A Crowning Mercy. Bernard Cornwell

George wanted to change sides, but his reasons had nothing to do with the fall of Bristol.

      War had begun the previous year and Sir George, as a loyal Parliamentarian, had no doubts then. He had been offended, deeply so, by King Charles’s use of illegal taxation, and the offence had become personal when the King had forced loans out of his richer subjects. The loans, Sir George knew, would never be repaid and he was among the men who had been robbed by his monarch.

      The argument between King and Parliament had drifted almost imperceptibly into war. Sir George continued to support Parliament for its cause was his cause; that the kingdom should be ruled by law and that no man, not even the King of England, was above that law. That doctrine pleased Sir George, made his support of the rebellion firm, yet now he knew that he was changing sides. He would support the King against Parliament.

      He moved to one of the great buttresses of the medieval cathedral and leaned against the sun-warmed stone. It was not, he thought, that he had changed, it was the cause that had changed. He had entered the rebellion convinced that it was a political fight, a war to decide how the country should be governed, but in opening the gates of battle Parliament had released a plague of monsters. The monsters took religious shapes.

      Sir George Lazender was a Protestant, stout in the defence of his faith, but he had little time for the Ranters, the Fifth Monarchy Men, the Anabaptists, the Familists, the Mortalists, or any of the other strange sects that had suddenly emerged to preach their own brand of revolutionary religion. Fanaticism had swamped London. Only two days before he had seen a stark naked woman parading in the Strand, preaching the Rantist sect, and the extraordinary thing was that people took such nonsense seriously! And with the religious nonsense, that might be harmless, came more insidious political demands.

      Parliament claimed that it fought only against the King’s advisers. That, Sir George knew, was a nonsense, but it gave Parliament a shred of legality in its revolt. The aim of Parliament was to restore the King to his throne in Whitehall, a throne that was meticulously maintained for his return, and then to force him to rule England with the consent and help of his Parliament. There would, of course, be great changes. The bishops would have to go, and the archbishops, so that the Church of England would appear a more Protestant church and, though Sir George was not personally offended by bishops, he would sacrifice them willingly if it meant a king ruling a kingdom according to law and not whim. Yet Sir George no longer trusted that Parliament, if it defeated the King, could control the victory.

      The fanatics were fuelling the rebellion, changing it. They spoke now not just of abolishing the bishops, but of abolishing the King as well. Men preached an end to property and privilege and Sir George remembered with horror a popular verse of the previous year:

       Wee’l teach the nobles how to crouch,

       And keep the gentry downe.

      Well, Sir George was a gentleman, and his eldest child, Anne, had married the Earl of Fleet who was a noble. The Earl of Fleet, a good Puritan, believed that the fanatics could be contained, but Sir George no longer did. He could not support a cause that would, in the end, destroy him and his children, and so he had decided, reluctantly, to fight against that cause. He would leave London. He would pack his precious books, his silver, his pewter and his furniture, and he would abandon London and Parliament, to return to Lazen Castle.

      He would miss London. He looked up from the Harington and stared fondly at the cathedral precinct. This was the place where unemployed house servants came to look for new employers, it was where the booksellers could set up their stalls, and it was where virulent sermons were preached beneath St Paul’s Cross. It was a place of life, colour, movement, and crowds, and Sir George would miss it. He liked the sense of life in London, its crowded streets, the never-ending noise, the long conversations, the feeling that things happened here because they were forced to happen. He would miss the politics, the laughter, and the house near Charing Cross from which, on the one side, he could look into green fields, and on the other into the smoky heart of the great city. Yet London was the heart of Parliament’s rebellion and he could not stay if he changed sides.

      ‘Sir George! Sir George!’ The voice called to him from the direction of Ludgate Hill. ‘Sir George!’

      Reluctantly he put the book back on the table. This was a man he could not brush off by pretending to read. ‘My dear John!’

      Only minutes before Sir George had been thinking of his son-in-law, the Earl of Fleet, and now the Earl, red-faced and sweating, pushed his way through the midday crowds. ‘Sir George!’ he called out again, fearful that his father-in-law might yet escape.

      Sir George was fifty-five, counted an old man by his colleagues, yet he remained alert and spry. His hair was white, yet there was a liveliness to his face that made him seem younger than his years. The Earl of Fleet, on the other hand, though twenty years Sir George’s junior, had the burdened face of a man old before his time. He was a serious man; even, Sir George suspected, a tedious man. Like many other aristocrats he was a confirmed Puritan who fought for Parliament. ‘I thought I might find you here, father-in-law, I’ve come from Whitehall.’

      He made it sound like a complaint. Sir George smiled. ‘It’s always good to see you, John.’

      ‘We have to speak, Sir George, a matter of utmost importance.’

      ‘Ah.’ Sir George looked about the precinct, knowing that the Earl would not wish to be overheard in such a public place. Reluctantly Sir George suggested that they share a boat back to Whitehall. It was odd, Sir George thought, how no one minded being overheard by watermen.

      They walked down to St Paul’s wharf, down the steep street that was noisy with trade and shaded by washing strung between the overhanging upper storeys. They joined the queue waiting for the watermen, keeping to the right for they needed a two-oared boat and not the single sculls that sufficed a lone passenger. The Earl of Fleet frowned at the delay. He was a busy man, preparing to leave in a week’s time for the war in the west country. Sir George could not imagine his portly, self-important son-in-law as a leader of troops, but he kept his amusement to himself.

      They shuffled down the stone quay as the queue shortened, and Sir George looked to his left at the sunlight on the houses of London Bridge. It was a pity, he thought, that the houses burned at the city end of the bridge had never been rebuilt, it gave the great structure a lopsided look, but the bridge, with its houses, shops, palace, and chapel built above the wide river, was still one of the glories of Europe. Sir George felt the sadness of loss. He would miss the sun glinting on the Thames, the water thronged with boats, the skyline below the bridge thicketed with masts.

      ‘Where to, genn’l’men?’ a cheerful voice shouted at them and the Earl handed Sir George into the boat.

      ‘Privy Stairs!’ The Earl of Fleet managed to sound as if their business was of vast importance.

      The watermen spun their boat, leaned into the oars, and the small craft surged into the stream. Sir George looked at his son-in-law. ‘You wanted to talk, John?’

      ‘It’s Toby, Sir George.’

      ‘Ah!’ Sir George had been worried that the Earl might have guessed his wavering loyalty, but instead he wished to speak about Sir George’s other concern: his son. ‘What’s he done now?’

      ‘You don’t know?’

      Sir George tipped his plain hat back so that the sun could warm his forehead. To his right the wall of London ended at Baynard’s Castle, beyond which was the old Blackfriar’s Theatre. Sir George decided innocence was his best defence against the Earl. ‘Toby? He’s at Gray’s Inn, you know that. I think he should know something of the law, John, enough to steer well clear of it later. Mind you, I think he’s bored. Yes, very bored. It makes him boisterous, but I was boisterous once.’ He looked at his son-in-law. ‘Young men should be boisterous, John.’

      The Earl of Fleet frowned. He had never been boisterous. ‘You will forgive me, Sir George, but it is not that he is boisterous.’ Water splashed on his coat and he ineffectually flapped at the black cloth. ‘I fear you will not be happy, father-in-law.’ The Earl was obviously