The Road to Oxford

Draft

“So, are we going to fight the rebels soon?” Will’s voice was a bit too enthusiastic.

Snowden sighed, “At some point I would say so. But why are you so eager to kill your own countrymen?” Snowden sat back annoyed.  “If I had my wish, this argument between the King and Parliament would be settled in a more civilized manner and we could all go back to our homes.”

“I’ve never shot a gun till just recently. They said I was good at it,” He replied, meekly.

“Do you realize that when you shoot your gun that people will be trying to kill you too?” Holmes added. “Boy, it is a frightful thing to watch a man die. Until you’ve seen the fear in their eyes and watched as their soul leaves their body, you wouldn’t be so eager to inflict that on any man. They say it’s a noble death if you die in battle, but I’ve never seen any man die nobly.”

Corporal Garrett closed his mouth and said no more, overly concentrating on eating his ration of cheese. Snowden didn’t add anything else to the discussion. He thought that it was best to just leave it where it ended. The horrible truth was that Englishmen were poised to fight each other and most of Snowden’s men had lived their lives in relative peace.  None of them had seen the horrors of war first hand; apart from Holmes. All over the country, people were choosing sides, fuelled by their own misguided idealisms, with religious zealots whipping everyone into a frenzy.  Neighbour eyed neighbour with suspicion if they dared to practice the wrong kind of Christianity or read out of the wrong prayer book. Then there was the matter of the King that filtered into the entire mess. He was inflexible, demanding and over privileged. He hadn’t realized that to be King was to serve. Snowden leaned back against a tree and closed his weary eyes.

“Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are - just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself.”

― Thomas More, Utopia