CHAPTER VII
THE ROYAL OAK OF BOSCOBEL.
It was in June, 1650, about eighteen months after the decapitation of his father, that Charles was ready to set out on his expedition to attempt the recovery of his rights to the English throne. He was but twenty years of age. He took with him no army, no supplies, no resources. He had a small number of attendants and followers, personally interested themselves in his success, and animated also, probably, by some degree of disinterested attachment to him. It was, however, on the whole, a desperate enterprise. Queen Henrietta, in her retirement at the Louvre, felt very anxious about the result of it. Charles himself, too, notwithstanding his own buoyant and sanguine temperament, and the natural confidence and hope pertaining to his years, must have felt many forebodings. But his condition on the Continent was getting every month more and more destitute and forlorn. He was a mere guest wherever he went, and destitute of means as he was, he found himself continually sinking in public consideration. Money as well as rank is very essentially necessary to make a relative a welcome guest, for any long time, in aristocratic circles. Charles concluded, therefore, that, all things considered, it was best for him to make a desperate effort to recover his kingdoms.
His kingdoms were three, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Ireland was a conquered kingdom, Scotland, like England, had descended to him from his ancestors; for his grandfather, James VI., was king of Scotland, and being on his mothers side a descendant of an English king, he was, of course, one of the heirs of the English crown; and on the failure of the other heirs, he succeeded to that crown, retaining still his own. Thus both kingdoms descended to Charles.
It was only the English kingdom that had really rebelled against, and put to death King Charles's father. There had been a great deal of difficulty in Scotland, it is true, and the republican spirit had spread quite extensively in that country. Still, affairs had not proceeded to such extremities there. The Scotch had, in some degree, joined with the English in resisting Charles the First, but it was not their wish to throw off the royal authority altogether. They abhorred episcopacy in the Church, but were well enough contented with monarchy in the state. Accordingly, soon after the death of the father, they had opened negotiations with the son, and had manifested their willingness to acknowledge him as their king, on certain conditions which they undertook to prescribe to him. It is very hard for a king to hold his scepter on conditions prescribed by his people. Charles tried every possible means to avoid submitting to this necessity. He found, however, that the only possible avenue of access to England was by first getting some sort of possession of Scotland; and so, signifying his willingness to comply with the Scotch demands, he set sail from Holland with his court, moved north ward with his little squadron over the waters of the German Ocean, and at length made port In the Frith of Cromarty, in the north of Scotland.
The Scotch government, having but little faith in the royal word of such a youth as Charles would not allow him to land until he had formally signed their covenant, by which he bound himself to the conditions which they had thought it necessary to impose. He then landed. But he found his situation very far from such as comported with his ideas of royal authority and state. Charles was a gay, dissipated, reckless young man. The men whom he had to deal with were stern, sedate, and rigid religionists. They were scandalized at the looseness and irregularity of his character and manners. He was vexed and tormented by what he considered their ascetic bigotry, by the restraints which they were disposed to put upon his conduct, and the limits with which they insisted on bounding his authority. Long negotiations and debates ensued, each party becoming more and more irritated against the other. At last, on one occasion, Charles lost his patience entirely, and made his escape into the mountains, in hopes to raise an army there among the clans of wild Highlanders, who, accustomed from infancy to the most implicit obedience to their chieftains, are always very loyal to their king. The Scotch nobles, however, not wishing to drive him to extremities, sent for him to come back, and both parties becoming after this somewhat more considerate and accommodating, they at length came to an agreement, and proceeding together to Scone, a village some miles north of Edinburgh, they crowned Charles King of Scotland in a venerable abbey there, the ancient place of coronation for all the monarchs of the Scottish line.
In the mean time, Cromwell, who was at the head of the republican government of England, knowing very well that Charles's plan would be to march into England as soon as he could mature his arrangements for such an enterprise, determined to anticipate this design by declaring war himself against Scotland, and marching an army there.
Charles felt comparatively little interest in what became of Scotland. His aim was England. He knew, or supposed that there was a very large portion of the English people who secretly favored his cause, and he believed that if he could once cross the frontier, even with a small army, these his secret friends would all rise at once and flock to his standard. Still he attempted for a time to resist Cromwell in Scotland, but without success. Cromwell penetrated to the heart of the country, and actually passed the army of Charles. In these circumstances, Charles resolved to leave Scotland to its fate, and boldly to cross the English frontier, to see what he could do by raising his standard in his southern kingdom. The army acceded to this plan with acclamations. The king accordingly put his forces in motion, crossed the frontier, issued his manifestoes, and sent around couriers and heralds, announcing to the whole population that their king had come, and summoning all his subjects to arm themselves and hasten to his aid. This was in the summer of 1651, the year after his landing in Scotland.
It certainly was a very bold and almost desperate measure, and the reader, whether Monarchist or Republican, can hardly help wishing the young adventurer success. The romantic enterprise was, however, destined to fail. The people of England were not yet prepared to return to royalty. Some few of the ancient noble families and country gentlemen adhered to the king's cause, but they came in to join his ranks very slowly. Those who were in favor of the king were called Cavaliers. The other party were called Roundheads. Queen Henrietta Maria had given them the name, on account of their manner of wearing their hair, cut short and close to their heads all around, while the gay Cavaliers cultivated their locks, which hung in long curls down upon their shoulders. The Cavaliers, it turned out, were few, while the Roundheads filled the land.
It was, however, impossible for Charles to retreat, since Cromwell was behind him; for Cromwell, as soon as he found that his enemy had actually gone into England, paused only long enough to recover from his surprise, and then made all haste to follow him. The two armies thus moved down through the very heart of England, carrying every where, as they went, universal terror, confusion, and dismay. The whole country was thrown into extreme excitement. Every body was called upon to take sides, and thousands were perplexed and undecided which side to take. Families were divided, brothers separated, fathers and sons were ready to fight each other in their insane zeal, the latter for the Parliament, the former for the king. The whole country was filled with rumors, messengers, parties of soldiers going to and fro, and troops of horsemen, with robberies, plunderings, murders, and other deeds of violence without number, and all the other elements of confusion and misery which arouse the whole population of a country to terror and distress, and mar the very face of nature in time of civil war. What dreadful struggles man will make to gain the pleasure of ruling his fellow man! Along the frontiers of England and Wales there flows the beautiful River Severn, which widens majestically at its mouth, and passes by the Bristol Channel to the sea. One of the largest towns upon this river is Worcester. It was in those days strongly fortified. It stands on the eastern side of the river, with a great bridge opposite one of the gates leading across the Severn in the direction toward Wales. There are other bridges on the stream, both above and below, and many towns and villages in the vicinity, the whole presenting, at ordinary times, a delightful scene of industry and peace.
Worcester is, perhaps, three hundred miles from the frontiers of Scotland, on the way to London, though somewhat to the westward of the direct route. Charles's destination was the capital. He pushed on, notwithstanding the difficulties and disappointments which embarrassed his march, until at last, when he reached the banks of the Severn, he found he could go no further. His troops and his officers were wearied, faint, and discouraged. His hopes had not been realized, and while it was obviously dangerous to stop, it seemed still more dangerous to go on. However, as the authorities of Worcester were disposed to take sides with the king, Charles determined to stop there for a little time, at all events, to refresh his army, and consider what to do.
He was received in the city with all due honors. He was proclaimed king on the following day, with great parade and loud acclamations. He established a camp in the neighborhood of the city. He issued great proclamations, calling upon all the people of the surrounding country to come and espouse his cause. He established his court, organized his privy council, and, in a word, perfected, on a somewhat humble scale it is true, all the arrangements proper to the condition of a monarch in his capital. He began, perhaps, in fact, to imagine himself really a king. If he did so, however, the illusion was soon dispelled. In one short week Cromwell's army came on, filling all the avenues of approach to the city, and exhibiting a force far too great, apparently, either for Charles to meet in battle, or to defend himself from in a siege.
Charles's forces fought several preliminary battles and skirmishes in resisting the attempts of Cromwell's columns to get possession of the bridges and fords by which they were to cross the river. These contests resulted always in the same way. The detachments which Charles had sent forward to defend these points were one after another driven in, while Charles, with his council of war around him, watched from the top of the tower of a church within the city this gradual and irresistible advance of his determined enemy, with an anxiety which gradually deepened into dismay.
The king, finding his situation now desperate, determined to make one final attempt to retrieve his fallen fortunes. He formed his troops in array, and marched out to give the advancing army battle. He put himself at the head of a troop of Highlanders, and fought in person with the courage and recklessness of despair. The officers knew full well that it was a question of victory or death; for if they did not conquer, they must die, either by wounds on the field of battle, or else, if taken prisoners, by being hung as traitors, or beheaded in the Tower. All possibility of escape, entrapped and surrounded as they were in the very heart of the country, hundreds of miles from the frontiers, seemed utterly hopeless. They fought, therefore, with reckless and desperate fury, but all was in vain. They were repulsed and driven in on all sides, and the soldiers fled at length, carrying the officers with them, in tumult and disorder, back through the gates into the city.
An army flying in confusion to seek refuge in a city can not shut the gates behind them against their pursuers. In fact, in such a scene of terror and dismay, there is no order, no obedience, no composure. At the gate where Charles endeavored to get back into the city, he found the way choked up by a heavy ammunition cart which had been entangled there, one of the oxen that had been drawing it being killed. The throngs of men &and horsemen were stopped by this disaster. The king dismounted, abandoned his horse, and made his way through and over the obstruction as he could. When he got into the city, he found all in confusion there. His men were throwing away their arms, and pressing onward in their flight. He lightened his own burdens by laying aside the heaviest of his armor, procured another horse, and rode up and down among his men, urging and entreating them to form again and face the enemy. He plead the justice of his cause, their duty to be faithful to their rightful sovereign, and every other argument which was capable of being expressed in the shouts and vociferations which, in such a scene, constitute the only kind of communication possible with panic stricken men; and when he found that all was in vain he said, in despair, that he would rather they would shoot him on the spot than let him live to witness such an abandonment of his cause by the only friends and followers that had been left to him.
The powerful influence which these expostulations would otherwise have had, was lost and overborne in the torrent of confusion and terror which was spreading through all the streets of the city. The army of Cromwell forced their passage in, and fought their way from street to street, wherever they found any remaining resistance. Some of the king's troops were hemmed up in corners, and cut to pieces. Others, somewhat more fortunate, sought protection in towers and bastions, where they could make some sort of conditions with their victorious enemy before surrendering. Charles himself, finding that all was lost, made his escape at last from the city, at six o'clock in the evening, at the head of a troop of horse. He could not, however, endure the thought of giving up the contest, after all. Again and again, as he slowly retreated, he stopped to face about, and to urge his men to consent to turn back again and encounter the enemy. Their last halt was upon a bridge half a mile from the city. Here the king held a consultation with the few remaining counselors and officers that were with him, surveying, with them, the routed and flying bodies of men, who were now throwing away their arms and dispersing in all directions, in a state of hopeless disorganization and despair. The king saw plainly that his cause was irretrievably ruined, and they all agreed that nothing now remained for them but to make their escape back to Scotland, if by any possibility that could now be done.
But how should they accomplish this end? To follow the multitude of defeated soldiers would be to share the certain capture and death which awaited them, and they were themselves all strangers to the country. To go on inquiring all the way would only expose them to equally certain discovery and capture. The first thing, however, obviously was to get away from the crowd. Charles and his attendants, therefore, turned aside from the high road—there were with the king fifty or sixty officers and noblemen, all mounted men—and moved along in such secluded by-paths as they could find. The king wished to diminish even this number of followers, but he could not get any of them to leave him. He complained afterward, in the account which he gave of these adventures, that, though they would not fight for him when battle was to be given, he could not get rid of them when the time came for flight.
There was a servant of one of the gentlemen in the company who pretended to know the way, and he accordingly undertook to guide the party; but as soon as it became dark he got confused and lost, and did not know what to do. They contrived, however, to get another guide They went ten miles, attracting no particular attention, for at such a time of civil war a country is full of parties of men, armed and unarmed, going to and fro, who are allowed generally to move without molestation, as the inhabitants are only anxious to have as little as possible to say to them, that they may the sooner be gone. The royal party assumed the air and manner of one of these bands as long as daylight lasted, and when that was gone they went more securely and at their ease. After proceeding ten miles, they stopped at an obscure inn, where they took some drink and a little bread, and then resumed their journey, consulting with one another as they went as to what it was best to do.
About ten or twelve miles further on there was a somewhat wild and sequestered region, in which there were two very secluded dwellings, about half a mile from each other. One of these residences was named Boscobel. The name had been given to it by a guest of the proprietor, at an entertainment which the latter had given, from the Italian words bosco bello, which mean beautiful grove. It was in or near a wood, and away from all high roads, having been built, probably, like many other of the dwellings reared in those days, as a place of retreat. In the preceding reigns of Charles and Elizabeth, the Catholics, who were called popish recusants, on account of their refusing to take an oath acknowledging the supremacy of the British sovereign over the English Church, had to resort to all possible modes of escape from Protestant persecution. They built these retreats in retired and secluded places, and constructed all sorts of concealed and secure hiding places within them, in the partitions and walls, where men whose lives were in danger might be concealed for many days. Boscobel was such a mansion. In fact, one of the king's generals, the Earl of Derby, had been concealed in it but a short time before. The king inquired particularly about it, and was induced himself to seek refuge there.
This house belonged to a family of Giffards, one of whom was in the suite of King Charles at this time. There was another mansion about half a mile distant. This other place had been originally, in the Catholic days, a convent, and the nuns who inhabited it dressed in white. They were called, accordingly, the white ladies, and the place itself received the same name, which it retained after the sisters were gone. Mr. Giffard recommended going to the White Ladies' first. He wanted, in fact, to contrive some way to relieve the king of the encumbrance of so large a troop before going to Boscobel.
They went, accordingly, to the White Ladies'. Neither of the houses was occupied at this time by the proprietors, but were in charge of housekeepers and servants. Among the tenants upon the estate there were several brothers of the name of Penderel. They were woodmen and farm servants, living at different places in the neighborhood, and having charge, some of them, of the houses above described. One of the Penderels was at the White Ladies'. He let the fugitives in, tired, exhausted, and hungry as they were, with the fatigue of marching nearly all the night. They sent immediately for Richard Penderel, who lived in a farm house nearby, and for another brother, who was at Boscobel. They took the king into an inner room, and immediately commenced the work of effectually disguising him.
They gave him clothes belonging to some of the servants of the family, and destroyed his own. The king had about his person a watch and some costly decorations, such as orders of knighthood set in jewels, which would betray his rank if found in his possession. These the king distributed among his friends, intrusting them to the charge of such as he judged most likely to effect their escape. They then cut off his hair short all over, thus making him a Roundhead instead of a Cavalier. They rubbed soot from the fire place over his face, to change the expression of his features and complexion. They gave him thus, in all respects, as nearly as possible, the guise of a squalid peasant and laborer of the humblest class, accustomed to the privations and to the habits of poverty.
In the mean time Richard Penderel arrived. Perhaps an intimation had been given him of the wishes of the king to be relieved of his company of followers; at any rate, he urged the whole retinue, as soon as he came to the house to press forward without any delay, as there was a detachment of Cromwell's forces, he said, at three miles' distance, who might be expected at any moment to come in pursuit of them Giffard brought Penderel then into the inner room to which the king had retired. "This is the king," said he. "I commit him to your charge. Take care of him."
Richard undertook the trust. He told the king that he must immediately leave that place, and he conducted him secretly, all disguised as he was, out of a postern door, without making known his design to any of his followers, except the two or three who were in immediate attendance upon him. He led him away about half a mile into a wood, and, concealing him there, left him alone, saying he would go and see what intelligence he could obtain, and presently return again. The troop of followers, in the mean time, from whom the king had been so desirous to get free, when they found that he was gone, mounted their horses and rode away, to escape the danger with which Richard had threatened them. But, alas for the unhappy fugitives, they did not get far in their flight; they were overtaken, attacked, conquered, captured, and treated as traitors. Some were shot, one was beheaded, and others were shut up in prisons, where they pined in hopeless privation and suffering for many years. There was, however, one of the king's followers who did not go away with the rest. It was Lord Wilmot, an influential nobleman, who concealed himself in the vicinity, and kept near the king in all his subsequent wanderings.
But we must return to the king in the wood. It was about sunrise when he was left there, the morning after the battle. It rained. The king tried in vain to find a shelter under the trees of the forest. The trees themselves were soon thoroughly saturated, and they received the driving rain from the skies only to let the water fall in heavier drops upon the poor fugitive's defenseless head. Richard borrowed a blanket at a cottage near, thinking that it would afford some protection, and brought it to his charge. The king folded it up to make a cushion to sit upon; for, worn out as he was with hard fighting all the day before, and hard riding all the night, he could not stand; so he chose to use his blanket as a protection from the wet ground beneath him, and to take the rain upon his head as it fell.
Richard sent a peasant's wife to him presently with some food. Charles, who never had any great respect for the female sex, was alarmed to find that a woman had been entrusted with such a secret.
"My good woman," said he, "can you be faithful to a distressed
Cavalier?"
"Yes, sir," said she; "I will die rather than betray you."
Charles had, in fact, no occasion to fear. Woman is, indeed, communicative and confiding, and often, in unguarded hours, reveals indiscreetly what it would have been better to have withheld; but in all cases where real and important trusts are committed to her keeping, there is no human fidelity which can be more safely relied upon than hers.
Charles remained in the wood all the day, exposed to the pelting of the storm. There was a road in sight, a sort of by-way leading across the country, and the monarch beguiled the weary hours as well as he could by watching this road from under the trees, to see if any soldiers came along. There was one troop that appeared, but it passed directly by, marching heavily through the mud and rain, the men intent, apparently, only on reaching their journey's end. When night came on, Richard Penderel returned, approaching cautiously, and, finding all safe, took the king into the house with him. They brought him to the fire, changed and dried his clothes, and gave him supper. The homeless monarch once more enjoyed the luxuries of warmth and shelter.
During all the day, while he had been alone in the wood, he had been revolving in his mind the strange circumstances of his situation, vainly endeavoring, for many hours, to realize what seemed at first like a dreadful dream. Could it be really true that he, the monarch of three kingdoms, so recently at the head of a victorious army, and surrounded by generals and officers of state, was now a friendless and solitary fugitive, without even a place to hide his head from the cold autumnal storm? It seemed at first a dream; but it soon became a reality, and he began to ponder, in every form, the question what he should do. He looked east, west, north, and south, but could not see, in any quarter, any hope of succor, or any reasonable prospect of escape. He, however, arrived at the conclusion, before night came on, that it would be, on the whole, the best plan for him to attempt to escape into Wales.
He was very near the frontier of that country. There was no difficulty to be apprehended on the road thither, excepting in the crossing of the Severn, which, as has already been remarked, flows from north to south not far from the line of the frontier. He thought, too, that if he could once succeed in getting into Wales, he could find secure retreats among the mountains there until he should be able to make his way to some sea-port on the coast trading with France, and so find his way back across the Channel. He proposed this plan to Richard in the evening, and asked him to accompany him as his guide. Richard readily consented, and the arrangements for the journey were made. They adjusted the king's dress again to complete his disguise, and Richard gave him a bill-hook—a sort of woodman's tool—to carry in his hand. It was agreed, also, that his name should be Will Jones so far as there should be any necessity for designating him by a name in the progress of the journey.
They set out at nine o'clock that same night, in the darkness and rain. They wished to get to Madely, a town near the river, before the morning. Richard knew a Mr. Woolf there, a friend of the Royalist cause, who he thought would shelter them, and aid them in getting across the river. They went on very well for some time, until they came to a stream, a branch of the Severn, where there was a bridge, and on the other side a mill. The miller happened to be watching that night at his door. At such times everybody is on the alert, suspecting mischief or danger in every unusual sight or sound.
Hearing the footsteps, he called out, "Who goes there?"
"Neighbors," replied Richard. The king was silent. He had been previously charged by Richard not to speak, except when it could not possibly be avoided, as he had not the accent of the country.
"Stop, then," said the miller, "if you be neighbors." The travelers only pressed forward the faster for this challenge. "Stop!" repeated the miller, "if you be neighbors, or I will knock you down;" and he ran out in pursuit of them, armed apparently with the means of executing his threat. Richard fled, the king closely following him. They turned into a lane, and ran a long distance, the way being in many places so dark that the king, in following Richard, was guided only by the sound of his footsteps, and the creaking of the leather dress which such peasants were accustomed in those days to wear. They crept along, however, as silently, and yet as rapidly as possible, until at length Richard turned suddenly aside, leaped over a sort of gap in the hedge, and crouched down in the trench on the other side. Here they remained for some time, listening to ascertain whether they were pursued. When they found that all was still, they crept forth from their hiding places, regained the road, and went on their way.
At length they arrived at the town. Richard left the king concealed in an obscure corner of the street, while he went to the house of Mr. Woolf to see if he could obtain admission. All was dark and still. He knocked till he had aroused some of the family, and finally brought Mr. Woolf to the door.
He told Mr. Woolf that he came to ask shelter for a gentleman who was wishing to get into Wales, and who could not safely travel by day. Mr. Woolf hesitated, and began to ask for further information in respect to the stranger. Richard said that he was an officer who had made his escape from the battle of Worcester, "Then," said Mr. Woolf, "I should hazard my life by concealing him, which I should not be willing to do for any body, unless it were the king." Richard then told him that it was his majesty. On hearing this, Mr. Woolf decided at once to admit and conceal the travelers, and Richard went back to bring the king.
When they arrived at the house, they found Mr. Woolf making preparations for their reception. They placed the king by the fire to warm and dry his clothes, and they gave him such food as could be provided on so sudden an emergency. As the morning was now approaching, it was necessary to adopt some plan of concealment for the day, and Mr. Woolf decided upon concealing his guests in his barn. He said that there were holes and hiding places built in his house, but that they had all been discovered on some previous search, and, in case of any suspicion or alarm, the officers would go directly to them all. He took the travelers, accordingly, to the barn, and concealed them there among the hay. He said that he would himself, during the day, make inquiries in respect to the practicability of their going on upon their journey, and come and report to them in the evening.
Accordingly, when the evening came, Mr. Woolf returned, relieved them from their confinement, and took them back again to the house. His report, however, in respect to the continuance of their journey, was very unfavorable. He thought it would be impossible, he said, for them to cross the Severn. The Republican forces had stationed guards at all the bridges, ferries, and fords, and at every other practicable place of crossing, and no one was allowed to pass without a strict examination. The country was greatly excited, too, with the intelligence of the king's escape; rewards were offered for his apprehension, and heavy penalties denounced upon all who should harbor or conceal him. Under these circumstances, Mr. Woolf recommended that Charles should go back to Boscobel, and conceal himself as securely as possible there, until some plan could be devised for effecting his escape from the country.
The king had no alternative but to accede to this plan. He waited at Mr. Woolf's house till midnight, in order that the movement in the streets of the town might have time entirely to subside, and then, disappointed and discouraged by the failure of his hopes, he prepared to set out upon his return. Mr. Woolf made some changes in his disguise, and bathed his face in a decoction of walnut leaves, which he had prepared during the day, to alter his complexion, which was naturally very dark and peculiar, and thus exposed him to danger of discovery. When all was ready, the two travelers bade their kind host farewell, and crept forth again through the silent streets, to return, by the way they came, back to Boscobel.
They went on very well till they began to approach the branch stream where they had met with their adventure with the miller. They could not cross this stream by the bridge without going by the mill again, which they were both afraid to do. The king proposed that they should go a little way below, and ford the stream. Richard was afraid to attempt this, as he could not swim; and as the night was dark, and the current rapid, there would be imminent danger of their getting beyond their depth. Charles said that he could swim, and that he would, accordingly, go first and try the water. They groped their way down, therefore, to the bank, and Charles, leaving his guide upon the land, waded in, and soon disappeared from view as he receded from the shore. He returned, however, after a short time, in safety, and reported the passage practicable, as the water was only three or four feet deep; so, taking Richard by the hand, he led him into the stream. It was a dismal and dangerous undertaking, wading thus through a deep and rapid current in darkness and cold, but they succeeded in passing safely over.
They reached Boscobel before the morning dawned, and Richard, when they arrived, left the king in the wood while he went toward the house to reconnoiter, and see if all was safe. He found within an officer of the king's army, a certain Colonel Carlis, who had fled from Worcester some time after the king had left the field, and, being acquainted with the situation of Boscobel, had sought refuge there; William Penderel, who had remained in charge of Boscobel, having received and secreted him when he arrived.
Richard and William brought Colonel Carlis out into the wood to see the king. They found him sitting upon the ground at the foot of a tree, entirely exhausted. He was worn out with hardship and fatigue. They took him to the house. They brought him to the fire, and gave him some food. The colonel drew off his majesty's heavy peasant shoes and coarse stockings. They were soaked with water and full of gravel. The colonel bathed his feet, which were sadly swollen and blistered, and, as there were no other shoes in the house which would answer for him to wear, Dame Penderel warmed and dried those which the colonel had taken off, by filling them with hot ashes from the fire, and then put them on again.
The king continued to enjoy such sort of comforts as these during the night, but when the morning drew near it became necessary to look out for some place of concealment. The Penderels thought that no place within the house would be safe, for there was danger every hour of the arrival of a band of soldiers, who would not fail to search the mansion most effectually in every part. There was the wood near by, which was very secluded and solitary; but still they feared that, in case of a search, the wood would be explored as effectually as the dwelling. Under these circumstances, Carlis was looking around, perplexed and uncertain, not knowing what to do, when he perceived some scattered oaks standing by themselves in a field not far from the house, one of which seemed to be so full and dense in its foliage as to afford some hope of concealment there. The tree, it seems, had been headed down once or twice, and this pruning had had the effect, usual in such cases, of making the branches spread and grow very thick and full. The colonel thought that though, in making a search for fugitives, men might very naturally explore a thicket or a grove, they would not probably think of examining a detached and solitary tree; he proposed, accordingly, that the king and himself should climb up into this spreading oak, and conceal themselves for the day among its branches.
The king consented to this plan. They took some provisions, therefore, as soon as the day began to dawn, and something to answer the purpose of a cushion, and proceeded to the tree. By the help of William and Richard the king and the colonel climbed up, and established themselves in the top. The colonel placed the cushion for the king on the best support among the limbs that he could find. The bread and cheese, and a small bottle of beer, which Richard and William had brought for their day's supplies, they suspended to a branch within their reach. The colonel then seated himself a little above the king, in such a manner that the monarch's head could rest conveniently in his lap, and in as easy a position as it was possible, under such circumstances, to attain. Richard and William, then, after surveying the place of retreat all around from below, in order to be sure that the concealment afforded by the foliage was every where complete, went away, promising to keep faithful watch during the day and to return in the evening. All things being thus arranged in the oak, the colonel bade his majesty to close his eyes and go to sleep, saying that he would take good care that he did not fall. The king followed his directions, and slept safely for many hours.
In the course of the day the king and Carlis saw, by means of the openings between the leaves, through which, as through loop holes in a tower, they continually reconnoitered the surrounding fields, men passing to and fro, some of whom they imagined to be soldiers searching the wood. They were not, however, themselves molested. They passed the day undisturbed, except by the incessant anxiety and alarm which they necessarily suffered, and the fatigue and pain, which must have become almost intolerable before night, from their constrained and comfortless position. Night, however, came at last, and relieved them from their duress. They descended from the tree and stole back cautiously to the house, the king resolving that he could not bear such hardship another day, and that they must, accordingly, find some other hiding place for him on the morrow. We can scarcely be surprised at this decision. A wild beast could hardly have endured a second day in such a lair.
Other plans of concealment for the king were accordingly formed that night, and measures were soon concerted, as we shall see in the next chapter, to effect his escape from the country. The old tree, however, which had sheltered him so safely, was not forgotten. In after years, when the monarch was restored to his throne, and the story of his dangers and his escape was made known throughout the kingdom, thousands of visitors came to look upon the faithful tree which had thus afforded his majesty its unconscious but effectual protection. Every one took away a leaf or a sprig for a souvenir, and when, at last, the proprietor found that there was danger that the whole tree would be carried away unless he interposed, he fenced it in and tilled the ground around it, to defend it from further mutilation. It has borne the name of the Royal Oak from that time to the present day, and has been the theme of narrators and poets without number, who have celebrated its praises in every conceivable form of composition. There is, however, probably no one of them all who has done more for the wide extension of its fame among all the ranks and gradations of society than the unknown author of the humble distich,
"The royal oak, it was the tree,
That saved his royal majesty."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE KING'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE.
When the king and Carlis came into the house again, on the evening after their wearisome day's confinement in the tree, Dame Penderel had some chickens prepared for his majesty's supper, which he enjoyed as a great and unexpected luxury. They showed him, too, the hiding hole, built in the walls, where the Earl of Derby had been concealed, and where they proposed that he should be lodged for the night. There was room in it to lay down a small straw pallet for a bed. The king thought it would be very secure, and was confirmed in his determination not to go again to the oak. Before his majesty retired, Carlis asked him what he would like to have to eat on the morrow. He said that he should like some mutton. Carlis assented, and, bidding his master good night, he left him to his repose.
There was no mutton in the house, and Richard and William both agreed that it would be unsafe for either of them to procure any, since, as they were not accustomed to purchase such food, their doing so now would awaken suspicion that they had some unusual guest to provide for. The colonel, accordingly, undertook himself to obtain the supply.
Getting the necessary directions, therefore, from Richard and William, he went to the house of a farmer at some little distance—a tenant, he was, on the Boscobel estate—and groped his way to the sheep-cote. He selected an animal, such as he thought suitable for his purpose, and butchered it with his dagger. He then went back to the house, and sent William Penderel to bring the plunder home. William dressed a leg of the mutton, and sent it in the morning into the room which they had assigned to the king, near his hiding hole. The king was overjoyed at the prospect of this feast He called for a carving knife and a frying pan. He cut off some callops from the joint, and then, after frying the meat with Carlis's assistance, they ate it together.
The king, becoming now somewhat accustomed to his situation, began to grow a little more bold. He walked in a little gallery which opened from his room. There was a window in this gallery which commanded a view of the road. The king kept watch carefully at this window as he walked to and fro, that he might observe the first appearance of any enemy's approach. It was observed, too, that he apparently spent some time here in exercises of devotion, imploring, probably, the protection of Heaven, in this his hour of danger and distress. The vows and promises which he doubtless made were, however, all forgotten, as usual in such cases, when safety and prosperity came again.
There was a little garden, too, near the house, with an eminence at the further end of it, where there was an arbor, with a stone table, and seats about it. It was retired, and yet, being in an elevated position, it answered, like the window of the gallery in the house, the double purpose of a hiding place and a watch tower. It was far more comfortable, and probably much more safe, than the wretched nest in the tree of the day before; for, were the king discovered in the arbor, there would be some chances of escape from detection still remaining, but to have been found in the tree would have been certain destruction.
In the mean time, the Penderels had had messengers out during the Saturday and Sunday, communicating with certain known friends of the king in the neighboring towns, and endeavoring to concert some plan for his escape. They were successful in these consultations, and be fore Sunday night a plan was formed. It seems there was a certain Colonel Lane, whose wife had obtained a pass from the authorities of the Republican army to go to Bristol, on the occasion of the sickness of a relative, and to take with her a man servant. Bristol was a hundred miles to the southward, near the mouth of the Severn. It was thought that if the king should reach this place, he could, perhaps, succeed afterward in making his way to the southern coast of England, and embarking there, at some sea-port, for France. The plan was accordingly formed for Mrs. Lane to go, as she had designed, on this journey, and to take the king along with her in the guise of her servant. The arrangements were all made, and the king was to be met in a wood five or six miles from Boscobel, early on Monday morning, by some trusty friends, who were afterward to conceal him for a time in their houses, until all things should be ready for the journey.
The king found, however, when the morning approached, that his feet were in such a condition that he could not walk. They accordingly procured a horse belonging to one of the Penderels, and put him upon it. The brothers all accompanied him as he went away. They were armed with concealed weapons, intending, if they we're attacked by any small party, to defend the king with their lives. They, however, went on without any molestation. It was a dark and rainy night. Nights are seldom otherwise in England in September. The brothers Penderel, six of them in all, guided the king along through the darkness and rain, until they were within a mile or two of the appointed place of meeting, where the king dismounted, for the purpose of walking the rest of way, for greater safety, and three of the brothers, taking the horse with them, returned. The rest went on, and, after delivering the king safely into the hands of his friends, who were waiting at the appointed place to receive him, bade his majesty farewell, and, expressing their good wishes for the safe accomplishment of his escape, they returned to Boscobel.
They now altered the king's disguise in some degree, to accommodate the change in his assumed character from that of a peasant of the woods to a respectable farmer's son, such as would be a suitable traveling attendant for an English dame, and they gave him the new name of William Jackson in the place of Will Jones. Mrs. Lane's sister's husband was to go with them a part of the way, and there was another gentleman and lady also of the party, so they were five in all. The horses were brought to the door when all was ready, just in the edge of the evening, the pretended attendant standing respectfully by, with his hat under his arm. He was to ride upon the same horse with Mrs. Lane, the lady being seated on a pillion behind him. The family assembled to bid the party farewell, none, either of the travelers or of the spectators, except Mrs. Lane and her brother-in-law, having any idea that the meek looking William Jackson was any other than what he seemed.
They traveled on day after day, meeting with various adventures, and apparently with narrow escapes. At one time a shoe was off from the horse's foot, and the king stopped at a blacksmith's to have it replaced. While the smith was busy at the work, the king, standing by, asked him what news. "No news," said the smith, "that I know of, since the grand news of beating the rogues, the Scots, at Worcester." The king asked if any of the English officers who were with the Scots had been taken since the battle. "Some had been captured," the smith replied, "but he could not learn that the rogue Charles Stuart had been taken." The king then told him that if that rogue were taken, he deserved to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing the Scots in. "You speak like an honest man," said the smith. Soon after, the work was done, and Charles led the horse away.
At another time, when the party had stopped for the night, the king, in accordance with his assumed character, went to the kitchen. They were roasting some meat with a jack, a machine used much in those days to keep meat, while roasting, in slow rotation before the fire, The jack had run down. They asked the pretended William Jackson to wind it up. In trying to do it, he attempted to wind it the wrong way. The cook, in ridiculing, his awkwardness, asked him what country he came from, that he did not know how to wind up a jack. The king meekly replied that he was the son of a poor tenant of Colonel Lane's, and that they seldom had meat to roast at home, and that, when they had it, they did not roast it with a jack. The party at length arrived safely at their place of destination, which was at the house of a Mrs. Norton, at a place called Leigh, about three miles from Bristol. Here the whole party were received, and, in order to seclude the king as much as possible from observation, Mrs. Lane pretended that he was in very feeble health, and he was, accordingly, a good deal confined to his room. The disease which they selected for him was an intermittent fever, which came on only at intervals. This would account for his being sometimes apparently pretty well, and allowed him occasionally, when tired of being shut up in his room, to come down and join the other servants, and hear their conversation.
There was an old servant of the family, named Pope, a butler, to whose care the pretended William Jackson was specially confided. On the following morning after his arrival, Charles, feeling, notwithstanding his fever, a good appetite after the fatigues of his journey, went down to get his breakfast, and, while there, some men came in, friends of the servants, and Pope brought out a luncheon of bread and ale, and placed it before them. While they were eating it, they began to talk about the battle of Worcester, and one of the men described it so accurately, that the king perceived that he must have been there. On questioning him more particularly, the man said that he was a soldier in the king's army, and he began to describe the person and appearance of the king. Charles was alarmed, and very soon rose and went away. Pope, who had had, it seems, his suspicions before, was now confirmed in them. He went to Mrs. Lane, and told her that he knew very well that their stranger guest was the king. She denied most positively that it was so, but she immediately took measures to communicate the conversation to Charles. The result of their consultations, and of their inquiries about the character of Pope for prudence and fidelity, was to admit him to their confidence, and endeavor to secure his aid. He was faithful in keeping the secret, and he rendered the king afterward a great deal of very efficient aid.
There was a certain Colonel Wyndham, whose name has become immortalized by his connection with the king's escape, who lived at a place called Trent, not far from the southern coast of England. After much deliberation and many inquiries, it was decided that the king should proceed there while arrangements should be made for his embarkation. When this plan was formed, Mrs. Lane received a pretended letter from home, saying that her father was taken suddenly and dangerously sick, and urging her immediate return. They set out accordingly, William having so far recovered from his fever as to be able to travel again!
During all this time, Lord Wilmot, who has already been mentioned as a fellow fugitive with Charles from the battle of Worcester, had followed the party of the king in his progress through the country, under various disguises, and by different modes of travel, keeping near his royal master all the way, and obtaining stolen interviews with him, from time to time, for consultation. In this way each rendered the other very essential aid. The two friends arrived at last at Colonel Wyndham's together. Mrs. Lane and her party here took leave of the king, and returned northward toward her home.
Colonel Wyndham was a personal acquaintance of the king. He had been an officer under Charles I., in the civil wars preceding that monarch's captivity and death, and Charles, who, as Prince of Wales, had made a campaign as will be recollected, in the west of England before he went to France, had had frequent intercourse with Wyndham, and bad great confidence in his fidelity. The colonel had been at last shut up in a castle, and had finally surrendered on such conditions as secured his own liberty and safety. He had, consequently, since been allowed to live quietly at his own estate in Trent, though he was watched and suspected by the government as a known friend of the king's. Charles had, of course, great confidence in him. He was very cordially received into his house, and very securely secreted there.
It would be dangerous for Wyndham himself to do any thing openly in respect to finding a vessel to convey the king to France. He accordingly engaged a trusty friend to go down to the sea-port on the coast which was nearest to his residence, and see what he could do. This sea-port was Lyme, or Lyme-Regis, as it is sometimes called. It was about twenty-five miles from Trent, where Wyndham resided, toward the southwest, and about the same distance to the eastward of Exeter, where Charles's mother had some years before sought refuge from her husband's enemies.
Colonel Wyndham's messenger went to Lyme. He found there, pretty soon, the master of a small vessel, which was accustomed to ply back and forth to one of the ports on the coast of France, to carry merchandise. The messenger, after making inquiries, and finding that the captain, if captain he may be called, was the right sort of man for such an enterprise, obtained an interview with him and introduced conversation by asking when he expected to go back to France. The captain replied that it would probably be some time before he should be able to make up another cargo. "How should you like to take some passengers?" said the messenger. "Passengers?" inquired the captain. "Yes," rejoined the other; "there are two gentlemen here who wish to cross the Channel privately, and they are willing to pay fifty pounds to be landed at any port on the other side. Will you take them?"
The captain perceived that it was a serious business. There was a proclamation out, offering a reward for the apprehension of the king, or Charles Stuart as they called him, and also for other of the leaders at the battle of Worcester. All persons, too, were strictly prohibited from taking any one across the Channel; and to conceal the king, or to connive in any way at his escape, was death. The captain, however, at length agreed to the proposal, influenced as the colonel's messenger supposed, partly by the amount of his pay, and partly by his interest in the Royal cause. He agreed to make his little vessel ready without delay.
They did not think it prudent for the king to attempt to embark at Lyme, but there was, a few miles to the eastward of it, along the shore, a small village named Charmouth, where there was a creek jutting up from the sea, and a little pier, sufficient for the landing of so small a vessel as the one they had engaged. It was agreed that, on an appointed day, the king and Lord Wilmot were to come down to Charmouth, and take up their lodgings at the inn; that in the night the captain was to sail out of the port of Lyme, in the most private manner possible, and come to Charmouth; and that the king and Wilmot, who would, in the mean time, be watching from the inn, when they saw the light of the approaching vessel, should come down to the pier and embark, and the captain then immediately sail away.
The messenger accordingly went back to Colonel Wyndham's with intelligence of the plan that he had formed, while the captain of the vessel went to work as privately as possible to lay in his stores and make his other preparations for sea. He did this with the utmost precaution and secrecy, and succeeded in deceiving every body but his wife. Wives have the opportunity to perceive indications of the concealed existence of matters of moment and weight which others do not enjoy, in studying the countenances of their husbands. A man can easily, through the day, when surrounded by the world, assume an unconcerned and careless air, though oppressed with a very considerable mental burden; but when he comes home at night, he instinctively throws off half his disguise, and conjugal watchfulness and solicitude easily penetrate the remainder. At least it was so in this case. The captain's dame perceived that her husband was thoughtful and absent minded. She watched him. She observed some indications that he was making preparations for sea. She asked him what it meant. He said he did not know how soon he might have a cargo, and he wanted to be all ready in season. His wife, however, was not satisfied. She watched him more closely still, and when the appointed night came on which he had agreed to sail, finding that it was impossible for him to elude her vigilance, he told her plainly, that he was going across the Channel on private business, but that he should immediately return.
She declared positively that he should not go. She knew, she said, that the business was something which would end in ruining him and his family, and she was determined that he should not risk her safety and his own life in any such desperate and treasonable plans. She locked the door upon him, and when he insisted on being released, she declared that if he did attempt to go, she would immediately give warning to the authorities, and have him arrested and confined. So the discomfited captain was compelled to give up his design, and break his appointment at the Charmouth pier.
In the mean time, the king and Lord Wilmot came down, as had been agreed upon, to Charmouth, and put up, with many other travelers, at the inn. There was great excitement all over that part of the country, every one talking about the battle of Worcester, the escape of the king, and especially about an expedition which Cromwell had been organizing, which was then assembling on the southern coast. Its destination was the island of Jersey, which had thus far adhered to the Royalist cause, and which Cromwell was now intending to reduce to subjection to him. The bustle and movement which all these causes combined to create, made the king and Lord Wilmot very anxious and uneasy. There were assemblies convened in the villages which they passed through, and men were haranguing the populace on the victories which had been gained, and on the future measures to be pursued. In one place the bells were ringing, and bonfires were burning in celebration of the death of the king, it being rumored and believed that he had been shot.
Our two fugitives, however, arrived safely at the inn, put up their horses, and began to watch anxiously for the light of the approaching vessel. They watched, of course, in vain. Midnight came, but no vessel. They waited hour after hour, till at last morning dawned, and they found that all hope of accomplishing their enterprise must be abandoned. They could not remain where they were, however, another day, without suspicion; so they prepared to move on and seek temporary refuge in some other neighboring town, while they could send one of the attendants who came with them back to Colonel Wyndham's, to see if he could ascertain the cause of the failure. One or two days were spent in inquiries, negotiations, and delays. The result was, that all hope of embarking at Lyme had to be abandoned, and it was concluded that the fugitives should proceed on to the eastward, along the coast, to the care of another Royalist, a certain Colonel Gunter, who might perhaps find means to send them away from some port in that part of the country. At any rate, they would, by this plan, escape the excitements and dangers which seemed to environ them in the neighborhood of Lyme.
It was fortunate that they went away from Charmouth when they did; by doing so they narrowly escaped apprehension; for that night, while the king's horse was in the stable, a smith was sent for to set a shoe upon the horse of one of the other travelers. After finishing his work, he began to examine the feet of the other horses in the stalls, and when he came to the one which the king had rode, his attention was particularly attracted to the condition and appearance of the shoes, and he remarked to those who were with him that that horse had come a long journey, and that of the four shoes, he would warrant that no two had been made in the same county. This remark was quoted the next day, and the mysterious circumstance, trifling as it was, was sufficient, in the highly excitable state of the public mind, to awaken attention. People came to see the horse, and to inquire for the owner, but they found that both had disappeared. They immediately determined that the stranger must have been the king, or at least some distinguished personage in disguise, and they sent in search of the party in every direction; but the travelers had taken such effectual precautions to blind all pursuit that their track could not be followed.
In the mean time, the king journeyed secretly on from the residence of one faithful adherent to another, encountering many perplexities, and escaping narrowly many dangers, until he came at last to the neighborhood of Shoreham, a town upon the coast of Sussex. Colonel Gunter had provided a vessel here. It was a small vessel, bound, with a load of coal, along the coast, to the westward, to a port called Pool, beyond the Isle of Wight. Colonel Gunter had arranged it with the master to deviate from his voyage, by crossing over to the coast of France, and leaving his passengers there. He was then to return, and proceed to his original destination. Both the owner of the vessel and the master who commanded it were Royalists, but they had not been told that it was the king whom they were going to convey. In the bargain which had been made with them, the passengers had been designated simply as two gentlemen of rank who had escaped from the battle of Worcester. When, however, the master of the vessel saw the king, he immediately recognized him, having seen him before in his campaigns under his father. This, however, seemed to make no difference in his readiness to convey the passengers away. He said that hews perfectly willing to risk his life to save that of his sovereign, and the arrangements for the embarkation proceeded.
The little vessel—its burden was about sixty tons—was brought into a small cove at Brighthelmstone, a few miles to the eastward from Shoreham, and run upon the beach, where it was left stranded when the tide went down. The king and Lord Wilmot went to it by night, ascended its side by a ladder, went down immediately into the cabin, and concealed themselves there. When the rising tide had lifted the vessel, with its precious burden, gently from the sand, the master made easy sail, and coasted along the English shore toward the Isle of Wight, which was the direction of the voyage which he had originally intended to make. He did not wish the people at Shoreham to observe any alteration of his course, since that might have awakened suspicion, and possibly invited pursuit; so they went on for a time to the westward, which was a course that rather increased than diminished their distance from their place of destination.
It was seven o'clock in the morning when they sailed. There was a gentle October breeze from the north, which carried them slowly along the shore, and in the afternoon the Isle of Wight came fully into view. There were four men and a boy on board the ship, constituting the crew. The master came to the king in the cabin, and proposed to him, as a measure of additional security, and to prevent the possibility of any opposition on the part of the sailors to the proposed change in their course which it would now soon be necessary to make, that the king and Lord Wilmot should propose the plan of going to France to them, asking their interest with the captain in obtaining his consent, as it had not yet been mentioned to the captain at all; for the sailors had of course understood that the voyage was only the usual coastwise trip to the port of Pool, and that these strangers were ordinary travelers, going on that voyage. The master, therefore, thought that there would be less danger of difficulty if the king were first to gain the sailors over himself, by promises or rewards, and then all come together to gain the captain's consent, which could then, at last, with apparent reluctance, be accorded.
This plan was pursued. The two travelers went to the sailors upon the forecastle, and told them, with an air of honest confidence, that they were not what they seemed. They were merchants, they said, and were unfortunately a little in debt, and under the necessity of leaving England for a time. They had some money due to them in Rouen, in France, and they wanted very much to be taken across the Channel to Dieppe, or some port near Rouen. They made known their condition to the sailors, they said, because they wanted their intercession with the captain to take them over, and they gave the sailors a good generous present in money for them to spend in drink; not so generous, however, as to cast suspicion upon their story of being traders in distress.
Sailors are easily persuaded by arguments that are enforced by small presents of money. They consented to the plan, and then the king and Lord Wilmot went to express their wishes to the captain. He made many objections. It would delay him on his voyage, and lead to many inconveniences. The passengers, however, urged their request, the sailors seconding them. The wind was fair, and they could easily run across the Channel, and then, after they landed, the captain could pursue his course to the place of his destination. The captain finally consented; the helm was altered, the sails were trimmed, and the little vessel bore away toward its new destination on the coast of France.
It was now five o'clock in the afternoon. The English coast soon disappeared from the horizon, and the next morning, at daylight, they could see the French shore. They approached the land at a little port called Fecamp. The wind, however, failed them before they got quite to the land, and they had to anchor to wait for a turn of the tide to help them in. In this situation, they were soon very much alarmed by the appearance of a vessel in the offing, which was coming also toward the shore. They thought it was a Spanish privateer, and its appearance brought a double apprehension. There was danger that the privateer would capture them, France and Spain being then at war. There was danger, also, that the master of their vessel, afraid himself of being captured, might insist on making all haste back again to the English coast; for the wind, though contrary so long as they wished to go on into their harbor, was fair for taking them away. The king and Lord Wilmot consulted together, and came to the conclusion to go ashore in the little boat. They soon made a bargain with the sailors to row them, and, hastily descending the vessel's side, they entered the boat, and pushed off over the rolling surges of the Channel.
They were two miles from the shore, but they reached it in safety. The sailors went back to the vessel. The privateer turned out to be a harmless trader coming into port. The English vessel recrossed the Channel, and went on to its original port of destination; and Lord Wilmot and the king, relieved now of all their anxieties and fears, walked in their strange English dress up into the village to the inn.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RESTORATION.
As the readers of a tale are generally inclined to sympathize with the hero of it, both in his joys and in his sorrows, whether he is deserving of sympathy or not, they who follow the adventures of Charles in his wanderings in England after the unfortunate battle of Worcester, feel ordinarily quite a strong sensation of pleasure at finding him at last safely landed on the French shore. Charles himself doubtless experienced at first an overwhelming emotion of exultation and joy at having thus saved himself from the desperate dangers of his condition in England. On cool reflection, however, he soon perceived that there was but little cause for rejoicing in his condition and prospects. There were dangers and sufferings enough still before him, different, it is true, from those in which he had been involved, but still very dark and threatening in character. He had now, in fact, ten years of privation, poverty, and exile before him, full of troubles from beginning to end.
The new series of troubles began to come upon him, too, very soon. When he and his companion went up to the inn, on the morning of their landing, dressed as they were in the guise of Englishmen of humble rank, and having been put ashore, too, from a vessel which immediately afterward sailed away, they were taken for English thieves, or fugitives from justice, and refused admission to the inn. They sent to some gentlemen of the neighborhood, to whom they made themselves known, so that this difficulty was removed, their urgent wants were supplied, and they were provided with the means of transportation to Paris. Of course, the mother of the fugitive monarch, yet almost a boy, was rejoiced to welcome him, but he received no very cordial welcome from any one else. Now that Charles had finally abandoned England, his adherents there gave up his cause, of course, as totally lost. The Republicans, with Cromwell at their head, established a very firm and efficient government, which the nations of the Continent soon began to find that it would be incumbent on them to respect. For any foreign court to harbor a pretender to the British crown, when there was an established government in England based on a determination of the people to abrogate royalty altogether, was to incur very considerable political danger. Charles soon found that, under these circumstances, he was not likely to be long a very welcome guest in the French palaces.
He remained, however, in Paris for a short time, endeavoring to find some way to retrieve his ruined fortunes. Anne Maria was still there, and he attempted to renew his suit to her. She listened to the entertaining stories which he told of his dangers and escapes in England, and for a time, as Charles thought, encouraged his attentions. In fact, at one time he really believed that the affair was all settled, and began to assume that it was so in speaking with her upon the subject. She, however, at length undeceived him, in a conversation which ended with her saying that she thought he had better go back to England, and "either get his head broken, or else have a crown upon it." The fact was, that Anne Maria was now full of a new scheme for being married to Louis XIV. himself, who, though much younger than she, had attained now to a marriageable age, and she had no intention of regarding Charles in any other light than as one of the ordinary crowd of her admirers. She finally extinguished all his hopes by coolly requesting him not to visit her so frequently.
In addition to his other sources of discomfort. Charles disagreed with his mother. She was a very decided Catholic, and he a Protestant, from policy it is true, and not principle, but he was none the less rigid and inflexible on that account. He and his mother disagreed in respect to the education of the younger children. They were both restricted in their means, too, and subject to a thousand mortifications from this cause, in the proud and haughty circle in which they moved. Finally, the king decided to leave Paris altogether, and try to find a more comfortable refuge in Holland.
His sister and her husband, the Prince of Orange, had always treated him, as well as all the rest of the family, with great kindness and attention; but now, to complete the catalogue of his disasters, the Prince of Orange died, the power of the government passed into other hands, and Mary found herself deprived of influence and honor, and reduced all at once to a private station. She would have been glad to continue her protection to her brother, but the new government feared the power of Cromwell. Cromwell sent word to them that England would consider their harboring of the fugitive as tantamount to a declaration of war; so they notified Charles that he must leave their dominions, and find, if he could, some other place of retreat. He went up the Rhine to the city of Cologne, where it is said he found a widow woman, who received him as a lodger without pay, trusting to his promise to recompense her at some future time. There is generally little risk in giving credit to European monarchs, expelled by the temporary triumph of Republicanism from their native realms. They are generally pretty certain of being sooner or later restored to their thrones.
At any rate, Charles was restored, and his restoration was effected in a manner wholly unexpected to all mankind. In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, the reader must recall it to mind that Charles the First had been deposed and beheaded by the action of a Parliament, and that this Parliament was, of course, at his death the depository of sovereign power in England. In a short time, however, the army, with Cromwell at its head, became too strong for the Parliament. Cromwell assumed the supreme power under the name of the Protector. He dissolved Parliament, and expelled the members from their seats. He governed the country as protector for many years, and when at length he died, his son Richard Cromwell attempted to take his place. Richard did not, however, possess the talent and energy of his father, and he soon found himself totally inadequate to manage the affairs of government in such stormy times. He was deposed, and the old Parliament which Cromwell had broken up was restored.
There followed, then, a new contest between the Parliament and the army, with an officer named Lambert at the head of the latter. The army proved the strongest. Lambert stationed guards in the streets leading to the Parliament House one day when the members were about to assemble, and turned the members all back as they came. When the speaker arrived in his carriage, he ordered his soldiers to take hold of the horses' heads and turn them round, and lead them home again. Thus there was no actual outward violence, but the members of Parliament were intimidated, and gave up the attempt to exercise their power, though they still reserved their claim, and their party was busy all over the kingdom in attempting to restore them to their functions. In the mean time, the army appointed a sort of council, which they invested with supreme authority.
It does not come within the scope and design of this volume to give a full account of the state of public affairs during the interregnum between the death of Charles I. and the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II., nor of the points of controversy at issue among the various parties formed. The reader, however, must not suppose that, during this period, there was at any time what could, with any propriety, be called a republic. A true republic exists only where the questions of government are fairly and honorably submitted to the whole population, with a universal disposition to acquiesce peaceably in the decision of the majority, when that is ascertained. There probably has never been any such state of things as this in any country of Europe since the Christian era. There certainly was no such state of things in England in the time of the Commonwealth. There were a great many persons who wished to have it so, and who called themselves Republicans; but their plan, if that were indeed their plan, was never tried. Very likely it was not practicable to try it. At any rate, it certainly was not tried. The sovereignty taken from the Stuart dynasty in the person of Charles I. was never vested in the people at large. It was seized forcibly by the various powers already existing in the state, as they found themselves, one after another, able to seize it. The Parliament took, it from Charles. The army took it from Parliament. Then Oliver Cromwell took it from the army. He found himself strong enough to hold it as long as he lived, and when he died he delivered it to his son Richard. Richard could not hold it. The Parliament rose to a sort of supplementary existence, and took it from Richard, and then the army took it from Parliament again. Finally, General Monk appeared upon the stage in Scotland, as we shall presently see, marched down through England, and, with the help of thousands and thousands who were tired of these endless changes, took it from the army and restored it once more to the Parliament, on condition of their placing it back again in the hands of the king. Thus there was no republic at all, from beginning to end.
Nor is it at all certain that there ought to have been. The difficulties of really, truly, and honestly laying the national sovereignty in the hands of the whole population of such a realm as England, and of so organizing the population that its decisions shall actually control the legislation of the country and the public administration of its affairs, are all but insuperable. The English people found the tyranny and oppression of royalty intolerable. They arose and set royalty aside. It devolved, then, on the next strongest power in the state to assume the authority thus divested; this was the Parliament, who governed, just as the king had done, by the exercise of their own superior power, keeping the mass of the community just where they were before. It is true that many individuals of very low rank rose to positions of great power; but they represented only a party, and the power they wielded was monarchical power usurped, not Republican power fairly conferred upon them. Thus, though in the time of the Commonwealth there were plenty of Republicans, there was never a republic. It has always been so in all European revolutions. In America, Legislatures and executive officers of state are only agents, through whom the great population itself quietly executes its will, the two millions of votes in the great elections being the real power by which every thing is controlled. But Cromwell, Napoleon, Lamartine, Cavaignac, and all the others, whatever formalities of voting may have attended their induction into office, have always really held their power by force of bayonets, not of ballots. There is great danger that it will continue so in Europe for a long time to come.