He might have come to this resolution before and carried it through had he not too well known her pride and her ambition.
"If you make an agreement with Parliament," she had written, "you are no king for me. I will never set foot in England again."
And he had promised her that he would make no pact with the rebels unless she had first approved.
A light cloud passed over the sun, the sparkle died from the river, the glow from the sky, the warm tremble of light from the trees; and as Charles looked other clouds came up, in stately battalions, and darkened the whole west.
Lord Digby returned.
"No messenger, sire," he said, "no letters."
"I did know it," replied Charles, with a smile that cast scorn on himself; "but I am my own fool, and beguile the time with mine own follies."
"Thou goest too often to Hampton Court," said Major Harrison. "I say it to thy face."
"Thou mayst say it before any man," returned Cromwell mildly, "and do no harm."
"If you will have any influence with the army you will go no more," continued Harrison.
"Ay!" said Cromwell, with the same patience; "but I think neither of my influence with the army nor of any other thing, friends, but of what the Lord hath put it in my heart to do for His service and the peace of these times."
So saying, he laid down a little manual of gun drill, the pages of which he had been turning over, and relit his pipe.
The scene was the guard-room of the army's headquarters at Putney. Cromwell had been to London that morning to see his family, who were now established in a mansion in Drury Lane, and his buff coat and his falling boots were still dusty with the dust of the return ride.
Fairfax was in the room and the preacher, Hugh Peters. The bolder Harrison voiced their opinions when he told Cromwell that he was becoming too intimate with the King and too firm a supporter of the royal pretensions; but Fairfax, from a natural reserve, and Peters, because he hoped the Lieutenant-General would make an adequate defence, were silent.
"Little did I ever think," cried Harrison, pacing heavily about the room, "that thou wouldst become the consort of tyrants, the frequenter of the strange children, whose mouth talketh of vanity, and whose right hand is a hand of iniquity!"
Cromwell raised his calm eyes from his long clay pipe.
"No man will enjoy his possessions in peace until the King hath his rights again," he said, "and I make no disguise from you nor from any that I am doing my utmost to bring about a good peace with His Majesty. For what other reason did any of us take up arms?"
"Ay," assented Sir Thomas Fairfax hastily, "and the Parliament and the city of London are pressing for a settlement."
"My visits to Hampton Palace," continued Cromwell, "and my communings with the King have had this one object—a good peace."
"If thou canst bring Charles Stewart to a good peace—and make him keep it—thou hast more than mortal skill," said Harrison.
"What wouldst thou in this realm?" asked Cromwell, glancing up at him with a gleam of humour. "A republic?"
The other three were silent at this; even among the extremists the idea of totally abolishing the kingship was scarcely murmured.
"Well, then," said Cromwell, with a little smile, glancing round the three silent faces, "a treaty with the King is the only means to get us out of our present imbroglio, is it not? Now we have conquered His Majesty, we must make terms with him."
"You never will," cried Hugh Peters vehemently. "He is false and false, unstable and creeping in his ways—even while you confer with him he is arranging to bring in the Scots again or murdering Papists from Ireland or the French!"
"How do you know?" asked the Lieutenant-General, turning sharply in his chair.
Mr. Peters glanced at Major Harrison, who replied—
"It is true that I have my finger in some plots the King hath in hand. His agents meet at the Blue Boar in Holborn, and he hath a whole service of secret couriers travelling between England, the Scots, and France. As yet I have no letters, no absolute proofs in my possession, but I do not think to lack them long."
"Have you long known of this, Sir Thomas?" asked Cromwell, rising.
"A week or so," replied the General; "but I have not given it overmuch attention. If one listened to all the rumours of plots one's brain would be confounded."
"I have men in disguise at the Blue Boar," said Harrison stubbornly, "and soon I hope to prove my suspicions correct."
"Why, if they are," said Cromwell calmly, "then I shall change my policy."
"Thou art all of a fatalist," remarked Harrison grimly; "there is no ruffling thee."
The Lieutenant-General picked up his gloves and hat and riding-stock.
"Can I alter God's decrees that I should fret because of them?" he answered earnestly. "I am but the flail in the hand of the thresher. The Lord's will be done on me and on His Majesty, who are both the instruments of His unsearchable judgments on these lands."
He saluted the General respectfully, but left without further speech. He might call himself the instrument of the Lord: it was clear that he did not consider himself the instrument of Sir Thomas Fairfax.
He seemed, indeed, quietly but fully conscious that he and he alone could move the army (which at present still held the balance of power), and that he, therefore, and no other was become the arbiter of these realms.
When he left the guard-room he sent his servant for his son-in-law, Henry Ireton, who soon joined him; the two mounted and, through the October sun, rode to Hampton Court.
They exchanged little conversation on the way, partly because each thoroughly understood the other, and partly because their minds were full of busy thoughts.
The King, who was still treated with formality and respect, with his own servants and his own friends about him, made no delay in seeing them. He had lately had several interviews with Cromwell, with Fairfax, with Ireton, and walking about Wolsey's groves and alleys had discussed with them, through more than one summer and autumn afternoon, the prospects before England.
It was in the garden, in one of the beautiful walks of yellowing oak and beech that sloped to the river, that he received them now.
As usual his manner was gentle and gracious, as usual he kept his seat (he was resting on a wooden bench) and did not uncover, though the two Generals doffed their hats: power still paid this respect to tradition.
"Sir," said Cromwell at once, "I should have waited on you sooner, but I have been sick of an imposthume in the head. But now I am here I have weighty matters to say, and I would have Your Majesty give a keen ear to my words."
"Am I not ever," said Charles, with a faint smile, "attentive to your words?"
"I know not," replied Cromwell, with his plain outspokenness. "I cannot read the heart of Your Majesty," and he looked at him straightly.
With the tip of his cane Charles disturbed the first little dead gold leaves which lay at his feet.
"Ah," he replied slowly, "so you have weighty things to say?"
He had long known that his conferences with the leaders of the army must come to a crisis and a plain issue soon; it had not been his purpose to force this moment until his plans were all smoothly arranged, but now he was ready enough. As usual he had his points clear, his feelings under command, as usual his manner was gentle, contained, courteous, his mind alert and watchful; yet there was a weariness in his face and voice that all his art could not disguise, as he came again to the old wretched business of speaking his enemies fair, as he once more engaged in the endless game of negotiation, proposal and counter-proposal, which he never intended should come to anything.
The keen eyes of Commissary-General Ireton detected the shudder of reluctance, almost repulsion, which Charles so instantly repressed.
"We will be short, Your Majesty," he said, "and it is not our intention to ask you for more audiences. The army doth not like our meeting. All must be settled in this coming together."
Charles glanced up at the two men standing before him as John Pym had stood before him once in another of his royal gardens—Pym was dead, but his principles were alive indeed; Charles thought that if the old Puritan was in any hell which allowed him a glimpse of the earth he must be grinning derisively at this scene now.
"We have had," said Cromwell, not waiting for Charles to speak, "conferences, rendezvous, councils of war, much running to and fro between the army and the Parliament, many talks between ourselves and Your Majesty. Surely this thing must come to an end. The country is without a government, and many extreme and fanatic men do seize the time to unsettle the mind of the vulgar with fierce, empty words."
He paused a moment, then added, looking at the King intently and openly, and speaking with almost mournful seriousness—
"Your Majesty knows what the country must have—are you prepared to grant us these desires?"
Charles looked at him with a steadiness equal to his own.
"And if I say I am?" he replied. "What then?"
Both men were speaking with a directness usually foreign to them.
"Then," said Cromwell, "you may be in Whitehall within the week, sir. The army will escort you there."
Charles could hardly disguise the leap of exultation that shook his heart at this splendid chance, which, after being dangled before him so long, was at length definitely offered him.
"Sir," added the Lieutenant-General, "I make no disguise from you that there are many in the army not of my mind—it is rumoured that Your Majesty hath secret dealings with the Scots, the French, the Dutch——"
"If the English are loyal to me," replied Charles, "wherefore should I need foreign aid? These tales fly like thistledown before the first autumn wind—when we are in London, sir, I will listen to, and satisfy, all demands."
"Is that a pledge?" demanded Cromwell. "Is Your Majesty sincere with me?"
Charles rose.
"What have I to gain by insincerity?" he said; and again his cane stirred the drifting shrivelled leaves.
"And I must speak my side," he added. "It is my wish to show you that loyalty may bring more profit and honour than rebellion."
"What manner of profit?" asked Cromwell. "If you mean personal profit, why, I am well enough." ('Ay, with my Lord Worchester's lands,' thought Charles bitterly): "two of my wenches are wed, my eldest son is settled, the younger making good progress, for my other little maids and their mother I can provide—what more should I want? For Henry Ireton I can say the same."
"Yet I can gild this honourable prosperity," replied the King. "When my Lord Essex died, his title—his title died with him—you, methinks, are of the first Earl's house——"
"Ah!" cried Cromwell sharply, and flushed all over his face and neck.
"Oliver Cromwell may take the rank of Thomas Cromwell, who was also the terror and the help of a king," continued Charles, with smiling lips and narrowed eyes.
The blood was still staining the Lieutenant-General's face; his forehead was crimson up to the thick brown hair; he looked on the ground in a fashion that was embarrassed, almost stricken.
'I have not offered enough,' thought Charles; aloud he said—
"When I am in Whitehall I will sign the patent, and then the Earl of Essex may command me to further service."
Still Cromwell did not speak.
'Thou clod, dost thou not understand!' cried the King in his heart.
He spoke again.
"And thy son-in-law, Henry Ireton here—he also I would raise——"
Cromwell interrupted, but in a confused and stammering fashion.
"Sir—you have mistaken—I am no cadet of the first Earl of Essex's family—nay—or so remote; it matters not—I never thought of it—this was not what I came to speak of—yet what I would have said is gone from me." His head fell on his breast despondently; he made a hopeless little gesture with his gloved right hand. "Let it pass," he finished.
"For me," said Henry Ireton. "I would that Your Majesty had not spoken of this."
Charles could not keep all scorn from his smile as he replied—
"We will discuss these things at Westminster."
Cromwell raised his head and gazed into the King's pale, composed face.
"I do ask Your Majesty," he said, and in his deep voice was a note of intense appeal, "to be sincere with me."
"I am sincere with you, General Cromwell," replied Charles.
A light gust of wind shook the oak branches and more leaves drifted downwards.
"To-morrow I will return with General Fairfax and some other officers," said Cromwell, "with whom Your Majesty may finally speak." He seemed about to take his leave, hesitated, then, as if a sudden impulse had shaken him, he turned again and addressed Charles.
"Not for my sake," he said, "nor for any light reason—but for thy soul's sake that when thou comest before the living God thou mayst have no treachery or falsehood in the scale against thee, deal fairly with me now. There thou shalt wear no crown to give thee courage, and no courtier shall flatter thee—therefore, sir, bethink thee, and tell me plainly if I may trust thee."
"I have said it," replied Charles.
For a second Cromwell was silent; then he and Ireton took a formal leave and left the Palace grounds.
When they were mounted and clear of the iron gates and the stone lions, Ireton spoke.
"Wilt thou put that man up in Whitehall again? See how his mind runs on little things—he did offer us bribes as if we were soldiers deserting for higher pay."
"That went to my soul," replied Cromwell simply. "I thought he took me for an honest man—but it pleased the Lord to mortify me, and I must not murmur. As for the King—yea, I will put him on his heights again, for that is the only way to peace."
They rode silently until they came within sight of Putney, and there they were met by Major Harrison, who, riding, came out of the village and joined them at the village green.
"News," he said abruptly, with a grim smile and triumphant eyes—"news from 'The Blue Boar.'"
"Ay?" replied Cromwell quietly.
Harrison turned his horse about and rode beside the others; the three slowed to a walking pace.
"You had not left the guard-room ten minutes," said Harrison, "before my man arrived from London, all in a reek. He had found and arrested the King's secret messenger, and out of his saddle ripped these"—he held up a packet of papers—"secret letters to the Queen," he added triumphantly, "and as fatal as those papers captured after Naseby!"
Ireton gave a passionate exclamation, but Cromwell said—
"What is in them?"
"Much treason," replied Harrison succinctly. "He tells his wife he will never make a peace with either army or Parliament, that he is deluding both while he raises a force in Scotland and Ireland, in which countries Hamilton and Ormonde intrigue for him. He begs her to get a loan from the Pope to raise a foreign army—and he promises," added Harrison dryly, "that, when he hath his day again, those two rebels, Cromwell and Ireton, shall both be hanged."
"Doth he? doth he?" said Cromwell; he held out his hand and took the papers.
One glance at their contents confirmed Harrison's summary—the whole was in the King's known hand.
Oliver Cromwell turned his horse and rode back to Hampton Court.
When Cromwell returned to the Palace the King had already gone to his supper.
"I will wait," said the Lieutenant-General; and in the little room with the linen-pattern carving in the grey-coloured walls, the portrait of Mary Tudor, the red lacquer desk, and the oriel window, where he had first spoken with Charles, he waited.
Between his buff coat and his shirt lay the packet of papers ripped from the saddle of the secret messenger in the stables of "The Blue Boar"—papers which Charles believed to be across the Channel by now.
Oliver Cromwell waited while nearly half an hour ticked away on the dial of the gilt bracket clock, and then came Lord Digby to say that His Majesty would not be disturbed again to-night; Charles had still the unconquerable pride of royalty; he would not be summoned to meet his enemies at any hour they chose to name; the state with which he was still surrounded perhaps deluded him into thinking he could behave as he had behaved at Whitehall.
If so, the veil of his dignity was now rent in such a way that it could never be patched again; Cromwell, with a manner there was no mistaking, the manner of the master, repeated his demand for an instant audience of His Majesty.
Lord Digby withdrew, and five minutes later the Puritan soldier was ushered into the old, now disused, state chamber of Henry VIII, hung with fine Flemish tapestries representing the 'Seven deadly Sins' and lit by mullioned windows looking on the Park.
Charles was already there, walking up and down; he had changed his dress since Cromwell had left him, and now wore black velvet with cherry-coloured points and gold tags; his fingers played nervously with the long gold chain which thrice circled his chest.
In the light, already slightly dim, of the large room, the grey look of his face and hair was more apparent; it was almost as if some faded carving had been joined to a living body, so extraordinarily lifeless and without light was that immobile face framed in the long, waving, colourless locks.
But in the eyes, swollen and lined, an intense vitality gleamed; the dark pupils sparkled with force and emotion under the tired, drooping lids as Charles stopped in his pacing and turned about to face Cromwell.
"I had not expected this," he said, with a haughtiness which seemed to disguise some straining passion. "What more have we to say, sir? Methought you were to come to-morrow."
"To-morrow might have been too late," said Cromwell. He spoke in his usual quiet, almost melancholy, fashion; his heavy voice held the usual deep note, enthusiastic, mournful.
He stood bareheaded, in his dusty leathers and silk scarf, his falling boots, soiled spurs, and plain tuck sword, his head a little drooping, his tanned face reddish from the ride through the autumn air.
Behind him the Gothic figures on the tapestry twisted and glowed through branches and sprays of flowers and a luxurious profusion of rare birds and uncouth beasts.
"Too late for what?" asked Charles, still endeavouring to conciliate his powerful foe, and now, he hoped, ally, still barely able to conceal his angry pride at the lack of ceremony with which he was treated, the manner in which this man came before him, his great disgust and repulsion at having to deal with such fellows at all.
"Get you gone to-night from Hampton, sir," said Cromwell, "to whatever place seems good—here you shall no longer be safe."
"Ah," cried Charles, "is this the end of all your wily advances? I am not safe!"
"Because I cannot protect you when what Major Harrison knows is spread abroad among the army."
The King's right hand left his chain; he pressed his fingers over his heart; on the black velvet they looked thin and white beyond nature.
"The hand of God is against you," said Cromwell sombrely. "He does not mean that you shall again rule in this land. I would have made treaty with you as the Gibeonites made with David—and I would not ask from you the lives of seven, as they asked for the sons of Saul, but only your own word pledged openly. But you could not keep it, but dealt with the children of Belial and all the array of the ungodly."
Charles took one delicate step backwards.
"These are mighty words," he said.
"They are mighty doings," replied Cromwell. "Not of mean things or small things or the things concerning one man or another am I speaking, but of great things, the displeasure of God on this wretched land, the means we must take to revoke His judgment.... Much blood hath been shed," he added, with a sudden flash in his voice, "but not that which must be before we find peace."
"I know not of what you speak," muttered the King.
"You very well know," replied Cromwell, and through the obscure web of his words a meaning of passion, of force and fire did gleam, like gold or flame. "You know what you have done. How you have deceived and gone crookedly. But God is not mocked. Hath He not said, 'Though they dig into Hell thence shall mine hand take them, though they climb up into Heaven thence shall I pull them down'? And out of darkness and secrecy hath He revealed your designs that you may not bring more evil upon England."
"Of what dost thou accuse the King?" asked Charles.
"Of high treason," replied Cromwell—"of treason towards God and England."
A step farther back moved Charles, so that his shoulders touched and ruffled the tapestry.
"By what authority do you use this boldness?" he asked.
"My authority is from within," answered the Puritan. "I can satisfy men of my authority. I am not afraid. I see that in treating with you I have committed folly, but that is over. God will find another way. Get from Hampton, under what excuse you may. I would not, sir, have the army do you a mischief."
"I will," replied Charles, "get as far as may be from the violence of insulting rebels—I will withdraw myself from my subjects until they remember their duty to their King."
"In what way," demanded Cromwell, "hast thou fulfilled thy duty to God or to His people?"
"I have endured much!" cried Charles, in a sharp voice. "But till now I have been spared open insolence!"
Unmoved and unblenching the Lieutenant-General regarded him.
"Sir," he replied, "you may yet hear worse words than any I have said, and may have to bear a rougher speech. I did not come to rail, but to tell you that I am now persuaded there can be no treaty or understanding between you and us. Sir, others advised me of this awhile ago, but I would not listen. But now the hand of God is plainly discoverable—your plots and subterfuges are revealed, sir, your secret letters to the Queen are known."
Charles, whose quick mind had been reviewing all the possible disasters that could have befallen, who had been wondering which of his intrigues had been unveiled, was not prepared for a catastrophe so complete as the discovery of his secret correspondence with his wife, which revealed, not one, but all of his complicated plots.
As Cromwell told him at last the cause of his sudden estrangement, he felt at once a shock and a premonition chill his heart; he remembered quite clearly what had been in his last letter to the Queen, and the statement that he had made in his irritation and humiliation regarding Cromwell and Ireton, and he saw that another golden chance had gone, and that he had lost for ever the help of the army which he had sacrificed so much pride to gain.
But he faced this misfortune as he had faced so many others, with unfailing courage and dignity.
"You pretend to deal with me as your king," he said, "but you treat me as your prisoner. I am spied upon, and my very letters opened.... There is no more to be said."
Cromwell did not deny the charge, as he might well have done, since Major Harrison, and not he, had tracked and arrested the King's messenger.
"My hopes of you are dead," he merely said. "I would have you leave Hampton, for I know not what the army may do, and if they take you to Whitehall now, sir, it will not be as a king, but as a prisoner."
"I am well used to that treatment," replied Charles, with hot bitterness, "nor have I looked for any other at the hands of rebellious fanatics. Didst thou think," he added, with the full force of that fury and scorn he had so long concealed breaking the bounds of his fitful prudence and his steady courtesy, "that I ever regarded thee as my friend?"
"I would have been so, sincerely," replied Cromwell, with his unruffled, melancholy calm. "I and Ireton risked our prestige with the army to make conferences and debates with you, but it hath been as if one should pour water into a sieve. I would have overlooked much—even the insult you put on me to-day when you tried to buy me with a feather for my cap, when I was offering myself to you with no thought but the good of this realm. So cheaply did you hold Pym, so cheaply will you always hold honest men, it seems—and I, sir, tell you plainly that I have done with you. I will find other ways. Not through you can peace come to England. I do now perceive it. 'Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.' You must go on to your fate, sir, as I shall to mine; but look for no ally in me or in the army, for henceforth there can be no treaty between Your Majesty and us. My cousin, Colonel Whalley, shall remain here to look after your security; as for me, you shall not see me again, or in a manner very different. As for what may become of you or your estate, of that I wash my hands of—the Lord deal with you."
"Amen," said Charles sternly, "and may He judge between you and me. Between me who have kept His ancient statutes and upheld His Church, and you who have defied and blasphemed both."
"God is neither in statutes nor in churches," replied Cromwell, "but in the innermost recesses of the spirits and the secret depths of the heart, and these sanctuaries have you polluted and defiled, with tyranny and falseness and sly and untruthful dealing."
He took a step towards the door; a sudden weariness seemed to have overtaken him, or a wave of the weakness from his recent illness; he looked, in his dusty clothes, like a rider beaten with fatigue, a traveller exhausted after a long journey, his chin sank on his linen collar; his broad shoulders were bowed, and his step was at once heavy and uncertain.
Charles remained white, rigid in pose and expression as when Cromwell entered the chamber; the shadows were swiftly closing round them and all sharp lines and fine colours were blurred; through the one open window a breeze came, which lightly stirred the dusty tapestry and shook it in faint ripples from top to bottom.
The disused, unfurnished chamber, built for pomp and magnificence, was unutterably mournful and dreary, a fitting setting for the unfortunate King whose black figure was lost in, and one with, the ancient arras.
When he had reached the door, Cromwell turned and spoke again.
"Thou hast, sir, lost as good a chance as we are ever like to get of a fair settlement, and lost it through falseness and folly." He spoke with passion, but it was a passion of regret, not of vexation or wrath. "A good night."
The King, without turning his head or moving, stood as if he dismissed an unwelcome suitor from an audience, he showed an indifference that was stronger than contempt and an insulting coolness and absence of passion.
So, with no other word on either side, they parted, and Oliver rode back to Putney, weary with disappointment and chagrin, though his inmost prescience knew, and had known, that this disappointment and chagrin had been from the first foredoomed, that in ever dealing with the King at all he had been preparing the failure that had disclosed itself to-night; as he reflected on the whole business, his stern common sense laughed at the idealism which had led him astray; how could he have ever hoped to have clipped a king to his pattern out of Charles?
The delusion was over; he asked himself, as he rode through the fresh autumn twilight, what was to take its place?
If the King could not be trusted—what then? Some of the bold words of Thomas Harrison flashed into his mind. Must they, could they, do without a king at all?
Oliver Cromwell did not think so; he was never a Republican: order and system were lovely to him, and both were involved, in his English heart, with the idea of a steadfast though constrained monarchy.
In anything else (where, indeed, was the model for anything else to be found in Europe, save perhaps in the peculiar constitution, founded under peculiar circumstances, of the United Provinces?) he foresaw the elements of constant anarchy, constant revolution....
Yet he had done with the King—finished with him with that complete definiteness of which his resolutions were supremely capable.
So Cromwell strove with his thoughts during the short ride to Putney where all the chiefs of the army were already in conclave.
Alone in the uncared-for splendour of another monarch the unhappy King stood, motionless, as his enemy had left him, and tried to measure the extent of his misfortune and to readjust his shattered plans.
He was still, as ever, incredulous of his ultimate defeat, but never before had he been so utterly at a loss for present action. The army was lost to him, that was clear; neither the Scots nor the Parliament were ready to receive him, the Queen had not been able to raise the foreign army, his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, had been prevented by the States-General from sending troops to his assistance, Ormonde could do nothing in Ireland—that country was indeed lost to the royal cause, since the miserable affair of the Earl of Glamorgan—and Hamilton seemed powerless to fight the Campbell faction at Edinburgh.
"What shall I do?" muttered Charles. "What shall I do?"
His thoughts turned with even deeper longing than usual to the Queen in her exile; he believed that he might forsake everything and go to her; two things restrained him, sheer pride and the thought of his two children, the Princess Elisabeth and the Duke of Gloucester, who were in the hands of the Parliament and whom he would have to leave behind.
The Duke of York had already escaped to France, but the figures of these little children rose up and restrained his flight.
Besides, he must stand by his crown ... but he would not stay at Hampton—his own enemy had warned him.
But where to go—in all my three realms where to go?
Several days he waited in his usual indecision, then, miserable, harassed, uncertain, torn by a thousand perplexities, he and his few companions crept one night down the back stairs, came out on to the riverside, and went forth aimlessly, with no plan nor purpose, with nothing but schemes as wild as will-o'-the-wisps to light the dimness and confusions of their future.
In a room of the house where Oliver Cromwell had moved his family from Ely, a mansion in Drury Lane, one of the least pretentious in that fashionable street, but stately and comfortable, two women were sitting over the ruddy fire which lit and cheered the close of the short winter day.
The contrast between them was as marked as any contrast could be, yet something in their personalities knit together and blended as if beneath their great differences there was an underlying likeness—the likeness of the same breed and birth.
The elder lady was towards the close of life—eighty, perhaps, or more; her face and person were delicate, her lap full of delicate embroidery, out of which her fine fingers drew a fine needle and thread.
She wore a grey tabinet gown; a white cap and white strings enclosed her fragile face, white linen enfolded her shoulders and bosom, and long white cuffs reached from her wrist to her elbow.
A housewife's case and a small Bible hung by cords to her waist; she had nothing of gold or silver but her worn wedding ring, yet she gave the impression of something high and fine and aristocratic.
She sat in a deep, cushioned chair with a hooded top; the failing light had baffled the eyes that were still so keen, and the needlework was dropped on her lap.
At her feet, on a small footstool, sat her grandchild, she who had brightened the house at Ely with her balls of holly berries, her red ribbons, her laughter, and her songs, and who now brightened the finer town house when she visited there; she was no longer an inmate of her father's home, for, though only seventeen, Elisabeth was a year married and now Mrs. Claypole.
Neither in dress nor manner was she a Puritan; her lavender-blue silk gown, flowing open on a lemon-coloured petticoat, her deep falling collar and cuffs of Flemish lace, the bow of rose colour at her breast and in her hair, her white sarcenet shoes with the silver buckles, the long ringlets which escaped the pearl comb and fell on her shoulders, even her piquant bright face, with eyes slightly languishing and mouth slightly wilful, seemed more to belong to the now exiled court of Henriette Marie than to the household of the leader of the Roundhead army.
Yet there was nothing frivolous in the appearance of Elisabeth Claypole; her prettiness had a pensive cast, her glance often a seriousness unusual for her age, and if she sometimes showed a pride, a vanity, or an impatience, impossible to her sweetly austere sister, Bridget Ireton, she was not less noble and pious, brave and good, and perhaps her deeper tenderness, her greater gaiety, her warmer love of life were not such sins in the eyes of the God whom she had always been taught to fear; yet sins her father called them, though he knew they made her lovable, though he found her sweeter than Bridget, who was gentle perfection.
Sitting here now, in the closing day, with the firelight flushing her delicate clothes and her sensitive face, and the shadows encroaching on her hair, here, with the cheerful noises of London without and the cheerful atmosphere of home within, she talked to her grandmother of the one subject every one must talk of this wondrous winter—the King's bewildered flight from Hampton, his aimless two days' riding, his final turning to the Isle of Wight and giving himself up to the Governor there, Colonel Hammond, whom he had reason to believe was loyalist at heart.
Yet here again the King had been, as ever, unfortunate; Robert Hammond, tempted at first to take the King where he wished, yet remained true to his trust, and the unhappy Stewart was again a prisoner, now at Carisbrooke, kept more strictly than before—and a portentous silence hung over the nation; English, Scots, Presbyterians, Independents, Parliamentarians, the army, the Royalists—all seemed waiting—"Waiting for what?" asked Elisabeth Claypole, voicing the question England was asking.
"For the Lord to show His will towards this poor kingdom," said Mrs. Cromwell simply. "Surely He will dispose it all to mercy."
"Mercy?" repeated the young girl thoughtfully. "I see little mercy abroad. Much blood and bitterness—but no mercy."
"At least," said the old gentlewoman composedly, "His Majesty is mewed up, and that should be a step towards the settlement of these tangled affairs."
"Alas, poor King!" murmured the youngest Elisabeth (it was her mother and her grandmother's name). "Alas! alas!"
"Why dost thou say alas?" asked Mrs. Cromwell calmly. "Dost thou not recall what thy father said in the House the other day when he moved that no more addresses should be sent to the King, nor any dealings made with him, under pain of high treason? He put his hand on his sword, thy father did, and he said, quoting Holy Writ—'Thou shalt not suffer a hypocrite to reign——'"
"He said not so much a month ago," replied Elisabeth; "then he was all for a good peace with His Majesty, saying—how could any man come quietly to his own save by that?"
"Thou knowest," returned the old lady, who had much of the strength and melancholy of her son in her calm demeanour, "that all that is changed."
"Will there be another war?" murmured Elisabeth Claypole, looking dreamily into the fire.
"That is a matter for men.... Be not so grave, dear heart, the Lord hath us all in His keeping."
"My father," replied the girl, "hath been grave of late—during all my visit. He thinketh affairs are dark, I believe."
"Not only affairs of the kingdom weigh on him, Elisabeth—something his own do oppress him. The Parliament settlements are yet indefinite, and then there is your brother Richard's marriage. It does not please your father that he should be so deep in love as to leave the Life Guards. And then this Dorothea Mayor's father requireth settlements, hard for your father to give as things now stand—all this weighs with him and puts him in anxieties and silences."
At the end of this speech, Mrs. Cromwell, either exhausted from so many words or from the thoughts her own explanation had conjured up, sighed and leant back in her chair, dropping her chin on the immaculate whiteness of her cambric bosom, as her son would sink his on his breast when he was thoughtful or oppressed.
"Richard," said Elisabeth Claypole in that soft, eager voice which was always ready to plead for and to praise every one, "is not suited for the army—he never cared for it."
"Cannot you see," replied Elisabeth Cromwell almost sharply, "what a disappointment that is for your father?"
"He loveth Oliver," whispered Oliver's sister, and her eyes swam in tears. "Oliver would have been a good soldier."
"He loved Robert more," returned the grandmother. "Robert was the first born. His eldest son. Richard could never be as either Robert or Oliver to him; yet he will be loving and just to Richard." That sense of the presence of the dead that the hushed mention of them seems to so often evoke, as if they were never far, and at the sound of love and regret hovered near, filled the darkening room. Both the grandmother and sister seemed to see the bright ardent figure of the young cornet, whose life had burst forth so fiercely into action amid the whirling events of war, and had been stilled so suddenly by a hideous disease in an insignificant garrison, and was now forgotten save by these one or two who had loved him.
Elisabeth Claypole remembered; she remembered his excitement, their mother's instructions, the cordials and balms he had taken with him, the fine shirts she had helped stitch and pack, his new sword that had looked so big to her childish eyes—the farewells—the letters....
Elisabeth Cromwell remembered; she remembered his farewell visit, how she had blessed him and he had knelt before her with her hand on his smooth fair head ... and his tallness and straightness and slenderness, and all his bright new bravery of war array....
"Ah well," she said softly. "Ah well," and her mind wandered off to her own youth, and it seemed to her as if she had indeed been living a long time ... almost too long.
"Light the candles, my love, my dear," she said. "It is sad to sit in the dark."
As her granddaughter rose, the door opened and Oliver Cromwell entered.
His coming was a surprise; he was not now often in London, save when he had to speak at Westminster. He had lately been at Hereford, and they had not expected his return so soon.
The sincere warmth of his welcome might have pleased any man, however weary, and his gravity lifted under it for a while, but when he had kissed them both and come to the fire and warmed his hands, silence came over him, as if the melancholy had closed over and clouded him again. His mother, from her hooded chair, gazed at his powerful, yet drooping figure, and the presence of the younger Oliver seemed more insistent.
Elisabeth Claypole had gone to fetch the candles.
"We were speaking of Oliver," said Mrs. Cromwell.
Her son turned to look down at her.
"He is with the Lord," he answered gravely. "He was a man—and took a man's fate doing man's work."
A little fall of silence, then Cromwell spoke again—
"Do you think of Robert sometimes, mother?"
"I knew, I knew," murmured the old gentlewoman. "He was your love."
"He was a child," replied Cromwell, with infinite tenderness, with infinite regret. "A little, useless child. Dying so, he remains a child—never higher than my shoulder. My eldest born. Oliver laughed when he did go, for joy to die in God's service, but Robert wept. Ay, they at Felsted told me he wept because I was not there to take his hand in the sharpness of his passing. Oh, that went to my heart, my innermost heart ... but God saved me."
The young Elisabeth returned, followed by the servant with the two branched candlesticks of brass which stood on the black polished table, where they reflected their full shining length.
With a shudder the Lieutenant-General roused himself and turned to face the room.
"What hast thou been doing?" asked Elisabeth Claypole when the maid had gone.
"It would not please thee to know," he answered sombrely.
Now the room was lit she noticed his pallor, his heavy air.
"Thou art tired, father," she cried.
"Ay—tired—tired—bring me a glass of wine, dearest." He turned round again to the fire and said abruptly, "There hath been a mutiny in the army. A rebellious meeting at Corkbush field—these levellers it was—but I did stamp it out; we must have no disaffection in the army."
"A meeting?" exclaimed his daughter, taking a bell-mouthed glass from the sideboard; "but it is ended—how?"
"They drew lots," replied Cromwell, "and one was shot. One Arnald—a brave man."
"Oh, father!" cried Mrs. Claypole. "More blood—more misery!"
"It had to be," said Cromwell. "Dost thou think I love it?" He made an effort to shake off his preoccupation and his gloom, "Come, come, this is no news for thee."
He turned again to gaze very tenderly at her as she came with wine on a silver salver.
"Oh, vanity and carnal mind!" he cried, pulling at the ribbons on her sleeve; "thy sister Ireton doth think that thou art too much given to worldliness! Yet seek ye the Lord and ye shall find Him," he added, with a sudden grave smile.
"Sir, I would," she replied earnestly. "Let not my ways deceive you, I am very humble at heart."
"I do believe it," he said.
He drank his wine slowly. He asked where his wife was (he had learnt below that she was abroad), and was told that she was with Lady Wharton.
"She did not expect me," he said half-wistfully. "I wish that I had chanced to find her. Since I am so much away I would have all round me when I am at home."
"She will be in soon," said his mother, gathering up her fine sewing with an air of regret, for the candlelight was not strong enough for her to see the minute stitches.
Elisabeth crept up to her father, and taking his sword hand, caressed it.
"What of the King?" she asked.
"The King is at Carisbrooke," he replied.
She gave a deep sigh.
"How will it end, my father?"
"How should we have that knowledge yet?"
"The poor King!" she exclaimed. "I am sorry for the poor King!"
Cromwell was silent.
"Tell me," said Elisabeth, creeping closer to him, "will there be another war?"
"God forfend," he answered gravely.
"Then what will the King do?" she insisted.
"Thou art very tender towards the King."
"I am sorry for him, surely. And I have heard thee say—he must have his rights again."
"He hath forfeited his rights," said Cromwell, glooming. "He is a hypocrite."
"Once you were his friend," said Elisabeth Claypole; "is that over? Why, Major Harrison even called you royalist."
"Yes, it is over," returned her father, "and now you may sooner call me republican—a name I did use to hate. The King is not one to be trusted, neither is he fortunate. God is against him, and will not have him raised up again; even as the Lord's judgment went forth against Tyrus, so hath it gone forth against Charles Stewart. What hath God said—'I shall bring thee down with them that descend to the pit—and thou shalt be no more—thou shalt be sought for, but never shalt thou be found!'"
"But what wilt thou do with the tyrant?" asked Mrs. Cromwell.
"He is not my prisoner, nor am I his judge," replied Cromwell, with sudden vehemence. "Ask me not what his fate will be! Ask me not to pity the King—'he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and the rod of his anger shall fail.'"
He crossed to the sideboard and set his glass there.
Elisabeth Claypole stood sad and thoughtful by her grandmother's chair; Cromwell came and kissed her delicate forehead.
"Thy brother's marriage treaty sticks," he said pleasantly. "I must go and write to Mr. Mayor, and cast up what higher settlements I can offer."
"He demands too much," declared Mrs. Cromwell.
"Nay, he is prudent; but I have two wenches still to provide for—farewell for a moment." He had gone again.
"The affairs of men!" muttered the old gentlewoman. "Well, well."
Elisabeth Claypole, too, felt sad; she, too, felt helpless in a busy world that did not need her. She returned to her stool and began to fold up her grandmother's work; both of them, being women, were used to loneliness.
Charles was a prisoner at Carisbrooke, more strictly guarded than ever before, but not any less dangerous to Parliament or the disrupting forces which stood for Parliament. In spite of everything they still tried to come to an agreement with him, for the confusion of the kingdom was beyond words, beyond any one man's brain to grasp and cope with, and all turned to the King and the tradition behind the King as the one stable thing in a whirl of chaos.
Charles thought that they, traitors and rebels as they were, were speeding to their own doom. Outwardly he played with them as he had done before; he referred himself, he said, wholly to them. Meanwhile he was sowing the seeds of another Civil War.
He had come to an agreement with the Scots whereby they were to unite with the English royalists against the Parliament, and he on his side was to suppress Sectaries and Independents and to establish presbytery for three years, himself retaining the Anglican form of worship. This agreement was signed secretly, wrapped in lead, and buried in the garden of Carisbrooke Castle.
Royalist risings broke out all over the country, particularly in Wales; mutinies were frequent in the still undisbanded, unpaid army; the struggle between Presbyterian and Independent was as sharp as it had ever been. Hamilton triumphed over the Argyll faction in the Scottish Parliament, raised an army 40,000 strong, and prepared to march across the Border "to deliver the King from Sectaries." Part of the fleet had revolted, gone to Holland, fetched the young Prince of Wales and Rupert, and was buccaneering round Yarmouth Roads. In Ireland the Marquess of Ormonde and the papal Nuncio were coming to some pact to unite against the Parliament, and the feeling of the sheer people of England was veering against the austere rule of the Puritan and coming again to the old known and tried idea of Kingship. "Why not," they asked, "a good peace with His Majesty?"
Cromwell and a few others knew why not; because the King was utterly impossible to deal with; because he did not admit that he, the King, could be dealt with, made party to a bargain or an agreement, like an ordinary man.
But in the minds of the common people, Charles did not get the blame nor they the credit of this attitude of his. Cromwell in particular had lost much of his prestige; the zealots blamed him for his conferences with the King, the moderates because they had not succeeded. He brought about meetings between the leaders of the two factions, Presbyterians and Independents, but quite uselessly—neither would yield a jot. Then the extreme men of the Parliament and the extreme men of the army were gotten together by his care to discuss the desperate state of affairs.
This conference resolved itself into a bitter and academic dispute on the various forms of government, each man backing himself by manifold quotations from Scripture.
"Wherefore," cried Cromwell, starting up impatiently, "do you argue which is best—monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy—when you are come here to find a remedy for the present evils?"
Thereat they began to reply together, tediously and idly, and Cromwell picked up the cushion from the chair on which he sat and hurled it at Ludlow's head, and before it could be flung back to him he ran down the stairs, thus ending the conference.
Soon after, the army came together at Windsor and, with prayers and tears and exhortations, besought God to tell them for what mistreading or fault all these turmoils and distresses had come upon them.
And the conclusion of these three days of mystic exaltation was that God was punishing them for their dealings with Charles Stewart, who was henceforth to be no more considered or dealt with, but treated as a delinquent and man of blood who would be, in good time, made to answer for his sins to men before he went to answer for them to God.
The situation was a paradox. The Scots were invading the kingdom to restore Charles and to force the Covenant on England; these two matters were no less the object of the parliamentary majority, yet they were bound to withstand Hamilton, for his victory would mean their own utter overthrow.
To further complicate the situation, Langdale and the English Cavaliers, joined with Hamilton, abhorred the Covenant, and were fighting not merely for the re-establishment of the monarchy but the re-establishment of the Church of England.
It was obvious, even to the most hopeful, that only the sword could cut these tangles; it was obvious, even to the most hesitating, that the Scots must be driven back over their own Border.
Cromwell, who had been on the edge of impeachment, who had many eager foes now in Parliament and army, was called forth again at the supreme moment.
He was sent to South Wales, crushed the rebellion there, took Pembroke Castle, heard Hamilton had crossed the Border, turned northwards and, by July, was in Leicestershire. By the middle of August he had joined General Lambert between Leeds and York.
There his scouts brought him news that Hamilton and Langdale had effected a juncture and were marching for London.
"If," said Cromwell, "they reach London, then goodnight to us, for the King will be master for all in all, and all the blood and bitterness will have been for naught."
There was nothing but him and his force to stay them. He had, perhaps, eight thousand men; they, twenty-one thousand, or near it. The weather was tumultuous, stormy; torrents of rain fell, the upland fells were almost impassable from mud and bog. Cromwell had brought his army by long and arduous marches from Wales; many of them were barefoot, many in rags. None of them had yet received the months of arrears of pay which had been so long in dispute. Plunder was forbidden them; they were there, like the hosts of Joshua, to fight for the Lord, and for nothing else.
My Lord Duke, with his great straggling army, came over the open heaths as far as Preston and Wigan, no colours displayed because of the wind, no tents nor fires at night because of the wind and the rain; so they marched, a weary troop, neither well-disciplined nor well-generaled, and soon to face those troops which Oliver Cromwell had made the best in the world. But there was with them neither hesitation nor dismay, for half of them were Scots, and Langdale's men were of the same breed as Cromwell's, and would fight as well and endure as stubbornly.
Cromwell came to Clitheroe and lay in the house of a Mr. Sherburn, a Papist, at Stonyhurst. The next day was Wednesday, and still raining; the weather, the soldiers said, "was as fearful a marvel as the hideous sight of English fighting English on English earth"; the sky was one colour with earth, heavy, dun; the beaten heath, the broken bushes dripped with moisture, the water ran in rivulets through the soaked earth. As the rain ceased for a while the wind would rise, sweeping strongly across the open spaces.
Ashton marched to Whalley, other troops of dragoons to Clitheroe, Cromwell advanced towards Preston. On the other side my Lord Duke advanced, also, hardly knowing where, in the rain and wind, on the undulating ground of hillocks and hollows, his army lay, or how and where it was available.
Sir Marmaduke Langdale was near Langdridge Chapel, on Preston Moor, the other side of the Ribble. Four miles away my lord the Duke, who was at Darwen, the south side of the river too, where there should have been a ford, but was not, so swollen was the tide with the mighty rains. My Lord Duke passed the bridge with most of his brigades and sent Lord Middleton with a large portion of the cavalry to Wigan.
Meanwhile, through the rain and the confusion, stumbling over the incredibly rough ground, a forlorn of horse and foot, commanded by Major Hodgson and Major Rounal, came upon Sir Marmaduke and his three thousand English.
The Scots, themselves confused, thinking it only an attack of Lancaster Presbyterians, did not support Langdale, who complained that he had not even enough powder; but he fought, he and his men, like heroes, against forces more than double their number—against the Ironsides, for four hours, always in the wind and wet, on the rough ground. Then such as was left of them gave way and fell back on Preston; some of the infantry surrendered, some of the horse escaped north to join Munro.
Meanwhile, Cromwell had swept Hamilton and Baillie back across the Darwen, back across the Ribble, had captured both bridges and driven my lord towards Preston town. Three times in his retreat my lord turned round to face his enemies, crying out for "King Charles!" Three times he repulsed the troops pursuing him, and the third time he drove them far back and, escaping from them, swam the river and joined Lieutenant-General Baillie where he had enclosed himself on the top of a hill.
Night fell and the battle was stayed; all were wet, weary, hungry, haggled; the Parliamentarians, the victors, not the less exhausted, but with fire in their hearts and hymns of praise on their lips. Cromwell wrote to "the Committee of Lancashire sitting at Manchester" his account of the day's fight, dispatched it, prayed, and got into the saddle again.
It was still foul weather, wind, rain, miles of muddy heath, hillocks, hollows now stained with blood and scattered with bodies, men, and horses, dead and dying.
The Duke of Hamilton's forces fought all that day and the next, routed again and again, rallied again and again; always the rain, the wind, the muddy heath, the low clouds, always the soldiers growing fainter and wearier. Beaten from the bridge of Ribble, falling back, a drumless march on Wigan Moor, leaving the ammunition to the enemy, falling farther back on to Wigan town, where they thought to make some stand, but decided not to, with skirmishes of detachments at Redbank where the Scots nearly worsted Colonel Pride at Ribble Bridge, and where Middleton (the weather, always foul, bringing confusion and fatigue) missed his chief, coming too late. And so it went for three days on the wet Yorkshire heaths, till finally it was over; the fate of King, Church, Constitution, and Covenant was decided. Hamilton and the vanguard of horse rode wearily and aimlessly towards Uttoxeter; Munro and the rearguard straggled back to their own country; a thousand of them were left dead under the rain, trodden into the bloody heath; three thousand of them were made prisoners. And the second Civil War which had flamed up so suddenly and so fiercely was ended.
The Puritans—the patriots—had passed through their darkest hour triumphantly; their ragged, hungry, unpaid soldiers, fighting truly for God and not for pay, had again saved England from the return of the tyrant and his manifold oppressions and confusions.
After the three days' fight was over, Cromwell sat down at Warrington to write to the Speaker of the House of Commons a long account of the rout.
"The Duke," he wrote, "is marching with his remaining horse towards Namptwich.... If I had a thousand horse that could but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them."
But whether or no the Puritans were too wearied to pursue their enemies mattered little; the day was decided.
The Duke of Hamilton, wandering vaguely, with fewer and fewer men after him, was finally taken at Uttoxeter, where he surrendered, a sick and broken man.
Cromwell cleared the Border of the remnants of the Scots, retook Berwick and Carlisle, engaged the Argyll faction, now the head of the Government of Scotland, to exclude all royalists from power, and turned back towards England, the foremost man of the moment again, and in the eyes of at least half England, the saviour of the country from the invader.
But if the country was grateful, the Parliament was not. Denzil Holles, fiercest of Presbyterians, rose up at Westminster to lead a party against his enemy Cromwell. The Lords, who had all become royalists, considered whether they should impeach the victorious general; it was noticeable how much bolder they all were when the Independents and their indomitable leader were absent, and how, as the return of the army, strengthened in renown and prestige, drew nearer, they began to cast round for some means of escape from the fact facing them, that when Cromwell reappeared at Westminster he would be absolute master of the political situation, for he had behind him the entire army and they had nothing but the mere unsupported weight of the law.
So sharp was the division and so fierce had party hatred become, that the Presbyterians at Westminster hated the Independents with the army as no Roundhead or Cavalier had ever hated in the first broad division of the war.
Toleration was the watchword of Cromwell and his followers, and no word was more detestable to the Parliament. To mark their loathing of it they passed an ordinance punishing Atheism. Arianism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Arminianism, and Baptists with death.
Meanwhile, Cromwell, looming ever larger in the imaginations of men, was returning triumphant to London. If his fame had been at the lowest when he left for Wales, it was at the highest now. Denzil Holles conceived the idea of meeting material force by moral force; as they had nothing else to oppose to Cromwell they must oppose the King. Charles still remained, in many ways, the hub of the political wheel.
The Parliament must now yield either to him or to the army; they thought they saw their chance with Charles. If terms could be come to with him, and he be installed in London before the army returned, Cromwell would be faced with a situation with which he would probably not be able to cope. He had denounced the King solemnly at the Windsor meeting, therefore Charles, once again in power, could not treat him otherwise than as an enemy.
The vote against further addresses to the King, which Cromwell's eloquence had hurried through the House, was repealed, and parliamentary commissions were sent to the Isle of Wight to open a new treaty with the King.
But they were not prepared to make concessions; the propositions of Uxbridge, of Newcastle, of Oxford, of Hampton Court were offered again and again, fought inch by inch. Charles, too, was still as intractable as ever; the coalition between royalist and Presbyterian seemed doomed to failure; the negotiations were continually ruptured on the subject of Church government. Charles would not forgo his bishops, and the Parliament would not endure them; though each side was desperate, on this point they were firm.
Meanwhile, Cromwell and his Ironsides were coming nearer.