Andrew Swanston: The King's Exile

1648

On a frosty March morning the soldiers came at dawn. Thomas Hill, asleep above his bookshop in Love Lane, was woken by the crack of their boots on the frozen cobblestones. One of the soldiers hammered on the bookshop door and demanded it be opened in the name of Parliament.

Thomas jumped out of bed and pulled on a woollen shirt and thick trousers and stockings. It would not do to answer the door in his nightshirt, especially to soldiers. With King Charles held in Carisbrooke Castle while politicians and generals argued about what to do with him, there were stories of houses being broken into and men dragged off for no more reason than a word out of place or a feather in the cap. No sensible man welcomed a visit from a troop of soldiers of any kind.

He ran down the stairs and through the shop. He unlocked the door and stood in the doorway. There were four soldiers, three of them wearing the woollen caps, red coats and grey breeches of Parliamentary infantrymen and the fourth, their captain, a jacket of buff leather. All four were armed with pistols and swords.

‘Are you Thomas Hill?’ demanded the captain.

‘I am.’

The captain took several sheets of paper from inside his jacket. ‘Thomas Hill, are you the author of this?’

Thomas took the papers from the captain and glanced at them. There were any number of political pamphlets circulating but he could guess which one this was — the only one to which he had ever put his name. A few on mathematics and philosophy but only one which touched on politics, and even that was more philosophical than political. ‘I am. What of it?’

‘Thomas Hill, in the name of the people I arrest you for inciting actions against Parliament.’

‘Can you read, captain?’

‘I am obeying orders.’

‘I thought not. If you could you would be aware that this pamphlet, written by me some months ago, argues for a strong Parliament to represent the people and for that Parliament to work in conjunction with the king for the common good. Am I to be arrested for that?’

The three soldiers, who had been standing to attention behind their captain and staring straight ahead, shuffled their feet and looked sheepish.

‘My orders are to arrest you and take you to Winchester gaol to await trial,’ replied the captain.

‘This is absurd.’

‘Those are my orders. You are to come with us.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then you will be taken by force. My orders are clear.’

Orders, orders — the soldier’s conscience. Thomas studied the captain’s weather-beaten face. It was impassive. There was to be no argument and resistance would be foolish — merely an invitation to violence. Better to do as he was told and get this nonsense over with. ‘My sister and nieces are upstairs. Am I permitted to say goodbye?’

The captain hesitated. ‘Very well. Two minutes, no more.’

Thomas ran back upstairs. The girls were crying and Margaret was ashen. They too had been woken and had heard everything. He hugged each of them. ‘Now don’t fret. This is nothing. Just a mistake. I’ll be home again in no time. I’ll send word. Pass me that shirt, my dear. I may need a spare.’ He put it on over the other. ‘There. That should keep me warm. Now kiss your uncle, girls, and look after your mother while I’m gone. I’ll see you again very soon.’ He turned to Margaret. She too was weeping. ‘It’s really a harmless pamphlet, my dear. They can’t keep me locked up for long.’ Since her husband had been killed six years earlier at the start of the war, Margaret and her daughters had lived in Romsey with Thomas.

‘I wish you hadn’t written it, Thomas. I knew it would bring trouble.’

Thomas kissed her cheek. ‘Indeed, you said as much. But it’s really nothing. Best if I go with them for now. I’ll be home tomorrow, just you see if I’m not.’ He put on his boots and his thickest coat and hurried back down the stairs. He stuffed a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese from the kitchen into a pocket and went back through the shop. The soldiers were waiting outside.

‘Right. Bind his hands, Jethro — tightly, mind, we don’t want him escaping — and we’ll be on our way.’ The captain was impatient to be gone.

The rope was bad enough, the indignity worse. More embarrassed than frightened, Thomas was marched down Love Lane and across Market Square, with only the clothes and boots he was wearing. Although it was early, the soldiers had been heard and as they clattered over the cobbles, he was aware of shutters being opened and faces peeking out. Thomas Hill, bookseller, philosopher and once adviser to the king, was well known in Romsey. News of his arrest would be around the town by noon.

Thomas squared his shoulders and fixed his eyes on the back of the soldier’s head in front of him so that if a tear did come to his eye, it would not be seen by a watching friend. He told himself that he would be home again soon, the whole thing forgotten.

The four soldiers, with Thomas between them, marched out of the town on the Winchester road. The hedgerows were white with frost and the ground frozen hard. After another icy winter, the oaks and elms of the New Forest stood tall and stark against a pale sky, their bare branches showing no promise of spring. Thomas stamped his feet and blew on his bound hands. It was a good ten miles to Winchester. God’s wounds, how unspeakably grim. The cold was bad enough, but arrested and marched off to gaol to await trial? He shivered at the thought.

And for what? Even in these uncertain times, surely no magistrate would pay much heed to an innocuous pamphlet written by a Romsey bookseller, albeit one who four years earlier had served the king at his court in Oxford. True, he was now an imprisoned king, increasingly short of friends. True, there had been news of renewed fighting in Wales and the north. True, England was a country divided — by faith, by political opinion, by ideas of morality — but to be sent for trial for expressing a balanced, neutral view? A view, what was more, shared by many of the men who had fought most fiercely against the king. Had men been killed in their thousands and families destroyed for such an injustice? What would John Pym, the fiercest of all critics of the king’s intolerance, have made of it if he had been alive?

At the village of Ampfield they stopped for a brief rest. A milky sun had melted the ice on the village pond and blunted the sharpness of the early morning chill. Three of the soldiers disappeared into an inn leaving one outside to guard Thomas. ‘How long will I be held?’ he asked the guard.

The man shrugged and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘We just take you to the gaol. After that, you’re someone else’s problem.’ Not very reassuring, Thomas thought, and tried no more questions.

They were soon on their way again, marching through Hursley and on towards Winchester. As they neared the town, the road became busier and Thomas had to endure the stares of tradesmen, farmers and travellers, doubtless wondering what terrible crime the prisoner had committed to be in the charge of four armed soldiers.

They went straight to Winchester prison, where Thomas was handed over to a gaoler and shoved roughly into a cell that already held five others. Six men in one small cell was bad enough; filthy straw on the floor and a bucket in the corner made it worse. Compared to Oxford Castle, however, the memory of which still made Thomas shudder, it was almost comfortable.

Aching and exhausted, he backed into a corner and forced down what was left of his food. Without water it was not easy to swallow but he had to keep up what little strength he had left. He listened and answered questions when he had to, but volunteered nothing and took no part in the general banter, which was in any case more bravado than bravery.