Bell Harry Read online

His companion sniggered.

  Charles was in a splendid mood when he appeared at last. Married life evidently agreed with him. He was still in fine fettle when he attended cathedral later that day. People in the congregation remarked on how happy he looked as he led his new wife up the nave for the service. If nothing else, it surely meant that he had forgiven Canterbury at last for the mayor’s dreadful mistake at the White Hart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Roundheads Storm the Cathedral

  The war had begun at last, the civil war between King and Parliament. King Charles had raised his standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, calling for his subjects everywhere to rally to his side. Thousands were doing so, now that talk had finally turned to action. It was official from here on in. The country was at war.

  Unfortunately for him, King Charles had timed his call very badly. Most of the country’s cities and ports were controlled by forces sympathetic to Parliament. So were most of the stocks of arms and ammunition needed for the fight. As soon as the King raised his standard, the Parliamentarians moved quickly to secure everything else in an attempt to avert a disastrous struggle before it could even begin.

  Commanded by Colonel Edwin Sandys, five hundred Parliamentary horsemen left London for Kent on 19 August. Their mission was to capture Rochester Castle and seize the dockyard at Chatham, where the navy’s heavy guns were stored. After that, they were to continue to Dover to capture the castle there and take control of the port.

  The troops reached Canterbury on Friday night, a week after they had set out. The city’s walls had recently been strengthened and its gates bolted against any attack. Canterbury’s gentry and the cathedral clergy were Royalist almost to a man, unsympathetic to any rebellion against the King. But there were plenty of Parliamentarians among the townspeople.

  The gates were quickly unlocked and the troopers welcomed with open arms. A detachment made straight for the cathedral to put a guard on it and post sentries around the precincts. As soon as that had been done, Sergeant-Major Cockaine went to find the Dean to ask him where the cathedral’s supply of arms and powder was stored.

  He found the Dean’s wife and son at home, but the man himself away. It was Thomas Paske, a royal chaplain, who very reluctantly led the Roundhead to fourteen barrels of gunpowder which had been stored in the precincts for safekeeping.

  ‘Here you are,’ Paske told him. ‘The powder is all perfectly secure. We’re always careful to keep it locked up. We have some muskets as well.’

  ‘Give me the keys, then. We’ll look after everything from now on.’

  The cathedral’s clergy spent a very uneasy night, knowing that there were Parliamentary troops all around them. The Roundheads had had a good war so far, pillaging and looting all the way from London. The troops were perfectly capable of breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, if they felt like it. There was no one in Canterbury to stop them.

  The clergy were relieved therefore when dawn broke without further incident, but their relief was short-lived. They found the doors guarded when they went to unlock the cathedral for morning prayers. Roundhead sentries refused to let them in.

  ‘This is an outrage,’ Paske told one of them. ‘We’re men of God. You can’t ban us from the cathedral.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said the sentry. ‘I’m just obeying my orders.’

  Canterbury cathedral was an offensive sight to zealous Puritans, especially the tower of Bell Harry. It stood so high and mighty, so pleased with itself, so Popish. The King had climbed all the way to the top to enjoy the view during his last visit to Canterbury in 1641.

  The Puritans, on the other hand, would pull the whole lot down and use the stones for something else, if they had their way. That was all a cathedral was any good for, in their opinion. That, and stabling horses.

  The clergy were still wondering what to do when Sir Michael Livesey appeared. He was a Kentish man, a local Puritan commander and a zealot. He demanded the keys to the cathedral.

  ‘Tell your steward to hand them over,’ he told Paske. ‘We want access to all areas.’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do in there?’

  ‘That’s for us to decide. Just give them to us at once.’

  Paske was reluctant, but Livesey insisted. ‘Hand them over,’ he told the chaplain. ‘In the name of Parliament, give me the keys to the cathedral. I won’t ask again.’

  The keys were on an iron ring. Paske nodded unwillingly to the steward, who surrendered them without enthusiasm. The Roundheads immediately unlocked the cathedral’s doors and rushed in.

  Livesey himself didn’t go with them. He was on his way to Dover for the next phase of the operation. ‘The men have orders to conduct themselves civilly,’ he assured Paske as he left. ‘They’ll behave themselves in the cathedral. There’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  Paske wished he could believe it. He and the steward followed the troops into the cathedral after an interval. They watched from a discreet distance as the men began to tear the place apart, pulling down and destroying anything of value that couldn’t be stolen or taken away.

  The Roundheads went for the altar rails first. Altar rails were a Popish idea, hated by Puritans. Parliament had ordered their removal from churches, but Canterbury’s rails were still defiantly in place. The Roundheads tore them down at once and broke them up so that they couldn’t be used again.

  The soldiers went for the communion table next. They kicked it over and ripped the velvet cloth that covered it. Some smashed the cathedral’s seats while others defaced screens and stone monuments. They smashed the organ as well and did their best to break the brass eagle supporting the Bible on the lectern.

  When they were bored with that, the Roundheads turned to the cupboards where the choristers’ surplices and prayer books were kept. Forcing the doors open, they trampled on the surplices and gowns, ripped the pages out of the prayer books and scattered them indiscriminately all over the floor. The mess by the time they had finished was indescribable.

  ‘Madness.’ Paske watched in horror. ‘The Devil’s work. They don’t know what they’re doing.’

  Not all of the troops were involved. Quite a few shared Paske’s disgust and took no part in the destruction. It was the zealots among them who were the most active, the Puritan extremists who hated idolatry in every shape or form. There was no stopping them as they fell upon a large tapestry of Jesus in the choir and began to attack it.

  ‘Here’s Christ,’ one of them shouted, as he waved his sword. ‘Watch me stab him.’

  ‘I’ll rip his bowels out.’ Another joined in. Between them they cut the tapestry to pieces, yelling in triumph as they did so. Everyone else cheered.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ Paske told the steward. ‘We have to stop it somehow.’

  Three Roundheads in lobster-tailed helmets had found the entrance to the crypt. Paske watched in alarm as they rushed in. There was something in the crypt that the soldiers mustn’t be allowed to discover.

  ‘Get help,’ he told the steward urgently. ‘Come back with some men, quick as you can.’

  The steward went for reinforcements. Paske followed the three soldiers into the crypt. They had found a door set into the far wall. It led down stone steps to a small stream flowing through the foundations under the cathedral.

  The soldiers were looking for church ornaments. They wondered if there was something valuable behind the door. It was heavily locked, so they began to break it down to find out.

  Paske knew exactly what lay behind the door. It was where the cathedral’s secret was kept. The secret was entrusted to only two or three clergy at any one time. It dated from the days of Henry VIII and the despoiling of St Thomas’s shrine.

  ‘Please, Lord,’ Paske prayed. ‘Please stop those men. Don’t let them find what’s hidden down there. Steer them down a different path instead.’

  The Roundheads had just succeeded in forcing the door open when the steward returned. He had five b
urly men with him. They all carried weapons as they hurried into the crypt.

  Paske briefed his steward as the three Roundheads disappeared down the stone steps. He told him exactly what would have to be done to preserve the secret hidden under the crypt. The steward nodded grimly and went after the Roundheads with his men.

  Paske decided not to wait for the outcome. It might be unseemly for a clergyman to be present. Leaving the crypt, he returned to the main body of the cathedral.

  He found the nave in a dreadful state as he emerged. Everything had been smashed, all the way along. Scarcely daring to look, Paske made his way out of the cathedral through the south door and took a deep gulp of fresh air in the sunshine outside.

  The Roundheads had got there before him. A group of them were standing outside the Christ Church gate with their muskets. They were amusing themselves by taking pot shots at the statue of Christ over the gate.

  Paske couldn’t believe it. There the men were, shooting at Christ himself. They were making a competition of it, seeing who could be the first to knock the head off the statue. The soldiers were cheering like yokels at a country fair every time anyone came close.

  ‘Lord have mercy,’ Paske told himself. ‘They’re trying to crucify him. It’s the Crucifixion all over again.’

  Some of the men seemed to be drunk as they took aim. The statue was visibly disintegrating under their fusillade. The Roundheads had fired perhaps forty shots in all when Colonel Sandys appeared, drawn by the sound of the shooting. He was outraged when he saw what his men were up to.

  ‘Stop that,’ he ordered. ‘Stop it at once. What in Heaven’s name d’you think you’re doing?’

  The men lowered their muskets reluctantly. They would have preferred to go on. A statue of Christ was idolatrous. There was no harm in trying to destroy it.

  Sandys turned to Paske. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he told the priest. ‘The men shouldn’t have done it. I don’t know what came over them.’

  ‘The statue is ruined now.’ Paske pointed up at its broken face. ‘We’ll have to take it down and remove it. There’s nothing else we can do. A statue of Christ.’

  ‘It shouldn’t have happened. The men had strict orders. They were told to behave themselves when they came to the cathedral.’

  ‘Your soldiers have been a miserable spectacle to all eyes.’

  ‘Indeed, they have.’ Sandys shared Paske’s annoyance. ‘I can only apologise again. We’re going to Dover now. I’ll get them on the road as quickly as I can and we’ll be on our way.’

  The Roundheads left Canterbury soon afterwards. They reached Dover that afternoon and took control of the port. The men proved no more popular in Dover than they had been in the precincts of the cathedral.

  As soon as the Roundheads had gone, Paske summoned witnesses to see the mess they had left behind. John Nutt and Sir Edward Masters were Canterbury’s two Members of Parliament. They shared Paske’s anger as they surveyed the devastation in the choir.

  ‘It’s appalling,’ Nutt said. ‘It should never have been allowed to happen.’

  ‘Your troops smashed everything they couldn’t carry away.’ Paske still couldn’t believe it. ‘They ran through the cathedral completely out of control.’

  Sir Edward agreed. ‘Something obviously went wrong somewhere.’

  ‘You must tell Parliament. Tell them what’s being done in their name.’

  ‘Yes, we must. We’ll have to make sure it never happens again.’

  Sir Michael Livesey reappeared the following day. He too was embarrassed when he saw what the troops had done. He had promised Paske that they would behave themselves in the cathedral.

  Livesey went in search of Paske to offer his apologies. He found the priest in the crypt, supervising the repairs to the broken door.

  ‘We’re having the doorway to the stream bricked in,’ Paske told him. ‘Your troops will find it much harder to break down if it’s made of solid stone.’

  The job was almost completed. Paske and Livesey stood admiring the workmanship as the last brick was carefully cemented into place.

  ‘That’ll hold,’ Paske said. ‘It looks just like the rest of the stonework. No one will even know that there was ever a door there.’

  They made polite conversation. Sir Michael Livesey expressed the hope that the war wouldn’t last long, if the King would only come to his senses and make a reasonable accommodation with Parliament. Paske made no comment.

  ‘We lost three of our troopers while we were here,’ Livesey went on. ‘They were absent when we called the roll. They haven’t turned up since.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen them anywhere? Three Parliamentary troopers in helmets. We’re wondering what happened to them.’

  ‘Deserted, probably. It’s harvest time on the farm.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Or maybe they didn’t like what their comrades were doing in the cathedral.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, if you see them, you will let us know, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Paske.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Restoration of Charles II

  England was a monarchy again. Eleven years after his father’s execution at the end of a devastating civil war, King Charles II was returning from foreign exile to reclaim the throne of his ancestors.

  The country was delighted to have him back. The decade of Parliamentary rule under Oliver Cromwell and his major-generals had not been a success. The English were not a republican people. They wanted a King on the throne, not a gang of sanctimonious Roundheads imposing their ideas on everyone else. Now, at last, they had one again.

  The new King arrived at Dover on 25 May 1660. The clifftops were black with sightseers as he was rowed ashore after his voyage from Holland. He stepped onto dry land early in the afternoon to a thunderous salute from the harbour’s guns. Charles dropped to his knees at once and gave thanks to God for his momentous restoration to his native land.

  General Monck was waiting to greet him on behalf of the nation. Monck had fought for Parliament in the Civil War, but he was no republican. He recognised the need for a monarch to fill the void left by the death of Oliver Cromwell. It was George Monck who had negotiated Charles’s safe return and formally invited him back to England to take the throne.

  ‘Welcome home, Your Majesty.’ General Monck went down on one knee as the King approached. He took Charles’s hand and kissed it.

  ‘Father!’ Charles kissed him on both cheeks in return after he had got to his feet again.

  ‘God save the King!’ shouted everyone else. There was a great roar of acclaim from an ecstatic crowd as Charles was escorted under a canopy to meet the mayor and aldermen of Dover before setting off for Canterbury, where he was to stay for the next few days.

  Samuel Pepys had come ashore with the King. He watched as the mayor presented Charles with his white staff of office and a beautiful Bible bound in leather. Charles immediately returned the staff to the mayor but kept the Bible, a gift to him from the people of Dover.

  ‘A Bible is the thing I love above all things in the world,’ he assured them, not entirely truthfully.

  The King started off immediately for Canterbury. He was accompanied by General Monck and the noblemen who had shared his exile. A long column of coaches was waiting beside the harbour to carry everyone up the hill from the seafront.

  The column was escorted by a troop of the King’s life guards in splendid uniforms. As soon as it had set off, a beacon was lit at the top of the hill behind Dover Castle. The bonfire was quickly followed by others across the country, hilltop to hilltop, each one fuelled with tar and damp hay to make dark smoke in the sunshine. The King was on his way at last and the people of England were delighted to hear it.

  By ancient custom, the convoy stopped at Barham Downs en route to Canterbury. Thousands of people were waiting at the traditional place to receive their monarch, just as their ancestors had rece
ived his father and mother in 1625 and Henry V after Agincourt. Now it was Charles II’s turn after his recall from a long and bitter exile abroad.

  The Kentish nobility were all there, wearing the colours of the King in their hats. So were the ordinary folk for miles around. Squadrons of cavalry and several columns of Kentish militia had been drawn up for Charles’s inspection. They all stiffened in anticipation as trumpets and distant cheering announced his imminent arrival.

  The troops came to attention as their new monarch appeared. They had been loyal to Parliament for years, but they were the King’s men now. There was a flurry of movement as every officer raised his sword and gave Charles a royal salute as he passed down the line.

  A few of the officers retained secret Roundhead sympathies, but there was no disguising the enthusiasm of the men at the sight of their new King. Some of them broke ranks and surged forward as he came past. They cheered madly as they set eyes on a monarch for the first time.

  ‘God save the King!’ they cried. ‘God save Your Majesty! Welcome back to England.’

  Charles acknowledged graciously. He was a little dazed at his reception so far. It had been nothing but gun salutes and loud applause all the way, very different from his time during the Civil War. He had had to disguise himself as a servant during the war, hiding in a tree to escape detection. The people of England appeared to have changed their minds since then. They seemed genuinely pleased to see him this time.

  ‘The mayor will be there when we reach Canterbury,’ Monck told him, after the inspection was over. ‘He’ll be waiting for you at the West Gate. That’s where royalty traditionally enter the city. The mayor and aldermen will welcome you at the gate and take you on to St Augustine’s to stay the night.’

  ‘I’ll like that. It’s where my parents stayed when they first met.’

  ‘It is, sir. St Augustine’s is a very fit place for royalty.’

  The Barham troops joined forces with the King’s life guards for the remainder of the journey to Canterbury. Bell Harry began to ring as soon as the cavalcade came into view. The rest of the city’s church bells followed suit as the long column of horsemen jingled around the ancient walls before coming to a stop at last outside the West Gate.