The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 31

that he gladly accepted the offer of Humphrey's horse from the mill; nor did the appearance of the monarch disgrace that of the steed. He wore a coat and breeches of coa.r.s.e green cloth, both so threadbare that in many places they appeared white, and the latter "so long that they came down to the garter;" his doublet was of leather, old and soiled; his shoes were heavy and slashed for the ease of his feet; his stockings of green yarn had been much worn, were darned at the knees, and without feet; and an old grey steeple-crowned hat, without band or lining, with a crooked thorn stick, completed the royal habiliments. The six brothers attended him with arms; two kept in advance, two followed behind, and one walked on each side. He had not gone far before he complained to Humphrey of the heavy jolting pace of the horse. "My liege," replied the miller, "you do not recollect that he carries the weight of three kingdoms on his back."

At Moseley, cheered by the company of Wilmot, and the attention of Whitgrave and his chaplain, Mr. Hudlestone,[1] he recovered his spirits, fought the battle of Worcester over again, and declared that, if he could find a few thousand men who had the courage to stand by him, he would not hesitate to meet his enemies a second time in the field. A new plan of escape was now submitted to his approbation. The daughter of Colonel Lane, of Bentley, had obtained from the governor of Stafford a pa.s.s to visit Mrs.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Whitgrave had served as lieutenant, Hudlestone as gentleman volunteer in the armies of Charles I. The latter was of the family at Hutton John, in c.u.mberland. Leaving the service, he took orders, and was at this time a secular priest, living with Mr. Whitgrave. He afterwards became a Benedictine monk, and was appointed one of the queen's chaplains.]

Norton, a relation near Bristol. Charles consented to a.s.sume the character of her servant, and Wilmot departed on the following night to make arrangements for his reception. In the mean time, to guard against a surprise, Hudlestone constantly attended the king; Whitgrave occasionally left the house to observe what pa.s.sed in the street; and Sir John Preston, and two other boys, the pupils of Hudlestone, were stationed as sentinels at the garret windows.[1] But the danger of discovery increased every hour.

The confession of a cornet, who had accompanied him, and was afterwards made prisoner, divulged the fact that Charles had been left at Whiteladies; and the hope of reward stimulated the parliamentary officers to new and more active exertions. The house of Boscobel, on the day after the king's departure,[a] was successively visited by two parties of the enemy; the next morning a second and more rigorous search was made at Whiteladies; and in the afternoon the arrival of a troop of horse alarmed the inhabitants of Moseley. As Charles, Whitgrave, and Hudlestone were standing near a window, they observed a neighbour run hastily into the house, and in an instant heard the shout of "Soldiers, soldiers!" from the foot of the staircase.

The king was immediately shut up in the secret place; all the other doors were thrown open; and Whitgrave descending, met the troopers in front of his house. They seized him as a fugitive Cavalier from Worcester; but he convinced them by the testimony of his neighbours, that for several weeks he had not quitted Moseley, and with much difficulty prevailed on them to depart without searching the house.

[Footnote 1: Though ignorant of the quality of the stranger, the boys amused the king by calling themselves his life-guard.--Boscobel, 78.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 9.]

That night[a] Charles proceeded to Bentley. It took but little time to transform the woodcutter into a domestic servant, and to exchange his dress of green jump for a more decent suit of grey cloth. He departed on horseback with his supposed mistress behind him, accompanied by her cousin, Mr. La.s.sells; and, after a journey of three days, reached[b] Abbotsleigh, Mr. Norton's house, without interruption or danger. Wilmot stopped at Sir John Winter's, a place in the neighbourhood. On the road, he had occasionally joined the royal party, as it were by accident; more generally he preceded or followed them at a short distance. He rode with a hawk on his fist, and dogs by his side; and the boldness of his manner as effectually screened him from discovery as the most skilful disguise.

The king, on his arrival,[c] was indulged with a separate chamber, under pretense of indisposition; but the next morning he found himself in the company of two persons, of whom one had been a private in his regiment of guards at Worcester, the other a servant in the palace at Richmond, when Charles lived there several years before. The first did not recognise him, though he pretended to give a description of his person; the other, the moment the king uncovered, recollected the features of the prince, and communicated his suspicions to La.s.sells. Charles, with great judgment, sent for him, discovered himself to him as an old acquaintance, and required his a.s.sistance. The man (he was butler to the family) felt himself honoured by the royal confidence, and endeavoured to repay it by his services. He removed to a distance from the king two individuals in the house of known republican principles; he inquired, though without success, for a

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 11.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Sept. 14.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Sept. 15.]

s.h.i.+p at Bristol to carry him to France or Spain; and he introduced Lord Wilmot to his chamber at the hour of midnight. There they sat in council, and resolved[a] that the king should remove the next day to the house of Colonel Windham, a Cavalier whom he knew, at Trent, near Sherburn; that a messenger should be despatched to prepare the family for his arrival; and that to account for the sudden departure of Miss Lane, a counterfeit letter should be delivered to her, stating that her father was lying at the point of death. The plan succeeded; she was suffered[b] to depart, and in two days the prince reached[c] his destination. The following morning[d] Miss Lane took her leave, and hastened back with La.s.sells to Bentley.[1]

In his retirement at Trent, Charles began to indulge the hope of a speedy liberation from danger. A s.h.i.+p was hired at Lyme to convey a n.o.bleman and his servant (Wilmot and the king) to the coast of France; the hour and the place of embarkation were fixed; and a widow, who kept a small inn at Charmouth, consented to furnish a temporary asylum to a gentleman in disguise, and a young female who had just escaped from the custody of a harsh and unfeeling guardian. The next evening[e] Charles appeared in a servant's dress, with Juliana Coningsby riding behind him, and accompanied by Wilmot and Windham. The hostess received the supposed lovers with a hearty welcome; but their patience was soon put to the severest trial; the night[f] pa.s.sed away, no boat entered the creek, no s.h.i.+p could be descried in the offing; and the disappointment gave birth to a thousand jealousies

[Footnote 1: This lady received a reward of one thousand pounds for her services, by order of the two houses.--C. Journals, 1660, December 19, 21.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 17.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Sept. 18.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Sept. 19.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. Sept. 20.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1651. Sept. 23.]

[Sidenote f: A.D. 1651. Sept. 24.]

and apprehensions. At dawn of day the whole party separated; Wilmot, with a servant, going to Lyme to inquire after the master of the vessel; Charles, with his companions, proceeding to Bridport to wait the return of Wilmot.

In Bridport he found fifteen hundred soldiers preparing to embark on an expedition against Jersey; but, unwilling to create a real, by seeking to eschew an imaginary, danger, he boldly pushed forward to the inn, and led the horses through the crowd with a rudeness which provoked complaint. But a new danger awaited him at the stable. The hostler challenged him as an old acquaintance, pretending to have known him in the service of Mr.

Potter, at Exeter. The fact was that, during the civil war, Charles had lodged at that gentleman's house. He turned aside to conceal his alarm; but had sufficient presence of mind to avail himself of the partial mistake of the hostler, and to reply, "True, I once lived a servant with Mr. Potter; but as I have no leisure now, we will renew our acquaintance on my return to London over a pot of beer."

After dinner, the royal party joined Wilmot out of the town. The master of the s.h.i.+p had been detained at home by the fears and remonstrances of his wife, and no promises could induce him to renew his engagement. Confounded and dispirited, Charles retraced his steps to Trent; new plans were followed by new disappointments; a second s.h.i.+p, provided by Colonel Philips at Southampton, was seized[a] for the transportation of troops to Jersey; and mysterious rumours in the neighbourhood rendered[b] unsafe the king's continuance at Colonel Windham's.[1] At Heale, the residence

[Footnote 1: A reward of one thousand pounds was afterwards given to Windham.--C. Journals, Dec. 17, 1660.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 25.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 8.]

of the widow Hyde, near Salisbury, he found a more secure retreat in a hiding-place for five days, during which Colonel Gunter, through the agency of Mansel, a loyal merchant, engaged[a] a collier, lying at New Sh.o.r.eham.

Charles hastened[b] through Hambleton to Brighton, where he sat down to supper with Philips, Gunter, Mansel, and Tattershall the master of the vessel. At table, Tattershall kept his eyes fixed on the king; after supper, he called Mansel aside and complained of fraud. The person in grey was the king; he knew him well, having been detained by him in the river, when, as prince of Wales, he commanded the royal fleet in 1648. This information was speedily communicated to Charles, who took no notice of it to Tattershall; but, to make sure of his man, contrived to keep the party drinking and smoking round the table during the rest of the night.

Before his departure, while he was standing alone in a room, the landlord entered, and, going behind him, kissed his hand, which rested on the back of a chair, saying at the same time, "I have no doubt that, if I live, I shall be a lord, and my wife a lady." Charles laughed, to show that he understood his meaning, and joined the company in the other apartment. At four in the morning they all proceeded[c] to Sh.o.r.eham; on the beach his other attendants took their leave, Wilmot accompanied him into the bark.

There Tattershall, falling on his knee, solemnly a.s.sured him, that whatever might be the consequence, he would put him safely on the coast of France.

The s.h.i.+p floated with the tide, and stood with easy sail towards the Isle of Wight, as if she were on her way to Deal, to which port she was bound.

But at five in the afternoon, Charles, as he had previously concerted with Tattershall,

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 14.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 15.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Oct. 16.]

addressed the crew. He told them that he and his companion were merchants in distress, flying from their creditors; desired them to join him in requesting the master to run for the French coast; and, as a further argument, gave them twenty s.h.i.+llings to drink. Tattershall made many objections; but, at last, with apparent reluctance, took the helm, and steered across the Channel. At daybreak[a] they saw before them the small town of Fecamp, at the distance of two miles; but the tide ebbing, they cast anchor, and soon afterwards descried to leeward a suspicious sail, which, by her manner of working, the king feared, and the master believed, to be a privateer from Ostend. She afterwards proved to be a French hoy; but Charles waited not to ascertain the fact; the boat was instantly lowered, and the two adventurers were rowed safely into the harbour.[1]

The king's deliverance was a subject of joy to the nations of Europe, among whom the horror excited by the death of the father had given popularity to the exertions of the son. In his expedition into England they had followed him with wishes for his success;

[Footnote 1: For the history of the king's escape, see Blount's Boscobel, with Claustrum Regale reseratum; the Whitgrave ma.n.u.script, printed in the Retrospective Review, xiv. 26. Father Hudleston's Relation; the True Narrative and Relation in the Harleian Miscellany, iv. 441, an account of his majesty's escape from Worcester, dictated to Mr. Pepys by the king himself, and the narrative given by Bates in the second part of his Elenchus. In addition to these, we have a narrative by Clarendon, who professes to have derived his information from Charles and the other actors in the transaction, and a.s.serts that "it is exactly true; that there is nothing in it, the verity whereof can justly be suspected" (Car. Hist. iii.

427, 428); yet, whoever will compare it with the other accounts will see that much of great interest has been omitted, and much so disfigured as to bear little resemblance to the truth. It must be that the historian, writing in banishment, and at a great distance of time, trusted to his imagination to supply the defect of his memory.--See note (E). See also Gunter's narrative in Cary, ii. 430.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 17.]

after his defeat at Worcester they were agitated with apprehensions for his safety. He had now eluded the hunters of his life; he appeared before them with fresh claims on their sympathy, from the spirit which he had displayed in the field, and the address with which he had extricated himself from danger. His adventures were listened to with interest; and his conduct was made the theme of general praise. That he should be the heir to the British crowns, was the mere accident of birth; that he was worthy to wear them, he owed to the resources and energies of his own mind. In a few months, however, the delusion vanished. Charles had borne the blossoms of promise; they were blasted under the withering influence of pleasure and dissipation.

But from the fugitive prince we must now turn back to the victorious general who proceeded from the field of battle in triumph to London. The parliament seemed at a loss to express its grat.i.tude to the man to whose splendid services the commonwealth owed its preservation. At Ailesbury Cromwell was met by a deputation of the two commissioners of the great seal, the lord chief justice, and Sir Gilbert Pickering; to each of whom, in token of his satisfaction, he made a present of a horse and of two Scotsmen selected from his prisoners. At Acton he was received by the speaker and the lord president, attended by members of parliament and of the council, and by the lord mayor with the aldermen and sheriffs; and heard from the recorder, in an address of congratulation, that he was destined "to bind kings in chains, and their n.o.bles in fetters of iron."

He entered[a] the capital in the state carriage, was greeted with the acclamations of the people as the procession pa.s.sed through the city, and

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 12.]

repaired to the palace of Hampton Court, where apartments had been fitted up for him and his family at the public expense. In parliament it was proposed that the 3rd of September should be kept a holiday for ever in memory of his victory; a day was appointed for a general thanksgiving; and in addition to a former grant of lands to the amount of two thousand five hundred pounds per annum, other lands of the value of four thousand pounds were settled on him in proof of the national grat.i.tude. Cromwell received these honours with an air of profound humility. He was aware of the necessity of covering the workings of ambition within his breast with the veil of exterior self-abas.e.m.e.nt; and therefore professed to take no merit to himself, and to see nothing in what he had done, but the hand of the Almighty, fighting in behalf of his faithful servants.[1]

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 509. Ludlow, i. 372. Heath, 301. Journals, Sept.

6, 9, 11, 19. "Next day, 13th, the common prisoners were brought through Westminster to Tuthill fields--a sadder spectacle was never seen except the miserable place of their defeat--and there _sold_ to several merchants, and sent to the Barbadoes."--Heath, 301. Fifteen hundred were granted as slaves to the Guinea merchants, and transported to the Gold Coast in Africa.--Parl. Hist. iii. 1374.]

CHAPTER V.

Vigilance Of The Government--Subjugation Of Ireland--Of Scotland--Negotiation With Portugal--With Spain--With The United Provinces--Naval War--Ambition Of Cromwell--Expulsion Of Parliament--Character Of Its Leading Members--Some Of Its Enactments.

In the preceding chapter we have followed the fortunes of Charles Stuart, from his landing in Scotland to his defeat at Worcester and his escape to the continent; we may now look back and direct our attention to some of the more important events which occurred during the same period, in England and Ireland.

1. The reader is aware that the form of government established in England was an oligarchy. A few individuals, under the cover of a nominal parliament, ruled the kingdom with the power of the sword. Could the sense of the nation have been collected, there cannot be a doubt that the old royalists of the Cavalier, and the new royalists of the Presbyterian party, would have formed a decided majority; but they were awed into silence and submission by the presence of a standing army of forty-five thousand men; and the maxim that "power gives right" was held out as a sufficient reason why they should swear fidelity to the commonwealth.[1] This numerous army,

[Footnote 1: See Marchamont Nedham's "Case of the Commonwealth Stated."

4to. London, 1650.]

the real source of their security, proved, however, a cause of constant solicitude to the leaders. The pay of the officers and men was always in arrear; the debentures which they received could be seldom exchanged for money without a loss of fifty, sixty, or seventy per cent.; and the plea of necessity was accepted as an excuse for the illegal claim of free quarters which they frequently exercised. To supply their wants, recourse was therefore had to additional taxation, with occasional grants from the excise, and large sales of forfeited property;[1] and, to appease the discontent of the people, promises were repeatedly made, that a considerable portion of the armed force should be disbanded, and the practice of free quarter be abolished. But of these promises, the first proved a mere delusion; for, though some partial reductions were made, on the whole the amount of the army continued to increase; the second was fulfilled; but in return, the burthen of taxation was augmented; for the monthly a.s.sessment on the counties gradually swelled from sixty to ninety, to one hundred and twenty, and in conclusion, to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds.[2]

Another subject of disquietude sprung out of those principles of liberty which, even after the suppression of the late mutiny, were secretly cherished and occasionally avowed, by the soldiery. Many, indeed, confided in the patriotism, and submitted to the judgment, of their officers; but there were also many who condemned the existing government as a desertion of the