There was no other boat to take her. She stayed put.
The soldier had turned away. He was tall, his face hidden by the shadow of his hat. Juliana could tell he had long service in the New Model Army, for the Venice Red dye in his coat had faded to a sickly yellow colour. As she waited for him to take notice of her plight, Juliana was surprised to see the escorted civilian hand the man in uniform a gold half-crown. 'Thanks, Captain.'
A soldier held a flaring torch. Juliana made out the unusual coin clearly, and she thought the boatman did so too.
Terrified of being stranded in London, on a night when safe beds would be difficult to find, Juliana stood her ground more fiercely. 'This is my boat! There are no others and I will not be put out of it.'
The tall captain interfered again. Now, in the torchlight, she could see that his hat was rammed down on short fair hair. His face looked weary. 'Stand aside, madam.'
He is not listening to me!
I take no interest in women, high-minded Captain Gideon Jukes told himself (taking an interest). She was young; she was spirited. She had inadvertently betrayed a glimpse of ankle as she scrambled to disembark.
In the shadow of her cloak hood, her face was washed-out and pale. She was definitely frightened of him. Gideon accepted that for the first time in his career, he was using the power of his uniform to domineer it over someone helpless. It was an emergency, but he was not proud. Naturally, he blamed the woman, as if her difficult behaviour made it necessary to bully her.
She had to get home. Abruptly, Juliana hopped back into the boat. The boatman neither helped nor prevented her. She took her seat again and defied them.
The escorted man was extremely agitated. The soldier reached a decision. He abandoned his tiff with Juliana, as if ignoring her would make her invisible. He grasped the man's arm and shoved him into the boat. 'Waterman, away with him — be gone quickly! To the Tower landing — '
The waterman had panicked but, fearing the soldiers, he made no protest. He launched off. After he had pulled out from the shore, however, he felt safer. Juliana heard him tackle the other passenger in a low, horrified tone, 'Who the devil have I got in my boat?'
'Why?'
Juliana sat extremely still. Fear and fascination gripped her equally. Now she was seriously wishing she had stayed behind on shore. She glanced back; the soldiers had all gone.
The boatman demanded angrily, 'Are you the hangman that cut off the King's head?'
'No, as I am a sinner to God — not I.'
The boatman trembled. It seemed to Juliana that the passenger also shook with anxiety. For a short time there was silence. The waterman rowed a little further, then he stopped again, rested his oars and examined the male passenger even more closely. 'Are you the hangman? I cannot carry you.'
Without saying his name, the man half confessed his identity, although he pleaded innocence: 'I was fetched with a troop of horse, and kept a close prisoner at Whitehall. Truly I did not do it. I was kept a close prisoner all the while, but they had my instruments.' Appalled, Juliana wondered just what was in that bag he clutched so tightly.
'I will sink the boat, if you do not tell me true!'
But Brandon continued to deny taking part. So they went on, all the way to London Bridge, where Richard Brandon was put off at Tower Pier. Carrying his bundle and a chinking purse, he went away fast in the direction of Whitechapel.
The waterman — his name was Abraham Smith, it turned out long afterwards — stood up in his boat and watched the man until he had gone right out of sight. Then, with some drama, Smith looked hard at the fare he had been given. It was another gold half-crown.
Afraid to disembark from the rocking craft without assistance, Juliana had sat tight. At last offering his arm for her to climb to land, Abraham Smith waved away her fare, then made it plain he intended to get very drunk in a tavern so if she was that sort of woman — as he clearly presumed she must be — she could join him. Juliana made the briefest of excuses. If the gates on London Bridge were still open, she would hasten over to the south bank in the hope of finding somebody who was travelling down the Dover Road.
With so much else to think about, her encounter on Whitehall Stairs was soon largely forgotten. She had wiped the Roundhead captain from her mind just as he had, almost, eradicated Juliana from his.
Chapter Fifty-Eight — London: 1649
The King's embalmed body, with the severed head ghoulishly stitched back on, lay in state in the royal apartments at St James's Palace for several days. It was then turned over to Bishop Juxon and other supporters for a private burial. When Westminster Abbey was refused them, as being too public, they settled on the Royal Chapel in Windsor. A vault was opened, which was found to contain the remains of King Henry VIII and Queen Jane Seymour. There, in a plain lead coffin, King Charles was buried. As the small cortege approached the chapel, the sky darkened and a furious snowstorm had started, turning the black velvet pall to white.
A book purporting to be the late King's prayers and meditations, Eikon Basilike, was printed to such an immense reception it ran into twenty-three editions within a year. Robert Allibone and Gideon Jukes despaired of the reading public.
Richard Brandon died in June. Some claimed it was a judgement.
In the months before he died, Brandon was said to have openly acknowledged, particularly when tipsy, that he was the King's executioner. He admitted he received thirty pounds for his day's work, paid to him in half-crowns within an hour of the deed. In Rosemary Lane, thirty pounds would keep a man in drink until he killed himself that way. The only problem was to find someone willing to give change for the half-crowns. The coins' face value was so large they were never currency among the poor.
Brandon also boasted of an orange stuck full of cloves and a handkerchief, which according to him were taken from the King's pocket after the headless corpse was carried off the scaffold. Brandon claimed he was offered twenty shillings for the orange by a gentleman in Whitehall; he refused and then, lacking acumen, he sold it for only ten shillings in Rosemary Lane.
Later stories claimed he had suffered from a bad conscience. It was said that about six o'clock on the fateful day, he returned to his wife and gave her the money, saying it was the dearest money he ever earned in his life. Another version said Brandon used up the reward in stews and brothels, catching Naples scab which, along with the drink, then destroyed him. It was also maintained that he never again slept easily and was afraid to walk the streets or sleep without a candle. His successor was William Loe, a dust-carrier and cleaner of dungheaps.
Gideon Jukes, who felt permanent ties to Brandon, attended his funeral in Whitechapel. A noisy throng stood to see the corpse carried to the churchyard. Some heckled, 'Hang him, the rogue! Bury him in a dunghill.' Others battered the coffin, saying they would quarter him. Gideon later saw the burial register, which baldly pronounced: 'June 21st, Richard Brandon, a man out of Rosemary Lane. This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off the head of Charles the First.' Gideon wondered if the entry ought to be removed, but doing so would only draw more attention.
The sheriffs of the City of London sent large quantities of wine for the funeral.
Nobody came forward to validate Brandon's admission. The army remained resolutely silent. Although the axeman's identity seemed glaringly obvious, public speculation ran rife for years. Royalists theorised that the masked executioner had been Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell's chaplain, Hugh Peter, was named. Some claimed inside knowledge that it was Solicitor-General Cook. Years later Colonel Hewson's man, Sergeant Hulet, was formally charged with having been the axeman's assistant on that day, and was even found guilty by a jury, yet he was released unpunished, perhaps because of too many doubts. But Royalists' favourite bogeyman for the task was Colonel John Fox, Tinker Fox of Birmingham.
A year after the execution, Fox was sent on Parliament's business to Edinburgh, where the elders of the Kirk imprisoned him. By the time he was released in October 1650, he was so hugely in debt he was said to be ready to starve; his health collapsed and he died destitute at fifty, with his wife having to petition Parliament for ten pounds to pay for his funeral. Gideon Jukes could not attend that burial; he would by then be himself in Scotland.
