Rebels and Traitors (58 page)

The King’s position in the debate was about to change. For six months Charles regarded his custody among the Scots as a temporary inconvenience; he continually tried to wriggle free by playing off his enemies against each other. Lambert and Gideon Jukes were scathing: ‘In any fight, the loser has to capitulate. The man is like a foolish barrow-boy, who will not admit he has been knocked down. ‘

And well kicked!’

The Scots always viewed the King as a negotiable hostage. With all the flaws in his personality, Charles failed to see this; he carried on as arrogant, shifty and unreliable as ever. He made offers to everyone: the Scots; Parliament as a body; the high Presbyterians who dominated Parliament; the City of London; the army. Lambert told Gideon divisive attempts had begun even before Charles fled from Oxford in 1646. ‘During the blockade, he sent an approach to Rainborough personally, asking for a safe conduct so he could go to London and negotiate with Parliament. He claimed that in return for a guarantee that he would remain King, Woodstock and other garrisons would surrender.’ It had failed to impress Rainborough, who notified Parliament.

While all the issues remained in flux, Rainborough — now possessing not one but two Jukes brothers in his regiment — was sent to the siege of Worcester. They captured the town, and he was made its governor, on the strength of the gracious way he obtained the surrender and Fairfax’s praise that he was
‘ very faithful, valiant and successful in many undertakings’.
As Rainborough became a man of note, he was recruited as the member of Parliament for Droitwich, replacing Endymion Porter, a favourite courtier of the King’s. Rainborough went up to Westminster, where he pleaded the soldiers’ grievances. Word filtered back to the regiment that as he watched the political negotiations, he was unconvinced that the war was truly ended.

The Scots, too, became convinced that the King was too slippery. They reckoned Charles had no intention of keeping promises that he would install Presbyterianism in England — even though hopeful Presbyterians in the English Parliament still wanted to believe he would. In January 1647, the Covenanters cut their losses. They claimed that their military costs in supporting Parliament were two million pounds, but offered to settle for five hundred thousand. This was haggled down to four hundred thousand, with the King to be handed over to Parliament as if he were a receipt for the first instalment. Commissioners brought the first one hundred thousand pounds to Newcastle and the Scots passed King Charles to them.

He was conducted south to Holdenby House in Northamptonshire. His public reception convinced him all his royal authority remained. The gentry flocked to escort the procession; crowds lined the way; church bells were rung.

Charles arrived at Holdenby House in mid-February A week later army officers refused to volunteer for Ireland without assurances; they presented Parliament with a respectful document called the
Moderate Petition.
Parliament declared it seditious. The MP Denzil Holles, who had once been a leading radical, one of the Five Members King Charles had tried to arrest, had turned into an intemperate loather of the New Model. He would sneer in his memoirs:
‘most of the colonels were tradesmen, brewers, tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers and the like — a notable dunghill’.
Now, in an astonishing tirade, he savaged the soldiers as violent mercenaries, enemies of the kingdom, only concerned about their arrears of pay:

This eyebrow-raising vindictiveness came to be known wryly as
‘The Declaration of Dislike’.
More followed. Parliament summoned Commissary-General Ireton (now Cromwell’s son-in-law), and three colonels (one of them John Lilburne’s brother) to answer charges that signatures for the officers’ petition had been obtained by force. Tempers ran so high that Ireton and Holles had to be ordered not to fight a duel.

There were desperate divisions in English politics and religion. The Presbyterian majority in Parliament were determined to impose their will. They had taken over the London Trained Bands, replacing the Independent leadership with rigid Presbyterians. They were intent on disbanding the New Model and were thought to be planning to move its artillery away to the Tower of London. Worst, it was suspected that Presbyterians were entering into secret negotiations with the King.

In response, the New Model Army organised. The way it happened was extraordinary. No army had ever before discussed its aspirations and rights in the way that was about to happen.

Determination to achieve a good political solution ran through the ranks. Of their leaders, Fairfax yearned for the status quo, on just terms, but Cromwell was an unknown quantity, perhaps not yet certain himself what he sought. Others quickly decided. Radical soldiers and officers allied with radical civilians. Interesting links were forged, and not particularly in secret.

From the Tower of London John Lilburne created a roaring series of pamphlets under the title
Jonah’s Cry out of the Whale’s Belly.
He urged Oliver Cromwell to march to the city in peace, to deal with the King, to beware of untrustworthy members of the Commons and the army, but, most of all, to listen to petitions from the common soldiers. Lilburne wrote to Cromwell because he knew him well. He claimed insight into Cromwell’s state of mind from
‘a knowing man out of the army that came to me on purpose yesterday’.
This knowing man was reckoned to be Edward Sexby.

How often and how closely Sexby worked with Cromwell in that turbulent year neither would ever reveal. How intimately Sexby colluded with Lilburne was equally vague. How had he managed to travel to visit Lilburne in the Tower of London? Did he ride there on his cavalry horse, openly in uniform? Was Fairfax aware he absented himself from the regiment? How far did Sexby act alone in initiating the army movement which so quickly formed to agitate’ for the soldiers’ concerns? Following the officers’ petition, he certainly took a major role in organising the rank and file. In April he masterminded
The Apology of the Common Soldiers of Sir Thomas Fairfax’s Army.
This list of demands took the form of a letter to the commanders, Fairfax, Cromwell and Skippon, though it was always intended to be presented to Parliament. Initially it was put together by two representatives each from eight cavalry regiments. Cavalry were sufficiently mobile to communicate with each other, even though in theory it was mutiny. When Sexby and two colleagues, Allen and Shepherd, took the
Apology
to Westminster and were summoned for examination, they carefully insisted that the document was the work of all, not any individual, and that it had been produced by regiments acting independently.

Unnerved by the three troopers’ steady resolve, Parliament promised to bring forward the measures sought, with payment of arrears. Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton and Fleetwood were made commissioners to restore calm. Meetings at Saffron Walden resulted in the appointment of agitators, or agents, for every regiment, no longer just the cavalry: two officers each and two from the ranks. They would meet in an army council to discuss anxieties. Cromwell would present Parliament with a new petition to give reassurances that the soldiers would remain loyal, provided they were fairly treated.

Parliament none the less proceeded with its intention to disband the troops. Promises to provide arrears of pay and redress of grievances would come into effect only
after
the disbandment. The regimental Agitators circulated letters, warning the soldiers to resist this.

Against this troubled background, Gideon Jukes once again met Edward Sexby.

Colonel Thomas Rainborough’s regiment, Gideon had found, was articulate, fearless, and much more lively than he had expected from his brother’s relaxed description of them as good lads’. These hefty musketeers and pikemen, many drawn from parishes in Rainborough’s home area of Deptford and Wapping, accepted Gideon as one of their kind. They felt obliged to deride his eccentrically short uniform, but being tall was approved, since Rainborough himself was a notably big man. The soldiers welcomed Gideon into their conclaves. As Lambert’s brother he was immediately trusted. Gideon found he had joined his new regiment at a significant moment: they were planning to mutiny. Rainborough had been absent for some months at Westminster. Critics would claim afterwards that he kept away from his regiment deliberately, to distance himself as radicalism fomented. Gideon had learned more about him. Rainborough had a seafaring background; his father once rescued three hundred English prisoners of Algerian pirates, an event remembered in a Moor’s head on the family badge. The Royalist press scornfully called him ‘the Skipper’s Boy’, furthering an admiring myth that he rose to admiral from cabin boy. With this history Rainborough had now won Parliamentary approval to make a seaborne expedition to Jersey where the Prince of Wales had been living. So in May 1647, the regiment was moved to Hampshire, prior to embarkation for Jersey as soon as the order was given. They never went.

In only a few months, political organisation in the New Model had become busy, with the soldiers’ enthusiastic support. For a meeting at Bury St Edmunds infantrymen contributed fourpence a head, which was half a day’s pay; they wore red ribbon armbands on their left arms to signify solidarity to death. Not only was the main army involved, but messengers travelled to the navy and to detached forces in Wales and the North.

Incessant trips to plan were made between units, over long distances. Ciphers protected identities. It was a curious situation because, since the appointment of Agitators had been officially approved, their activity was sanctioned by the high command; more than fifteen hundred pounds was allocated from the army’s contingency fund, authorised by Fairfax, for the Agitators’ expenses. When Rainborough’s regiment was quartered between Petersfield and Portsmouth, men on extremely high-quality horses came to inveigle the sea-greens into what the Agitators wanted.

Gideon and Lambert heard the Agitators’ request and marvelled. Rainborough’s men were being asked to defy their orders. No longer trusting either Parliament or any of their own Presbyterian officers, radical soldiers had identified two immediate aims: first, not to lose control of the King he was still confined at Holdenby House, although there were strong suspicions that the Presbyterians in Parliament intended to transfer him to Scotland; second, not to relinquish the New Model’s artillery, which was currently at Oxford. If Parliament moved the artillery to the Tower of London, the Trained Bands, under new Presbyterian leadership, might turn the guns against Fairfax’s men. The Agitators were hoping Rainborough’s troops would help prevent that.

Gideon was chosen to take the regiment’s reply. He went with a colleague; message-carriers rode in pairs, in case of accident. Because he had been a dragoon, the others assumed he was an assured rider and the Agitators produced a mount for him. Unlike the late Sir Rowland, this was a superb horse. His speed and stamina would be needed, for they had to reach the army’s current headquarters in Chelmsford, an awkward trip of over a hundred miles. The Agitators’ message had come from a man known as Cipher 102, whom they believed to be Lieutenant Chillenden of Colonel Whalley’s regiment. But when they came to Chelmsford, the two saddle-sore messengers were taken to Edward Sexby.

Sexby was having the time of his life. Gideon, who recognised him at once, saw that the man had found his life’s mission. When they were brought into his presence, Sexby was intently crouched over a letter he was writing. He was totally engrossed. Though the text was short and his pen-strokes controlled, the vigour with which he shook sand to dry the ink on the completed paper said everything. Gideon spotted that he had a cipher key by him, which he covered quickly.

Now thirty years old, all Sexby’s waking moments were devoted to conspiracy. It seemed to Gideon that Sexby was so entirely taken up by this work that he almost loved the game more than the ideas. Gideon shook off his own curmudgeonly reaction to his colleague’s intensity.

To establish his credentials, Gideon mentioned how Sexby had been at his wedding. Sexby took a moment to remember. Then he was all charm. ‘Of course!’ He did not ask after the fate of the marriage, the health of Gideon’s bride, or whether they had been favoured with children.

Gideon never had any wish to discuss Lacy, yet he bridled a little. Years later, with hindsight, he thought Sexby was too self-centred. Perhaps at the time he was jealous of Sexby’s success; if so, he rebuked himself. None the less, he reckoned that Parthenope, Sexby’s hostess at the wedding breakfast, would disapprove. It was an odd moment for Gideon to be thinking of his mother but he knew she would have said a polite guest should at least have remembered the quantities of ale and the fine cuts of meat.