the Cherwell at Gosford bridge, where Sir Jacob Astley commanded, and
where the regiment in which Inglesant served was stationed. The bridge
was barricaded with breastworks and a bastion, but the Parliamentarian
army attempted to cross the stream both above and below. They succeeded
in crossing opposite to Colonel Lake's regiment, under a heavy fire from
the musketeers, who advanced rank by rank between the troops of pikes
and a little in advance of them, and after giving their fire, wheeled
off to the right and left, and took their places again in the rear. The
rebels reserved their fire, their men falling at every step; but they
still advanced, supported by troops of horse, till they reached the
Royalists, when they delivered their fire, closed their ranks, and
charged, their horse charging the pikes at the same time. The ranks of
the royal musketeers halted and closed up, and the pikes drew close
together shoulder to shoulder, till the rapiers of their officers met
across the front. The shock was very severe, and the struggle for a
moment undecided; but the pikes standing perfectly firm, owing in a
great measure to the number of gentlemen in the front ranks, and the
musketeers fighting with great courage, the enemy began to give way, and
having been much broken before they came to the charge fell into
disorder, and were driven back across the stream, the Royalists
following them to the opposite bank, and even pursuing them up the
slope. Inglesant had noticed an officer on the opposite side who was
fighting with great courage, and as they crossed the river he saw him
stumble and nearly fall, though he appeared to struggle forward on the
opposite slope to where an old thorn tree broke the rank of the pikes.
Johnny came close to him, and recognized him as the Mr. Thorne whom he
had known at Gidding. As he knew the regiment would be halted
immediately, he fell out of his rank, leaving his file to the bringer-up
or lieutenant behind him, and stooped over his old rival, who evidently
was desperately hurt. He raised his head, and gave him some _aqua
vitae_ from his flask. The other knew him at once, and tried to speak;
but his strength was too far gone, and his utterance failed him. He
seemed to give over the effort, and lay back in Inglesant's arms,
staining his friend with his blood. Inglesant asked him if he had any
mission he would wish performed, but the other shook his head, and
seemed to give himself to prayer. After a minute or two he seemed to
rally, and his face became very calm. Opening his eyes, he looked at
Johnny steadily and with affection, and said, slowly and with
difficulty, but still with a look of rest and peace,--
"Mr. Inglesant, you spoke to me once of standing together in a brighter
dawn; I did not believe you, but it was true; the dawn is breaking--and
it is bright."
As he spoke a volley of musketry shook the hill-side, and the regiment
came down the slope at a run, and carrying Inglesant with them, crossed
the river, and, halting on the other side, wheeled about and faced the
passage in the same order in which they had stood at first. This
dangerous manoeuvre was executed only just in time, for the enemy
advanced in great force to the river-side; but the Royalists being also
very strong, they did not attempt to pass. After facing each other for
some time, the fighting having ceased all along the line, Inglesant
spoke to his officer, and got leave to cross the river with a flag of
truce to seek his friend. An officer from the other side met him, most
of the enemy's troops having fallen back some distance from the river.
He was an old soldier, evidently a Low-country officer, and not much of
a Puritan, and he greeted Inglesant politely as a fellow-soldier.
Inglesant told him his errand, and that he was anxious to find out his
friend's body, if, as he feared, he would be found to have breathed his
last. They went to the old thorn, where, indeed, they found Mr. Thorne
quite dead. Several of the rebel officers gathered round. Mr. Thorne
was evidently well known, and they spoke of him with respect and regard.
Inglesant stopped, looking down on him for a few minutes, and then
turned to go.
"Gentlemen," he said, raising his hat, "I leave him in your care. He
was, as you have well said, a brave and a good man. I crossed his path
twice--once in love and once in war--and at both times he acted as a
gallant gentleman and a man of God. I wish you good day."
He turned away, and went down to the river, from which his regiment had
by this time also fallen back, the others looking after him as he went.
"Who is that?" said a stern and grim-looking Puritan officer. "He does
not speak as the graceless Cavaliers mostly do."
"His name is Inglesant," said a quiet, pale man, in dark and plain
clothes; "he is one of the King's servants, a concealed Papist, and,
they say, a Jesuit. I have seen him often at Whitehall."
"Thou wilt not see him much longer, brother," said the other grimly,
"either at Whitehall or elsewhere. It were a good deed to prevent his
further deceiving the poor and ignorant folk," and he raised his piece
to fire.
"Scarcely," said the other quietly, "since he came to do us service and
courtesy." But he made no effort to restrain the Puritan, looking on,
indeed, with a sort of quiet interest as to what would happen.
"Thou art enslaved over much to the customs of this world, brother,"
said the other, still with his grave smile; "knowest thou not that it is
the part of the saints militant to root out iniquity from the earth?"
He arranged his piece to fire, and would no doubt have done so; but the
Low-country officer, who had been looking on in silence, suddenly threw
himself upon the weapon, and wrested it out of his hand.
"By my soul, Master Fight-the-fight," he said, "that passes a joke. The
good cause is well enough, and the saints militant and triumphant, and
all the rest of it; but to shoot a man under a flag of truce was never
yet required of any saint, whether militant or triumphant."
The other looked at him severely as he took back his weapon.
"Thou art in the bonds of iniquity thyself," he said, "and in the land
of darkness and the shadow of death. The Lord's cause will never
prosper while it puts trust in such as thou." But he made no further
attempt against Inglesant, who, indeed, by this time had crossed the
river, and was out of musket shot on the opposite bank.
A few days afterwards the King left Oxford and went into the West.
Inglesant remained in garrison, and took his share in all the
expeditions of any kind that were undertaken. The Roman Catholics were
at this time very strong in Oxford; they celebrated mass every day, and
had frequent sermons, at which many of the Protestants attended; but it
was thought among the Church people to be an extreme thing to do, and
any of the commanders who did it excited suspicion thereby. The Church
of England people were by this time growing jealous of the power and
unrestrained license of the Catholics, and the Jesuit warned Inglesant
to attach himself more to the English Church party, and avoid being much
seen with extreme Papists. Colonel Gage, a Papist, was appointed
governor by the King; but being a very prudent man and a general
favourite, as well as an excellent officer, the appointment did not give
much offence. Inglesant was present at Cropredy Bridge, which battle or
skirmish was fought after the King returned to Oxford from his hasty
march through Worcestershire, and was wounded severely in the head by a
sword cut--a wound which he thought little of at the time, but which
long afterwards made itself felt. Notwithstanding this wound he
intended following the King into the West, for His Majesty had latterly
shown a greater kindness to him, and a wish to keep him near his person;
but Father St. Clare, after an interview with the King, told Inglesant
that he had a mission for him to perform in London, and so kept him in
Oxford.
The trial of the Archbishop was dragging slowly on through the year, and
the Jesuit procured Inglesant another pass, and directed him to
endeavour in every way to assist the Archbishop in his trial, without
fear of his prosecutors, telling him that he could procure his
liberation even if he were put in prison, which he did not believe he
would be. Inglesant, therefore, on his return to London, gave himself
heartily to assisting the counsel and secretary of the Archbishop, and
found himself perfectly unmolested in so doing. He lodged at a
druggist's over against the Goat Tavern, near Toy Bridge in the Strand,
and frequented the ordinary at Haycock's, near the Palsgrave's Head
Tavern, where the Parliament men much resorted. Here he met among
others Sir Henry Blount, who had been a gentleman pensioner of the
King's, and had waited on him in his turn to York and Edgehill fight,
but then, returning to London, walked into Westminster Hall, with his
sword by his side, so coolly as to astonish the Parliamentarians. He was
summoned before the Parliament, but pleading that he only did his duty
as a servant, was acquitted. This man, who was a man of judgment and
experience, was of great use to Inglesant in many ways, and put him in
the way of finding much that might assist the Archbishop; but it
occurred to Inglesant more than once to doubt whether the latter would
benefit much by his advocacy, a known pupil of the Papists as he was.
This caused him to keep more quiet than he otherwise would have done;
but what was doubtless the Jesuit's chief aim was completely answered;
for the Church people, both in London and the country, who regarded the
Archbishop as a martyr, becoming aware of the sincere and really useful
exertions that Inglesant had made with such untiring energy, attached
themselves entirely to him, and took him completely into their
confidence, so that he could at this time have depended on any of them
for assistance and support. The different parties were at this time so
confused and intermixed--the Papists playing in many cases a double
game--that it would have been difficult for Inglesant, who was partly in
the confidence of all, to know which way to act, had he stood alone. He
saw now, more than he had ever done, the intrigues of that party among
the Papists who favoured the Parliament, and was astonished at their
skill and duplicity. At last the Commons, failing to find the
Archbishop guilty of anything worthy of death, passed a Bill of
Attainder, as they had done with Lord Strafford, and condemned him with
no precedence of law. The Lords hesitated to pass the Bill, and on
Christmas Eve, 1644, demanded a conference with the Commons. The next
day was the strangest Christmas Day Inglesant had ever spent. The whole
city was ordered to fast in the most solemn way by a special ordinance
of Parliament, and strict inquisition was made to see that this
ordinance was carried out by the people. Inglesant was well acquainted
with Mr. Hale, afterwards Chief Justice Hale, one of the Archbishop's
counsel, then a young lawyer in Lincoln's Inn, who, it was said, had
composed the defence which Mr. Hern, the senior counsel, had spoken
before the Lords. Johnny spent part of the morning with this gentleman,
and in the afternoon walked down to the Tower from Lincoln's Inn. The
streets were very quiet, the shops closed, and a feeling of sadness and
dread hung over all--at any rate in Inglesant's mind. At the turnstile
at Holborn he went into a bookseller's shop kept by a man named Turner,
a Papist, who sold popish books and pamphlets. Here he found an
apothecary, who also was useful to the Catholics, making "Hosts" for
them. These both immediately began to speak to Inglesant about the
Archbishop and the Papists, expressing their surprise that he should
exert himself so much in his favour, telling him that the Papists, to a
man, hated him and desired his death, and that a gentleman lately
returned from Italy had that very day informed the bookseller that the
news of the Archbishop's execution was eagerly expected in Rome. The
Lords were certain to give way, they said, and the Archbishop was as
good as dead already. They were evidently very anxious to extract from
Inglesant whether he acted on his own responsibility or from the
directions of the Jesuit; but Inglesant was much too prudent to commit
himself in any way. When he had left them he went straight to the
Tower, where he was admitted to the Archbishop, whom he found expecting
him. He gave him all the intelligence he could, and all the gossip of
the day which he had picked up, including the sayings of the wits at the
taverns and ordinaries respecting the trial and the Archbishop, of whom
all men's minds were full. Laud was inclined to trust somewhat to the
Lords' resistance, and Inglesant had scarcely the heart to refute his
opinion. He told him the feeling of the Papists, and his fear that even
the Catholics at Oxford were not acting sincerely with him. After the
failure of the King's pardon, Laud entertained little hope from any
other efforts Charles might be disposed to make; but Inglesant promised
him to ride to Oxford, and see the Jesuit again. This he did the next
day, before the Committee of the Commons met the Lords, which they did
not do till the 2d of January. He had a long interview with the Jesuit,
and urged as strongly as he could the cruelty and impolicy of letting
the Archbishop die without an effort to save him.
"What can be done?" said the Jesuit; "the King can do nothing. All that
he can do in the way of pardon he has done: besides, I never see the
King; the feeling against the Catholics is now so strong, that His
Majesty dare not hold any communications with me."
Inglesant inquired what the policy of the Roman Catholic Church really
was; was it favourable to the King and the English Church, or against
it?
The Jesuit hesitated, but then, with that appearance of frankness which
always won upon his pupil, he confessed that the policy of the Papal
Court had latterly gone very much more in favour of the party who wished
to destroy the English Church than it had formerly done; and that at
present the Pope and the Catholic powers abroad were only disposed to
help the King on such terms as he could not accept, and at the same time
retain the favour of the Church and Protestant party; and he
acknowledged that he had himself under-estimated the opposition of the
bulk of English people to Popery. He then requested Inglesant to return
to London, and continue to show himself openly in support of the
Archbishop, assuring him that in this way alone could he fit himself for
performing a most important service to the King, which, he said, he
should be soon able to point out to him. The old familiar charm, which
had lost none of its power over Johnny, would, of itself, have been
sufficient to make him perfectly pliant to the Jesuit's will. He
returned to London, but was refused admission to the Archbishop until
after the Committee of the Commons had met the Lords, and on the 3d of
January the Lords passed the Bill of Attainder. When the news of this
reached the Archbishop, he broke off his history, which he had written
from day to day, and prepared himself for death. He petitioned that he
might be beheaded instead of hanged, and the Commons at last, after much
difficulty, granted this request. On the 6th of January it was ordered
by both Houses that he should suffer on the 10th. On the same day
Inglesant received a special message from the Jesuit in these words, in
cypher:--"Apply for admission to the scaffold; it will be granted you."
Very much surprised, Inglesant went to Alderman Pennington, and
requested admission to attend the Archbishop to the scaffold, pleading
that he was one of the King's household, and attached to the Archbishop
from a boy.
Pennington examined him concerning his being in London, his pass, and
place of abode, but Inglesant thought more from curiosity than from any
other motive; for it was evident that he knew all about him, and his
behaviour in London. He asked him many questions about Oxford and the
Catholics, and seemed to enjoy any embarrassment that Inglesant was put
to in replying. Finally he gave him the warrant of admission, and
dismissed him. But as he left the room he called him back, and said
with great emphasis,--
"I would warn you, young man, to look very well to your steps. You are
treading a path full of pitfalls, few of which you see yourself. All
your steps are known, and those are known who are leading you. They
think they hold the wires in their own hands, and do not know that they
are but the puppets themselves. If you are not altogether in the snare
of the destroyer, come out from them, and escape both destruction in
this world and the wrath that is to come."
Inglesant thanked him and took his leave. He could not help thinking
that there was much truth in the alderman's description of his position.
The next three days the Archbishop spent in preparing for death and
composing his speech; and on the day on which he was to die, Inglesant
found when he reached the Tower, that he was at his private prayers, at
which he continued until Pennington arrived to conduct him to the
scaffold. When he came out and found Inglesant there, he seemed pleased,
as well he might, for excepting Stern, his chaplain, the only one who
was allowed to attend him, he was alone amongst his enemies. He
ascended the scaffold with a brave and cheerful courage, some few of the
vast crowd assembled reviling him, but the greater part preserving a
decent and respectful silence. The chaplain and Inglesant followed him
close, and it was well they did so, for a crowd of people, whether by
permission or not is not known, pressed up upon the scaffold, as Dr.
Heylyn said, "upon the theatre to see the tragedy," so that they pressed
upon the Archbishop, and scarcely gave him room to die. Inglesant had
never seen such a wonderful sight before--once afterwards he saw one
like it, more terrible by far. The little island of the scaffold,
surrounded by a surging, pressing sea of heads and struggling men,
covering the whole extent of Tower Hill; the houses and windows round
full of people, the walls and towers behind covered too. People pressed
underneath the scaffold; people climbed up the posts and hung suspended
by the rails that fenced it round; people pressed up the steps till
there was scarcely room within the rails to stand. The soldiers on
guard seemed careless what was done, probably feeling certain that there
was no fear of any attempt to rescue the hated priest.
Inglesant recognized many Churchmen and friends of the Archbishop among
the crowd, and saw that they recognized him, and that his name was
passed about among both friends and enemies. The Archbishop read his
speech with great calmness and distinctness, the opening moving many to
tears, and when he had finished, gave the papers to Stern to give to his
other chaplains, praying God to bestow His mercies and blessings upon
them. He spoke to a man named Hind, who sat taking down his speech,
begging him not to do him wrong by mistaking him. Then begging the
crowd to stand back and give him room, he knelt down to the block; but
seeing through the chinks of the boards the people underneath, he begged
that they might be removed, as he did not wish that his blood should
fall upon the heads of the people. Surely no man was ever so crowded
upon and badgered to his death. Then he took off his doublet, and would
have addressed himself to prayer, but was not allowed to do so in peace;
one Sir John Clotworthy, an Irishman, pestering him with religious
questions. After he had answered one or two meekly, he turned to the
executioner and forgave him, and kneeling down, after a very short
prayer, to which Hind listened with his head down and wrote word for
word, the axe with a single blow cut off his head. He was buried in All
Hallows Barking, a great crowd of people attending him to the grave in
silence and great respect,--the Church of England service read over him
without interruption, though it had long been discontinued in all the
Churches in London.
News of his death spread rapidly over England, and was received by all
Church people with religious fervour as the news of a martyrdom; and
wherever it was told, it was added that Mr. John Inglesant, the King's
servant, who had used every effort to aid the Archbishop on his trial,
was with him on the scaffold to the last. Inglesant returned to Oxford,
where the Jesuit received him cordially. He had, it would have seemed,
failed in his mission, for the Archbishop was dead; nevertheless, the
Jesuit's aim was fully won.
On the King's leaving Oxford, before the advance of General Fairfax,
Inglesant accompanied him, and was present at the battle of Naseby, so
fatal to the royal cause. No mention of this battle, however, is to be
found among the papers from which these memoirs are compiled; and the
fact that Inglesant was present at it is known only by an incidental
reference to it at a later period. Amid the confusion of the flight,
and the subsequent wanderings of the King before he returned to Oxford,
it is impossible to follow less important events closely, and it does
not seem clear whether Inglesant met with the Jesuit immediately after
the battle or not. Acting, however, there can be no doubt, with his
approval, if not by his direction, he appears very soon after to have
found his way to Gidding, where he remained during several weeks.
*CHAPTER XI.*
The autumn days passed quickly over, and with them the last peaceful
hours that Inglesant would know for a long time, and that youthful
freshness and bloom and peace which he would never know again. Such a
haven as this, such purity and holiness, such rest and repose, lovely as
the autumn sunshine resting on the foliage and the grass, would never be
open to him again. It was long before rest and peace came to him at
all, and when they did come, under different skies and an altered life,
it was a rest after a stern battle that left its scars deep in his very
life; it was apart from every one of his early friends; it was unblest
by first love and early glimpse of heaven. It was about the end of
October that he received a message from the Jesuit, which was the
summons to leave this paradise, sanctified to him by the holiest moments
of his life. The family were at evening prayers in the Church when the
messenger arrived, and Inglesant, as usual, was kneeling where he could
see Mary Collet, and probably was thinking more of her than of the
prayers. Nevertheless he remembered afterwards, when he thought during
the long lonely hours of every moment spent at Gidding, that the third
collect was being read, and that at the words "Lighten our darkness" he
looked up at some noise, and saw the sunshine from the west window
shining into the Church upon Mary Collet and the kneeling women, and,
beyond them, standing in the dark shadow under the window, the messenger
of the Jesuit, whom he knew. He got up quietly and went out. From his
marriage feast, nay, from the table of the Lord, he would have got up
all the same had that summons come to him.
His whole life from his boyhood had been so formed upon the idea of some
day proving himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him (that
perfect unexpressed confidence which won his very nature to a passionate
devotion capable of the supreme action, whatever it might be, to which
all his training had tended), that to have faltered at any moment would
have been more impossible to him than suicide, than any
self-contradictory action could have been--as impossible as for a proud
man to become suddenly naturally humble, or a merciful man cruel. That
there might have been found in the universe a power capable of
overmastering this master passion is possible; hitherto, however, it had
not been found.
Outside the Church the messenger gave him a letter from the Jesuit,
which, as usual, was very short.
"Johnny, come to me at Oxford as soon as you can. The time for which we
have waited is come. The service which you and none other can perform,
and which I have always foreseen for you, is waiting to be accomplished.
I depend on you."
Inglesant ordered some refreshment to be given to the messenger, and his
own horses to be got out. Then he went back into the Church, and waited
till the prayers were over.
The family expressed great regret at parting with him; they were in a
continual state of apprehension from their Puritan neighbours; but
Inglesant's presence was no defence but rather the contrary, and it is
possible that some of them may have been glad that he was going.
Mary Collet looked sadly and wistfully at him as they stood before the
porch of the house in the setting sunlight, the long shadows resting on
the grass, the evening wind murmuring in the tall trees and shaking down
the falling leaves.
"Do you know what this service is?" she said at last.
"I cannot make the slightest guess," he answered.
"Whatever it is you will do it?" she asked again.
"Certainly; to do otherwise would be to contradict the tenor of my
life."
"It may be something that your conscience cannot approve," she said.
"It is too late to think of that," he said, smiling; "I should have
thought of that years ago, when I was a boy at Westacre, and this man
came to me as an angel of light--to me a weak, ignorant, country lad--to
me, who owe him everything that I am, everything that I know,
everything--even the power that enables me to act for him."
Did she remember how he had once offered himself without reserve to her,
then at least without any reservation in favour of this man? Did she
regret that she had not encouraged this other attraction, or did she see
that the same thing would have happened whether she had accepted him or
no? She gave no indication of either of these thoughts.