Wonderful escapes

New Shoreham, and Charles set out in haste for Brighton. While he was at supper there, with his attendants and with Tattershall, the owner of the boat, the latter fixed his eyes, upon the King, and took occasion after the meal to draw one of the royal attendants aside, and complain of his having been deceived. “The gentleman in the grey dress was the King; he knew him well, having been with him in 1648, when he was Prince of Wales, and commanded the royal fleet.” This information was promptly conveyed to Charles, who thought it the more prudent course to keep his companions drinking with him all night, in order to make sure of their holding no conversation that he did not overhear.

Just before their departure, and while he was alone in his room, Tattershall came in, and kissing his hand, which was resting on the back of a chair, said, “I suppose, if I live I shall be a lord, and my wife will be a lady.” Charles laughed, to show that he understood him, and joined the company in the other room. At four in the morning of the 16th of October they set out for Shoreham. When Charles and Wilmot, his sole companion, had entered the vessel, Tattershall fell upon his knees and swore to the King that whatever might be the consequence he would land him safe and sound on the coast of France.

The boat made for the Isle of Wight, that being its ordinary course; but towards six o’clock in the evening, Charles, having previously arranged the matter with Tattershall, addressed the crew. He told them that his companion and himself were merchants, who were running away from their creditors, and asked them to join him in begging the captain to take them to France, backing his entreaties, at the same time, with a present of twenty shillings for drink. Tattershall raised a great many objections; but at last, with apparent repugnance, he turned the vessel’s head towards France. At daybreak they sighted the city of Fécamp. At the same time they discovered a suspicious-looking sail which they took for an Ostend pirate. Without waiting to test the truth of their suspicions, the two fugitives took to the ship’s boat and arrived safely in port. (Guizot: Memoirs of Charles the Second; Lingard: History of England.)

BLANCHE GAMOND.

1687.

Blanche Gamond belonged to a Protestant family of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when the Protestants were subjected to the most rigorous persecution, Mademoiselle Gamond, whose piety was of the most fervent and exalted kind, resolved to fly the kingdom. The city of Saint-Paul was closely invested, and the dragoons overran all the neighbouring country in search of the Protestants. Blanche left the city and wandered about for some time alone, and afterwards with her parents, who had joined her. At times they were exposed to all the hardships of forest life, and it was only at intervals that they could venture to show themselves in towns. In this manner they travelled through the greater part of Dauphiné; but they were obliged to separate at last, to escape the more easily from the dragoons; and our poor heroine was about to pass the frontier with her brother and her mother and sister, when she was taken near Goncelin. Her brother escaped from the soldiers, but her mother and her sister were brutally ill-treated by these wretches, and were taken to Grenoble and thrown into a horrible dungeon. Blanche Gamond was then twenty-one years of age. She was subjected for a long time to the most terrible tortures; but insulted, mercilessly beaten, dying of hunger, and sinking under a lingering illness, as she was, she bore all with the courage and the resignation of a martyr.

The following is her account of her attempt at escape, the consequences of which were most disastrous to her:—

“We were told to get ourselves ready in three days for a voyage to America; ‘and when,’ it was added, ‘you are once on shipboard you will be made to walk the plank, and will be thrust into the sea, so that the detested race of the Huguenots may perish with you.’

“ ‘It concerns me little,’ I replied, ‘whether my body be eaten by the fish in the sea or by the worms in the earth.’

“When they had left us alone, Susan de Montélimart said, ‘We might make our escape by this window if we could only break the bars.’

“ ‘We are at such a height from the ground,’ I replied, ‘that we should either kill or lame ourselves; and then we should only be recaptured and treated worse than before. If that should happen, I could never survive my sufferings. I prefer death, therefore, and will rather set out for America. God will deliver us, as he delivered the victims of La Rapine.’ ”

La Rapine, or D’Herapine, who had been formerly condemned for robbery, under his real name of Guichard, had become director of the hospital of Valence, where he was told to employ all the means in his power for the conversion of the Protestants—a commission which he executed with all the cynicism and the ferocity of one of the worst of scoundrels.

“Susan replied, ‘If they had done to me what they have done to you I should have died ere this; but they are killing us of hunger; and, besides, they are going to take us to America, and we shall be half dead when they throw us in the sea. We might get out of this window. We seem to be despising the means which God has placed within our reach; but, for my part, I mean to attempt to use them.’

“At length, by her persuasion, I joined her in cutting a piece of cloth into shreds, and sewing it together; and when we had made a long band in this manner we tied a piece of stone to the end of it and lowered it, to ascertain the height of the window from the ground. We were on the fourth storey, and we found that our band was too short; but we lengthened it, and finally the end touched the ground. I then put my head out of the window and said to my dear sisters, ‘Alas! we shall kill ourselves, for it almost frightens me to death to look down.’

“That same evening, when our guards were asleep, we crept to the window with bare feet, for we were afraid that the priest, whose chamber was beneath ours, would hear our footsteps. Susan was the first to get out, and she was followed by Mademoiselle Terrasson de Die, then by me and by Mademoiselle Anne Dumas, of La Salle, in Languedoc. When I got outside and began to lay hold of the band, my strength failed me, and I heard the bones of my arm crack. My dress caught in a hook outside the window, and I was obliged to support myself with one arm while I disengaged myself with the other. I no longer felt either strength or courage, and I cried, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ But I seized the band with my teeth, and joining my two hands over it, I fell, rather than lowered myself, to the ground, striking against the stones with such violence that I cried, ‘Mercy! My God, I am either killed or maimed for life!’

“The dear sisters who were waiting for me ran up to me and asked me where I was hurt.

“ ‘Everywhere,’ I replied; ‘I am sure that I have broken my thigh,’ and I begged of them to tie it up for me with my apron. I then limped away, my two sisters supporting me on either side. I made sixty or seventy steps in great pain, and reached the gate of the Faubourg de Valence: but it was closed. They helped me to get upon the wall, but when I stood upon the top of it, and saw how high it was, I said to my three dear sisters, ‘This is a second precipice, and I am not brave enough to attempt to descend. Leave me and go alone.’

“They let me down from the wall and left me there, and then they tried to get down themselves, and succeeded after great trouble. When they had reached the other side, Mademoiselle Dumas cried out to me, ‘We are going. We are very sorry to leave you behind. God preserve you from our enemies. I wish you prosperity, and give you my blessing, and I beg of you to give me yours in return.’

“ ‘Who am I,’ I replied, ‘to give you my blessing? but I pray that God will give you his. I pray fervently that he will lead you in all his ways; and I conjure you to leave this place as quickly as you can, or all of us may be recaptured.’

“I was thus left quite alone, still suffering the cruel and violent pains which had never left me from the moment of my fall. It was not yet daybreak, and I lifted up my heart to God. But I fainted in the midst of my prayer, and did not come to myself for, at least, a quarter of an hour. I had no one to console me, or even to offer me a single drop of water; but as soon as I came to myself I cried out, ‘Lord, do not abandon me.’ I lay for a time without being able to make any movement, and then I thought that at daybreak they would be sure to find me, and then I should be recaptured and taken to the hospice. ‘O God,’ I prayed, ‘grant me this mercy that this day may see the last of my troubles, for death is better than life. I have lived enough. Take my soul to thee, O God. Oh grant, if it please thee, that I may be taken to the tomb, and not to the hospice this day.’

“Day then began to break. I had not enough strength to raise myself, so that those who passed by did not know that I was lamed. I was only just able to hide my face from them by covering it with my tappeta. I was interrupted during my prayers by the agony which I suffered from my broken thigh and dislocated ankle. After a time a gentleman came by, and said, ‘It would be better, mademoiselle, for you to be at your own house than to remain here, and it would certainly be more becoming.’

“ ‘If you knew who I was, sir,’ I replied, ‘you would not address me in such language.’

“In another moment they opened the gate of the Faubourg and the passers-by said very hard and cruel things about me, seeing me lying at full length in the road so early in the morning.”

She begged one of them to fetch Mademoiselle Marsilière, a Protestant converted to Catholicism, whom she knew, and she prayed God that this early friend might turn out a good Samaritan, but this prayer was not heard.

“Are you asking for me?” said Mademoiselle Marsilière, when she approached the poor wounded creature. “Yes, mademoiselle; save me—for mercy’s sake help me. Take me to some place where I may die, so that no one may witness my sufferings.”

“But Mademoiselle Marsilière replied that I should endanger her safety as well as my own. ‘I must go,’ she said, ‘before any one sees me, or I shall be put in prison myself.’

“I was wounded to the heart at this treatment from a co-religionist, and I asked her if she had the courage to leave me in this condition. ‘Help me, at least,’ I said, ‘to crawl behind this wall, so that I may not be seen by the passers-by.’ ”

But neither the prayers nor the sufferings of the unfortunate Blanche had the least effect on the prudent and charitable person whom she had called to her aid. Mademoiselle Marsilière went away, but returned shortly afterwards with the almoner of the religious house of which she was a member, who, without paying the least regard to the distressed condition of the wounded girl, began to address to her a series of questions about her escape and her accomplices. At length two men, seizing her by the shoulders and the feet, carried her to the hospice and laid her down upon the stones in the courtyard.

It is impossible to enter fully here into all the details of the rigorous punishment endured by the poor girl for some months after this. She bore all with her ordinary courage and patience, but the mere recital of such atrocities would give too much pain to the most unfeeling heart.

She was at last allowed to return to her parents, and she recovered her health after her long sufferings, and retired to Switzerland with her family.

JEAN BART AND THE CHEVALIER DE FORBIN.

1689.

They were taken to Portsmouth, where they of course expected to be treated as prisoners of war on parole, but the governor of the fortress would not even grant them this scanty honour. They were shut up in a sort of inn with barred windows, and sentinels were placed before their door. This wretched treatment naturally made them anxious to escape, and they did not even wait until their wounds were cured before they began to form their plans. An Ostend fisherman, a relation of Jean Bart—as some say, Gaspar Bart, his brother—having put in to Portsmouth, found means to gain admission to the prison, and to confer with his two friends on the project which occupied all their thoughts. On one of his visits he left a file behind him, with which they cut the bars before their windows, hiding the marks by covering them with pieces of moistened bread and soot.

It happened fortunately that the surgeon sent to attend them was a Fleming, himself a prisoner, and equally desirous with his two patients of recovering his liberty. In due time too, the men who had been appointed to wait on them were gained over by a liberal present, and by still more liberal promises. The great difficulty was to find means of putting to sea; but the attendants who alone had power to leave the prison undertook to make the necessary arrangements for the embarkation. They accordingly hailed one day a Norwegian shallop, the master of which was at the time lying in a drunken sleep in his cabin. He was quietly transferred from his own vessel to another; and this was no sooner done than the two attendants ran to tell the prisoners to prepare for instant flight.

As soon as the surgeon came to pay his accustomed visit, he was told to give the Ostend fishermen notice to take everything necessary for a voyage of some days on board the Norwegian vessel. He lost no time in executing his commission, and the sloop was soon amply supplied with bread, cheese, beer, and other necessaries. It was then arranged that the surgeon should return at midnight with the fisherman and the two attendants, and as soon as he arrived beneath the prison window should signal his presence by throwing a small stone against the panes.

The signal was heard at the appointed hour. Jean Bart removed the bars in front of his window, fastened his bedclothes end to end, and sliding down the band, reached the ground in safety. The surgeon, the fisherman, and the two attendants led them at once to a little creek in which the vessel was moored, and they all embarked with the exception of the fisherman, who went quietly back to his own ship. In leaving Plymouth the fugitives had a narrow escape. They were seen by the look-out on the guard ship, and hailed with the customary “Who goes there?” By great good fortune Jean Bart knew a little English, and he replied, “Fishermen.” They were then suffered to pass.

The poor lieutenant had not been able to follow his captain. He had lost an arm; he was very corpulent; and as he could not have rendered the least assistance during the voyage, his presence would only have tended to compromise the safety of his friends. He took, therefore, the heroic resolution of remaining in prison, and of assisting the fugitives by keeping the guard amused while they were running away. He continued this subterfuge after Jean Bart had left the house, and pretended to be conversing with him in his room, until long after he had had time to effect his embarkation in safety. He then drew in the sheets which had served his commander as a rope, and quietly went to bed. He affected great surprise next day when he was informed of the escape of his fellow-prisoners, pretending to believe they had basely abandoned him, and cursing them very heartily in both English and French.

His gaolers were deceived by this ruse, and put several questions to him as to the conversations with his commander, in the hope of ascertaining the direction the fugitives had taken. “These traitors,” he replied, “have told me nothing; all that I know is that Bart lately had a pair of shoes made, and that he remarked when he tried them on, how useful they would be to any one who had to take a long walk.” This completely deceived them, and they sent horse soldiers out in all directions in the hope of recapturing the fugitives, who were then in the middle of the Channel.

Jean Bart at length sighted the coast of Brittany, and disembarked at a small village a few leagues from St. Malo. The journey from Plymouth had occupied forty-eight hours, and, this time included, he had not been in captivity more than eleven days. The party were received with transports of joy, for the merchantmen whom they had saved had spoken in the highest terms of their courage, but it was thought their patriotic devotion had cost them their lives. Jean Bart’s first care was to indemnify the Ostend fisherman whom the English had made responsible for his flight, and his next to purchase the liberty of his brave lieutenant, who was released a month after the escape of his commander.

DUGUAY-TROUIN.

1694.

Duguay-Trouin, commanding the frigate La Diligente, of forty guns, was driven by a storm into the midst of a squadron of six English vessels, of from fifty to seventy guns each. After fighting five of them for several hours, and refusing to surrender, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of his officers, he was struck by a spent shot, and rendered insensible. When he came to himself he was a prisoner in the hands of the English. He was at first sent to Plymouth; and he had already begun to make preparations for his escape, when orders were given that his confinement should be made more rigorous. The captain of a company on guard at the prison had fallen in love with a young woman of Plymouth, and had confided his passion to Duguay-Trouin, who had promised to use all his influence to induce the fair one to consent to marriage. He took advantage of the comparative freedom which he enjoyed through his good offices on the captain’s behalf, to come to a good understanding with the lady on his own account; and he was enabled by her aid to make arrangements with a Swedish captain for the hire of a vessel, properly provisioned and manned, for his intended flight. While the captain thought that Duguay-Trouin was pleading for him with the lady in a neighbouring inn, to which he had been permitted to extend his walks, the commander was leaping over the wall of the garden, with another officer who was to join him in trying to escape. The Swedish captain and six sailors were waiting for them at a neighbouring spot, and they all reached the little vessel in safety.

“We embarked,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “at about six in the evening. We had scarcely started when we ran almost between two English vessels, and were obliged to answer their inquiries as to our destination. We told them we were fishermen putting out to sea, and they allowed us to pass. At daybreak we came upon another English ship making for Plymouth. She was going to turn in pursuit of us, although we did not lie in her route, and we should certainly have been taken but for a sudden gust of wind, which carried us away from her almost without any effort of our own.

“We had been rowing all the time, and we were very tired when we reached the open sea. We relieved one another at nightfall, and the master of the vessel and I tried to make out our way with the aid of a small compass, illumined by the feeble rays of a lantern. While thus engaged I was so overpowered with fatigue that I fell asleep; but I was soon awakened by the noise of a terrible gust of wind, which threw the little vessel on her side, and filled her with water in an instant. By a quick movement of the helm I was fortunate enough to avoid the threatened shipwreck—a disaster that must have proved fatal, as we were more than fifteen leagues from land. My companions, who were also asleep, were quite as suddenly awakened as myself by the waves beating about their heads. Our biscuit and our beer were quite spoiled by the seawater, and it took us a long while to bale out the water with our hats. At about eight o’clock on the following day we landed at a spot two leagues from Tréguier, on the coast of Brittany.”

THE ABBÉ COUNT DE BUCQUOY.

1700-1702.

He was sent to For-l’Évêque; and from the very first day of his imprisonment he began to consider how he could recover his liberty. He remembered that one of the body-guard, who had been imprisoned in the same place, had nearly made his escape through a window of a loft, which looked out upon one of the quays, then called the Valley of Misery, and that he had failed, owing solely to his terror at the sight of the precipice on which his prison was built.

Bucquoy, however, made up his mind to repeat this attempt. He tried at first to form a clear idea of the plan of this terrible place. He discovered that the loft in question served as a kind of antechamber to his small cell, and that it was, at the same time, the lumber-room of the prison. Wishing to make sure of everything before risking his life, he one day pretended to be ill, and asked to be led upstairs to breathe the air at a small window which over-looked that part of the building. The height from the quay was appalling; and, in addition to that, every one of the numerous window-gratings to which he would have to cling in making his descent was covered with short, sharp spikes. The sight was enough to strike terror into the stoutest heart.

When he had once more been locked up in his cell, he, however, confirmed himself in his resolution to escape through the loft. All that was necessary was to find means to leave the cell unobserved, and to reach a certain part of the antechamber.

To get out without the consent of the gaoler, he would have had to break the door down; but he soon saw that it would be impossible to do this, as he was wholly unprepared with tools, and as the noise of his operations would be certain to alarm his guards. It occurred to him, however, that he might burn away the door; and with this view he obtained permission to cook for himself in his own cell. He asked for a few eggs and some charcoal, and paid liberally for both, in order the more readily to induce the gaoler to supply them. All being ready, and the whole household asleep, he placed the brasier close to the door and fanned the flame until it ignited the ponderous timbers. When he had by this means burnt a hole large enough to admit his body, he passed through, first taking care to extinguish the flames, as it was not his wish to destroy the building. In this operation he was nearly suffocated by the smoke from the smouldering beams. He was without a rope to tie to the window of the loft, but he made a substitute for it by binding together a number of strips of webbing cut from a mattrass which he found among the furniture. He then fastened this band to a bedstead, which he dragged to the window, and, gliding gently down, was fortunate enough to pass the windows without receiving any fatal injury from the spikes, and to reach the quay. It was daybreak, and the market people opening their shops did not fail to observe him, all torn and bloody as he was, for many of the spikes had entered his flesh. But a greater danger threatened him, in the unwelcome attentions of a number of young men, who had only just risen from supper, and who chased him through the streets with drunken cries. A timely shower of rain, however, dispersed them, and he was saved.

In trying to avoid them he made many turns and doubles, and at last found himself at the door of a café, near the Temple, which he entered for the purpose of making some slight changes in his appearance, in case he should meet his tormentors again. His dress, however, began to excite remark among the customers, and fearing he was already known, he hastily paid his reckoning, and went out without knowing what direction to take. He at last took refuge at the house of a relation of one of his servants, to whom he told a plausible story to excuse the negligence of his attire. The woman fetched him some food at his request, but feeling he could not confide in her discretion, he soon left the house to seek a more secure asylum.

After spending some nine months in sending petition after petition from his various hiding-places, he tried to leave the kingdom, but choosing his time badly, was arrested at La Fère and sent to prison. He made two attempts to escape, and failed only by a hair’s breadth in the second, having scaled a wall and swum across a ditch before he was discovered. He was at length taken back to Paris, and imprisoned in the Bastille.

To enter the Bastille was almost to abandon hope, for escape seemed impossible. But even while he was passing the gates of the prison, Bucquoy was reconnoitering it to find means to effect his escape. He took particular notice of the drawbridge and the counterscarp, but he was not allowed much time for his observations; for he was at once hurried away to the Bretignière tower.

After passing a few days in one of the lowest dungeons of this tower, he was placed in a cell, shared by a number of prisoners in common. He proposed that they should make a joint effort to recover their liberty, but he was denounced by one of their number, an abbé. He was then once more shut up in his dungeon. He was suffered to leave it, however, on feigning to be ill and at the point of death. He was believed to be paralytic, and as it was thought there was no further danger of his attempting to carry out his plans, he was once more sent to the common room. In course of time he had made the circuit of nearly all the towers of the building, never failing to study the plan of each of them attentively; and he was at length sent to the Bertaudière, where he had for companion a German baron, whom he undertook to convert from the Lutheran faith, and whom he persuaded to aid him in his attempt to escape. They had already commenced operations on an old window which had long been closed up, when they were betrayed by another prisoner. Bucquoy was adroit enough to exculpate himself, and to throw the blame upon his betrayer, but he was removed to a cell in the tower, La Liberté, together with the baron, whose conversion he represented was not quite complete.

They then began to renew their preparations, this time with the view of reaching the ditch of the Porte Saint Antoine. They made a hole in the wall by means of certain jagged pieces of iron and brass, old nails and knife-blades, which the abbé had carefully collected in the course of his long sojourn in the prison; and which, by the aid of the fire in the room, they fashioned into tools. At the same time they began to make a ladder, using for this purpose the strips of osier in which their wine bottles were enveloped, and telling the gaoler they were collecting them to serve as fuel. A hole which they had scooped out under the flooring of their cell served to conceal all these things.

Working steadily every day, and never losing sight of their design, they contrived in a short time to make a tolerable ladder. All was now nearly ready, and they were on the very point of making their attempt, when on visiting their subterranean cupboard one day, it gave way beneath them, and precipitated them into a room on the floor below occupied by a jesuit. The poor man’s mind was ill at ease, and this terrible accident made him quite mad. The abbé was taken back to his cell by a gaoler, but he was not allowed to remain there long, and he was thus doomed to lose almost in a moment the fruits of long months of most trying exertion. He found means, however, to get rid of his German baron, who was no further use to him, as he could not be persuaded to embark in another attempt. But the baron had abjured his religion, and this gained the abbé such a reputation as a converter of heretics, that he was sent to attempt the reformation of a certain Protestant, named Grandville, who was considered a very excellent boon companion by his fellow prisoners, and who was known to be most anxious to make his escape.

Two other prisoners were placed in the same cell with them, and the abbé soon found means to come to an understanding with all his companions in misfortune. After he had bound them to him by the most solemn oaths, he informed them that he had a small file concealed in his clothes, which had hitherto escaped the closest search, and he proposed that they should cut through the bars of their windows with it, and make their way into the courtyard. He had managed to keep some pieces of osier that he and the German had plaited, and by the aid of his new confederates, he soon added largely to his store. They laboured together like the workmen of the tower of Babel, for they were almost as much hindered by differences of opinion, as the others were by differences of speech. At last they made up their minds to take the only course possible to them: viz. to descend by the ladder into the ditch. Once there, it was agreed that each should look after himself.

On the appointed day—or, rather, night—they removed the bars as soon as they found all was silent in the fortress. Fearing that their suspended bodies might be seen from the other cells, they first let down a long white sheet, which covered all the windows between their cell and the ground. As it was necessary to prevent the ladder from falling close to the wall, the abbé had some days previously erected a kind of sundial at the end of a long pole, and the sentinels had already learned to regard it without suspicion. After they had taken all these precautions, and had smeared the white ropes of their ladder with soot, the abbé asked to be allowed to be first to make the descent, promising to await his companions in the ditch. He was, at the same time, to warn them of the approach of the sentinels by pulling a smaller rope, falling from the window to the ground. When all had been thus arranged he got out of the window, and reached the ditch in safety; but he remained there two hours without receiving a sign from his companions. He pulled the rope repeatedly, to no purpose, and he began to fear they were engaged in some new dispute, when he saw them lowering some cumbrous machine they had constructed to aid them in their flight. Two of them came down, but the rest had not at first been able to pass through the window, and this had been the cause of the delay. When they found, at length, they could force themselves through, they were still willing to stay with the unfortunate Grandville, whose obesity compelled him to remain behind, but he generously refused to allow them to make this useless sacrifice on his behalf.

Their sad story ended, the abbé urged them, with all the eloquence of which he was master, to follow his plan of escape; but not being able to persuade them he began to look to his own safety. He had only a small osier ladder; with this he contrived to gain the top of the ditch as soon as the sentinel’s back was turned; he then climbed the counterscarp and reached a deep gutter, and passing over another wall and ditch, finally dropped into the Rue St. Antoine, nearly lacerating his arm on a hook outside a butcher’s shop in his fall. Before leaving the wall he looked round for his comrades, and hearing the cry of a half-strangled person, followed rapidly by a musket-shot, he concluded that they had tried to carry out their intention of seizing the guard but had been overpowered; and as he never heard of the unfortunate creatures again he remained all his life confirmed in this impression. Not caring to await a similar fate, he ran rapidly from the Rue St. Antoine to the Rue des Journelles; and after making half the circuit of Paris he arrived at the house of some friends, who furnished him with the means of leaving the country.

FORSTER, MACINTOSH, ROBERT KEITH, NITHSDALE, AND OTHER CHIEFS OF THE JACOBITE INSURRECTION.

1715.

During the Jacobite insurrection of 1715 a great number of the partisans of the Pretender, who had been made prisoners at Preston, were taken to London, and lodged in Newgate and other gaols of the metropolis. Among these unfortunate men were Thomas Forster, of Bamborough, a man of excellent family and a member of Parliament for the county of Northumberland, who had been commander-in-chief of the insurrection in the north of England; Brigadier Macintosh, a highland gentleman, who had learnt the art of war in the service of France; Robert Hepburn, of Keith, one of the first lairds who had raised the standard of the chevalier; Charles Radcliffe, brother of the Earl of Derwentwater, a chief of the insurrection in England; and the Earls of Nithsdale and of Winton, who had played the same in Scotland.

Like almost all their companions in misfortune, they had cherished the hope that the fact of their having surrendered at discretion would have saved their lives. But when they saw so many around them condemned for high treason they resolved to escape. The means at their command, their numerous friends in the capital, and the faulty construction of the gaols in which they were imprisoned afforded them a reasonable prospect of success.

Accordingly, on the 10th of April, 1716, Thomas Forster, having procured false keys, simply opened the door of his prison and escaped in a manner the very reverse of dramatic, but, beyond doubt, perfectly satisfactory to himself. Everything was prepared for his flight, and he arrived safely in France.

On the 10th of May following, Brigadier Macintosh, having succeeded in removing his irons and in reaching the lower storey of the prison, placed himself near the door, and the moment it opened for the admission of a servant, who had stayed out late, hurled the gaoler to the ground and passed out, with fourteen of his companions. Some of the fugitives were re-arrested in the streets, not knowing where to fly for safety, but Macintosh was not so unfortunate. Among the prisoners who escaped at about the same time was Robert Hepburn, of Keith. He overpowered the gaoler by his immense strength, and, taking the keys away from him, succeeded in gaining the street without being pursued. He was aware that his wife and a number of his own people were in London, ready to come to his aid; but he did not know how to find them in that immense city, living, as they probably were, under an assumed name. While wandering about in this state of uncertainty, fearing to betray his nationality by asking a question, he saw in a window a piece of plate which had long been in possession of his family, and which was called the Tankard of Keith. Without a moment’s hesitation, the fugitive entered the house and was received in the arms of his wife and children. Informed of his intention to escape, they had taken a lodging as near the prison as they could; and, not daring to confide the secret of their retreat to any stranger, they had had recourse to this means of making it known to the head of the family. Hepburn of Keith succeeded in reaching France.

Charles Radcliffe and Lord Winton, who were condemned to death, also contrived to regain their freedom at about the same time—whether through the mere carelessness or the deliberate neglect of their guards it is not easy to say. But the escape which made the most noise at the time was that of the Earl of Nithsdale, who, like his companions, had been condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.

The most strenuous exertions had been made to obtain a pardon for this unfortunate gentleman, but in vain. Lady Nithsdale, his wife, had thrown herself at the feet of George II., imploring mercy, but the king had refused to listen to her. She, however, obtained permission to bid her husband adieu on the night before his execution; and she accordingly went to the Tower, accompanied by two women, who were in her confidence. One of these women had on two suits of outer garments; and after leaving a suit in the earl’s chamber she immediately quitted the prison. The second woman gave the earl her clothes and put on those which the first had just taken off. Wrapped up in a long cloak, and with a handkerchief to his eyes, the prisoner then passed through the midst of the sentinels, left the Tower, and at once took ship for France. Lady Nithsdale, who remained behind, ran some risk of suffering in her husband’s stead, but her life was spared, and she soon regained her liberty.

The Pretender himself succeeded in reaching the bridge of Montrose with his army, and embarked secretly with the Earl of Mar and a few other gentlemen, and thus abandoned his faithful mountaineers to all the violence of an infuriated government, as if, in his anxiety for his own safety, he had quite forgotten the unhappy creatures who had imperilled their liberty and their lives for his sake. This departure was, indeed, less of an escape than a dishonourable flight, and no sort of interest attaches to it. In this it differed altogether from the escape, at a future period, of his son, Prince Charles Edward, of which we propose to give an account.

CHARLES EDWARD.

1746.

After the battle of Culloden, which proved the ruin of his hopes, Charles Edward was obliged to fly, to escape the government of George II. A price was put on his head, and a reward of £30,000 sterling was offered for his discovery and capture. “One would have supposed,” says Scott, “that in a country so poor as the highlands of Scotland, where laws concerning property are almost unknown, and among a people whose propensities to pillage had almost passed into a proverb, a reward far less considerable would have sufficed to awake the cupidity of some traitor, and to have ruined the Pretender. That was not, however, the case; and the escape of this prince, so long retarded by the agents of the victorious power, and effected with so much difficulty and amid a thousand obstacles, must be cited to the honour of Scotland, as a striking and brilliant example of good faith.”

During the battle of Culloden, Charles Edward had exposed himself to considerable danger. He was several times covered with earth thrown up by the bullets; he made repeated attempts to rally his troops, and according to the testimony of most of those who witnessed his conduct, he showed himself a brave and efficient commander. On quitting the field of battle he dismissed, under various pretexts, the greater number of the gentlemen who followed him—doubting, possibly, their fidelity—and kept with him only a few Irish officers, on whom he thought he could count. He directed his flight at first towards the residence of Lord Lovat, thinking, perhaps, that this person, who was renowned for his sagacity, could advise him as to his future course, and, perhaps, even give him some material help; for his son, the Master of Lovat, and Cluny MacPherson, another relative, had both raised considerable reinforcements, and they were on the march to join the prince’s army, when the battle took place. Charles and Lovat met for the first and last time, both of them a prey to the fears and embarrassments of a desperate situation. Charles spoke only of the distress into which Scotland was plunged, Lovat occupied himself solely with his personal dangers. The prince soon perceived that he had neither advice nor help to expect from his host, and he went away after hastily taking some refreshment. The place was dangerous, on account of the proximity of the victorious army; and, perhaps, even the fidelity of Lovat was to be suspected. Charles next halted at Invergarry—a castle belonging to the laird of Glengarry, where he was served with an excellent repast of fresh-caught salmon. As a punishment for this isolated act of hospitality, the English soldiers shortly afterwards pillaged and sacked the castle.

From Invergarry the fugitive made his way to a village in the western mountains, near the place where he had disembarked on coming from France. He there resolved to abandon his enterprise, and he accordingly sent a message to the chiefs and the soldiers assembled at Ruthven, thanking them for their services, and urging them to provide for their own safety, since no other course was left to him but to try to make his escape to France. His partisans in vain implored him to suffer them to expose themselves to new dangers for his sake. Charles saw too clearly that all was lost, and he refused to be the means of sacrificing the lives of brave men, who he knew were only taking counsel of their own devotion and despair.

Separated from his faithful supporters and friends, Charles wandered about the Hebrides in the hope of finding a ship for France. But the very elements seemed to have declared against him; no ship appeared; and his daily life was fast becoming almost purposeless. He at length arrived at the spot where he had formerly disembarked. He was met by Clanronald, who had been the first to declare for him, and who remained faithful to him in this his dire distress. The prince was lodged in a miserable hut belonging to a woodcutter named Corradale, and situated upon the rugged mountain which bears the same name.

Meanwhile the agents of the English government were making a keen search for the fugitive in every place that seemed to offer him the possibility of an asylum. General Campbell went to the very extremity of the isle of St. Kilda, which might be termed the boundary of the habitable world, and from thence passing to the other extremity of the Hebrides, he found the chiefs of Skye and of MacLeod engaged in a similar search. Two thousand men in all were employed in this undertaking, while the coasts of the island were constantly watched by ships of war. It seemed absolutely impossible for the prince to escape; yet he was saved by the courage of a woman.

That woman was Flora Macdonald, and her name is still honoured in the land of her birth. She was a relative of Clanronald, and she was at the time visiting that chief. Her father-in-law, who was of the clan of Sir Alexander MacDonald, was consequently an enemy of the Pretender, and he commanded the militia of the name of MacDonald, which was then exploring South Uist.

Having hastily formed a plan for saving the prince, Flora had sufficient address to obtain from her father-in-law permission to engage a male attendant and a servant girl, whom she named Betty Burke. The part of Betty was to be played by the prince dressed as a woman. Charles did in fact assume this disguise, and after having been several times in danger of capture, he arrived at Kilbride, in the Isle of Skye. But he was still in Sir Alexander MacDonald’s county, and he ran almost as great risks as before. Here, however, the courage and presence of mind of Flora were displayed anew in favour of the man thus so strangely placed under the protection of a young girl. She resolved to confide her secret to Lady Margaret MacDonald, wife of Sir Alexander, and to trust to the natural compassion of the sex, and to that enthusiasm for the Jacobite cause then common among nearly all the women of the Highlands.

This undertaking was the more dangerous, as the husband of Lady Margaret was already suspected of having at first offered his services to the prince. Lady Margaret was alarmed at Flora’s revelation. Her husband was absent, and her house was full of officers of militia. She could think of no other way of providing for the safety of the prince than to confide him to the care of MacDonald of Kingsburgh, a brave and intelligent man, who acted as agent or steward to Sir Alexander. Flora undertook to conduct the prince to MacDonald’s house; and the prince was fortunate enough to avoid recognition on the road, although the awkwardness of his air, dressed as he was like a woman, more than once excited suspicion.

From Kingsburgh he went to Raasay, where he was in the greatest distress; the isle having been pillaged because the laird had taken part in the insurrection. During this period of his flight he passed for the servant of his guide. He then took refuge for a time in the country of the laird of MacKinnon; but notwithstanding all the efforts of this chief in his favour, he could find neither rest nor safety in that part of the Isle of Skye, and was obliged to return once more to the mainland of Scotland, on the borders of Loch Nevis. He was there exposed to new dangers, and was very nearly taken. A great number of soldiers were overrunning the district which was the cradle of the insurrection, the country of Lochiel, of Keppoch, of Glengarry, and of other Jacobite chiefs. The prince and his guide soon found themselves in the midst of a circle of sentinels, and were scarcely able to move for fear of detection. After having passed two days surrounded by enemies, and without daring to light a fire to cook their food, they at length avoided the threatened danger by passing through a narrow defile, which separated the posts of two sentinels. Living thus in misery and nakedness, often without food, without fire, and without shelter, the unfortunate prince, sustained alone by the hope of learning that some French vessel was approaching the coast, arrived at length at the mountains of Strath-glass; And with Glen Allandale, who was then his only companion, was obliged to take shelter in a cavern which was shared by seven robbers. These men, however, were not ordinary outcasts; but like Charles himself, they had been obliged to hide because they had taken part in the insurrection. They willingly granted shelter to the fugitive, and recognising the prince for whom they had so often exposed their lives, they renewed to him their oaths of devotion. Among his most obedient and attached subjects, Charles Edward never found more zeal, fidelity, and effective help, than he met with at the hands of these men who had become the enemies of the world and of its laws. Wishing to give him all the assistance in their power, they undertook to procure him a suit of clothes, a change of linen, some provisions, and news. They executed their design with a strange mixture of that simplicity and ferocity which then formed the basis of the Highland character. Two of them lay in ambush for the servant of an officer who was going to Fort Augustine with his master’s baggage, and killed him. This was the means of furnishing the prince with clothes. Then another, in disguise, ventured to enter Fort Augustine, managed to obtain valuable information as to the movement of troops, and wishing to fulfil his mission of aid in all its integrity, brought away for the unfortunate prince a small piece of spiced bread of the value of a halfpenny. Charles Edward passed more than three weeks in this cave, and it was with great reluctance that his hosts suffered him to depart. “Stay with us,” they said. “The mountains of gold which the government has promised for your head will perhaps lead some gentleman to betray you; for it will be easy for him to go in a distant land, and live upon the price of his infamy. But we are under no such temptation. We know no other language but our own; we cannot live in any other country; and if we were to harm a hair of your head, our own mountains would fall upon us and crush us.” Another remarkable example of enthusiasm and devotion aided at about this time the escape of the prince. The son of a goldsmith of Edinburgh, named Robert Mackenzie, who had been an officer in the Jacobite army, was then hidden in the country of Glen Moriston. He was of about the same height as Charles, and he resembled him very much, both in face and figure. He was discovered by a party of soldiers, and attacked. He defended himself bravely; and wishing by a last effort of heroism to render his death useful to the cause he had served, he cried as he fell mortally wounded, “Oh, wretches, you have killed your prince!” His generous plan succeeded. He was taken for Charles Edward, and his head was sent to London. Some time elapsed before the deception was discovered; and as most persons believed that the real prince was killed, the government began to relax the rigour of its search. Profiting by this momentary respite, Charles Edward sought an interview with Lochiel, Cluny MacPherson, and some others of his faithful partisans said to be hidden in a neighbouring district. He therefore bid farewell to his faithful banditti, two of whom, however, he kept with him to serve as guides and as an escort. He at length succeeded in reaching Lochiel and MacPherson, though not without running very great risks. They lived for some time in a hut called the cage, sheltered by a very thick copse on the slope of the mountain Benalder. But they were in the midst of abundance; and for the first time since his flight the prince had enough to eat.

Towards the middle of September, Charles Edward learned that two French frigates had arrived at Loch Lannagh to convey him to France. He embarked on the twentieth, with a hundred of his partisans, and touched the coast of Brittany on the twenty-ninth, at a spot near Morlaix. For five months he had wandered a fugitive; leading a precarious life in the midst of fatigues and of dangers surpassing anything recorded in history. During this time his secret had been confided to hundreds of persons of both sexes, of all ages, and of all conditions, without one of them, even among the thieves who lived at the risk of their lives, having for a moment thought of enriching himself with the wages of the informer.

STANISLAUS LECZINSKI.

1734.

Stanislaus Leczinski was besieged by the Russians in the city of Dantzic, and having no hope of relief, and knowing that the enemy wished to capture him rather than the city, the unfortunate king of Poland resolved to subserve the interests of his country in providing for his own safety. Several means of escape were presented to him. Some wished him to place himself at the head of a hundred determined men, and to pierce the Russian lines, but the project was too impracticable to be entertained. He then adopted the plan of the ambassador of France—that, namely, of flying in the disguise of a peasant.

“I left the house of the ambassador,” says the king, “in partial disguise. I had not gone far when I wished to return to reassure him, for he was greatly alarmed for my safety, and to dry the tears which I had seen him shed. I therefore walked up again to his apartments and tapped at the door, which he had gently closed. I found him prostrate on the ground, and offering up fervent prayers to God to guide me in my dangerous journey. ‘I come,’ said I, ‘to embrace you once more, and to beg of you to resign yourself, as I do, to Providence.’ ”

Accompanied by General Steinflycht, disguised like himself as a peasant, and by another officer who was engaged to assist him, the king crossed the ditch in a boat, intending to enter Prussia, but he was obliged to pass a post commanded by a serjeant, who interrogated the party so closely that they judged it most prudent to declare themselves. The serjeant then made a profound salute to the king, and allowed him to pass. The king’s guides did not belong to the most honourable portion of society, two of them being mere vagabonds; but that was of no great moment as they were perfectly acquainted with the roads, and were above all faithful. They began, however, by detaining the unfortunate king all one night and the following day in a miserable cabin in the midst of a marsh, about a quarter of a league from Dantzic. They assured him this was necessary for his safety, and Stanislaus soon discovered that the trusty fellows thought too little of his rank to make it worth his while to expostulate with them. On the following night they took to their boat, and rowed slowly and with difficulty along a sluggish river covered with weeds. Towards midnight the guides separated in two parties, one of which led the general by the road bordering the river, while the other continued with the king in the boat. At daybreak they again hid themselves in a peasant’s hut, and the king slept on a truss of straw. He had not lain there long when some Cossacks entered with a great uproar, and he gave himself up for lost till he discovered that they had merely come in to breakfast. They remained at table two mortal hours, but at last they went away, and the peasant’s wife came to reassure Stanislaus with the news, though she was wholly unable to understand why he wished to avoid the Cossacks instead of drinking with them. At nightfall they again took to the boat, and passed over a great tract of country which had been flooded, and then after a long and fatiguing march arrived at a house, the owner of which uttered a loud cry at seeing the king. “He is merely one of our comrades,” said the guides; “what has alarmed you?” “No, I am not deceived,” said the peasant; “it is the king, Stanislaus.” “Yes, my friend,” said the king firmly and confidently; “it is myself; but you are too honest a man to refuse me help in the condition in which you see me.” The king’s confidence was not misplaced; the man promised to take him across the Vistula, and he kept his word.

This part of the journey, however, was not effected without the king being exposed to very great dangers. The Cossacks had possession of the roads, and they examined every person with the greatest care whose appearance resembled that of the king. The fugitives were often seen, and on one occasion the guides were preparing to abandon Stanislaus, telling him that they did not wish to be hanged without having the least chance of saving his life. But he made them remain by threatening that if they left him he would at once call the Cossacks, although they all perished together. At another time he had to reanimate their courage by a liberal supply of beer and of brandy. He had already learned that Steinflycht had been misled and probably taken. At length they reached the shores of the Vistula, and the peasant, hiding the king in some bushes, went to look for a boat. When he was ready to embark, the king wished to recompense the brave fellow by a present of a considerable sum of money, but he could only induce him to accept two ducats, which the worthy man said he would regard “As a souvenir of the happiness he had known in seeing and knowing his sovereign.” “He took the ducats out of my hand,” says Stanislaus, “in a manner and with expressions not easily to be described.”

All danger was not at an end even when they had passed the Vistula. On one occasion one of the two vagabonds who had guided the king, got drunk, and in the midst of a village openly demanded the price of services he had rendered at the risk of his life. The chief guide had happily the presence of mind to ridicule him before the villagers, and to represent him as a kind of madman, who whenever he had too much to drink mistook every one around him for a prince. Stanislaus at length succeeded in passing the Nogat, and got rid at the same time of his fears and of his vagabond companions, who though they had not betrayed him, had added no little by their indiscretions to the discomforts and miseries of his journey.

BARON TRENCK.

1746-1763.

Some months passed, and Trenck seemed perfectly restored to the favour of his sovereign, when, the blow with which the king had long menaced him fell suddenly upon his head.

Some time previously, Trenck had been imprudent enough to write to his cousin in the Austrian service; and, though his letter contained only general expressions of compliment and regard, it was none the less a grave breach of discipline. The affair of the captured horses had afterwards happened, and Trenck had very nearly forgotten his letter, when he one day received what purported to be a reply to it, though there is every reason to believe that it was the work of some person in the Prussian service plotting his ruin. Trenck was, however, arrested, with the letter in his possession, and was taken to the castle of Glatz, where he was placed in one of the rooms allotted to the officers of the guard, and allowed the liberty of the fortress. He committed the error of writing a very haughty letter to Frederic, which gave great offence. He had remained five months in confinement; the king had vouchsafed no reply to his demand to be brought before a military tribunal; peace had been made; his post in the guards had been given to another; it was then that he began to think of making his escape.

During his imprisonment at Glatz he had made many friends among the officers who had charge of him, by freely supplying them with money, with which he was well provided. Two of these officers volunteered to aid him in his escape, and to accompany him; and in addition to this they all three undertook, from feelings of pity, to deliver another officer, who had been condemned to ten years’ imprisonment in the same fortress. After he had learned all their plans, this wretch, whom Trenck had loaded with benefits, betrayed them, and earned his own liberty as the reward of his treachery. One of the confederates, warned in time, was enabled to save himself; the other, thanks to Trenck, who had bribed his judge, escaped with a year’s imprisonment. But Trenck himself was from that day watched more closely than before. Some years after, the wretch who had so basely sold him received his reward: Trenck met him at Warsaw, insulted him publicly, and killed him in a duel.

The king was greatly incensed at this attempted escape, the more so as he had already promised, at the earnest entreaty of Trenck’s mother, to release him in a year. But Trenck had, unfortunately, been kept in ignorance of this latter circumstance. He was not long, however, before he made another effort to recover his liberty, of which he gives an account in the following terms:—

“My window looked towards the city, and was ninety feet from the ground, in the tower of the citadel, out of which I dared not get before finding a place of refuge in the city. This an officer undertook to procure me, and prevailed on an honest soap-boiler to grant me a hiding-place. I then notched my penknife and sawed through three iron bars; but this mode was too tedious, it being necessary to file away eight bars from my window before I could pass through. Another officer, therefore, procured me a file, which I was obliged to use with caution, lest I should be overheard by the sentinels.

“Having ended this labour, I cut my leather portmanteau into thongs, sewed them end to end, added the sheets of my bed, and descended safely from this tremendous height.

“It rained, the night was dark, and all seemed fortunate; but I had to wade through moats full of mud before I could enter the city—a circumstance I had never once considered. I sank up to the knees, and after long struggling and incredible efforts to extricate myself, I was obliged to call the sentinel and desire him to go and tell the governor Trenck was stuck fast in the moat.

“My misfortune was the greater on this occasion as General Fouquet was then governor of Glatz. He was one of the cruellest of men. He had been wounded by my father in a duel, and the Austrian Trenck had taken his baggage in 1744, and had also laid the country of Glatz under contribution. He was, therefore, an enemy to the very name of Trenck; nor did he lose any opportunity of giving proofs of his sentiments, and especially on the present occasion, when he left me standing in the mire till noon, the sport of the soldiers. I was then drawn out, half dead, only to be again imprisoned and shut up the whole day, without water to wash myself. No one can imagine how I looked—exhausted and dirty, my long hair having fallen into the mud, with which, by my struggling, it was loaded. I remained in this condition till the next day, when two fellow-prisoners were sent to assist and clean me.

“My imprisonment now became intolerable. I had still eighty louis d’ors in my purse, which had not been taken from me at my removal into another dungeon, and these afterwards did me good service.

“Eight days had not elapsed since my last fruitless attempt to escape when an event happened which would appear incredible were I, the principal actor in the scene, not alive to attest its truth, and might not all Glatz and the Prussian garrison be produced as eye and ear-witnesses. This incident will prove that adventurous and even rash daring will render the most improbable undertakings possible, and that desperate attempts may often make a general more fortunate and famous than the wisest and best concerted plans.

“Major Doo came to visit me, accompanied by an officer of the guard and an adjutant. After examining every corner of my chamber, he addressed me, taxing me with a second crime in endeavouring to obtain my liberty, adding that this must certainly increase the anger of the king.

“My blood boiled at the word crime; he talked of patience, I asked how long the king had condemned me to imprisonment. He answered, a traitor to his country who has correspondence with the enemy, cannot be condemned for a certain time, but must depend for grace and pardon on the king.

“At that instant I snatched his sword from his side, on which my eyes had been some time fixed, sprang out of the door, tumbled the sentinel from the top to the bottom of the stairs, passed the men who happened to be drawn up before the prison door to relieve the guard, attacked them sword in hand, threw them suddenly into surprise by the manner in which I laid about me, wounded four of them, made way through the rest, sprang over the breastwork of the ramparts, and with the sword drawn in my hand immediately leaped this astonishing height without receiving the least injury; I leaped the second wall with equal safety and good fortune. None of their pieces were loaded; no one durst leap after me, and in order to pursue, they must go round through the tower and gate of the citadel, so that I had the start full half an hour.

“A sentinel, however, in a narrow passage endeavoured to oppose my flight, but I parried his fixed bayonet and wounded him in the face. A second sentinel, meantime, ran from the outworks to seize me behind, and I, to avoid him, I made a spring at the palisades; unluckily my foot got stuck, and the sentinel seized it and held me by it till his comrades came up, who beat me with the butt end of their muskets, and dragged me back to prison, while I struggled and defended myself like a man grown desperate.

“Certain it is, had I more carefully jumped the palisades, and despatched the sentinel who opposed me I might have escaped, and gained the mountains. Thus might I have fled to Bohemia, after having, at noon day, broken from the fortress at Glatz, sprung past all its sentinels, over all its walls, and passed with impunity, in spite of the guard, who were under arms, ready to oppose me. I should not, with a sword in my hand, have feared any single opponent, and was able to contend with the swiftest runners. That good fortune which had so far attended me, forsook me at the palisades, where hope was at an end.

“The severities of imprisonment were increased, two sentinels and an under officer were locked in with me, and were themselves guarded by sentinels without. I was beaten and wounded by the butt ends of their muskets, my right foot was sprained. I spit blood, and my wounds were not cured in less than a month.

“I was now informed for the first time that the king had only condemned me to a year’s imprisonment to learn whether his suspicions were well founded. My mother had petitioned for me, and was answered, ‘Your son must remain a year imprisoned as a punishment for his rash correspondence.’ Of this I was ignorant, and it was reported in Glatz, that my imprisonment was for life. I had only three weeks longer to repine for the loss of liberty, when I made this rash attempt. What must the king think? Was he not obliged to act with this severity? How could prudence excuse my