Campion was amused by this sudden reversion of Lady Margaret’s normally belligerent partisanship. “Then why did you choose the King’s side?”

“Me, dear? None of my family has ever been a rebel, and I do not intend to be the first.” They were back in the long gallery and Lady Margaret stared ruefully at a book in a frame that was supposed to help her sew its pages together. She was not having great success with bookbinding. “Besides, the King is the King, even if he is a fool. It’s not just that.” She frowned. “Ever since this rebellion started horrible things have been crawling out from every dark corner. I do not wish to be ruled by Baptists, Anabaptists, or anyone else! They’ll demand I take a bath and call it religion!” She shook her head. “In truth, dear, I wish this war had never come. If Queen Elizabeth had been sensible and bred a son, we wouldn’t have these wretched Scots on our throne. We have to have a King, but why he has to be Scottish is beyond me.” She picked up her unfired musketoon and looked at it wistfully. “Perhaps I can shoot a rabbit.”

It was all so complicated. Some of the nobles had sided with Parliament, while some of the Commons had sided with the King. The King was Scottish, yet the Scottish nation, that acknowledged Charles as their King just as he was King of England, had sent an army against their monarch. Some said the war was fought against the King’s illegal taxation, others said it was fought to stop Parliament taking power that was properly the King’s, while many believed it to be truly a war about what kind of religion should be imposed on England. Neighbor fought neighbor, father fought son, and soldiers captured in battle cheerfully changed sides to avoid imprisonment.

Colonel Washington, with whom Campion spoke that evening and who had fought in the religious wars of northern Europe, was sanguine about the fighting. “It’s not a bad war, Miss Campion. There’s no real nastiness.”

“Nastiness?” Campion asked.

He looked sideways at her, stroking his small moustache. “There’s not a lot of hatred in it. Oh, we’re fighting, and men are dying, but we’re not seeing what we saw in Germany.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen them slaughter whole towns. Not pretty, not pretty!” He stared into his tankard of ale. “Mind you, if it goes on too long then it could turn very bloody. Very bloody indeed.” He swallowed his ale. “I’m to bed, my dear, and I suppose you’re not going to make an old man happy tonight?”

She laughed. It was becoming an old, familiar joke. Colonel Washington, in some ways, had replaced Sir George in the life of the castle.

Sir George Lazender was at Oxford where the King had summoned his Parliament. Its members, meeting in the hall of Christ Church, were all members of the old Parliament who had stayed loyal to the King, and Sir George had gone even though he knew that this Oxford “Parliament” had no power and was merely a device to give the King’s decrees an appearance of legality. He had gone too, Lady Margaret suspected, because he wanted to haunt the libraries of the university, and because he missed the political gossip denied him by his banishment from Westminster.