The Forest

  ‘But, Father. You said I could ride with you.’

  ‘You will obey me, Thomas. You will give me your word as a gentleman to do exactly as I say. Remain guarding your mother, your brothers and sisters, until I send for you.’

  Thomas felt his eyes growing hot. His father had never asked for his word as a gentleman before, but even this tiny thrill of pleasure was swamped by the great wave of disappointment and misery that had just broken over him. ‘Oh, Father.’ He choked back the tears. He felt a huge sense of loss. He had been going to ride with his father, a fellow soldier at his side. Would the chance ever come again? He felt his father’s hand on his arm. The hand squeezed.

  ‘We rode together all this night. I was glad to have you at my side, my brave boy. The proudest, best night of my life. Always remember that.’ He smiled. ‘Now promise me.’

  ‘I promise, Father.’

  ‘Time to ride,’ said Wagstaff.

  ‘Yes,’ said Colonel John Penruddock.

  *

  Monday passed quietly at Compton Chamberlayne. Thomas slept in the afternoon. Just before dusk a horseman on his way up the road from the west towards Sarum brought news to Mrs Penruddock that her husband and his men had been at Shaftesbury, only a dozen miles away; but fearing that it might tempt Thomas to ride out there she did not tell him. On Tuesday a party of Cromwell’s horse arrived in Sarum. Within hours, they had ridden on, westward. When asked what their mission was they replied: ‘To hunt down Penruddock.’

  Wednesday passed. There was no news. Somewhere over the big chalk ridges that swept towards the west, Penruddock was collecting troops, perhaps fighting. But although young Thomas stopped every horseman coming from the west and his mother sent three times a day to Sarum for news, there was none. Only silence. Nobody even knew where they were. Penruddock’s Rising had rolled away out of sight.

  Why was it happening? Why had the members of the Sealed Knot decided they could strike now and why was level-headed Colonel John Penruddock involved in this perilous business?

  Whatever the king’s faults, the shock at the execution of Charles I had been widespread. Tracts describing him as a martyr had sold in such huge numbers that there were almost as many in circulation as Bibles. Nor was it long before the Scots – who had no more wish to be ruled by Cromwell and his English army than they had to be subject to Charles I and his bishops – had crowned his son as Charles II on condition that in Scotland, at least, whether he liked it or not (and the jolly young libertine didn’t like it at all!), he would uphold the rule of their dour Calvinistic faith. Young Charles II had promptly tried to invade England, been completely routed by Cromwell and, after hiding in an oak tree, fled for his life. That was four years ago, but from his exile abroad the young king had been busily preparing to regain his kingdom ever since.

  As for Cromwell, what sort of government had he offered? A Commonwealth, it was called. But take away the mask of a Parliament of squires and merchants hand-picked by himself and it was clear that the power was still entirely with the army. Not even the one that had won the Civil War, though, for the democratic Levellers had been crushed and their leaders shot. Cromwell was called Protector now and signed himself Oliver P., just like a king. Three months ago, when even his own chosen Parliament had refused to increase his army, he had dissolved it. ‘He’s a worse tyrant than the old king ever was,’ they protested. With the royalists still plentiful on the one hand, Parliament men and even army democrats furious on the other, it was not unreasonable to hope that Cromwell might be toppled. As always in the affairs of men, however, the outcome would have nothing to do with the merits of the cause and everything with timing.

  The news came on Thursday.

  ‘They’ve been broken.’ It had happened during a night-time skirmish in a village down in the West Country. ‘Wagstaff got away, but Penruddock and Grove are taken. They’re going to be tried. For treason.’

  It was only gradually that the full story emerged. The Sealed Knot’s great rising had not exactly failed: it had never really started. Despite the fury of the Parliament men at being dismissed, despite the fact that some of Cromwell’s army was still in the north pacifying the Scottish Highlands, the senior men of the Sealed Knot had concluded, quite rightly, that their organization wasn’t ready for a full-scale rising. A flurry of confused messages to and fro between the Knot and the king in exile had not only left some agents, like Wagstaff, believing the rising was still on, but had also alerted Cromwell who had promptly brought extra troops into London and other key points. At one rendezvous after another the conspirators had either failed to turn up or quickly gone home. By the day before the events at Salisbury the whole thing had been completely called off.

  But nobody had told Penruddock. It was just a question of timing.

  Thomas had never seen his mother like this before. Although she had passed on the saturnine looks of the Martells to her son, she herself had a broad, open face with a mass of chestnut hair. She was a simple soul, she understood her household, but she had always left all matters of business and politics to her husband and followed behind him. She had seen him spend over a thousand pounds in the king’s cause, and suffer a fine of thirteen hundred more. The last few years had been hard as they struggled to pay this off. But a trial for treason, as even Thomas knew, could mean stiffer penalties for the family. They could lose Compton Chamberlayne and everything they had. As his mother fussed about her household daily tasks, supervising her children, the kitchen, the larder, household servants and now estate workers too, he wondered if she knew and was trying to carry on as normal, or whether she just closed her eyes even to the thought.

  But above all, he watched her for signs of what was happening with his father.

  His first letter had been brought to them on Thursday night. It begged her to remain where she was and await further word. Within days another came with instructions.

  Thomas could see his mother doing her best. His father asked her to use all her influence on his behalf, to approach all sorts of people. Such business did not come easily to her. She asked friends for help. The trouble was, almost all of them were among the gentry with royalist connections. After a fruitless week of seeing friends who couldn’t help and writing to others who probably wouldn’t, his mother announced to the family one day: ‘We’re all going to the Forest tomorrow.’

  ‘Whom are we going to see?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Alice Lisle.’

  ‘At least she can see us,’ his mother declared as the old carriage rolled across the Forest. She had learned that Alice Lisle was at Albion House, so they had spent a night at Hale before setting off again at dawn. ‘She may have married Lisle, but she’s still an Albion. We used to know them,’ she had remarked plaintively.

  By late morning they were at Lyndhurst and by noon they had passed Brockenhurst and were crossing the little ford from which the track led down towards the house in the woods.

  As he looked at his two younger brothers and three sisters, Thomas thought of the conversation he had had with his mother the night before. ‘I think Mrs Lisle hates us, Mother,’ he had suggested.

  ‘Perhaps, but she’s a woman with children too,’ his mother had replied in her simple way. And then, with a sudden vexation he had seldom seen before: ‘Oh, these men! I don’t know. I really don’t.’

  So they rolled in through the gateway to Albion House and the surprised servants told their mistress who was there; and after a short pause Alice Lisle gave orders that they might come in. They were escorted into the parlour.

  Alice Lisle was dressed in black, with a plain white apron, a big linen collar and cuffs. Her reddish hair was tucked into a linen cap. She looked every inch a Puritan. Mrs Penruddock had dressed as simply as she could, although her lace collar showed plainly enough that she was the wife of a cavalier. What’s the use of pretending, she had thought?

  Alice Lisle looked at Mrs Penruddock and her children. She was standing herself and she did not suggest t
hey sit down. She had understood, of course, at once. The Penruddock woman had come to plead and was using her children. She didn’t blame her. She supposed she’d have done the same. She saw the other woman look round for her own children but she had already had them swiftly taken to another part of the house. She didn’t want the children to meet because it might suggest an intimacy that was impossible. She stood stiffly. She dared not show any weakness. ‘My husband is in London and will not return this month, I think,’ she said.

  ‘It was you I came to see.’ Mrs Penruddock had not prepared a speech because she didn’t really know how. ‘I remember your father very well. My grandfather and old Clement Albion were friends, you know,’ she blurted out.

  ‘That may be.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re doing to my husband? They’ve accused him of treason!’ Her voice went up at this last as though it were something outrageous.

  Dear God, Alice could have cried out, if you put yourself at the head of four hundred men, capture the sheriff and declare war on the government, what do you expect? But she understood. She looked at the children, saw the eldest boy watching her intently, wanted to look at him with pity, but knew she must not. Instead, she looked stern. ‘What do you want with me?’ she asked.

  ‘It can’t be right’, the other said, indicating the six children, ‘to leave these without a father, whatever he did. I mean, it was he who stopped Wagstaff harming those men in Salisbury. He never hurt anyone. And if the Protector lets him live, I know he’d give him his word never to take up arms again, or even have any dealings with the king at all.’

  ‘Are you saying you wish me to write all this to my husband? You think he can persuade the Protector?’

  ‘Yes.’ A light of hope appeared in Mrs Penruddock’s face. ‘Would you do that?’

  Alice stared at her. She could see the hope dawning and she knew she must crush it. She could not add to this family’s misery by awakening false optimism that would only be dashed. Her gaze fell upon Thomas again. The boy looked more sensible than his mother, she thought. ‘Mrs Penruddock.’ Putting on her sternest frown she addressed herself partly to the boy as well. ‘I must tell you that there is no hope at all. If the judges find him guilty he will surely die. That is all I have to say to you.’

  The woman’s face fell, but she had not quite given up. ‘You will not even write?’ she pleaded.

  Alice hesitated. What could she reply? ‘I will write,’ she said unwillingly. ‘But it won’t do any good.’

  ‘Well at least she said she’d write,’ said Mrs Penruddock to her children as they went back.

  And write Alice did – a long and passionate letter. She described the interview to her husband and made all the points in Colonel Penruddock’s favour, including some that his wife hadn’t thought of. Whatever his intentions at the start of the ill-fated business, she hadn’t the least doubt that if Penruddock gave his word to Cromwell he would keep it.

  John Lisle’s reply came a few days later. He agreed with Alice and had talked to Cromwell but, hardly surprisingly, he couldn’t help much.

  The leaders will be tried by jury and the judges they ill-used at Salisbury shall not sit in judgement lest it be thought they seek vengeance.

  If Penruddock is found guilty – and surely he is so – the Protector will grant him a merciful death. But he cannot do more. If he pardons Penruddock, what encouragement he’d give to any other rebellion.

  Thomas did not remember the details of the days that followed. There were letters, desperate appeals; for a time it seemed that a guarantee of safe conduct and pardon offered to some of their followers might be applied to Penruddock and Grove too, but this was denied. Next the authorities appeared to hesitate about where the trials were to be, but by April it was decided that the rebels taken down in the West Country would be tried down there, in Exeter city, where they were being held. Every day he asked his mother, ‘When shall we go to see Father?’ and always she replied: ‘As soon as he sends for us.’

  It was clear that his father still thought it might be necessary for his wife to go to London on his behalf, so they remained at home. But in the third week of April a message came. The trial was about to begin. Colonel Penruddock had sent for his wife.

  ‘Can’t I come too?’ Thomas had begged. Not now, he was told. So once again, he had to stay at home and wait.

  His mother was gone a week, but before she returned he had already heard the verdict. Guilty. They had sent to Cromwell for the death warrant. She was frantic now. Penruddock and Grove had issued an appeal to the judges.

  She herself, the moment she reached her home, immediately despatched a letter to Alice Lisle. ‘I’m sure she can do something,’ she declared. Although why this should be the case, when they had never heard another word from her, Thomas did not know.

  One blow, however, they had not foreseen. On the day after her return, when she was trying to comfort her children, a party of six soldiers under an officer came to the door of the house and informed the unhappy woman that she must leave.

  ‘Leave? What do you mean? Why?’

  ‘House is sequestered.’

  ‘On whose orders?’

  ‘The Sheriff’s.’

  ‘Am I to be turned out of doors, then? With my children?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They spent that night at an inn at Salisbury; the next with their cousins at Hale. The following day, however, word came that they might return. There had been a mistake. No decision as to their property had been taken yet.

  The fact that Alice Lisle, hearing about it the same day, had guessed that the sheriff, a greedy man, was probably trying to get the property for himself and sent an urgent message to her husband to have the order rescinded was something the Penruddock family never knew.

  The day after that Mrs Penruddock and all her children set out for Exeter. It took them three days. By the time they reached it the warrant for the executions had arrived from Cromwell, written and signed in his own hand. Instead of the usual gruesome hanging, drawing and quartering of traitors, Penruddock was to be executed cleanly by having his head struck off with an axe. Never having seen a traitor’s execution the family did not fully understand what a mercy this was.

  They were allowed, in that last week, to see him twice. The first time came as a shock to Thomas. Although, thanks to his wife, he had been provided with a clean shirt, Colonel Penruddock was looking gaunt and haggard in his small cell. His gaolers had not let him wash as often as he wished and Thomas was aware of a certain grimy odour in his father’s presence. The effect of this, however, after the initial shock, was to make him even more moved than he might have been otherwise. The little children just stared at their unkempt father in confusion. He spoke to them all in his usual calm and kindly way, blessed them and kissed them and told them they must be brave.

  ‘Perhaps’, Thomas heard him murmur to their mother, ‘Cromwell may relent. But I do not think so.’

  The second occasion was more difficult. With time passing, although she tried to keep calm, his mother had become more and more distracted. As the day of the execution approached she seemed to think that her appeal to Alice Lisle was sure to bring relief. ‘I can’t understand why it’s taking so long,’ she would suddenly break out plaintively. ‘The reprieve must come.’ She’d frown. ‘It must do.’ She also for some reason would return in her mind, again and again, to the fact that the sheriff’s men had turned her out of her house for two days. ‘To think they could do such a thing,’ she would exclaim.

  They knew their second visit would be their last because the execution was to be the following day. They went there in the afternoon and entered the prison.

  But for some reason there was a delay. They had to wait a while in an outer chamber, where they found themselves in the company of the senior gaoler who passed the time by thoughtfully eating a pie and picking his teeth. He had a dirty grizzled beard, which he had not trimmed because, nowadays, there was no one to make him. Th
ey tried not to look at him.

  But he looked at them. They interested him. He did not like royalists, especially cavalier gentry, which these Penruddocks were. If the father of these children was about to have his head cut off, so much the better. He observed their aristocratic clothes – lace and satin for the girls; why, the younger boy had little rosettes on his shoes – and wondered idly how they would look after he and his men had had a chance to spoil them. He could see the clothes in tatters, the boys with a black eye or two and the mother …

  The mother was jabbering on about something now. She’d hoped for a reprieve. That was a joke. No one was going to reprieve Penruddock, even he knew that. But he listened curiously all the same. She’d hoped Judge Lisle would speak to Cromwell. He’d heard of Lisle. Never seen him, though. Close to Cromwell he’d heard. The woman had written to his wife. A useless hope, obviously, but the wives of condemned men sometimes got like that.

  ‘Lisle, did you say,’ he suddenly interjected with a smile, to throw her off guard. ‘Judge Lisle?’

  ‘Yes, good man.’ She turned to him eagerly. ‘Has anything been heard from him, do you know?’

  He paused. He intended to savour this. ‘The warrant for your husband’s death is made out by Lisle. In his own hand. He was with Cromwell when he signed it.’

  The effect was delicious. He watched her face fall into abject confusion. She seemed to collapse and wither before his eyes. He had never seen anything equal to it. The fact that he hadn’t the least idea whether Judge Lisle was even within a hundred miles of Cromwell or the warrant made it even better. ‘’Tis well known,’ he added for artistic effect.

  ‘But I wrote again to his wife,’ poor Mrs Penruddock wailed.

  ‘They say it’s she’, he went on blandly, ‘who especially urged the poor Colonel’s death.’ The suggestion that he pitied her cursed husband made the thing sound more plausible. The woman almost fainted. The eldest boy looked ready for murder. And he was just trying to think whether there was anything else he could invent to taunt these unhappy people when a signal from one of the guards told him that the prisoner was ready.