To ride before her it was, for, in the fashion of the day, groom and mistress occupied one horse, the groom in front, the mistress behind. Not two hours had they ridden, before the horse cast a shoe. A road-side village was at hand, and they stopped to have the bare hoof shod. The seeming groom held the horse's foot, while the smith hammered at the nails. As they did so an amusing conversation took place.
"What news have you?" asked Charles.
"None worth the telling," answered the smith; "nothing has happened since the beating of those rogues, the Scots."
"Have any of the English, that joined hands with the Scots, been taken?" asked Charles.
"Some of them, they tell me," answered the smith, hammering sturdily at the shoe; "but I do not hear that that rogue, Charles Stuart, has been taken yet."
"Faith," answered the prince, "if he should be taken, he deserves hanging more than all the rest, for bringing the Scots upon English soil."
"You speak well, gossip, and like an honest man," rejoined the smith, heartily. "And there's your shoe, fit for a week's travel on hard roads."
And so they parted, the king merrily telling his mistress the joke, when safely out of reach of the smith's ears.
There is another amusing story told of this journey. Stopping at a house near Stratford-upon-Avon, "Will Jackson" was sent to the kitchen, as the groom's place. Here he found a buxom cook-maid, engaged in preparing supper.
"Wind up the jack for me," said the maid to her supposed fellow-servant.
Charles, nothing loath, proceeded to do so. But he knew much less about handling a jack than a sword, and awkwardly wound it up the wrong way. The cook looked at him scornfully, and broke out in angry tones,—
"What countrymen are you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?"
Charles answered her contritely, repressing the merry twinkle in his eye.
"I am a poor tenant's son of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire," he said; "we seldom have roast meat, and when we have, we don't make use of a jack."
"That's not saying much for your Staffordshire cooks, and less for your larders," replied the maid, with a head-toss of superiority.
The house where this took place still stands, with the old jack hanging beside the fireplace; and those who have seen it of late years do not wonder that Charles was puzzled how to wind it up. It might puzzle a wiser man.
There is another story in which the prince played his part as a kitchen servant. It is said that the soldiers got so close upon his track that they sought the house in which he was, not leaving a room in it unvisited. Finally they made their way to the kitchen, where was the man they sought, with a servant-maid who knew him. Charles looked around in nervous fear. His pursuers had never been so near him. Doubtless, for the moment, he gave up the game as lost. But the loyal cook was mistress of the situation. She struck her seeming fellow-servant a smart rap with the basting-ladle, and called out, shrewishly,—
"Now, then, go on with thy work; what art thou looking about for?"
The soldiers laughed as Charles sprang up with a sheepish aspect, and they turned away without a thought that in this servant lad lay hidden the prince they sought.
On September 13, ten days after the battle, Miss Lane and her groom reached Abbotsleigh, where they took refuge at the house of Mr. Norton, Colonel Lane's cousin. To the great regret of the fugitive, he learned here that there was no vessel in the port of Bristol that would serve his purpose of flight. He remained in the house for four days, under his guise of a servant, but was given a chamber of his own, on pretence of indisposition. He was just well of an ague, said his mistress. He was, indeed, somewhat worn out with fatigue and anxiety, though of a disposition that would not long let him endure hunger or loneliness.
In fact, on the very morning after his arrival he made an early toilette, and went to the buttery-hatch for his breakfast. Here were several servants, Pope, the butler, among them. Bread and butter seems to have been the staple of the morning meal, though the butler made it more palatable by a liberal addition of ale and sack. As they ate they were entertained by a minute account of the battle of Worcester, given by a country fellow who sat beside Charles at table, and whom he concluded, from the accuracy of his description, to have been one of Cromwell's soldiers.
Charles asked him how he came to know so well what took place, and was told in reply that he had been in the king's regiment. On being questioned more closely, it proved that he had really been in Charles's own regiment of guards.
"What kind of man was he you call the king?" asked Charles, with an assumed air of curiosity.
The fellow replied with an accurate description of the dress worn by the prince during the battle, and of the horse he rode. He looked at Charles on concluding.
"He was at least three fingers taller than you," he said.
The buttery was growing too hot for Will Jackson. What if, in another look, this fellow should get a nearer glimpse at the truth? The disguised prince made a hasty excuse for leaving the place, being, as he says, "more afraid when I knew he was one of our own soldiers, than when I took him for one of the enemy's."
This alarm was soon followed by a greater one. One of his companions came to him in a state of intense affright.
"What shall we do?" he cried. "I am afraid Pope, the butler, knows you. He has said very positively to me that it is you, but I have denied it."
"We are in a dangerous strait, indeed," said Charles. "There is nothing for it, as I see, but to trust the man with our secret. Boldness, in cases like this, is better than distrust. Send Pope to me."
The butler was accordingly sent, and Charles, with a flattering show of candor, told him who he was, and requested his silence and aid. He had taken the right course, as it proved. Pope was of loyal blood. He could not have found a more intelligent and devoted adherent than the butler showed himself during the remainder of his stay in that house.
But the attentions shown the prince were compromising, in consideration of his disguise as a groom; suspicions were likely to be aroused, and it was felt necessary that he should seek a new asylum. One was found at Trent House, in the same county, the residence of a fervent royalist named Colonel Windham. Charles remained here, and in this vicinity, till the 6th of October, seeking in vain the means of escape from one of the neighboring ports. The coast proved to be too closely watched, however; and in the end soldiers began to arrive in the neighborhood, and the rumor spread that Colonel Windham's house was suspected. There was nothing for it but another flight, which, this time, brought him into Wiltshire, where he took refuge at Hele House, the residence of Mr. Hyde.
Charles himself tells an interesting story of one of his adventures while at Trent House. He, with some companions, had ridden to a place called Burport, where they were to wait for Lord Wilmot, who had gone to Lyme, four miles farther, to look after a possible vessel. As they came near Burport they saw that the streets were full of red-coats, Cromwell's soldiers, there being a whole regiment in the town.
"What shall we do?" asked Colonel Windham, greatly startled at the sight.
"Do? why face it out impudently, go to the best hotel in the place, and take a room there," said Charles. "It is the only safe thing to do. And otherwise we would miss Lord Wilmot, which would be inconvenient to both of us."
Windham gave in, and they rode boldly forward to the chief inn of the place. The yard was filled with soldiers. Charles, as the groom of the party, alighted, took the horses, and purposely led them in a blundering way through the midst of the soldiers to the stable. Some of the red-coats angrily cursed him for his rudeness, but he went serenely on, as if soldiers were no more to him than flies.
Reaching the stable, he took the bridles from the horses, and called to the hostler to give them some oats.
"Sure," said the hostler, peering at him closely, "I know your face."
This was none too pleasant a greeting for the disguised prince, but he put on a serene countenance, and asked the man whether he had always lived at that place.
"No," said the hostler. "I was born in Exeter, and was hostler in an inn there near Mr. Potter's, a great merchant of that town."
"Then you must have seen me at Mr. Potter's," said Charles. "I lived with him over a year."
"That is it," answered the hostler. "I remember you a boy there. Let us go drink a pot of beer on it."
Charles excused himself, saying that he must go look after his master's dinner, and he lost little time in getting out of that town, lest some one else might have as inconvenient and less doubtful a memory.
While the prince was flying, his foes were pursuing. The fact that the royal army was scattered was not enough for the politic mind of Cromwell. Its leader was still at large, somewhere in England; while he remained free all was at risk. Those turbulent Scotch might be again raised. A new Dunbar or Worcester might be fought, with different fortune. The flying Charles Stuart must be held captive within the country, and made prisoner within a fortress as soon as possible. In consequence, the coast was sedulously watched to prevent his escape, and the country widely searched, the houses of known royalists being particularly placed under surveillance; a large reward was offered for the arrest of the fugitive; the party of the Parliament was everywhere on the alert for him; only the good faith and sound judgment of his friends kept him from the hands of his foes.
At Hele House, the fugitive was near the Sussex coast, and his friends hoped that a passage to France might be secured from some of its small ports. They succeeded at length. On October 13, in early morning, the prince, with a few loyal companions, left his last hiding-place. They took dogs with them, as if they were off for a hunting excursion to the downs.
That night they spent at Hambledon, in Hampshire. Colonel Gunter, one of the party, led the way to the house of his brother-in-law, though without notifying him of his purpose. The master of the house was absent, but returned while the party were at supper, and was surprised to find a group of hilarious guests around his table. Colonel Gunter was among them, however, and explained that he had taken the privilege of kinship to use his house as his own.
The worthy squire, who loved good cheer and good society, was nothing loath to join this lively company, though in his first surprise to find his house invaded a round Cavalier oath broke from his lips. To his astonishment, he was taken to task for this by a crop-haired member of the company, who reproved him in true Puritan phrase for his profanity.
"Whom have you here, Gunter?" the squire asked his brother-in-law. "This fellow is not of your sort. I warrant me the canting chap is some round-headed rogue's son."
"Not a bit of it," answered the colonel. "He is true Cavalier, though he does wear his hair somewhat of the shortest, and likes not oaths. He's one of us, I promise you."
"Then here's your health, brother Roundhead!" exclaimed the host, heartily, draining a brimming glass of ale to his unknown guest.
The prince, before the feast was over, grew gay enough to prove that he was no Puritan, though he retained sufficient caution in his cups not further to arouse his worthy host's suspicions. The next day they reached a small fishing-village, then known as Brighthelstone, now grown into the great town of Brighton. Here lay the vessel which had been engaged. The master of the craft, Anthony Tattersall by name, with the merchant who had engaged his vessel, supped with the party at the village inn. It was a jovial meal. The prince, glad at the near approach of safety, allowed himself some freedom of speech. Captain Tattersall watched him closely throughout the meal. After supper he drew his merchant friend aside, and said to him,—
"You have not dealt fairly with me in this business. You have paid me a good price to carry over that gentleman; I do not complain of that; but you should have been more open. He is the king, as I very well know."
"You are very much mistaken, captain," protested the merchant, nervously. "What has put such nonsense into your pate?"
"I am not mistaken," persisted the captain. "He took my ship in '48, with other fishing-craft of this port, when he commanded his father's fleet. I know his face too well to be deceived. But don't be troubled at that; I think I do my God and my country good service in preserving the king; and by the grace of God, I will venture my life and all for him, and set him safely on shore, if I can, in France."
Happily for Charles, he had found a friend instead of a foe in this critical moment of his adventure. He found another, for the mariner was not the only one who knew his face. As he stood by the fire, with his palm resting on the back of a chair, the inn-keeper came suddenly up and kissed his hand.
"God bless you wheresoever you go!" he said, fervently. "I do not doubt, before I die, to be a lord, and my wife a lady."
Charles burst into a hearty laugh at this ambitious remark of his host. He had been twice discovered within the hour, after a month and a half of impunity. Yet he felt that he could put full trust in these worthy men, and slept soundly that last night on English soil.
At five o'clock of the next morning, he, with Lord Wilmot, his constant companion, went on board the little sixty-ton craft, which lay in Shoreham harbor, waiting the tide to put to sea. By daybreak they were on the waves. The prince was resting in the cabin, when in came Captain Tattersall, kissed his hand, professed devotion to his interests, and suggested a course for him to pursue.
His crew, he said, had been shipped for the English port of Poole. To head for France might cause suspicion. He advised Charles to represent himself as a merchant who was in debt and afraid of arrest in England, and who wished to reach France to collect money due him at Rouen. If he would tell this story to the sailors, and gain their good-will, it might save future trouble.
Charles entered freely into this conspiracy, went on deck, talked affably with the crew, told them the story concocted by the captain, and soon had them so fully on his side, that they joined him in begging the captain to change his course and land his passengers in France. Captain Tattersall demurred somewhat at this, but soon let himself be convinced, and headed his ship for the Gallic coast.
The wind was fair, the weather fine. Land was sighted before noon of the 16th. At one o'clock the prince and Lord Wilmot were landed at Fécamp, a small French port. They had distanced the bloodhounds of the Parliament, and were safe on foreign soil.
The Parliament of England had defeated and put an end to the king; it remained for Cromwell to put an end to the Parliament. "The Rump," the remnant of the old Parliament was derisively called. What was left of that great body contained little of its honesty and integrity, much of its pride and incompetency. The members remaining had become infected with the wild notion that they were the governing power in England, and instead of preparing to disband themselves they introduced a bill for the disbanding of the army. They had not yet learned of what stuff Oliver Cromwell was made.
A bill had been passed, it is true, for the dissolution of the Parliament, but in the discussion of how the "New Representative" was to be chosen it became plainly evident that the members of the Rump intended to form part of it, without the formality of re-election. A struggle for power seemed likely to arise between the Parliament and the army. It could have but one ending, with a man like Oliver Cromwell at the head of the latter. The officers demanded that Parliament should immediately dissolve. The members resolutely refused. Cromwell growled his comments.
"As for the members of this Parliament," he said, "the army begins to take them in disgust."
There was ground for it, he continued, in their selfish greed, their interference with law and justice, the scandalous lives of many of the members, and, above all, their plain intention to keep themselves in power.
"There is little to hope for from such men for a settlement of the nation," he concluded.
The war with Holland precipitated the result. This war acted as a barometer for the Parliament. It was a naval combat. In the first meeting of the two fleets the Dutch were defeated, and the mercury of Parliamentarian pride rose. In the next combat Van Tromp, the veteran Dutch admiral, drove Blake with a shattered fleet into the Thames. Van Tromp swept the Channel in triumph, with a broom at his mast-head. The hopes of the members went down to zero. They agreed to disband in November. Cromwell promised to reduce the army. But Blake put to sea again, fought Van Tromp in a four days' running fight, and won the honors of the combat. Up again went the mercury of Parliamentary hope and pride. The members determined to continue in power, and not only claimed the right to remain members of the new Parliament, but even to revise the returns of the elected members, and decide for themselves if they would have them as fellows.
The issue was now sharply drawn between army and Parliament. The officers met and demanded that Parliament should at once dissolve, and let the Council of State manage the new elections. A conference was held between officers and members, at Cromwell's house, on April 19, 1653. It ended in nothing. The members were resolute.
"Our charge," said Haslerig, arrogantly, "cannot be transferred to any one."
The conference adjourned till the next morning, Sir Harry Vane engaging that no action should be taken till it met again. Yet when it met the next morning the leading members of Parliament were absent, Vane among them. Their absence was suspicious. Were they pushing the bill through the House in defiance of the army?
Cromwell was present,—"in plain black clothes, and gray worsted stockings,"—a plain man, but one not safe to trifle with. The officers waited a while for the members. They did not come. Instead there came word that they were in their seats in the House, busily debating the bill that was to make them rulers of the nation without consent of the people, hurrying it rapidly through its several stages. If left alone they would soon make it a law.
Then the man who had hurled Charles I. from his throne lost his patience. This, in his opinion, had gone far enough. Since it had come to a question whether a self-elected Parliament, or the army to which England owed her freedom, should hold the balance of power, Cromwell was not likely to hesitate.
"It is contrary to common honesty!" he broke out, angrily.
Leaving Whitehall, he set out for the House of Parliament, bidding a company of musketeers to follow him. He entered quietly, leaving his soldiers outside. The House now contained no more than fifty-three members. Sir Harry Vane was addressing this fragment of a Parliament with a passionate harangue in favor of the bill. Cromwell sat for some time in silence, listening to his speech, his only words being to his neighbor, St. John.
"I am come to do what grieves me to the heart," he said.
Vane pressed the House to waive its usual forms and pass the bill at once.
"The time has come," said Cromwell to Harrison, whom he had beckoned over to him.
"Think well," answered Harrison; "it is a dangerous work."
The man of fate subsided into silence again. A quarter of an hour more passed. Then the question was put "that this bill do now pass."
Cromwell rose, took off his hat, and spoke. His words were strong. Beginning with commendation of the Parliament for what it had done for the public good, he went on to charge the present members with acts of injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and similar faults, his tone rising higher as he spoke until it had grown very hot and indignant.
"Your hour is come; the Lord hath done with you," he added.
"It is a strange language, this," cried one of the members, springing up hastily; "unusual this within the walls of Parliament. And from a trusted servant, too; and one whom we have so highly honored; and one——"
"Come, come," cried Cromwell, in the tone in which he would have commanded his army to charge, "we have had enough of this." He strode furiously into the middle of the chamber, clapped on his hat, and exclaimed, "I will put an end to your prating."
He continued speaking hotly and rapidly, "stamping the floor with his feet" in his rage, the words rolling from him in a fury. Of these words we only know those with which he ended.
"It is not fit that you should sit here any longer! You should give place to better men! You are no Parliament!" came from him in harsh and broken exclamations. "Call them in," he said, briefly, to Harrison.
At the word of command a troop of some thirty musketeers marched into the chamber. Grim fellows they were, dogs of war,—the men of the Rump could not face this argument; it was force arrayed against law,—or what called itself law,—wrong against wrong, for neither army nor Parliament truly represented the people, though just then the army seemed its most rightful representative.
"I say you are no Parliament!" roared the lord-general, hot with anger. "Some of you are drunkards." His eye fell on a bottle-loving member. "Some of you are lewd livers; living in open contempt of God's commandments." His hot gaze flashed on Henry Marten and Sir Peter Wentworth. "Following your own greedy appetites and the devil's commandments; corrupt, unjust persons, scandalous to the profession of the gospel: how can you be a Parliament for God's people? Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God—go!"
These words were like bomb-shells exploded in the chamber of Parliament. Such a scene had never before and has never since been seen in the House of Commons. The members were all on their feet, some white with terror, some red with indignation. Vane fearlessly faced the irate general.
"Your action," he said, hotly, "is against all right and all honor."
"Ah, Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane," retorted Cromwell, bitterly, "you might have prevented all this; but you are a juggler, and have no common honesty. The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!"
The retort was a just one. Vane had attempted to usurp the government. Cromwell turned to the speaker, who obstinately clung to his seat, declaring that he would not yield it except to force.
"Fetch him down!" roared the general.
"Sir, I will lend you a hand," said Harrison.
Speaker Lenthall left the chair. One man could not resist an army. Through the door glided, silent as ghosts, the members of Parliament.
"It is you that have forced me to this," said Cromwell, with a shade of regret in his voice. "I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put upon me the doing of this work."
He had, doubtless; he was a man of deep piety and intense bigotry; but the Lord's answer, it is to be feared, came out of the depths of his own consciousness. Men like Cromwell call upon God, but answer for Him themselves.
"What shall be done with this bauble?" said the general, lifting the sacred mace, the sign-manual of government by the representatives of the people. "Take it away!" he finished, handing it to a musketeer.
His flashing eyes followed the retiring members until they all had left the House. Then the musketeers filed out, followed by Cromwell and Harrison. The door was locked, and the key and mace carried away by Colonel Otley.
A few hours afterwards the Council of State, the executive committee of Parliament, was similarly dissolved by the lord-general, who, in person, bade its members to depart.
"We have heard," cried John Bradshaw, one of its members, "what you have done this morning at the House, and in some hours all England will hear it. But you mistake, sir, if you think the Parliament dissolved. No power on earth can dissolve the Parliament but itself, be sure of that."
The people did hear it,—and sustained Cromwell in his action. Of the two sets of usurpers, the army and a non-representative Parliament, they preferred the former.
"We did not hear a dog bark at their going," said Cromwell, afterwards.
It was not the first time in history that the army had overturned representative government. In this case it was not done with the design of establishing a despotism. Cromwell was honest in his purpose of reforming the administration, and establishing a Parliamentary government. But he had to do with intractable elements. He called a constituent convention, giving to it the duty of paving the way to a constitutional Parliament. Instead of this, the convention began the work of reforming the constitution, and proposed such radical changes that the lord-general grew alarmed. Doubtless his musketeers would have dealt with the convention as they had done with the Rump Parliament, had it not fallen to pieces through its own dissensions. It handed back to Cromwell the power it had received from him. He became the lord protector of the realm. The revolutionary government had drifted, despite itself, into a despotism. A despotism it was to remain while Cromwell lived.
Frightful was the state of Londonderry. "No surrender" was the ultimatum of its inhabitants, "blockade and starvation" the threat of the besiegers; the town was surrounded, the river closed, relief seemed hopeless, life, should the furious besiegers break in, equally hopeless. Far off, in the harbor of Lough Foyle, could be seen the English ships. Thirty vessels lay there, laden with men and provisions, but they were able to come no nearer. The inhabitants could see them, but the sight only aggravated their misery. Plenty so near at hand! Death and destitution in their midst! Frightful, indeed, was their extremity.
The Foyle, the river leading to the town, was fringed with hostile forts and batteries, and its channel barricaded. Several boats laden with stone had been sunk in the channel. A row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the stream. A boom was formed of trunks of fir-trees, strongly bound together, and fastened by great cables to the shore. Relief from the fleet, with the river thus closed against it, seemed impossible. Yet scarcely two days' supplies were left in the town, and without hasty relief starvation or massacre seemed the only alternatives.
Let us relate the occasion of this siege. James II. had been driven from England, and William of Orange was on the throne. In his effort to recover his kingdom, James sought Ireland, where the Catholic peasantry were on his side. His appearance was the signal for fifty thousand peasants to rise in arms, and for the Protestants to fly from peril of massacre. They knew their fate should they fall into the hands of the half-savage peasants, mad with years of misrule.
In the north, seven thousand English fugitives fled to Londonderry, and took shelter behind the weak wall, manned by a few old guns, and without even a ditch for defence, which formed the only barrier between them and their foes. Around this town gathered twenty-five thousand besiegers, confident of quick success. But the weakness of the battlements was compensated for by the stoutness of the hearts within. So fierce were the sallies of the desperate seven thousand, so severe the loss of the besiegers in their assaults, that the attempt to carry the place by storm was given up, and a blockade substituted. From April till the end of July this continued, the condition of the besieged daily growing worse, the food-supply daily growing less. Such was the state of affairs at the date with which we are specially concerned.
Inside the town, at that date, the destitution had grown heart-rending. The fire of the enemy was kept up more briskly than ever, but famine and disease killed more than cannon-balls. The soldiers of the garrison were so weak from privation that they could scarcely stand; yet they repelled every attack, and repaired every breach in the walls as fast as made. The damage done by day was made good at night. For the garrison there remained a small supply of grain, which was given out by mouthfuls, and there was besides a considerable store of salted hides, which they gnawed for lack of better food. The stock of animals had been reduced to nine horses, and these so lean and gaunt that it seemed useless to kill them for food.
The townsmen were obliged to feed on dogs and rats, an occasional small fish caught in the river, and similar sparse supplies. They died by hundreds. Disease aided starvation in carrying them off. The living were too few and too weak to bury the dead. Bodies were left unburied, and a deadly and revolting stench filled the air. That there was secret discontent and plottings for surrender may well be believed. But no such feeling dared display itself openly. Stubborn resolution and vigorous defiance continued the public tone. "No surrender" was the general cry, even in that extremity of distress. And to this voices added, in tones of deep significance, "First the horses and hides; then the prisoners; and then each other."
Such was the state of affairs on July 28, 1689. Two days' very sparse rations alone remained for the garrison. At the end of that time all must end. Yet still in the distance could be seen the masts of the ships, holding out an unfulfilled promise of relief; still hope was not quite dead in the hearts of the besieged. Efforts had been made to send word to the town from the fleet. One swimmer who attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was caught and hanged. On the 13th of July a letter from the fleet, sewed up in a cloth button, reached the commander of the garrison. It was from Kirke, the general in command of the party of relief, and promised speedy aid. But a fortnight and more had passed since then, and still the fleet lay inactive in Lough Foyle, nine miles away, visible from the summit of the Cathedral, yet now tending rather to aggravate the despair than to sustain the hopes of the besieged.
The sunset hour of July 28 was reached. Services had been held that afternoon in the Cathedral,—services in which doubtless the help of God was despairingly invoked, since that of man seemed in vain. The heart-sick people left the doors, and were about to disperse to their foodless homes, when a loud cry of hope and gladness came from the lookout in the tower above their heads.
"They are coming!" was the stirring cry. "The ships are coming up the river! I can see their sails plainly! Relief is coming!"
How bounded the hearts of those that heard this gladsome cry! The listeners dispersed, carrying the glad news to every corner of the town. Others came in hot haste, eager to hear further reports from the lookout tower. The town, lately so quiet and depressed, was suddenly filled with activity. Hope swelled every heart, new life ran in every vein; the news was like a draught of wine that gave fresh spirit to the most despairing soul.
And now other tidings came. There was a busy stir in the camp of the besiegers. They were crowding to the river-banks. As far as the eye could see, the stream was lined. The daring ships had a gauntlet of fire to run. Their attempt seemed hopeless, indeed. The river was low. The channel which they would have to follow ran near the left bank, where numerous batteries had been planted. They surely would never succeed. Yet still they came, and still the lookout heralded their movements to the excited multitude below.
The leading ship was the Mountjoy, a merchant-vessel laden heavily with provisions. Its captain was Micaiah Browning, a native of Londonderry. He had long advised such an attempt, but the general in command had delayed until positive orders came from England that something must be done.
On hearing of this, Browning immediately volunteered. He was eager to succor his fellow-townsmen. Andrew Douglas, captain of the Phœnix, a vessel laden with meal from Scotland, was willing and anxious to join in the enterprise. As an escort to these two merchantmen came the Dartmouth, a thirty-six-gun frigate, its commander John Leake, afterwards an admiral of renown.
Up the stream they came, the Dartmouth in the lead, returning the fire of the forts with effect, pushing steadily onward, with the merchantmen closely in the rear. At length the point of peril was reached. The boom extended across the stream, seemingly closing all further passage. But that remained to be seen. The Mountjoy took the lead, all its sails spread, a fresh breeze distending the canvas, and rushed head on at the boom.
A few minutes of exciting suspense followed, then the great barricade was struck, strained to its utmost, and, with a rending sound, gave way. So great was the shock that the Mountjoy rebounded and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph came from the Irish who crowded the banks. They rushed to their boats, eager to board the disabled vessel; but a broadside from the Dartmouth sent them back in disordered flight.
In a minute more the Phœnix, which had followed close, sailed through the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was past the boom. Immediately afterwards the Mountjoy began to move in her bed of mud. The tide was rising. In a few minutes she was afloat and under way again, safely passing through the barrier of broken stakes and spars. But her brave commander was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck and killed him, when on the very verge of gaining the highest honor that man could attain,—that of saving his native town from the horrors of starvation or massacre.
While this was going on, the state of feeling of the lean and hungry multitude within the town was indescribable. Night had fallen before the ships reached the boom. The lookout could no longer see and report their movements. Intense was the suspense. Minutes that seemed hours passed by. Then, in the distance, the flash of guns could be seen. The sound of artillery came from afar to the ears of the expectant citizens. But the hope which this excited went down when the shout of triumph rose from the besiegers as the Mountjoy grounded. It was taken up and repeated from rank to rank to the very walls of the city, and the hearts of the besieged sank dismally. This cry surely meant failure. The miserable people grew livid with fear. There was unutterable anguish in their eyes, as they gazed with despair into one another's pallid faces.
A half-hour more passed. The suspense continued. Yet the shouts of triumph had ceased. Did it mean repulse or victory? "Victory! victory!" for now a spectral vision of sails could be seen, drawing near the town. They grew nearer and plainer; dark hulls showed below them; the vessels were coming! the town was saved!
Wild was the cry of glad greeting that went up from thousands of throats, soul-inspiring the cheers that came, softened by distance, back from the ships. It was ten o'clock at night. The whole population had gathered at the quay. In came the ships. Loud and fervent were the cheers and welcoming cries. In a few minutes more the vessels had touched the wharves, well-fed sailors and starved townsmen were fraternizing, and the long months of misery and woe were forgotten in the intense joy of that supreme moment of relief.
Many hands now made short work. Wasted and weak as were the townsmen, hope gave them strength. A screen of casks filled with earth was rapidly built up to protect the landing-place from the hostile batteries on the other side of the river. Then the unloading began. The eyes of the starving inhabitants distended with joy as they saw barrel after barrel rolled ashore, until six thousand bushels of meal lay on the wharf. Great cheeses came next, beef-casks, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of peas and biscuit, until the quay was piled deep with provisions.
One may imagine with what tears of joy the soldiers and people ate their midnight repast that night. Not many hours before the ration to each man of the garrison had been half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of salted hide. Now to each was served out three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. There was no sleep for the remainder of the night, either within or without the walls. The bonfires that blazed along the whole circuit of the walls told the joy within the town. The incessant roar of guns told the rage without it. Peals of bells from the church-towers answered the Irish cannon; shouts of triumph from the walls silenced the cries of anger from the batteries. It was a conflict of joy and rage.
Three days more the batteries continued to roar. But on the night of July 31 flames were seen to issue from the Irish camp; on the morning of August 1 a line of scorched and smoking ruins replaced the lately-occupied huts, and along the Foyle went a long column of pikes and standards, marking the retreat of the besieging army.
The retreat became a rout. The men of Enniskillen charged the retreating army of Newtown Butler, struggling through a bog to fall on double their number, whom they drove in a panic before them. The panic spread through the whole army. Horse and foot, they fled. Not until they had reached Dublin, then occupied by King James, did the retreat stop, and confidence return to the baffled besiegers of Londonderry.
Thus ended the most memorable siege in the history of the British islands. It had lasted one hundred and five days. Of the seven thousand men of the garrison but about three thousand were left. Of the besiegers probably more had fallen than the whole number of the garrison.
To-day Londonderry is in large measure a monument to its great siege. The wall has been carefully preserved, the summit of the ramparts forming a pleasant walk, the bastions being turned into pretty little gardens. Many of the old culverins, which threw lead-covered bricks among the Irish ranks, have been preserved, and may still be seen among the leaves and flowers. The cathedral is filled with relics and trophies, and over its altar may be observed the French flag-staffs, taken by the garrison in a desperate sally, the flags they once bore long since reduced to dust. Two anniversaries are still kept,—that of the day on which the gates were closed, that of the day on which the siege was raised,—salutes, processions, banquets, addresses, sermons signalizing these two great events in the history of a city which passed through so frightful a baptism of war, but has ever since been the abode of peace.
In the great forest of Braemar, in the Highlands of Scotland, was gathered a large party of hunters, chiefs, and clansmen, all dressed in the Highland costume, and surrounded by extensive preparations for the comfort and enjoyment of all concerned. Seldom, indeed, had so many great lords been gathered for such an occasion. On the invitation of the Earl of Mar, within whose domain the hunt was to take place, there had come together the Marquises of Huntly and Tulliebardine, the Earls of Nithsdale, Marischal, Traquair, Errol, and several others, and numerous viscounts, lords, and chiefs of clans, many of the most important of the nobility and clan leaders of the Highlands being present.
With these great lords were hosts of clansmen, all attired in the picturesque dress of the Highlands, and so numerous that the convocation had the appearance of a small army, the sport of hunting in those days being often practised on a scale of magnificence resembling war. The red deer of the Highlands were the principal game, and the method of hunting usually employed could not be conducted without the aid of a large body of men. Around the broad extent of wild forest land and mountain wilderness, which formed the abiding-place of these animals, a circuit of hunters many miles in extent was formed. This circuit was called the tinchel. Upon a given signal, the hunters composing the circle began to move inwards, rousing the deer from their lairs, and driving them before them, with such other animals as the forest might contain.
Onward moved the hunters, the circle steadily growing less, and the terrified beasts becoming more crowded together, until at length they were driven down some narrow defile, along whose course the lords and gentlemen had been posted, lying in wait for the coming of the deer, and ready to show their marksmanship by shooting such of the bucks as were in season.
The hunt with which we are at present concerned, however, had other purposes than the killing of deer. The latter ostensible object concealed more secret designs, and to these we may confine our attention. It was now near the end of August, 1715. At the beginning of that month, the Earl of Mar, in company with General Hamilton and Colonel Hay, had embarked at Gravesend, on the Thames, all in disguise and under assumed names. To keep their secret the better, they had taken passage on a coal sloop, agreeing to work their way like common seamen; and in this humble guise they continued until Newcastle was reached, where a vessel in which they could proceed with more comfort was engaged. From this craft they landed at the small port of Elie, on the coast of Fife, a country then well filled with Jacobites, or adherents to the cause of the Stuart princes. Such were the mysterious preliminary steps towards the hunting-party in the forest of Braemar.
In truth, the hunt was little more than a pretence. While the clansmen were out forming the tinchel, the lords were assembled in secret convocation, in which the Earl of Mar eloquently counselled resistance to the rule of King George, and the taking of arms in the cause of James Francis Edward, son of the exiled James II., and, as he argued, the only true heir to the English throne. He told them that he had been promised abundant aid in men and money from France, and assured them that a rising in Scotland would be followed by a general insurrection in England against the Hanoverian dynasty. He is said to have shown letters from the Stuart prince, the Chevalier de St. George, as he was called, making the earl his lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of the armies of Scotland.
How many red deer were killed on this occasion no one can say. The noble guests of Mar had other things to think of than singling out fat bucks. None of them opposed the earl in his arguments, and in the end it was agreed that all should return home, raise what forces they could by the 3d of September, and meet again on that day at Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, where it would be settled how they were to take the field.
Thus ended that celebrated hunt of Braemar, which was destined to bring tears and blood to many a household in Scotland, through loyal devotion to a prince who was not worth the sacrifice, and at the bidding of an earl who was considered by many as too versatile in disposition to be fully trusted. An anecdote is given in evidence of this opinion. The castle of Braemar was, as a result of the hunt, so overflowing with guests, that many of the gentlemen of secondary importance could not be accommodated with beds, but were forced to spend the night around the kitchen fire,—a necessity then considered no serious matter by the hardy Scotch. But such was not the opinion of all present. An English footman, a domestic of the earl, came pushing among the gentlemen, complaining bitterly at having to sit up all night, and saying that rather than put up with much of this he would go back to his own country and turn Whig. As to his Toryism, however, he comforted himself with the idea that he served a lord who was especially skilful in escaping danger.
"Let my lord alone," he said; "if he finds it necessary, he can turn cat-in-pan with any man in England."
While these doings were in progress in the Highlands, the Jacobites were no less active in the Lowlands, and an event took place in the metropolis of Scotland which showed that the spirit of disaffection had penetrated within its walls. This was an attempt to take the castle of Edinburgh by surprise,—an exploit parallel in its risky and daring character with those told of the Douglas and other bold lords at an earlier period.