The men agitating for the Army’s outrageous wishes had wanted that question put thus: whether the King’s answers to the treaty, brought to them at long last, were satisfactory. But every man partisan enough to the Royalist cause to say yes had long since been driven from the Commons; that vote was designed to fail, and so those who sought peace had diverted it away. Satisfaction was not needed. After the long struggles, the near misses and dashed hopes for reconciliation, all the Commons wanted to know was this: whether the King’s concessions were enough to be going on with.
The question passed without a division. They would accept the treaty, and move on to restoring peace in England. The wars were done at last.
Antony ignored the abusive language flung by the Army officers who pursued the members down the stairs and out through Westminster Hall; he could barely hear them through his jaw-cracking yawn. Soame, at his side, had declared that walking normally was not worth the effort; he staggered as if drunk. “Somewhere in Hell,” the younger man said, ramming the heels of his hands into his eyes, “there is a circle where men are forced to listen to Prynne go on for three hours without pause. And when I am sent thither, I’ll tell the Devil I have been there already, and ask for something new.”
It sparked a weary laugh, tinged with exhausted relief. “And in Heaven is a feather mattress, well fluffed and warm. I’m for home,” Antony said. “I will see you tomorrow.”
WESTMINSTER PALACE, WESTMINSTER: December 6, 1648
He fell asleep like a man who has been clubbed over the head, and woke only for supper. “It passed?” Kate asked; she had waited the whole night for him, knowing they debated England’s fate. And Antony said, “Pray God we will find some peace now.”
The race that preceded the vote had drained him as badly as the unending debate. From St. Albans the Army had marched, drawing nearer every day, into Westminster itself, until the fear that Ireton and his soldiers would forcibly dissolve Parliament had frayed every man’s nerves. To do so would destroy the Houses’ last shreds of tattered credibility; anything after that would have no claim to legitimacy. But they might have done it.
Falling prey to his relief would be easy. Their vote yesterday, however, had not sent their problems up in smoke; the Army was still quartered all over Westminster, still capable of trouble. Antony had not heard from Ben Hipley in days, not since the soldiers left St. Albans. He went by coach the next morning, and heard the measured beat of boots on cobblestones. Lifting the curtain, he saw soldiers patrolling the streets—not the Trained Bands of the City, but New Model men, loyal to Henry Ireton.
Then he descended from his coach in the Palace Yard, and saw it was worse.
Two companies, one of horse, one of foot, were stationed around the edges of the courtyard. They stood at attention, not menacing anyone—but again, where were the Trained Bands, whose task it was to guard this place? Antony stood, staring, unblinking, until from above he heard a whisper from his coachman. “Sir…”
Glancing up, he saw fear in the man’s eyes. “Go,” he said, as if there were nothing amiss. “I will be well.”
Or if I be not, you can do nothing to help me.
With his coach rattling away behind him, he settled his cloak and advanced. The soldiers let him pass without comment, and he breathed more easily—but did not release his fear. Their presence must portend something ill. He worried at the question as he hurried through the vaulted, crowded space of Westminster Hall, past the legal courts that met there, into the Court of Wards that lay in a set of chambers off its southern end. He was almost at the stairs leading up to the lobby of the Commons when he heard a disturbance.
“Mr. Prynne,” an unfamiliar voice said, “you must not go into the House, but must go along with me.”
Heedless of the looks from men carrying on their business around him, Antony stopped just shy of the doorway and listened.
From the stairs came William Prynne’s defiant tones. “I am a member of the House, and am going into it to discharge my duty.”
Footsteps, then a sudden scuffle. Despite his better judgment, Antony peered around the corner—and what he saw turned his blood to ice.
Soldiers, more New Model men, blocked the stairs to the Commons. Antony recognized one fellow, a grinning dwarf of a man called Lord Grey of Groby; but the rest were unfamiliar, and among them was a colonel who directed his men to drag the struggling Prynne bodily back down the steps. Prynne fought them, his ugly, scarred face red with effort, but he stood no chance. Recognizing that, he employed his favorite weapon, that had served him so loyally during the debate. “This is a high breach of the privileges of Parliament! And an affront to the House of Commons, whose servant I am!” Antony leapt back as the soldiers hauled the man through the doorway. All pretense of business in the Court of Wards had stopped, and Prynne’s bellows rang from the walls; he knew how to use his voice. “These men, being more and stronger than I, and all armed, may forcibly carry me where they please—but stir from here of my own accord I will not! ”
His own accord mattered not a whit; will he, nil he, they forced him through into the Court of Requests, and came out a moment later, breathing hard, but some of the men laughing.
By then Antony had faded back amongst the bystanders, where they might not see him. He could taste his own pulse, so strongly was his heart pounding. What criteria formed that list, he didn’t know, but by any standards the Army might use, he would not be allowed through.
If the Commons will not vote against the King, as the Army wishes it to—why, then, they will purge it until it does.
He had known for months—years—that the power in England had shifted once again, into the hands of the Army’s officers, both in and out of Parliament. But he had never imagined they would exert it so nakedly, against all the laws and traditions of the land.
Fear curdled the blood in his veins.
So long as the contrary members did not sit, that might satisfy them; it might be enough for him to return home, and not try to enter the Commons. But what if it were not? If they came after him…
They were arresting members of Parliament. They might do anything.
He could flee to the safety of the Onyx Hall, had he warning enough, and no soldier would find him there.
But he could not take Kate with him.
Whether Lune would allow her in was not the question. Antony could not so suddenly reveal to his wife the secrets of all these years. But—Hell, he snarled inwardly, and cursed his wandering thoughts, which flinched from the real question: whether he should advance or retreat.
Advance, and he would find himself held in the Court of Requests with Prynne—and, no doubt, others from the Commons. Retreat…
Antony thought of Kate. The hard set of her jaw when she insisted she be permitted to lend her aid in the writing of secret pamphlets. Her disdain for his sober clothes and trimmed hair, disguising his body as he disguised his principles—all to maintain his position in the Commons and Guildhall, where he might do some good.
But I haven’t, he realized. Not enough. Not to prevent this catastrophe.
A clerk stood nearby, still gaping. With scarcely a word, Antony claimed a pen and scrap of paper from the man and scribbled a quick note, spattering ink in his haste. The clerk handed over sealing wax without being asked, and after Antony had pressed his signet into the soft mass, he gave the paper back, followed by the first coin that came into his hand—a shilling, and more than enough. “Take this note to Lombard Street—the house under the sign of the White Hart. Do you understand me?” The clerk nodded. “Go.”