A Cruel Fate (Quick Reads 2014) Read online

  ‘When you were allowed in, did you only ever see men from Marlborough?’ Jane is pitifully eager for this surgeon to have tended others, maybe her brother. ‘Were any from Cirencester?’

  ‘I saw very few of any kind, before he stopped me entering the castle.’

  ‘You do not remember their names?’

  Mr Betterise looks at her sadly. ‘My dear, I never knew names. The sick were too far gone to tell me.’

  Chapter 9

  A Plea to the King

  More than forty rebel prisoners remain in Bridewell prison, up to the ankles in their own piss and shit. Martin Watts is there, still alive but suffering badly. Pressed up against his comrades, unable to move, he must stand in that foul place, in the dark, day and night.

  Sometimes he wants to die and end it. But he hangs on grimly. He will not allow Marshal Smith the joy of killing him.

  When they have been in the dungeon for two weeks, they begin to hope for change. Somehow they have written and smuggled out a petition to the King in Oxford and a letter to Parliament in London. Their treatment by Smith is now known in the outside world. Parliament orders their letter to be printed. The misery at Oxford Castle can no longer be ignored by the royalist high command.

  This is the age of political writing. When Parliament first took a stand against the King’s high-handed ways, censorship was stopped. At first, no one saw how important that would be. There is no way back. Words are the chief weapon in the civil war. All kinds of people are writing and publishing. Anyone can rush into print and cry out their thoughts. Other people are eager to read what they say.

  One person who has suffered for his writing is John Lilburne, now held with the officers at Oxford Castle. He will become one of England’s most famous radicals.

  Another is called Edmund Chillenden. He too will become a champion of liberty – he will be a founding member of the Levellers, a fierce radical group. His time in Bridewell will help shape his views and make him ready to defy tyranny even at the risk of his life. What life is there, anyway, for the men buried alive in this foul dungeon?

  So details of their plight become public. The passionate plea for an end to their abuse is probably the work of Chillenden. He dares not own up to it, for fear of Marshal Smith. Smith suspects him, though, and tries hard to prove that he wrote the letter.

  When the dire list of Smith’s tortures reaches the King, an order is given for an enquiry into the truth of the document. Six prisoners from Bridewell are sent for. Chillenden is among them.

  Martin is not. He has to wait in the hell-hole at Bridewell, praying that the six men will be believed. By now he knows better than to hope.

  ********

  After what feels like an endless wait, the six men who went to give evidence return and are shoved back down into the dungeon. The guards’ jeers tell what has happened. No one in the King’s court will take any notice. The King himself will ignore their plight. There will be no let-up in their torture. Smith has got away with it.

  Martin manages to squeeze himself through the rest and come nearer to Edmund Chillenden, so he hears the story. Squashed close together in the dark, their voices are low and intent.

  ‘We six were put in irons and taken through the streets like criminals. We came to the headquarters of Sir Jacob Astley, the King’s general. We did not see Astley, but were met by a man called Doctor Reeves who, we learned, is the King’s Advocate. There were two others with him. They did not question us. Instead, they lectured us, telling us to take the old oath – to change sides, and fight in the King’s army.’

  ‘What said you to that?’

  ‘We answered the same as always – that we had taken an oath already, which is to the King and Parliament. This we will maintain to the last drop of our blood. As for that oath they wanted us to take, we said we did not know whose it was, nor what was its authority. But we do know that the laws of the land provide that no oath may be forced upon us. We need swear no oath that does not have consent in Parliament.’

  Another of the six spokesmen chimes in: ‘We said these laws are our inheritance, which we shall defend and maintain as our true rights and liberties. In no way shall we betray them.’

  Edmund Chillenden takes up the tale again. As Martin hugs his thin arms around himself and listens, he thinks Chillenden’s next words sound clever. ‘We begged to be excused from taking the oath they asked for, because we must not swear a solemn oath when its issues are in doubt for us – only when we are certain about the matter.’

  Martin Watts reacts with a little smile. This answer is designed to defy and offend the enemy. Although the clever speech will do no good to the prisoners in this dungeon, he wants to cheer. It feels good simply to have someone stand up for them. ‘So what did they say to that?’

  ‘Smith cried out, “Hark, hark, they are a-preaching!”’

  ‘And you preached on?’

  ‘We did. We complained of our ill-treatment. We told them this was the way to kill us through starvation. We said that many are sick in this dungeon – we begged them to remove the sick, to some better place where they may have more air. Finally we said we hoped it was not the King’s will, nor the pleasure of his council of war, thus to destroy us.’

  Martin feels his heart quicken, though he is so starved and weak that it happens for no reason sometimes. ‘And was there any response?’

  Chillenden sounds weary. ‘Doctor Reeves told us that it is the King’s will and it is the pleasure of his war council to destroy us.’ So Chillenden concludes in a drab tone: ‘Then the doctor put on his spectacles and glared down his nose at us. He said we looked as fat as rabbits – and we were sent back again to this dungeon.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘We Shall All Die …’

  The state of the men in the dungeon grows worse. The sick become weaker and weaker. One man is so ill that he helplessly has to relieve himself where he is, covering himself with his own waste. Another is troubled by continual vomiting. Nobody clears up after them. The stench is overwhelming. For the rest it is horrible to be so near these poor men.

  One day Marshal Smith comes to the dungeon. The prisoners complain to him, begging again for the sick to be taken where there is more air. ‘Let them be more comfortable and have better food, let people come to their aid. If nothing is done for them, they will not live long.’

  Smith sticks to his usual story – that if they take the oath to serve the King, they may have anything they want. ‘If you will not swear, then if you all die, I will not care. It is by your own choice and you will be your own murderers!’

  He refuses to increase their rations. They may not have their shirts washed, so they are increasingly louse-ridden, which leads to more disease. He will not allow any friend to visit them, nor even their wives. He has been annoyed by complaints being printed and made public. Under a threat of an inspection, at last he is giving kinder treatment to the officers and gentlemen back at the castle. But these common men in the dungeon are at his mercy. Their leaders have been mocked by Doctor Reeves, the King’s Advocate. Smith can punish and deprive them as he likes.

  The prisoners are not the only people to suffer. Smith’s cruelty is never rational. The man in charge of Bridewell – a civilian, not a soldier – is arrested by Smith for having a pot of food boiling over the fire for his own dinner. This unlucky jailer is dragged to the castle and imprisoned there, while Smith’s own men eat his stew.

  A prisoner called Giles Carter dies in great agony. Another called Caleb Rolfe also passes away.

  ********

  When Giles Carter dies in the dungeon, the other prisoners think about themselves. If they remain here, they will die one by one.

  Martin Watts feels greatly affected by Giles Carter’s death. He has been standing close to the sick man and wished he could help him. ‘We shall perish. If we do nothing, we shall all die. If we want to live, we must take our fate into our own hands.’

  The men talk together in dull voices. They
sound as if they have given up hope – but they are not willing to endure Smith’s abuse any longer. They are looking for a way out. Now, they are ready to try anything.

  They have been locked up together long enough to have bonded. They can work together – and they will. They share one intent. They can stay here and die – or do something about it. They are all in agreement. The prisoners in Bridewell decide to escape.

  Chapter 11

  The Plan of Escape

  In Bridewell, the prisoners are busy. People do escape. Doctor Calyton, a doctor of divinity, tries to escape from his misery at the castle, over a wall. He falls and fatally breaks his neck. Others who escape are recaptured by Smith, and badly punished. Even if they break out of their dungeon, the prisoners will be in a walled town guarded by soldiers. Somehow they will have to escape from Oxford itself, on foot, and knowing the alarm will soon be raised.

  This is dispiriting. Still, these men are in despair already. Nothing now will put them off. They begin to dig a way out.

  ********

  Since their jailers take no interest in them, it is easy to work unnoticed. First, they locate an outside wall. In some ways, their treatment has been oddly casual. Although many have been robbed of shoes and coats, others have been allowed to keep pocket knives. They would use these for eating – were they given any food. It is a strange aspect of war at this time, that nobody seems afraid that such prisoners will rush their guards or attack them.

  They use their knives to tackle the wall. They also have a hook that is meant to hold a door open, which they have prised free to use. There is only room for one or two men to be digging at once. Making a tunnel is maddeningly slow. Scraping away at the mortar between building stones, they make grooves, then press in deeper. The mortar and rubble are carried to far corners of the dungeon and spread in the stinking wash of human filth on the floor.

  Using such small tools for a heavy job seems as delicate as watchmaking. Sometimes the amounts they remove are little more than thimblefuls. Then suddenly a larger amount of stones will tumble free. Nobody can work for long. They are so weak they can only manage very short stints. They have to be quiet. All the time a watchman listens out for guards. At any approach they have to stop.

  Martin Watts takes his turn. He is feeling ill. His stomach has turned to water and he fears he will not be able to make a run for freedom, even if they manage to get out. Still, he keeps going and digs when he can. The need to escape from this misery drives him hard. He finds strength he never knew he had. He learns how much determination he has in him. He uses a bookbinding knife that he somehow kept with him in a pocket, until the fine tool breaks. Then he is given the stronger iron door hook.

  Martin works until he drops. Then someone else takes over.

  He feels ill, but others are worse. He overhears whispering about what can be done for the weakest. Not much. It will be impossible to carry the sick. No one has the strength. They have to go on foot and must move fast. They have to swim the river.

  One young man, who is desperately sick, weeps. The sound is heart-rending. He wants so badly to escape but, when he tries to help, he collapses at once. Gently the others remove him. Nobody knows this youth very well. Most of them are from Marlborough or Banbury. He is one of the prisoners captured at Cirencester.

  Martin asks why the boy was not sent home with the rest of the troops from there. Nobody can say. ‘What is his name?’ No one knows that either. When Martin is resting from digging, he wants to go and ask, but he finds he is too feeble to struggle over to the sick boy.

  ********

  It takes days. But they make a hole through the wall a yard deep. Finally they break through to the outside.

  This is it.

  ********

  Forty prisoners squeeze through the dungeon wall, into the fresh air. Six are too ill to move, and have to stay behind.

  Martin Watts is one of the forty who escape. But soon he is feeling so weak he cannot keep up with the others as they flee. By the time they swim the river, Martin has lagged too far behind and has been left alone in a dark street. He is free, but helpless.

  He keeps vomiting from whatever sickness he caught in prison. He finds his way somehow to a garden near the base of the castle. It is a poor hiding place; he knows he is doomed. He sinks down on the hard ground, with all hope draining from him. He is trapped in Oxford. It cannot be long before Marshal Smith and his men find him.

  The disappointment is tragic, as Martin waits to be discovered.

  Chapter 12

  News – But None for Jane

  At Saint George’s Tower, the letter taken to Parliament, the one written by Edmund Chillenden, has had some results.

  Marshal Smith is more nervous than he first appeared, but he brazens it out. When Parliament sends a hundred pounds to provide the prisoners with food, Smith makes this an excuse to stop spending the King’s money.

  This is a religious age. In fact, religion is one of the reasons they are fighting. Questions have been asked about the prisoners not being allowed to attend worship, even though the castle has a chapel. So Smith brings in a priest – though his sermons are crude rants against Parliament. When this priest asks for his fee, Smith claps him in irons, until the man is glad to leave without payment. He will not be back.

  When Jane and other women visit the castle they continue to hear dreadful stories. They know Smith steals from prisoners, beats them, punishes them by burning them with lit match cord and by loading them with chains. He still provides little food and often no water. He keeps people in jail even after the King has formally pardoned them. He even recaptures men who have been freed, returns them to prison and then demands even more money to release them again. Some cannot pay a second ransom and die in prison.

  Agents come to Oxford from Parliament to inspect conditions. The King permits this, so he can maintain that the letter of complaint was untrue. By now Marshal Smith has perfected a lie to excuse his actions. He claims that any men he has punished were stirring up mutiny. He often accuses his prisoners of plotting. Many of those he has treated worst cannot complain because they have died.

  Smith tries to fool the agents. He lightens the harsh regime under which he holds the officers and gentlemen. The agents from Parliament will look most keenly into how he treats these captives – men of their own rank.

  Smith now allows the captains and gentlemen to walk in the castle gardens, taking air and exercise. At last he even permits visits by their worried friends and careworn wives. So Captain Wingate’s wife finally learns directly from her husband the full story of his appalling life in jail. She already knew he was kept in solitary confinement. She had herself made a complaint to Parliament, saying that he was denied books and writing tools, nearly starved and, on some days, not even given bread and water.

  Now she hears things that are far worse. When the shocked Mrs Wingate leaves the castle after seeing the captain, Jane finds her almost speechless.

  Mrs Wingate fixes her grief on a matter of money as she begins to share her trouble with Jane. ‘Marshal Smith had a bill of exchange from my husband and Captain Austen for thirty pounds. Thirty pounds, Jane! That would have bought them many comforts – but he has never given them the money. We think he has stolen it for himself. When Captain Austen asked for it, Smith called Austen a shitty apprentice boy, and threatened to put him in chains, neck and heels, which is a very harsh punishment. Marshal Smith refused to allow my husband a Bible, and nor was he allowed to walk in the garden for his health, although he is not well. And Smith took away the mattress from his bed, so he must sleep only on the mattress cords …’

  Mrs Wingate goes deathly quiet. Jane can see that her friend is distressed for worse reasons. She quietly presses her. Mrs Wingate can hardly bear to say what she has heard: ‘Ah Jane, this is barbarous. A man was hanged – a criminal. Captain Wingate had been kept locked up alone until then. But Master Harfield, a minister from Banbury, was suddenly put in with my husband. The minis
ter was kept in irons. Then—’ She nearly gags. ‘After the hanged man’s corpse was cut down, it was thrown into the same room with them.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘And left to rot.’

  ‘Oh surely not!’

  ‘This is true. I never heard such an unchristian thing.’

  ‘How long did this continue?’

  ‘Smith would not allow the body to be taken out for days. They were kept together all three – my ailing husband, the minister in chains, and the decomposing corpse.’ Mrs Wingate is in tears. ‘Smith does this on purpose, Jane. He will not let those who die be taken away until their corpses stink like poison. In this way he forces the prisoners to find money for their funerals.’

  Jane tries to soothe the stricken woman, but Mrs Wingate has completely broken down. Jane takes her home.

  ********

  In the next days, Jane spends much time trying to comfort Mrs Wingate. It helps take her own mind away from the futile search to learn her brother’s fate. But giving comfort, where really there is none, is tiring. It wears down her spirit.

  Like so many wives of men fighting in the civil war, Mrs Wingate has become a brave woman. She recovers, because she has to. It is her role to keep strong for her family. On the rare occasions when she can see her husband, she must present a brave face so she does not add to his anxiety.

  Jane pleads with her to ask Captain Wingate if he knows anything about Nat. Mrs Wingate promises to ask. Indeed she does so. But she tells Jane her husband has heard nothing.

  Jane feels an odd sense of unease. Since she trusts Mrs Wingate, she lets it pass.