Cromwell assumed the title of Lord Protector. He would be an absolute ruler, though he refused to consider the offer of the crown. His enemies mocked this rejection, though it was probably genuine. Many old allies were horrified. Old enemies saw this as their chance.
The Protectorate not only gave a focus for manic Royalist intrigue, it also led to opposition at home from religious and political radicals. Fifth Monarchists and Baptists fulminated. Levellers would bitterly oppose rule by one man, whether he called himself Protector or King. All of them sought Cromwell's removal. Sexby, too, was now busy at that work.
John Thurloe's intelligence service set about tracking every set of dissidents. To do so, the spymaster drew on any possible resources, encouraging turncoats and bribing double agents. In December 1653 as the Protectorate began, Richard Overton, the Leveller, who only a few months before had been stalwartly supporting John Lilburne at his trial, was paid twenty pounds by Thurloe. This substantial sum was an inducement to report on the activities of Edward Sexby.
It was suspected Overton might renege. An attempt was made, therefore, to recruit someone to monitor his activities — one candidate being Lambert Jukes, whose wife knew the wife of Overton. A doubt hung over Lambert, as a convicted Ranter. Even more likely to move in Overton's circles, because he was a printer and Overton constantly wrote pamphlets, was Lambert's brother, Gideon Jukes. He had a sound New Model Army record, and sometimes wrote for the official Parliamentary publisher, Marchamont Nedham. Nedham had connections with Thurloe and it was he who made informal approaches to Gideon.
This Nedham had a mixed history as a publisher and editor, though Gideon found him fairly congenial. In the '40s, Nedham had published Mercurius Britannicus, the Parliamentary response to Royalist propaganda, and after Naseby he printed the King's incriminating papers. He changed sides dramatically over the execution — but while under sentence of death in Newgate, his old love for Parliament was reborn by magic. Ever since, he had championed the need for all parties to submit to the Commonwealth's government, in order to achieve social stability.
As the official propagandist, Nedham was paid a salary, though when he set up the state news-sheet Mercurius Politicus, he also supported it financially by taking in paid advertisements for a sister periodical called The Public Adviser; its regular news of houses and shops for sale, medical prescriptions and apprenticeships offered for gentlemen's sons seemed to Gideon a cheerful indication that life was getting back to normal after years of war. Nedham had a famously jocular style as editor, with superb contacts and correspondents. His official licenser was John Milton, also a contributor, who held a post with the Council of State, having oversight of foreign documents. Other collaborators were also poets, John Dryden and Andrew Marvell.
Gideon had been first introduced to Marchamont Nedham by Robert Allibone in 1651, when Mercurius Politicus was about a year old. He found Nedham a short, hawk-nosed, intense, lively character, whose long black hair and two earrings gave him a raffish appearance. Gideon liked him more than Robert did, so it was only after Robert's death that Gideon wrote occasional pieces for him. He approved of the man's belief in separation of church and state; his dedication to freedom of conscience; even his eagerness — so much despised by others — to make publishing pay. Gideon did not disapprove of that and, for him, Nedham's relationship with the secret service also held spice. He knew the editor worked very closely with John Thurloe. It was logical. They used each other's networks of correspondents. By drawing on Thurloe's intelligence, Nedham obtained reports that were rightly seen as making Mercurius Politicus the only news worth reading.
Marchamont Nedham tried to recruit Gideon to spy on Richard Overton. Gideon wriggled, saying he had just become attached to a lady and was settling himself domestically. He smiled a little to think that the spymaster's office was unaware of his real acquaintance with Overton — the man who had once lured him into his dotterel suit in The Triumph of Peace…
Eventually he agreed the request. 'I shall need time to track him down — ' Gideon rather hoped this would prove impossible.
'Covent Garden,' replied Nedham immediately. 'He lodges in Bedford Street with a Colonel Wetton.'
'Well, that will be helpful,' answered Gideon, a little primly, as his hopes of ducking the task were overturned. 'I may be able to find where he drinks — '
'The Cross Keys,' Nedham instructed firmly.
Now Sir Marmaduke Langdale had Orlando Lovell as his tool, and John Thurloe had Gideon Jukes. Nobody was aware of the ironies.
Thurloe did have Lovell on a list of Royalist activists. The spymaster used Royalist double agents on the Continent, one of whom had noticed Lovell. At this period Thurloe was cultivating a secret correspondent in France called Henry Manning, who was close to Charles II's court. He most usefully sent details of the Sealed Knot, so the supposedly secure group was corrupted from within pretty well as soon as it was formed. Thurloe knew of six founder members, Belasys, Loughborough, Compton, Villiers, Willys and Russell. Others were implicated, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. A name that occasionally came up as an associate was 'Colonel Lovell', though the Duke of York's tutor was called Lovell, which at first confused the issue. Thurloe's agents had not fully latched on to Colonel Orlando Lovell, in cahoots with Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Nor were any of them yet aware of his awkward connection with their own informant, Gideon Jukes.
'We are here in great quiet under our new protector', wrote a Royalist from England, in a letter that was intercepted by Thurloe in January 1654. It was somewhat inaccurate.
Over winter and spring many upheavals occurred, though government espionage had success against them. Thurloe's organisation broke a curious plot directed by Cardinal Mazarin of France involving English Anabaptists. The codewords 'Mr Cross intends to visit Sweden' gave away the Earl of Glencairn's intended rebellion in Scotland which would have brought Charles II there. Imprisoned conspirators supplied long lists of names and haunts, such as the Windmill in Lothbury where one man had met fellow-plotters under cover of his weekly trip to play billiards. The Gerard Plot was foiled and the two brothers who led it were executed.
Orlando Lovell took no part in these proliferating schemes; he derided all of them. However, in September 1654, when Charles II formally commissioned the Earl of Rochester to lead a new wave of risings in England, this seemed to be old-style action and Lovell deigned to assist. Over the next six months he was involved in the procurement and distribution of arms. The weapons were to furnish a countrywide rebellion, which would be led by long-time cavaliers and new recruits. Lord Rochester landed in Kent in mid-February 1655.
Lovell followed. After his involvement in the 1648 rebellion there, it was familiar territory. And Kent was a convenient base from which he could now seriously attempt to find his wife.
Chapter Seventy-Five — London, Gravesend, Kent: London, 1654-55
'Good God! What damned lick-arses are here!'
On the 6th of September 1654, Richard Overton penned a letter to Secretary Thurloe. Marchamont Nedham brought a copy to show Gideon, now deemed to be an expert on Overton:
I suppose I should not much mistake myself if I should more than suppose that there will be attempts and endeavours by persons of great ability and interest against the government, as it now is: but for my part I shall seek my own quiet and the public peace, and be glad I may be an instrument in the prevention of disturbance. I may happily be capable of doing some considerable service therein, and as may fall in my way; and I assure you, I shall be very ready to do it, if it may find but your acceptance. If it do, I humbly beg the favour of your notice, when and where I may best wait upon you, and have some discourse about the business, and to receive your directions and commands therein. Sir, craving your pardon for this presumption, and with all due acknowledgements of other favours I formerly received from you, I shall still remain,
Your honour's most humble servant to command,
Richard Overton.
Gideon was fascinated. 'It is a wary piece of prose. I imagine that Secretary Thurloe enjoyed its
