The King's General Part 21

24.

That was, I think, the most fantastic fortnight I have ever known. Richard, with no command and no commission, lived like a royal prince in the humble village of Ottery M. Mary, the people for miles around bringing their produce to the camp, their corn, their cattle, in the firm belief that he was the supreme commander of His Majesty's troops from Lyme to Land's End. For payment he referred them graciously to the commissioners of Devon. The first Sunday after his arrival he caused an edict to be read in the church of Ottery St. Mary, and other churches in the neighbouring parishes, desiring that all those persons who had been plundered by the governor of Exeter, Sir John Berkeley, when quartering troops upon them, should bring to him, Sir Richard Grenvile, the King's General in the West, an account of their losses, and he would see that they would be righted.

The humble village folk, thinking that a saviour had come to dwell amongst them, came on foot from a distance of twenty miles or more, each one bearing in his hands a list of crimes and excesses committed, according to them, by Lord Goring's troopers and Sir John Berkeley's men, and I can see Richard now, standing in the village place before the church, distributing largesse in princely fashion, which sum of money he had discovered behind a panel in his headquarters, the house belonging to an unfortunate squire with vague Parliamentary tendencies, whom Richard had immediately arrested. On the Wednesday, being fine, he held a review of his troops-- the sight being free to the villagers--and the drums sounded, and the church bells pealed, and in the evening bonfires were lit and a great supper served at the headquarters to the officers, at which I presided like a queen.

"We may as well be merry," said Richard, "while the money lasts."

And I thought of that letter to the Prince of Wales, which must by now have reached the prince's council, and I pictured the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Edward Hyde, opening the paper before the a.s.sembly. I thought also of Sir John Berkeley and what he would say when he heard about the edict in the churches, and it seemed to me that my rash and indiscreet lover would be wiser if he struck his camp and hid in the mists on Darkmoor, for he could not bluff the world much longer in Ottery St. Mary.

The bluff was superb while it lasted, and the Parliamentary squire whom we had superseded keeping a well-stocked cellar, we soon had every bottle sampled, and Richard drank perdition to the supporters of both Parliament and Crown.

"What will you do," I asked, "if the council sends for you?"

"Exactly nothing," he answered, "unless I have a letter, in his own handwriting, from the Prince of Wales himself."

And with a smile that his nephew would call ominous he opened yet another bottle.

"If we continue thus," I said, turning my gla.s.s down upon the table, "you will become as great a sot as Goring."

"Goring cannot stand after five gla.s.ses," said Richard, "I can drill a whole division after twelve."

And rising from the table, he called to the orderly who stood without the door.

"Summon Sir John Grenvile," he said.

In a moment Jack appeared, also a little flushed and gay about the eyes.

"My compliments," said Richard, "to Colonels Roscarrick and Arundell. I wish the troops to be paraded on the green .I intend to drill them."

His nephew did not flicker an eyelid, but I saw his lips quiver.

"Sir," he said, "it is past eight o'clock. The men have been dismissed to their quarters."

"I am well aware of the fact," replied his uncle. "It was for the purpose of rousing them that drums were first bestowed upon the Army. My compliments to Colonels Roscarrick and Arundell."

Jack clicked his heels and left the room. Richard walked slowly and very solemnly towards the chair were lay his sling and sword. He proceeded to buckle them about his waist.

"The sling," I said softly, "is upside down."

He bowed gravely in acknowledgment and made the necessary adjustment. And from without the drums began to beat, sharp and alert, in the gathering twilight....

I was, I must confess, only a trifle less dazed about the head than I had been on that memorable occasion long before, when I had indulged too heavily in burgundy and swan. This time, and it was my only safeguard, I had my chair to sit in and I can remember, through a sort of haze, being propelled towards the village green with the drums sounding in my ears and the soldiers running from all directions to form lines L The King's General I23 upon the gra.s.s sward. Villagers leant from their cas.e.m.e.nts, and I remember one old fellow in a nightcap shrieking out that Fairfax was come upon them and they would all be murdered in their beds.

It was, I dare swear, the one and only occasion in the annals of His Majesty's Army when two divisions have been drawn up and drilled by their commanding general in the dusk after too good a dinner.

'My G.o.d," I heard Jack Grenvile choke behind me, whether with laughter or emotion I never discovered, "this is magnificent. This will live forever."

And when the drums were silent I heard Richard's voice, loud and clear, ring out across the village green.

It was a fitting climax to a crazy fourteen days....

At breakfast the next morning a messenger came riding to the door of the headquarters with the news that Bridgwater had been stormed and captured by Fairfax and his rebel forces, the prince's council had fled to Launceston, and the Prince of Wales bade Sir Richard Grenvile depart upon the instant with what troops he had and come to him in Cornwall.

"Is the message a request or a command?" asked my general.

"A command, sir," replied the officer, handing him a doc.u.ment, "not from the council, but from the prince himself."

Once again the drums were sounded, but this time for the march, and as the long line of troops wound their way through the village and on to the highway to Okehampton I wondered how many years would pa.s.s before the people of Ottery St.

Mary would forget Sir Richard Grenvile and his men.

We followed, Matty and I, within a day or two, with an escort to our litter and orders to proceed to Werrington House, near Launceston, which was yet another property that Richard had seized without a scruple from the owner of Buckland Monachorum, Francis Drake. We arrived to find Richard in fair spirits, restored to the prince's favour after a very awkward three hours before the council.

It might have been more awkward had not the council been in so immediate a need of his services.

"And what has been decided?" I asked.

"Goring is to go north to intercept the rebels," he said, "while I remain in Cornwall and endeavour to raise a force of some three thousand foot. It were better if they had sent me to deal with Fairfax, as Goring is certain to make a hash of it."

"There is no one but you," I said, "who can raise troops in Cornwall. Men will rally to a Grenvile, but none other. Be thankful that the council sent for you at all, after your impudence."

"They cannot afford," said Richard, "to do without me. And anyway, I don't give a fig for the council and that snake Hyde. I am only doing this business to oblige the prince. He's a lad after my own heart. If His Majesty continues to haver as he does at present, with no coherent plan of strategy, I am not at all sure that the best move would not be to hold all Cornwall for the prince, live within it like a fortress, and let the^rest of England go to blazes."

"You have only to phrase that a little differently," I said, "and a malicious friend who wished you ill would call it treason."

Treason be d.a.m.ned," he said, "but it is sound common sense. No man has greater loyalty to His Majesty than I, but he does more to wreck his own cause than any who serve under him."

While Matty and I remained at Werrington, Richard travelled the length and breadth of Cornwall recruiting troops for the prince's army. It was no easy business.

Ine last invasion had been enough for Cornishmen. Men wished only to be left alone to tend their land and business. Money was as hard to raise as it had been in Devon, and with some misgiving I watched Richard use the same highhanded measures with 'he commissioners of the duchy as he had done with those of the sister county. Those ^ho might have yielded with some grace to tact gave way grudgingly to pressure, and Richard, during that summer and early autumn of I645, made as many enemies amongst the Cornish landowners as he had done in Devon.

On the north coast men rallied to his call because of his link with Stowe, the very name of Grenvile sounding like a clarion. They came to him from beyond the border, even from Appledore and Bideford, and down the length ofthat storm-bound Atlantic coast from Hartland Point to Padstow. They were his best recruits. Clear-eyed, long-limbed, wearing with pride the scarlet shield with the three gold rests upon their shoulders. Men from Bude and Stratton and Tintagel, men from Boscastle and Camelford. And with great cunning Richard introduced his prince as Duke of Cornwall, who had come into the West to save them from the savage rebel hordes beyond the Tamar.

But farther south he met with more rebuffs. Danger seemed more remote to people west of Truro, and even the fall of Bristol to Fairfax and the Parliament, which came like a clap of doom on the tenth of September, failed to rouse them from their lethargy.

"Truro, Helston, and St. Ives," said Richard, "are the three most rotten towns in Cornwall," and he rode down, I remember, with some six hundred horse to quell a rising of the townsfolk, who had protested against a levy he had raised the week before.

He hanged at least three men, while the remainder were either fined or imprisoned, and he took the opportunity, too, of visiting the castle at St. Mawes and severely reprimanding its commander, Major Bonython, because he had failed to pay the soldiers under his command within the garrison.

"Whoever I find halfhearted in the prince's cause must change his tune or suffer disciplinary action," declared Richard. "Whoever fails to pay his men shall contribute from his own pocket, and whoever shows one flicker of disloyalty to me as comman- j der, or to the prince I serve, shall answer for it with his life."

I heard him say this myself in the market place at Launceston before a great crowd I a.s.sembled there, the last day in September, and while his own men cheered so that the I echo came ringing back to us from the walls of the houses I saw few smiles upon the faces of the townsfolk gathered there.

"You forget," I said that night to him at Werrington, "that Cornishmen are independent and love freedom better than their fellows."

"I remember one thing," he answered with that thin, bitter smile of his I knew too I well, "that Cornishmen are cowards and love their comfort better than their King. ". j As autumn drew on I began to wonder if either freedom or comfort would belong to any of us by the end of the year.

Chard, Crediton, Lyme, and finally Tiverton fell before Fairfax in October, and Lord Goring had done nothing to stop them. Many of his men deserted and came flocking to join Richard's army, having greater faith in him as a commander. This led to further jealousy, further recriminations, and it looked as though Richard would fall as foul with Goring as he had done with Sir John Berkeley three months earlier. There was constant fault-finding, too, by the prince's council in Launceston, and scarcely a day would pa.s.s without some interfering measure from the Chancellor, Edward I Hyde. '

"If they would but leave me alone," stormed Richard, "to recruit my army and to, train my troops, instead of flooding my headquarters day by day with despatches written by lawyers with smudged fingers who have never so much as smelt gunpow-I der, there would be greater likelihood of my being able to withstand Fairfax when he j comes."

Money was getting scarce again, and the equipping of the Army for the winter was.I another nightmare for my general. f Boots and stockings were worn through and hard to replace, while the most vital! necessity of all, ammunition, was very low in stock, the chief reason for this being! that the royalist magazine for the Western forces had been captured at the beginningj r>f the autumn by the rebels when they took Bristol, and all that Richard had at his disposal were the small reserves at Bodmin and at Truro.

Then suddenly, without any warning, Lord Goring threw up his command and went to France, giving as reason that his health had cracked and he could no longer shoulder any responsibility.

"The rats," said Richard slowly, "are beginning, one by one, to desert the sinking ship."

Goring took several of his best officers with him, and the command in Devon was given to Lord Wentworth, an officer with little experience, whose ideas of discipline were even worse than Goring's. He immediately went into winter quarters at Bovey Tracey and declared that nothing could be done against the enemy until the spring. It was at this moment, I think, that the prince's council first lost heart and realised the full magnitude of what might happen. They were fighting a losing cause....

Preparations were made to move from Launceston and go farther west to Truro.

This, said Richard grimly when he told me, could mean but one thing. They wanted to be near Falmouth, so that when the crisis came the Prince of Wales and the leaders of the council could take ship to France. It was then I asked him bluntly what he wished to do.

"Hold a line," he answered, "from the Bristol Channel to the Tamar and keep Cornwall for the prince. It can be done. There is no other answer."

"And His Majesty?"

Richard did not answer for a moment. He was standing, I remember well, with his back turned to the blazing log fire and his hands behind his back. He had grown more worn and lined during the past few months, the result of the endless anxieties that pressed upon him, and the silver streak that ran through his auburn locks had broadened above his brow. The raw November weather nipped his wounded leg, and I guessed, with my experience, what he must suffer.

"There is no hope for His Majesty," he said at length, "unless he can come to some agreement with the Scots and raise an army from them. If he fails, his cause is doomed."

'Forty-three, '44, '45, and, approaching us, '46. For more than three years men had fought and suffered and died for that proud, stiff little man and his rigid principles, and I thought of the picture that had hung in the dining chamber at Menabilly, which had afterwards been torn and trampled by the rebels. Would his end be as inglorious as the fate that befell his picture? Everything seemed doubtful, suddenly, and grim and hopeless.

"Richard," I said, and he caught the inflection in my voice and came beside me.

"Would you, too," I asked, "leave the sinking ship?"

"Not," he said, "if there is any chance of holding Cornwall for the prince."

"But if the prince should sail for France," I persisted, "and the whole of Cornwall be ^overrun--what then?"

"I would follow him," he answered, "and raise a French army of fifty thousand men and land again in Cornwall."

He came and knelt beside me, and I held his face between my hands.

"We have been happy in our strange way, you and I," I said.

"My camp follower"--he smiled--"my trailer of the drum."

"You know that I am given up as lost to all perdition by good persons," I said. "My family have cast me off and do not speak of me. Even my dear Robin is ashamed of his sister. I had a letter from him this very morning. He is serving with Sir John Digby Before Plymouth. He implores me to leave you and return to the Rashleighs at Menabilly."

"Do you want to go?"

"No. Not if you still need me."

'I shall always need you .I shall never part with you again. But if Fairfax comes You would be safer in Menabilly than in Launceston."

"That is what was said to me last time, and you know what happened."

"Yes, you suffered for four weeks, and the experience made a woman of you."

He looked down at me in his cruel, mocking way, and I remember how he had never thanked me yet for succouring his son.

"Next time it might be for four years," I said, "and I think I would be white-haired at the end of it."

"I shall take you with me if I lose my battle," he said. "When the crisis comes and Fairfax crosses the Tamar I will send you and Matty to Menabilly. If we win the day, so far so good. If we lose and I know the cause is lost, then I will come riding to you at your Rashleighs', and we will get a fishing boat from Polkerris and sail across the Channel to Saint-Malo and find d.i.c.k."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I promise."

And when he had rea.s.sured me and held me close I was something comforted, yet always, nagging at my mind, was the reminder that I was not only a woman but a cripple and would make a sorry burden to a fugitive. The next day the prince's council summoned him to Truro and asked him there, before the whole a.s.sembly, what advice he could give them for the defence of Cornwall against the enemy and how the safety of the Prince of Wales could be best a.s.sured.

He did not answer at once, but the next day, in his lodging, he composed a letter to the Secretary-at-War and gave full details of the plan, so far only breathed to me in confidence, of what he believed imperative to be done. He showed me the draft of it on his return, and much of what he proposed filled me with misgiving, not because of its impracticability, but because the kernel of it was so likely to be misconstrued. He proposed, in short, to make a treaty with the Parliament, by which Cornwall would become separate from the remainder of the country and be ruled by the Prince of Wales, as Duke of the Duchy. The duchy would contain its own army, its own fortifications, and control its own shipping. In return the Cornish would give a guarantee not to attack the forces of the Parliament. Thus gaining a respite, the people of Cornwall, and especially the Western army, would become so strong that in the s.p.a.ce of a year or more they would be in ripe condition to give once more effective aid unto His Majesty.

(This last, it may be realised, was not to be one of the clauses in the treaty.) Failing an agreement with Parliament, then Richard advised that a line be held from Barnstaple to the English Channel and ditches dug from the north coast to the Tamar, so that the whole of Cornwall became virtually an island. On this riverbank would be the first line of defence, and all the bridges would be destroyed. This line, he averred, could be held for an indefinite period and any attempt at an invasion be immediately repulsed. When he had finished his report and sent it to the council he returned to me at Werrington to await an answer. Five days, a week, and no reply. And then at last a cold message from the Chancellor and the Secretary-at-War, to say that his plan had been considered but had not found approval. The prince's council would thus consider other measures and acquaint Sir Richard Grenvile when his services would be required.

"So," said Richard, throwing the letter onto my lap, "a smack in the eye for Grenvile and a warning not to rise above his station. The council prefer to lose the war in their own fashion. Let them do so. Time is getting short, and if I judge Fairfax rightly, neither snow nor hail nor frost will hamper him in Devon. It would be wise, my Honor, if you sent word of warning to Mary Rashleigh and told her that you would spend Christmas with her."

The sands were running out. I could tell it by his easy manner, his shrugging of his shoulders.

"And you?" I said with that old sick twist of foreboding in my heart.

"I will come later," he said, "and we will see the new year in together in that room above the gatehouse."

And so on the third morning of December I set forth again, after fifteen months, for; my brother-in-law's house of Menabilly.

25.

My second coming was very different from my first. Then it had been spring, with the golden gorse in bloom and young John Rashleigh coming to meet me on the highway before the park. War had not touched the neighbourhood, and in the park were cattle grazing and flocks of sheep with their young lambs and the last of the blossoms falling from the fruit trees in the orchards.

Now it was December, a biting wind cutting across the hills and valleys, and no young laughing cavalier came out to greet me. As we turned in at the park gates I saw at once that the walls were still tumbled and had not been repaired since the destruction wrought there by the rebels. Where the acres dipped to the sea above Polkerris a labourer with a team of oxen ploughed a single narrow enclosure, but about it to east and west the land was left uncultivated. Where should be rich brown ploughland was left to thistle. A few lean cattle grazed within the park, and even now, after a full year or more had come and gone, I noticed the great bare patches of gra.s.sland where the rebel tents had stood, and the blackened roots of the trees they had felled for firewood. As we climbed the hill towards the house I would see the rea.s.suring curl of smoke rise from the chimneys and could hear the barking of the stable dogs, and I wondered, with a strange feeling of sadness and regret, whether I should be as welcome now as I had been fifteen months before. Once again my litter pa.s.sed into the outer court and, glancing up at my old apartment in the gatehouse, I saw that it was shuttered and untenanted, even as the barred room beside it, and that the whole west wing wore the same forlorn appearance. Mary had warned me in her letter that only the eastern portion of the house had as yet been put in order, and they were living in some half a dozen rooms, for which they had found hangings and the bare necessities of furniture. Once more into the inner court, with a glance upward at the belfry and the tall weather vane, and then--reminiscent of my former visit--came my sister Mary out upon the steps, and I noticed with a shock that her hair had gone quite white. Yet she greeted me with her same grave smile and gentle kiss, and I was taken straightway to the gallery, where I found my dear Alice strung about as always with her mob of babies, and the newest of the brood, just turned twelve months, clutching at her knee in her first steps. This was now all our party. The Sawles had returned to Penrice and the Sparkes to Devon, and my G.o.ddaughter Joan, with John and the children, were living in the Rashleigh town house at Fowey. My brother-in law, it seemed, was somewhere about the grounds, and at once, as they plied me with refreshment, I had to hear all the news of the past year, of how Jonathan had not yet received one penny piece from the Crown to help him in the restoration of his property, and whatever had been done he had done himself, with the aid of his servants and tenants.

"Cornwall is become totally impoverished," said my sister sadly, "and everyone dissatisfied. The harvest of this summer could not make up for all we lost last year, and each man with an estate to foster said the same. Unless the war ends swiftly we shall all be ruined."

"It may end swiftly," I answered, "but not as you would wish it."