companions successfully rode out over Magdalen Bridge. It was the King, disguised in rough clothes and with shorn hair, using a counterfeit warrant to get out through the Parliamentary lines.
Fairfax must have known the King had gone. He toughened up. At the end of the month he ordered his troops to allow no one to leave Oxford, except to negotiate terms. It had become a close siege.
Eight days after he left Oxford, the King turned up outside the long-standing Royalist base at Newark-on- Trent. It was still being besieged by the Covenanters and Charles placed himself in the Scots' control, hoping for better terms than he might expect from the English. He told Newark to surrender; three days later, the Scots took it. Immediately, they struck camp and transported themselves north to Newcastle, with the King in semi-captivity. In June, letters from him were intercepted, revealing his duplicitous secret negotiations with the Scots whilst at the same time, yet again, he requested armed support from the Irish and French. Parliament regarded this as treasonous.
In Oxford, neither side wanted a damaging siege. There was anxiety, though no desperate hardship. A magazine to supply provisions opened. A pronouncement was made that there would be a penalty of death for any soldier taking food from civilians. Cannon-fire was heard. Fairfax formally summoned the city, sending a trumpeter:
Sir, I do by these summon you to deliver up the City of Oxford into my hands for the use of the Parliament. I very much desire the preservation of that place (so famous for learning) from ruin, which inevitably is like to fall upon it, unless you concur…
There was a delay to save face. Artillery-fire was exchanged. A cannon ball hit Christ Church. A shot from Oxford killed a New Model Army colonel on Headington Hill. The Parliamentarians remained confident. On June the 15th, outside Sir Thomas Fairfax's tented headquarters, Oliver Cromwell's daughter Bridget was married to the dark-browed manipulator, Henry Ireton.
The outcome of the siege had never been in doubt. There were said to be six months' supplies of food remaining, but there was no point holding out. The King sent Oxford his formal permission to give up. The governor signed articles of surrender. Negotiations dragged on, but on the 25th of June the keys of the city were formally handed to Sir Thomas Fairfax. The garrison was allowed to march out, each of the three thousand men with a safe conduct to travel home. Princes Rupert and Maurice left, also with passes to leave the country. However, James, Duke of York, was sent as Parliament's prisoner to London.
Oxford filled up with New Model Army soldiers in their red coats. Although he was a Cambridge man, Fairfax put a special guard on the Bodleian Library. That preserved it from destruction, though the Parliamentarians found many books had already had their chains cut and been fraudulently sold.
By then, with his wife's foreknowledge, Orlando Lovell had quietly disappeared. Juliana clung on in the house in St Aldate's, wondering yet again when, if ever, she might next see her husband. He had promised to come back for her, once normality resumed. He said it was best if she truthfully had no idea where he was. She feared he had gone with Prince Rupert, and had left the country — not something Juliana wished for herself, though she would follow him if he asked. She missed him in the house and in her bed. She was hoping that this time he had not left her pregnant.
'Well, little Tom. Now it is just you and me again, and baby Valentine.'
Then Tom gazed up at her for a moment, as if to make sure she was not actually weeping, before he returned to playing on the floor extremely quietly. He had his father's eyes and his mother's swift intelligence. Tom could adapt to new situations fast. He had grasped, and amiably accepted, that times for revelry and noise were over. He had gained a hobbyhorse but knew he must take good care of it because there would not be another gift for a long while. The father he had only just come to know was gone again.
Chapter Thirty-Eight — On the Road: 1645
Some time in the aftermath of the battle of Naseby, a male traveller had ridden along the empty highway between Beaconsfield and Windsor. He looked well-to-do. His hat was velvet with half an ostrich plume, his cloak was scarlet, his britches had a rash of gold lacing, his boots were polished and lace cuffs dangled elegantly from his coat sleeves. His manner was jaunty and careless, despite the seriousness of the times. If he was a Royalist fugitive, he hid it well.
A mile or two before Slough, the rider came upon a young woman disconsolately leaning on a stile beside the road. In the cheerful way of any seventeenth-century gentleman who spied an unescorted female, he at once reined in his horse and bent down to offer her the courtesy of a lewd offer. As if she had been expecting this privilege, she straightened up and turned towards him. She was monumentally pregnant.
With the shameless good grace of the men of his time, he immediately apologised and — after a disappointed curse — changed the offer to one of general assistance. Clearly exhausted, the vulnerable damsel begged for a ride to the next town. He agreed. She climbed on the handy stile and mounted behind him side-saddle, surprisingly limber in her movements for one so near her time — though she groaned all too convincingly as she took her place.
They rode on. He whistled 'Greensleeves' to himself with the good humour any man would feel while doing a good deed for a pregnant woman. She clung to him, one slim arm around his waist rather charmingly. Since he had to presume she was a respectable wife, he refrained from conversation. She sat silent until he became used to her presence.
At a particularly deserted spot, with woods on either hand, the rider felt a sudden jarring movement behind him. As he half turned indignantly, he saw something drop behind the horse — a large cushion.
Next minute his head was pulled hard back by his flowing hair, then he was shoved off his mount sideways. His short sword flew from its scabbard and executed a spiral into a ditch. As he landed heavily on to the road, the woman jumped down after him. Practised hands slipped a noose of rope around his body, which tightened with a series of painful tugs, while his ruthless assailant pressed the hard, cold butt of a weapon meaningfully against his right ear. When he wriggled, she shoved his face in the mud with her foot, while she continued trussing him like a capon. Once he was helpless, she came rifling through his pockets, then she moved off to search his travel bags.
She obviously hoped for more than she found.
When she realised he had only threepence farthing, there was a thoughtful pause. The pauper victim risked rolling over to view her discomfiture. Any thought of escape was deterred by the carbine she brandished. 'Don't be a fool. I can use this. I served as a soldier in man's clothes.'
Even if the captive suspected she had no bullets, he was not keen to test it. Besides, he felt as much curiosity about her as she displayed towards him. 'Your bags are light, mister; are they to be filled with plunder, taken from travellers on the road?'
She was extremely thin, about seventeen. Now she had shed the false belly, her gown hung on her raggedly. Her hood had slipped back so her tangled hair showed, wound in a rough topknot.
She was fearless. The man on the ground waited to see what she would do. She flipped one of his lace cuffs with the butt of her gun, tugging away the fabric to reveal it was a sham; he had no shirt attached to it. 'Here's a turn-up. I came to rob you, but you would just as soon have robbed me!'
Her itchy red eyes went to his horse. She strolled across and managed to examine its long ear. 'I wonder — shall I find an army brand? Oh yes! I see you enlarged the letters, to disguise his origin — Newport Pagnell! Too close to be riding about on him; you should gallop him away at least thirty miles, and fence him to some trustworthy dealer… A false tail might keep you safe. Or you could give him a white blaze he was not foaled with.' She came back to her captive.
He produced a rueful grin. 'I am useless to you, madam. No point dragging me to a deep thicket for a strip- search,' he commiserated. 'Even if you were strong enough.'
'Leave you in a remote spot, tied to a post or tree?' She stared quickly up and down the road. 'Do you work alone?'
'Do you?' he shot back, pretending he had a crowd of lusty associates who would turn up any moment. She retorted that she had friends who would be along shortly. 'Of course!' he scoffed. 'Else how would you get away from here?'
