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No Quarter!

Chapter Twenty Seven
A City of Refuge

Of the Foresters who figure in our tale, Rob Wilde, Jerky Jack, and Winny were not the only ones who had found their way into Bristol. Most of Sir Richard Walwyn’s troopers were Foresters. But the master of Hollymead was himself there, with his daughters, their maid Gwenthian, and others of the family servants.

Why he had exchanged his Forest home for a residence in town – that, too, in a city under military occupation, threatened with siege and all its inconveniences – has been already in part explained. With the commencement of hostilities country life became unsafe, more especially for people of quality and those who had anything to lose. Parties of armed men penetrated into the most remote districts, demanding contributions and levying them – at first in the name of the King. Naturally, this aroused the spirit of retaliation, and dictated reprisals; so that in time both sides became more or less blamable for filibusterism. The weight of evidence, however, shows that, as a rule, the Parliamentarian officers did all in their power to restrain, while those of the Royalist army not only encouraged but gloried in it – themselves taking a hand. A Prince had set them the lesson, making robbery fashionable, and they were neither backward nor slow in profiting by it.

As a sample of the spirit in which the Cavaliers made war, thus wrote Sir John, afterwards Lord Byron – the same truculent ruffian already alluded to, commanding a body of the King’s horse – “I put them all to the sword, which I find to be the best way to proceed with these kind of people, for mercy to them is cruelty.”

The gallant defenders of Barthomley Church were “these kind of people,” whom this monster, ungrammatical as inhuman, had massacred to a man!

Fighting under such faith, no wonder the lex talionis soon displayed itself on both sides, and in bitterest, most relentless form. Not only had the main routes of travel become unsafe, but sequestered country roads; while the sanctity of private houses was invaded, and women subjected to insult, oft even to the disregarding of their honour. This was conspicuously the case in the districts where the Cavaliers had control, no decent woman daring to show herself abroad. Even high-born ladies feared encountering them, if having father or brother on the Parliamentary side. Some dames, however, who favoured their side, were bold and free enough with them; and a very incarnation of female shamelessness was the strumpet following of Rupert.

As known, Ambrose Powell had at first thought of fortifying Hollymead, and holding it with his servants, retainers, and such of the Foresters as he could rally around him; of whom he had reason to believe many would respond to his call. The haw-haw around the house was suggestive of his doing so – itself an outer line of defence, which could be easily strengthened. It but needed a parapet of gabions, or fascines, to render it unassailable, save in the face of a scathing fire. And he had the wherewith to deliver this, having long expected the coming storm, and stored up materials to meet it. One of the chambers of Hollymead House was a very armoury and ordnance room, full of the best weapons of the time, which his great wealth had enabled him to provide – muskets of the snap-hans fire, pistols, pikes, and halberds. They but wanted putting into hands capable of making efficient use of them.

And he himself had but waited for Sir Richard Walwyn’s advice, as to whether he should attempt holding Hollymead, or abandon it. He knew he must do one or the other. His partisanship, long since proclaimed and known beyond the borders of the Forest, with the echoes returning, so admonished him.

“Could it be held, think you?” he asked of the soldier knight, on the evening of his arrival with Eustace Trevor – Sir Richard and his host alone closeted in conversation.

“Impossible!” was the answer, backed up by convincing reasons. “Were it a structure of stone, I might say Yes, easily enough; with a force numerous enough to garrison it. But those wooden beams, and roofs dry as tinder – they’d be set ablaze by the first arrow sent at them.”

The reader may fancy Sir Richard’s allusion to arrows was a figure of speech, or anachronism. It was neither. For this primitive weapon, almost universal among savage men, was not then obsolete, or out of the hands of the civilised. In the army of Essex – the Lord General himself – was a corps of bowmen; and others elsewhere. The belief in the bent yew stick and feathered shaft, that had gained for England such renown at Cressy and Agincourt, was still strong in the days of her more glorious struggle – the Great Rebellion.

But it was not to shafts of this kind the knight had reference; instead, arrows projected from muskets and arquebusses for setting fire to assailed forts and houses – a species of ordnance which then formed part of the equipment of every well-appointed corps d’armée.

With the master of Hollymead the argument was conclusive. He saw his house could not be held, with any hope of successful defence, if attacked by a force strong and determined. And that such would come against it he had been as good as sure, ever since that hour when Reginald Trevor placed in his hands the letter of Loan by Privy Seal – altogether sure, when Lunsford, later, came to make the levy itself.

Only a day or two longer had he remained in it, to pack up his plate, with other cherished penates, and have them transmitted to a place of safety – to Gloucester – the nearest city promising asylum to the harried partisans of the Parliament – going thither himself with his family.

He had, however, made but short stay there. The seaport of Bristol beyond was a “city of refuge” more to his mind, because of a house in it that offered him hospitality – a sister’s – and under its roof he and his were sojourning on that night of dread danger, averted almost as soon as apprehended.

Nor in that crisis was the refugee from Dean Forest himself inactive. When men stood gazing with eyes full of keen apprehension at the fire-glare over Durdham Down, Ambrose Powell was moving briskly through Bristol’s streets, urging its citizens to arm and defend it. Along with him a clergyman, who added his appeal with eloquent tongue and passionate speech. He was Tombes, of Leominster, who had been mobbed in that town of woolstaplers, and driven out of it by drunken roughs; no doubt the progenitors of those who in the late Parliamentary election in like manner dishonoured themselves.

To Darwin’s transmutation and improvement theory, the human animals of Leominster seem to be an exception; especially as regards the improvement, for its Jingo cur of to-day is rather a falling off from the quality of his prototype – the Cavalier wolf of the Great war time.

Chapter Twenty Eight
A Home Gayer than Congenial

Madame Lalande, née Powell, was the widow of a West Indian planter, late deceased. Her husband, during life, had held commercial intercourse with Bristol, then chief port of communication with all the Transatlantic colonies. Though a Creole of French descent, the isle of his nativity, in the Antilles, had come under British rule; and he himself rather affected English tastes and habits, often visiting England and making short sojourns in it. At a Bristol ball he had first met Gwendoline Powell, Ambrose’s sister; had married in Bristol, and there designed spending the evening of his days in retirement from the cares of business life. And when the time at length came for carrying this design into execution, he sold off his West Indian plantation – an extensive one, with its human chattels, some hundreds in number – and invested the proceeds in Bristol property, part of it being a handsome dwelling-house meant for his future home:

Into this he had entered about a year before the commencement of the civil strife, which he lived not to see. The cold, moist climate of our island, so different to that of the tropical Antilles, was fatal to him, and in less than twelve months after settling on the Avon’s banks he was buried there, having succumbed to an attack of pleurisy. Possibly fast living may have had something to do with it. He was a man of social inclinings and sumptuous habits, which his great wealth enabled him to indulge without stint; and he had recklessly disregarded the care of his health.

Fortunately for those who inherited his property, his life of extravagance had not been long enough to dissipate it, and Madame Lalande was still one of the wealthiest women in Bristol, with no one to share her wealth, save an only daughter, a girl of some eighteen summers, or, to speak more correctly, one summer of eighteen years in length. For the occasional visits to England with her father and mother had been made in this season, the rest of her life spent in a land where winter is unknown. All summer her life in every sense; from her cradle not a wish denied, or taste ungratified, but everything lavished upon her which money could purchase or parental fondness bestow.

As a consequence, Clarisse Lalande had grown up a spoilt child; and now that she was almost a woman, the fruits of such folly made themselves manifest. Imperious and capricious, she had a temper which would not brook restraint. For this it had never known, accustomed all her life to the obeisance of black slaves, and the flattery of mulatto hand-maidens.

Flattery from others she had received too – a very incense of it – which her beauty, without thought of her prospective wealth, commanded. For a beauty she was, of the true Creole type, with all its characteristics; the golden brown tint of skin, the crimson flush of cheeks, the brilliancy of dark eyes, with a luxuriance of hair that defied confinement by ordinary clasp or comb. There was the suspicion of a “wave” in it; and report said that the blood in her father’s veins had not been pure Circassian, but with a slight admixture of Ethiopian. All the more piquant were the charms it had transmitted to his daughter, as the star-like fire in her brown-black eyes, and a figure of grandly voluptuous outline. Some of her mental characteristics, too, may have come from it – a certain sensuousness, with the impatience of control already adverted to.

Such being Clarisse Lalande, it scarce needs saying that between her and her cousins Powell there was little congeniality either of tastes or sentiments. Though in person more resembling Sabrina, the two were mental antipodes; while sunbright Vaga, who looked altogether unlike her dark-skinned Creole cousin, had yet certain similar traits of temper; the which made mutual antipathy, at first sight, as when alkali and acid come into contact. It afterwards became heart-hatred, inspired and nursed by the most powerful of influences.

Considering that Madame Lalande was Ambrose Powell’s sister, and that her late husband had been a Protestant of Huguenot ancestry – at least four-fifths of him – one would naturally expect her to be on the Parliamentary side – supposing her to take a side at all – with ardent inclinings thereto. Ardent inclinings had she, and side she took; but, strange perversity, against the Parliament, not for it!

And it was like mother, like daughter, for Clarisse, with all her frivolousness of character, had political leanings too, or more properly caprices, the frivolity itself their cause. In the eyes of the imperious young lady Roundheadism and Puritanism were things of reproach, and the terms themselves often scornfully on her lips. Kingly form of government was the only one fit for gentlepeople; and Cavaliers alone worthy to associate with such as she – those curled darlings, “dear delightful creatures,” as, in her fond partiality, she was accustomed to call them.

Wonderfully hospitable was Madame Lalande; that is, in a fashionable way. She gave grand entertainments, which was indeed but continuing what had been done before the death of her husband. Nor was it so long after that event they were recommenced, and carried on with greater éclat than ever. For Clarisse had become a toast and now an heiress – sole and safe from any possibility of late-born brother or sister to share the demised wealth. There was keen competition for the favour of her smiles. Knights and baronets were flitting about in plenty, with here and there an earl; and as her ambitious mother aimed at having a titled son-in-law, so spread she the banquet to allure them.

During the brief rule of the gay Essex, as a matter of course Madame Lalande’s house was open to him; and so frequently was he its guest, there had been talk of an attraction in it beyond the delights of the dinner table or the joys of the dance. He was not a lord; but, as the son of one, in all probability some day would be.

Alas! for any matrimonial designs Madame Lalande might have upon the rollicking Colonel for her daughter, her chances of showing him further hospitality were brought to an abrupt end, by his heels getting kicked up in a different way, and himself carried off a prisoner to Berkeley Castle.

Withal the festivities in the house of the planter’s relict went on as usual – nearly every night something of dinner party, and during the day receptions. If there was suffering in other homes of Bristol through the state of semi-siege in which the place was then held, nothing of this affected the home of the rich West Indian widow. There all was gaiety and splendour.

Yet it had inmates who took little delight in its joys, and one who detested them – that one Ambrose Powell. A new style of life, with a companionship altogether uncongenial, was it to him; and, but for its being forced upon him by the necessity of circumstances, he would not have continued it a single day – not an hour. It was many long years since he had last met his sister; and, remembering her as a guileless country girl – almost portionless too – seeing her now a sharp woman of the world, wealthy and devoted to ideas of frivolity and fashion, – above all, finding her changed from the political faith of their common father and family, he was alike surprised and shocked – angry, moreover, to the point of reproaching, even scolding her; and would have done so, but for the question “Cui bono?” which had negative, though silent, answer in all he saw around. His dear sister Gwen, who in earlier days would have humbly listened to his counsels, and been controlled by them, would now resent the meekest suggestion as to her way of life or the conduct of her affairs.

Many a time, after becoming her guest, did he regret having passed on, and beyond Gloucester, to seek an asylum in Bristol. But he was in Bristol now, he and his; and how to get out of it was not a mere question of inconvenience, but a matter of great difficulty, attended with danger. Though not so close to the door, after that 7th of March night, the wolves were still without, on the roads – ravening everywhere.

Chapter Twenty Nine
The Night Owl

The conspiracy having been nipped in the bud, and the conspirators in prison, Bristol again breathed freely. The approaches to it were once more open, the thwarted Royalists having withdrawn to a distance; so that Jerky Jack might have made the return trip to Gloucester with a despatch stuck in the band of his hat safe as it inside his wooden leg.

But swifter messengers traversed that road now, cleared of the enemy at both ends, and on both sides of the river Severn.

He who had effected this clearance was Sir William Waller, jocularly styled “William the Conqueror,” from the succession of victories he had late achieved. Also was he known as the “Night Owl;” a sobriquet due to his habit of making nocturnal expeditions that oft took the Royalists by surprise. No Crophead he, but a Cavalier in the true sense; a very Paladin – withal a Christian gentleman. He had separated from slow-going Lord General, and made one of his bold dashes down to the shires bordering Wales; first relieving Gloucester, which was in a manner besieged by the Monmouthshire levies of Lord Herbert. The besiegers were not only brushed off, but the main body of them either killed or captured; only a scant residue escaping to their fastnesses beyond the Wye; whither the “Conqueror” followed, chastising them still further.

Returning across the Forest of Dean, he outwitted the Royalist troops under Prince Maurice; and, once were setting face westward, raided through Herefordshire on to its chief city – which he captured, with a flock of foul birds that had been roosting there ever since its abandonment by the Parliamentarians under the silly Stamford.

But the “Night Owl” himself was not the bird to remain long on perch anywhere; and, gathering up his captured game – a large bag, including some of Herefordshire’s best blood, as the Scudamores, Conningsbys, and Pyes – he rounded back to Gloucester, and on to Bristol.

Not to tarry here, either. Soon as he had disembarrassed himself of his captive train – committed to the keeping of Fiennes – he was off again into Somersetshire, there to measure swords with Maurice and the Marquis of Hertford. As he rode out through the Bath gate at the head of a troop of steel-clad cuirassiers – “Hesselrig’s Lobsters” – the citizens of Bristol felt more confident of safety than ever since the strife began. For now they were assured against danger, outside as within. Internal treason had been awed, the traitors cowed and crushed, by what had befallen the conspirators of March the Seventh. The two chiefs of them, Yeomans and Boucher, had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death – a sentence soon afterwards carried into execution. Grand efforts were made to get them off; the King himself, by letter, threatening to retaliate upon the poor captives taken at Cirencester – such of them as remained unmurdered. Old Patrick, Earl of Forth, his Majesty’s Lieutenant-General, was put forward as the writer of the barbarous epistle. But canny Scot and accomplished soldier as his lordship might be, in a polemical contest he was no match for the lawyer, Fiennes, who flung the threat back in his teeth, saying:

“The men we have tried and condemned are not soldiers, but spies and conspirators. The prisoners you took at Cirencester are prisoners of war. I would have you observe the distinction. And know, too, that for every hair of their heads that falls, I will hang ten of your curled Cavaliers – make Bristol a shambles of them.”

Though not Nathaniel Fiennes’s exact words, they convey his meaning very near. And he could and would have acted up to them, as the King and his counsellors knew. So, whether or not they deemed his argument rational, it was unanswerable, or at all events unanswered, by a counter-threat; and the Cirencester prisoners were spared execution, while the Bristol conspirators went to the scaffold.

Much has been made of the King’s forbearance in this affair by those who did not, or would not, comprehend the motive. It was pure fear, not humanity – fear of a still more terrible retaliation. At that time the Parliament held ten prisoners for one in the hands of the Royalists – men of such rank and quality, his Majesty dared not put their lives in peril, much less let them be sacrificed. He had his revenge in secret, however, since under his very nose at Oxford many of the hapless captives from Cirencester miserably perished, through the torturing treatment of the Royal Provost-Marshal, Smith.

Finally, the “two State martyrs” – as Yeomans and Boucher have been styled by the Royalist writers – were strung up, protesting their innocence to the last, for all they were little believed. The evidence adduced at their trial clearly proved intent to shed the blood of their fellow-citizens; else why were they and their co-conspirators armed? Independent of this, their design of handing over Bristol to the rule of Prince Rupert and his ruffians meant something more than the mere spilling of blood in a street conflict – it involved the sack and pillage of peaceful homes, the violation of women, rapine and ruin in every way. It was only on getting the details of the trial that the Bristolians became fully sensible of the danger they had so narrowly escaped; convinced then, as Captain Birch worded it, that they had been standing upon a mine.

Notwithstanding all these occurrences and circumstances running counter to the Royal cause, against which the tide seemed to have turned, within Montserrat House – as the late Monsieur Lalande had named his dwelling – was no interruption of the festive scenes already alluded to. Its guests were as numerous, its gaieties gay and frequent as ever. For, to speak truth, the political bias of the planter’s widow, as that of her daughter, was but skin deep. Hair had much to do with it; and, like enough, had the Parliamentarian officers but worn theirs a little longer, submitted it to the curling tongs, and given themselves to swearing and swaggering, in a genteel Cavalier way, they would have been more welcome to the hospitality of her house.

Still not all of them were denied it; for not all were of the Roundhead type. Among them were many gentlemen of high birth and best manners, some affecting as fine feathers as the Cavaliers themselves. For the “Self-denying Ordinance” had not yet been ordained, nor the Parliamentary army moulded to the “new model.”

In view of certain people sojourning in Montserrat House, it need scarce be said that Sir Richard Walwyn and Eustace Trevor were visitors there. Even without reference to the predilections of Madame or Mademoiselle, they could not well be excluded. But there was no thought of excluding them; both were unmistakably eligible, and one of them most welcome, for reasons that will presently appear. They had arrived in Bristol only a short while antecedent to its state of semi-siege, the Powells having long preceded them thither. And now that the approaches were again open, most of their time was spent keeping them so; the troop with the “big sergeant,” and standard showing a crown impaled upon a sword, once more displaying its prowess in encounters with the Cavaliers. After Rupert had disappeared from that particular scene, Prince Maurice, with his corps d’armée, began to manoeuvre upon it, swinging round southward into Somersetshire to unite his force with that of Hertford. To hang upon his skirts, and harass his outposts, was the work of Sir Richard Walwyn; a duty which often carried him and his Foresters afar from the city, and kept them away weeks at a time.

He was just returning to it when Waller passed through. But, entering by a different route and gate from that taken by the latter going out, he missed him. Like enough but for this he would have been commanded along. For the “Conqueror” had carried off with him the élite of the troops quartered in Bristol, almost stripping it of a garrison, to the no small annoyance of Nathaniel Fiennes. Glad was the Governor that the troop with the “big sergeant” had escaped such requisition – overjoyed his eyes to see that banner, bearing the emblem of a crown with sword stuck through it once more waving before the Castle gate.