Monck bore it with patience, but eventually held up one hand. “Lord Mayor, I assure you, my intentions are as they have always been: to protect the liberties of the people. I’ve sent a letter this morning to Parliament, requesting them to issue with all possible speed writs to fill the vacancies in the House. By this, I hope to dispel the impression that they intend their sitting to be perpetual.”
Had Antony’s heart been pounding less heavily, he might have snorted. Impression? No, it was a certainty: the Rump had no desire to give way, and let go of the power currently in their hands. It was the same disease that had gutted the Army, seducing the officers to aggrandize themselves, until their own soldiers abandoned them.
The general had to know that, or he would not be here. Monck had never been a political man, unlike his Army brethren Ireton and Cromwell; only the greatest distress at England’s situation had persuaded him to take action. Yet everyone seemed reluctant to condemn the Rump outright, as if speaking would make its faults real.
Hence the pounding of Antony’s heart. He felt as if he held a butterfly in the cage of his hands. If he could but persuade Monck…
He cleared his throat, and all eyes snapped to him. Betraying nothing of his inner tension, Antony said, “Promises to fill the vacant seats go only so far—especially when the Rump may pass whatever restrictions they like on who may elect, and who be elected. They have done it before, sir.”
Monck said mildly, “If those are the laws Parliament passes, then so be it.”
Frustration welled in Antony’s throat. Monck had gotten this far by moving one careful step at a time; were he less attentive to practicalities, he might have been checked in Scotland by his own disloyal officers. But the general put his own house in order before moving south, and had held to that pattern ever since, addressing concerns as they arose.
It was a strength, but also a weakness. When looking to the future, his vision stopped at next week. “Please allow me to remind you that they have set no date for their own dissolution, nor do they seem likely to do so. What else is that but a perpetual Parliament? We must have a succession of Parliaments, as is meant to be.”
“And so I have advised them,” Monck agreed.
“But what if they ignore it? They are not representative, sir; they are the remnant left after the greatest affront to privilege and liberty this realm has ever seen.” Antony looked not just to Monck now, but to the Lord Mayor and his fellow aldermen—some of them victims of similar interference in the government of London. “The only legitimate authority in this land is that elected twenty years ago: the full Parliament, such as has not perished in the interim.”
By the finer points of law, it had never gone away. Back in Pym’s day, they had maneuvered Charles into signing an Act that Parliament could not be dissolved save by its own will. From the original purge to Cromwell’s ejection of the Rump at the start of the Protectorate, through the myriad of upheavals since then, that longest of Parliaments had, in legal terms, never ended.
Monck folded his hands on the table before him. “You mean the readmission of the secluded members.”
“Forgive me, Sir Antony,” Alleyn broke in, “but it seems to me that you speak in your own self-interest—as you were one of those purged.”
“I speak in the interests of England,” Antony said, glaring at the Lord Mayor. “Unless you wish to argue that the Army had the rightful authority to force us out, then you must admit that seat is mine by law—for the laws barring me from it were passed after my seclusion. And if you wish to argue in the Army’s favor, then by all means, say so.”
Alleyn flushed and mumbled something unintelligible, but clearly negative. Enough men in the room had bristled at the mention of the Army that only a madman would have tried to argue Antony’s point.
Addressing Monck once more, Antony said, “Sir, I beg you. You are Parliament’s support—not the Rump, but the freely elected Commons of England. You have said so many times. Use your influence to return us to our places, and you shall have the succession of Parliaments you seek. But I tell you with certainty: the Rump will never vote for the end of their own power.”
He held the man’s gaze with every word he spoke, and prayed as he did so. Antony had come so very close to asking Lune for aid; a few well-crafted dreams would be enough to sway the man’s sympathies to their side. But Monck had resisted tearing down the gates and trespassing on the rights of the City; though he had finally given in on those matters, his patience with the Rump was already near its end. He must make his decision freely, not constrained by faerie magic. Nothing else would be honest.
And honesty, as much as monarchy, must be restored in England.
“I will consider what you have said, Sir Antony,” the general told him. With that, Antony had to be content. But he saw doubt in the man’s eyes.
It may take him some days yet—but we have him.
ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: February 21, 1660
Applause and cheers greeted the line of men as one of Monck’s captains led the way through the lobby of the Commons. Whether those watching were petitioners with business for the House, or whether news had gotten out of Monck’s plan, Antony could not guess; he, with the others, had been gathered since well before dawn at the general’s chambers in Whitehall. But either way, the onlookers roared their approval as the secluded members marched through.
It had the feel of a triumphal procession. Prynne wore a baskethilted sword that looked as old as he, and waved vigorously at men he knew, until the sheathed blade tangled the legs of Sir William Waller behind him, and he had to attend to its management.
Dodging Waller’s stumble, Thomas Soame grinned at Antony and said, “The place seems smaller than I remember.”
“That’s because we scarce have room to breathe.” Up ahead, the soldiers had stopped at the bar to the House: a nice observation of propriety. The secluded members filed past them and found the chamber empty. “Do you think they know we are coming?”
“The Rumpers? I hope not. Bit of a surprise for them when they find out, and I confess feeling some glee at the thought.”
Hesilrige at least knew; he and his minions had an unpleasant surprise when they came to call on Monck that morning. But as current members began to trickle in and found their old companions in their seats, their reactions were more than sufficient to entertain Soame.
Antony left his friend to enjoy their discomfiture, and settled more agreeably into his seat. Monck might delude himself that they had come to establish England once more as a commonwealth; at the very least he struggled to avoid war. In that latter, Antony would be more than happy to oblige him. But the time had come for a return to the old constitution.
The House of Commons. The House of Lords. And the King upon his throne.
England would be a kingdom once more.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 19, 1660
Convincing all her ladies to leave her in peace took some effort. Some had been with Lune in exile, and some had not, but to a lady, they were all determined to behave as if no disruption had ever occurred—which meant they stuck to her like burrs, as if sheer intensity of service could make up for long deprivation. She had to speak quite sharply before the last of them understood that when she said she wished to be alone, she meant true solitude.
With that achieved at last, she sat in one of her antechambers, hands playing over the keyboard of her virginals. She had no skill at the instrument: no expression such as mortals could evoke, no faerie entrancement, not even physical expertise. But it was new to her, and the challenge was diverting.