I have great pleasure in forwarding to you an anecdote of the captivity
of Charles I., which I think will be considered interesting to your
readers. Of its authenticity there can be no doubt. I extract it from a
small paper book, purchased some fifty years since, at Newport, in the
Isle of Wight, which contains the history of a family named Douglas, for
some years resident in that town, written by the last representative,
Eliza Douglas, at the sale of whose effects it came into my
grandfather's hands. There are many curious particulars in it besides
the anecdote I have sent you; especially an account of the writer's
great-great-grandfather (the husband of the heroine of this tale), who
"traded abroad, and was took into Turkey as a slave," and there gained
the affections of his master's daughter, after the most approved
old-ballad fashion; though, alas! it was not to her love that he owed
his liberty, but (dreadful bathos!) to his skill in "cooking fowls, &c.
&c. in the English taste;" which, on a certain occasion, when some
English merchants came to dine with his master, "so pleased the company,
that they offered to redeem him, which was accepted; and when freed he
came home to England, and lived in London to an advanced age; so old
that they fed him with a tea-spoon."
After his death his wife married again; and it was during this second
marriage that the interview with King Charles took place.
"My mother's great-grandmother, when a-breeding with her
daughter, Mary Craige, which was at y'e time of _King Charles_
being a _prisoner_ in _Carisbrook Castle_, she longed to kiss
the King's _hand_; and when he was brought to Newport to be
carried off, she being acquainted with the gentleman's
housekeeper, where the King was coming to stay, till orders for
him to leave the island, she went to the housekeeper, told her
what she wanted, and they contrived for her to come the morning
he was to go away. So up she got, and dressed herself, and set
off to call her midwife, and going along, the first and second
guard stopped her and asked her where she was going; she told
them 'to call her midwife,' which she did. They went to this
lady, and she went and acquainted his Majesty with the affair;
he desired she may come up to him, and she said, when she came
into the room, his Majesty seemed to appear as if he had been at
_prayers_. He rose up and came to her, who fell on her knees
before him; he took her up by the arm himself, and put his
_cheek_ to her, and she said she gave him a good hearty smack on
his cheek. His Majesty then said, 'Pray God bless you, and that
you go withal.' She then went down stairs to wait and see the
King take coach; she got so close that she saw a gentleman in
it; and when the King stept into the coach, he said, 'Pray, Sir,
what is your name?' he replied, 'I am Col. Pride.' 'Not
miscalled,' says the King. Then Pride says, 'Drive on,
coachman.'"