Rebels and traitors

Chapter Fifty-Seven — Whitehall: 30 January 1649

They went in through a back door and found the place packed. They nodded to the guards. So many soldiers were milling about, nobody paid any attention. There was no difficulty slipping through. The undercroft was seething. As usual in crowds, most noticed only their immediate neighbours. Surreptitiously, Gideon managed to locate a private room, where Fox and he stowed their charge. To keep Brandon occupied, they sent a soldier to find him breakfast. 'And some for us,' pleaded Fox, clearly not expecting it would happen.

Upon arrival, Brandon insisted he must be given a written order for today's work. It was the rule, and of course was for his protection. They had chosen him because he was professional.

Colonel Axtell bustled off to see Cromwell about it, leaving Gideon and Colonel Fox to ensure the hangman stayed put. A true printer, Gideon wondered whether the Brandon family owned a cache of tattered warrants for all the traitors and political misfits they had beheaded. Robert would have wondered whether a memoir could be made of it, but by tradition the public hangman led a life of secrecy. He was a non-person; his experiences were not for public consumption, however great the public's lust for lurid snippets from the block. Robert would claim public interest — always his excuse for printing's more soiled commerce — but Gideon remained sceptical about sensational tracts.

Colonel Hewson brought in two of his men. Gideon had seen John Hewson at the Putney Debates, where he opposed the Levellers. He also knew that in the second civil war Hewson was in Kent, where his regiment joined in the mopping-up of Dover, Sandwich, Deal and Walmer. Originally a shoemaker, he had worked his way up through the ranks until he became one of the signatories to the King's death warrant; a sermonising zealot, he called himself 'a Child of Wrath'.

Hewson had singled out a sergeant, a man he knew and trusted. This fellow was to stand in for the executioner's normal assistant. Brandon and his companion-to-be were provided with grey periwigs and false beards, the axeman's frizzled grey, the other of a lighter, tawnier shade.

'Now we'll frock you — '

The hangman looked alarmed. But he and the sergeant were merely provided with shapeless coveralls. Gideon helped them arrange these, a necessary disguise when many people owned only one set of garments, by which they might be identified.

Then they waited. Like the King, now penned in his apartments in Whitehall Palace with Bishop Juxon, they had to sit out a three-hour delay. People in the streets outside were saying it was because Brandon had refused to come. In fact, the House of Commons had belatedly decided they must pass an order making it illegal to proclaim the Prince of Wales as King when his father was dead.

During this tedium, Colonel Fox opened up and told Gideon why there had been the moment of awkwardness at Okey's house, when Okey introduced him. While carrying out his duties as the commander of President Bradshaw's guard, Fox had been arrested for debt; it took a special order of the court to obtain his release. He uttered some choice comments, once again complaining that he was owed four thousand pounds in arrears. It seemed a large figure. Apparently a dispute with the treasurer of his garrison had complicated matters though, according to Fox, allegations of corruption were entirely erroneous.. Gideon kept a non-committal face. The executioner and his temporary assistant listened in with great curiosity.

To while away more time, they took Brandon to check the scaffold. It had been erected outside a great window on the landing of the main staircase. He confirmed that arrangements were satisfactory. One Tench, a drum-maker in Houndsditch, had provided ropes, pulleys and hooks with which the King could be fastened down, in case he resisted.

The warrant finally came. It was passed to Brandon discreetly, though a whispered conversation took place outside the room. Gideon knew how to eavesdrop; he overheard that one of the three officers listed in the King's death warrant, the fabulously named Colonel Hercules Hunks, had refused to sign the order accepting his part in today's business. Colonel Axtell had burst out that he was ashamed of Hunks. 'The ship is coming into harbour — will you strike sail before we come to anchor?' Oliver Cromwell, infuriated, called Hunks a peevish fellow and scrawled out the necessary warrant himself. Gideon managed to peek at it and saw Cromwell had had it signed by Colonel Hacker, another of the officers in charge.

All that day, he never saw Cromwell. Afterwards he heard that Cromwell and Fairfax had been closeted together deep in prayer throughout: Fairfax, riven by doubts; Cromwell, bursting with certainty.

At two in the afternoon, a subtle change in atmosphere signalled developments.

The executioner and his assistant were led to a place on the landing, just inside the window. There Brandon would kneel and ask the King's forgiveness for what he had to do.

Numbers on the scaffold were strictly limited; there would be no place for Gideon. He paused, uncertain of his role now. After quickly shaking Brandon's hand — which seemed to startle everyone — he promised to see that the executioner got away safely and privately after the event.

The undercroft had emptied. Soldiers and members of the public were crowding on the stairs and pressing towards the hall, anxious for a glimpse of the King. As Gideon came down the stone steps, he felt colder air wafting upwards from some open door below. He remembered waiting here, in his feathered dotterel costume, just before The Triumph of Peace.

Someone was opening the double doors to the great room, just as they had when the masque started. Gideon went forwards and gazed in at the huge empty chamber. Its long windows were now boarded up, its once-thronged balconies deserted, its tall throne of state stripped of rich curtains and swags and barely visible across the gloom. Through this darkened room, he was told, Colonel Hacker and Colonel Tomlinson were about to bring the King.

When he saw them coming, Gideon slipped away. Down in the street outside, he forced a passage through the crowds and found a place by the Horse Guards opposite. He avoided soldiers he knew.

There were many familiar faces, men amongst whom he had fought, marched, ridden, struggled through torrential rain, wind, mud and floods, tangled in hedges, slept in frozen fields, endured clamour and flame and choking smoke, survived shit-making terror, buried the mangled dead. He reflected on these comrades, and the other, more senior names he knew — Hacker, Axtell, Tomlinson, Okey, and now Fox. The lawyers had done their work; it was the soldiers' turn to bring the business to completion. Cromwell was right. This was why they had done everything. There could be no turning back.

Gideon watched, unconsciously tugging down his bum-starver coat to keep his belly warm. After rising so early with no breakfast, he felt like a man in a dream. He had the benefit of height; even from the opposite side of Whitehall, he could look over heads and see.

Not long after he positioned himself, the King emerged. He was just visible, walking around the scaffold then talking to the Bishop of London and to the executioner. For ten or fifteen minutes, he attempted to speak to the crowd, but although nobody stopped him, the noise from thousands of onlookers was too great for anything to be heard. Allegedly a man took notes. As published afterwards, the King's speech was rambling. The phrases 'A subject and a sovereign are clean different things' and 'I am the Martyr of the People' would be plucked out of incoherent paragraphs and made famous. Gripped by tension, Gideon endured the pause while the King removed his cloak, his George medal, his outer coat. Charles passed the medal to the bishop for the Prince of Wales, saying 'Remember.' There was some business with a cap; long hair had to be pushed up under it. Another moment of gazing at the block.

The King knelt. Black swags now hid him completely from view. The wait seemed endless. Suddenly light flashed off the axe. It swung up and descended smoothly. Silence in the street. The assistant had stooped. Grasping the head by its long hair, Hewson's sergeant held it high for the crowd and cried out traditionally, 'Here is the head of a traitor!' Inexperience made him drop the severed head, which crashed on the boards. Through the crowd rippled that celebrated long groan of reaction. The body and head were carried off indoors. The tall window was closed.

Cavalry swept through the streets. The onlookers dispersed quickly. After twenty minutes, Whitehall lay completely empty. By then Gideon Jukes had made his way quietly back into the Banqueting House, to fulfil his promise to Brandon.

The execution took place between two and three o'clock. Not long afterwards, with January darkness fast descending, a small file of Axtell's musketeers left the back of the Banqueting House and stamped down the narrow side streets to the River Thames. It took only a couple of minutes to reach Whitehall Stairs. Dark, icy cold water lapped menacingly against the mooring. The embankment seemed deserted.

'Where are the bargemen?'

They had all vanished. Thames watermen were a surly, tricky group, most of them deeply conservative. Only one boat was there, about to cast off with a woman passenger. She had fought hard to negotiate a trip downstream with a miserable and suspicious rower who did not want to take her or anybody else. He had finally agreed, though would not go below London Bridge because he claimed the Pool of London was frozen solid. A bitter wind across the water here seemed to confirm it.

The young woman was already sitting in the stern, hunched in her cloak, her hands buried in a muff, her face shadowed by a hood which she had pulled well forward to defy the wind-chill. She was cold, lonely and depressed, and as the twilight thickened into darkness, she was anxious that she was too late to make the journey to Greenwich, and on from there to reach her children. Her emotions were at their lowest ebb. The King's execution had forced her to face up to bitter truths about her own position, her sons' futures, her missing husband and her chances of ever knowing peace, prosperity or happiness. She had been weeping.

It was Juliana Lovell.

Her heart fell when she saw the soldiers. One of them directed a man to this solitary boat. The soldier indicated with an angry arm movement that she had to disembark.

With her Royalist connections, Juliana felt extremely nervous. Afraid of awkward questions, she did stumble to her feet. She actually climbed back onto the slimy green stairs. Her shoe slipped and slid a few inches. The soldier could have steadied her, but he stepped back instead. With only half his mind on it, he gesticulated irritably that she must move right out of the way.

There was no other boat to take her. She stayed put.

The soldier had turned away. He was tall, his face hidden by the shadow of his hat. Juliana could tell he had long service in the New Model Army, for the Venice Red dye in his coat had faded to a sickly yellow colour. As she waited for him to take notice of her plight, Juliana was surprised to see the escorted civilian hand the man in uniform a gold half-crown. 'Thanks, Captain.'

A soldier held a flaring torch. Juliana made out the unusual coin clearly, and she thought the boatman did so too.

Terrified of being stranded in London, on a night when safe beds would be difficult to find, Juliana stood her ground more fiercely. 'This is my boat! There are no others and I will not be put out of it.'

The tall captain interfered again. Now, in the torchlight, she could see that his hat was rammed down on short fair hair. His face looked weary. 'Stand aside, madam.'

He is not listening to me!

I take no interest in women, high-minded Captain Gideon Jukes told himself (taking an interest). She was young; she was spirited. She had inadvertently betrayed a glimpse of ankle as she scrambled to disembark.

In the shadow of her cloak hood, her face was washed-out and pale. She was definitely frightened of him. Gideon accepted that for the first time in his career, he was using the power of his uniform to domineer it over someone helpless. It was an emergency, but he was not proud. Naturally, he blamed the woman, as if her difficult behaviour made it necessary to bully her.

She had to get home. Abruptly, Juliana hopped back into the boat. The boatman neither helped nor prevented her. She took her seat again and defied them.

The escorted man was extremely agitated. The soldier reached a decision. He abandoned his tiff with Juliana, as if ignoring her would make her invisible. He grasped the man's arm and shoved him into the boat. 'Waterman, away with him — be gone quickly! To the Tower landing — '

The waterman had panicked but, fearing the soldiers, he made no protest. He launched off. After he had pulled out from the shore, however, he felt safer. Juliana heard him tackle the other passenger in a low, horrified tone, 'Who the devil have I got in my boat?'

'Why?'

Juliana sat extremely still. Fear and fascination gripped her equally. Now she was seriously wishing she had stayed behind on shore. She glanced back; the soldiers had all gone.

The boatman demanded angrily, 'Are you the hangman that cut off the King's head?'

'No, as I am a sinner to God — not I.'

The boatman trembled. It seemed to Juliana that the passenger also shook with anxiety. For a short time there was silence. The waterman rowed a little further, then he stopped again, rested his oars and examined the male passenger even more closely. 'Are you the hangman? I cannot carry you.'

Without saying his name, the man half confessed his identity, although he pleaded innocence: 'I was fetched with a troop of horse, and kept a close prisoner at Whitehall. Truly I did not do it. I was kept a close prisoner all the while, but they had my instruments.' Appalled, Juliana wondered just what was in that bag he clutched so tightly.

'I will sink the boat, if you do not tell me true!'

But Brandon continued to deny taking part. So they went on, all the way to London Bridge, where Richard Brandon was put off at Tower Pier. Carrying his bundle and a chinking purse, he went away fast in the direction of Whitechapel.

The waterman — his name was Abraham Smith, it turned out long afterwards — stood up in his boat and watched the man until he had gone right out of sight. Then, with some drama, Smith looked hard at the fare he had been given. It was another gold half-crown.

Afraid to disembark from the rocking craft without assistance, Juliana had sat tight. At last offering his arm for her to climb to land, Abraham Smith waved away her fare, then made it plain he intended to get very drunk in a tavern so if she was that sort of woman — as he clearly presumed she must be — she could join him. Juliana made the briefest of excuses. If the gates on London Bridge were still open, she would hasten over to the south bank in the hope of finding somebody who was travelling down the Dover Road.

With so much else to think about, her encounter on Whitehall Stairs was soon largely forgotten. She had wiped the Roundhead captain from her mind just as he had, almost, eradicated Juliana from his.