Henry George Keene - St. George's Cross; Or, England Above All

The following little tale is neither pure fiction nor absolute historic truth; being, indeed, little more than an attempt to show a picture of Channel Island life as it was some two centuries ago. For the background we have been beholden to Dr. S.E. Hoskins, whose " Charles the Second in the Channel Islands " may be commended to all who may feel tempted to pursue the matter further.

August, 1887.

On a bright day in September of the year 1649 Mr. William Prynne, a suspended Member of Parliament, sat at the window of his lodging in the Strand, London, where the Thames at high water brimmed softly against the lawn, bearing barges, wherries, and other small craft, and gleaming very pleasantly in the slant brightness of an autumn noon.

The unprosperous politician looked upon the fair scene with quiet cheer. He was a man of austere aspect, and looked farther advanced in middle life than was actually the case. For he was bearing the unjust weight of a double enmity; and though his after conduct showed that the world's injustice by no means threw him off his moral balance, yet it is impossible for a man to get into a position where every one but himself seems wrong and not acquire a certain sense of solitude, which, with a grave nature, will make him graver still. By the Cavaliers he had been pilloried, mutilated, fined and imprisoned: expelled from the University where he was a Master-of-Arts, driven out of the Inn-of-Court in which he had been a Bencher. By the Roundheads, on the other hand, he had been visited with a later and more intolerable wrong, exclusion from that House of Commons which was the only surviving seat of sovereignty. Thus excommunicated on all sides, Prynne still preserved his free and buoyant nature. He had the voice and impulsive manner of a young man; while there was a consistent moderation in his opinions which—however it might weigh against his success as a party-man—yet sprang from conviction, and was a guard against misanthropy.

In his apparel he was plain but not slovenly. His eyes were eager; his lean face, branded with the first letters of the words "Seditious Libeller," was shaded by straight falls of lank hair, streaked here and there with grey, that was combed down on either side of his head to hide the loss of his ears.

Hearing a step without, Prynne laid down the book he had been reading—a pamphlet by John Milton—and advanced, with an air of polite reserve, to meet the entering visitor. This was a man more than ten years his junior, short of stature, with clear-cut features and thoughtful blue eyes contrasting with hair and moustache dark almost to blackness. His neatly brushed garments had a threadbare gloss, and his broad linen falling collar, though white and clean, was somewhat frayed. But his bearing was high-bred and distinguished, with an air of sober yet resolute earnestness. He wore no sword, and the hat which he carried in his hand was plain of shape and without adornment.

"M. de Maufant," said Prynne, with the shy courtesy of a student, "will admire that I should seek speech of him after sundry passages that have been between us."

"Alack! Mr. Prynne," answered the stranger, with a slight foreign accent, "since your captivity in Mont Orgueil many things have befallen. 'Tis not alone I, Michael Lempriere the exile, changed from the state of Seigneur de Maufant and Chief Magistrate of Jersey to that of an outcast deriving a precarious subsistence from teaching French in your Babylon here; but methinks you yourself have had a fall too, since the days you speak of: when you left Jersey for London you came here in a sort of triumph. But by this time, methinks, you must be cured of your high hopes: I say it not for offence, but rather out of sorrow."

"Why no," answered the ex-Member. "Though I be no longer one of yonder assembly, I am still a denizen of London; and, let me tell you, a citizen of no mean city. And I bear my share in advancing the great cause on which so many of us are now engaged. Have you not read what Mr. Milton hath said here as touching this?" And he took up the book which he had dropped in the window-seat "It is well said, as you will find."

Motioning Lempriere to a chair, he took another and read as follows:—

"'Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with its protection … pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation.' As he saith a little further on, the fields of our harvest are white already; and it is your privilege and mine that live among this wise and active people, to see it coming, perhaps to put in a sickle. The pamphlet is becoming a force stronger than the sword; and those Ironsides and Woodenheads who turn us out of the Chamber where our fellow citizens had seated us, may find an ill time before them when our work is over. But our work will be the work of freedom."

What more would have been said, now that Prynne was setting forth on his dearly-loved hobby, of which the name was Cedant arma , is unknown; for the serving-man entered at this moment with a simple but plentiful repast carried on his head from the adjacent tavern; and even Prynne's eagerness was dashed with caution enough to keep him to ordinary topics of talk so long as the man was in the room. But Lempriere had seen and heard enough to put him in good humour with his host. The intimacy of the latter with the Carterets, and a suspicion of general lukewarmness in the popular cause, had begotten old enmities, of which Lempriere, in the long probation of failure, exile, and poverty, had already learned to be ashamed; and to see the man he had misjudged, looking him eagerly and earnestly in the face as he uttered the language of a genuine reformer, completed the Jerseyman's conversion. After the servant had brought pipes and glasses and left the gentlemen to their tobacco and their wine, their talk grew more familiar as they looked at the flowing river, and the deserted towers of Lambeth away on the other side.

"The truth is," said Prynne, "that I received from the cavaliers of your island kindnesses that I cannot forget; yet as touching the trial and execution of the late King, if I have gainsayed aught of the other side, yet I need not repeat that I have ever been a friend to Liberty, as witness these indentures," and with a starched smile he pointed to the marks upon his face. "I know that you have reason to be angry with Sir George Cartwright...."

"Let us not talk of him," answered the other, with a flush on his swarthy cheek. "I lose all patience when I think of the many mischiefs entailed upon my country by the cruelty and greed of that house. When his late uncle, your protector, made Sir George a substitute in the Government of the island, he was but 23 years old: but old enough to be a serpent more subtle than any that went before; and see what he hath made of our little Eden! He and his men the servants, not of the people, but of Jermyn; prelacy and malignancy spread abroad. In the twelve parishes seven Captains are Carterets: and the Knight himself, beside his Deputyship, Bailiff and Receiver of the revenues, which he holds at an easy farm."

"I conceive that your Eves and Adams should lose their virtue with such a tempter; yet, had you and Dumaresq been less bent on Sir Philip's ruin, and on grasping his powers and profits, if you can pardon my plain speaking, I will be bold to say Sir Philip was no friend to tyranny, and would, under God's pleasure, have been still alive to forward the cause of reasonable freedom."