Alan Moore - Jerusalem

“Magna Farta, it might with more truth be called. Why, old King John was under siege some six weeks at the castle down the way before he could be made to sign it. Such conventions are by force of arms alone brought into being, and by force of arms may be revoked, and we shall see what we shall see.”

The senior general’s head, a trundling cannonball, rolled round upon his neck until his leaden eyes were fixed directly upon John. The lanky ghost-boy shrank against the curving staircase wall, convinced for just a second that Cromwell was looking at him before realising that the seated man was merely staring into empty space as he reflected.

“We are come upon a fateful place, which hath oft-times served as a pivot for the swivellings of history. The fortress stood at this hill’s foot was where the sainted Thomas Becket was most treacherously brought to trial for doing God’s will rather than a king’s. Holy crusades were raised up thereabouts, as likewise were our earliest Parliaments. Not half a mile off to the south is the cow-meadow where Henry the Sixth was beaten by the Earl of March in an affray that ended the War of the Roses. Be assured this town, this soil, it hath the matter’s heart within it, and it looks not kindly upon kings and tyrants. If I listen, Ireton, up above the hollow sound that the wind maketh in the chimney-tops, I fancy me to hear the grinding and annihilating mills of God.”

From his position halfway up the spiral stairs John thought that he could hear them too, but then decided that the sound was more probably that of a big cannon being wheeled along in darkness through the quagmire of Marefair outside. Considering what Cromwell had just said, John found himself reminded of the only line from John Bunyan’s The Holy War that had lodged in his memory: “Mansoul it was the very seat of war.” The words rang true, whatever sense you took them in. Northampton, in all its obscurity, was birthplace to an inexplicable amount of conflict and the point of culmination for a great deal more. Crusades, Peasant’s Revolt, War of the Roses and the Civil War, all of them had begun or ended here. If, on the other hand, you took the word ‘Mansoul’ to mean just what it said, to be the soul of man, then that too was a source of warfare, be it Cromwell’s fierce Protestant zeal or the religion to which the exploding martyr on the Mayorhold’s higher landings had belonged. Mansoul it was the very seat of war, no doubt about it. That had been the message behind every quick march and about turn in that chilly upper hall at College Street, when John was in the Boy’s Brigade.

The memorable quote caused him to spare a thought now for the other John, John Bunyan, and to idly wonder what the seventeen-year-old author-to-be was doing upon that momentous night. As a young Roundhead soldier he might be commencing a first watch there in the garrison at Newport Pagnell, where Bunyan was stationed during 1645. Perhaps he smoked a pipe there in his watch-post and gazed up at the abundant stars, trying to read in them some sign that Christ would be returning soon to overturn King Charles and all his kind, then to announce a new Jerusalem here in the English heartlands. To declare a nation of elected saints amongst which both John Bunyan and the figure sitting now across the candlelit expanse believed themselves to be included.

Breaking off from his grim reverie, Cromwell looked up at Ireton.

“Tell me, Henry, do your men find themselves billets near these parts? At first light I must hurry to inspect the ground at Naseby, and wouldst soon be in my bed.” Realising that he’d been dismissed, Ireton appeared almost relieved.

“My regiment and I have quarters but a short way off, and will be ready with the dawn. I would not keep you from your rest, yet only ask, Sir, that you should convey my most sincere endearments to your daughter.”

John belatedly recalled that Ireton had eventually become son-in-law to the other man by marrying his eldest daughter, Bridget. Cromwell chuckled almost warmly, scraping back his chair as he stood up.

“Pray do not Sir me, Henry. Sooner would I have thee call me father, for so it shall be in time. I have just now been at a writing of a letter to my home, and when I copy it in fair I shall be glad to pass to Bridget your affections. But enough of such things. Get thee to thy regiment and to thy bed, and in the morn may God be with thee.”

Stepping from behind the table, Cromwell crossed to Ireton, reaching out to shake the young man stiffly by the hand. Ireton blinked rapidly and swallowed as he answered.

“And with thee, good Master Cromwell. I shall bid thee a good night.”

With that the interview appeared to be concluded. Cromwell opened the front door for Ireton, who stepped back into the darkness of Marefair and was immediately gone from sight. His guest having departed, the lieutenant-general sighed and walked towards the spiral staircase in the corner, picking up the flickering candelabra on his way. Kicking unwittingly through the three ghost-kids that were sitting there, he mounted the steps wearily, presumably towards his bedroom on the building’s upper floor. Exchanging glances, Phyll and John drifted like vapour up the stairway after him, towing the tiny shade of Michael Warren in between them. Clearly, both of them were eager to learn how the future regicide and Lord Protector slept upon the eve of his most famous battle.

John, though, was still thinking about Henry Ireton. Although he was fated to receive a pike-wound and be captured by the Royalists tomorrow morning, Ireton’s captors would release him in the later stages of the battle, fearing for their own lives as the Parliamentary forces moved in for the kill. He would go on to marry Bridget Williams-alias-Cromwell, shackling himself inseparably to the Cromwell family and their fortunes for the rest of his short life. By 1651 Ireton would be stationed in Ireland trying to end the Catholic rebellion by laying siege to Limerick, a rebel stronghold, where he would succumb to plague. His death, however, would not spare him Royal retribution nine years later when King Charles the Second was restored as monarch. Shortly before pulling down Northampton Castle the new king would have the bodies of both Ireton and his father-in-law dug from their Westminster Abbey tombs and dragged through London’s streets to Tyburn, where the pair would be somewhat unnecessarily hung, drawn and quartered. As with many wars, holy or otherwise, in John’s opinion neither side had much to recommend them when it came to manners.

Phyllis, John and Michael were now on the upstairs landing at Hazelrigg House, pursuing Cromwell as he slouched with candelabra in one hand towards his bedchamber. The hulking hunchbacked shadow that crept after him reminded John of the frontispiece illustration in his childhood copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress . It had been a funny-looking picture, not at all realistic in the style that John preferred although if he remembered rightly it had been a painting done by William Blake, who was quite famous and respected even though to John’s eye he drew like a baby. The wash reproduction had shown Bunyan’s Christian with his weighty moral burden strapped onto his back, bent double over the beloved book that he was reading as he trudged along. This was the shape that sidled after Cromwell now along the landing, a devout giant trailing in the future Lord Protector’s wake much as the massed horde of poor, godly English people did. Or, it occurred to John, was that pious and down-at-heel shadow-colossus driving Cromwell on before it and not following him after all? Whose will was truly being done in England during this tumultuous and bloody decade? Who was using who?

Cromwell turned from the passageway and through the open door of a room on the children’s right, closing it after him. Following his example John and Phyllis poured into the portal’s timbers in pursuit, with Michael Warren dragged between the duo and grey chorus-lines of after-pictures shimmering behind them.