Cromwell's Cat Read online

  TOMKINS

  Does it, Alan?… “Yes, and thank-you for explaining it”. No problem – it’s what we’re here for. “And don’t forget the stroking.”

  CRUMB

  “What?”

  TOMKINS

  “The stroking. Your hands have been all over the place – up on Marston Moor, attacking the enemy from the rear, but not where they’re supposed to be heavy-petting the Tomkins back. It won’t stroke itself, you know”

  CRUMB

  “I’m sorry. How’s that?”

  TOMKINS

  “Good, but I don’t want to have to tell you again. So now back to the army’s new-modelling. After the miracle of Marston, why?”

  CRUMB

  “Because, as I’ve just said, there were those there, in places of high command, who seemed not to want it to be too much of a miracle; and who ever since, instead of pressing home their advantage seeking to complete the Lord’s work and bring this war to a swift conclusion, have let chance after chance go by, finding excuses not to engage and letting the king’s forces, in shreds after Marston, re-group and re-form so that now they are ready to re-engage and the war will drag on at least another year. Those equivocators are not the men must be employed in this work. Therefore, I say, all officers from the highest to the lowest, who are members of parliament and so may have an interest in prolonging this war, must be removed from their command and the army new-modelled under officers, whose only interest will be the defeat of the enemy and the welfare of their men”

  TOMKINS

  “All officers?”

  CRUMB

  “All.”

  TOMKINS

  “No exceptions?”

  CRUMB

  “None.”

  TOMKINS

  “Including you?”

  CRUMB

  “Including me.”

  TOMKINS

  “…I don’t believe you.”

  CRUMB

  “Well, seeing is believing, I suppose, even for cats. So when I propose in parliament an ordinance* to that effect, you may just have to change your mind”

  TOMKINS

  “You are Lieutenant General in command of the cavalry?”

  CRUMB

  “Yes.”

  TOMKINS

  “And, by the Lord’s great goodwill, you’ve just won parliament the greatest victory of the war so far”

  CRUMB

  “The Lord has so favoured me.”

  TOMKINS

  “Aided by the Scots, of course. They were there too.”

  CRUMB

  “I’m not like to forget it.”

  TOMKINS

  “So here’s the point: they may not be there next year. And the enemy, you said, has re-grouped…” bear with me, I’m just thinking it through “…and your new army, presumably with a lot of the same ‘professionals’, who performed so poorly at Marston, will be put up against this enemy, only now without their erstwhile game-changing cavalry commander. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  CRUMB

  “It’s what the Lord looks for – an army fashioned to do His work.”

  TOMKINS

  “And – being leaderless – fashioned like as not fail; like as not flee the field and ‘live to fight another day’? I’m sorry, Crumb. I don’t buy it”

  CRUMB

  “What don’t you buy?”

  TOMKINS

  “I don’t think you’re telling me the truth…not the whole truth.”

  CRUMB

  “I mean to raise it in the parliament.”

  TOMKINS

  “Oh yes, yes… your guess being they won’t be able to do without you – particularly after this last battle. So either the army will demand an exception be made in your case or, knowing how much the army and your company of honest men that know what they fight for…etc – how much they mean to you, you will quit the parliament to keep your command. But you won’t do that until all else fails. Am I right?”

  CRUMB

  “If that were true, would it be so wrong?”

  TOMKINS

  “Not wrong, but not honest and your claim so far has been you are plain Crumb, as honest as the day is long. And it’s stood you in good stead”

  CRUMB

  “I’ll still be the same.”

  TOMKINS

  “Others won’t see it like that. They’ll say all you ever sought was your own advancement. It could come back to haunt you. And in any case, are you convinced the Lord wants your ‘total victory’?. Might not He too simply want to settle?…Crumb? Just a thought.”

  CRUMB

  “Yours, not mine. I can’t let myself think that.”

  TOMKINS

  “No, but you could ask Him. I mean, you talk to Him all the time… Alright forget it. I know, we’ll go back to the readers”…All of you, who think Crumb’s right, the army must be new-modelled, raise your hands…OK. Now those who think like me that honesty is the best policy and losing your reputation for being honest Noll Cromwell could cost you in the long run?… “Well on the show of hands, it looks fairly even”

  CRUMB

  “Except, I think some voted twice.”

  TOMKINS

  “Covering their bets – wisdom beyond their years. They’re the future politicians – your favourites, Crumb – but we’ll get onto that later”… Now that’s enough thinking for one night. No more words – simple stroking session now, if you’re still up for it, to let the lessons sink in. So go away. See you in the next chapter.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Not a Mere Mercenary Army’’

  CRUMB

  “The war being over, the parliament had every right to disband the army – and the sooner the better for all our sakes…”

  TOMKINS

  “Hang on, hang on. The war over? When did that happen? When we were last talking it still had another year to go, at least. You said so yourself.”

  CRUMB

  “Two years as it turned out – ended eighteen months ago – mid 1646.”

  TOMKINS

  “Curious – I must have missed that. Did I sleep through it?”

  CRUMB

  “No. You were there – you’ve just forgotten. Just like a cat – you see it, you sleep on it, you forget it”

  TOMKINS

  “Best way. If there’s another, I’ve forgotten.”

  CRUMB

  “Very funny. A little bit of hindsight oc
casionally might help.”

  TOMKINS

  “Hindsight?”

  CRUMB

  “Memory, learning from your mistakes.”

  TOMKINS

  “Not if you don’t make mistakes.”

  CRUMB

  “I forgot, you’re perfect.”

  TOMKINS

  “Purr-fect – that’s it… specially when I’m having my tummy stroked – and my chin…and behind my ears…yeah!… So, go on”

  CRUMB

  “Well, as I was saying, the war being over, the parliament had every right to disband the army. And had it been done with integrity there could nothing have happened more welcome to our spirits than that…”

  TOMKINS

  Believe that, if you will

  CRUMB

  “ ‘Tis true. But they were besotted with malice against the army – the New Model, I mean – couldn’t wait to get rid of them. And so now, having the Scots paid off and the king in their hands, they voted to disband our men with just six weeks’ arrears of pay despite the fact that they were owed more – far more – some over three quarters of a year!”

  TOMKINS

  “You said earlier they weren’t fighting for profit: they ’made some conscience of what they did’?”

  CRUMB

  “True, but even saints must be paid. Besides, there was no indemnity offered for crimes committed under orders. And the soldiers well knew that while they kept together none would dare touch them, but once they dispersed – those in the parliament who had always opposed them, and the king’s party – formerly the problem but now like to be part of the solution – would make them pay dearly for their actions. So they refused to disband.”

  TOMKINS

  “Which they would have done had the parliament’s offer been fair?”

  CRUMB

  “I and my fellow officers would have made sure they did.”

  TOMKINS

  “You sound very sure.”

  CRUMB

  “I am. I’d promised the parliament and it was my duty. There would still have been issues to address…”

  TOMKINS

  “Such as?”

  CRUMB

  “Religion… freedom of conscience – what we’ve spoken about. To win the war we welcomed in all who were faithful. I mean all, who had ‘faith’. We were blind to differences of opinion. All who believed (Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist), if they were willing to serve – we asked no more. But this offended many in the parliament, who saw the army as a nest of sectaries …”

  TOMKINS

  Free-thinkers

  CRUMB

  “Something like that – finding God their own way, worshipping together in gathered churches, unruly, beyond the reach of the powers that be”

  TOMKINS

  “Out of control?”

  CRUMB

  “Just so – at least that was the fear of many in the parliament and so they would brook no toleration of tender consciences, no gathered churches. For them everyone was to worship at the same time in the same steeple house and the same Presbyterian way. And, had the soldiers’ just demands for arrears and indemnity been granted, I and my fellow officers would have persuaded them to disband and then sought to answer their concerns…”

  TOMKINS

  “But?”

  CRUMB

  “But they weren’t. And the soldiers, fearing the parliament with the king in their hands and London and its mob behind them meant to settle without them, acted on their own…”

  TOMKINS

  “…Hang on… someone else coming in…Catriona in Arbroath says ‘Holmby House!”

  CRUMB

  “The same…how does she know about that?”

  TOMKINS

  “…taught about it at school – Cornet Joyce at the head of 500 men.”

  CRUMB

  “That’s right – they seized the king there, while others took command of the artillery train at Oxford so as to stop the parliament in their tracks.”

  TOMKINS

  “…she’s not finished: says she was taught it was your plan.”

  CRUMB

  “Then she was taught wrong – and she can tell her teacher I said so! I learned of what the soldiers planned – they told me while I was at home in London and nothing I could do. I believed then, do still believe, that the lord’s will was to give the nation settlement – all His providences and dispensations pointed that way. But up to that point I could not see my way. I saw where the Lord wanted us to go, but not how to get there – until the soldiers seized the king, and parliament and London howled for our blood. Then my way was clear, and I took it: removing the king out of the soldiers’ hands into our own (as your history books will have told you); occupying London and impeaching the eleven leading members of parliament; and seeking a settlement acceptable to all – king, parliament, army. At last, through the action of the soldiers and the intransigence of the parliament the Lord’s providence was plain: He looked to us to point them to a new, a middle way.”

  TOMKINS

  “Us? Who?”

  CRUMB

  “Myself and my son Ireton.”

  TOMKINS

  “Hold on… your son, Ireton? Where did he spring up from? At the last count you had two sons: Richard and Henry.”

  CRUMB

  “And now I have a third: Harry Ireton, Commissary General in the army, married my daughter Bridget while you were asleep”

  TOMKINS

  “Seems an awful lot happened while I was sleeping. Anything else I need to know about?”

  CRUMB

  “Nothing much – except that you raised another four families”

  TOMKINS

  “No, no, no. Now there, I know you’re lying. I can’t sniff an attractive cat without coming wide awake and singing my love song. I’d remember that”

  CRUMB

  “Your love song?”

  TOMKINS

  “Yes.”

  CRUMB

  “How does that go again?”

  TOMKINS

  “You know – you’ve heard it hundreds of times.”

  CRUMB

  “They haven’t.”

  TOMKINS

  “And they don’t want to” Believe me, you don’t…” What, St Albans?…you do? Bother. But what about the girls out there? They might find it offensive. I mean cats and humans have different ways…double bother…”