Edmund’s presence seemed also to underline that a new era had begun.
For the war had been effectively won at Naseby. It was not only a military victory over the king: in his hurried departure Charles had left not only baggage but caskets of correspondence, which proved beyond a doubt that even then, he was secretly negotiating to bring a Catholic army from overseas to subdue the island. It was just what Parliament needed. The letters were published at once. And thanks to this Charles Stuart lost the equally important battle for his subjects’ minds. For if there had been waverers there could be no doubt in any Protestant Englishman’s mind now: treacherous, papist Charles Stuart and his rule must be crushed.
In the months that followed Naseby, Parliamentary troops had taken siege train and cannon from one Royal stronghold to another in a long mopping-up operation that destroyed many a fine Royalist house. The royal garrison near Clarendon had fallen the previous October, when Cromwell himself had come through Salisbury. In April that year, Lord Pembroke kept the king’s daughter, Princess Henrietta, at Wilton while Fairfax prepared to take Charles’s last stronghold at Oxford. Now Oxford had fallen and the king fled.
Everywhere the triumphant party was taking authority. In Salisbury a good parliament man, Dove, friend of Ivie, sat as Member instead of Robert Hyde. Ludlow the commander now sat as a Member for the shire. Even Sir Henry Forest firmly declared himself for Parliament: “So ’tis certain we have won,” Edmund Shockley remarked to his sister wryly.
Sarum had been quiet. Though a huge force of ten thousand clubmen had met the Roundhead army near Shaftesbury the previous year, Cromwell’s troops had been well-disciplined and there was no looting. Now Margaret hoped she could look forward to better times.
Strangely, despite the victory of his cause, Edmund was pessimistic. It seemed the war had brought him nothing but sadness, and though he was always so pleasant with her and the child, if she came upon him suddenly when he was alone she would often see a haunted look in his eye, as though some deep anguish troubled him.
Sometimes, after he had been sitting for hours alone, lost to the world, she would hear him mutter:
“For what have we fought?”
Occasionally he had nightmares too. Once in the middle of the night she heard him cry out in his sleep: “Nathaniel!”
But she did not understand the depth of his agony: for she knew nothing of the terrible secret of Naseby.
From time to time Obadiah would come down from London. He seemed less uneasy with himself than he had ever been before. The Presbyterians were stronger every day: their stern Puritan church, with its councils and elders, was a mighty force in the land now. Not only was Obadiah’s party in the ascendant, but away from his family he had made a name for himself and won respect. Whatever his faults, Edmund occasionally reminded his sister, Obadiah was a good scholar.
It was on a visit of Obadiah’s early in 1646 that Margaret caught a glimpse of the doubt troubling Edmund’s mind, when the two brothers had discussed the political situation.
There was much to discuss. For now that the king was almost defeated, what should be done next? Was Parliament to rule without him, or was the king to be returned under strict conditions? And in either case, what sort of rule should England now have?
Obadiah had no doubt.
“Parliament will rule now, with or without the king. And England will be Presbyterian.”
Obadiah had been in London for most of the war, preaching and acting as tutor to the children of a number of prominent Parliament men. Edmund knew very well that the uncompromising attitude he expressed exactly reflected the views of many Members of the Parliament now in power.
“But not all those against the king’s tyranny are Presbyterian,” he reminded his brother. There were Anglicans, Baptists, many Sectaries.
“They must be crushed, like the Catholics,” Obadiah replied. “There shall be one religion in England and Scotland now.”
Had not the troubles of the past been due to the failure of England to achieve a single unified religion? So Obadiah thought.
“Your rule will be strict.”
“Yes.”
“And the army?” He thought of the men he had fought with: no Presbyters but lovers of religious freedom.
“The army will be disbanded as soon as its work is done.”
“And paid? Some of our cavalry have not been paid by your parliament for forty weeks,” he reminded Obadiah.
“They will be paid as far as possible,”
“Then,” the question he had so often asked himself recently, “what have we fought for?”
“For the rule of a Presbyterian parliament, the abolition of all bishops, the destruction of the Anglican Church, and the extirpation of the papists.”
“That is freedom?”
“Yes.”
“And who shall elect this Presbyterian parliament?”
“Those who do so now.”
Edmund pursed his lips.
“Those who fought,” he reminded Obadiah, “want more than that.”
The Model Army had provided more than an efficient fighting force; with its new cadre of junior officers and independent-minded men, it had become the focus for radical thought. The stout yeomen and artisans Edmund had come to know and respect were speaking of new freedoms: not only freedom to worship, but for free men to elect their representatives to Parliament.
“They say that every man who owns a household should vote,” Edmund stated. “There are a few who could even say all men should vote.”
“Servants too?” Obadiah’s face clouded. He knew all about these radicals – Levellers they called themselves. They had stated their obnoxious views for decades, but no one took any notice of them. If the army was breeding such ideas, the sooner it was disbanded the better.
“And you, Edmund, do you condone these Levellers?”
Edmund considered.
“To give the vote to every man,” he said, “cannot be right. But if a man has an interest in his country – in the land or in a corporation – then I cannot see the harm in it. Indeed,” he concluded, “I think it should be a natural right.”
Was it possible that Edmund, head of the Shockley household, was expressing such views?
“This will lead to nothing but an heretical democracy, a monster, chaos,” Obadiah cried. “If that were the result of our battle, why then I’d sooner have fought for the king,” he exploded.
“And there are those in Parliament who would still prefer the king to the rule of free men,” Edmund replied with shrewdness.
“You have changed,” Obadiah said bitterly.
“It is true,” Edmund admitted. “But it seems to me that we have fought a war against the tyranny of the king, only to replace it with another of Presbyters.”
Obadiah came to Sarum less after that.
It was not until he was a man that anyone explained to Samuel what had really happened on that warm June day a week after Obadiah had left.
He remembered only seeing a mud-spattered figure ride up to the house and that he had run outside and across the field to where Edmund was speaking to Jacob Godfrey. He remembered eagerly leading Edmund by the hand to see who the visitor was. And he remembered their entering the hall.
Charles Moody had ridden straight from Oxford. Ever since Naseby he had faithfully followed the king, but now the cause was lost, he was returning home.
“I could not go to my own house without first coming here,” he explained.
He had come to pay his respects to Nathaniel’s family. And he had brought Nathaniel’s sword.
He had been carrying it reverently for a year, and now, at last, he laid it on the table in front of her, together with a lock of Nathaniel’s hair.
Having done this important duty, he stepped back.
“Forgive me,” he went on, “but after Naseby, I could not write.” And he seemed to swallow.
Margaret smiled. She understood. He looked so tired, so pale. There were lines
of hurt around his eyes. It was sad to see how the war had marked its young men.
It was strange; she had almost forgotten Nathaniel that day. It was a deliberate act of forgetting, to lessen her pain, but now, seeing young Charles who had ridden away with him the year before, it was as if Nathaniel were back in the room with her. She smelled his pipe, heard his laugh.
What was young Moody speaking of? His condolences, of course. She nodded absently and thanked him.
“I was with him, you know,” he said softly.
With him. At the moment. Suddenly that moment seemed so near, so vivid.
“Was it . . . did he suffer?” She felt she should not ask, but suddenly had to know.
“It was quick, thank God.” He paused then resting his hand on her arm: “But that it should have been Edmund who . . .”
What was he saying? She stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. It was Edmund who . . . ?
“Edmund?”
My God. She did not know. Why had he assumed . . . ? Had Edmund never . . . ?
Thirty seconds later, as Samuel happily led Edmund into the room he stared in astonishment at his sister, white as he had never seen her before, and at the young man in his filthy leather doublet who turned, eyes blazing with scorn and shouted at Edmund, “Murderer!” before storming out of the house.
She was still shaking an hour later as she strode along the edge of the river above the valley.
Several times she had stopped, staring blankly across the ridges that lay on her right, empty and baked in the June sun. The blue summer sky seemed harsh. The ground was hard and dry.
No, she could not go back. She did not know what to do. Each time she walked on.
It was half an hour more before she finally halted. On her left was the beech wood that belonged to Sir Henry Forest. Ahead of her was a small mound: a curious place, once a rabbit warren, with a circle of old yew trees around its top. Suddenly feeling the need to be surrounded by something, she pushed her way through the circle of trees.
It was a quiet spot: no one came there nowadays. Inside the circle of yews was an open space, overgrown with weeds and a few small shrubs. She inspected it. There seemed to be a faint pattern on the ground, incised in the chalky soil, as though someone had made little furrows in the turf, but it was hard to be sure. The circle of trees made a green shade. She sat on the ground with her head in her hands.
Nathaniel.
She stayed there some time, turning the events of the last few years over in her mind, and it was not for a long time, until her grief and anger had run a full course, that she understood at last that there was a greater pain even than hers, and saw what she must do.
Edmund was sitting alone outside on a small stone bench near the house when she returned. He was leaning forward, very still, his shoulders hunched; in his hands he was holding one of Nathaniel’s long clay pipes. He was staring at the little stamped sign of the gauntlet under the bowl.
He did not move as she approached, did not look at her.
Yes. As she looked at his silent misery, she knew what she must do.
Quietly, she put her arms around his stooped shoulders.
“You poor man.”
And then at last, after waiting for over a year, Edmund Shockley broke down and wept.
1653: DECEMBER
It was when he was thirteen that Samuel began to understand that Obadiah was his friend – and that he was not only his friend, but that he was also wise. For unlike Margaret, Obadiah was a man of learning.
And sometimes now, though he was no less fond of her, he started to treat some of Margaret’s opinions with a smile.
On the subject of Margaret, however, as on all subjects, Obadiah was firm.
“You must honour your sister Margaret as you would your mother,” he declared. And Samuel never heard the preacher say a word against her in those days; despite the fact that Margaret, when he was alone with her at the farm would often cry:
“Beware of Obadiah, Samuel. He is a viper.”
She could not be right. On his visits to them at the farm, who could have been more kindly than Obadiah towards him? Was it not Obadiah who had honoured him, that very January, by giving him a little leather-bound copy of the great John Milton’s pamphlet on the Reformation?
“Read it carefully,” Obadiah had enjoined in his serious way: “for none has explained better than Milton why the prelates and the papist superstitions need to be done away with.”
He had even heard Obadiah remark to a gentleman in the close that young Samuel had the mind of a scholar – which, considering his very modest attainments with the pen, was unhoped-for praise indeed. As for Obadiah being a devil, no one in Sarum other than Margaret seemed to say so. For Obadiah Shockley was reckoned a great man by then; and what could anyone have to fear from him?
The world was a better place for Obadiah now. For Presbyterians ruled.
The king was dead – executed after intriguing too many times. Two Wiltshire men, including Edmund Ludlow, had signed the death warrant. Now the Protector, Cromwell, ruled over a Presbyterian Parliament instead.
It was firm rule – when young Ludlow opposed Cromwell’s dictatorship he was told to stay at his post in Ireland or face arrest if he came back. As for Parliament, this was the Barebones Parliament – a small number of compliant men nominated by the Presbyterian congregations. The three Wiltshire men – Eyre, Ashley Cooper and Greene – were all sound, conservative fellows, to Obadiah’s liking.
And no place seemed more utterly Presbyterian than Sarum.
For the cathedral priests had gone: the whole panoply of ecclesiastical dignitaries that had ruled the diocese of Sarum for six centuries – bishop, dean, archdeacons, canons with their accompanying vicars choral and choristers – Parliament had removed them all. It had taken most of their lands as well, and those solid Puritan townsmen, Ivie and Dove, had gone to London to obtain some of these possessions for the town. The town council ruled the close now; they had opened it up.
It was the parish priests and preachers who ruled – men like Strickland of St Edmunds and his colleagues at St Thomas’s and St Martin’s – all staunch members of the Presbyterian Westminster Assembly. They preached from pulpits that had been moved, in the Presbyterian manner, to the centre of the church. They preached in the cathedral too.
“’Tis just what every church should be now, a parish church for preaching,” Obadiah explained to Samuel and Margaret. And when Margaret objected that the great building seemed to her to be something more than a mere local church, he replied impatiently: “Only the papists in the past made the thing so monstrously large.”
The building had not gained from the change in regime. That very year, the tower of St Edmund’s church had collapsed; and although the belfry door had been renewed, other damage done by the soldiers in the chapter house had not. Even that was not all. When, to defend England’s trading interests against constant and arrogant Dutch competition, Cromwell had been forced to fight a brief war with the Netherlands too, a party of Dutch prisoners had been casually left, this very year, in the cloisters for weeks. “And a fine havoc they have made in there as well,” Margaret said with disgust. Part of the close was a rubbish dump; in another area, butchers had set up a little abattoir and were selling their meat there too. The bishop’s palace was made into tenements, and partly used as an inn; coaches had been allowed through on the north eastern and western sides and had churned up the turf and broken gravestones in the churchyard.
But if the buildings had not gained, the local vicars had. For now, instead of their lowly lodgings in the town, the council had bought them fine houses in the close where they lived with all the dignity of the canons they had ousted.
Obadiah had a house in the close. He lived in sober state.
He did not go often to the farm, but he let Samuel know that he was always welcome at the handsome house in the close and Samuel was proud that his brother was such an important man in the city. The p
reacher took a genuine interest in the boy, too, because he saw that he had a quick intelligence.
Besides, as he quietly but remorselessly reminded Margaret, it was he, Obadiah, who was in practice head of the family now. It was something Margaret could not deny.
If only Edmund had been there.
But Edmund had gone.
Samuel always remembered him as a quiet, gentle figure.
After the visit of young Moody, and his strange outburst, Samuel could sense that some kind of watershed had been passed. There was a new closeness between Margaret and Edmund and a feeling of peace and family affection came over the whole household. It was Edmund who acted as his first tutor, teaching him to read and write and parse a little Latin.
Yet there was also, after a little time, a sense of withdrawal. Edmund was still head of the family, but he seemed content to leave the running of the farm to Margaret and Jacob Godfrey. He grew a little thinner each year. Samuel remembered him mostly sitting or walking alone, not unhappily, but thoughtfully, as if some great debate were occupying his mind.
Then, in the spring of 1649, just after King Charles was executed, he left.
It was over a year before Samuel saw him again. Whenever he asked his sister where Edmund was, she had answered only: “Near London”; and if he asked when he would return she would only say: “I do not know.”
Edmund did not return, but one spring they visited him.
It was a long journey, almost to London; but when at last their little carriage bumped up St George’s Hill, Samuel found to his surprise that their destination was an extensive farm, not unlike those he knew at Sarum. And his surprise was greater still when, staring at a group of roughly dressed labourers trudging up the slope towards the house, he saw Edmund amongst them.
“Why does he work with the labourers?” he asked in surprise.
“Because he chooses to,” Margaret answered. And then she explained: “Your brother Edmund has become a Digger.”