Butchers from the Shambles; curriers and brewers from near Cripplegate; woodmongers and plasterers from Thames Street; cutlers and tallow-chanders from Old Fish Street; cordwainers and salters from Watling Street;

Leathersellers, fletchers, and tailors from near Bishopsgate;

Saddlers, mercers , embroiderers, goldsmiths, haberdashers from the tangle of streets and alleys around Cheapside;

Weavers and girdlers and masons, armourers and drapers from below Moorgate;

Painters and skinners from the Ropery, Clothworkers from Fenchurch street. Bricklayers from Aldgate. Opticians from Ludgate, booksellers from St Paul’s Churchyard, signmakers from Shoe Lane, birdsellers from Seven Dials, coachmakers from Long Acre, statuaries from Euston Road, Clothiers from Tottenham Court, the dentists of St Martin’s Lane;

Interpreters of dreams, alchemists, astrologers from St Giles in the Fields; the poulterers of St George’s Parish, lacemen from St Martin’s;

The Lollards, Hussites, Anabaptists, Baptists, Libertines, and Adamites of Coleman Street;
Forth from their homes, their stores, their workshops: through the alleys, and into the streets: cohering not into an undifferentiated mass, but an assembly of the free English of London; not one voice, but ten thousand.

"Outra-a-a-age at Brentford! Brentford hor-r-r-r-or, hor-r-r-r-ror at Brentwood! Drunkards, they’re German! Cavaliers, rakehells, the King’s men! What they did in Brentwood, what they’ll do in London! Here, here, here! Take it and read!” So shouted the apprentices, the stageless actors, the lecturers and preachers Sydney and Hewitt posted at Ludgate, Newgate, along Fleet Street, Holborn, the Strand, Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, each with armfuls of Anglia Rediviva, free to every passerby.

Women joined their husbands, sons mothers, daughters fathers, and together, with shovels and rakes, with clubs and knives, marched west, west, west, to Turnham Green, Acton Green, Chiswick Common at the western edge to the great city, where the Trained-Bands commanded by Sir Philip Skippon, the new levies raised by the Earl of Warwick, stood to meet Rupert's horse and the foot of Charles I.

Sydney, mounted, rode alongside his fellow Londoners, cut through side-streets where he could. Where Cowcross ran into Turnmill he ran into Hewitt. Three lawyers, with their wives, accompanied Hewitt. The wives had packed a lunch. Hewitt and the lawyers were sharing a bottle of perry.

“Why hello cuz!” Hewitt said. “A grand day, is it not? Look at this!”

He handed Sydney a piece of paper. Sydney read: “Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms/whose chance on these defenseless does may sease/If ever deed of honor did thee please/Guard them, and him within protect from harms/He can requite thee, for he knows the charms/that call Fame on such gentle acts as these/and he can spread thy name o’er lands and seas/Whatever clime the suns bright circle warms.”

Sydney looked up. “God’s wounds. Not from your pen – this is real poetry.”

Hewitt laughed. “Of course not. Nor you. Found it on a door over on Aldersgate. I imagine the author’s skulking in the cellar.”

“Or maybe not – strikes me he’s a grand sense of humor, whoever he is. Let’s make for High Holborn, we can get a gallop there. I want to find Colonel Hampden.”

They found Colonel Hampden at the head of two regiments of Greencoats, just north of Turnham Green. A troop of dragoons in the distance, where the green fields met a sky gray with stormclouds, watching, waiting for signs of Rupert and the King.

"Good afternoon, Syd," Hampden said. Bright eyes in a pale, worn face. "The General sent us to flank the Prince, then called us back. Not sure why. So here we are." He took a breath -- exhausted. "I understand Ramsay's on the south side of the Thames. Didn't think the King had men in that direction. Cromwell went to have a look. So you brought this on, eh? Rallying the good people of London with your newssheet?"
"They’ve rallied of themselves, against the King," Sydney said. He was ferociously elated, fiercely proud of his city, his country. "Against the distempers he’d brought on this Kingdom. We just presented the facts, and these people applied their own good sense. This is no rabble, paupers nor monopolists nor grandees. This is the wealth of the England, Colonel -- and they are here, we are here; and the King, the King, Colonel -- the King and Rupert, are over there."

The crack of muskets, a cannon boomed. The dragoons scurried. The lawyers looked at one another, worried. One of the wives shrieked. The Greencoats held firm, but to their left the first rank of one of the Warwick levies shivered, stepped back.

"And they mean to come here," Hampden said.

The dragoons regrouped and with a shout charged over the horizon.

"They may come, sir,” Sydney said. “But they won’t pass.”

“No,” Hampden said. “No, I think not.”

Another troop of dragoons advanced, followed by a Trained-Band regiment. Musket-fire, the cannon again. The wife shrieked again, the line of the Warwick levy wavered. But the shooting seemed half-hearted, lazy; the frequency of fire diminished disappeared into the horizon. Sydney waited for the distant thunder of pike on armor, of musket on helmet, sword into flesh.

But it didn’t come – and soon the dragoons appeared, waving their hats, waving their swords. Sydney could hear the words on the cold breeze: They're falling back, they're falling back, they're falling back.

“Christ help us,” the tremulous wife said. “We’re going to die.”

“No, silly,” Hewitt said. “The King’s falling back, Rupert and his bullies.”

They’re falling back. Retreat, retreat. The words were taken up, passed along the line, through the regiments. A great cheer began at the far left of the great crowd behind Sydney. The great cloud of Londoners, witnesses, Englishmen – a from twenty thousand voices, a great cheer.

Sydney cheered. He shook Hewitt’s hand, shook Colonel Hampden’s. A smile on Hampden’s grave, handsome face. Sydney threw his hat into the air and whooped.

A cheer began at the far end of the great crowd behing Sydney, the great cloud of Londoners, witnesses, Englishmen: a great roar of twenty thousand voices.
"The victory is God’s alone.”

Sydney wheeled his horse. It was Cromwell, the visor of his helmet raised, and Sydney’s hat in his gloved hand. Behind him, Edmund: grim, glowering.

“They’re retreating,” Sydney said. “They are running.”

“Indeed,” Cromwell said. “Ten thousand mercenaries, burdened with plunder, heads bursting with the pain of last night’s rampage. Rupert's no fool. He's not going to charge into twelve thousand and eight thousand civilians."
"The day is ours,” Hampden said. “Let’s rejoice in it, Oliver. No great victory, maybe, but we’ll take it, with thanks. London will take it.”

"And I as well," Cromwell said. "London stood firm today, stood like Englishmen. Stood fast to defend their lives and homes. But will they march forward to the destroy the threat, before it’s gathered, before the drums and bugles, before there are fires in the sky? Will they charge, close and fight? And not just one day, but as many days as needed defeat this Prince and this King? Maybe not. But it’s those we need for this service. It’s what I told you after Edgehill. We need the men that know what they fight for, and love what they know.”

"Well, Captain,” Hampden said with a smile. “There’s twenty thousand, over behind you. Have your sergeant beat the drum.”

"Perhaps," Cromwell said. "But better, I think, in the East." He looked at Sydney. "Come visit, nephew. Or send an apprentice. A godly one, mind you. "

“Perhaps I will, at that,” Sydney said.

Cromwell winked. Edmund grimaced. Cromwell saluted Hampden. He spurred and galloped toward London as the cheers and the prayers of the Trained-Bands and the Greencoats and the Warwick levies and the Londoners rose into the darkening sky of England.