Rebels and Traitors (104 page)

A gunsmith might drink the King’s health as he took cavalier money, but once he was examined by Spymaster Thurloe, loyalty to Charles flew out of the window.

Transportation was bungled grotesquely. Ordinary county carriers were hired to take hampers and boxes to the homes of known cavaliers; these purported to contain wine bottles, saddles, or ladies’ gowns. But the boxes were brand-new, specially constructed efforts in bright white deal, shrieking that they were the length and size of a bundle of muskets. They were incredibly heavy, sometimes too heavy for a carter’s horses. The carriers, who were all under observation by Thurloe’s agents, naturally swore they had no idea what was in the boxes. One, the Birmingham carrier, dodged interrogation as long he could, getting his brother to provide a list of items he had moved from London to the Midlands; this admitted to several hundredweight of mystery packages but tried to confuse the issue with
‘Two firkins of soap for Mr Porter of Bromsgrove, and twenty-one fishes, fifteen whereof were for the informant, and six for the carrier’s own use…’.
If the carriers refused to confess what they had been asked to do, maids or porters in the inns where goods were stored in London eagerly informed on them.

It was too late for Lord Rochester to retreat back to Holland; he convinced himself there was still hope and went north. Over on the Continent, King Charles had moved to Middelburg, ready to cross to England once support took hold. But Lovell felt the whole design was ruined.

He took himself to London. On the way, he went to Lewisham again. The old house standing in the orchard appeared empty, though efforts had been made to replace elderly cherry trees. A neighbour informed him that Mistress Juliana Lovell had sold the property, sold up to one Lambert Jukes, a grocer of the City of London. He rented out the orchard, but kept the house and stayed in it when he came to the area on business: the man was involved in the ships’-biscuit factory that had been set up in the old Tudor palace in Greenwich.

Greenwich was reputed to have more cavaliers than London so, mindful of recruitment, Lovell went to explore. He found the supposed Royalists were decayed court servants, mainly musicians and art collectors, who had hung around hoping that Parliament would give them their unpaid wages from the late King. They lived near the park, partly paid off with royal paintings, waiting glumly for the possible restoration of the monarchy. They might be loyal in theory, but flautists and lutenists were useless as soldiers. If this was the best Lovell could do, his mission would be a disaster. He knew other locals were even more unfriendly; when Lord Norwich camped in the park during the ill-fated uprising of 1648, his men had been jeered at and pelted by the Greenwich watermen.

Lovell sauntered past speculators’ sheds and decaying riverside wharfs to look at the biscuit factory. When Parliament sold off other royal residences, the elderly Palace of Placentia had been retained — according to a cynical alehouse informant, because no buyer could be found for such a ramshackle monstrosity. It was now crisply called Greenwich House and assigned to the Lord Protector; Cromwell, satisfied with Hampton Court, never came here. The already decayed buildings had suffered. Various buildings and gardens had been parcelled up and sold off. Horses had been stabled in the palace where kings and queens were once born; ninety poor Greenwich families were installed in the staterooms, before they were pushed out so the place could be a prison for captured sailors during the Dutch War. When the war ended last year, a venture making hardtack for the navy started up. Sneering, Lovell pictured Lambert Jukes as a puritan tradesman of the lowest quality.

Orlando Lovell had no real interest in grocers, though he was ready to demand that this tuppeny biscuit-maker give up details of Juliana’s whereabouts — assuming he knew. There was no reason, on the face of it, why he should.

Lovell travelled by river to London, where he found a hot situation. In anticipation of Rochester’s revolt, an order had been issued for the seizure of all horses in London and Westminster so they could not be commandeered by cavaliers. Horse-racing was banned, because race-meetings were a cover for conspiracy. Many known Action Party members were taken into custody. Security was tightened. A new City militia was organised. Extra troops were recruited for the Tower of London. Spies were out everywhere, watching Royalists.

The uprisings at the start of March failed to ignite. In Yorkshire, less than three hundred men came to a planned rendezvous with Lord Rochester. Other risings across the country were equally disappointing, even the most ambitious, that of Colonel Penruddock in Wiltshire. Leaders were captured, then executed or transported. Rochester was taken near Aylesbury, but bribed an innkeeper and escaped back to the Continent. Within a fortnight, Cromwell felt confident enough to stand down the militia.

Orlando Lovell turned up a few weeks later in Flanders; his movements in the intervening period were, as usual, mysterious.

The seizure of London horses caused local upset. Gideon Jukes now owned Robert Allibone’s old mount which, amidst much grumbling about costs, he kept at livery in an inn in Holborn. He was summoned one morning by an excited ostler, to find soldiers in the act of removing his horse.

‘You want
Rumour?
An old, nervous irritating nag, who only cares to wend his way to taverns for a bucket of ale?’

‘All serviceable horses —’

‘Serviceable doesn’t cover this one!’

‘— have to be taken to the Tower of London.’

‘Outrageous! Rumour is no traitor. He has given his oath of allegiance to the Protectorate.’

‘Just doing my duty, Captain Jukes.’ Gideon was using his rank today, in the hope it would give him some purchase on the argument.

Rumour added his twopennyworth. He bit the soldier who was trying to harness him.

‘Look — we have nowhere to put all these animals. Colonel Barkstead is in a complete tizz; Tower Green looks like Smithfield horse-fair … There are two solutions, Captain —’ The sergeant turned to Gideon, with a wild appeal. Every horse he tried to impound brought him new trouble from indignant citizens. ‘Either we can put him down, which will waste a bullet — or you can hide him in a shed until it’s all over.’

‘Done!’

Hardly had Gideon reprieved the horse, for sentimental reasons, than he realised his error. His print shop had no outbuildings. If Rumour would agree to shift himself, he would have to be led from his familiar livery stable and taken to Shoe Lane. There, helpers must coax him to the shed in the back courtyard — which could only be reached by walking the horse right through Juliana’s haberdashery shop. There would be neighing, horseshit, mud on the floor, breaking window-glass, leaning against fragile cabinets, flying ribbons and pin-packets, not to mention flabbergasted customers and a tense proprietor. Gideon knew before he asked her, Juliana would say this was not in her marriage contract.

His apprentice, Miles, refused to be involved. Gideon came up with two solutions. He did not
ask
his dear wife, he merely informed her, in the offhand manner of a head of household who is confident his every proposal reeks of common sense. (He realised he had become perilously like his father.) More astutely, he borrowed a bucket, which he filled with beer and carried ahead of Rumour to entice him to amble forwards, hopefully undistracted by baskets of bright haberdashery looking like treats to munch …

Other than this incident, they continued to live very quietly.

(From the State Papers of John Thurloe)

In Holland, Edward Sexby lived in disguise in Antwerp. He was joined for a time by Richard Overton, funded by Thurloe to spy on Sexby, though Gideon Jukes had assessed Overton as disloyal. Sexby made approaches to Sir Marmaduke Langdale, claiming that if protection was given for popular liberties, he would happily see the King restored to the throne. They could work together to achieve it.

Langdale had misgivings. ‘What do you think, Lovell?’

‘I would not trust this rebel to give a bowl of water to a dog.’

‘He seems persuasive. He has wormed himself into the confidence of Count Fuensaldanha.’ That was the Spanish commander-in-chief in the Netherlands, with whom Sexby somehow wangled a personal interview. The unlikely liaison had serious consequences for Cromwell’s government, because Sexby betrayed to Spain the Western Design — the Protectorate’s ill-fated attempt to capture Cuba. He also offered to organise a mutiny in the English fleet, which the Spanish seemed to believe was attainable.

Surprisingly, Fuensaldanha sent Edward Sexby to Madrid. The uninhibited Sexby made formal requests for assistance to raise a rebellion in England — a mission from which, astonishingly, he returned with both promises and money. The Spanish government was notoriously hard up, yet it was rumoured Sexby screwed a hundred thousand crowns out of them; certainly eight hundred pounds that he sent to England was seized by Thurloe.

‘This Leveller has achieved greater success with the Spanish than the King!’ marvelled Lovell. Lovell’s opinion of Charles II’s prospects with the Spanish matched doubts that had been voiced on that subject to John Thurloe by one of his trusted observers:
‘This young man is grown close and wary, trusting very few with his secrets, managing his own business himself, whereby one may easily guess what is like to come of it. The Spanish ministers were wont to be too great an overmatch for a young man.’
Lovell, too, felt the young King Charles would go awry — though he thought no higher of Edward Sexby’s capabilities. ‘Sexby acts entirely on his own initiative, yet has become a dangerous international intriguer.’

Sexby’s tortuous relations with the Royalists were almost foundering, mainly due to Langdale’s suspicion. ‘It sticks in my craw to ally with this extremist, Lovell.’

‘But we are desperate.’ Lovell still had a bad taste from what he had just seen in England. ‘Rochester’s rebellion was an expensive fiasco -and we have run out of resources. We must use Sexby to kill Cromwell for us. Then we may distance ourselves.’

The atmosphere was full of alarm. Thurloe’s double agent at the young King’s court, Henry Manning, had been exposed. Charles II had him immediately arrested. Manning was shot dead in a lonely wood outside Cologne. The incident emphasised that no one could be trusted. Orlando Lovell suggested himself to move in for a much more intimate watch on Sexby’s intrigues.

The two men met. Sick of skulking in disguise, Sexby came across as peevish, morose and intractable. Lovell told Langdale the man was more interested in destroying Cromwell than in restoring the King. Despite this, Orlando Lovell had some time for Sexby. They were both loners, outsiders, aiming higher than somehow seemed proper.

Langdale had found Richard Overton a more sympathetic character, but at the end of the year Overton returned to England. He lodged with his previous landlord Colonel Wetton, where he came under observation again from Gideon Jukes. Gideon learned that Overton was now devoting himself to republishing a tract he had written ten years earlier called
Man’s Mortalitie.
Dear to his Baptist heart throughout his life, this argued that the soul dies with the body. Since the soul’s immortality was a fundamental Christian tenet, many Christians viewed the idea with horror. Gideon was enough of a sectarian to share Overton’s opinion. Making no comment on the theology, he duly reported that as far as he could tell, Overton had turned away from political intrigue and was no longer working with Sexby.

Not until the middle of 1656 did Sexby’s plans reach the point where he risked writing to his other old associate in England, the imprisoned John Wildman, hinting that his great enterprise was now afoot:

Thomas Brooke Antwerp, May 28, 1656
Thomas Brooke’ had this risky letter intercepted by Thurloe. Only a few weeks later, John Wildman was abruptly released.
He
was now supposed to be acting as a double agent for Thurloe. However, it was Lockhart, the English ambassador in France, who wrote in July that Sexby had indeed gone to England: ‘…
I could learn nothing where he was, but was assured he was upon dangerous designs…