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Authors: Jeanette Winterson
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will not kill you now,' I said, 'for I am tired after my journey and wish only to settle in my own house. Slink away with droppings in your pants and never come here again, not even if I go away for a lifetime.'
At my magnanimousness they were abashed, as even sinners must be in the presence of virtue. When they had gone Jordan and I piled up all the copies of'A Perfect Diurnal' and made a bonfire whose light blazed across the Thames in streaks of splendour. The very poor came and sat by it, and warmed themselves, and drank beer of mine. I fancied I had never been away and that all our adventures and troubles were a dream. I looked at Jordan and saw a little boy with a battered boat. And I thought, if only the fire could be kept burning, the future might be kept at bay and this moment would remain. This warmth, this light. But I fell asleep and woke shivering to see the early morning hanging over the water and the chars of our fire petrified with frost.
I was drinking with Tradescant when a boy slipped into the Crown of Thorns and put a broadsheet on our table.
The innkeeper was a Loyalist and had no truck with those po-faced, flat-buttocked zealots who had declared the King a traitor to his own people. A despot, they called him, a tyrant, a spendthrift, unwilling to accept a Parliament of the people for the people. London was awash with pamphlets telling anyone who could read them that the King had no Divine Right and should be called to justice for his sins. For myself, I would rather live with sins of excess than sins of denial.
The Puritans, who wanted a rule of saints on earth and no king but Jesus, forgot that we are born into flesh and in flesh must remain. Their women bind their breasts and cook plain food without salt, and the men are so afraid of their member uprising that they keep it strapped between their legs with bandages.
This week, the week before the trial, they are paying men to sit in public houses and overhear any loyalty to the King. This badly printed broadsheet with a message from the King and no publisher's name was a crime punishable by death for those who put it about. The boy had gone, seeped into the wainscot with a penny from Tradescant, and all of us who love the King crowded round to hear his words.
Tradescant has promised us seats in the gallery at the trial. We are going in disguise, though what disguise I shall assume is not yet clear...
There was an order in London during the week of the trial prohibiting the presence of Cavaliers, and Tradescant was in serious danger, being a chosen employee of the Royal house. Everyone anxious to attend the trial was subjected to a rigorous search and investigation, though the Puritans, concerned to uphold their public image, had promised an open trial, free to all, except supporters of the King. Tradescant and Jordan dressed themselves as drabs, with painted faces and scarlet lips and dresses that looked as though they'd been pawed over by every infantryman in the capital. Jordan had a fine mincing walk and a leer that got him a good few offers of a bed for the night.
I swathed myself about in rags, black as pitch, and put on an old wig we begged from a theatrical. Then I made myself a specially reinforced wheelbarrow and sat in it like a heap of manure.
In this way we made our entrance to the Cotton House and the trial of the King.
Two soldiers stopped us and asked if we had been given passes to the gallery.
'Oh, sir, passes we have,' I sighed, reaching into my filthy folds. 'We have been granted passes on account of our sinfulness.
Look, they are marked by Hugh Peter himself.'
It was true. Hugh Peter, a puce-stained pock-marked preacher who thought himself Christ's deputy, had offered passes to the gallery for any sinners who truly longed to repent and see the Rule of Saints begin. He had preached his sermon that week on the text, 'He shall bind their King in chains', and afterwards the hopeless and the damned had crept to him for solace.
At my magnanimousness they were abashed, as even sinners must be in the presence of virtue. When they had gone Jordan and I piled up all the copies of'A Perfect Diurnal' and made a bonfire whose light blazed across the Thames in streaks of splendour. The very poor came and sat by it, and warmed themselves, and drank beer of mine. I fancied I had never been away and that all our adventures and troubles were a dream. I looked at Jordan and saw a little boy with a battered boat. And I thought, if only the fire could be kept burning, the future might be kept at bay and this moment would remain. This warmth, this light. But I fell asleep and woke shivering to see the early morning hanging over the water and the chars of our fire petrified with frost.
I was drinking with Tradescant when a boy slipped into the Crown of Thorns and put a broadsheet on our table.
The innkeeper was a Loyalist and had no truck with those po-faced, flat-buttocked zealots who had declared the King a traitor to his own people. A despot, they called him, a tyrant, a spendthrift, unwilling to accept a Parliament of the people for the people. London was awash with pamphlets telling anyone who could read them that the King had no Divine Right and should be called to justice for his sins. For myself, I would rather live with sins of excess than sins of denial.
The Puritans, who wanted a rule of saints on earth and no king but Jesus, forgot that we are born into flesh and in flesh must remain. Their women bind their breasts and cook plain food without salt, and the men are so afraid of their member uprising that they keep it strapped between their legs with bandages.
This week, the week before the trial, they are paying men to sit in public houses and overhear any loyalty to the King. This badly printed broadsheet with a message from the King and no publisher's name was a crime punishable by death for those who put it about. The boy had gone, seeped into the wainscot with a penny from Tradescant, and all of us who love the King crowded round to hear his words.
Tradescant has promised us seats in the gallery at the trial. We are going in disguise, though what disguise I shall assume is not yet clear...
There was an order in London during the week of the trial prohibiting the presence of Cavaliers, and Tradescant was in serious danger, being a chosen employee of the Royal house. Everyone anxious to attend the trial was subjected to a rigorous search and investigation, though the Puritans, concerned to uphold their public image, had promised an open trial, free to all, except supporters of the King. Tradescant and Jordan dressed themselves as drabs, with painted faces and scarlet lips and dresses that looked as though they'd been pawed over by every infantryman in the capital. Jordan had a fine mincing walk and a leer that got him a good few offers of a bed for the night.
I swathed myself about in rags, black as pitch, and put on an old wig we begged from a theatrical. Then I made myself a specially reinforced wheelbarrow and sat in it like a heap of manure.
In this way we made our entrance to the Cotton House and the trial of the King.
Two soldiers stopped us and asked if we had been given passes to the gallery.
'Oh, sir, passes we have,' I sighed, reaching into my filthy folds. 'We have been granted passes on account of our sinfulness.
Look, they are marked by Hugh Peter himself.'
It was true. Hugh Peter, a puce-stained pock-marked preacher who thought himself Christ's deputy, had offered passes to the gallery for any sinners who truly longed to repent and see the Rule of Saints begin. He had preached his sermon that week on the text, 'He shall bind their King in chains', and afterwards the hopeless and the damned had crept to him for solace.
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