As soon as the season would permit, the Scottish army was assembled under Hamilton and Lesley; and the king was allowed to join the camp. The forces of the western counties, notwithstanding the imminent danger, which threatened their country, were resolute not to unite their cause with that of an army, which admitted any engagers or malignants among them; and they kept in a body apart under Ker. They called themselves the Protesters; and their frantic clergy declaimed equally against the king and against Cromwel. The other party were denominated Resolutioners; and these distinctions continued long after to divide and agitate the kingdom.
Charles encamped at the Torwood; and his generals resolved to conduct themselves by the same cautious maxims, which, so long as they were embraced, had been successful during the former campaign. The town of Stirling lay at his back, and the whole north supplied him with provisions. Strong entrenchments defended his front; and it was in vain that Cromwel made every attempt to bring him to an engagement. After losing much time, the English general sent Lambert over the frith into Fife, with an intention of cutting off the provisions of the enemy. Lambert fell upon Holborne and Brown, who commanded a party of the Scots, and put them to rout with great slaughter. Cromwel also passed over with his whole army; and lying at the back of the king, made it impossible for him to keep his post any longer.
Charles, reduced to despair, embraced a resolution worthy of a young prince contending for empire. Having the way open, he resolved immediately to march into England; where he expected, that all his friends, and all those who were discontented with the present government, would flock to his standard. He persuaded the generals to enter into the same views; and with one consent the army, to the number of 14,000 men, rose from their camp, and advanced by great journies towards the south.
Cromwel was surprized at this movement of the royal army. Wholly intent on offending his enemy, he had exposed his friends to imminent danger, and saw the king with numerous forces marching into England; where his presence, from the general hatred which prevailed against the parliament, was capable of producing some great revolution. But if this conduct was an oversight in Cromwel, he quickly repaired it by his vigilance and activity. He dispatched letters to the parliament, exhorting them not to be dismayed at the approach of the Scots: He sent orders every where for assembling forces to oppose the king: He ordered Lambert with a body of cavalry to hang upon the rear of the royal army, and infest their march: And he himself, leaving Monk with 7000 men to complete the reduction of Scotland, followed the king with all the expedition possible.
Charles found himself disappointed in his expectations of encreasing his army. The Scots, terrified at the prospect of so hazardous an enterprize, fell off in great numbers. The English presbyterians, having no warning given them of the king’s approach, were not prepared to join him. To the royalists, this measure was equally unexpected; and they were farther deterred from joining the Scottish army by the orders, which the committee of ministers had issued, not to admit any, even in this desperate extremity, who would not subscribe the covenant. The earl of Derby, leaving the isle of Man, where he had hitherto maintained his independance, was employed in levying forces in Cheshire and Lancashire; but was soon suppressed by a party of the parliamentary army. And the king, when he arrived at Worcester, found, that his forces, extremely harassed by a hasty and fatiguing march, were not more numerous, than when he rose from his camp in the Torwood.
3d Sept.
Battle of Worcester.
Such is the influence of established government, that the commonwealth, though founded in usurpation the most unjust and unpopular, had authority sufficient to raise every where the militia of the counties; and these, united with the regular forces, bent all their efforts against the king. With an army of about 30,000 men, Cromwel fell upon Worcester; and attacking it on all sides, and meeting with little resistance except from duke Hamilton and general Middleton, broke in upon the disordered royalists. The streets of the city were strowed with dead: Hamilton, a nobleman of bravery and honour, was mortally wounded; Massey wounded and taken prisoner; the king himself, having given many proofs of personal valour, was obliged to fly. The whole Scottish army was either killed or taken prisoners. The country people, inflamed with national antipathy, put to death the few that escaped from the field of battle.
The king’s escape.
The king left Worcester at six o’clock in the afternoon, and without halting, travelled about twenty-six miles, in company with fifty or sixty of his friends. To provide for his safety, he thought it best to separate himself from his companions; and he left them without communicating his intentions to any of them. By the earl of Derby’s directions, he went to Boscobel, a lone house in the borders of Staffordshire, inhabited by one Penderell, a farmer. To this man Charles entrusted himself. The man had dignity of sentiments much above his condition; and though death was denounced against all who concealed the king, and a great reward promised to any one who should betray him, he professed and maintained unshaken fidelity. He took the assistance of his four brothers, equally honourable with himself; and having cloathed the king in a garb like their own, they led him into the neighbouring wood, put a bill into his hand, and pretended to employ themselves in cutting faggots. Some nights he lay upon straw in the house, and fed on such homely fare as it afforded. For a better concealment, he mounted upon an oak, where he sheltered himself among the leaves and branches for twenty-four hours. He saw several soldiers pass bye. All of them were intent in search of the king; and some expressed in his hearing their earnest wishes of seizing him. This tree was afterwards denominated the Royal Oak; and for many years was regarded by the neighbourhood with great veneration.
Charles was in the middle of the kingdom, and could neither stay in his retreat, nor stir a step from it, without the most imminent danger. Fears, hopes, and party zeal interested multitudes to discover him; and even the smallest indiscretion of his friends might prove fatal. Having joined lord Wilmot, who was skulking in the neighbourhood, they agreed to put themselves into the hands of colonel Lane, a zealous royalist, who lived at Bentley, not many miles distant. The king’s feet were so hurt by walking about in heavy boots or countrymen’s shoes which did not fit him, that he was obliged to mount on horseback; and he travelled in this situation to Bentley, attended by the Penderels, who had been so faithful to him. Lane formed a scheme for his journey to Bristol, where, it was hoped, he would find a ship, in which he might transport himself. He had a near kinswoman, Mrs. Norton, who lived within three miles of that city, and was with child, very near the time of her delivery. He obtained a pass (for during those times of confusion this precaution was requisite) for his sister Jane Lane and a servant, to travel towards Bristol, under pretence of visiting and attending her relation. The king rode before the lady, and personated the servant.
When they arrived at Norton’s, Mrs. Lane pretended that she had brought along as her servant, a poor lad, a neighbouring farmer’s son, who was ill of an ague; and she begged a private room for him, where he might be quiet. Though Charles kept himself retired in this chamber, the butler, one Pope, soon knew him: The king was alarmed, but made the butler promise that he would keep the secret from every mortal, even from his master; and he was faithful to his engagement.
No ship, it was found, would, for a month, set sail from Bristol, either for France or Spain; and the king was obliged to go elsewhere for a passage. He entrusted himself to colonel Windham of Dorsetshire, an affectionate partizan of the royal family. The natural effect of the long civil wars and of the furious rage, to which all men were wrought up in their different factions, was, that every one’s inclinations and affections were thoroughly known, and even the courage and fidelity of most men, by the variety of incidents, had been put to trial. The royalists too had, many of them, been obliged to make concealments in their houses for themselves, their friends, or more valuable effects; and the arts of eluding the enemy had been frequently practised. All these circumstances proved favourable to the king in the present exigency. As he often passed through the hands of catholics, the Priest’s hole, as they called it, the place, where they were obliged to conceal their persecuted priests, was sometimes employed for sheltering their distressed sovereign.
Windham, before he received the king, asked leave to entrust the important secret to his mother, his wife, and four servants, on whose fidelity he could rely. Of all these,