Lindsey Davis - Rebels and traitors

'That is good?' piped up Tom.

'It is inconvenient for us!' answered Lovell, delighting his son with a fiendish grin.

'So what will you do?'

'This firebomb will be sneaked in and will explode, though not too vigorously. Its purpose is to start a fire, very hot and fast — an uncontrollable conflagration that will burn down those old buildings in spectacular style. There are wooden beams, floorboards, panelling that will take a spark in an instant, dry-as-dust old plastering, all the ancient hangings they have kept from the King's Wardrobe for the Protector's enjoyment, which will blaze from floor to ceiling. The buildings, too, are full of windings and turnings, where a fire can take hold and trap people. Miles Sindercombe calls it the fittest hole for a tyrant to live in -

'Will young King Charles not need a palace? According to Master Sindercombe, he is coming back again.'

'In fact, Sindercombe hopes he will not.'

'They would cut off his head, if they caught him.'

'Ah Thomas, my boy, you worry me sometimes. I believe you have been infected with the rebels' ways of thought.'

'Well, I should like to see this almighty firework when it is set off!'

'You will see it go up, and so will all London.'

Lovell still kept the whereabouts of his lodgings secret from the others. In fact Sindercombe did the same, renting a room with a hatter, well away on London Bridge.

Lovell and Tom brought the first of the finished fireworks to an assignation with Sindercombe, then moved the device to John Toope's quarters. This was blatant, since the Lifeguards' barracks and stables were right in the Palace Mews.

Toope took Sindercombe and Boyes to reconnoitre and decide where best to plant their incendiary. They easily found their way into the ramshackle old building, unchecked by guards. They needed a central position, to create maximum damage with the initial blast, but a spot that was sufficiently isolated so the bomb would not be noticed while the long fuses burned. They would have to lay the device close to the Protector's lodgings, when he was sure to be in residence. Sindercombe had in his pocket a skeleton key, which he used to try to open rooms that might be suitable; it failed to work. Boyes was not amused. So they talked about laying the firework on the head of a staircase at the back of the chapel, but that seemed too public. Irritable and havering, they reached no decision.

Sindercombe and Boyes were afraid Toope was uneasy. He told the authorities later that he would have revealed the plan to the Protector, but could not gain private access to Oliver that day.

Sindercombe was so nervous about the Lifeguard's loyalty he recovered the device from Toope's quarters and took it for safety to where Cecil lodged, in King Street. This narrow old street was very close to the palace; it ran from St Margaret's, the Parliamentary church in Westminster, to one of the gates across Whitehall by St James's Park, where the palace buildings began.

The following Tuesday, Sindercombe met Toope at the Ben Jonson tavern in the Strand, at the opposite end of Whitehall. They had further intense conversation about the best way to proceed. Sindercombe gave assurances that he was expecting money from Sexby in Flanders by the next Monday — implying Toope would be given more cash if he continued to co-operate. Toope seemed more at ease. He volunteered to set the firework in the palace himself. Miles Sindercombe brushed aside that idea.

On Thursday, which was the 8th of January, Sindercombe, Cecil and Toope met at the Bear in King Street, where Sindercombe told Toope he and Cecil were now agreed that the device should be placed inside the palace chapel. A meeting was arranged for five o'clock that night when they would finally install the firebomb. Its match would burn until around about midnight, setting off the explosion while people were in bed. They could be confident the Protector would be in his private accommodation close by. He would perish in the initial fireball. The conflagration would be all the more dramatic for taking place at night.

Dusk had fallen when they met outside the chapel. They checked that everything in the area seemed to be as they wanted, then Miles Sindercombe and John Cecil went to fetch the great firework from King Street, lighting its match before they brought it. Being January, there was wintry darkness outside and they moved through the stone-slabbed palace corridors in eerie shadow, their nervous footsteps sounding far too loud. If they had stopped for a moment, they would have heard the faint fizzing of the slow matchcord in the hand-basket.

Cecil had crept here and cut a hole in the heavy chapel door, so he could unbolt it. Once he opened up, he and Toope kept guard to ensure nobody came by and noticed their activity. Sindercombe went in by himself and positioned the device. He nestled the fire- basket in one of the chairs. Afterwards, Cecil relocked the door. It was around six o'clock when they all went their separate ways, walking short distances through cold dark streets, their breath wreathing white in the January chill. In ten minutes they were mostly back in their individual lodgings. Only Sindercombe had farther to go.

What Sindercombe and Cecil failed to see was that despite their money and blandishments, John Toope had changed his mind.

At the chapel, guards had been secretly watching them. As soon as the plotters left, they quickly found the firework. They took it outside and tested it, causing a great flare of fire.

The troops went after the conspirators. Toope, who had revealed the plan to Thurloe earlier that day, handed himself over meekly. Cecil was also easily captured, giving up without a struggle; under interrogation he admitted everything. Only Miles Sindercombe, who took longer to find, put up a desperate fight; the soldiers only just managed to overpower him, after one of them cut off part of his nose. Covered with blood and still struggling wildly, Sindercombe followed Cecil to imprisonment in the Tower of London. He alone refused to answer any questions.

One of the group was not taken that night, nor was he traced in succeeding weeks. 'Boyes' had discreetly vanished.

John Cecil threw himself on the Protector's mercy and revealed everything about the plots. According to him, the others, Boyes in particular, were ruthless men of violence — 'not having the fear of God in their hearts, but moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil'. In giving their confessions and acting as witnesses against Sindercombe, Cecil and Toope escaped trial and punishment.

Miles Sindercombe stalwartly refused to admit anything. He was tried for treason on the 9th of February, a month after his arrest. Found guilty, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

Whilst in the Tower of London, Sindercombe was visited by his widowed mother, his sister Elizabeth and an anonymous sweetheart. Somehow, he obtained an unknown toxic substance which he swallowed the night before his execution. Two hours later he was found in a coma, with a note that confirmed he intended to kill himself; he could not be restored to consciousness and very soon died. Before the civil war, Sindercombe had been apprenticed to a surgeon so it was presumed he had used his knowledge of poisons, though the substance was never identified, nor could his inquest decide how he had obtained it. Two post mortems had failed to ascertain anything certain. His suicide note declared, 'I do take this course because I would not have all the open shame of the world executed upon my body' Though he could not be hanged as intended, as a suicide, his body was drawn to Tower Hill on a hurdle, naked; it was buried with an iron stake through the heart.