Rebels and traitors

Chapter Seventy-Six — Antwerp and London: 1655-56

'The Lord Protector should have great care of himself. There is still great underhand labouring..'

(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:

My Dear Friend,

It's now about a year and two month since I left England, and longer since I writ to thee, and received any from thee. I pity thy condition, but prithee be of good comfort; all hopes of liberty is not utterly lost and gone. Nor I do not yet despair, but I shall see England again, and thee too, before I die…

Oh! what would I give for an hour's discourse; but knowing that cannot be, let us converse this way, if possible. I understand thou art much dejected: you have as little cause so to be, as ever prisoner had; for though your unrighteous judge and his janissaries think they sit so sure there's no danger of falling; yet I tell thee, he will not be of that opinion long… That apostate thinks he knows me… Mark what I say to you… his soul (though as proud as Lucifer's) will fail within him.

I am and for ever shall remain, my worthy friend,

Thine to command till death,

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…'

In fact Sexby was withdrawing from direct action and making himself a puppet-master. Just as he once masterminded the army Agitators, he now employed a virtual unknown, the man who had fled abroad from Scotland when General Monck was exposing the officers' plot: Miles Sindercombe.

Orlando Lovell had been introduced to Sindercombe.

Provided by Sexby with five hundred pounds, weapons and ammunition, Miles Sindercombe travelled to England in disguise to assemble a group of supporters. He took up old contacts with disgruntled soldiers, in particular a member of Cromwell's Lifeguards, who could pass on information about Cromwell's movements. Accompanying Sindercombe was a man called 'William Boyes', who used several disguises and names. The only thing certain about Boyes was that none of Sindercombe's group knew much about him. He had attached himself before they thought of asking questions. Somehow he put himself at the heart of their schemes. What made Boyes seem useful was a promise he made with great assurance that once Cromwell's death created a power vacuum in England, they were assured of support from Charles II. This suggested that he was a Royalist, one with intimate access to the King.

Sexby skilfully set up a network that included thirty or forty people. He arranged that not more than two ever knew the identities of the others. Though he himself remained a mystery, Boyes knew everyone.

The group hired a shop in King Street, in the ancient environs of Westminster, close to the abbey. From here, they hoped to assassinate the Protector as his coach passed by.

While they waited to make the attempt, the man they called Boyes took lodgings by himself. He first hired a room with the widow of a dead Royalist he had known in the Kent rebellion, a Mrs Elizabeth Bevan.