget.
R
OYALIST THREAT IN THE
C
ITY: RESULTS OF INTERROGATIONS CONDUCTED
A
UGUST
16. 1648–A
UGUST
20. 1648
There is wide expectation in the city of some tumult, in the favour of the King and the Prince of Wales and the Royalist cause. There has been yet no effect of the battle fought at Preston, and the City remains uncertain in its loyalties and restless for some improvement in its conditions. Significant preparations have been made for a rising, presumably rallying the trained bands to their formal allegiances. Browne is spoken of as commander, or perhaps Hollinge, and there are wild rumours of secret preparations of yet unidentified infantry and cavalry detachments. Such forces would of course enable the King’s adherents to dominate the wealth and importance of the City of London, and would present a grave danger to General Fairfax at Colchester while General Cromwell remained so far from the capital.
[PAPERS OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, M/48.102,
PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY TAKASHI COLLECTION]
Dearest Cromwell,
this by way of caution or encouragement, for as usual our Parliament does not act with the same vigour, clarity, and integrity as our Army. Notwithstanding your victory of the week past, for which every man here has given his thanks to God humbly and right heartily, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords have this day repealed the Vote of No Addresses, thereby enabling their negotiations with King Charles to resume immediately, and I think that this be their aim. I perceive no sign that the approach or the ideals of Parliament’s commissioners in treating with the King would display any of the strength appropriate to our cause, to your recent success, or to the slippery history of the King in such proceedings, and I rather think that as usual they hope to hurry to a compromise by the straightest route.
My love and my duty to you,
O. St John
August 24. 1648
[NALSON COLLECTION 24, BODLEIAN LIBRARY]
Fleet report, August 26.: inshore scouting vessels report that the ships of the Prince of Wales, which were thought to be making eastward for the continent, have turned and are bound for the mouth of the Thames. We can report no healthy spirit among the crews of our own craft anchored in the river, and beg leave to present our most urgent concern at the uncertain and ominous prospect.
[ADMIRALTY PAPERS (EARLY MSS P.10.B.6)]