Obrazy na stronie
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Clarendon's other miscellaneous works consist of a Vindication of himself from the Charge of High Treason; Contemplations on the Psalms of David; Dialogues on the Want of Respect due to Age, and on Education; and essays on various subjects.

In the year 1811, a work of Lord Clarendon's which had till then remained in manuscript, was published under the title of Religion and Policy, and the Countenance and Assistance they should give to each other; with a Survey of the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes. The principal object of the work is to shew the injury which religion has sustained by the pope's assumption of temporal authority, and that it is incumbent on Catholics living under Protestant governments to pay no regard to the papal authority, in opposition to their own sovereign.

Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion was not intended for publication till the numerous public characters of whom it treats were no more; and accordingly it did not make its appearance till the year 1707. It was edited by Bishop Sprat and Dean Aldrich, who made numerous alterations on the text, which, however, has now been correctly given, with the suppressed passages restored, in an edition in eight volumes, printed at Oxford in 1826. The Life and Continuation, also complete, were printed at Oxford in three volumes in 1827.

[Reception of the Liturgy at Edinburgh in 1637.] On the Sunday morning appointed for the work, the Chancellor of Scotland, and others of the council, being present in the cathedral church, the dean began to read the Liturgy, which he had no sooner entered upon, but a noise and clamour was raised throughout the church, that no words could be heard distinctly; and then a shower of stones, and sticks, and cudgels, were thrown at the dean's head. The bishop went up into the pulpit, and from thence put them in mind of the sacredness of the place, of their duty to God and the king; but he found no more reverence, nor was the clamour and disorder less than before. The chancellor, from his seat, commanded the provost and magistrates of the city to descend from the gallery in which they sat, and by their authority to suppress the riot; which at last with great difficulty they did, by driving the rudest of those who made the disturbance out of the church, and shutting the doors, which gave the dean opportunity to proceed in the reading of the Liturgy, that was not at all attended or hearkened to by those who remained within the church; and if it had, they who were turned out continued their barbarous noise, broke the windows, and endeavoured to break down the doors, so that it was not possible for any to follow their devotions.

When all was done that at that time could be done there, and the council and magistrates went out of the church to their houses, the rabble followed the bishops with all the opprobrious language they could invent, of bringing in superstition and popery into the kingdom, and making the people slaves; and were not content to use their tongues, but employed their hands too in throwing dirt and stones at them; and treated the bishop of Edinburgh, whom they looked upon as most active that way, so rudely, that with difficulty he got into a house, after they had torn his habit, and was from thence removed to his own, with great hazard of his life. As this was the reception which it had in the cathedral, so it fared not better in the other churches of the city, but was entertained with the same noise and outcries, and threatening the men, whose office it was to read it, with the same bitter execrations against bishops and popery.

Hitherto no person of condition or name appeared or

seemed to countenance this seditious confusion; it was the rabble, of which nobody was named, and, which is more strange, not one apprehended: and it seems the bishops thought it not of moment enough to desire or require any help or protection from the council; but without conferring with them, or applying themselves to them, they despatched away an express to the king, with a full and particular information of all that had passed, and a desire that he would take that course he thought best for the carrying on his service.

Until this advertisement arrived from Scotland, there were very few in England who had heard of any disorders there, or of anything done there which might * * And the truth is, there was so produce any. little curiosity either in the court or in the country that when the whole nation was solicitous to know to know anything of Scotland, or what was done there, what passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and all other parts of Europe, no man ever inquired what was doing in Scotland. Nor had that kingdom a place or mention in one page of any gazette; and even after the advertisement of this preamble to rebellion, no mention was made of it at the council-board, but such a dispatch made into Scotland upon it, as expressed the king's dislike and displeasure, and obliged the lords of the council there to appear more vigorously in the vindication of his authority, and suppression of those tumults. But all was too little. That people, after they had once begun, pursued the business vigorously, and with all imaginable contempt of the government; and though in the hubbub of the first day there appeared nobody of name or reckoning, but the actors were really of the dregs of the people, yet they discovered by the countenance of that day, that few men of rank were forward to engage themselves in the quarrel on the behalf of the bishops; whereupon more considerable persons every day appeared against them, and-as heretofore in the case of St Paul, Acts, xiii. 50, 'The Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women'-the women and ladies of the best quality declared themselves of the party, and, with all the reproaches imaginable, made war upon the bishops, as introducers of popery and superstition, against which they avowed themselves to be irreconcilable enemies; and their husbands did not long defer the owning the same spirit; insomuch as within few days the bishops durst not appear in the streets, nor in any courts or houses, but were in danger of their lives; and such of the lords as durst be in their company, or seemed to desire to rescue them from violence, had their coaches torn in pieces, and their persons assaulted, insomuch as they were glad to send for some of those great men, who did indeed govern the rabble, though they appeared not in it, who readily came and redeemed them out of their hands; so that, by the time new orders came from England, there was scarce a bishop left in Edinburgh, and not a minister who durst read the Liturgy in any church.

[Character of Hampden.]

Mr Hampden was a man of much greater cunning, and, it may be, of the most discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring anything to pass which he desired, of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. He was a gentleman of a good extraction, and a fair fortune; who, from a life of great pleasure and licence, had on a sudden retired to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, and yet retained his usual cheerfulness and affability; which, together with the opinion of his wisdom and justice, and the courage he had shewed in opposing the ship-money, raised his reputation to a very great height, not only in Buckinghamshire, where he lived, but generally throughout the kingdom. He was not a man of many words, and rarely begun the discourse, or made the first entrance upon any business that was assumed; but a

very weighty speaker, and after he had heard a full debate, and observed how the house was like to be inclined, took up the argument, and shortly, and clearly, and craftily so stated it, that he commonly conducted it to the conclusion he desired; and if he found he could not do that, he was never without the dexterity to divert the debate to another time, and to prevent the determining anything in the negative, which might prove inconvenient in the future. He made so great a show of civility, and modesty, and humility, and always of mistrusting his own judgment, and esteeming his with whom he conferred for the present, that he seemed to have no opinions or resolutions, but such as he contracted from the information and instruction he received upon the discourses of others, whom he had a wonderful art of governing, and leading into his principles and inclinations, whilst they believed that he wholly depended upon their counsel and advice. No man had ever a greater power over himself, or was less the man that he seemed to be; which shortly after appeared to everybody, when he cared less to keep on the mask.

[Character of Lord Falkland.]

In this unhappy battle [of Newbury] was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland, a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity:

Turpe mori, post te, solo non posse dolore.

Before this parliament, his condition of life was so happy that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to be twenty years of age, he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather, without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was lord-deputy; so that, when he returned into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation, and therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship for the most part was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity; and such men had a title to his bosom.

He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which, in those administrations, he was such a dispenser, as, if he had been trusted with it to such uses, and if there had been the least of vice in his expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. And, therefore, having once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek historians.

In this time, his house being within little more than

ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university, who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in a less volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation.

He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men; and that made him too much a contemner of those arts which must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In the last short parliament he was a burgess in the House of Commons; and from the debates, which were there managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence to parliaments, that he thought it really impossible they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom; or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them.

The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned in them a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; insomuch as he was by degrees looked upon as an advocate for the court; to which he contributed so little, that he declined those addresses, and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to the court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the king's or queen's favour towards him but the deserving it. For when the king sent for him once or twice to speak with him, and to give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils, which his majesty graciously termed 'doing him service,' his answers were more negligent, and less satisfactory than might be expected; as if he cared only that his actions should be just, not that they should be acceptable; and that his majesty should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of conscience, without any sympathy in his affections.

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear, that he seemed not without some appetite of danger; and therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters, he had about him an extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the execution that usually attended them; in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by resistance made necessary; insomuch that at Edge-hill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their having thrown them away; so that a man might think he came into the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination, he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, before he was of age, he went into the Low

Countries, with a resolution of procuring command, and to give himself up to it; from which he was diverted by the complete inactivity of that summer; so he returned into England, and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarm from the north; then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a troop of horse, of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor-which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages that might then have been laid hold of--he resisted those indispositions. But after the king's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men, that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable; and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness, and industry, and expense, than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some menstrangers to his nature and disposition-who believed him proud and imperious; from which no mortal man was ever more free.

*

*

When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often after a deep silence, and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace, Peace; and would passionately profess, that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart.' This made some think, or pretend to think, 'that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price;' which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour could have wished the king to have committed a trespass against either.

骨 *

In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope he might have been a prisoner, though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency: whosoever leads such a life, needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken

from him.

[Character of Charles I.]

But it will not be unnecessary to add a short character of his person, that posterity may know the inestimable loss which the nation then underwent, in being deprived of a prince whose example would have had a greater influence upon the manners and piety of the nation, than the most strict laws can have. To speak first of his private qualifications as a man, before the mention of his princely and royal virtues; he was, if ever any, the most worthy of the title of an honest man; so great a lover of justice, that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful action, except it was so disguised to him that he believed it to be just. He had a tenderness and compassion of nature which restrained him from ever doing a hard-hearted thing; and, therefore, he was so apt to grant pardon to malefactors, that the judges of the land represented to him the damage and insecurity to the public that flowed from such his indulgence. And then he restrained himself from pardoning either murders or highway robberies, and quickly discerned the fruits of his severity by a wonderful reformation of those enormities. He was very punctual and regular in his devotions; he was never known to enter upon his recreations or sports, though never so early in the morning, before he had been at public prayers; so that on hunting-days, his chaplains were bound to a very early attendance. He was likewise very strict in observing the hours of his private cabinet devotions, and was so severe an exacter of gravity and reverence in all mention of religion, that he could never endure any light or profane word, with what sharpness of wit soever it was covered; and though he was well pleased and delighted with reading verses made upon any occasion, no man durst bring before him anything that was profane or unclean. That kind of wit had never any countenance then. He was so great an example of conjugal affection, that they who did not imitate him in that particular, durst not brag of their liberty; and he did not only permit, but direct his bishops to prosecute those scandalous vices, in the ecclesiastical courts, against persons of eminence, and near relation to his service.

His kingly virtues had some mixture and allay that hindered them from shining in full lustre, and from producing those fruits they should have been attended with. He was not in his nature very bountiful, though he gave very much. This appeared more after the Duke of Buckingham's death, after which those showers fell very rarely; and he paused too long in giving, which made those to whom he gave less sensible of the benefit. He kept state to the full, which made his court very orderly, no man presuming to be seen in a place where he had no pretence to be. He saw and observed men long before he received them about his person; and did not love strangers, nor very confident men. was a patient hearer of causes, which he frequently accustomed himself to at the council board, and judged very well, and was dexterous in the mediating part; so that he often put an end to causes by persuasion, which the stubbornness of men's bumours made dilatory in courts of justice.

He

He was very fearless in his person; but, in his riper years, not very enterprising. He had an excellent understanding, but was not confident enough of it; which made him oftentimes change his own opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of men that did not judge so well as himself. This made him more irresolute than the conjuncture of his affairs would admit; if he had been of a rougher and more imperious nature, he would have found more respect and duty. And his not applying some severe cures to approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the tenderness of his conscience, which, in all cases of blood, made him choose the softer way, and not hearken to

severe counsels, how reasonably soever urged. This only restrained him from pursuing his advantage in the first Scottish expedition, when, humanly speaking, he might have reduced that nation to the most entire obedience that could have been wished. But no man can say he had then many who advised him to it, but the contrary, by a wonderful indisposition all his council had to the war or any other fatigue. He was always a great lover of the Scottish nation, having not only been born there, but educated by that people, and besieged by them always, having few English about him till he was king; and the major number of his servants being still of that nation, who he thought could never fail him. And among these, no man had such an ascendant over him, by the humblest insinuations, as Duke Hamilton had.

As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so strict, that he abhorred all debauchery to that degree, that, at a great festival solemnity, where he once was, when very many of the nobility of the English and Scots were entertained, being told by one who withdrew from thence, what vast draughts of wine they drank, and that there was one earl who had drank most of the rest down, and was not himself moved or altered,' the king said, that he deserved to be hanged;' and that earl coming shortly after into the room where his majesty was, in some gaiety, to shew how unhurt he was from that battle, the king sent one to bid him withdraw from his majesty's presence; nor did he in some days after appear before him.

So many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruin, that men might well think that heaven and earth conspired it. Though he was, from the first declension of his power, so much betrayed by his own servants, that there were very few who remained faithful to him, yet that treachery proceeded not always from any treasonable purpose to do him any harm, but from particular and personal animosities against other men. And afterwards, the terror all men were under of the parliament, and the guilt they were conscious of themselves, made them watch all opportunities to make themselves gracious to those who could do them good; and so they became spies upon their master, and from one piece of knavery were hardened and confirmed to undertake another, till at last they had no hope of preservation but by the destruction of their master. And after all this, when a man might reasonably believe that less than a universal defection of three nations could not have reduced a great king to so ugly a fate, it is most certain that, in that very hour, when he was thus wickedly murdered in the sight of the sun, he had as great a share in the hearts and affections of his subjects in general, was as much beloved, esteemed, and longed for by the people in general of the three nations, as any of his predecessors had ever been. To conclude, he was the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father, and the best Christian that the age in which he lived produced. And if he were not the greatest king, if he were without some parts and qualities which have made some kings great and happy, no other prince was ever unhappy who was possessed of half his virtues and endowments, and so much without any kind of vice.

[Escape of Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester.*] Though the king could not get a body of horse to fight, he could have too many to fly with him; and he had not been many hours from Worcester, when he found about him near, if not above, four thousand of his horse. There was David Lesley with all his own equipage, as if he had not fled upon the sudden; so that good order, and regularity, and obedience, might yet have made a

* The particulars of this escape are here narrated as the author had them from the king himself.'

But

retreat even into Scotland itself. But there was paleness in every man's looks, and jealousy and confusion in their faces; and scarce anything could worse befall the king than a return into Scotland, which yet he could not reasonably promise to himself in that company. when the night covered them, he found means to withdraw himself with one or two of his own servants, whom he likewise discharged when it begun to be light; and after he had made them cut off his hair, he betook himself alone into an adjacent wood, and relied only upon Him for his preservation who alone could, and did miraculously deliver him.

When the darkness of the night was over, after the king had cast himself into that wood, he discerned another man, who had gotten upon an oak in the same wood, near the place where the king had rested himself, and had slept soundly. The man upon the tree had first seen the king, and knew him, and came down to him, and was known to the king, being a gentleman of the neighbour county of Staffordshire, who had served his late majesty during the war, and had now been one of the few who resorted to the king after his coming to Worcester. His name was Careless, who had had a command of foot, about the degree of a captain, under the Lord Loughborough. He persuaded the king, since it could not be safe for him to go out of the wood, and that, as soon as it should be fully light, the wood itself would probably be visited by those of the country, who would be searching to find those whom they might make prisoners, that he would get up into that tree where he had been, where the boughs were so thick with leaves that a man would not be discovered there without a narrower inquiry than people usually make in places which they do not suspect. The king thought it good counsel, and, with the other's help, climbed into the tree, and then helped his companion to ascend after him, where they sat all that day, and securely saw many who came purposely into the wood to look after them, and heard all their discourse, how they would use the king himself if they could take him. This wood was either in or upon the borders of Staffordshire; and though there was a highway near one side of it, where the king had entered into it, yet it was large, and all other sides of it opened amongst enclosures, and Careless was not unacquainted with the neighbour villages; and it was part of the king's good-fortune that this gentleman, by being a Roman Catholic, was acquainted with those of that profession of all degrees, who had the best opportunities of concealing him; for it must never be denied that some of that religion had a very great share in his majesty's preservation.

The day being spent in the tree, it was not in the king's power to forget that he had lived two days with eating very little, and two nights with as little sleep; so that, when the night came, he was willing to make some provision for both; and he resolved, with the advice and assistance of his companion, to leave his blessed tree; and, when the night was dark, they walked through the wood into those enclosures which were farthest from any highway, and making a shift to get over hedges and ditches, after walking at least eight or nine miles, which were the more grievous to the king by the weight of his boots--for he could not put them off when he cut off his hair, for want of shoes-before morning they came to a poor cottage, the owner whereof, being a Roman Catholic, was known to Careless. He was called up, and as soon as he knew one of them, he easily concluded in what condition they both were, and presently carried them into a little barn full of hay, which was a better lodging than he had for himself. But when they were there, and had conferred with their host of the news and temper of the country, it was agreed that the danger would be the greater if they stayed together; and, therefore, that Careless should presently be gone, and should, within two days, send an honest man to the king, to guide him to some other place of

himself well feasted; and took the best care he could to be supplied with other, little better, shoes and stockings; and after his feet were enough recovered that he could go, he was conducted from thence to another poor house, within such a distance as put him not to much trouble; for having not yet in his thought which way or by what means to make his escape, all that was designed was only, by shifting from one house to another, to avoid discovery. And being now in that quarter which was more inhabited by the Roman Catholics than most other parts in England, he was led from one to another of that persuasion, and concealed with great fidelity. But he then observed that he was never carried to any gentleman's house, though that country was full of them, but only to poor houses of poor men, which only yielded him rest with very unpleasant sustenance; whether there was more danger in those better houses, in regard of the resort and the many servants, or whether the owners of great estates were the owners likewise of more fears and apprehensions.

security; and in the meantime his majesty should stay upon the hay-mow. The poor man had nothing for him to eat, but promised him good butter-milk; and so he was once more left alone, his companion, how weary soever, departing from him before day, the poor man of the house knowing no more than that he was a friend of the captain's, and one of those who had escaped from Worcester. The king slept very well in his lodging, till the time that his host brought him a piece of bread, and a great pot of butter-milk, which he thought the best food he ever had eaten. The poor man spoke very intelligently to him of the country, and of the people who were well or ill affected to the king, and of the great fear and terror that possessed the hearts of those who were best affected. He told him, 'that he himself lived by his daily labour, and that what he had brought him was the fare he and his wife had; and that he feared, if he should endeavour to procure better, it might draw suspicion upon him, and people might be apt to think he had somebody with him that was not of his own family. However, if he would have him get some meat, he would Within few days, a very honest and discreet person, do it; but if he could bear this hard diet, he should one Mr Hudleston, a Benedictine monk, who attended have enough of the milk, and some of the butter that the service of the Roman Catholics in those parts, came was made with it.' The king was satisfied with his to him, sent by Careless, and was a very great assistance reason, and would not run the hazard for a change of and comfort to him. And when the places to which he diet; desired only the man that he might have his carried him were at too great a distance to walk, he company as often and as much as he could give it him;' | provided him a horse, and more proper habit than the there being the same reason against the poor man's rags he wore. This man told him, 'that the Lord discontinuing his labour, as the alteration of his fare. Wilmot lay concealed likewise in a friend's house of his, which his majesty was very glad of, and wished him to contrive some means how they might speak together,' which the other easily did; and, within a night or two, brought them into one place. Wilmot told the king that he had by very good-fortune fallen into the house of an honest gentleman, one Mr Lane, a person of an excellent reputation for his fidelity to the king, but of so universal and general a good name, that, though he had a son who had been a colonel in the king's service during the late war, and was then upon his way with men to Worcester, the very day of the defeat, men of all affeetions in the country, and of all opinions, paid the old man a very great respect; that he had been very civilly treated there; and that the old gentleman had used some diligence to find out where the king was, that he might get him to his house, where, he was sure, he could conceal him, till he might contrive a full deliverance.' He told him, he had withdrawn from that house, in hope that he might, in some other place, discover where his majesty was; and having now happily found him, advised him to repair to that house, which stood not near any other.'

After he had rested upon this hay-mow and fed upon this diet two days and two nights, in the evening before the third night, another fellow, a little above the condition of his host, came to the house, sent from Careless, to conduct the king to another house, more out of any road near which any part of the army was like to march. It was above twelve miles that he was to go, and was to use the same caution he had done the first night, not to go in any common road, which his guide knew well how to avoid. Here he new dressed himself, changing clothes with his landlord; he had a great mind to have kept his own shirt; but he considered, that men are not sooner discovered by any mark in disguises than by having fine linen in ill clothes; and so he parted with his shirt too, and took the same his poor host had then on. Though he had foreseen that he must leave his boots, and his landlord had taken the best care he could to provide an old pair of shoes, yet they were not easy to him when he first put them on, and, in a short time after, grew very grievous to him. In this equipage he set out from his first lodging in the beginning of the night, under the conduct of this guide, who guided him the nearest way, crossing over hedges and ditches, that they might be in least danger of meeting passengers. This was so grievous a march, and he was so tired, that he was even ready to despair, and to prefer being taken and suffered to rest, before purchasing his safety at that price. His shoes had, after a few miles, hurt him so much, that he had thrown them away, and walked the rest of the way in his ill stockings, which were quickly worn out; and his feet, with the thorns in getting over hedges, and with the stones in other places, were so hurt and wounded, that he many times cast himself upon the ground, with a desperate and obstinate resolution to rest there till the morning, that he might shift with less torment, what hazard soever he run. But his stout guide still prevailed with him to make a new attempt, sometimes promising that the way should be better, and sometimes assuring him that he had but little farther to go; and in this distress and perplexity, before the morning they arrived at the house designed; which, though it was better than that which he had left, his lodging was still in the barn, upon straw instead of hay, a place being made as easy in it as the expectation of a guest could dispose it. Here he had such meat and porridge as such people use to have, with which, but especially with the butter and the cheese, he thought

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The king liked the proposition, yet thought not fit to surprise the gentleman, but sent Wilmot thither again, to assure himself that he might be received there, and was willing that he should know what guest he received; which hitherto was so much concealed, that none of the houses where he had yet been knew or seemed to suspect more than that he was one of the king's party that fled from Worcester. The monk carried him to a house at a reasonable distance, where he was to expect an account from the Lord Wilmot, who returned very punctually, with as much assurance of welcome as he could wish. And so they two went together to Mr Lane's house, where the king found he was welcome, and conveniently accommodated in such places as in a large house had been provided to conceal the persons of malig nants, or to preserve goods of value from being plundered. Here he lodged and ate very well, and began to hope that he was in present safety. Wilmot returned under the care of the monk, and expected summons when any farther motion should be thought to be necessary.

In this station the king remained in quiet and blessed security many days, receiving every day information of the general consternation the kingdom was in, out of the apprehension that his person might fall into the hands of his enemies, and of the great diligence they used to

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