Rebels and traitors

Chapter Seven — Oxford: Autumn, 1642

Lovell always protested his innocence, but nobody who knew him and his already dark reputation really believed the protest.

Where had he come from? Where had he been? There were answers, and there were people who knew them. He saw no reason to volunteer the correct information, and if incorrect stories were circulating, that was how he liked it.

Lovell, who now styled himself captain, had come to England from genuine military service in Europe, arriving at about the same moment as one of the King's nephews. This was where his personal history first acquired an awkward kink. He let people assume that he had served under the eldest royal nephew: the Elector Palatine. Prince Charles Louis was a refugee. His father had been invited to take the crown of Bohemia, but was driven out ignominiously after less than a year; the 'Winter King' had then lost his own lands as well, and until he died he had campaigned to regain his position. His sons now carried on the hopeless quest. Charles Louis came to England to plead for assistance in 1641. He was also hoping to claim his promised bride, the King's eldest daughter Princess Mary, but found that she was to be married off more advantageously to Prince William of Orange.

It was a bad moment politically. King Charles had been bankrupted by the Bishops' Wars and his new Parliament was set on confrontation. Charles had nothing for his begging nephew. As English hostilities were breaking out, the threadbare prince spent some time in London, assuring friends in Parliamentary circles that his own allegiance was neutral. Whether this reflected his annoyance at losing Princess Mary, or his astute evaluation of his royal uncle's future, was unclear. He probably wanted to protect the pension that was paid to his mother Elizabeth. Her pension continued but, with polite expressions of regret, Parliament declined to help Charles Louis. He gave up on a bad situation and went back overseas. Lovell stayed.

At exactly the same time, the elector's dashing younger brother Prince Rupert turned up in England. Ostensibly, Rupert came to thank King Charles for helping to secure his release from an imperial prison after he had been captured while fighting. He had been to England before, when he made himself a favourite with the King and Queen. The young Palatine princes hailed from a very large family and had been homeless for most of their lives; as their own cause faltered in Europe, they were able to offer their military experience to any country that would give them an army or any relatives who needed them.

Born in Prague, Prince Rupert had been only a baby when his parents took flight from Bohemia; in the rush to leave, he was temporarily forgotten and only a quick-thinking nursemaid remembered at the last moment to fling the infant into a departing coach. He grew up abrupt, which was hardly surprising, but so good-looking he could usually carry off his rude manner. Now he was twenty-two and knew considerably more about war than his uncle, King Charles — though perhaps not quite enough.

'Over-valued,' growled Lovell, who thought himself a good judge. 'Over-valued mainly by himself, and nobody will take him down, because of his blood.' Then he chewed his pipe with a frank grimace which acknowledged both his envy of Prince Rupert and the irony that he, too, might in some respects over-value himself.

Both men were rootless, shiftless and penniless. Both also had a flagrant air of needing nothing and yet expecting all.

'This Prince Rupert is a St John's man,' mentioned Edmund Treves, also chewing a pipe stem. They were in St John's College at the time, feet up in his room. Edmund was mischievously tweaking his friend's lack of humour: 'Archbishop Laud inaugurated our new Canterbury Quadrangle — the King and Queen attended; they are honoured with elegant statues by the sculptor, Le Sueur.' He spent a moment tapping down his tobacco. Lovell waited impatiently. 'Prince Rupert must have been about sixteen; he came in the royal party and was admitted here as a scholar.'

'Is that so?'

'Truly'

"Were you here then?'

'I fear not.'

'A pity. You might have shared a bench with His Highness, jogging his Palatine elbow as he slurped up his breakfast in the buttery'

'Would that have been useful?'

'What, Edmund — calling the princeling "old colleague"? I believe it could have been!'

Edmund Treves smiled quietly. Even Lovell joined in.

Treves pondered his new friend's intentions and where Prince Rupert fitted into them.

When the civil war began, men who could fight were drawn to England. The native-born came from loyalty, foreigners descended for plunder. Experienced soldiers were pouring in from all quarters of Europe. Settlers, acting from conscience, were even returning from the Americas. Men with money began recruiting regiments. Orlando Lovell could not afford this. Volunteers of lesser means must inveigle themselves into any troop they could. That had to be his route. He must have earned hire-fees when abroad, and he had hoarded booty — but he always guarded his purse. The day they met, Treves had been right to sense himself being eyed up as prey. Only his poverty saved him.

Lovell had brought his talents home and declared allegiance to his King (he did appear to be English — or perhaps Irish or Welsh — though almost certainly not Scottish). He would be whole-hearted in his support, for he thought rebellion was madness and could only fail. Somehow, Lovell would eventually serve under Prince Rupert. He knew how to insert himself into the most charismatic position. Whatever his views on the prince's ability, he foresaw where useful friends could be procured and where reputations would be made. But to begin with, Prince Rupert was away again, escorting the Queen to Holland.

Impatient for action, Lovell had already looked at other positions. In May, the King had finally acknowledged that the upheaval in the country necessitated a Lifeguard of Horse to protect his royal person. Lovell at that time appeared briefly with Sir Thomas Byron, one of seven distinguished brothers on the Royalist side, who was the Lifeguards commander. The trial posting failed to please the fastidious Lovell. By August, he had attached himself to Sir John Byron, another of the brothers, who had ridden into Oxford on the 28th of the month with two hundred men.

This Byron was a chin-up commander with black brows and a moustache like a thick black ingot struck above his upper lip. He was famous for fighting even when there was no need; he survived being wounded in the face with a pole-axe and he would earn himself the nickname 'the Bloody Braggadocio'. His flamboyance failed to convince Lovell. Perhaps, for him, Sir John Byron was just too colourful. He burned so brightly he would overshadow subordinates, offering little to compensate. So when Sir John Byron rode away, Lovell stayed behind in Oxford.

'Was that permissible?' Edmund anxiously suspected that the highhanded Lovell had deserted Byron's colours.

'Never join the first troop you see,' snorted Lovell. Whenever he spoke as a soldier, with that experienced cynicism, the awed Treves accepted his words open-mouthed.

Lovell joked that there were still five other Byron brothers whose commands he could assess until he found one that suited him. But he knew what he wanted: service with Prince Rupert, working out of Oxford.

'Any fool can see this is the place,' Lovell barked. 'Hell's teeth, the King is wasting himself, struggling to capture Hull, just because it is supposed to be a good northern port and contains a mighty magazine -

'A magazine?' asked Edmund.

'An arsenal. Left over from the Scottish Wars — but while King Charles has been faddling outside the gates like a butter maid, the magazine is whipped away and bundled down the road south to Parliament… What's left? Bristol is held by the rebels. Warwick is a hotbed of dissent. Nottingham and York are too remote to contemplate. Oxford is central, well disposed to the King, easy to supply, easy to access, defensible, and best of all, rich enough and gracious enough to host a royal court.'

'So…?'

'So, let us sit here until the court arrives.'

Us, thought Edmund, feeling proud.

While they waited for the court to find them, Lovell's plan to marry Treves to Juliana Carlill flickered into life.

Lovell had heard of this heiress whose guardian wanted to find her a husband. Anyone more observant than Treves might have noticed the source of the tale was servants' gossip in an alehouse. Only a deep cynic would wonder whether the information had been deliberately planted among the potboys by the girl's associates, to snare some well-to-do scholar. Orlando Lovell, like many a passionate schemer, never supposed that anybody other than himself had the skill or the bravado to plot.

Once he had ascertained that the girl was young and alone in the world, supported only by an elderly bachelor guardian, Lovell declared that these people were innocents, waiting to be plucked. It was up to Edmund, Lovell urged, to snap up the unguarded prize before some quicker man stepped in ahead of him.

Orlando Lovell liked to make things complicated. He implied to Edmund that the proposal to find Juliana a husband had been initiated by the Queen. Henrietta Maria was then at her highest peak of influence. Given that the King was an indecisive cipher to his tenacious French wife, ambitious men would do well to respect her suggestions, Lovell said. Treves was too unworldly to doubt the Queen's involvement, let alone suspect Lovell of inventing it.

When, urged by his perturbed mother, Edmund did press for more details, Lovell just shrugged and said the Queen wanted to help the girl. That seemed reasonable. It seemed so to Edmund, anyway, though when she received his letter, Alice Treves smoothed her lace collar with an agitated gesture and her mouth tightened. For one thing, she knew that the Queen was abroad.

The Queen had gone to Holland, to convey her newly married ten-year-old daughter Princess Mary. Members of the House of Orange were eager to take custody of her. A substantial sum had been paid by the Dutch to secure the highly desirable Protestant bride, who should have been accompanied by a huge dowry, although because of the English political crisis this was threatened. Instead, the Queen vigorously sought to raise funds for her husband's war. Astutely, Henrietta Maria had taken many of the Crown Jewels — not hers to sell, protested Parliament — which she touted around continental moneylenders and arms dealers, raising cash and buying weapons. It was uncertain when she would return to England. Her absence affected the early course of the war in various ways. It caused the King great anxiety — and prevented any enquiry into Henrietta Maria's reported affection for Juliana Carlill.

The easy-going Treves had gained the impression (from whom? from Lovell?) that the girl's grandmother had been among the ladies-in-waiting who greeted the young queen on her arrival in England way back in 1625. In fact Roxanne Carlill was French herself, which should have made him wonder. He would probably have backed out, had he realised that Henrietta Maria had barely known, and certainly could not remember, her supposed maid-of-honour.

The Queen's interest in Juliana was his biggest misapprehension. There were others.

Juliana Carlill was reportedly heir to a property. Lovell believed it to be 'Kentish orchards', but he had allowed himself to be led up a very winding garden path in this respect, which Edmund failed to investigate. The men took it for granted that Juliana was educated (though not too much), chaste (though not frigid), beautiful, a good dancer, witty (they had not considered whatever they meant by that), and that she would allow her husband generous time to hunt, fish, see his male friends and go out to taverns. But it was to acquire the orchards that they pressed into action. They were cavaliers, with a romantic view of women, but they knew the value of money.

Edmund had good intentions towards Juliana herself, because by nature he was thoroughly decent. Nonetheless, he was a man of his time so he hoped that her property and her position in the Queen's favour would enable him to avoid work or worry. These were perfectly acceptable reasons for seeking to marry. Lovell assured him that if he managed to persuade the girl and her guardian to have him, his mother would forget she had been given no hand in the decision and would warmly welcome the bride, along with her apple (or cherry?) orchards — which grew ever more abundant in their imagination.

Lovell was constantly on hand to steer the plan. He himself lodged in a slightly unpleasant inn. Oxford inns, which had a constantly changing, disloyal clientele, were never sleepy havens for ancient regulars, but brisk businesses run by two-faced landlords who were barely polite and who wanted to take money. It seemed natural for Lovell to spend much free time at St John's.

There, Edmund had a historic room in the old quadrangle, a fair-sized chamber up an ancient stair, where he was looked after by a scout with skinny legs who could hardly mount the steps with a coal scuttle. Edmund's scout despised scholars, and he positively loathed the intruder Lovell. Lovell knew himself to be exposed. He showed no perturbation. He came most days, daring the scout to report them for smoking. In fairness, Lovell did supply the tobacco. However, that was because he deduced that Edmund had no idea how to buy a palatable leaf, while sending out the crabby scout to the tobacconist was never an option.

To his credit, Edmund did wrestle with a perceived problem. Education had not been wasted on him. 'I should much like to be a man securely enjoying his wife's estates, but I do not see, Lovell, why an heiress of this calibre should ever take me on.'

'Nothing to it,' said Lovell. 'You must carry yourself like a fellow who has much gallant farmland of his own — but it is all temporarily entailed on your Anabaptistical second cousin.'

'And how will I manage that?'

'With meekness,' laughed Lovell. Then he added as if he knew at first hand, 'And dismally'

Juliana Carlill and her guardian were living at Wallingford in a house which the guardian, William Gadd, had borrowed. After a brief exchange of letters, Edmund Treves, supported by Lovell in the role of groomsman, travelled to see them there.

Wallingford was a spry market town, its moated castle decently held by Royalists, with lovers' walks along the river banks and a great bridge where William the Conqueror had forded the Thames on his way to be crowned. Wallingford went back in history longer than that. A fortified Saxon burgh founded by King Alfred, it had once been larger than Oxford; it was still strategic and remained very sure of itself. It was a typical English county town, which would soon be fought over bitterly.

Lovell and Treves were thrilled to learn from local intelligence that the house they had to visit was owned by a judge. This put Mr Gadd in a highly respectable context — just as Mr Gadd intended, had they known it.