Rebels and traitors

Chapter Four — London: 1641-42

Gideon felt he was living at the turn of an extraordinary period. All generations complain about the government, but he felt a distinct tingle that this would be different.

Nobody really intended to start a civil war. Most past wars had been fought against foreign aggressors. Others were to decide who should be king, not whether a ruler was a bad king — though if he was a bad king that helped to validate any usurper. In a highly unusual gesture, Scottish King James had acknowledged that he was invited to succeed Queen Elizabeth by his new English subjects. His son Charles never entertained any such concept; Charles believed God had given him authority, which none could question. Puritans and other Independents, who talked to God directly, heard a different message. Why would the Lord have chosen a rickety, ill-educated, devious autocrat, married to a manipulative foreign Catholic, a man who was at once desperate to be loved and yet had an impressive flair for causing offence? While earnest subjects tried to find a compromise, a compromise the King never thought necessary, the nation slipped by a series of shunts and bumps into armed conflict. Since there were neither foreign aggressors nor pretenders to the throne, people called it a war without an enemy.

It was never foreseen that the struggle would turn into a revolution. Everyone was clear that it was treason for subjects to take up arms against the king. On both sides there was horror of the coming bloodshed. On both sides there were many who hoped to preserve the peace.

There was, initially, a 'junto' of aristocrats setting up to challenge the King's authority after he took back their traditional powers and privileges to grant to his own favourites. The earls of Northumberland, Warwick, Bedford, Hertford, Pembroke, Leicester and Essex were men of land and lineage whose ancestors had held great power; they were also backed among others, by lords Saye and Sele, Mandeville and Brooke. These plotted secretly, how to wrest back influence the King had taken from them. They all owned homes in the country where they were out of reach of the court, and also houses in London between which they could flit like sociable moths, right under the King's nose. Their family trees were so interconnected they could scarcely be untangled to draw them on paper, as intricately linked by blood and marriage as lace, with a web of younger brothers, stepsons, sons-in-law, even bastards. They were patrons to others, further down the social chain yet educated and energetic — lawyers, secretaries and men of business — who would eventually be significant in the House of Commons. The junto members were Presbyterians and puritans; they loathed the bishops' influence in secular affairs. They cultivated their own links with foreign states. Some had considered escaping to the New World to form a godly commonwealth more to their liking. But instead they were colluding with friends, and although it was treason to invite a foreign army into England, they formed an alliance with Scotland which would have very long-term consequences.

The King became embroiled in dispute with the Scots. They were to feature frequently and often cynically in events. Back in 1637 in Edinburgh, a kerbside cabbage-seller called Jenny Geddes had flung her stool at the head of the Dean of St Giles Cathedral, bawling in protest when he used the hated new Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Two years later, encouraged by the English earls' junto, the Scots rebelled in arms against the King's imposition of High Anglican bishops. They were pacified. In 1640 they rebelled again.

Desperate for money to finance an army, the King summoned a Parliament for the first time in eleven years. Gideon barely remembered the last time this happened, though he paid attention now. He could not vote. He did not own freehold property.

New members were returned after a hotly contested election. They insisted they would only grant the King funds after discussing abuses of royal prerogative. The King testily dismissed this 'Short Parliament' after only three weeks.

The Scots invaded England. The King raised some troops, a rabble who were soundly thrashed. Advancing south, the Scots demanded,?850 a day merely to keep a truce. In November the bankrupt King caved in and summoned the 'Long Parliament'. It passed an act that it could sit in perpetuity and it was to last for almost twenty years.

This time members were determined to take control. The King's closest and most hated advisers, the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud, were impeached: accused of treason and thrown into the Tower of London. Other royal supporters fled. Radical members of the House of Lords were imposed as Privy Councillors. Of course there was no way to force the King to follow their advice.

To Gideon, this was a heady period, when it seemed reform could not be stopped. Strafford was tried and executed. Ship Money was declared illegal. The hated Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber were abolished. The seditious pamphleteers, Burton, Bastwick and Prynne (author of Histriomastix, the book which had libelled the Queen for performing in masques), were pardoned.

In August the King travelled to Scotland to negotiate peace. In November he set out for home. During his absence, members of the House of Commons had taken a detailed audit of their complaints. An emergent reformer called John Pym compiled a Grand Remonstrance, a daunting state-of-the-kingdom review. The Remonstrance would be read out to the King in full by messengers from Parliament; they would need vocal stamina. A bitter compendium of over two hundred clauses listed every possible grievance in church and civil life. Singled out were unjust taxes, with an enormous list of land encroachments, distraints of trade, monopolies and fines. The most impassioned outcry condemned the evils of the Star Chamber, which had organised censorship.

Even while it was in draft, secret copies of the Grand Remonstrance circulated in Coleman Street. In next-door Basinghall Street, Robert Allibone quoted with relish: '"Subjects have been oppressed by grievous fines, imprisonments, stigmatisings, mutilations, whippings, pillories, gags, confinements, banishments!"

Gideon snatched the copy. '"After so rigid a manner as hath not only deprived men of the society of their friends, exercise of their professions, comfort of books" — ho! ho! — "' '"use of paper or ink, but even violated that near union which God hath established between men and their wives, whereby they have been bereaved of the comfort and conversation one of another for many years together, without hope of relief…" — Comfort of books — this is excellent for our trade, Robert!'

'We shall see…' Allibone was rightly cautious. Printers would soon be summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to account for seditious material, and in coming weeks an order would be given to collect certain books from stationers and burn them. 'The conclusion is good.' Allibone retrieved the paper. '"That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good counsel and good men"

Gideon pulled a face. 'Why not simply say they hate the cut of his beard?'

Revolts come and go but young men remain the same. At twenty, Gideon Jukes was obsessed with beard and whisker design. With fair hair and equally fair skin-tones, the current fashions made him look from almost any distance as if he had a long upper lip and a pointed chin. He had let his hair grow down to his shoulders, an unsuccessful experiment to show he was no longer an apprentice, but was tormented by whether or not to remain clean-shaven.

Robert had been beardless as long as Gideon had known him, his chestnut hair clean, trimmed and parted centrally. For all the usual reasons, Gideon wanted more dash. He had been brought up to aim for a plain appearance — but, having given much thought to this, he knew women would not be tempted to adventure by a demurely respectable look.

'I saw King Charles once.' Gideon chose not to mention that he had been acting in a masque at the time. (One thing was sure; he could not have a courtier's beard.) 'His Majesty smiles to right and left — but does not see or listen.'

'He must hear this.'

'And if not?'

'I fear he will rue it.'

'And I fear we shall all be hanged,' replied Gideon, the pragmatist. It did not hold him back from supporting the Remonstrance.

When the King arrived home from Scotland, surprisingly, he was received with fervent rejoicing. He entered London in procession and enjoyed a four-course feast in Guildhall. This did not go down well with Robert and Gideon nearby in Basinghall Street. Church bells pealed and the fountains ran with wine. There was divisiveness, however. The King dined in his majesty with the House of Lords; the Lord Mayor and alderman, though his hosts for the event, were allowed only to form an audience in the upper gallery. The House of Commons was snubbed entirely; none was invited.

The Scottish Presbyterians had been pacified, but the Irish Catholics rebelled, fired by resentment towards the many English settlers. Horrific stories of massacre and mutilation circulated.

'Is this true, or invented to arouse passions?' Gideon demanded as he read the details, all eagerly believed by the public, who were appalled and terrified.

'Oh, we must publish and let the people judge,' his partner answered.

Gideon was silent for a moment. He remained an idealist. 'People will believe these stories because they are printed.'

A few printers provided reasoned comments but most were selling sensational stories. The King viewed Ireland as a conquered province full of savages. Now came sickening accounts of the revenge taken by these downtrodden people: the Lord Justice forced to hide in a hen-house, a bishop's family found shivering in rags in a snowdrift, an immigrant Englishwoman hanged by her hair from her door, a bulky Scotsman murdered and rendered into candles, allegedly hundreds of thousands killed, pregnant wives and young daughters raped, babies spitted on pikes, children hanged. Official reprisals followed. Horrors carried out by the King's forces were then reported, horrors on a scale that even shocked veterans of the brutal war on the Continent. The soldiers' terrible deeds were cited as illustrations of the King's personal cruelty.

Amidst terror that Irish rebels would cross to England, bringing such atrocities with them, men of conscience carefully read the news-sheets. Many were turned into supporters of Parliament by their revulsion for the royal power that had caused, encouraged, tolerated and apparently remained unmoved by the inhuman events.

The Grand Remonstrance was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of only eleven, after a tense all-night sitting. Gideon had begun to take serious notice of what Parliament did. Where Robert had the hard attitude of a man who had been knocked about by life, Gideon was open, fresh and eager to receive new ideas.

People began to issue petitions of their own, many sent from remote parts of the country. All the London apprentices, thirty thousand of them, signed one. They then flocked around Parliament, armed with staves, oars and broomsticks, but were cleared away by the Westminster Trained Bands, for 'threatening behaviour'. They moved on and mobbed Whitehall Palace. This was when Queen Henrietta Maria was said to have looked out and christened the lads with their short haircuts 'Roundheads'. The apprentices took it up eagerly. Meanwhile staider demonstrators flowed down the Strand to Westminster, members of the lower and middle classes from one shire after another, beseeching Parliament to urge the King to abandon his evil counsellors, as if people believed all the country's ills were the fault of bad men who had bamboozled him.

The abolition of the Star Chamber and official censorship directly affected printers. Robert and Gideon were furiously busy. News-sheets erupted onto London streets, giving reports of Parliamentary debates. They were cheap, and the public devoured them. It was the first time in England that detailed political material was available without crown control. The first tentative pamphlets were followed by a rash of competing Mercuries, Messengers and Diurnals. Many were printed in and around Coleman Street. Robert and Gideon produced their share.

In December, Gideon's brother Lambert made a journey across the river and out to Blackheath. A cavalcade of coaches turned out along the Dover Road, with thousands of well-wishers on foot. Lambert jumped on the back of a carriage and was carried up the short steep hill near Greenwich, arriving just in time on the bare, windy heath that had previously seen Cornish rebels and Jack Cade, and which now witnessed the triumphant return of the convicted pamphleteer Dr John Bastwick from his intended life-imprisonment on the Isles of Scilly. Roaring crowds adorned him with wreaths of rosemary and bay, for remembrance and victory — garlands which hid his missing ears, sliced off as a punishment for sedition on the orders of Archbishop Laud's Star Chamber. Lambert hitched a lift home with an apothecary, who was looking forward to boosting his fortunes with salves for soldiers if there was a war.

A week later, the Grand Remonstrance was formally presented to the King at Hampton Court. He loftily said he would reply 'in due course'.

'I cannot imagine His Majesty will miss dinner because he has his nose buried in our two hundred clauses!' Gideon's brief experience as a masquer made him feel an expert on court etiquette.

After a fortnight of royal silence, the Grand Remonstrance was printed for the public anyway.

Six days later, significant change came to the Common Council of the City of London. Elections were held and the council was packed with radicals, displacing the traditional conservatives who grovelled to the monarchy. John Jukes was one of the new members. He reported that support for the King was fast declining in the City, although the present Lord Mayor remained loyal to Charles. 'A bombast in greasy ermine, a corporation sultan!' scoffed Robert.

Gideon described how the ermine was passed down through merchant families in an obstinately closed City community that was just as elite as the royal court. 'Dick Whittington and his cat would never find advancement now. Robert, the fat sirs in Guildhall cling together like Thames mud. They win their gold chains because they are on a tight little rota of rich and influential cronies. They hold onto power because they support the King whatever he does.'

Gideon had felt some surprise when his father identified himself as a radical. Parents are supposed to be hidebound, not hotheads. It made him pause. Men of wealth and reputation were necessary for reform, yet he felt some consternation at the involvement of his now elderly father.

'I thought your father was a company man.'

'And his forefathers before him. This is the first time ever that a Jukes was elected to the Common Council.'

The next tussle in London was for control of the Tower of London. The King appointed Sir Thomas Lunsford as Lieutenant, but there was a public outcry and outrage in Parliament; he was replaced only five days later.

"What is this Lunsford's history?'

'Unfit for office.' Robert had the background. 'The man murdered his own cousin. He fled abroad and became a professional soldier — which shows his low quality — was pardoned by the King — which shows his — then served in the Bishops' War where he is famous for shooting out of hand two young conscripts he accused of mutiny. He also put out a captain's eye.'

'My father says, if this godless outlaw is in charge of the Tower, where the bullion of the realm is kept and coined, there will be too much anxiety; it will put a stop to trade.'

'Stop trade!' cackled Robert satirically. 'Surely merchants are more robust? But to pardon and promote such an outlaw shows what kind of king we have.' Gideon could see that.

On Sunday, the day after Christmas, the Lord Mayor warned the King that the apprentices were on the verge of rioting. London apprentices always loved a rumpus. Their football games led to casualties and damage; they insulted visitors and foreigners; they roamed in gangs on May Day and at St Bartholomew's Fair. Now they came out of the workplace, using their holiday to mobilise. On the Monday, as members reassembled after Christmas, they flocked around the Commons, protesting against the inclusion of bishops in Parliament. On Tuesday, with extra support from crowds of shopkeepers and merchants, they forced the doors of Westminster Abbey, intent on destroying popish relics. On Wednesday evening, the King entertained at a hearty dinner Thomas Lunsford, the man disappointed of the Tower of London command. A collection of apprentices gathered and jeered, causing a fight with departing guests and palace servants; casualties resulted. Over in the City, two thousand apprentices then massed in Cheapside, armed with clubs, swords and home-made spears. Many were hard young nuts who lived for a fight. On Friday, the nervous King sent to the Tower for powder and ammunition, enough for five hundred soldiers. When this equipment reached Whitehall Palace, the House of Commons became equally nervous of what the King might do with the firepower, now concentrated a few hundred yards away. Members decamped to the Guildhall and Grocers' Hall.

Both Jukes brothers were now busy. While his brother printed news-sheets, Lambert was helping to make the streets safe against any armed men the King might send. Guards had been posted on the city gates. Bollards slung with chains to thwart cavalry were set up in critical locations; key streets were even bricked up. As the atmosphere became ever more tense, householders were told to arm themselves and stand by their doors, ready to defend their families and the community. Sturdy and willing, Lambert went from house to house giving instructions for resistance if the King sent troops.

The King offered a safe conduct if the Commons would return to Westminster; some members uneasily crept back. That night, rumours grew that Parliament intended to impeach the Queen, in response to the constant reports that she was involving herself in plots. The King became alarmed. Charles then took an unprecedented step: he went to the House of Commons in person, intending to arrest five particular troublemakers himself. He took four hundred soldiers, armed with halberds, swords and pistols. They shoved aside the doorkeepers, jostled members and their servants, and filled the corridors, making ominous threats about their marksmanship as they pointed their weapons into the chamber through its open doors. Bursting in uninvited, the King haughtily demanded the Five Members. The Speaker refused to reply. Forewarned, the five men had disappeared through a back door. The furious King stared around and accepted that 'the birds have flown'. He retreated ignominiously, pursued by angry cries of 'Privilege!' His armed guard waited around for orders to fall upon the members and cut all their throats, but then dispersed in disappointment.

The House of Commons declared the King's act to be a high breach of the rights and privilege of Parliament. Once again they adjourned to the Guildhall.

The Five Members, John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holies, Arthur Hazlerigg and William Strode, had also fled to the City. Gideon and his partner had a new apprentice, Amyas, who came running in excitedly. 'The Five Members are in Coleman Street!'

'At the Star Tavern?' Gideon guessed.

'That will be a secret then!' Robert reproved. Amyas, say nothing to anyone.'

'There could be spies,' the boy acknowledged, fired up by this exciting idea.

'Only if they are very stupid,' murmured Robert. An informant for the Duke of Buckingham was once chased out of Coleman Street and stoned to death.'

Theirs was one of the rumbling presses that worked through the night to give out news. Rumours flared of plots against members of Parliament, armed forces from the north gathering to attack London, dangerous new weapons that would stick in the body and could not be pulled out, sinister lists of citizens who would soon be rounded up …

Next morning tension remained high. City businesses stayed closed for safety. The King ventured in procession from Whitehall to Guildhall, where the Commons were sitting in committee. It was only two minutes from their shop. Gideon joined the mutinous crowd outside. Again King Charles demanded the Five Members; after a turbulent meeting, again he was refused. He had to leave Guildhall empty-handed and depart from the City, accompanied as was traditional by the Lord Mayor and aldermen. Now the crowds who had welcomed him home from Edinburgh were more sullen. When the ornate royal coach reached Temple Bar, obstreperous citizens banged on the King's coach, rocked it, peered rudely through the windows and even thrust copies of radical pamphlets inside.

Gideon had run though the streets, chasing after the King's coach. He followed it all the way beyond St Paul's, out of the city gates and as far as Temple Bar. Borne along by curiosity, he was among the angry crowd who surged forward and tried to rock the coach; he even stepped on the footboard, and pulled himself up. He looked in at the window. At the masque in the Banqueting House all those years before, Gideon had barely glimpsed the King and Queen. Now, for just a second, Gideon Jukes stared King Charles in his long face. They were barely two feet apart. Ignoring the apparition at the window, the King looked calm and aloof; it was the bravery of ignorance. He was convinced of a safe return to his palace, despite this noise and inconvenience. The wild appearance of his indignant young subject made no impression at all. Gideon was the more disturbed by the moment.

The carriage lurched. Gideon fell into the road, swinging by one hand for an instant, then landing on his back in the dust — from that moment a convinced republican.

The Lord Mayor and some aldermen were pulled from their horses. 'Not me,' Gideon assured Robert and Amyas on his return to the print shop. 'I would never dirty my hands on an alderman.'

Amyas chortled, though his gap-toothed grin did not linger. He was toiling at the press while Gideon and Robert stood by in their shirtsleeves, following the rule of all trades that juniors work while management loftily discuss the issues of the day.

The crisis grew more frightening. At dusk the next evening, shots were heard. Someone had accidentally discharged a carbine, and drunken courtiers were fighting a duel at an inn by the new Covent Garden piazza; it caused panic. In street after street, householders were roused by unseen fists banging their doors and urgent voices crying to be up in arms. Gideon went home to reassure his mother and was nearly shot by his father, who sat in a tall chair on guard, with a loaded musket. Families spent a sleepless night in fear.

Nothing happened.

In the next lull, petitioners from all over the country again flocked into London. Knights of the shire were joined by sailors, porters, fishwives and weavers.

A mass of poor women surrounded Parliament, to express the hardship they suffered due to 'the present distractions and distempers of state.' They waylaid the Duke of Richmond in Palace Yard, threatening to dump their starving children at the House of Lords. They broke his ducal staff; he had to send peevishly for a replacement. A small group was allowed to present its grievances; when this produced no results, many swarmed around the House of Commons, exclaiming that where there was one woman today there would be five hundred tomorrow. Sergeant-Major Skippon of the City Militia was complimented by Parliament on the diplomatic way he then dispersed them.

'A fine shock to men, who believe we should stay at home, breed and knit stockings!' commented Parthenope Jukes. 'These women's poverty is brought about by the condition of the kingdom. But it seems unnatural — I would be afraid of being hurt in the crush.' Her younger, braver daughter-in-law, Anne, looked thoughtful.

Parliament doubled the night watch on the city and peevishly complained about the tumults.

Relations between the King and Parliament continued to deteriorate. The royal family became so anxious that they moved abruptly from Whitehall to Hampton Court. No preparations had been made to receive them; they had to sleep all together in one bed. This sudden flight from London was more significant than anyone immediately realised.

With the King gone, the Five Members left the Star Tavern, loudly applauded by locals. Jostled in the crowd, Robert and young Amyas could see very little, but Gideon was tall enough to glimpse their famous representatives, or at least the five black crowns of their five hats. The partners roared approval, then turned quietly back to their business. The members returned triumphantly to Westminster by water, with applause echoing along the embankment as their boats passed the now-deserted Whitehall Palace.

Disturbances continued. At the beginning of February a new deputation of tradesmen's wives, distressed women and widows, led by a brewer's wife, presented a petition. Invitations to join in had gone around the City. This time, Anne Jukes upped and took herself to Westminster with them. Anne consulted nobody, but marched alone along Cheapside, joined the delegation and signed the petition; on her return that evening, she was flushed with achievement. 'There were very great numbers, mostly gentlewomen whose trade had been depressed, as our own has — all from London and the suburbs around. The Commons sent out Mr Pym and two other members, their chief men. They declared that the House had read the petition and was very apprehensive of the calamities we suffer, and will use all the best care they can for the preventing and remedying of them. Then they desired that we would continue our prayers for their endeavours.'

'And did they order out the militia against you?' enquired Lambert dryly.

'No,' scoffed Anne. 'They must have been mindful that we were genteel wives of men of substance — men from whom they are asking loans to protect the kingdom!'

From the moment the King fled London, his strategic aim was to struggle back. It was always apparent that to do so he would have to deal with the London Trained Bands.

On the 8th of January 1642, as relationships with the King finally broke down, Parliament had granted the freedom of the city to Sir Philip Skippon, an imperturbable veteran of the Dutch Wars. Two days later he was made commander of all the London Trained Bands. At that moment they comprised six thousand men, comparatively well trained and armed — and they supported Parliament.

Skippon blockaded the Tower, attempting to oust its governor, Sir John Byron, loyal to the King. Though Skippon failed, he was establishing his troops as the guardians of London. On the 10th of May, he paraded the Trained Bands, now fleshed out with eager new recruits and numbering ten thousand. Skippon reviewed them for members of Parliament and other worthies, in the shadow of the great windmills at Finsbury Fields. It was like a summer festival, with a large tented pavilion where the visitors were grandly entertained. As the brave ranks displayed themselves, the colonel of the Red Regiment, Alderman Atkins, had the misfortune to topple from his horse — being, according to a Royalist news-sheet, afflicted with a bowel problem.

Among new recruits in the Green Regiment, grinning, was Gideon Jukes.

Since his brother was a pikeman, Gideon had chosen to be a musketeer. Since Lambert was in the Blue Regiment, Gideon made sure he joined the Greens. Robert Allibone had paid for his musket, four feet long and twelve-bore. Gideon's father had joyfully set him up with other equipment: a forked barrel-rest, bandolier, sword, swordbelt and hangers. A leather coat and metal helmet completed the uniform. The first time he tried on his helmet, painted black against the rust, its heavy enclosing weight reminded him of the costume head he had worn years before as Third Dotterel. Like most of his comrades, he soon abandoned the helmet and was content with a much lighter Monmouth cap, made of soft felt. So far, none of them had witnessed the hideous results of being shot in the head.

Gideon saw little action at first. The Trained Bands reckoned only to defend London; they played no part in the inconclusive manoeuvres that went on elsewhere in 1642. For several months, Gideon received training only. A national Parliamentary army was commissioned in July, but the Trained Bands stayed separate. As a Londoner, Gideon believed this was correct. Possession of the capital, the seat of government since Roman times, with its strategic importance and its commercial connections, was a vital strength for Parliament. To hold London, while the King could only wander about the country ineffectually, gave Parliament a vital edge. The Trained Bands had to be here on guard.

In August, the King, who was visiting the north of England trying to generate support, formally raised his standard at Nottingham. It was a procedural move, a rallying point for recruits. It was also decisive: he had declared war upon his people.

At that point Parliament issued an order for London's protection. Ten thousand citizens were mobilised. The city closed down. Assembling by trade or guild, shouldering whatever tools they possessed, the people marched out to the surrounding fields and, week after week until autumn and winter brought freezing conditions, they toiled to construct roadblocks and earthworks. Women worked alongside men; Anne Jukes was there regularly, wielding a mattock and ferrying baskets of earth.

By the end of the year, all the city gates were locked with their portcullises down, streets were barred with mighty iron chains, every household had weapons at the ready and the Trained Bands were on day and night call-out. Supporters made loans and gifts to Parliament. There was regular recruitment; there were censuses of horses. Royalist sympathisers were targeted. Parliament issued decrees to summon known 'malignants', and to confiscate their horseflesh, weapons, money and plate. Those who were absent with the King had their homes broken open and possessions ransacked.

Everyone waited anxiously. They heard of skirmishes and sieges. In July the Earl of Essex had left London to take up overall command of the main Parliamentary army. The son of Queen Elizabeth's disgraced favourite, this heavy-jowled veteran had more military experience than any in the aristocracy and was a leading figure in the House of Lords. Famously touchy, he had survived his father's execution, his own divorce on grounds of impotence and then the flagrant adultery of his second wife. His fighting career had been undistinguished, though he had always been popular with his soldiers for his humane treatment of them, and they called him, affectionately, 'Old Robin'. Escorted by the Trained Bands, Essex mounted up at Temple Bar, and rode into the City, past St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Exchange, then out through Moorgate on his way north through St Albans to Worcester.

The King eventually turned south, through the Midlands where he had a mixed reception. Up until that point there had been only manoeuvres. Then in October the King's army ran into Essex's forces near Kineton, at the foot of a ridge called Edgehill, and the first true battle of the civil war commenced.

The engagement was confused. Both sides claimed victory, though neither could capitalise on it. The two armies were traumatised by the confrontation, with their shocked commanders left temporarily at a loss. Essex withdrew to Warwick, the King to Oxford.

Exaggerating rumours in London claimed that Essex had won a great victory. Then it was said the King was racing south, with Essex in headlong pursuit. Their manoeuvres were more leisurely. But on the 6th of November, Essex and the Parliamentary army re-entered London, having marched straight down the old Roman highway of Watling Street. They were given a heroes' welcome and quartered out at Hammersmith, in preparation for an expected Royalist attack.

Meanwhile on leaving Oxford, the King ambled through Reading, besieging opponents' private houses more from spite than strategy.

Commissioners from Parliament rode out to try to negotiate peace. Despite their efforts, on the 12th of November the King's charismatic nephew Prince Rupert, a commander in the dashing Continental style, fell upon two Parliamentary regiments of foot that he encountered close to London at Brentford under cover of thick mist. Tales quickly arose of Prince Rupert's brutality. He was said to have massacred the garrison at Brentford; his men had tied prisoners head-to-toe and flung them into pigsties to endure the freezing night; the Royalists drove twenty Parliamentary supporters into the River Thames, forcing them into ever deeper water until they drowned. Whether true or not, such horrors reinforced opposition in London.

The Earl of Essex heard the guns from the House of Lords, where peers had been debating whether to order a cessation of hostilities. Essex galloped across Hyde Park to his army at Hammersmith. In the City a local deputation went to the Common Council, begging that the Trained Bands should now also be deployed.

Gideon Jukes was about to see his first military action.