Accidents of Providence Read Free Page A

his head, though his subservience was unconvincing; he went into the corridor to fetch the next witness.
     
    Preparing for his depositions had led Bartwain to investigate the background of each of his interview subjects. Concerning the next woman on his list, however, he knew more about the husband. Everyone knew about Elizabeth Lilburne’s husband. They called him Freeborn John, and when he was not earning a meager living as a soap maker, he was working alongside William Walwyn—that W.W. whose full name appeared farther down on Bartwain’s list—to organize a group of fiery apprentices, soldiers, and agitators in and around London and the Parliamentary army. Their enemies had given this group its name, accusing John and his friends of trying to “level” men’s estates and share all things in common. The Levelers had supported the Good Old Cause, the dream of a free republic, when civil war first broke out in 1642, and they had continued to support it in succeeding years as Parliament’s army warred against the king, or against royal tyranny, as some men—never Bartwain—described it. When Charles I was beheaded in January of 1649, some people blamed the Levelers and called them regicides. But Bartwain knew they did not have it in them to do anything so decisive or matter-of-fact. Since the Parliamentarians’ victory, the Leveler crusade had begun to lose momentum—no one could quite tell which side the group was on, Bartwain thought.
    He glanced down at his notes. Several years ago, when John Lilburne had spent time in Newgate Prison for harassing the Speaker of the House of Commons, his wife, Elizabeth, had joined him there. As a prisoner of the state, John had received the royal treatment. Elizabeth had received a toothless midwife, ordered down from the women’s ward, to assist her as she birthed their daughter on the sticking straw. Bartwain shook his head; that was the sort of thing Leveler women did, stay with their husbands in prison. This past summer, he read on, Elizabeth had lost her two sons to smallpox.
    He was picking the last of the eggshells from his teeth when his witness burst into the chambers, her yellow curls angry and springing. Before he could say a word, Elizabeth Lilburne supplied her name, place of birth, and current residence, then sat down on the witness stool. He barely had time to wipe his mouth, pick up his quill, and dunk it in the inkwell before she started attacking.
    “You are in bed with the devil,” she told him. “You report to the Council of State, which is an illegitimate government. You find women who are poor and vulnerable and accuse them of this and that, and then once you have convicted them you wash your hands and accept your payment. You are the devil’s handyman.”
    “Good morning to you as well,” he answered.
    She delivered a blistering stare. From the pockmarks pitting her cheek, Bartwain guessed she had contracted the same illness that had taken her young sons. Apart from the scars, she was a handsome woman, he thought.
    “You support the work of men who fear the truth. You—”
    “I am not here to suppress the truth,” he said wearily. “I am here to solicit it. I would be grateful if you would do me the courtesy of allowing me to carry out the work I have been commissioned to do. I am not here to listen to speeches.”
    “You are a hired dog.”
    “Please be careful what you say.”
    “Why, what would you have me say? The justices of the peace have already made up their minds about this case. I know how the courts of London work. They place the burden of proof on the defendant. I am the wife of John Lilburne. I know things.”
    “Tell me how you became acquainted with the case at hand.”
    “I have no relation to the case at hand.”
    “You just said this case was unfair, so clearly you know something about it. You are not a good liar. Your face is blooming red.”
    “Then you already know how I am acquainted with it, else you would not