in repair. Here and there walls had fallen and not been rebuilt, and
abundance of waste stones strewed the ground in these localities.
Seeking a place which was least likely to be visited, they walled up the
two proscribed men, building the wall in such a manner that air could
enter and that they might have some room for movement. Giving them food
enough to last for thirty days, they closed the chamber, and left the
two men in their tomb-like retreat.
The sixth day came. The hour fixed arrived. The gates were thrown open.
Lambert and his men marched in and took possession of the fortress. The
garrison was marshalled before him, and a strict search made among them
for the six men, whom he fully expected to find. They were not there.
The castle was closely searched. They could not be found. He was
compelled to admit that the garrison had told him the truth, and that
the six had indeed escaped.
For this Lambert did not seem in any sense sorry. The men were brave.
Their act had been one allowable in war. He was secretly rather glad
that they had escaped, and treated the others courteously, permitting
them to leave the castle with their effects and seek their homes, as he
had promised. And so ended the taking and retaking of Pontefract Castle.
It was the last stronghold of the king in England, and was not likely to
be used again for that purpose. But to prevent this, Lambert handled it
in such fashion that it was left a vast pile of ruins, unfit to harbor a
garrison. He then drew off his troops, not having discovered the
concealed men in this proceeding. Ten days passed. Then the two flung
down their wall and emerged among the ruins. They found the castle a
place for bats, uninhabited by man, but lost no time in seeking less
suspicious quarters.
Of the six men, Morrice was afterwards taken and executed; the others
remained free. Sir John Digby lived to become a favored member of the
court of Charles II. As for Sir Marmaduke Langdale, to whose
imprisonment Rainsborough owed his death, he escaped from his prison in
Nottingham Castle, and made his way beyond the seas, not to return until
England again had a king.
_THE ADVENTURES OF A ROYAL FUGITIVE._
It was early September of 1651, the year that tolled the knell of
royalty in England. In all directions from the fatal field of Worcester
panic-stricken fugitives were flying; in all directions blood-craving
victors were pursuing. Charles I. had lost his head for his blind
obstinacy, two years before. Charles II., crowned king by the Scotch,
had made a gallant fight for the throne. But Cromwell was his opponent,
and Cromwell carried victory on his banners. The young king had invaded
England, reached Worcester, and there felt the heavy hand of the
Protector and his Ironsides. A fierce day's struggle, a defeat, a
flight, and kingship in England was at an end while Cromwell lived; the
last scion of royalty was a flying fugitive.
At six o'clock in the evening of that fatal day, Charles, the boy-king,
discrowned by battle, was flying through St. Martin's Gate from a city
whose streets were filled with the bleeding bodies of his late
supporters. Just outside the town he tried to rally his men; but in
vain, no fight was left in their scared hearts. Nothing remained but
flight at panic speed, for the bloodhounds of war were on his track, and
if caught by those stern Parliamentarians he might be given the short
shriving of his beheaded father. Away went the despairing prince with a
few followers, riding for life, flinging from him as he rode his blue
ribbon and garter and all his princely ornaments, lest pursuers should
know him by these insignia of royalty. On for twelve hours Charles and
his companions galloped at racing speed, onward through the whole night
following that day of blood and woe; and at break of day on September 4
they reached Whiteladies, a friendly house of refuge in Severn's fertile
valley.
The story of the after-adventures of the fugitive prince is so replete
with hair-breadth escapes, disguises, refreshing instances of fidelity,
and startling incidents, as to render it one of the most romantic tales
to be found in English history. A thousand pounds were set upon his
head, yet none, peasant or peer, proved false to him. He was sheltered
alike in cottage and hall; more than a score of people knew of his
route, yet not a word of betrayal was spoken, not a thought of betrayal
was entertained; and the agents of the Protector vainly scoured the
country in all directions for the princely fugitive, who found himself
surrounded by a loyalty worthy a better man, and was at last enabled to
leave the country in Cromwell's despite.
Let us follow the fugitive prince in his flight. Reaching Whiteladies,
he found a loyal friend in its proprietor. No sooner was it known in the
mansion that the field of Worcester had been lost, and that the flying
prince had sought shelter within its walls, than all was haste and
excitement.
"You must not remain here," declared Mr. Gifford, one of his companions.
"The house is too open. The pursuers will be here within the hour.
Measures for your safety must be taken at once."
"The first of which is disguise," said Charles.
His long hair was immediately cut off, his face and hands stained a dark
hue, and the coarse and threadbare clothing of a peasant provided to
take the place of his rich attire. Thus dressed and disguised, the royal
fugitive looked like anything but a king.
"But your features will betray you," said the cautious Gifford. "Many of
these men know your face. You must seek a safer place of refuge."
Hurried movements followed. The few friends who had accompanied Charles
took to the road again, knowing that their presence would endanger him,
and hoping that their flight might lead the bloodhounds of pursuit
astray. They gone, the loyal master of Whiteladies sent for certain of
his employees whom he could trust. These were six brothers named
Penderell, laborers and woodmen in his service, Catholics, and devoted
to the royal family.
"This is the king," he said to William Penderell; "you must have a care
of him, and preserve him as you did me."
Thick woodland adjoined the mansion of Whiteladies. Into this the
youthful prince was led by Richard Penderell, one of the brothers. It
was now broad day. Through the forest went the two seeming peasants, to
its farther side, where a broad highway ran past. Here, peering through
the bushes, they saw a troop of horse ride by, evidently not old
soldiers, more like the militia who made up part of Cromwell's army.
These countrified warriors looked around them. Should they enter the
woods? Some of the Scottish rogues, mayhap Charles Stuart, their royal
leader, himself, might be there in hiding. But it had begun to rain, and
by good fortune the shower poured down in torrents upon the woodland,
while little rain fell upon the heath beyond. To the countrymen, who had
but begun to learn the trade of soldiers, the certainty of a dry skin
was better than the forlorn chance of a flying prince. They rode rapidly
on to escape a drenching, much to the relief of the lurking observers.
"The rogues are hunting me close," said the prince, "and by our Lady,
this waterfall isn't of the pleasantest. Let us get back into the thick
of the woods."
Penderell led the way to a dense glade, where he spread a blanket which
he had brought with him under one of the most thick-leaved trees, to
protect the prince from the soaked ground. Hither his sister, Mrs.
Yates, brought a supply of food, consisting of bread, butter, eggs, and
milk. Charles looked at her with grateful eyes.
"My good woman," he said, "can you be faithful to a distressed
cavalier?"
"I will die sooner than betray you," was her devoted answer.
Charles ate his rustic meal with a more hopeful heart than he had had
since leaving Worcester's field. The loyal devotion of these humble
friends cheered him up greatly.
As night came on the rain ceased. No sooner had darkness settled upon
the wood than the prince and his guide started towards the Severn, it
being his purpose to make his way, if possible, into Wales, in some of
whose ports a vessel might be found to take him abroad. Their route took
them past a mill. It was quite dark, yet they could make out the miller
by his white clothes, as he sat at the mill-door. The flour-sprinkled
fellow heard their footsteps in the darkness, and called out,--
"Who goes there?"
"Neighbors going home," answered Richard Penderell.
"If you be neighbors, stand, or I will knock you down," cried the
suspicious miller, reaching behind the door for his cudgel.
"Follow me," said Penderell, quietly, to the prince. "I fancy master
miller is not alone."
They ran swiftly along a lane and up a hill, opening a gate at the top
of it. The miller followed, yelling out, "Rogues! rogues! Come on, lads;
catch these runaways."
He was joined by several men who came from the mill, and a sharp chase
began along a deep and dirty lane, Charles and his guide running until
they were tired out. They had distanced their pursuers; no sound of
footsteps could be heard behind them.
"Let us leap the hedge, and lie behind it to see if they are still on
our track," said the prince.
This they did, and lay there for half an hour, listening intently for
pursuers. Then, as it seemed evident that the miller and his men had
given up the chase, they rose and walked on.
At a village near by lived an honest gentleman named Woolfe, who had
hiding-places in his house for priests. Day was at hand, and travelling
dangerous. Penderell proposed to go on and ask shelter from this person
for an English gentleman who dared not travel by day.
"Go, but look that you do not betray my name," said the prince.
Penderell left his royal charge in a field, sheltered under a hedge
beside a great tree, and sought Mr. Woolfe's house, to whose questions
he replied that the person seeking shelter was a fugitive from the
battle of Worcester.
"Then I cannot harbor him," was the good man's reply. "It is too
dangerous a business. I will not venture my neck for any man, unless it
be the king himself."
"Then you will for this man, for you have hit the mark; it is the king,"
replied the guide, quite forgetting the injunction given him.
"Bring him, then, in God's name," said Mr. Woolfe. "I will risk all I
have to help him."
Charles was troubled when he heard the story of his loose-tongued guide.
But there was no help for it now. The villager must be trusted. They
sought Mr. Woolfe's house by the rear entrance, the prince receiving a
warm but anxious welcome from the loyal old gentleman.
"I am sorry you are here, for the place is perilous," said the host.
"There are two companies of militia in the village who keep a guard on
the ferry, to stop any one from escaping that way. As for my
hiding-places, they have all been discovered, and it is not safe to put
you in any of them. I can offer you no shelter but in my barn, where you
can lie behind the corn and hay."
The prince was grateful even for this sorry shelter, and spent all that
day hidden in the hay, feasting on some cold meat which his host had
given him. The next night he set out for Richard Penderell's house, Mr.
Woolfe having told him that it was not safe to try the Severn, it being
closely guarded at all its fords and bridges. On their way they came
again near the mill. Not caring to be questioned as before by the
suspicious miller, they diverged towards the river.
"Can you swim?" asked Charles of his guide.
"Not I; and the river is a scurvy one."
"I've a mind to try it," said the prince. "It's a small stream at the
best, and I may help you over."
They crossed some fields to the river-side, and Charles entered the
water, leaving his attendant on the bank. He waded forward, and soon
found that the water came but little above his waist.
"Give me your hand," he said, returning. "There's no danger of drowning
in this water."
Leading his guide, he soon stood on the safe side of that river the
passage of which had given him so many anxious minutes.
Towards morning they reached the house of a Mr. Whitgrave, a Catholic,
whom the prince could trust. Here he found in hiding a Major Careless, a
fugitive officer from the defeated army. Charles revealed himself to the
major, and held a conference with him, asking him what he had best do.
"It will be very dangerous for you to stay here; the hue and cry is up,
and no place is safe from search," said the major. "It is not you alone
they are after, but all of our side. There is a great wood near by
Boscobel house, but I would not like to venture that, either. The enemy
will certainly search there. My advice is that we climb into a great,
thick-leaved oak-tree that stands near the woods, but in an open place,
where we can see around us."
"Faith, I like your scheme, major," said Charles, briskly. "It is thick
enough to hide us, you think?"
"Yes; it was lopped a few years ago, and has grown out again very close
and bushy. We will be as safe there as behind a thick-set hedge."
"So let it be, then," said the prince.
Obtaining some food from their host,--bread, cheese, and small beer,
enough for the day,--the two fugitives, Charles and Careless, climbed
into what has since been known as the "royal oak," and remained there
the whole day, looking down in safety on soldiers who were searching
the wood for royalist fugitives. From time to time, indeed, parties of
search passed under the very tree which bore such royal fruit, and the
prince and the major heard their chat with no little amusement.
Charles light-hearted by nature, and a mere boy in years,--he had just
passed twenty-one,--was rising above the heavy sense of depression which
had hitherto borne him down. His native temperament was beginning to
declare itself, and he and the major, couched like squirrels in their
leafy covert, laughed quietly to themselves at the baffled searchers,
while they ate their bread and cheese with fresh appetites.
When night had fallen they left the tree, and the prince, parting with
his late companion, sought a neighboring house where he was promised
shelter in one of those hiding-places provided for proscribed priests.
Here he found Lord Wilmot, one of the officers who had escaped with him
from the fatal field of Worcester, and who had left him at Whiteladies.
It is too much to tell in detail all the movements that followed. The
search for Prince Charles continued with unrelenting severity. Daily,
noble and plebeian officers of the defeated army were seized. The
country was being scoured, high and low. Frequently the prince saw the
forms or heard the voices of those who sought him diligently. But "Will
Jones," the woodman, was not easily to be recognized as Charles Stuart,
the prince. He was dressed in the shabbiest of weather-worn suits, his
hair cut short to his ears, his face embrowned, his head covered with an
old and greasy gray steeple hat, with turned-up brims, his ungloved and
stained hands holding for cane a long and crooked thorn-stick.
Altogether it was a very unprincely individual who roamed those
peril-haunted shires of England.
The two fugitives--Prince Charles and Lord Wilmot--now turned their
steps towards the seaport of Bristol, hoping there to find means of
passage to France. Their last place of refuge in Staffordshire was at
the house of Colonel Lane, of Bently, an earnest royalist. Here Charles
dropped his late name, and assumed that of Will Jackson. He threw off
his peasant's garb, put on the livery of a servant, and set off on
horseback with his seeming mistress, Miss Jane Lane, sister of the
colonel, who had suddenly become infected with the desire of visiting a
cousin at Abbotsleigh, near Bristol. The prince had now become a lady's
groom, but he proved an awkward one, and had to be taught the duties of
his office.
"Will," said the colonel, as they were about to start, "you must give my
sister your hand to help her to mount."
The new groom gave her the wrong hand. Old Mrs. Lane, mother to the
colonel, who saw the starting, but knew not the secret, turned to her
son, saying satirically,--
"What a goodly horseman my daughter has got to ride before her!"
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,--
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE RIVER AVON.]
"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."