With the King at Oxford: A Tale of the Great Rebellion

by Alfred John Church

Two or three days thereafter, as I sat in Master Ellgood's study reading Master Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity (for I was preparing myself, so far as time and other circumstances permitted, for the taking of Holy Orders), comes Cicely knocking at the door and, opening it before ever I could speak, cries, "O Philip, see, John has come," and therewith brings in a fair youth, some two years older than herself, as I judged, and save that he had some four inches more of stature, of a singular likeness to her; and straightway on seeing him the doubt that had ever been in my mind whether I had ever before encountered him was resolved, for I perceived in a moment of time that the youth was the same that had yielded himself prisoner to my father at Copredy Bridge. As for him, he had no remembrance of me, at which indeed I did not wonder, considering what he had suffered that day. I doubted at the first whether I should make myself known to him, thinking, not without good reason, that he had no cause to love me. But the better thought prevailed that I should be honest before all things, nor endure to have some secret hanging, as it were, over my head and ever ready to fall; and indeed I had made confession to Cicely of my savagery in this matter and had received absolution from her. So I said:

"Master Ellgood, we have met before."

And when he regarded me steadfastly, yet without any sign of knowing me, I said, "Do you remember one Dashwood at Copredy Bridge?"

"Ay," said he, "as gallant a gentleman as ever sat on horseback. He saved me when I was in no small peril of my life, and gave me as courteous treatment as prisoner ever had, and settled for me my exchange, so that my captivity had scarce begun when it was ended. I hope that he is in good health and prosperity. But you are not he; you must be younger by a score of years at the least."

"He was my father," said I, "and I would fain shelter myself under his name, for, as for me, you have small cause to thank me."

And I made my confession to him. When I had finished he stretched out his right hand to me with a great laugh, saying:

"Why make such ado? There was no harm done. And if you had made an end of me I do not know that anyone would have been the loser, save, as they pleased to think, my good father and Cicely here; and, indeed, I had not lived to see such evil days as these. Know you the last tidings?"

"No," said I; "I have heard nothing, save that the Lieutenant-General Cromwell has trodden the King's friends under foot everywhere. But in truth I have been thinking of other things."

Thereat I blushed, which is a foolish trick that I have, and Cicely also blushed for company. Then John Ellgood, looking from one to another, saw something of what was between us. I know not that any man has at the first a particular kindness to him whom his sister favours (which is indeed a mighty ungrateful thing, for the lover has always a singular affection for his mistress's brothers), but being a good lad and of a kind heart he said nothing, only I thought that I heard him say to himself, "Is this a time——," and so brake off. "Well," he said, after he had been silent awhile, "listen to me. Four years ago we were enemies, now, I doubt not, we are friends." (This I was mightily glad to hear, fearing what might befall my love for Cicely.) "I fought for the Parliament—thinking that they had the better cause—against the King, and I yet believe, though here, doubtless, you agree not with me, that I was in the right. But 'tis otherwise with me now; and, indeed, 'tis not now the Parliament, but the Army, that reigns, and the Lieutenant-General Cromwell and his fellows seek not the redressing of wrongs and securing of liberties, but the setting up of a new rule; and because they know in their hearts that this cannot be firmly established so long as the King stands in the way, though he be a prisoner and helpless, therefore they are minded to bring him to judgment for what they are pleased to call his treasons against this nation, and having so brought him—'tis almost too horrible to say, yea, even to think—to put him to death."

Since then this thing has been done, and done with approval from some that are undoubtedly pious and learned persons (though I doubt not that the greater part of the nation abhorred the act), so that it has become in a way familiar, but then (I speak of myself and of many others) it had not been so much as thought of. That the King might suffer much at the hand of his enemies; that he might even be slain by some wicked or fanatic persons, as kings before him—Richard, the second of the name, to wit, and Henry the Sixth—had been slain by secret violence, I had deemed to be probable; but that he should be brought to trial with accustomed forms of law and justice, and having been so brought, should be publicly and in the face of day put to death, seemed too horrible to be believed. There had never happened such a thing before, save only—and let no one judge it to be profane that this was the first thought of many—save only when our Lord Himself was condemned by Pilate and crucified.