'My will is in the chest. Your man Gadd insisted — you inherit everything, sweetest — though since I am worth nothing, spending the cash won't trouble you long. If I die, the first thing you'll need to do is sell my wedding suit. Then I'd advise you to remarry — take Treves; he's still writing poetry to the celestial bow of your eyebrow.' Lovell paused in the boisterous tirade. 'You'll think of me kindly, I hope.'
Men need to be loved. Juliana no longer had to rely on her grandmother for this motto; she could be cynical herself. 'Always, Orlando. May my devoted thoughts comfort you.'
He was a true cavalier. Every cavalier needed a woman to adore. Well, a woman to adore him.
Orlando strained Juliana to him, kissing her hard and making the embrace lascivious. She found herself memorising the faint scent of his tobacco, the rasp of his moustache against her cheek, the softness of his lips. Unexpectedly, tears tumbled down her cheeks. They gazed into each other's eyes, his chestnut brown, hers grey. They were bound to one another now; if it was not by love, it would pass as a near thing.
Juliana watched Prince Rupert's men ride out from Oxford by the North Gate. Try as she might, she failed to spot her husband in their midst. She knew that Edmund Treves was beside him, all jealousy forgotten. The young Prince Rupert rode at the head of the column, flourishing his commander's baton, handsome, confident and exquisitely dressed, with his favourite white poodle, Boy, looking around proudly from the saddle. A group of aristocratic officers accompanied the prince, all on excellent horses. Juliana guessed she had missed her husband because he must be closer to the prince in the cavalcade than she expected; he had bluffed his way forward. His boldness would not come amiss; Orlando Lovell would live up to any position, however deviously he acquired it.
The cavalry swept by in a continuous rattle of hoofbeats, with helmets and feathered hats bobbing, and colours flying impressively. Juliana could see there was a pattern to the pennants and tasselled flags that marked each officer and company, though she could not decipher it. Easier to distinguish were the foot regiments in their distinctive coloured coats of white, green, red, purple and blue, marching in blocks. Several cannon were dragged in the train, pulled by strings of heavy horses. Drums were beaten to time the march of the baggy-britches footmen, with their long muskets and even longer pikes. Many wore red sashes, the colours of the King.
Juliana was not fooled by the glamorous panoply. These glorious-looking companies streaming out of Oxford were ruthless raiders. They would seize anything they could from the country they passed through, to provide for themselves and to prevent the enemy's use of it, and she knew their intent was murderous. Though they fought for King Charles, many were foreigners, straightforward mercenaries. Even among the Englishmen were scarred veterans of the terrible wars on the Continent, whose cruel manners and methods Lovell had described to her. The lower ranks of armies on both sides of the conflict had been called loiterers and lewd livers, plucked from prisons, almshouses and inns, enticed into uniform with the crude lure of occasional pay and plentiful loot. Still, the cavalcade looked brave, bonny and businesslike; it took so long to pass that she grew chilled in the fresh March air.
When she returned to their lodging, she wept inconsolably. She had never been so totally alone. She had no idea how long she would have to wait in Oxford before the troops returned, what dangers Orlando would have to face while they were away, or what would happen to her if he never came back. By now, certain signs began to suggest to her that she was carrying a child. It was too early to have mentioned this to her husband, and she had been so wary of his reaction she would not attempt it in the bustle of his departure. He had left her three shillings. Otherwise, she was friendless and penniless.
So Juliana sat alone, watching motes drift by the window and listening to the stillness of their room. She wanted her husband to survive. Yet she understood clearly that even if he did, their life together would never be as she had hoped. For her, today might just be the beginning of many long periods of abandonment. If Lovell was wounded, captured or killed, her fate would be even worse.
Chapter Fifteen — Birmingham: Monday, 3 April 1643
They knew he was coming. Worse, they knew he was coming for them. Somehow, word had passed along from the war council where the prince laid his plan to ride to Lichfield. 'On the way, we'll take out Birmingham.' Even before they heard the drums, some of those awaiting his army must have known just how hopeless their situation was.
By now, Prince Rupert's habits of raiding for cattle, munitions and money were notorious; they would earn him the nickname Prince Robber, Duke of Plunderland. His attitude had been obvious since he first took up his command as a general of horse. While raising troops in the North Midlands he had written to the Mayor of Leicester, demanding a large sum of money, or threatening roundly to devastate the town in the brutal German manner. The King had reprimanded his nephew for extortion — yet kept the money. As Orlando Lovell said, His Majesty had learned to be a beggar. And precious Rupert gives not a fig for rebuke. His uncle has neither taken away his hobby-horse, nor stopped him going out to play'
Few in the country districts of Warwickshire knew the full horrors that were being acted out abroad. But despite decades of censorship, news stories had reached England of European towns that were sacked by first one army and then another amidst terrible violence; peasants in forest and marketplace casually murdered by marauding mercenaries; anguished victims tortured to make them reveal their valuables, then killed in cold blood. Lurid details were regularly passed around: fat men boiled down for candles, respectable burghers spit-roasted, priests hanged in rows, widows grilled naked on griddles, babies ripped from the bellies of their pregnant mothers, young girls raped while their parents were forced to watch. Pamphlets with grisly pictures caused revulsion — yet people were fascinated and the pamphlets were widely believed. Journalism was then very new.
This brutal theatre of war in which Prince Rupert had been schooled was recently condemned by Lord Brooke of Warwick:
In Germany they fought only for spoil, rapine and destruction. We must employ men who will fight merely for the cause's sake… I had rather have a thousand or two thousand honest citizens that can only handle their arms, whose hearts go with their hands, than two thousand of mercenary soldiers that boast of their foreign experience.
An associate of Lord Saye and Sele, Brooke was one of Parliament's fervent supporters, an opponent of peace moves, an energetic raiser of regiments and finance. Commander of the Midlands Association, where he was highly popular, Lord Brooke was now charged with establishing a secure Parliamentarian base in the Midlands counties. In February he drove Royalists out of Stratford-upon-Avon, then set about besieging the cathedral town of Lichfield. Prince Rupert's main task that spring was to raise the siege. So the rigours of 'foreign experience' were about to be visited upon Lord Brooke's home territory.