Hunched at Newport, smarting at his impending loss of office, Sir Samuel knew his time was limited. Everyone could see it rankled. He was heard muttering of the new army, 'I should be glad to know who is what — and what pension we poor cast-off lads shall have!' Towards the end of March his anxieties about the King's intentions grew so severe he actually allowed a group under Major Ennis to pass themselves off as cavaliers, in order to escape detection in deeply Royalist territory. However, he ordered them firmly that he wanted to hear of no cavalierish practices.
To break in upon Sir Samuel's worries would need care. Eventually, Gideon set up a discussion by enquiring whether Sir Samuel had enjoyed the veal pie his mother sent. The knight at once replied that it was the best veal pie he had ever had. 'Sir, she claims it is achieved by just management of orange peel and nutmeg.' Then he piped up and requested leave to enlist in the New Model Army.
As he feared, Sir Samuel became fretful. 'You want to be moulded in the new army's bread-trough — And just as I discovered you to be the source of an excellent pie!'
'Sir, I am of the party who believe the war now must be won.'
'That's a valiant belief.'
'Have I your leave to go then, sir? I had hopes of taking a recommendation — since they are being choosy' Luke was glaring, but Gideon pressed on doggedly. 'I could beg your secretary Mr Butler to prepare an encomium. I would tell him not to varnish it too thickly with testimonials, or Sir Thomas Fairfax will suspect I am a half-baked, squint-eyed laggard who cannot shoot straight…'
Sir Samuel appeared to relax. But his answer was a blunt no.
England generally seemed to be declaring itself a land worth fighting for that spring. Gideon Jukes picked his way among the farms and hamlets, going about his duties according to orders, though at the same time hopefully searching for the New Model Army. Around him the fields were fresh and green. When he skirted great houses, avenues of imported horse-chestnut trees heaved and tossed pinkish-white candles of blossom in the frisky breeze; along the lanes and tangled hedges, the whiter starlets of may blossom draped small trees and bushes in disorganised sprays from crown to floor. Willows flickered their bright young leaves beside the watercourses, which had swelled over their banks after April showers. Swans stretched their necks on the banks. Grey rabbits sat and stared. Occasionally a house showed its grey walls or tall red-brick chimneys, half glimpsed across the roll of the countryside. There were few visible cattle or horses; wise owners were hiding them in pits or secret shacks, lest they be rounded up and stolen by soldiers. While Gideon gloomily patrolled, treasurers were appointed to secure eighty thousand pounds for maintaining the New Model Army. Fairfax was its commander-in-chief. Skippon commanded the infantry, Thomas Hammond the artillery, although the command of the cavalry was not at first granted. Skippon reviewed the foot at Reading, Fairfax the horse at St Albans. For much of April, as the new force was put together, it exercised at Windsor. Gideon received a letter to say his brother Lambert had been released from the Trained Bands and had joined up as a pikeman. Gideon became ever more frustrated at being trapped in Newport.
At the end of April Fairfax took the New Model Army to relieve Taunton, but when the King and his main army left Oxford on a new summer campaign, Fairfax was ordered to wheel about and besiege Oxford instead. A small detachment went to Taunton, where Robert Blake was holding out so valiantly he answered a summons to surrender by retorting that he would sooner eat his boots. On the approach of the relieving force, the Royalists withdrew, saving Blake the trouble.
Fairfax surrounded Oxford but could make little progress as he awaited his artillery train. Samuel Luke's troops still scouted in the area; as they mouldered in their crumbling castle, with their commander condemned to retirement, their pay in arrears, ill-equipped and hungry, their garrison saw its end-date. Relations between these run-down unhappy men and the buffed-up celebrities in the New Model Army became strained. Then Luke's personal troop, under Captain Evans, was reduced into the cavalry regiment of Colonel Greaves. His deputy, Samuel Bedford, was promoted away to be Scoutmaster General of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, Parliament's main war committee.
As the garrison was fragmenting, discipline began breaking down. In the middle of March, Major Ennis was given leave to attend to a family crisis; he left pay for his men with a lieutenant, who then ran away with the money. Lieutenant Carnaby used the cash to further his marriage to a surgeon's daughter.
On hearing that the reprobate was to be found at the Dog Tavern on Garlick Hill, Sir Samuel wrote in fury to London, demanding that a warrant be issued and the culprit clapped in irons. 'If officers be permitted to run up and down at their own wills, I fear we must not expect to see good days in England long…' Four days later the scandal worsened when a London apothecary, disappointed by Carnaby's winning the surgeon's daughter, cut his own throat. His neck was said to be severed three-quarters through, though the wound was stitched up. Carnaby wrote to Sir Samuel and apologised. He did not return the money. The soldiers' arrears were not paid.
Sir Samuel was still obsessed that his garrison and the Eastern Association were a Royalist target. News that bridges over the River Cherwell close to Oxford were being repaired convinced him of imminent attack — even though he said wryly, 'This is a poor and beggarly town; here are nothing worthy of the enemy but fair maids and young lace-makers — which I intend to send out to them as a forlorn hope at their first approach.'
At the end of May the crunch came. Prince Rupert besieged Leicester, clearly a distraction to compel Fairfax to abandon Oxford. It was the old story. The prince's men broke into Leicester amidst terrible atrocities. Soldiers and civilians were slaughtered; ruthless pillaging occurred.
Fairfax was instructed to leave Oxford, seek out the King and recover Leicester. On the 5th of June, Fairfax and the army arrived near Newport Pagnell. At this point, as an exceptional measure, Sir Samuel Luke's importance was recognised: Parliament granted him an extension as commander of Newport Pagnell for the next twenty days. Only one other member of the House of Commons had similar treatment: that was Oliver Cromwell.
The New Model Army quartered nearby for several days. Gideon knew this was his one chance to transfer. Sir Thomas Fairfax stayed at Sherington, a mile away, with his army at Brick Hill. Although Sir Samuel Luke was the most hospitable man and naturally good-mannered, he never invited the new general to visit. His father, Sir Oliver, wrote to him afterwards rebuking him for this lapse, saying it had caused comment.
Relations were proper, but strained. Sir Samuel loaned three hundred infantry to the New Model, but five days later Sir Thomas Fairfax wrote complaining that various New Model soldiers were known to have returned to Newport Pagnell, where they had served in the past. Fairfax growled that he could get no provisions from the Buckinghamshire Committee — an all too familiar plaint to Sir Samuel — and begged that provisions be sent from Newport, emphasising that these would be paid for. The reminder that the New Model was well supplied with money could only rankle.