The Path of the King/Chapter 9

There was a sharp grue of ice in the air, as Mr. Nicholas Lovel climbed the rickety wooden stairs to his lodgings in Chancery Lane hard by Lincoln's Inn. That morning he had ridden in from his manor in the Chilterns, and still wore his heavy horseman's cloak and the long boots splashed with the mud of the Colne fords. He had been busy all day with legal matters—conveyances on which his opinion was sought, for, though it was the Christmas vacation, his fame among the City merchants kept him busy in term and out of it. Rarely, he thought, had he known London in so strange a temper. Men scarcely dared to speak above their breath of public things, and eyed him fearfully—even the attorneys who licked his boots—as if a careless word spoken in his presence might be their ruin. For it was known that this careful lawyer stood very near Cromwell, had indeed been his comrade at bed and board from Marston to Dunbar, and, though no Commons man, had more weight than any ten in Parliament. Mr. Lovel could not but be conscious of the tension among his acquaintances, and had he missed to note it there he would have found it in the streets. Pride's troopers were everywhere, riding in grim posses or off duty and sombrely puffing tobacco, vast, silent men, lean from the wars. The citizens on the causeway hurried on their errand, eager to find sanctuary from the biting air and the menace of unknown perils. Never had London seen such a Christmastide. Every man was moody and careworn, and the bell of Paul's as it tolled the hours seemed a sullen prophet of woe.

His servant met him on the stair.

“He is here,” he said. “I waited for him in the Bell Yard and brought him in secretly.”

Lovel nodded, and stripped off his cloak, giving it to the man. “Watch the door like a dragon, Matthew,” he told him. “For an hour we must be alone. Forbid anyone, though it were Sir Harry himself.”

The little chamber was bright with the glow of a coal fire. The red curtains had been drawn and one lamp lit. The single occupant sprawled in a winged leather chair, his stretched-out legs in the firelight, but his head and shoulders in shadow. A man entering could not see the face, and Lovel, whose eyes had been weakened by study, peered a second before he closed the door behind him.

“I have come to you, Nick, as always when my mind is in tribulation.”

The speaker had a harsh voice, like a bellman's which has been ruined by shouting against crowds. He had got to his feet and seemed an elderly man, heavy in body, with legs too short for the proportions of his trunk. He wore a soldier's coat and belt, but no sword. His age might have been fifty, but his face was so reddened by weather that it was hard to judge. The thick straight black locks had little silver in them, but the hair that sprouted from a mole on the chin was grey. His cheeks were full and the heavy mouth was pursed like that of a man in constant painful meditation. He looked at first sight a grazier from the shires or some new-made squire of a moderate estate. But the eyes forbade that conclusion. There was something that brooded and commanded in those eyes, something that might lock the jaw like iron and make their possessor a hammer to break or bend the world.

Mr. Lovel stirred the fire very deliberately and sat himself in the second of the two winged chairs.

“The King?” he queried. “You were in two minds when we last spoke on the matter. I hoped I had persuaded you. Has some new perplexity arisen?”

The other shook his big head, so that for a moment he had the look of a great bull that paws the ground before charging.

“I have no clearness,” he said, and the words had such passion behind them that they were almost a groan.

Lovel lay back in his chair with his finger tips joined, like a jurisconsult in the presence of a client. “Clearness in such matters is not for us mortals,” he said. “You are walking dark corridors which the lamp of the law does not light. You are not summoned to do justice, being no judge, but to consider the well-being of the State. Policy, Oliver. Policy, first and last.”

The other nodded. “But policy is two-faced, and I know not which to choose.”

“Is it still the business of the trial?” Lovel asked sharply. “We argued that a fortnight since, and I thought I had convinced you. The case has not changed. Let me recapitulate. Imprimis, the law of England knows no court which can bring the King of England before it.”

“Tchut, man. Do not repeat that. Vane has been clacking it in my ear. I tell you, as I told young Sidney, that we are beyond courts and lawyer's quibbles, and that if England requires it I will cut off the King's head with the crown on it.”

Lovel smiled. “That is my argument. You speak of a trial, but in justice there can be no trial where there is neither constituted court nor valid law. If you judge the King, 'tis on grounds of policy. Can you defend that policy, Oliver? You yourself have no clearness. Who has? Not Vane. Not Fairfax. Not Whitelocke, or Widdrington, or Lenthall. Certes, not your old comrade Nick Lovel.”

“The Army desires it—notably those in it who are most earnest in God's cause.”

“Since when have you found a politic judgment in raw soldiers? Consider, my friend. If you set the King on his trial it can have but the one end. You have no written law by which to judge him, so your canon will be your view of the public weal, against which he has most grievously offended. It is conceded your verdict must be guilty and your sentence death. Once put him on trial and you unloose a great stone in a hill-side which will gather speed with every yard it journeys. You will put your King to death, and in whose name?”

Cromwell raised his head which he had sunk between his hands. “In the name of the Commons of Parliament and all the good people of England.”

“Folly, man. Your Commons are a disconsidered rump of which already you have made a laughingstock. As for your good people of England, you know well that ten out of any dozen are against you. The deed will be done in your own name and that of the hotheads of the Army. 'Twill be an act of war. Think you that by making an end of the King you will end the Kings party? Nay, you will give it a martyr. You will create for every woman in England a new saint. You will outrage all sober folk that love order and at the very moment when you seek to lay down the sword you make it the sole arbitrament. What say you to that?”

“There is no need to speak of his death. What if the Court depose him only?”

“You deceive yourself. Once put him on trial and you must go through with it to the end. A deposed king will be like a keg of gunpowder set by your hearth. You cannot hide him so that he ceases to be a peril. You cannot bind him to terms.”

“That is naked truth,” said Cromwell grimly. “The man is filled with a devil of pride. When Denbigh and the other lords went to him he shut the door in their face. I will have no more of ruining hypocritical agreements. If God's poor people are to be secure we must draw his fangs and destroy his power for ill. But how to do it?” And he made a gesture of despair.

“A way must be found. And let it not be that easy way which will most utterly defeat your honest purpose. The knots of the State are to be unravelled, not cut with the sword.”

Cromwell smiled sadly, and his long face had for the moment a curious look of a puzzled child.

“I believe you to be a godly man, friend Nicholas. But I fear your soul is much overlaid with worldly things, and you lean too much on frail understanding. I, too, am without clearness. I assent to your wisdom, but I cannot think it concludes the matter. In truth, we have come in this dark hour to the end of fleshly reasonings. It cannot be that the great marvels which the Lord has shown us can end in barrenness. His glorious dispensations must have an honest fruition, for His arm is not shortened.”

He rose to his feet and tightened the belt which he had unbuckled. “I await a sign,” he said. “Pray for me, friend, for I am a man in sore perplexity. I lie o' nights at Whitehall in one of the King's rich beds, but my eyes do not close. From you I have got the ripeness of human wisdom, but my heart is not satisfied. I am a seeker, with my ear intent to hear God's command, and I doubt not that by some providence He will yet show me His blessed way.”

Lovel stood as if in a muse while the heavy feet tramped down the staircase. He heard a whispering below and then the soft closing of a door. For maybe five minutes he was motionless: then he spoke to himself after the habit he had. “The danger is not over,” he said, “but I think policy will prevail. If only Vane will cease his juridical chatter.... Oliver is still at the cross-roads, but he inclines to the right one.... I must see to it that Hugh Peters and his crew manufacture no false providences. Thank God, if our great man is one-third dreamer, he is two-thirds doer, and can weigh his counsellors.”

Whereupon, feeling sharp-set with the cold and the day's labour, he replenished the fire with a beech faggot, resumed the riding cloak he had undone and, after giving his servant some instructions, went forth to sup in a tavern. He went unattended, as was his custom. The city was too sunk in depression to be unruly.

He crossed Chancery Lane and struck through the narrow courts which lay between Fleet Street and Holborn. His goal was Gilpin's in Fetter Lane, a quiet place much in favour with those of the long robe. The streets seemed curiously quiet. It was freezing hard and threatening snow, so he flung a fold of his cloak round his neck, muffling his ears. This deadened his hearing, and his mind also was busy with its own thoughts, so that he did not observe that soft steps dogged him. At the corner of an alley he was tripped up, and a heavy garment flung over his head.

He struggled to regain his feet, but an old lameness, got at Naseby, impeded him. The cobbles, too, were like glass, and he fell again, this time backward. His head struck the ground, and though he did not lose consciousness, his senses were dazed. He felt his legs and arms being deftly tied, and yards of some soft stuff enveloping his head. He ceased to struggle as soon as he felt the odds against him, and waited on fortune. Voices came to his ears, and it seemed that one of them was a woman's.

The crack on the causeway must have been harder than it appeared, for Mr. Lovel fell into a doze. When he woke he had some trouble in collecting his wits. He felt no bodily discomfort except a little soreness at the back of his scalp. His captors had trussed him tenderly, for his bonds did not hurt, though a few experiments convinced him that they were sufficiently secure. His chief grievance was a sharp recollection that he had not supped; but, being a philosopher, he reflected that, though hungry, he was warm. He was in a glass coach driven rapidly on a rough road, and outside the weather seemed to be wild, for the snow was crusted on the window. There were riders in attendance; he could hear the click-clack of ridden horses. Sometimes a lantern flashed on the pane, and a face peered dimly through the frost. It seemed a face that he had seen before.

Presently Mr. Lovel began to consider his position. Clearly he had been kidnapped, but by whom and to what intent? He reflected with pain that it might be his son's doing, for that gentleman had long been forbidden his door. A rakehell of the Temple and married to a cast-off mistress of Goring's, his son was certainly capable of any evil, but he reminded himself that Jasper was not a fool and would scarcely see his profit in such an escapade. Besides, he had not the funds to compass an enterprise which must have cost money. He thought of the King's party, and dismissed the thought. His opponents had a certain regard for him, and he had the name of moderate. No, if politics touched the business, it was Ireton's doing. Ireton feared his influence with Cromwell. But that sober man of God was no bravo. He confessed himself at a loss.

Mr. Lovel had reached this point in his meditations when the coach suddenly stopped. The door opened, and as he peered into the semicircle of wavering lamp light he observed a tall young lady in a riding coat white with snowflakes. She had dismounted from her horse, and the beast's smoking nostrils were thawing the ice on her sleeve. She wore a mask, but she did not deceive her father.

“Cecily,” he cried, astounded out of his calm. “What madcap trick is this?”

The girl for answer flung her bridle to a servant and climbed into the coach beside him. Once more the wheels moved.

“Oh, father, dearest father, pray forgive me. I have been so anxious. When you fell I begged Tony to give up the plan, but he assured me you had taken no hurt. Tell me you are none the worse.”

Mr. Lovel began to laugh, and there was relief in his laugh, for he had been more disquieted than he would have confessed.

“I am very greatly the worse!” He nodded to his bonds. “I do not like your endearments, Cis.”

“Promise me not to try to escape, and I will cut them.” The girl was very grave as she drew from a reticule beneath her cloak a pair of housewife's scissors.

Mr. Lovel laughed louder. “I promise to bide where I am in this foul weather.”

Neatly and swiftly she cut the cords and he stretched arms and legs in growing comfort.

“Also I have not supped.”

“My poor father. But in two hours' time you will have supper. We sleep at—but that I must not say.”

“Where does this journey end? Am I to have no news at all, my dear?”

“You promised, remember, so I will tell you. Tony and I are taking you to Chastlecote.”

Mr. Lovel whistled. “A long road and an ill. The wind blows bitter on Cotswold in December. I would be happier in my own house.”

“But not safe.” The girl's voice was very earnest. “Believe me, dearest father, we have thought only of you. Tony says that London streets will soon be running blood. He has it from secret and sure sources. There is a King's faction in the Army and already it is in league with the Scots and our own party to compass the fall of Cromwell. He says it will be rough work and the innocent will die with the guilty.... When he told me that, I feared for your life—and Tony, too, for he loves you. So we carry you to Chastlecote till January is past, for by then Tony says there will be peace in England.”

“I thank you, Cis,—and Tony also, who loves me. But if your news be right, I have a duty to do. I am of Cromwell's party, as you and Tony are of the King's. You would not have me run from danger.”

She primmed her pretty mouth. “You do not run, you are carried off. Remember your promise.”

“But a promise given under duress is not valid in law.”

“You are a gentleman, sir, before you are a lawyer. Besides, there are six of Tony's men with us—and all armed.”

Mr. Lovel subsided with a chuckle. This daughter of his should have been a man. Would that Heaven had seen fit to grant him such a son!

“Two hours to supper,” was what he said. “By the slow pace of our cattle I judge we are on Denham hill. Permit me to doze, my dear. 'Tis the best antidote to hunger. Whew, but it is cold! If you catch a quinsy, blame that foolish Tony of yours.”

But, though he closed his eyes, he did not sleep. All his life he had been something of a fatalist, and this temper had endeared him to Cromwell, who held that no man travelled so far as he who did not know the road he was going. But while in Oliver's case the belief came from an ever-present sense of a directing God, in him it was more of a pagan philosophy. Mr. Lovel was devout after his fashion, but he had a critical mind and stood a little apart from enthusiasm. He saw man's life as a thing foreordained, yet to be conducted under a pretence of freedom, and while a defender of liberty his admiration inclined more naturally to the rigour of law. He would oppose all mundane tyrannies, but bow to the celestial bondage.

Now it seemed that fate had taken charge of him through the medium of two green lovers. He was to be spared the toil of decision and dwell in an enforced seclusion. He was not averse to it. He was not Cromwell with Cromwell's heavy burden; he was not even a Parliament man; only a private citizen who wished greatly for peace. He had laboured for peace both in field and council, and that very evening he had striven to guide the ruler of England. Assuredly he had done a citizen's duty and might now rest.

His thoughts turned to his family—the brave girl and the worthless boy. He believed he had expunged Jasper from his mind, but the recollection had still power to pain him. That was the stuff of which the King's faction was made, half-witted rakes who were arrogant without pride and volcanic without courage.... Not all, perhaps. The good Tony was a welcome enough son-in-law, though Cecily would always be the better man. The young Oxfordshire squire was true to his own royalties, and a mortal could be no more. He liked the flaxen poll of him, which contrasted well with Cecily's dark beauty—and his jolly laugh and the noble carriage of his head. Yet what wisdom did that head contain which could benefit the realm of England?

This story of a new plot! Mr. Lovel did not reject it. It was of a piece with a dozen crazy devices of the King. The man was no Englishman, but an Italian priest who loved dark ways. A little good sense, a little honesty, and long ago there would have been a settlement. But to treat with Charles was to lay foundations on rotten peat.

Oddly enough, now that he was perforce quit of any share in the business, he found his wrath rising against the King. A few hours back he had spoken for him. Had he after all been wrong? He wondered. Oliver's puzzled face rose before him. He had learned to revere that strange man's perplexities. No brain was keener to grasp an argument, for the general was as quick at a legal point as any lawyer. When, therefore, he still hesitated before what seemed a final case, it was well to search for hidden flaws. Above all when he gave no reason it was wise to hasten to him, for often his mind flew ahead of logic, and at such times he was inspired. Lovel himself and Vane and Fairfax had put the politic plea which seemed unanswerable, and yet Oliver halted and asked for a sign. Was it possible that the other course, the wild course, Ireton's course, was the right one?

Mr. Lovel had bowed to fate and his captors, and conscious that no action could follow on any conclusion he might reach, felt free to indulge his thoughts. He discovered these growing sterner. He reviewed is argument against the King's trial. Its gravamen lay in the certainty that trial meant death. The plea against death was that it would antagonise three-fourths of England, and make a martyr out of a fool. Would it do no more? Were there no gains to set against that loss? To his surprise he found himself confessing a gain.

He had suddenly become impatient with folly. It was Cromwell's mood, as one who, living under the eye of God, scorned the vapourings of pedestalled mortals. Mr. Lovel by a different road reached the same goal. An abiding sense of fate ordering the universe made him intolerant of trivial claims of prerogative and blood. Kingship for him had no sanctity save in so far as it was truly kingly. Were honest folk to be harried because of the whims of a man whose remote ancestor had been a fortunate bandit? Charles had time and again broke faith with his people and soaked the land in blood. In law he could do no wrong, but, unless God slept, punishment should follow the crime, and if the law gave no aid the law must be dispensed with. Man was not made for it, but it for man.

The jurist in him pulled up with a start. He was arguing against all his training.... But was the plea false? He had urged on Cromwell that the matter was one of policy. Agreed. But which was the politic road? If the King lost his head, there would beyond doubt be a sullen struggle ahead. Sooner or later the regicides would fall—of that he had no doubt. But what of the ultimate fate of England? They would have struck a blow against privilege which would never be forgotten. In future all kings would walk warily. In time the plain man might come to his own. In the long run was not this politic?

“'Tis a good thing my mouth is shut for some weeks,” he told himself. “I am coming round to Ireton. I am no fit company for Oliver.”

He mused a little on his inconstancy. It had not been a frequent occurrence in his life. But now he seemed to have got a sudden illumination, such as visited Cromwell in his prayers. He realised how it had come about. Hitherto he had ridden his thoughts unconsciously on the curb of caution, for a conclusion reached meant deeds to follow. But, with the possibility of deeds removed, his mind had been freed. What had been cloudy before now showed very bright, and the little lamp of reason he had once used was put out by an intolerable sunlight. He felt himself quickened to an unwonted poetry.... His whole outlook had changed, but the change brought no impulse to action. He submitted to be idle, since it was so fated. He was rather glad of it, for he felt weary and giddy in mind.

But the new thoughts once awakened ranged on their courses. To destroy the false kingship would open the way for the true. He was no leveller; he believed in kings who were kings in deed. The world could not do without its leaders. Oliver was such a one, and others would rise up. Why reverence a brocaded puppet larded by a priest with oil, when there were men who needed no robes or sacring to make them kingly? Teach the Lord's Anointed his mortality, and there would be hope in the years to come of a true anointing.

He turned to his daughter.

“I believe your night's work, Cis, has been a fortunate thing for our family.”

She smiled and patted his hand, and at the moment with a great jolting the coach pulled up. Presently lanterns showed at the window, the door was opened, and Sir Anthony Colledge stood revealed in the driving snow. In the Chilterns it must have been falling for hours, for the road was a foot deep, and the wind had made great drifts among the beech boles. The lover looked somewhat sheepish as he swept a bow to his prisoner.

“You are a noted horse-doctor, sir,” he said. “The off leader has gotten a colic. Will you treat him? Then I purpose to leave him with a servant in some near-by farm, and put a ridden horse in his place.”

Mr. Lovel leaped from the coach as nimbly as his old wound permitted. It was true that the doctoring of horses was his hobby. He loved them and had a way with them.

The medicine box was got out of the locker and the party grouped round the grey Flemish horses, which stood smoking in the yellow slush. The one with the colic had its legs stretched wide; its flanks heaved and spasms shook its hindquarters. Mr. Lovel set to work and mixed a dose of spiced oil and spirits which he coaxed down its throat. Then he very gently massaged certain corded sinews in its belly. “Get him under cover now, Tony,” he said “and tell your man to bed him warm and give him a bucket of hot water strained from oatmeal and laced with this phial. In an hour he will be easy.”

The beast was led off, another put in its place, and the postilions were cracking their whips, when out of the darkness a knot of mounted men rode into the lamplight. There were at least a dozen of them, and at their head rode a man who at the sight of Lovel pulled up sharp.

“Mr. Lovel!” he cried. “What brings you into these wilds in such weather? Can I be of service? My house is not a mile off.”

“I thank you, Colonel Flowerdue, but I think the mischief is now righted. I go on a journey into Oxfordshire with my daughter, and the snow has delayed us.”

He presented the young Parliament soldier, a cousin of Fairfax, to Cecily and Tony, the latter of whom eyed with disfavour the posse of grave Ironside troopers.

“You will never get to Wendover this night,” said Flowerdue. “The road higher up is smothered four feet deep. See, I will show you a woodland road which the wind has kept clear, and I protest that your company sleep the night with me at Downing.”

He would take no denial, and indeed in the face of his news to proceed would have been folly. Even Sir Anthony Colledge confessed it wryly. One of Flowerdue's men mounted to the postilion's place, and the coach was guided through a belt of beeches, and over a strip of heath to the gates of a park.

Cecily seized her father's hand. “You have promised, remember.”

“I have promised,” he replied. “To-morrow, if the weather clears, I will go with you to Chastlecote.”

He spoke no more till they were at the house door, for the sense of fate hung over him like a cloud. His cool equable soul was stirred to its depths. There was surely a grim fore-ordering in this chain of incidents. But for the horse's colic there would have been no halt. But for his skill in horse doctoring the sick beast would have been cut loose, and Colonel Flowerdue's party would have met only a coach labouring through the snow and would not have halted to discover its occupants.... He was a prisoner bound by a promise, but this meeting with Flowerdue had opened up a channel to communicate with London and that was not forbidden. It flashed on him suddenly that the change of mind which he had suffered was no longer a private matter. He had now the power to act upon it.

He was extraordinarily averse to the prospect. Was it mere petulance that had swung round his opinions so violently during the journey? He examined himself and found his new convictions unshaken. It was what the hot-gospellers would call a “Holy Ghost conversion.” Well, let it rest there. Why spread the news beyond his own home? There were doctors enough inspecting the health of the State. Let his part be to stand aside.

With something like fear he recognised that that part was no longer possible. He had been too directly guided by destiny to refuse the last stage. Cromwell was waiting on a providence, and of that providence it was clear that fate had made him the channel. In the coach he had surrendered himself willingly to an unseen direction, and now he dared not refuse the same docility. He, who for usual was ripe, balanced, mellow in judgment, felt at the moment the gloomy impulsion of the fanatic. He was only a pipe for the Almighty to sound through.

In the hall at Downing the logs were stirred to a blaze, and food and drink brought in a hospitable stir.

“I have a letter to write before I sleep,” Mr. Lovel told his daughter. “I will pray from Colonel Flowerdue the use of his cabinet.”

Cecily looked at him inquiringly, and he laughed.

“The posts at Chastlecote are infrequent, Cis, and I may well take the chance when it offers. I assure you I look forward happily to a month of idleness stalking Tony's mallards and following Tony's hounds.”

In the cabinet he wrote half a dozen lines setting out simply the change in his views. “If I know Oliver,” he told himself, “I have given him the sign he seeks. I am clear it is God's will, but Heaven help the land—Heaven help us all.” Having written, he lay back in his chair and mused.

When Colonel Flowerdue entered he found a brisk and smiling gentleman, sealing a letter.

“Can you spare a man to ride express with this missive to town? It is for General Cromwell's private hand.”

“Assuredly. He will start at once lest the storm worsens. It is business of State?”

“High business of State, and I think the last I am likely to meddle with.”

Mr. Lovel had taken from his finger a thick gold ring carved with a much-worn cognisance. He held it up in the light of the candle.

“This thing was once a king's,” he said. “As the letter touches the affairs of his Majesty, I think it fitting to seal it with a king's signet.”