In Hampshire, he was infuriated to find that his own meagre estates had never been returned to him after Juliana helped him compound for pardon. They were forfeited to Parliament. Worse, his property had been snapped up, at a knock-down price, by one of many astute speculators who were grabbing Royalist land: his own land agent, John Jolley. Lovell would never see the money; it went to pay Parliamentary soldiers.
When Jolley admitted this outrage, he only escaped injury because they were in a tavern with people watching — people who might report a trouble-making Royalist. Jolley informed the incensed Lovell that an information had been laid against him by somebody unknown. He had been proscribed by Parliament; designated 'dangerous and disaffected'; ordered into banishment. If caught, he would be imprisoned. He faced a firing-squad or the gallows.
Lovell disappeared fast, before he could be betrayed. In Hampshire he could trust no one. He had intended to try to see his father, but this was likely to go badly so he did not wait to do it. He had learned one other thing from John Jolley: Juliana and their two sons were at Lewisham. Lovell travelled there, but he found tenants in possession. He did not approach them. Had he done so, and had he tracked down Juliana to Shoe Lane, he would not have been too late. She would not — could not — have turned away her husband. She had not yet gone looking for a printer. So if Lovell lost her, it was due to his own inertia.
Fearing that trouble might follow him from Hampshire, Lovell burrowed into hiding in London. Much of the news there was of the trial of the Leveller, John Lilburne, who had returned to England from exile in Bruges; he claimed that Cromwell's dismissing the Rump had rendered his banishment invalid. His old ally Richard Overton tried to get him a good lawyer and attended daily. The jury would find Lilburne not guilty; he would try to obtain a writ of habeas corpus but would be put in the Tower again anyway.
During this highly charged trial, John Thurloe took over sole management of the intelligence service for Cromwell. Around the same time, intuition warned Colonel Orlando Lovell that he was being watched. Immediately he packed, changed his coat and his hairstyle, sold his horse for more than he had paid for it, left his lodging through an inconspicuous alley and escaped back to the Continent.
Chapter Seventy-Four — London and abroad: 1653-54
'If he be returned, it must be lately… I could learn nothing where he was, but was assured he was upon dangerous designs…'
Not all plotters against the Commonwealth were Royalists. This was the problem Thurloe had to face. If the Commonwealth failed, it was likely to be because so much time and energy had to be given to countering dissent, both abroad and at home. At home the most dangerous dissenter was Edward Sexby.
Orlando Lovell's ship back to France crossed one that was returning to England with Sexby, whose history was becoming bizarre. He had just spent months in Bordeaux, among elements of the Fronde rebellion against the French monarchy — a rebellion that had been more farcical than fanatical, more striking for its in-fighting among aristocrats than for any serious reconsideration of social order. Sexby was at the high point of a career that had bucketed through promotion, special service, court-martial and cashiering, after which he was sent to France with four associates, a thousand pounds and a special brief to 'find out things, prevent danger and create an interest'.
He took himself to Bordeaux as a self-appointed political adviser, producing for the Frondeurs a document called L'Accord du Peuple, crudely adapted from the Levellers' manifesto. Sexby had hopes of Bordeaux where, unlike the general carnival elsewhere, craftsmen had banded in a commune to declare a republic. The Fronde was really an odd, half-hearted amalgam; fashionable loaves and hats had been created in the shape of street-urchins' catapults or 'frondes', several beautiful duchesses had intrigued with contemptible lovers and the usual misery had been inflicted on the poor. Then this hotchpotch movement faded fast. The commune in Bordeaux caved in. They opened their gates to royal troops. Threatened with arrest, Edward Sexby climbed out over the city walls by night.
His mission had undoubtedly been dangerous. One of his companions was captured and tortured to death. Sexby returned home, put in a stupendous expenses claim, then made a lofty attempt to set himself up as foreign policy adviser to Cromwell. He suggested a top-secret expedition to gain a British foothold in France, perhaps at La Rochelle. When Cromwell rejected this, Sexby turned bitterly against Cromwell. As Gideon Jukes had noted years before, being sidelined had never suited him.
The stage was now set for Edward Sexby's extraordinary career as Cromwell's implacable enemy.
Whether Oliver Cromwell was a hypocrite or simply pragmatic, in December 1653 he was forced to accept that, after the Rump departed, even its successor, the carefully vetted Barebones Parliament, did not work. Cromwell assumed the title of Lord Protector. He would be an absolute ruler, though he refused to consider the offer of the crown. His enemies mocked this rejection, though it was probably genuine. Many old allies were horrified. Old enemies saw this as their chance.
The Protectorate not only gave a focus for manic Royalist intrigue, it also led to opposition at home from religious and political radicals. Fifth Monarchists and Baptists fulminated. Levellers would bitterly oppose rule by one man, whether he called himself Protector or King. All of them sought Cromwell's removal. Sexby, too, was now busy at that work.
John Thurloe's intelligence service set about tracking every set of dissidents. To do so, the spymaster drew on any possible resources, encouraging turncoats and bribing double agents. In December 1653 as the Protectorate began, Richard Overton, the Leveller, who only a few months before had been stalwartly supporting John Lilburne at his trial, was paid twenty pounds by Thurloe. This substantial sum was an inducement to report on the activities of Edward Sexby.
It was suspected Overton might renege. An attempt was made, therefore, to recruit someone to monitor his activities — one candidate being Lambert Jukes, whose wife knew the wife of Overton. A doubt hung over Lambert, as a convicted Ranter. Even more likely to move in Overton's circles, because he was a printer and Overton constantly wrote pamphlets, was Lambert's brother, Gideon Jukes. He had a sound New Model Army record, and sometimes wrote for the official Parliamentary publisher, Marchamont Nedham. Nedham had connections with Thurloe and it was he who made informal approaches to Gideon.
This Nedham had a mixed history as a publisher and editor, though Gideon found him fairly congenial. In the '40s, Nedham had published Mercurius Britannicus, the Parliamentary response to Royalist propaganda, and after Naseby he printed the King's incriminating papers. He changed sides dramatically over the execution — but while under sentence of death in Newgate, his old love for Parliament was reborn by magic. Ever since, he had championed the need for all parties to submit to the Commonwealth's government, in order to achieve social stability.
As the official propagandist, Nedham was paid a salary, though when he set up the state news-sheet Mercurius Politicus, he also supported it financially by taking in paid advertisements for a sister periodical called The Public Adviser; its regular news of houses and shops for sale, medical prescriptions and apprenticeships offered for gentlemen's sons seemed to Gideon a cheerful indication that life was getting back to normal after years of war. Nedham had a famously jocular style as editor, with superb contacts and correspondents. His official licenser was John Milton, also a contributor, who held a post with the Council of State, having oversight of foreign documents. Other collaborators were also poets, John Dryden and Andrew Marvell.