The Forest (68 page)

How strange it was, he thought. He had expected to find an evil old witch; instead he found that same haughty, forceful woman who even now was ready to stare him down. Just as they had once before, the years seemed to fall away and he was looking at the terrible figure of vengeance who, if he were still alive, would strike his poor father down again. As she stared at him with those cold grey eyes, he could almost have trembled. And, taken by surprise, he suddenly felt, like a blow to the stomach, all the old pain of the loss of the father he had so loved. To his utter astonishment he found he had to turn away.

It was not so much with anger as with pain that, striding out into the darkness, he called back: ‘Arrest them all.’

It took some minutes before they were brought out. He did not bother to interfere. When they came he saw that Alice was still dressed only in her nightclothes. He also observed that one of the troopers had obviously appropriated a silver candlestick and some linen. He did not care.

‘Where are we going?’ cried Dunne.

‘To Salisbury gaol,’ he answered bleakly. And off they went, with Dame Alice incongruously made to ride pillion behind one of the troopers.

He shouldn’t have allowed it, Thomas Penruddock thought, but he truly didn’t care.

On 24 August in the Year of Our Lord 1685 there arrived near the city of Winchester a large cavalcade. Five judges, a flock of lawyers, Jack Ketch, the official and highly incompetent executioner, marshals, clerks, servants and outriders – the whole panoply of justice needed, in the reign of His Majesty King James II of England, to hang, decapitate, burn, whip or transport to the colonies the more than twelve hundred men unlucky enough to be caught after marching with Monmouth. At the head of this great legal deputation, as promised, was no less a personage than the Right Honourable George, Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys.

The assize which was to be held down in the West Country, after executing three hundred and thirty and sending eight hundred and fifty to the American plantations, would be known as the Bloody Assize; the presiding judge would go down in English history as Bloody Jeffreys. But before that great business began an introduction was to be held in the great hall of Winchester Castle: the trial of Alice Lisle.

As she looked around the great stone hall of the Norman and Plantagenet kings, Betty could not help being impressed by the ancient majesty of the setting. A soft afternoon light filtered into the church-like space through the pointed windows. On the dais sat the five judges in their scarlet robes and long white wigs; below them the lawyers and clerks like so many black old birds; before them a crowd of people. And alone, dressed in grey, sitting quietly in an oak chair on a raised platform, was her mother.

In a place of such solemnity, thought Betty, before such reverend and learned men, justice would surely be done and her mother – as Peter had explained the law to her – should undoubtedly go free. She glanced at Tryphena, who was sitting beside her and gave her an encouraging smile. On her other side Peter squeezed her hand.

The case to answer was straightforward. Her mother had taken in three men for the night. One, poor Dunne, was a comparative nonentity; Hicks the preacher was accused, but not yet convicted of treason; the third, Nelthorpe, had been outlawed.

‘The case is dangerous,’ Peter had explained, ‘because it’s treason. If you help a felon who’s running away you are an accessory after the fact; but you are not held to be guilty of the felon’s crime. With high treason, however, the case is different. If you give any aid to a known traitor you, too, are guilty of treason. That’s your mother’s danger. However,’ he had continued, ‘the prosecutor will have to show that she
knew
these men were part of Monmouth’s rebellion. Nelthorpe she’d never seen before and she knew nothing about him. Furthermore, he was brought by a man known to be a reputable minister, namely Hicks. So,’ he expounded, ‘she takes in a respectable dissenter and a friend for the night – the sort of thing she’s often done before. Does she know they’re traitors? No. Unless someone can prove she had knowledge, most juries would give her the benefit of the doubt.’ He smiled. ‘I say she has committed no crime.’

‘As soon as she is acquitted, Peter,’ Betty had said, ‘I think we should celebrate.’

He had asked her to marry him that very first night he had arrived in the Forest and, had it not been for the arrest, they would have spoken to Dame Alice about it the next morning. Since then, while the family was turned upside down, she had asked him not to speak of it; but as soon as this terrible business was over and things returned to normal she intended to tell her mother and get married as quickly as possible. ‘By Christmas,’ she had indicated.

For the next few hours she must put Peter out of her mind, though. She must see her mother safely acquitted.

It was late afternoon when the trial began.

The business started blandly enough. Witnesses said they had seen Hicks the minister with Monmouth’s troops. Dunne the baker was called, to describe how he had gone upon the Saturday and Tuesday to Moyles Court. But then something strange occurred. Instead of interrogating Dunne, the prosecutor suddenly said he wished Judge Jeffreys to question Dunne himself. Betty looked at Peter, who only shrugged with surprise.

At first Judge Jeffreys seemed rather gentle. His broad, rather skull-like face bent forward, he called Dunne ‘Friend’ and reminded him that he must take great care to tell the truth. Dunne, his watery blue eyes looking hopeful, began his tale and got one sentence out.

But then, at once, Judge Jeffreys interrupted. ‘Take care, Friend. Begin again. When do you say you first set out?’ Another sentence or two and another interruption. ‘Sayest thou so? I know more than you think. How did you find Moyles Court?’

‘With the help of a guide named Thomas.’

‘Where is he? Let him stand up.’

To Betty’s astonishment, William Furzey stood up. So this was the mysterious Thomas. But what did it mean?

Judge Jeffreys was in full flood, now, pausing for nothing. Dunne was asked a question, then immediately cross-questioned. Within minutes it was clear he was getting confused. Trying not to incriminate Furzey, whom he had not yet understood to be the one who gave him away, he foolishly said that Furzey had not brought them to Moyles Court the second time and was soon lost in a quagmire of contradictions.

‘Alack-a-day!’ cried Jeffreys with cruel sarcasm. ‘Come, refresh your memory a little.’ As the unhappy baker’s watery eyes grew desperate, it seemed to Betty that the judge was like a cat, playing with a mouse. Increasingly confused, Dunne contradicted a tiny detail of something he had said before.

Jeffreys pounced. ‘Wretch!’ His voice thundered so that the whole courtroom seemed to shudder. ‘Dost thou think the God of heaven not to be a God of truth? ’Tis only His mercy that He does not immediately strike thee into hell! Jesus God!’ And for two entire minutes, glowering at the poor baker, the most powerful judge in the kingdom, with life and death in his hands, raved and bellowed at him until he was shaking so much it was obvious that nothing more could be got from him.

Betty herself was white. She glanced at Peter.

His mouth was open in astonishment. But he did lean down and whisper in her ear: ‘He still has no evidence that could convict.’

Furzey was called, but only briefly, to relate what he saw. One thing he said seemed to interest Jeffreys.

‘You say Dunne told you that Dame Alice asked him if you knew what business he had come upon?’

‘That’s right.’

It was poor Dunne’s turn to be questioned again – if that was what the process could be called. For the baker was now in a state of such fear and confusion that he was hardly coherent. What was the business, demanded Jeffreys. What business? The baker looked uncertain. Again and again the judge pounded, shouted, cursed. Dunne stuttered, finally fell silent. For long minutes he seemed to fall into a kind of trance.

The light from the windows was dimmer now, the great hall shadowy. A clerk lit a candle.

Then at last Dunne seemed to recover a little. ‘The business, my Lord?’

‘Blessed God! You villain. Yes. The business.’

‘It was that Mr Hicks was a dissenter.’

‘That is all?’

‘Yes, My Lord. There is nothing more.’

Betty felt Peter touch her arm. ‘Our friend Dunne has beaten this judge,’ he whispered.

But not, it seemed, without a fight.

‘Liar! You think you can banter me with such sham stuff as this?’ He turned to the clerk. ‘Bring that candle. Hold the candle to his brazen face.’

And poor Dunne, quaking again, cried out: ‘My Lord, tell me what you would have me say, for I am cluttered out of my senses.’

Betty watched in horror. This was not a court of law. It was an interrogation. What would they do next? Torture the baker in public? She looked across at her mother.

And looked again, in astonishment.

For in the midst of all this, Dame Alice had fallen asleep.

Not asleep. Not really. But Alice had lived too long, seen too much. She remembered the Civil War, the trial of King Charles, so many other trials, her husband’s fate. She knew already which way this business must end.

She would not show her fear. She was afraid. She wanted to tremble; she could have screamed at the terrible, cruel stupidity of it all. But there was no point. She already knew it and she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her fear. So she closed her eyes.

They brought Colonel Penruddock on next. He was brief and factual. He said how he’d found the men hiding. He also said that Furzey had told him Dunne had hinted that the men were probably rebels. So they hauled the baker on to the stand again and asked him what he meant. But he stuttered now so hopelessly that he didn’t even make sense. They had nothing.

They called one of the troopers who had been in the house making the arrests and who declared that the men were obviously rebels; but this testimony was so useless that even the judge soon waved him away.

But now, it seemed to Dame Alice, that she had a small opportunity. Pretending to wake, she stared at the trooper and then called out: ‘Why, My Lord, this is the man who stole my best linen.’

But it did no good. Jeffreys passed rapidly on to other matters until at last he came to Alice: what, he demanded contemptuously, had she to say for herself?

It was simple enough. She told him she’d stayed in London throughout Monmouth’s rebellion. He interrupted this statement twice. She had no quarrel with the king. He treated this with contempt. She had no idea that her visitors were involved in the rebellion. She even produced a witness who swore that Nelthorpe the outlaw had never said his name.

But Judge Jeffreys knew how to deal with that. ‘We have heard enough,’ he cried. ‘Send this witness away.’ He turned savagely back to Alice. ‘Have you more witnesses to call?’

‘No, My Lord.’

‘Very well.’ He turned to the jury. ‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ he began.

‘There is, My Lord, one point of law,’ Alice now interrupted.

‘Silence!’ he cried. ‘Too late.’

There was, quite clearly, no valid case against her. This did not slow Judge Jeffreys in his flow. He reminded the jury that the Lisles were regicides, that dissenters were natural criminals, that Monmouth’s rebellion was horrible and that Monmouth’s morals were unclean. That this was all both nonsense and irrelevant was not, to the judge, important.

Only at the end of his tirade did one of the jurymen ask a question. ‘Pray, My Lord,’ he desired to know, ‘is it a crime to receive Hicks the preacher if he has not yet been convicted, but only accused of treason?’

‘A vital point of law,’ Peter whispered to Betty.

Indeed, it was the only point of law raised in the entire trial. For under English law you could not be accused as an accessory when the person you helped had merely been accused, but not convicted, of treason. Clearly this was only right, since otherwise an accessory might be sentenced for helping a man who was afterwards judged to be innocent. As Hicks was still awaiting trial, he wasn’t yet a traitor. The case against Alice, feeble as it already was, would completely fall to the ground.

The Lord Chief Justice saw the trap. ‘It is all the same,’ he blandly declared. And the court was silent.

‘That’s a lie,’ Peter whispered. ‘That’s not the law.’

‘Say something,’ Betty whispered back.

But the four judges beside Jeffreys, and the lawyers and the clerks, were all silent.

The jury returned in half an hour. They said she was not guilty.

Judge Jeffreys refused to accept their verdict and sent them away again. They came back a second time and said she was not guilty. He sent them off again. A third time they came and said the same.

And now Judge Jeffreys swore an oath. ‘Villains,’ he cried, ‘do you dare to mock this court? Do you not understand I can attaint every one of you for treason too?’

They came back once more after that and found her guilty.

Then Judge Jeffreys sentenced her to burn.

The room was not large, but it was clean and light. The bars on the window were not too noticeable. It was still morning. They could be grateful for these small mercies at least.

Dame Alice was not to be burned. The bishop and clergy of Winchester had appealed at once to the king. They did not want such a thing done in their cathedral city. Quite apart from anything, as news of the outrageous trial spread through the city and across the Forest, they were afraid of a riot. Today, then, in the afternoon, Dame Alice Lisle was to have her head struck off.

There were only Betty and Tryphena with her now. The others had all gone: children and grandchildren, she had said goodbye to them all. The room was quiet.

Peter was in London. Betty had not spoken of him to her mother and, strangely, she had not thought of him so much. Perhaps, if they had known each other longer, she might have wanted him there to support her. But instead, she had been so drawn into her own family and into the terrible business in hand that he had seemed to drift away in her mind, like a visitor after whose departure the door has been closed.