On Christmas Day the prince received a letter from his father telling him to
leave England and not delay one hour. 11 The prince lingered until he could disobey no longer and sailed fromLand’s End to the Scilly Isles on the night tide of 2 March 1646. From there, he went to Jersey and then to Paris to be reunited
with his mother. He would never see his father again.
As for Ludlow, within two years of riding out at Edgehill, he was promoted to major. By the time he was thirty-two, he had
helped organise the trial of the king, signed his death warrant and become a member of the government of a new republic. Two
years later he was an effective commander-in-chief in Ireland. As a firm believer in political reform and religious freedom,
Ludlow’s rite-of-passage carried him through from young squire to active republican. By the age of forty-three he was a pariah
and exile with a price on his head. In a period of two decades, Ludlow experienced and did more than most men could expect
to see or achieve in several lifetimes – and yet at the time of his enforced flight abroad he still had thirty-two years ahead
of him.
In Switzerland, he sat down to write a history of all that had occurred between taking up arms in 1642 and the end of his
religious and republican dreams. When Ludlow and his fellow life guards joined up, most thought the war would last a few months
at most. Two years later it was bogged down in stalemate. On the parliamentary side, the aristocratic commanders did not wish
to inflict an outright victory over the king, thinking the conflict would quickly be resolved in a negotiated settlement.
Essex had been appointed supreme commander by Parliament to exercise its cause on the battlefield while also preserving the
life of the king. 12 Ludlow watched as the war progressed and the old aristocratic generals were replaced by the ‘middling sort of men’, Cromwell’s
appointees to run the New Model Army that would ultimately crush the royalist forces. He saw how the main protagonists who
had entered the war on the parliamentary side were replaced by a generation of more radical figures who no longer adhered
to the old system of royal favour and inherited influence.
In the evenings by Lake Geneva, after a day’s labour at his history, Ludlow’s mind would be crowded with the ghosts of the
dead andthe memories of the living. Among the ghosts that visited most was that of John Cook, the brilliant young lawyer who wrote
the prosecution case against Charles I. When brought to the Tower, Cook had requested that his life should be taken so that
Ludlow’s should be spared. What a man that was – no truer friend or colleague could any man have had. Shortly after Ludlow
had made his escape, Cook was executed for treason.
When he did not dwell upon the terrible fate of his friend John Cook, Ludlow thought of the fate of many others, including
his fellow exile, John Lisle, recently murdered in a Swiss churchyard barely twenty miles from Ludlow’s own hideaway. The
old soldier was in little doubt that the same assassins plotted to come for him, too.
And what of the ghost of Oliver Cromwell, that brilliant man who, in the eyes of Ludlow and others, betrayed the Commonwealth
by becoming a king in all but name? Hated though the memory of Cromwell was, the face that leered most malevolently in Ludlow’s
imagination was that of George Monck, the parliamentary general who had become a turncoat and secretly plotted to install
Charles II as king.
Fifteen years later, the republic was only a broken dream. General Monck, who had started out as an impoverished soldier for
hire, was living in luxury with a dukedom and a fortune from a grateful king. Ludlow, who had lost everything, lived quietly
with his wife Elizabeth, who had managed to join him in exile. She was his only comfort as he spent his days writing his memories
of the great events he had taken part in. On his desk
leave England and not delay one hour. 11 The prince lingered until he could disobey no longer and sailed fromLand’s End to the Scilly Isles on the night tide of 2 March 1646. From there, he went to Jersey and then to Paris to be reunited
with his mother. He would never see his father again.
As for Ludlow, within two years of riding out at Edgehill, he was promoted to major. By the time he was thirty-two, he had
helped organise the trial of the king, signed his death warrant and become a member of the government of a new republic. Two
years later he was an effective commander-in-chief in Ireland. As a firm believer in political reform and religious freedom,
Ludlow’s rite-of-passage carried him through from young squire to active republican. By the age of forty-three he was a pariah
and exile with a price on his head. In a period of two decades, Ludlow experienced and did more than most men could expect
to see or achieve in several lifetimes – and yet at the time of his enforced flight abroad he still had thirty-two years ahead
of him.
In Switzerland, he sat down to write a history of all that had occurred between taking up arms in 1642 and the end of his
religious and republican dreams. When Ludlow and his fellow life guards joined up, most thought the war would last a few months
at most. Two years later it was bogged down in stalemate. On the parliamentary side, the aristocratic commanders did not wish
to inflict an outright victory over the king, thinking the conflict would quickly be resolved in a negotiated settlement.
Essex had been appointed supreme commander by Parliament to exercise its cause on the battlefield while also preserving the
life of the king. 12 Ludlow watched as the war progressed and the old aristocratic generals were replaced by the ‘middling sort of men’, Cromwell’s
appointees to run the New Model Army that would ultimately crush the royalist forces. He saw how the main protagonists who
had entered the war on the parliamentary side were replaced by a generation of more radical figures who no longer adhered
to the old system of royal favour and inherited influence.
In the evenings by Lake Geneva, after a day’s labour at his history, Ludlow’s mind would be crowded with the ghosts of the
dead andthe memories of the living. Among the ghosts that visited most was that of John Cook, the brilliant young lawyer who wrote
the prosecution case against Charles I. When brought to the Tower, Cook had requested that his life should be taken so that
Ludlow’s should be spared. What a man that was – no truer friend or colleague could any man have had. Shortly after Ludlow
had made his escape, Cook was executed for treason.
When he did not dwell upon the terrible fate of his friend John Cook, Ludlow thought of the fate of many others, including
his fellow exile, John Lisle, recently murdered in a Swiss churchyard barely twenty miles from Ludlow’s own hideaway. The
old soldier was in little doubt that the same assassins plotted to come for him, too.
And what of the ghost of Oliver Cromwell, that brilliant man who, in the eyes of Ludlow and others, betrayed the Commonwealth
by becoming a king in all but name? Hated though the memory of Cromwell was, the face that leered most malevolently in Ludlow’s
imagination was that of George Monck, the parliamentary general who had become a turncoat and secretly plotted to install
Charles II as king.
Fifteen years later, the republic was only a broken dream. General Monck, who had started out as an impoverished soldier for
hire, was living in luxury with a dukedom and a fortune from a grateful king. Ludlow, who had lost everything, lived quietly
with his wife Elizabeth, who had managed to join him in exile. She was his only comfort as he spent his days writing his memories
of the great events he had taken part in. On his desk
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