Cromwell's Cat Read online

  MAJ

  “No, we don’t go up here – one of the perks.”

  TOMKINS

  “Mmmm, I can see that would be a blessing. Are you back already, Rodders? That was quick.”

  RHODRI

  “I haven’t been anywhere and I don’t want a pee. What I asked for was a ‘Q & A’- a question and answer session, just so we can be clear on General Cromwell’s view of everything and where we go from here. It’s important and you know, General, you crammed in a lot of info just now?”

  CRUMB

  “I suppose I did.”

  TOMKINS

  “Do you want Wisecat back?”

  RHODRI

  “Not exactly – more like a question master. Jeremy Paxman, say.”

  TOMKINS

  “Who?”

  RHODRI

  “Jeremy Paxman. He does it on television.”

  TOMKINS

  “Has anyone got any idea what Rodders is talking about?”

  MAJ

  “Yes, I do.”

  TOMKINS

  “You, Maj?”

  MAJ

  “Yes. We have television up here. The Lord’s latest wheeze: the pictures move and we sit still. He thought it up after those rebel angels got ideas above their station. He wasn’t having any more of that so he invented television, sat everyone down in front of it – never been any trouble since. Not sure about the future though.”

  TOMKINS

  “Why not?”

  MAJ

  “Well these days it’s mostly repeats.”

  TOMKINS

  “Thanks for that, Maj. Rodders, you were saying?”

  RHODRI

  “You, Tomkins, are the question-master. You field the questions from the floor and get General Cromwell to answer them.”

  TOMKINS

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me again: first time I ever heard of a floor asking questions. I think you’d better show me.”

  RHODRI

  “Is that OK by you, General Cromwell?”

  CRUMB

  “Whatever you want, Rodders.”

  RHODRI

  “Here goes then: you were against the forcible dissolution of the parliament?”

  CRUMB

  “I was.”

  RHODRI

  “Yet you dissolved them by force?”

  CRUMB

  “The Lord dissolved them using me as His instrument.”

  RHODRI

  “But not, as Major General Harrison believed – I think you said – in order to hand the government to the Saints.”

  CRUMB

  “Not immediately, no. The Lord dissolved this parliament because they had failed him. But he was not finished with parliaments. He would have another, and another after that. And – for me – that is now our job – to pave the way for the next parliament, which will be elected when the time is right.”

  RHODRI

  “Next question. See what I mean, Tomkins?”

  TOMKINS

  “Yes, I get it now. Thanks, Rodders. Alright – a question from the floor? …No? Then let’s go to…Arbroath: Catriona, go ahead.”

  CATRIONA

  “Then your aim, after the dissolution as before…?”

  CRUMB

  “Was to win the acceptance of the nation for the new government – and central to that was to assure them their estates and their church were safe in our hands.”

  CATRIONA

  “Did they need reassurance?”

  CRUMB

  “I’m afraid they did, when some of the wilder spirits in the army and outside it were saying ‘liberty and property are not the badges of the kingdom of Christ; and that the laws – instead of being regulated are to be abrogated and subverted’ – they very much needed reassurance.”

  MAJ

  “They’re right in a way, General Cromwell – no property up here – and so no law.”

  CRUMB

  “Then that, Majesty, is something to look forward to. But not here and not now. I always remind myself what Harry said at Putney back in ‘47 – and for which he suffered much contumely: “The main thing’, he said, ‘is I would have an eye to property.’ As true now as it was then. We must have an eye to property.”

  CATRIONA

  “That doesn’t sound very revolutionary?”

  CRUMB

  “Nor should it, Catriona. As I said earlier ‘We are brought out of Egypt’. Our revolution, I hope, is over, and now our journey begins – and we need to carry the nation with us. The kingdom of Christ comes later”

  CATRIONA

  “Then you don’t believe you are at the edge of the promises and the prophecies?”

  CRUMB

  “Not yet, but I hope we will be. Nice phrase by the way. Where did you pick that up?”

  CATRIONA

  “Oh…erm… heard it somewhere. Can’t think where. Thank-you, Lord General.”

  TOMKINS

  “Anyone else? Floor, do you want to come in now? No? You’re turning out to be a bit of a disappointment to me. Massachusetts, then – Karen?”

  KAREN

  “The night before the dissolution, General Cromwell, your proposal, we were told, was an interim assembly of about 40 members…”

  CRUMB

  “Half parliament and half army, yes.”

  KAREN

  “…to set in train the reforms the people looked for and govern the Commonwealth until the next parliament could be elected?”

  CRUMB

  “Just so.”

  KAREN

  “And your goal remains the same?”

  CRUMB

  “It does.”

  KAREN

  “How then will you now get there, the parliament being no more?”

  CRUMB

  “That’s the easy bit. The parliament spoke for the people. So now, the parliament being dissolved, we call the people from around the country to speak for themselves”

  KAREN

  “That has to be more than forty then?”

  CRUMB

  “Yes it does.”

  KAREN

  “Or the biblical figure of seventy we were taught in history th
at Major General Harrison called for?”

  CRUMB

  “The Sanhedrin? That was never going to happen.”

  KAREN

  “But the number you ended up with…?”

  CRUMB

  “One hundred and forty, yes, – a happy coincidence. It enabled Tom and the wilder saints to believe it had a sort of scriptural justification, as did their freedom to nominate saints recommended by their churches for membership of the assembly.”

  KAREN

  “Again, as we were taught.”

  CRUMB

  “But that freedom, you see, worked both ways: it also allowed those of other persuasions (of whom there were many) to nominate such as they desired, men of experience, who would drive through the reforms we looked for. Men of integrity, all of them, who had been faithful to the cause, but a far cry from Tom and his Fifth Monarchist bugbears – and the beauty of it was there was nothing he could say, they only exercising the same freedom as he himself. That way I had good hope that when the assembly met, the country might judge it by its deeds not its words and so bring the next elected parliament, the Lord’s kingdom and – yes Tomkins, Ely – all within our reach.”

  KAREN

  “And how did Major General Harrison take this?”

  CRUMB

  “Not well. He knew he was being overreached but, like I say, there was nothing he could do.”

  KAREN

  “Didn’t you feel bad out-manoeuvring him like that?”

  CRUMB

  “Not really, no. Nobody told him the saints were the only ones to rule kingdoms and govern nations, to determine of liberty, property and everything else. Like I said, he saw the dissolution and read it wrong.”

  KAREN

  “What of John Lambert?*”

  TOMKINS

  “Hang on, Karen. Anyone else? No? Alright, Crumb – what about Lambert (top man by the way– loves cats – and tulips).”

  CRUMB

  “John Lambert is the closest thing we now have to Harry Ireton and so, sadly, the least acceptable to Tom Harrison”

  KAREN

  “Why’s that?”

  CRUMB

  “Because he would plan for the future – the long-term future – with a new constitution owing much to Harry’s ‘Agreement’ – and that meant Tom’s beloved rule of the saints put off, perhaps for ever. No room for compromise there. Lambert’s plan might have worked with the forty-strong assembly I proposed before the dissolution, but had no chance when the rule of the saints – now or later – was on the table.”

  KAREN

  “But he didn’t walk away?”

  CRUMB

  “No he didn’t, Karen, not then. Though not persuaded of the assembly we were calling together, he played his part in nominating members and giving it the character required right up to the last minute. Then, two days before the assembly was to meet, he and his nominees – some of them – did walk away and at the worst possible time.”

  KAREN

  “Why?”

  CRUMB

  “Who knows? Because he thought the assembly would never work? Well it certainly had less chance of doing so with him and his friends absent. Because John Lilburne had defied the Act of Banishment, returned to England and been sent to trial? That certainly concerned him, as it did me. But that’s Free-born John all over, a past-master at putting the cat among the pigeons. No offence, Tomkins”

  TOMKINS

  “None taken, Crumb, none taken. You know me – always happy to be in there mixing it.”

  CRUMB

  “There’s a lesson there somewhere: Free-born John offends Itch-Arse. Itch-Arse gets him banished and he comes back to haunt me. Is it any wonder I want to retire to Ely? Well I will not, nor he will not stop me.”

  TOMKINS

  “er…Crumb, remember what we agreed – we were going to leave Lilburne out of it for the present? You know, once you let him in, he can’t help but make it his story? It’s what he does – and if they really want to hear it…heads nodding everywhere…, you can tell them another time. Might even get him to join you, though how you’d manage to get a word in is anybody’s guess.”

  CRUMB

  “You do well to remind me. Yes, yes, another time. Now, it’s all about the assembly which is about to meet; they know what is required of them and I hope – and almost believe – that despite John Lambert’s absence, they may yet have the character to achieve it. Now, I’m sorry, but I have a date in the Council Chamber. Tomkins, make sure the readers don’t miss it. Majesty, I doubt you’ll like it, but I think you may want to watch.”

  TOMKINS

  “Leave it to us, Crumb.”

  **********

  TOMKINS

  The hottest day of the year; the smallest room I think they could have found; and considerate Crumb promising to be brief…erm – an hour ago and only now is he finally getting to the point…Oh well: “Can you lot see? More to the point are you still awake?”

  KAREN

  “Of course – and be fair, Tomkins, the general had to look back and justify himself – if only for posterity.”

  TOMKINS

  “Good for posterity. They don’t have to sit through it. Sssh.”

  CRUMB

  “I confess I never looked to see such a day as this, when Jesus Christ should be so owned as he is at this day and in this work. Jesus Christ is owned this day by your call and you own him by your willingness to appear for him and you manifest this, as far as poor creatures can, to be a day of the power of Christ. God hath owned his son by this and you by your willingness do own Jesus Christ; and therefore for my part I confess I did never look to see such a day”

  TOMKINS

  “Go for it, Crumb. Might almost be Harrison himself speaking. Every word a winner, eh Maj?”

  MAJ

  “My thoughts exactly. I’m…how do you say…erm gobsmacked!”

  KAREN

  “Sorry, I think that was me again.”

  MAJ

  “Thought as much, Karen – good word though – one to remember.”

  CRUM

  “Indeed I think it may truly be said that never was there a supreme authority consisting of so numerous a body, which I believe are above a hundred and forty, who were ever in the supreme authority under such a notion and in such a way of owning God and being owned by him.”

  TOMKINS

  “Harrison all smiles – just loving this.”

  CRUMB

  “If it were a time to compare your standing with those that have been called by the suffrages of the people, who can tell how soon God may fit the people for such a thing – and none can desire it more than I.”