'Where are the bargemen?'
They had all vanished. Thames watermen were a surly, tricky group, most of them deeply conservative. Only one boat was there, about to cast off with a woman passenger. She had fought hard to negotiate a trip downstream with a miserable and suspicious rower who did not want to take her or anybody else. He had finally agreed, though would not go below London Bridge because he claimed the Pool of London was frozen solid. A bitter wind across the water here seemed to confirm it.
The young woman was already sitting in the stern, hunched in her cloak, her hands buried in a muff, her face shadowed by a hood which she had pulled well forward to defy the wind-chill. She was cold, lonely and depressed, and as the twilight thickened into darkness, she was anxious that she was too late to make the journey to Greenwich, and on from there to reach her children. Her emotions were at their lowest ebb. The King's execution had forced her to face up to bitter truths about her own position, her sons' futures, her missing husband and her chances of ever knowing peace, prosperity or happiness. She had been weeping.
It was Juliana Lovell.
Her heart fell when she saw the soldiers. One of them directed a man to this solitary boat. The soldier indicated with an angry arm movement that she had to disembark.
With her Royalist connections, Juliana felt extremely nervous. Afraid of awkward questions, she did stumble to her feet. She actually climbed back onto the slimy green stairs. Her shoe slipped and slid a few inches. The soldier could have steadied her, but he stepped back instead. With only half his mind on it, he gesticulated irritably that she must move right out of the way.
There was no other boat to take her. She stayed put.
The soldier had turned away. He was tall, his face hidden by the shadow of his hat. Juliana could tell he had long service in the New Model Army, for the Venice Red dye in his coat had faded to a sickly yellow colour. As she waited for him to take notice of her plight, Juliana was surprised to see the escorted civilian hand the man in uniform a gold half-crown. 'Thanks, Captain.'
A soldier held a flaring torch. Juliana made out the unusual coin clearly, and she thought the boatman did so too.
Terrified of being stranded in London, on a night when safe beds would be difficult to find, Juliana stood her ground more fiercely. 'This is my boat! There are no others and I will not be put out of it.'
The tall captain interfered again. Now, in the torchlight, she could see that his hat was rammed down on short fair hair. His face looked weary. 'Stand aside, madam.'
He is not listening to me!
I take no interest in women, high-minded Captain Gideon Jukes told himself (taking an interest). She was young; she was spirited. She had inadvertently betrayed a glimpse of ankle as she scrambled to disembark.
In the shadow of her cloak hood, her face was washed-out and pale. She was definitely frightened of him. Gideon accepted that for the first time in his career, he was using the power of his uniform to domineer it over someone helpless. It was an emergency, but he was not proud. Naturally, he blamed the woman, as if her difficult behaviour made it necessary to bully her.
She had to get home. Abruptly, Juliana hopped back into the boat. The boatman neither helped nor prevented her. She took her seat again and defied them.
The escorted man was extremely agitated. The soldier reached a decision. He abandoned his tiff with Juliana, as if ignoring her would make her invisible. He grasped the man's arm and shoved him into the boat. 'Waterman, away with him — be gone quickly! To the Tower landing — '
The waterman had panicked but, fearing the soldiers, he made no protest. He launched off. After he had pulled out from the shore, however, he felt safer. Juliana heard him tackle the other passenger in a low, horrified tone, 'Who the devil have I got in my boat?'
'Why?'
Juliana sat extremely still. Fear and fascination gripped her equally. Now she was seriously wishing she had stayed behind on shore. She glanced back; the soldiers had all gone.
The boatman demanded angrily, 'Are you the hangman that cut off the King's head?'
'No, as I am a sinner to God — not I.'
The boatman trembled. It seemed to Juliana that the passenger also shook with anxiety. For a short time there was silence. The waterman rowed a little further, then he stopped again, rested his oars and examined the male passenger even more closely. 'Are you the hangman? I cannot carry you.'
Without saying his name, the man half confessed his identity, although he pleaded innocence: 'I was fetched with a troop of horse, and kept a close prisoner at Whitehall. Truly I did not do it. I was kept a close prisoner all the while, but they had my instruments.' Appalled, Juliana wondered just what was in that bag he clutched so tightly.
'I will sink the boat, if you do not tell me true!'
But Brandon continued to deny taking part. So they went on, all the way to London Bridge, where Richard Brandon was put off at Tower Pier. Carrying his bundle and a chinking purse, he went away fast in the direction of Whitechapel.
The waterman — his name was Abraham Smith, it turned out long afterwards — stood up in his boat and watched the man until he had gone right out of sight. Then, with some drama, Smith looked hard at the fare he had been given. It was another gold half-crown.
Afraid to disembark from the rocking craft without assistance, Juliana had sat tight. At last offering his arm for her to climb to land, Abraham Smith waved away her fare, then made it plain he intended to get very drunk in a tavern so if she was that sort of woman — as he clearly presumed she must be — she could join him. Juliana made the briefest of excuses. If the gates on London Bridge were still open, she would hasten over to the south bank in the hope of finding somebody who was travelling down the Dover Road.
With so much else to think about, her encounter on Whitehall Stairs was soon largely forgotten. She had wiped the Roundhead captain from her mind just as he had, almost, eradicated Juliana from his.
Chapter Fifty-Eight — London: 1649
The King's embalmed body, with the severed head ghoulishly stitched back on, lay in state in the royal apartments at St James's Palace for several days. It was then turned over to Bishop Juxon and other supporters for a private burial. When Westminster Abbey was refused them, as being too public, they settled on the Royal Chapel in Windsor. A vault was opened, which was found to contain the remains of King Henry VIII and Queen Jane Seymour. There, in a plain lead coffin, King Charles was buried. As the small cortege approached the chapel, the sky darkened and a furious snowstorm had started, turning the black velvet pall to white.
A book purporting to be the late King's prayers and meditations, Eikon Basilike, was printed to such an immense reception it ran into twenty-three editions within a year. Robert Allibone and Gideon Jukes despaired of the reading public.
Richard Brandon died in June. Some claimed it was a judgement.
In the months before he died, Brandon was said to have openly acknowledged, particularly when tipsy, that he was the King's executioner. He admitted he received thirty pounds for his day's work, paid to him in half-crowns within an hour of the deed. In Rosemary Lane, thirty pounds would keep a man in drink until he killed himself that way. The only problem was to find someone willing to give change for the half-crowns. The coins' face value was so large they were never currency among the poor.
Brandon also boasted of an orange stuck full of cloves and a handkerchief, which according to him were taken from the King's pocket after the headless corpse was carried off the scaffold. Brandon claimed he was offered twenty shillings for the orange by a gentleman in Whitehall; he refused and then, lacking acumen, he sold it for only ten shillings in Rosemary Lane.