queen, his royal brother the Duke of York, and of all true hearts. Here we must again, with greater reason, humbly contemplate the admirable providence of Almighty God, which certainly never appeared more miraculously than in this strange deliverance of his majesty from such an infinity of dangers, that history itself cannot produce a parallel, nor will posterity willingly believe it. From the 3rd of September, at Worcester, to the 15th of October, at Brighthelmstone, being one-and-forty days, he passed through more dangers than he travelled miles, of which yet he traversed in that time only near three hundred (not to speak of his dangers at sea, both at his coming into Scotland, and his going out of England, nor of his long march from Scotland to Worcester), sometimes on foot with uneasy shoes; at other times on horseback, encumbered with a portmanteau; and which was worse, at another time on the gall-backed, slowpaced miller's horse; sometimes acting one disguise in coarse linen and a leather doublet, sometimes another of almost as bad a complexion; one day he is forced to skulk in a barn at Madeley, another day sits with Colonel Carlos in a tree, with his feet extremely galled, and at night glad to lodge with William Penderel in a secret place at Boscobel, which never was intended for the dormitory of a king. Sometimes he was forced to shift with coarse fare for a bellyful; another time in a wood, glad to relieve the necessities of nature with a mess of milk, served up in a homely dish by good-wife Yates, a poor country-woman; then again, for a variety of tribulation, when he thought himself almost out of danger, he directly meets some of those rebels who so greedily sought his blood, yet, by God's great providence, had not the power to discover him; and (which is more than has yet been mentioned) he sent at another time to some subjects for relief and assistance in his great necessity, who, out of a pusillanimous fear of the bloody arch-rebel then reigning, durst not own him. Besides all this, 'twas not the least of his afflictions daily to hear the Earl of Derby, and other his loyal subjects, some murdered, some imprisoned, and others sequestered in heaps, by the same bloody usurper, only for performing their duty to their lawful king. In a word, there was no kind of misery (but death itself) of which his majesty, in this horrible persecution, did not in some measure, both in body, mind, and estate, bear a very great share; yet such was his invincible patience in this time of trial, such his fortitude, that he overcame them all with such pious advantage to himself, that their memory is now sweet, and "it was good for him that he had been afflicted." Of these his majesty's sufferings and forced extermination from his own dominions, England's great chancellor* thus excellently descants: "We may tell those desperate wretches, who yet harbour in their thoughts wicked designs against the sacred person of the king, in order to the compassing their own imaginations, that God Almighty would not have led him through so many wildernesses of afflictions of all kinds, conducted him through so many perils by sea, and perils by land, snatched him out of the midst of this kingdom when it was not worthy of him, and when the hands of his enemies were even upon him, when they thought themselves so sure of him, that they would bid so cheap and so vile a price for him. He would not in that article have so covered him with a cloud, that he travelled even with some pleasure and great observation through the midst of his enemies. He would not so wonderfully have new modelled that army; so inspired their hearts, and the hearts of the whole nation, with an honest and impatient longing for the return of their dear sovereign, and in the mean time have exercised him (which had little less of providence in it than the other) with those unnatural, or at least unusual, disrespects and reproaches abroad, that he might have a harmless and an innocent appetite to his own country, and return to his own people, with a full value, and the whole unwasted bulk of his affections, without being corrupted or biassed by extraordinary foreign obligations. God Almighty would not have done all this but for a servant whom he will always preserve as the apple of his own eye, and always defend from the most secret machinations of his enemies." * Edward, Earl of Clarendon. See p. 291 of the Appendix to his lordship's "History of the Grand Rebellion." Thus the best and happiest of orators. Some may haply here expect I should have continued the particulars of this history to the time of his majesty's happy restoration, by giving an account of the reception his majesty found from the several princes beyond the seas, during his exile, and of his evenness of mind and prudent deportment towards them upon all occasions; but that was clearly beyond the scope of my intention, which aimed only to write the wonderful history of a great and good king, violently pursued in his own dominions by the worst of rebels, and miraculously preserved, under God, by the best of subjects. In other countries, of which his majesty traversed not a few, he found kindness and a just compassion of his adversity from many, and from some a neglect and disregard; yet, in all the almost nine years abroad, I have not heard of any passage that approached the degree of a miracle like that at home; therefore I may, with faith to my own intentions, not improperly make a silent transition from his majesty's arrival at Paris, on the 13th day of October, 1651, to his return to London on the 29th of May, 1660; and, with a Te Deum laudamus, sum up all, and say with the prophet: "My lord the king is come again in peace to his own house." * "And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king!"+ * 2 Sam. xix. 30. +1 Sam. xx. 24. INDEX. ANNE of Austria, notice of, 84, 328. Arran, Earl of, notice cf, 107, 344: Bagot, Miss, 217; her acquaintance Bapaume, notice of, 93, 331. Brinon, valet de chambre to Count Brissac, Duke de, duped by Gram- Bristol, Earl of, his parties, 171, 368. Bardou, Mad., maid of honour, 210; Brounker follows Miss Jennings, quits the court, 216. Barker, Mrs., notice of, 385. Batteville, Baron de, notices of, 55, Bellenden, Miss, maid of honour, 210; quits the court, 216. 259; notices of, 392. estate, 106, 343; his familiarity 218; marries Sir Thomas Yarbo-Bussi, his description of Grammont, Blood, Col., anecdotes of, 440. Boynton, Miss, alluded to, 217; falls 35; Voltaire's account of, 323. Cæsars de Vendôme, notice of, 40,326. Careless, Major, alluded to, 462. king, 504; family of, 514. her reception, 105, 339; her ap- Charles I., his execution, 422. 419; his birth and education, ib.; 483; White Ladys, 456, 493; dis- |