“What excellent news indeed,” said James, while Charles broke in with heat, “But, Holy Mary --aren’t we going after ‘em?”
The curate gave him an indulgent smile. “Later, perhaps, when we’ve all breakfasted and aligned our forces -- so the General says. Plenty of time.”
Charles scowled, then shrugged. His arm throbbed, and though he had been ready for the expected charge he knew he could not have acquitted himself well. He reached for a sausage from the platter the serving maid had banged on the table. James stopped him. “Wait,” he said. “ ‘Tis Sunday, Charlie. And we must go to Mass, take the sacrament. A Mass of thanksgiving it shall be.”
“Yes, to be sure, my lord. There’s a priest called Littleton at the White Bull,” the curate said helpfully, “has been tending to the wounded Catholics.”
“Thank you,” said James, chiding himself for his unreasonable distrust of this man, who had done nothing to warrant it. Charles sighed and relinquished thoughts of breakfast as yet. They went out and down the street to the White Bull. At the inn they found the priest in a small room with two wounded Lancashire men. One had a bayonet gash through his bowels, and the other’s leg had been amputated by the surgeon. Both were dying, and Father Littleton was preparing to administer the last rites.
James and Charles withdrew to wait. “Thank God,” said the Earl, “that we’ve lost none of our men. I think I couldn’t bear to bring mourning to any of my people at Dilston.”
“Aye -- Lady Luck is with us!” said Charles, who had recovered his usual spirits and amused himself, while they waited, by waving through the window at a girl who scuttled by.
At last the priest was ready, and said that he would like to celebrate Mass in his own chapel, though it was situated on the Ribble side of town, rather near the enemy camp, and to go there would be dangerous. James assured him that it wasn’t. That there was nothing more to fear from General Wills. The priest’s eyes shone with happy tears, his earnest face reddened with relief, while he said, “The Blessed Virgin has then granted all our prayers!”
They walked through back lanes and dark smoky streets to a tiny hidden chapel, where a handful of Mr. Littleton’s parishioners were waiting patiently.
An hour later they left the chapel, and James was exalted. The priest had done full justice to the beautiful thanksgiving Mass, and in his sermon he had pointed out that this November 13 was the Feast of St. Didacus, a humble lay-brother who in his own life had shown how God’s Divine Providence could choose the weak things of the world to confound the strong. So it had proved for them gathered here now -- the Defenders of the True Faith, of the True King -- on this day of rejoicing. Even Charles had been powerfully moved, and had taken the sacrament with a contrite and grateful heart.
Once in the street again the brothers walked in contented silence until they heard the clop of hoofs, and Charles, peering ahead towards the rider, said sharply, “Who’s that coming?”
“Colonel Oxburgh?” said James squinting. “He must be searching for the chapel.”
“I don’t think so,” said Charles holding his breath as he stared. “What’s that he’s carrying? What’s that white thing on his arm?”
James looked again, and saw what Charles’s stronger eyes had already seen. Oxburgh, in his full dress military uniform, his chin sunk on his chest, carried a small white flag, and had a white band tied around his sleeve. James stepped into the street directly in front of Oxburgh’s oncoming horse and cried, “Halt!”
The Colonel pulled up the horse, his face remained expressionless. “Good day, my lord,” he murmured.
“Where are you going?” James demanded, catching the horse’s bridle. “Why do you carry a white flag?”
There was silence in the street, broken only by the switching of the horse’s tail and the clatter of a pan from behind a shuttered window. Then Oxburgh spoke in a toneless voice. “I am going, my lord, at General Forster’s command, to see what terms I can get.”
“Terms?” James repeated. “I don’t understand you. Terms from whom?”
“From King George’s army, from General Wills and General Carpenter.”
“But you’re mad!” Charles shouted. “Wills has retreated with all his men, and Carpenter’s up in Scotland.”
“General Carpenter is here, Radcliffe. With near three thousand fresh dragoons, he arrived two hours ago to join Wills, who was waiting for him. We are now surrounded. General Forster has ordered me to ask for surrender terms.”
James stood rooted, his hand trembling on the bridle. There was rushing as of water in his ears, while Charles made a gasping noise like a sob. “I’ll kill him,” Charles whispered. “I’ll kill the whoreson buggering coward -- but you first, Oxburgh!” Frantically, with his good arm, Charles struggled to get at his pistol. He hauled it from the holster and James knocked it out of his hand. “No, Charles!”
Charles turned furiously on his brother. ‘“No, Charles. No, Charles.’ Damn you, is that all you can say! You’d let this bastard tamely trot off begging for surrender terms? You’d let that bloated farting toad up there at the Mitre bring shame on us, like this? Well, by God, I won’t!” Charles flung wildly around, picked up the pistol, stumbled, then righting himself began to run towards the Mitre.
“He’ll kill Forster, if he can,” said James in a voice as toneless as Oxburgh’s.
“Others have already tried this morning,” answered the Colonel. “But Forster’s well guarded. My lord, stand aside, I must continue my mission.”
“I forbid it!” James looked up at Oxburgh; his eyes held the cold gray authority born from generations of ruling. Oxburgh’s own glance wavered. He turned away, while he said, “Be reasonable, my lord. Leaderless as we are, inexperienced in real war as most of us are, we’d be cut to pieces now, if we fought. You don’t want all your men massacred, do you?”
“Then we will barricade ourselves in town and take them on as we did yesterday,” James said after a moment in which he tried to think.
“We cannot, my lord. The town isn’t provisioned for a siege, and we’ve only a few more rounds of powder left. They’ve trapped us. If we surrender now, for sure they’ll give us honorable terms, and King George is known to be clement!”
“So it’s ‘King George’ from you now!” James cried, his nostrils dinting, his cheeks going white. “You sang a very different tune in Dilston! What of King James? What will he say when news of this degraded treachery reaches him in Scotland!”
Oxburgh’s shoulders slumped. He shut his eyes for an instant. “King James has not left France,” he said very low. “An express came from Lord Mar yestermorn. Just before the battle.”
It was at that moment James gave up hope. His small proud face grew masklike; thoughts like jagged rocks plunged down and clogged his soul. All false had been the certainty of Jemmie’s landing -- a delusion, a chimera. The truth instead was as it had always been. Bungling incompetence. Betrayal. Cowardice. The Devil Water. Why had God allowed the devil to prevail? Why?
James’s hand dropped from the bridle. He lifted his head and walked past the horse, not looking at Oxburgh. Very slowly, his steps dragging, he continued down the street.
On December 9 the chief Jacobite prisoners, under heavy guard, neared the village of Barnet in Hertfordshire, eleven miles from London. James rode in a rickety coach with Lord Widdrington, to whom he had scarcely spoken during all the days of their slow marches down from Preston. There was nothing to discuss with Widdrington, who had been the foremost in urging Forster to surrender. Widdrington, Oxburgh, and Patten, these had been their general’s sole advisers during the hour of panic in the Mitre, when Forster first received news of General Carpenter’s arrival. Forster had consulted nobody else, had skulked in a locked and guarded room, until the moment next day when he had handed his sword to General Wills, and thereupon received Government protection.
Forster had reason to be terrified of his own troops, James thought, staring out the coach window at the sof
t falling snow. The Highlanders had been ready to kill him when they learned of the betrayal. Young Murray had actually taken a shot at him. And Charles . . .
Through the despair in James’s breast came always a fiercer pain when he thought of Charles. Charles was safe enough at present -- riding somewhere a quarter of a mile back, his hands loosely pinioned, his horse’s halter led by a dragoon. James had glimpsed him often during the marches, and night stops. But Charles would not come near him.
One of the coach horses stumbled in an icy mudhole, the coach careened sharply. James could hear the cursing of the coachman and their four dragoon guards outside, and did not heed any of it. His mind presented to him yet again, as with a sick compulsion, pictures from that fatal Sunday, November 13. The return to the Mitre to find that Charles had disappeared, and Alec in the stableyard, crying, “Oh, what ails my master, my lord? He ran in like a madman, shouting for General Forster’s blood, then my lord Winton joined him and they spoke together. Like stags at bay they was -- both of ‘em -- wild-eyed -- panting.”
James, unable to bring himself to tell Alec all that had made Charles wild, said only, “I fear we are undone,” and as he said it saw Ann’s tender face -- sorrowing, waiting, hoping, at Dilston. “Alec Armstrong,” he said solemnly, “if you take Monarch,” he gestured to the stall where his stallion was stamping, “d’you think you could somehow get out of town and back to her ladyship at Dilston?”
“Aye, trust me, my lord. Fisher Gate to the north’s not blocked, or wasn’t an hour ago -- oh, your lordship, is’t that bad?”
James bowed his head. “Tell her to hide Dilston papers quickly, get them to Capheaton. Tell her -- tell her to be brave and that I love her dearest of any earthly thing.”
Alec had set off at once on Monarch, and must have either got through or been shot, since he had not returned.
Other pictures of that dreadful day. The bewilderment of half their troops, the relief of others. The twenty frenzied Scots rebelling when they heard of the surrender. Charles and Lord Winton trying to lead these Scots in a charge, and being stopped by Brigadier Mackintosh himself, backed by Forster’s men. Charles had been bound and locked up overnight for safety. But this incident angered General Wills, who now contemptuously demanded hostages, until the negotiations should be complete. He demanded Lord Derwentwater, and a Scottish leader. James had gone to pass the night in the enemy camp. For what use now was resistance which would lead to slaughter? The Rebellion in England was finished. They were powerless. All in reason that was left was to get the best terms possible. And fair trials in London. Charles did not agree, James knew. The most hurtful memory of all was of the look in Charles’s eyes when the Jacobite officers handed over their swords to General Wills, while General Carpenter looked on, sneering at the defeated.
In Charles’s gray eyes when they met James’s there had been implacable accusation, bitter reproach. And since then complete avoidance.
The old coach lurched into the village of Barnet, and at once a yelling crowd collected on the road. “Down with the Pretender!” they shouted. “Death to the Jacks!” “Long live King George!” And someone banged a warming pan against the coach window crying, “Look traitors, here’s where your fine Pretender popped from!”
James and Widdrington remained imperturbable. This reception they had had in every town since leaving Lancashire. The fools, James thought wearily. If they could see the king who was a Stuart in every feature, and as like his father as two peas, this canard that he’d been smuggled into Queen Mary’s childbed in a warming pan would cease forever. If they could but see their rightful king!
Spurred by miserable anger, James broke the silence in the coach. “This mob -- like every mob we’ve come through! Where are the High Church Tories who promised to join us! And you’d think one cheer on this dreary march might have been raised for King James!”
Widdrington grunted. His peevish, sickly face showed some surprise at being addressed by Derwentwater. “Self-preservation is the first and strongest law of nature,” he answered with a shrug.
“Yes,” said James. “It has ever been clear that you think so.” He turned his back on Widdrington and gazed through the snow at the many-gabled inn, where they were apparently to stop, because their guards were dismounting. On each night of their journey since leaving Preston the seven lords among the prisoners had been given relative comfort in their lodgings. The two English peers -- Derwentwater and Widdrington -- and the five Scottish ones -- Winton, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carnwath, and Nairn -- had been sequestered from the commoners, who were lodged in churches, stables, or any shelter available.
Tonight, the last before London, and the weather being most inclement, Brigadier Panton of the Royal Dragoons did not bother to maintain nice distinctions. Accordingly, James found himself and his fellow peers all herded into the inn’s cramped common rooms, where the rest of the prisoners were presently stuffed as they arrived. Tom Forster came soon -- with Patten. James did not greet them, though they both bowed to him. James noted that Tom was pasty-faced and shrunken, that Patten’s chin was bruised and his clerical suit badly torn. Both men’s wrists were bound together, and the guards showed them no special favor. And yet, the suspicions James had felt on the day of surrender were not allayed. Forster might be too stupid and befuddled for actual treachery. But Patten! Had the curate really been honestly mistaken when he announced the withdrawal of General Wills’s troops? He had later shrilly and passionately averred so.
Oxburgh was next shoved through the door into the taproom. He looked at nobody. His head was sunk forward on his chest as it had been the morning of surrender. Brigadier Mackintosh came stumbling through the door, and was followed by the Swinburne lads and a dozen others -- the Claverings, the Wogans, Jack Thornton, and Tom Errington. With these last, James exchanged across the room a sad half smile of greeting, but was too sick at heart to speak. The inn became so crowded that soon all the commoners must stand, with barely room to lift the mugs of small beer which they were given.
The outer door opened once again, and Charles, prodded by the butt end of a musket, walked in, his handsome young face glowering. James stiffened and rose, with a great thump of his heart. Charles did not glance his way. He pushed over to Ned Swinburne, and stood by him silently, while the dragoons posted themselves at the door.
The lords were offered seats near the fire on settles and stools. Brigadier Panton, their particular guard, stayed among them. He directed a frightened inn servant to bring October ale for his noble charges, then turned courteously to James, whom the King’s generals considered by all odds their most important prisoner. “I regret, my lord, that your lodgings tonight should be so incommodious, but I pray you sit down.”
James inclined his head. “I’ve been sitting all day. I prefer to stand.” His somber gaze again sought out Charles’s tall figure with the tousled fair hair, the old cheek scar showing white on the rigidly averted profile. “Tell me, Brigadier,” James said, turning back to Panton, “where we will be lodged tomorrow night, in London? That seems to me of interest.”
James’s clear quiet voice penetrated through the silent rooms. Everyone had wondered about this, and everyone waited for the answer.
The Brigadier showed some embarrassment. Unlike the Generals Wills and Carpenter, he had no hatred of his prisoners, and found his duties distasteful, but he spoke decisively. “You, my Lord Derwentwater, and your fellow peers,” he glanced at Widdrington and the Scots, “will be lodged in the Tower, as befits your rank. The other rebels will be imprisoned at Newgate, at Marshalsea, and the Fleet in accordance with their quality.”
They all heard this. Charles too, for he put his hand to his head and looked dazed, suddenly realizing, James knew, that after tonight there would be no chance of talk between them. There was a stir by the bar and Tom Forster lumbered towards the Brigadier.
“What about me?” he cried. “I’m for the Tower, ain’t I? I was told so. I’m a general, and M.P. for Nor
thumberland, don’t forget that! And m’Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, is me uncle.”
“You will be jailed at Newgate, Mr. Forster,” repeated the Brigadier with stony calm.
Forster gasped. “‘Tis a damned outrage! ‘Tis an insult!” he shouted, his pendulous unshaven cheeks suffusing. “I’ve friends in London, you’ll see! You’ll rue your wicked treatment o ‘me!” He flailed out with his arm, forgetting that it was pinioned to Patten, who was thrown off balance. The guards by the door snickered.
James made a harsh sound in his throat. “There is one sort of prison which would hold us all comfortably,” he remarked.
“What is that, my lord?” asked the Brigadier astonished.
“Bedlam Hospital,” said James, and walking to a tiny window he stared out onto the snowy, littered stable yard.
Charles, at those bitter words, felt the hardness loosen a little in his breast. He watched the small erect figure at the window, and for the first time it occurred to him that James might be suffering as much as he was himself. Possibly he had been so blinded by his own rage at the Preston disaster that he had imputed to James many of the craven motives which had ruled Forster and his tribe. In any case, James was his brother, and it looked as though they would not meet again for some time. And Charles perceived that, though the long nightmarish days of marching were over, arrival in London would not end the humiliation and defeat -- as he had somehow expected. It would augment them.
Charles tightened his mouth and made his way slowly to the privileged portion of the room. He spoke to the Brigadier. “May I have a word with his lordship of Derwentwater, sir?”
Six weeks later, on the nineteenth of January, in the Tower of London, Ann, Countess of Derwentwater, was in James’s prison apartment in the old Beauchamp tower. She was alone there, kneeling on the stained torn rug which the Tower Lieutenant had provided to cover the filthy stone floor which so many imprisoned feet had trod. Ann’s eyes were shut as she prayed, her fingers trembled on the Rosary beads. “Holy Blessed Mother,” she whispered as she kissed the crucifix. “Help him! Make them listen to his answer! Move King George’s heart to clemency. For the sake of Thine own Dear Lord and Son.”