Chapter 9
1649
IT HAD STARTED well enough. The king, having been ferried by barge from St James’s Palace to Whitehall Steps, was marched into Westminster Hall by a troop of halberdiers. Two hundred men stood guard inside the hall, and two hundred more outside. There was barely an inch of space.
For the king’s trial it had been stripped of the low partitions that usually separated one court from another, and of the booksellers’ stalls and coffee shops among them. In their place a stage had been erected at the north end of the hall, on which sat the Lord President of the Court and the rows of commissioners who would decide whether or not the prisoner should be allowed to live. Rush had bought a seat in one of the stands set up around the hall rather than be forced to stand with the rest of the audience behind a screen high enough to obscure all but the king’s head. No one knew how long the trial would last and he did not relish the prospect of having to mingle with the common herd for any length of time. He really should have been about his business but the prospect of the entertainment on offer had been too much of a temptation.
While the Lord President opened the proceedings by describing the king as ‘the principal author’ of ‘the evils and calamities’ brought upon the country, and the Solicitor General read out the lengthy charges, accusing him of ‘high treason and high misdemeanours’, the king sat impassively in a red velvet chair facing the stage, feigning lack of interest and tapping his cane on the floor. Just like Rush’s, the king’s cane was embellished with a silver top, although Rush doubted if it hid a sword of the finest Toledo steel. He smiled in anticipation of the humiliation to come for the fool who had ordered him to be interrogated and tortured and thought him dead.
But the day dragged on wearily. First the king refused to recognize the authority of the court to try him, then he refused to plead. After more exchanges, he refused to plead again. It was tiresome and repetitive and the pleasure of anticipation soon turned to frustration. It had taken Parliament far too long to bring the man to trial and now that it had, a day of verbal jousting had achieved next to nothing. Apart from some interventions from the spectators, there had been precious little entertainment and the obstinate little man on trial had shown not a sign of remorse or fear. It was most disappointing. If he would not defend himself, of course he would lose his head. For all the deference of the court, the solemn legal argument and the insistence on proper procedure, that was what would happen. The disappointment was that he did not seem to care.
When the court was adjourned Rush left his seat, made his way past the halberdiers and through the enormous crowds outside the hall, and walked briskly to the carriage waiting for him nearby in Axe Yard. All London was in a fever about the most dramatic event in its history and he had been bored. There had been no fear, no pain, no humiliation. He ordered the coachman to take him straight home. He would not come again the next day. The judges’ decision would be announced soon enough.
He had to wait just two days to learn the inevitable verdict and another two to hear that the king’s execution would take place in Whitehall on the thirtieth day of January. He laughed out loud when he read that the king’s request to justify his actions to the court had come too late and had been dismissed by the judges. Sentence had been passed and the prisoner was no longer permitted to speak. It was typical of the man. He would not speak when asked to do so and would speak when told he could not. A foolish, arrogant man who deserved what was coming to him.
On the appointed day, Rush arrived early in Whitehall in order to secure a place at the front of what was bound to be a large crowd. The trial had been dull but the punishment would surely make up for it. Tobias Rush had cheated death, and now the man who had ordered it, the King of England, was on the way to his own.
During the morning the crowd grew until it entirely filled the space on three sides of the scaffold which had been erected outside the Banqueting Hall. The scaffold was draped in black and guarded by a row of pikemen who kept the crowd well back from it. Some who had come to watch stood on boxes for a better view; a few had actually arrived on horseback. The windows of the hall and the parapet on its roof were crammed with onlookers, as were the windows of every house with a view of the scaffold. While they waited, men and women hopped up and down and blew on their hands against the cold. ‘A bitter day in more ways than one, sir,’ said a round little man standing beside Rush. When there was no reply, he tried again. ‘A bitter day for England, don’t you agree, sir?’
Rush turned his head towards his neighbour and peered down at him. ‘I think not, sir. A man found guilty in a court of law must pay the penalty for his crimes.’
‘Surely, sir, he should not have been tried in such a court. He is the king.’
‘That, sir, is exactly the opinion that has brought him to this end,’ replied Rush, turning his back on the little man. He was spared further irritation by the arrival on the scaffold of the executioner and his assistant, both hooded and heavily disguised.
When the king, in cloak, doublet and white cap, stepped through one of the tall windows of the Banqueting Hall on to the scaffold, the crowd came to life. There were cheers and groans and cries of ‘Long Live the King’. The little man beside Rush jumped up and down, holding out his hands as if trying to reach the king. ‘Do not permit this, sire,’ he cried. ‘It must not happen.’
The king stood and faced the crowd, scanning the faces he could make out at the front. At the moment the king’s gaze alighted on him, Rush doffed his hat and inclined his head. The king’s change of expression was so fleeting that not another man in the crowd would have noticed it. Rush did. It might have been recognition, it might have been disbelief, it might have been horror. But it was there.
After trying in vain to address the crowd, the king spoke for a few minutes to his attendants on the scaffold. When he removed his cloak and doublet before putting the cloak back on, the crowd went silent. He handed the badge he wore to an attendant and knelt down with his neck on the block. For a few moments his lips moved in prayer and he looked up to the sky. Then he extended his arms and the axe fell. The crowd groaned. The executioner held up the severed head and the crowd groaned again. Men wept openly. Women and children screamed. Tobias Rush suppressed a smile. He made his way through the crowd, out of Whitehall and walked home.
That evening, having enjoyed a bottle of his very best Spanish wine, Rush sat in front of the fire in his living room. The year had begun well. The king was dead. Hill was enjoying the hospitality of the Gibbes brothers, while his sister was living in fear for her daughters and her brother. And his wealth grew by the day. In the spring he would pay another visit to Romsey. Then he would travel to Barbados. It was time he inspected his investments in both places.
Chapter 10