TWENTY-TWO

SIR HENRY REGALED HIS FAMILY with his views on General Cromwell after their visitors had left. He thought Cromwell overly dour, and questioned why he was so adored by his men. Philip and Benjamin said it was because he knew how to win. Soldiers couldn’t care less how their leaders carried themselves as long as they secured victory. Predictably, this prompted Sir Henry to ask how they felt about their own leaders, and both admitted they had a low opinion of them.

Benjamin went further and said he wasn’t surprised that Colonel Blake had beaten Prince Maurice at Lyme and Lord Goring at Taunton. Jayne was right to admire him, for he was older, wiser and more experienced than either of those commanders. In the next sentence he confessed to bringing his brother home without permission, stating apologetically that he and Philip felt they had enlisted on the wrong side.

Philip intervened immediately. ‘The fault was mine more than Benjamin’s, Father,’ he insisted. ‘It was I who persuaded him to enlist and I who first spoke of desertion. He bears no blame unless it’s a sin to want to help his brother.’

Sir Henry moved to the window and stared across the forecourt. ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,’ he murmured. ‘I imagine we’ve all made choices we now regret.’

‘Not Andrew,’ said Benjamin. ‘I’ve never seen him look so well nor so sure of himself.’

‘His brother officers were the same,’ agreed Philip. ‘General Cromwell may be as dour as you describe, Father, but I can say, hand on heart, that none of the King’s generals would have spoken with two Model Army soldiers in the open, decent way that General Cromwell did with Benjamin and myself.’

‘He could hardly be rude to you in front of your brother’s family.’

Lady Margaret raised her head. ‘Cease cavilling, Henry. Once you conquered your fear of being infected with Puritanism, you were as impressed by him and his companions as your sons were. We all noticed the pleasure you took in Colonel Blake’s company.’

When he didn’t reply, Benjamin spoke again. ‘I thought Colonel Harrier the most interesting. Andrew said he’s been at every major siege in the south-west of England. Did you know him in Lyme, Jayne?’

Such an innocent question but with so many pitfalls! A simple shake of the head would have sufficed were Lady Margaret not already aware of William’s presence in the town. ‘I believe I came to know everyone in Lyme eventually,’ she answered carefully.

‘Was he part of the garrison?’

‘Not at the beginning. He was an aide to Lord Warwick and arrived with the fleet towards the end of May. He was tasked with bringing three hundred seamen ashore to join the soldiers on the Town Line when Colonel Blake feared the garrison wouldn’t be able to hold it.’

Lady Margaret saw a frown of puzzlement gather on Sir Henry’s forehead and stood up, beckoning to Ruth and Jayne to come with her. ‘I need your help in the kitchen or we’ll have nothing to eat this evening,’ she told them. ‘Visitors are all very well but they make a shocking mess of my arrangements.’

She ushered them through the door and closed it firmly behind them.

‘Upstairs to my chamber,’ she ordered Jayne before turning to Ruth and asking her to oversee the preparation of food. ‘I need an undisturbed hour with your cousin, my dear. Are you willing to say we’re outside if Sir Henry comes looking for us?’

Ruth exchanged a glance with Jayne. ‘Should I?’ she asked.

‘It might be best,’ Jayne answered wryly. ‘It won’t take long for Papa to remember that Lyme came before Weymouth, and I doubt I’ll survive a quizzing from both my parents at the same time.’

Once the door of Lady Margaret’s chamber had closed, Jayne was obliged to report the details of every meeting she’d had with William, including the last with Samuel. In addition, she gave a full account of what Alice had told her in May—William’s father’s name and disreputable character, William’s service abroad, his work for Parliament, and his disinheritance by the Duke of Granville—though Lady Margaret was more interested in Samuel. The whole family had been curious about him since Ruth had received notification of his brave death.

‘From the way you thanked Sir William, I gather it was he who gave Samuel a chance to prove himself. But why? Did you ask him to?’ She wagged a finger when Jayne didn’t answer. ‘Sir Henry will put the same questions to you, miss, and he’ll bar Sir William from the house if you allow him to believe that your friendship with this man runs so deep he’s willing to do secret favours for you.’

Jayne attempted a diversion. ‘I doubt he’ll come back, Mama. My guess is he’ll stay with Cromwell until the war ends and then pursue his ambitions in London.’

‘Don’t be absurd, child; he has too strong a liking for you. If you don’t return his regard, then allow your father to savage him. If you do, tell me about Samuel.’

Jayne smiled at this blatant bid to elicit her feelings. ‘Are you looking to matchmake, Mama?’ she teased.

‘You’ve done all the matchmaking that’s necessary, daughter,’ Lady Margaret responded dryly. ‘The only question is to what end. Would you choose a pauper with a tarnished name for a husband?’

Jayne avoided a direct answer. ‘I’d leave William to argue his case with Papa and see which of them won, but it wouldn’t be fair on Andrew.’

‘Why not?’

‘I suspect he owes his position on Cromwell’s staff to William. They seem to have become firm friends since Andrew declared for Parliament.’

‘Your father won’t like that either,’ Lady Margaret warned. ‘He’ll see friendship with your brother as a deceitful way to gain access to you.’

Jayne knew her mother wouldn’t stop until she received an explanation. ‘Very well,’ she said with a sigh, ‘I’ll tell you what you want to know, but you must promise not to repeat it to Papa. Neither he nor Uncle Joseph has ever been able to keep a secret, and it will upset Ruth greatly to learn the truth.’ She took her mother’s nod for agreement and went on to relate every detail of her meeting with Samuel and her conversation with William afterwards. ‘We left it that William would speak with Samuel again, and he promised to let me know what was decided through Richard. I received a letter from him a few days later.’

‘Why Richard?’

‘Papa would have questioned anything addressed to me in a hand he didn’t recognise.’

‘Are Richard and Sir William acquainted?’

Jayne nodded. ‘For some time.’

Lady Margaret shook her head. ‘I can’t believe there’s so much we haven’t known. What was in the letter?’

‘Very little. You may read it if you like. William said merely that Samuel had enlisted in an infantry regiment and his debts would be honoured. It was a later letter from Richard that was more enlightening. He said the means to settle the debts was the bill of exchange that William received from the King’s treasury. Richard managed to sell it for half its value to one of his Royalist patients in Bridport and then sent the money to Samuel’s creditors in London.’

Lady Margaret was more shocked than grateful. ‘And what does Sir William expect from you in return for this generosity?’

‘Nothing, since Richard wasn’t supposed to tell me about it, and only did so when I began to doubt the debts would ever be paid.’ She smiled at her mother’s disbelief. ‘I don’t know what else I can say to persuade you, except that William did it for Isaac and not for me. He knows better than anyone the difficulties of living with the memory of a worthless father.’

Lady Margaret studied her curiously. ‘Aren’t you worried about that? There’s no truer saying than “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.’

Jayne was tiring of that adage. ‘I worry about it all the time, Mama. I dread the day when I wake to find I’ve become as prejudiced against Puritans as Papa, and so keen on tapestry that I’m happy to sit at your side, chatting nonsense with ladies for hours on end.’

Lady Margaret smacked her wrist. ‘There’s no need to be rude. It was a fair question and one your father will ask when I try to explain Sir William to him. What am I to say?’

‘The truth,’ Jayne suggested. ‘That he tolerated your discourteous questions with gentlemanly patience. It’s a pity you’ve never met Lady Stickland. You’d understand him better if you had.’

‘How so?’

‘She’s been his parent and teacher since the day of his birth. If he takes after anyone, I would suggest it’s Alice. They’re very alike.’ ‘Sir Henry won’t accept that as a recommendation. He’s disliked her ever since you told us she was a Puritan.’

‘But a very unorthodox one, Mama. She reads the plays of Shakespeare more often than she reads the Bible.’

Jayne wasn’t party to her mother’s ‘explanation’ of William to her father, but she guessed it ran along the lines of ‘don’t stir up a hornet’s nest unnecessarily’. The country was at war, Colonel Harrier might never return, and Sir Henry surely had enough faith in his daughter to know she wouldn’t behave foolishly with any man, let alone one she’d believed to be a servant until recently. If she were that way inclined—as Jayne had pointed out to Lady Margaret herself—she’d have caused them trouble from the moment Sir Henry allowed her to ride alone to visit patients.

Whatever the explanation, Jayne was grateful Sir Henry remained silent on the subject. His desire to see her wed to a suitable partner had been a bone of contention between them for years. Ever since Jayne had turned sixteen, he’d seen off anyone he considered beneath her while parading her like a prize cow before the sons of his friends. His disappointment when she or they expressed indifference had led to interminable lectures about her behaviour. She must refrain from conversation with the clever ones who shied away from intelligent women, and show kindness and tolerance to those who hadn’t progressed beyond learning to read and write.

Mercifully, the war had brought an end to this nonsense, but she didn’t doubt Sir Henry still harboured hopes that she would find a suitable husband eventually. As Andrew had said at the time Sir Walter Hoare left his letter for her, Jayne should sink to her knees and thank God that Sir Henry had taken such a dislike to him, since an aide to the King’s nephew represented everything he wanted in a son-in-law—a title, wealth and, above all, royal connections.

Some two weeks later, Sir Henry received news that Fairfax and Cromwell had routed Lord Goring’s army at Langport in Somerset. The message came in a letter from a Royalist friend who described the battle as ‘the most supine and unsoldierly defeat ever seen’. Goring’s cavalry had broken in the face of two relentless charges by Cromwell’s Ironsides and, seeing this, his infantry had turned and run. In the hope of preventing pursuit, Goring had ordered the town of Langport to be burnt, but the attempt had proved fruitless. In excess of two thousand Royalists had been taken prisoner and the rest had chosen to desert rather than follow their disgraced leader into Cornwall.

Sir Henry laid the letter aside, saying he wasn’t surprised. Goring’s undisciplined troops were neither deserving nor capable of winning a victory against a well-trained army. He went on to beg Philip and Benjamin’s pardon for ever encouraging them to give their allegiance to the King. If he’d learnt anything over the past three years, it was that a man should not cling to an old order out of fear of change.

His sons said he had nothing to apologise for. They were grown men and able to make their own decisions, but his favourable mention of a well-trained army emboldened them to bring up the subject of General Cromwell and his companions again. Other attempts had been met with silence or deflection to a different topic, all of which had heightened their interest, for they guessed that Sir Henry’s unwillingness to speak on the matter concerned Jayne’s acquaintanceship with those who had been in Lyme.

In private, Jayne had tried to dampen their curiosity by reminding them that Sir Henry had been a fervent Royalist at the time of the siege. ‘He convinced himself I’d fallen under the sway of Puritans and had persuaded Andrew to follow suit, and he lost his temper each time Mama tried to correct him.’

‘No wonder she keeps changing the subject,’ said Benjamin pensively.

‘Indeed,’ said Jayne. ‘Dare I suggest you follow her example?’

They agreed, and held to the bargain until Sir Henry condemned the ill-discipline of Lord Goring’s troops. They took it as an invitation to further excuse their own desertion, and asked their father if he thought the rest of the King’s army any different from Goring’s.

‘You speak as if his troops were unusual, Father,’ said Philip, ‘but our own brigades were as bad. If we didn’t steal, we didn’t eat, and as often as not our men thieved food from each other. They fought amongst themselves more often than they fought the enemy.’

Benjamin nodded. ‘Even before the New Model Army, we had to force them with whips and the flats of our swords to stand firm, and it grew worse when they knew they were going to face Cromwell’s Ironsides. I truly envied the Parliamentary officers at Naseby whose men obeyed orders without hesitation.’

‘They believe in their cause,’ Philip said. ‘Colonel Harrier told us General Cromwell only accepts officers who are dedicated to the same Protestant ideals that he holds.’

Sir Henry cast a frowning glance at his wife. ‘I knew he was a damned Puritan.’

‘A person can be a Protestant without being a Puritan, Henry. You’re one yourself.’

‘There’s a big difference between his version of Protestantism and mine. The one is arrogant, the other modest.’

Benjamin spoke into the silence that followed. ‘I saw no arrogance in General Cromwell,’ he said carefully. ‘He conversed as easily with our servants as he did with us.’

‘Papa’s comments relate to Colonel Harrier,’ murmured Jayne when neither of her parents answered. ‘He believes he has reason to distrust him.’

‘And why shouldn’t I, when two of my children have fallen under his spell?’ Sir Henry barked. ‘You’re fond of quoting the Sydenhams at me, but the real devils are Harrier and the woman who took the place of his mother. My father had some acquaintanceship with the Grainger family and they rued the day their daughter married the son of the Duke of Granville. If ever there was a monster, it was Ralph Harrier.’

Jayne looked him in the eye. ‘If they were aware of that, why did they allow the marriage to proceed? Were they such upstarts that they put a dukedom before Estelle’s happiness?’

‘Mind your tongue, girl.’

‘I will not, for you’re being most unjust, Papa. It was hardly Sir William’s fault to be born to such an ill-starred couple, nor Lady Stickland’s that neither the Duke of Granville nor the Graingers were willing to take responsibility for their orphaned grandchild. If you want monsters, I suggest you look to them rather than the generous woman who gave Sir William a home and an Oxford education.’

Lady Margaret raised a warning hand, but Sir Henry ignored her. ‘Generous!’ he roared. ‘She wanted a son she could raise in her own image. Do you deny that her brother has refused to speak with her since she embraced Puritanism?’

‘I do. He visited her in Dorchester after I treated him for gout and mentioned me to her. It was the reason she rescued me from the crowd on the day of the priest’s execution. She recognised the Swift crest on my satchel and guessed I was her brother’s physician.’

‘That was before the war began. He’ll not forgive her willingness to aid and abet his wife’s enemies. Lady Bankes stands alone in defending Corfe Castle for the King without any succour or support from her sister-in-law.’

‘On the contrary, Papa. Lady Stickland writes to Lady Bankes every week, expressing her pride in her sister-in-law’s courage.’

‘Humbug! She’s as dedicated to Parliament’s cause as Harrier is.’

Jayne acknowledged the point with a nod. ‘Indeed so, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost her affection for Lady Bankes. They’ve held different views for years but have never come to blows over it. Lady Stickland was a supporter of Parliament long before she was widowed, and Sir William adopted the cause when he left Oxford to fight as a mercenary in Europe. As to their Puritan leanings, I believe they both see sense in blowing with the prevailing wind rather than against it.’

Lady Margaret, who had the advantage of knowing that Alice read Shakespeare more often than the Bible, understood Jayne’s meaning rather quicker than her husband did. ‘They assume the mantle of Puritanism but don’t subscribe to the principles behind it?’

Jayne nodded. ‘Lady Stickland feigned Puritanism in order to be accepted into Dorchester society, but, since she was the only non-Catholic brave enough to visit Hugh Green in prison before he was executed, I suspect her true leanings are different.’

Sir Henry bristled angrily. ‘Should I understand she poses as one thing while believing another?’

‘Only in the same way that you do, Papa. You presented yourself as a Royalist to Sir Edward Hamway, expressed sympathy for Parliament to General Cromwell and claim to be neutral whenever you meet the Clubmen of Dorset. For myself, I think you’re eminently wise to choose courtesy over unnecessary conflict, but don’t paint yourself as any less of a hypocrite than Lady Stickland.’

Once again, Benjamin broke the ensuing silence. ‘What are Colonel Harrier’s beliefs?’

Jayne decided on honesty because she guessed her father would keep probing if he suspected her of lying. ‘None,’ she said. ‘The European wars taught him to view all religion as chicanery. He grew cynical when God was invoked by both Catholics and Protestants in advance of slaughtering each other.’

Sir Henry was shocked. ‘What manner of man rejects God?’

Jayne pressed her palms together in a gesture of apology, for she knew she was about to deliver an even greater shock. ‘One such as Richard Theale, Papa. Science is about learning and proving truth through observation and experiment, and God is elusive on both counts. Richard has more faith in maggots than he does in an invisible entity who can’t or won’t reveal Himself.’

He stared at her. ‘Are these your views also?’

‘I’m afraid so, Papa. With each man able to interpret the Bible as he chooses, God comes in so many different guises that if I had as many gowns as there are gods, this house could not hold them.’

Sir Henry surged to his feet and shook his fist. ‘I knew I should never have let you study under that man,’ he bellowed. ‘He’s betrayed my trust in every way—turned you against God, enabled a fortune-hunter to seduce you and led my son and heir into the vipers’ nest of Wynford Eagle.’

With a sigh, Lady Margaret rose to press him back into his chair. ‘Calm yourself!’ she ordered. ‘Have you forgotten that, but for Richard, I would be dead and Benjamin would never have been born? What other physician would have had the sense to overrule the midwife and cut into a mother’s womb to save the life of her and her child? And would you have wished death on your farmhands at the time of the red flux, or amputation of Philip’s leg when it’s been saved by maggots? Regain some sense, Henry, and recognise that Richard is one of the few people you can trust. He’s always held himself to a higher moral standard than most others you know, as indeed has your daughter.’

Ruth straightened above her tapestry and turned her soft gaze on Sir Henry. ‘Have you never questioned God’s existence yourself, Uncle?’ she asked curiously. ‘I envy you your faith if you haven’t.’ He eyed her with suspicion. ‘What sort of question is that from one who knows her Bible by heart? Do you seek to divert attention from Jayne?’

‘Just a little, for she’s not the only member of your family who has doubts. Your brother, my father, struggles with belief each time he’s asked to accept that the bread and wine of the Eucharist represent the body and blood of Christ.’

‘Has he turned to Puritanism?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘He calls himself a sceptic, like Sir William, and for the same reason. God cannot be on both sides of a civil war at the same time.’ She pulled a contrite smile. ‘Do you mind if I annoy you further, Uncle?’

‘Will it make a difference if I say I do?’

‘Only to you, for you’ll have to live with your curiosity about what I might have said.’

Sir Henry groaned. ‘Speak then!’

‘You’re wrong to think Sir William a fortune-hunter. I know the type better than anyone and he does not conform to it. His appearances are infrequent, he makes no attempt to flatter you or Lady Margaret and, while he’s clearly at ease in Jayne’s company, he doesn’t exploit the friendship in order to gain advantage or promote his own importance. In addition, his rise through the Parliamentary ranks suggests he’s hardworking and ambitious to succeed through his own efforts, and those are not qualities possessed by men who pursue wealth and position through marriage.’

Philip shook his head in puzzlement. ‘Should I understand that Colonel Harrier and Sir William are one and the same?’ He took the absence of an answer for confirmation. ‘And this is the Colonel Harrier who came here with General Cromwell the other day?’ More silence. ‘Well, he seemed a fine sort of fellow to me and Benjamin, and clearly a good friend to Andrew. Does he have an interest in you, sister?’

Oh, dear Lord! ‘Of course not,’ Jayne answered with a laugh. ‘The daughters of minor gentry have no appeal at all. When peace comes, he’ll venture up to London and find an appropriate match there, and Papa will wonder why he ever thought my tiny dowry might be of interest to him.’

Sir Henry scowled. ‘It’s not so tiny,’ he grumbled.

‘And not so large that it makes up for my refusal to keep my opinions to myself, Papa. Can you accept that your thirty-year-old daughter is destined to be a spinster for the rest of her life? There’ll be so few men left when this war is over that old maids such as myself will be at the back of every queue.’

He reached for her hand. ‘You’ll always have a home here,’ he said gruffly.

In the days that followed, most of the news that reached the house concerned the Dorset Clubmen. There were reports of mass gatherings across the county, most involving skirmishes with the New Model Army. Rumour had it that Sir Thomas Fairfax gave no credence to the Clubmen’s professed neutrality, and had ruled them Royalists because of their belligerence towards his troops.

On the evening of 3 August, a rider came to inform Sir Henry that fifty Clubmen were being held prisoner in Sherborne, and a great assembly was planned for the morrow on Hambledon Hill, some five miles to the north of Blandford. The intention was to gather four thousand men who would march on Sherborne in order to confront Sir Thomas Fairfax and demand their comrades’ liberty, and Sir Henry and the Clubmen of west Dorset were invited to join them.

Sir Henry agreed to spread the word amongst his neighbours and then sent the rider on to Lyme to alert the Clubmen there. To Lady Margaret’s relief, he showed little enthusiasm for making the thirty-mile journey himself, but when messages came back that others were going, and Benjamin—bored with doing nothing—began pestering to be allowed to join them, he changed his mind. When all was said and done, he told Lady Margaret, he was sworn to peace, and the imprisonment of similarly sworn fellows should not be tolerated.

They left at dawn the next morning, accompanied by the local rector and some twenty farmers from the surrounding area. Lady Margaret expressed misgivings as she and Jayne watched them leave. Nothing good would come of this, she said. Sir Henry might believe in the peaceable nature of the Clubmen, but she doubted Sir Thomas Fairfax would when faced with four thousand of them. It was one thing to pit yourself against handfuls of hungry soldiers in search of food, quite another to wave clubs at the New Model Army. She would spend the day praying that Andrew was as distant from Sherborne as he could possibly be, for it would be a disaster indeed if he was ordered to attack his father and brother.

The party returned late the following afternoon, having spent the night in woodland and being too weary or wounded to move at faster than a walk on the journey home. Benjamin rode ahead to warn Jayne that her services would be needed and, by the time the rest arrived, she was ready to receive them. As it turned out, there was more wounded pride than wounded flesh, for none of the injuries was so severe that it needed sutures. In most cases, the flats of swords had left weals across backs, though the rector, Mister Crewe, and two of the farmers had pricks in their buttocks from sharpened tips, and Sir Henry had a swollen knee from tumbling down the side of Hambledon Hill.

Jayne hid her smiles as she smoothed comfrey oil onto bruises, bound ice-cold bandages about Sir Henry’s knee and begged the rector and the two farmers to allow Sir Henry’s valet to examine their wounds in the parlour so that he could describe them to her. Only Benjamin, who’d been on worse battlefields, was uncomplaining about the treatment they’d received at the hands of Cromwell’s Ironsides. Sir Henry and his friends described it as a vicious bloodbath with no quarter given to the unarmed Clubmen.

The story took so long to tell, with each man contradicting the other, that Jayne begged her father to let Benjamin recount the details. Given permission, Benjamin stood to attention and gave his report in the clipped manner of an officer; but his version was so humorous that Jayne had to clamp her teeth together to keep from laughing. Rather less successful at controlling herself, Lady Margaret left the salon two or three times to stuff the hem of her apron into her mouth.

Benjamin’s account ran as follows: Sir Henry and his cohort made good speed to Hambledon Hill. With the help of a local, they followed a track to the summit. Because it was a hill fort, the top was flat and very large, being in excess of fifty acres, and gave good command of the surrounding area. Once there, Sir Henry’s group joined some four thousand already gathered, and, since the surface was grassy, they were able to hobble their horses and allow them to graze. Individuals amongst the throng took it in turns to speak, but the wind blew their words away, and when nothing anyone said was heard, the crowd grew restless.

By ill-fortune, a lieutenant and fifty dragoons, an advance party from General Cromwell’s regiment, appeared on the skyline at the moment the Clubmen were at their most belligerent, and the more excitable amongst the crowd fired upon them. Sir Henry, along with others, questioned why anyone was bearing muskets, but by then it was too late. General Cromwell and one thousand mounted troops were gathered at the bottom of the hill. In short order, the Ironsides charged the slope and set about punishing the Clubmen with fists and flat swords.

As battles went, it was a shameful rout, with four thousand Clubmen taking to their heels and slithering and sliding down the sides of Hambledon Hill. Sir Henry and his group took shelter in woodland but, with their horses still hobbled at the top, had no means of leaving. Benjamin, the least bruised and battered, skirted around the bottom of the hill to discover what was happening and learnt from other Clubmen that three hundred of their comrades had been taken prisoner. Word had it they were being marched to Shroton church, where they would be held for questioning by General Cromwell.

Ignorant of whether guards had been posted on the summit and the roads, Sir Henry and his companions made the decision to remain in the woodland overnight. When dawn broke, Benjamin made his way up a sheltered track to discover if their mounts were still where they’d left them, and also to scan the surrounding countryside for the New Model Army. Imagine his surprise to see his brother and Colonel Harrier standing guard over their hobbled horses when he emerged onto the level land at the top.

With nowhere to hide, he advanced to speak with them and was relieved when they greeted him with good humour rather than anger. Andrew had been tasked with taking the names of every man who came to retrieve his horse, and most had done so the previous evening. Amongst the two dozen animals left, he had recognised both Sir Henry’s and Benjamin’s mounts and the emblems on some of the other saddles as belonging to Sir Henry’s neighbours. With the light fading, and concerned for his father’s safety, he had sent his company of soldiers back to their camp and waited with the horses until someone came to retrieve them.

Colonel Harrier, having learnt from Andrew’s men that he was still on Hambledon Hill, joined him shortly after sunset and remained with him through the night. Upon hearing from Benjamin that none of their group had slept and all had cuts and bruises, he suggested they lead the horses down on halters rather than require their owners to collect them.

‘They made a fearsome sight,’ said one of the farmers. ‘The woodland was shrouded in mist, and it wasn’t obvious that only three of the horses had riders. We quite expected to be placed in custody and marched to Shroton.’

‘Instead, we were treated with courtesy,’ said another. ‘Colonel Harrier informed us that General Cromwell had no wish to make war on Clubmen and urged us to hasten back to Swyre.’

Sir Henry let loose a profanity. ‘He gave us a damned lecture for daring to harass the New Model Army,’ he growled.

The Reverend Crewe, back from the parlour after having his left buttock cleansed and dressed by the valet, raised a calming hand. ‘Come, sir, it was hardly a lecture. He argued quite reasonably that peace will come quicker if the King is forced to surrender. Since only the New Model Army is equipped to do that, we Clubmen should stand aside and allow them to do their job.’

A noisy debate ensued, with each man stating his own interpretation of what Colonel Harrier had said. On the pretext of needing Jayne to examine a cut on his arm, Benjamin drew her into the hall. ‘Colonel Harrier stayed for Andrew’s sake,’ he told her, rolling up his sleeve. ‘Had he not, it would have fallen to Andrew to give the lecture, and you can imagine what Father’s response would have been to that.’

‘Not good,’ Jayne agreed, looking at a small scabbed cut amidst a sea of bruises before giving him a playful tap on the chest. ‘You’ll survive,’ she said. ‘You had far worse scrapes when you were a child. What else do you want to tell me?’

‘Father should be grateful to Colonel Harrier. According to Andrew, orders were given that the ringleaders of the insurrection should be singled out and taken to Shroton. General Cromwell wants their names listed and each to be interrogated for the purpose of learning who else is involved. Any other commander would have arrested Sir Henry and hauled him to Shroton on the end of a rope.’

‘Have you told Papa?’

‘Of course not,’ Benjamin answered. ‘He’d have bitten my head off. But I thought you’d like to know, since Colonel Harrier will have spared him as much for your sake as for Andrew’s.’

Jayne gave a mock shudder. ‘Well, that you must definitely keep to yourself,’ she said dryly. ‘I’m no keener than you to have my head removed.’