His fellow-soldier from Portsmouth dug Gideon in the ribs. 'We understand, sir.' Sir? Though he had the manner of an officer, Sexby was in fact a trooper still.
'We do understand,' Gideon reinforced it, close to an apology though he saw no reason to fawn on Sexby.
Sexby leaned back in his chair. 'You are a printer.'
'Was, before I came to the army'
'Do you write?'
'Not for the public'
'We are seeking able pen-men… We need a press,' Sexby growled fretfully. 'If a press is not got into the army, we are handicapped.'
While Sexby drummed his fingers in frustration, Gideon saw the point. 'We must be able to print documents speedily and safely. It needs a trusted printer, with his own press. That press must always travel with the army, so we can react fast to whatever happens. There are many loyal printers in London, but distance is a hindrance. Dangerous too — Parliament can, and will, shut down a press, then throw the printer into prison.'
'Walwyn's group have the means,' grumbled Sexby, 'but they are constantly under suspicion. Lilburne and Overton are stuck in the Tower — ' He seemed to know a lot about the Levellers.
'Walwyn has issued a great petition, calling for their release.'
Sexby started, surprised that Gideon knew. Gideon let him wonder.
He considered suggesting Robert Allibone as the army printer. Robert behaved discreetly, but he was not entirely invisible from the authorities; besides, Robert was a stay-at-home. Gideon had a brainwave: 'I know of a press, now silent and ripe to be claimed. We would not need to bring it from London.'
Sexby became fully alert: 'Where?'
'Oxford.'
'Can we get it?'
'I will find it.' Smiling, Gideon gestured to the letter he and his colleague were taking back to Portsmouth. Sexby watched him, gangling and apparently so easy-going that he seemed slow-witted — yet, Sexby saw, this blond sergeant was deceptively sharp. 'Taking your invitation, our regiment will march to Oxford, Sexby. I have some knowledge of that city. Oxford was much under observation when I worked with Sir Samuel Luke.' Gideon was cheerfully exaggerating.
'What press is it?' Sexby's heart told him Gideon Jukes was reliable, yet he remembered the young man as a nervous bridegroom, destined for bamboozlement by that cold-eyed new wife… Never trust a man who thinks for himself, warned Sexby's head — Sexby, who also thought for himself.
'The press the Royalists used for their deceitful propaganda, Mercurius Aulicus,' said Gideon. 'John Harris owns it.' He stood his ground, keeping command of his idea: 'I volunteer to find Harris and his press. Then I would like to be our printer using it.'
'We shall have to pay him for it.' Sexby's thoughts raced. He ignored Gideon's request to become the printer. 'Promise Harris reimbursement. The officers will approve the money' A true revolutionary, he was quick to speak for his masters' funding. 'Can you do this, Sergeant Jukes?'
'Trust me!' Their eyes met. Years later Gideon would remember how even at that moment, deep in conspiracy, he felt their interests faintly jarred.
On the 28th of May, Rainborough's regiment acted in breach of their orders. They formed themselves up and marched north away from Portsmouth. As Sexby predicted, Colonel Jackson tried to intercept them at Brain tree, but they refused to be stopped. Agitator 102 wrote to a colleague: 'Colonel Rainborough is to go to his Regiment, and it is by Oxford… Let two horsemen go presently to Colonel Rainborough to Oxford, and be very careful you be not overwitted. Now break the neck of this design, and you will doe well…' The 'design' included another mission, even more secret and desperate: 'not to dally, but a good party of Horse of 1,000, and to have spies with them before to bring you intelligence, and to quarter your Horse overnight, and to march in the night… So God bless.'
He did not sign it.
As soon as the mutiny was reported in London, Rainborough was despatched by Parliament to restore order among his men. He came across most of them at Culham, near Abingdon. Gideon and Lambert reckoned their colonel was sympathetic. They were sure Rainborough had known all about their mutinous march, in advance, and he supported it. He certainly issued no punishments.
He wrote telling Parliament of his troops' difficult temper, implying that their cramped quarters and problems with local provisioning caused it. While he hoped to prevent further trouble, he could not give undertakings for good behaviour. This was a very odd thing for a commander to say. Rainborough also failed to mention that three and a half thousand pounds intended to pay off and disband Colonel Ingoldsby's regiment had been commandeered. His regiment and Ingoldsby's had already seized the artillery and were guarding it at Oxford.
His disingenuous letter was read out in Parliament on the day that the secret horsemen achieved their object.
While Rainborough stayed at Culham, some of his men were deployed in Oxford guarding the artillery train. With them had gone Gideon Jukes, searching for John Harris. Harris came from a vintnering family, so Gideon began in the taverns.
He found Harris. He encouraged this slightly raffish character to see that a new career serving the revolution would be better for an exactor and failed wine merchant than no career at all. 'We are mere implementers of the word,' Gideon declared expansively. During the search, he had drunk more ale than he was used to.
'How much will they pay?' asked Harris, who was stone cold sober.
'We can commandeer the press if you do not co-operate.' Gideon invented this threat, fired up by what he had seen of Edward Sexby's certainty.
It worked. Harris seemed to think that if he volunteered, at least he might recover his equipment once the revolution was over. He knew the revolution would not last; he was, after all, a Royalist.
It was while he was supervising movement of the Mercurius Aulicus press on a brewery dray, that Gideon ran into the horsemen.
There were only five hundred, though Sexby and Chillenden had wanted a thousand. Leading this secret mission was an officer of Fairfax's Lifeguard called Cornet George Joyce. It was open knowledge that they had come to Oxford after a meeting at Oliver Cromwell's house in Drury Lane in London. Joyce consistently claimed he had Cromwell's approval — though Cromwell would keep his own counsel.
Joyce, a Durham man who was reputedly a tailor, held the most junior officer's rank in a cavalry regiment. Gideon viewed it cynically. Cornet Joyce was an unknown. An easy scapegoat if this expedition went bottom up. Expendable.
Once they had satisfied themselves that the cannon and ammunition were well guarded by Rainborough's men, the horsemen cantered out of Oxford on the second phase of their mission. Since Gideon still had possession of the good horse on which he went to Chelmsford, he had persuaded Cornet Joyce to take him along. He claimed he knew the best roads in Northamptonshire, and all the quiet byways, learned from his time with Sir Samuel Luke.
They rode for two nights. On the evening of the 3rd of June, this secret band arrived outside an enormous stately home. It had been built by Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, in order to entertain the Queen as extravagantly as she thought proper. It was said to be the largest house in England, built around two vast courtyards, with hundreds of windows, grandiose glass being the status symbol of the age.
Here, for the past four months, King Charles had been a prisoner. Holdenby House had passed to his father and remained royal property. These were civilised surroundings and he was barely restricted.
Though a small man who had had rickets in his childhood, the King had strode through the beautiful grounds at such a brisk pace that his keeper, the elderly Lord Pembroke, had trouble keeping up with him. From this fabulous house, Charles continued to negotiate with any party who approached him, his latest fragile promises being made to the Presbyterians in Parliament who were so set on dividing and disbanding the New Model Army.
Commissioners from Parliament were here with the King. As Joyce and his party reconnoitred the place, the commissioners' hostility was one of their worries. Another was the soldiers guarding the King, Colonel Richard Greaves's regiment. Greaves hailed from King's Norton in Warwickshire; he had led a troop that defended Birmingham against Prince Rupert's attack. The Agitators doubted his allegiance, because he was a known
