Sea of Contumely

Steve Ragnall

Description

Dr John Webster (1610-1682), was a defrocked cleric, Schoolmaster, alchemist, astrologer, surgeon and writer. He is at once arrogant, worldly and with a wry sense of humour. Written mainly in the first person, this historical fiction is based on his life.While living and working in Lancashire during the early days of the English Civil War, Webster finds a fraud, perpetrated by one of the governors, in the accounts of the Grammar School at which he is the Master. The fraudster, now knighted by King Charles, becomes a sworn enemy.Webster's household is chased from the town after the satanic murder of his black servant and, with his enemy serving with the Royalists, he is co-opted into the Parliamentary forces as a surgeon.With larger than life characters, murder, intrigue & betrayal, Webster, accompanied by his housekeeper's son and a Sergeant-at-Arms takes us into the little-known battles of Lancashire and the Fylde, the story reaching its climax at the Battle of Read Bridge in April 1643, a pivotal though little known action in the Civil War in Lancashire.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800467002
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Also by Steve Ragnall
Non-Fiction

“Better Conceiv’d than Describ’d” – The Life and Times of Captain James King

Pandora’s Box and Other Stories


As Editor
Ollie’s War




Copyright © 2021 Steve Ragnall

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781800467002

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For Jill

Here lies a man unknown and sunken in a sea of contumely, yet bore it well and cherished much of times gone by, that he might learn the secrets of wise men and come to know what fire and water do.


From the memorial to Dr Webster at St Mary’s, Clitheroe



O ye that wolde your browes with Laurel bind,
What larger feild I pray you can you find
Than is his praise, who brydles heavens most cleare Makes mountaines tremble, and howest hells to feare?

From L’Uranie by Guillaume du Bartas
as translated by King James I and VI


Contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Cast of Characters

1. Sam
2. Kendall
3. Me – the Doctor
4. Kildwick
5. Clitheroe
6. Friends and Foe
7. September 1641
8. Grindletonians
9. Dr Hunyades
10. Amos
11. London
12. Endowments
13. Downham
14. A Locked Chest
15. The Scottish Problem
16. The Seal
17. A Trip
18. An Unnecessary Headache
19. A Summons
20. Waddow
21. The Dule upon Dun
22. Nate
23. Pardon for Nate
24. The Potman’s Daughter
25. Intimidation and Worse
26. Fire and Theft
27. The Castle
28. A Warrant
29. Fodder for Waddow
30. Amos Picks Another Lock
31. October 1741 – The Assize
32. An Offer
33. A Rare Move
34. A New Year
35. Edgehill
36. Organising the Militias
37. Hoghton
38. Blackburn
39. Another Treachery
40. 1643 – Preston
41. Venn’s Men
42. An Explosion
43. A Thaw
44. Amounderness
45. Major Sparrow
46. Rossall
47. The Ship
48. One in the Eye for the Royalists
49. Leaving Preston
50. The Cavalryman
51. Flight
52. Whalley
53. Preparations
54. The Battle
55. The Abbey

Author’s Comments and Historical Notes
John Webster
Webster’s Writings
Acknowledgments


List of Maps and Illustrations
Dr Webster’s “Study”
Webster’s Clitheroe
Accounts for the Grammar School 163
Webster’s Ribble Valley
The Seargeantson Deed and Map
Preston Town Centre
Amounderness and the Ship
Webster’s escape from Rossall
Preston
The road to Read Bridge
The Battle


Cast of Characters
Dr John Webster: Master of Clitheroe Royal Grammar School.

The Widow Slater: Webster’s housekeeper .

Nate Slater: The housekeeper’s son.

Sam: Webster’s black servant.

Amos Brierley: School usher.

Sir Ralph Assheton of Downham: MP and school governor. Parliamentarian.

Sir Ralph Assheton of Whalley: Son of Sir Ralph of Downham. Parliamentarian.

Sir Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe: MP, school governor. Parliamentarian.

Sir Christopher Kendall: School governor. Nouveau riche, his gains made by theft, intimidation and murder. Royalist.

John Aspinall of Standen Hall: School governor and magistrate. Royalist.

Roger Nowell of Read Hall: School governor and magistrate. Royalist.

Will Cummins: Servant of Sir Ralph of Downham, appointed master-at-arms of the Downham militia, becomes Webster’s assistant.

The Brothers Tench: Kendall’s brutal henchmen.








One
Sam
I don’t often bring this day to mind intentionally. I’ve had a number of bad ones but this capped all. It was strange that I had risen so early, as I tend to work or study late, often into the small hours. It isn’t unusual for me to be proceeding to bed when the rest are rising from their first sleep and I only rising when the day is part spent. This day, when I was forced to rise with the dawn, would be the beginning of the end of my time as schoolmaster.

Slater shook me from a deep, comforting, roborative sleep. ‘Good God, woman, what are you about’ I cried, before even seeing her ashen face.
‘He is come, he is come. ’Tis the day of judgement. He is come.’
‘Get out whilst I rise, woman! Who is here?’
Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘HE is come. The Devil himself. In marketplace.’
‘Then give him a cup of ale and bid him wait whilst I dress.’
‘Don’t pass joke in our last hours, Doctor dear,’ she pleaded, crossing herself. ‘We must to the church. I must repent before…’ Her voice tailed off as she ran from the room. I shook my head. She can be most vexing at times.
As I entered the lane and looked down towards the marketplace and town cross, I could see a ragged-arsed crowd had gathered some fifty feet beyond. Before the crowd were four Puritans, two black-garbed with their tall hats, holding their tracts and pointing towards the cross. There’s no love lost between me and Puritans, with their absolutes and unyielding righteous gabble, but I hurried down to find out what was up.
As I turned the corner, now just a few feet from the cross, the sun came from behind a cloud, hit me straight in the face and made me stumble and fall in the mud and shit, the detritus from the previous day’s fair.

I wonder, how loud is a sharp intake of breath? That’s what I recall first – a loud cumulative intake of breath from the assembly. And then the shouting, the angry maddened yelling from those same poxy Puritans: ‘See him fall at the feet of Satan – Devil worshipper – cursed demon.’ And I nearly cursed back at them until I saw what had been done to my lovely God-fearing Sam.

Sam is – sorry, was – my servant, one of the two valuable things gifted me by my friend and mentor Dr Hunyades in my London days. He was a black – Sam that is, not the doctor – brought as slave from Africa when very young, found to have some of the native arts of healing and later gifted to the good doctor. I know of Africa from my books. The Romans went there and found many wonders and strange animals, one of which is the lion, such as I saw in the last king’s menagerie. They call it the King of Beasts, but it looked mangy and dull to me when I saw it at the Tower.
I’m digressing. Or rather I’m delaying the telling of this part because the anger rises in my chest almost to stop my breath and I feel like crying even now, so long after the event. Wait, let me steel myself.

As I rose from the mud, I admit that I did think I was looking at the Devil. I swear my heart pounded fit to burst and the blood rushed from my brain. Bound to the stone cross was such a horrendous thing that I pray I never see the like again, or my brain would explode into a million parts and my heart shrivel within me. This Devil had blood still seeping from wounds carved in the shape of an upturned cross on his bare torso. He had no fingers at the ends of his outstretched arms. He had horns erupting from his head, two bloody holes where there should have been eyes and a large black hole for a mouth. And it was Sam.
He was still breathing, though barely, and I started to tear at the cords binding him to the rough stone of the cross. I shouted to the crowd to help but no one stirred, not a single one. Not John Tailor, whose wife I’d delivered of a healthy son when the midwife and cunning man had deserted her; not Mark Williamson, whose arm I set and saved last year; not Will Weaver’s wife, who near died of fever ’till I dosed her, and that only a month before. I recall them well, cringing back and trying to disappear into the crowd. No more will I help them in their need.
Sam fell into my arms and again dragged me to the ground. It was fortunate that Tom, my groom, came down, saw us, and ran for the ass and a hurdle, or I’d have been there still.

We couldn’t get him into the house and I had to attend him in the stables. Both the boys just looked on, the brats, but Goodwife Slater, despite her tendency to panic over the smallest thing, set to and helped. She stayed dry-eyed whilst the tears ran down me like some silly girl. We removed the horns, which had been stuck to his head with tar, as gently as we could; washed and bandaged him, trying to avoid looking into his wide maw, from which his tongue had been roughly cut, but it wasn’t long before his slight heartbeat faded and a last gentle breath passed his lips.
He was a gentle, gentle soul, who never said or did a bad thing. I’d baptized him and yet the bastards, thieves, shitters and pisspots of this town weren’t for letting us give him a Christian burial, but I cursed them all as I gave the service over him, and he now lies in the far corner of the churchyard where the lightning-struck elm