55 Days

Howard Brenton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781780011851
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A gripping historical drama that dramatises a crucial moment of English history. Premiered at Hampstead Theatre in October 2012.

December 1648. The Army has occupied London. Parliament votes not to put the imprisoned king on trial, so the Army moves against Westminster in the first and only military coup in English history. What follows over the next fifty-five days, as Cromwell seeks to compromise with a king who will do no such thing, is nothing less than the forging of a new nation, an entirely new world.

Howard Brenton's play depicts the dangerous and dramatic days when, in a country exhausted by Civil War, a few great men attempt to think the unthinkable: to create a country without a king.

'A forgotten era of revolutionary British history is fascinatingly unlocked... electrifying.' Whatonstage.com

'[A] confident and idea-packed piece... It could have been a dour history lesson. Instead it engages with the present, raising some pungent questions about the kind of democracy we have in Britain today.' Evening Standard

ACT ONE

Scene One

Hyde Park. Night. It is very cold. The Parliamentary Army is encamped. Three TROOPERS – pikemen from the fens, pikes stacked – huddle before a fire. The FIRST TROOPER is in his teens, the other two are veterans.

FIRST TROOPER. That fire needs a perk-up.

SECOND TROOPER. Best save the wood we have.

FIRST TROOPER. Huh.

They pull their clothing tighter about them then stare at the fire for a while.

There’s that fence. Other side of Park Lane.

SECOND TROOPER. No foraging.

FIRST TROOPER. Half of it’s gone anyway.

SECOND TROOPER. No foraging.

THIRD TROOPER. What’d be the harm?

SECOND TROOPER. You know the ordinance.

THIRD TROOPER. Ah well, an Army ordinance, well, that’s that, there we be. (A pause.) Well. (A pause.) There.

They stare at the fire for a while.

FIRST TROOPER. Rest of that fence’ll be gone by dawn.

THIRD TROOPER. Boy, understand. You cannot steal wood because you are a saint.

FIRST TROOPER. Am I?

THIRD TROOPER. You are! We are all modern saints because we are God’s army, fighting for a new Jerusalem.

SECOND TROOPER. New Jerusalem.

THIRD TROOPER. So look around this camp, boy, what do you see? Half-starved soldiers slumped over tiny fires? No no! Men all but at the end of their tether? Wondering why the cause for Parliament and Commonwealth is still not yet won, and after six years of fights and wreckage up and down poor old England? No no no! You see a host of saints! Shining with God’s purpose! Unpaid, near to mutiny, but saints!

FIRST TROOPER. And bloody freezing.

SECOND TROOPER. Hey!

THIRD TROOPER. No swearing.

SECOND TROOPER. Army ordinance.

FIRST TROOPER. Why, cos we’re saints?

THIRD TROOPER. I do believe the boy is coming to a godly understanding.

The SECOND and THIRD TROOPERS laugh.

JOHN LILBURNE enters. He keeps to the shadows. He is about to approach the TROOPERS but withdraws into shadow when he sees GENERAL IRETON enter, hastening along, head down, avoiding the men.

LILBURNE. Henry.

IRETON whirls round, hand on his sword.

IRETON. John? What are you doing here?

LILBURNE. Come to be with freeborn men.

IRETON. John, go. Before the pickets see you.

LILBURNE. Why is the Army in Hyde Park?

IRETON. None of this concerns you.

LILBURNE. Parliament’s Army, moving on the capital? That concerns every freeborn man.

IRETON. If you go agitating amongst the men tonight, so help me God, despite all that’s been between us, I’ll have the pickets take you to the Fleet in irons.

LILBURNE. ‘All that’s been between us’, Henry? What’s that? Brothers in arms against the King’s Army at Marston Moor, walking side by side up to death? That the ‘that’ you mean?

IRETON. Times change.

LILBURNE. Do they?

IRETON. I appeal to you, John.

A pause.

LILBURNE. Have the Commons voted yet?

IRETON. I cannot...

LILBURNE. Just tell me, man! Have they voted for the King’s trial?

IRETON. The last dispatcher from Westminster said they are still debating.

LILBURNE. And if the vote goes against the will of the Army Council?

IRETON. We wait upon the hand of the Lord.

LILBURNE. What does Oliver say?

IRETON stares at him.

I want to see him.

IRETON. He’s not here.

LILBURNE is taken aback.

LILBURNE. Not here?

IRETON. John, so help me, if you do not leave this place, I will arrest you! Now!

LILBURNE (steps back). May God stay your hand tonight, General Ireton.

IRETON. No, may He move it.

LILBURNE backs away into the dark. IRETON exits. The TROOPERS stare at the fire for a while.

SECOND TROOPER. Saw Old Ironsides catch a man foraging. Before the fight at Marston Moor. Eggs, six eggs, that’s all, stolen from some farm. Dear Lord, what he did to that man.

FIRST TROOPER. What, he hit him?

SECOND TROOPER. Far, far worse. He used words. It were like he tore out that thief’s soul and threw it down. I swear I saw his soul die there before us, on the grass. Then Ol’ Ironsides told him to go and never return to the Army.

THIRD TROOPER. And where is he now?

SECOND TROOPER. Who knows? Some corner of Hell, eating eggs for eternity?

The FIRST TROOPER laughs.

THIRD TROOPER. I mean Old Ironsides. Where is our Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell?

Unease.

FIRST TROOPER. I heard say he’s still in the north.

THIRD TROOPER. The fighting in the north’s all but done.

SECOND TROOPER. He’ll be here with us.

THIRD TROOPER. Tell you what I think...

SECOND TROOPER. I don’t care to know what you think!

THIRD TROOPER. I think...

WILLIAM LENTHALL crosses the stage quickly, protecting his head against the rain.

FIRST TROOPER (interrupting the THIRD TROOPER). Who’s that?

SECOND TROOPER. I know him, he was good to me once. Speaker Lenthall. Mr Speaker, God be with you!

LENTHALL. And with you, trooper! (Stops.) Is it Michael Savage?

SECOND TROOPER. Yes, Mr Speaker.

LENTHALL. Glad to see you in health, Michael.

THIRD TROOPER. Master Lenthall, have the Commons voted?

LENTHALL. They have.

THIRD TROOPER. And how?

LENTHALL. Against the motion.

The TROOPERS are lost.

SECOND TROOPER. Against?

LENTHALL. Against bringing the King to trial.

SECOND TROOPER. But how can that be?

THIRD TROOPER. By what number of votes?

LENTHALL. Eighty-three for the King to be tried. One hundred and twenty-nine against.

SECOND TROOPER. How can that be?

THIRD TROOPER. It’s the Presbyterians...

SECOND TROOPER. In the name of God and all His Saints, how can that be!?

LENTHALL. Free men in Parliament freely cast their votes.

THIRD TROOPER. The Presbyterians.

LENTHALL. A free vote in a free Parliament, is that not what we’ve fought for all these years?

SECOND TROOPER. Aye, but not in a Parliament of fanatics!

LENTHALL (turns on him). Respect the Commons, Michael!

SECOND TROOPER. I’ll respect the House of Commons but not the men in it!

THIRD TROOPER. The Presbyterians will bring back the King’s tyranny!

LENTHALL. Trooper, we must pray for a settlement in these matters.

THIRD TROOPER. There’s only one settlement for Charles Stuart. (Gesture across his throat.)

LENTHALL. Hush now. That’s treason.

THIRD TROOPER. The treason’s all with Charles Stuart! At war with the people of England these past six years!

LENTHALL. MPs shouting at me, now it’s soldiers, it’s the night for it!

He exits.

THIRD TROOPER. Dear God above, help us, we’re going in.

SECOND TROOPER. No.

THIRD TROOPER. The Army Council moved us d...