He asked me my age and if my father yet lived, a question for which I, sadly, had no answer. After a time, he rose to go but stood for a moment within the circle of light. He gestured out towards the many campfires filling the surrounding field in the thousands and said, “I know well the horrors of killing a countryman. Prayer and steady fasting give some comfort and yet will only serve to temper the pain. Your agony, which shows clearly on your face, gives the true measure and worth of your conscience.”
He nodded and gripped my shoulder fondly for an instant, as he might have done for one of his own family, and said, “Somewhere out there is my own son just your age, Thomas. I would not ask another man’s child to risk death and not my own.” He walked away, and I pondered on how many Royalists’ sons had paid other men, poor and untitled, to fight their battles; and it came to me in that moment that I would have followed Cromwell into the sea if he had asked.
Cromwell’s name, and leadership, soon became the banner for victories, and in June of ’forty- five his cavalry joined our infantry for the battle at Naseby, which brought thirteen thousand of our men against seven thousand of the king’s. We faced one another across a dry valley of heath, the sky a blue bowl above us. A strong northwest wind rattled the banners and trappings behind us. I was placed on the front line of pike hard by the right flank of Cromwell’s men. I could see Cromwell on his mount, his face filled with a savage joy. He was singing psalms and once even laughed. His darting eyes found me, and saluting me, he cried out, “Have you said your prayers, Thomas, for yourself, as well as for your enemies?”
I nodded, proud that he addressed me directly in front of the troops. His horse reared, nervous for battle, and bringing the horse to heel, he exhorted me, saying, “Never forget that God calls those he loves most to do that which is most hard. I remember it always, as should you.”
He spurred his horse about as the king’s nephew Prince Rupert began the charge and engaged the battle. And though the prince broke our lines first, Cromwell did win the day, capturing three thousand prisoners, most of them Welsh. Within a fortnight they would be paraded in the streets of London, hanged, or jailed. But I was no longer a Welshman; I was of no country anymore but that which embraced Cromwell.
The general had seen my way with a pike at Edgehill, piercing a horse and rider together like a spitted cod, so he elevated me to corporal, enlisting me into his New Model Army. Through town and countryside he fought, taking bread and praying with his common troops. He would always make time especially for me, giving me words of encouragement and, when needed, correction. Once he gave me, with his own hand, a prayer book which I carried under my breastplate, its weight like a shield over my heart.
His was the spirit borne up by the Holy Word after which we followed, like magpies upon the red-tailed hawk. Any Protestant man who had fought for the king but desired to pledge for Parliament was welcomed as a brother, regardless of birth. Those that were popish bred were reformed, or swept to dust.
We fought until the king was captured and brought to Commons as a betrayer to his own people. Even from his prison, Charles Stuart plotted with every foreign land, Catholic or Protestant, taking money, arms, and men to win back his throne. He went to his trial believing he had never done wrong, regretting only that he had not first hanged the dissenters and queried them afterwards. The king was tried as any common man and sentenced to death, Cromwell’s name writ largest upon the warrant.
In sixteen forty-nine, in the biting winter of January, scaffolding began to rise before the banqueting hall like the shell of a great beast. A master builder had been paid two shillings a day to build the stage from which the king’s head would fall. Ropes had been hammered into the planks to tie him down should he resist. The high executioner swore he would never ply his trade on a neck that had carried a crown, and the crowds became sullen waiting for Commons to begin killing the Stuarts.
In the blue dawn of January 26th, I was called by Cromwell to Westminster Palace. I was led through a dark warren of rooms and found the general alone on his knees, praying. Seeing me, he rose and gestured for me to come nearer. There was only one candle in the chamber, but I could see the breath curl from his lips like gray mist from a northern sea. The man had been at prayer, yet there was no aspect of Godly play about his face, merely the steady glint of eyes that had long gazed upon a lock and had only just discovered the key.
He studied me from the shadows before saying, “Thomas, I can see you’ve greatly changed from the boy who shared his campfire with me. You have the look about you now of a resolute man.”
I nodded to him that this was so.
“And your wife?” he asked. “She fares well?”
“Aye,” I answered, remembering that Cromwell’s own beloved wife had been gravely ill for a time.
“It is said,” he began but paused, as though considering something of gravity. “It has been brought to me that she speaks openly of her doubts that Charles Stuart should be put to death.” His eyes were downcast, his words carefully chosen, but I had no doubt of his fearsome attention in waiting for my answer. For the first time in the years of serving him during the war, through all the battles won and lost, through all the trials and intrigues that placed him as the man destined to rule the new England, I felt the prickling of dread, not for myself, but for Palestine.
I said, “My wife, as ever, keeps with our cause. She is free to reveal her mind, I believe, as we now have no fear of tyrants. Is that not so?”
He stepped nearer so I could see the measure of his gaze boring into me. He asked, “Do you upon your life love your country?”
I answered him that I did.
He moved closer still and asked, “Do you have love for me as well?” Again I answered him, yes.
There was a rustling sound as he gathered his cloak tighter about his shoulders. The room became an empty cave for the beat of twenty and then he asked sharply, “What is it in the field of battle that is both threat and remedy?”
“A man’s sword,” I answered.
“Yes, a man’s sword. Men are like swords, Thomas. We are all instruments of God. Remember you, before the battle at Naseby, I spoke that God will love him best that takes the hardest path?”
A shallow morning light had slipped into the room and with it a kind of creeping disquiet, draping over my head like a cowl. I remembered well what he had told me before the battle. He had said God would call those he loved most to do that which is most hard. Cromwell, who had beaten a royal army through the iron of his will, leading mountains of men to their oblivion, had chosen the hardest path. But he had come to believe that God would love him all the more for it and follow after him, like Cromwell’s own legions of troops, spreading glory to the earthly victories along the way.
His face, now lit from the strengthening sun, was quiet, but in his eyes was a question of faith, like the gaze of Abraham upon his son as he wielded the knife over the burning altar, ever willing to make fragrant sacrifices to the Lord. He dismissed me from his presence and I thought then that he had only wanted from me a renewed pledge of loyalty.
In the winter of ’forty-nine, the great hall of Westminster was the place of judgment for Charles Stuart. A man like any other, he walked before his judges wearing no crown and carrying only a silver-headed cane. Fifty judges found him guilty of setting his countrymen to bloody civil war. He was proclaimed a tyrant and sentenced to death.
The king’s prison was St. James Palace, where I had been sent as guard with others loyal to Cromwell. Smaller than Whitehall and close to the hall of judgment, it could be better armed with fewer men; and better spied-upon, for the king had once before been spirited away by Royalists, and he never gave up hope for ransom or escape. It was the weakness of the man that he could not see that his great adversary was not of the Royalist cloth: Cromwell could not be bribed or bullied.
I had been placed on the outer parapets as sentry. But on a cold and windy day I was placed directly outside the Stuart’s chamber. I stood guard with a man I did not know but who had proven himself at the battle at Naseby. His name was Robert Russell.
