Traitor's Field by Robert Wilton Read Free Book Online

celebration and sending of kites into our walls, renders our endurance futile. There is none to come to our aid, and none to whom we might provide aid. For weeks past we have convinced the people of this town and the soldiers among them to endure the worst privations that ever civilised Christians saw, such that all that inhabit this place be nothing but maggot-fed ghosts and skeletons, and the extremity of their suffering and this with much sickness and outrage from our foes leaving them in their spirits closer to beasts than human souls. Now even the smallest child if it yet draw breath knows of the rout of his Grace at Preston, and no longer will they accept any entreaty to logick or to honour to undergo one further minute of privation, nor in truth dare we offer such entreaty. For sake of duty to Christian mercy we are obliged to end the great sufferings of these honest people, not the least of which have been our ever more desperate and brutalised soldiers who have not scrupled to use violence and fire to secure for themselves what little sustenance there may be, and offer ourselves to the hands of our besiegers and the will of God.
    Discussions began between Sir T. Fairfax and our own Council shortly after the news of the disaster at Preston had spread, and the terms of surrender are near agreed. There was a movement by some of the hotter bloods in the leadership to cut their way out of town and force the parliamentarian lines, but it was thought that the people of the town would thwart this purpose and in truth I doubt the strength and spirit of those who would have attempted it, so frail and so forlorn are we become. From Fairfax the men are promised fair quarter, the town must pay a fine, and the Lords and Gentlemen must become prisoners of mercy and trust that there yet be Gentlemen in the armies of our enemies in this God-forsaken time. General Fairfax is known for a good man but much worn down by this decade of war, as might be any man with half of his sensitivity, and among his officers Colonel Rainsborowe is held as an epitome of pitilessness and implacable cruelty, a self-reputed breaker of inequalities and instrument of God. If I have sure means of saving for you my papers and the Directory I will do so, otherwise according to our practice I will ensure their destruction at any cost. For myself, I may have no certain expectation. I hope that I have done my duty, and I hope that I may meet my fate with honour. I give this message into our usual trusted means, and myself into the hands of the Lord. My respects and humble services to you, Sir. Most faithfully, A. P.
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    Leeds on the point of evening, turning cold as the sun drops behind the buildings: a rider out of the far north appeared in Eastgate Street with the first candles. He held his horse at a walk, inconspicuous and able to keep alert to the town around him, to read the faces and mood. He only once had to ask his way, quietly, of a shopkeeper on his way home.
    Having seen the Sign of the Boar, he kept the horse walking, passing the inn without breaking step. He only stopped when he reached the next inn: took a room; saw his horse lodged.
    Then, in the first gentle gloom of evening, he walked back along Eastgate Street and stepped cautiously into the Sign of the Boar. He bought a drink, watched the room for half an hour. Only then, and with the inn room quieter now, did he step to the bar and ask for Francis Padget.

    R OYALIST THREAT IN THE C ITY: RESULTS OF INTERROGATIONS CONDUCTED A UGUST 16. 1648–A UGUST 20. 1648

    There is wide expectation in the city of some tumult, in the favour of the King and the Prince of Wales and the Royalist cause. There has been yet no effect of the battle fought at Preston, and the City remains uncertain in its loyalties and restless for some improvement in its conditions. Significant preparations have been made for a rising, presumably rallying the trained bands to their formal allegiances. Browne is spoken