Treves gloomily explained new regulations instituted by the all-controlling Archbishop Laud. To obtain a degree, it was no longer enough to attend a few lectures and hand in occasional written work. He must pass an examination.
'You have time to study harder.'
'Yes, but there is a war now!' Edmund burst out excitedly. Like most scholars, he paid as much attention to politics and religion as to his books — which meant, as little as he could get away with. He had been born the year before King Charles was crowned. He grew up in an England that was stable and prosperous, where he had been innocently unaware of trouble. The headmaster at his school and the dons he encountered at university were all loyal to the King; he took his lead from them. His college had benefited by an enormously expensive new quadrangle, paid for by Archbishop Laud, who had been President of St John's and also the university's Chancellor. Laud was impeached the first year Edmund went up to Oxford. At St John's, the threat of their President being executed was a talking point even scholars could not ignore.
Lovell's interest focused. 'Your college is pricelessly endowed, I think?' he quizzed. 'There must be an excellent cellar. Do you enjoy a good kitchen?'
'Colleges are expecting to lose their treasures,' was the cautious reply. Even Treves could spot a chancer.
All over the kingdom, Lovell knew, men were seizing the initiative and taking control of weapon stores, town magazines, ships and money. In Cambridge a member of Parliament called Oliver Cromwell was adroitly removing the university silver for melting down. When Royalist forces had occupied Oxford under Sir John Byron, Byron afterwards thought it prudent to take away with him much of the Oxford university plate, lest it too fall into Parliament's hands'. The Christ Church plate was refused him, only to be discovered hidden behind wall-panelling. Whatever Byron left was now being tracked down by Lord Saye and Sele. But he, like Byron, had studied at Oxford and was diffident about looting his alma mater. He burned popish books and pictures in the streets, yet he had accepted the pleas of the Master of Trinity that the college pictures were not worth destroying — 'We esteem them no more than a dishcloth' — so those old masters were left, discreetly turned against the wall.
'Lectures are cancelled while all becomes muster, drill and fortify,' trilled Edmund.
'Don't you spend all hours swearing and gaming?' Lovell was teasing, to some extent.
'No, our statutes forbid gambling for money — more of Laud's reforms. We must keep our hair trim, dress plain, and not loiter in the streets in loathsome boots. There is to be no hunting with dogs or ferrets, and we may not carry weapons — '
'And what do you do for — ' Lovell spoke in his usual polite timbre though the undertone was feral. Edmund looked alarmed. Lovell merely rubbed one cheekbone beneath his hooded eye, with the tip of a languid finger.
'For entertainment? We write Greek graces and solve Latin riddles,' Edmund replied solemnly.
The gentle jest puzzled Lovell. He reviewed it, considering how he should answer, or whether any answer was needed. Young Treves was accustomed to rapid banter, hurled to and fro by disrespectful students. Curious, he took it upon himself to ask what Lovell was doing in Oxford.
'I came with Byron.' Had Lovell been left behind here as a Royalist spy?
'Are you a professional soldier?'
'I have served in arms since I was younger than you.'
'How long is that?'
'A decade.' As Edmund looked impressed, Lovell turned the conversation. 'So, master scholar — no weapons! How does that suit in the present upsets?'
Then, while Lovell listened in amused silence, Edmund explained how many scholars and some dons had left Oxford, never to return; the normal new intake of students had dried up. Those who remained were drilling and helping to fortify the town.
As the risk of action increased, Edmund Treves had helped dig trenches, fortify Magdalen Bridge and carry stones to the top of Magdalen Tower to be thrown down upon any attackers. Lovell belched derisively. Treves pleaded with him for advice on how to join up in the King's service and Lovell agreed to help him.
Lovell set down his empty tankard and collected his hat. 'So what does your mother think of your warlike aims? Do you correspond?' Edmund admitted that his mother wrote to him very fondly every week. 'And you reply…?'
'As often as seems advisable.' Edmund did reply every week, ornamenting his letters with phrases in Greek and Latin to prove that he was studying. However, he had enough about him to fudge the issue when talking to a sophisticated ex-mercenary, ten years his senior, whose expression verged on wry. 'Do you have family, Master Lovell?'
'None that trouble me,' replied Lovell briefly.
When this chance acquaintance between Lovell and Treves grew into an unlikely friendship — or what passed for friendship in an uncomfortable city, riven by faction — it was Lovell who recommended that Edmund Treves should try to marry an heiress he had heard about. Just as it was Lovell who advised Edmund on becoming a soldier, it was he who came up with Juliana Carlill.
In the autumn of 1642, in England, a gentleman of eighteen had two likely fates lying ahead of him: marriage and death. Many would achieve both very quickly. Few used their fear of a coffin as a reason to delay jumping into a marriage bed; it was commoner to hurry between the sheets, while the chance was there.
Sadly, it also became common for young married women to lose their new husbands while they were heavy with their first pregnancy. A proportion of widows would remarry, especially those were young, proven to be capable of child-bearing, and perhaps blessed with a legacy; some could hope for second chances. For others, life would be bleaker. Widows, especially widows on the losing side, could only expect to be shunted into corners of other people's parlours, often dogged by lawsuits and disappointed in their children. Despite this — luckily for men of eighteen — only in the most sensible families were young girls advised to be cautious about marriage.
For in the autumn of 1642, nobody supposed the civil war would last long. Most people were sure that some form of reconciliation would be negotiated between the King and Parliament. Anything else was unthinkable.
So Edmund Treves, who gave little thought to the possibility of dying until the Virgin Mary's head nearly killed him in the High, was soon presented with another dangerous fate. Edmund had not learned good judgement. He never considered that the war into which King and Parliament had stumbled was set to drag on pretty well for the rest of his life. He failed to understand that war should be approached not as an impromptu game of fives against a college wall, but with great caution. Love, too, needed long-term planning. This was a risky time to take major decisions — especially when they were prompted by a man whose reliability was untested.
Bearing a whole flowery nosegay of misapprehensions, therefore, Edmund Treves travelled cheerfully from Oxford to a house near Wallingford, in order to meet a young lady about whom he knew only what his new friend had told him — much of which would turn out to be wrong. Had he been older and worldlier, it was generally agreed, he would not have visited a prospective bride in company with Orlando Lovell.
Chapter Seven — Oxford: Autumn, 1642
Lovell always protested his innocence, but nobody who knew him and his already dark reputation really believed the protest.
Where had he come from? Where had he been? There were answers, and there were people who knew them. He saw no reason to volunteer the correct information, and if incorrect stories were circulating, that was how he liked it.
Lovell, who now styled himself captain, had come to England from genuine military service in Europe, arriving at about the same moment as one of the King's nephews. This was where his personal history first acquired an awkward kink. He let people assume that he had served under the eldest royal nephew: the Elector Palatine. Prince Charles Louis was a refugee. His father had been invited to take the crown of Bohemia, but was driven out ignominiously after less than a year; the 'Winter King' had then lost his own lands as well, and until he died he had campaigned to regain his position. His sons now carried on the hopeless quest. Charles Louis came to England to plead for assistance in 1641. He was also hoping to claim his promised bride, the King's eldest daughter Princess Mary, but found that she was to be married off more advantageously to Prince William of Orange.
