[1651.] The defeat of the Scots was regarded by the king as a fortunate event. The armies which fought on both sides, were almost equally his enemies; and the vanquished were now obliged to give him some more authority, and apply to him for support. The parliament was summoned to meet at St. Johnstone's. Hamilton, Lauderdale, and all the engagers were admitted into court and camp, on condition of doing public penance, and expressing repentance for their late transgressions. Some malignants also crept in under various pretences. The intended humiliation or penance of the king was changed into the ceremony of his. coronation, which was performed at Scone with great pomp and solemnity. But amidst all this appearance of respect, Charles remained in the hands of the most rigid Covenanters; and though treated with civility and courtesy by Argyle, a man of parts and address, he was little better than a prisoner, and was still exposed to all the rudeness and pedantry of the ecclesiastics.

This young prince was in a situation which very ill suited his temper and disposition. All those good qualities which he possessed, his affability, his wit, his gayety, his gentleman-like, disengaged behavior, were here so many vices; and his love of ease, liberty, and pleasure, was regarded as the highest enormity. Though artful in the practice of courtly dissimulation, the sanctified style was utterly unknown to him; and he never could mould his deportment into that starched grimace which the Covenanters required as an infallible mark of conversion. The duke of Buckingham was the only English courtier allowed to attend him; and by his ingenious talent for ridicule, he had rendered himself extremely agreeable to his master. While so many objects of derision surrounded them, It was difficult to be altogether insensible to the temptation, and wholly to suppress the laugh. Obliged to attend from morning to night at prayers and sermons, they betrayed evident symptoms of weariness or contempt. The clergy never could esteem the king sufficiently regenerated; and by con tinual exhortations, remonstrances, and reprimands, they still endeavored to bring him to a juster sense of his spiritual duty.

The king's passion for the fair could not altogether be restrained. He had once been observed using some familiarities with a young woman; and a committee of ministers was appointed to reprove him for a behavior so unbecoming a covenanted monarch. The spokesman of the committee, one

Douglas began with a severe aspect, informed the king, that great scandal had been given to the godly, enlarged on the heinous nature of sin, and concluded with exhorting his majesty, whenever he was disposed to amuse himself, to be more careful for the future in shutting the windows. This delicacy, so unusual to the place and to the character of the man, was remarked by the king; and he never forgot the obligation.

The king, shocked at all the indignities, and perhaps still more tired with all the formalities to which he was obliged to submit, made an attempt to regain his liberty. General Middleton, at the head of some royalists, being proscribed by the Covenanters, kept in the mountains, expecting some opportu nity of serving his master. The king resolved to join this body. He secretly made his escape from Argyle, and fled towards the Highlands. Colonel Montgomery, with a troop of horse, was sent in pursuit of him. He overtook the king, and persuaded him to return. The royalists being too weak to support him, Charles was the more easily induced to comply. This incident procured him afterwards better treatment and more authority; the Covenanters being afraid of driving him, by their rigors, to some desperate resolution. Argyle renewed his courtship to the king; and the king, with equal dissimulation, pretended to repose great confidence in Argyle. He even went so far as to drop hints of his intention to marry that nobleman's daughter; but he had to do with a man too wise to be seduced by such gross artifices.

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 Cromwell. 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 maximis, 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 intrenchments defended his front; and it was in vain that Cromwell made every attempt to bring him to an engage. ment. After losing much time, the English general sent Lam. bert 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. Cromwell 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 fourteen thousand men, rose from their camp, and advanced by great journeys towards the south.

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Cromwell was surprised 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 Cromwell, he quickly repaired it by his vigilance and activity. He despatched 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 seven thousand men to complete the reduction of Scotland, followed the king with all the expedition possible.

Charles found himself disappointed in his expectations of increasing his army. The Scots, terrified at the prospect of so hazardous an enterprise, 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 further 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

ls of Man, where he had hitherto maintained his independ ence, was employed in levying forces in Cheshire and Lan、 cashire; but was soon suppressed by a party of the parlia mentary any. 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.

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 thirty thousand men, Cromwell 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 honor, was mortally wounded; Massey wounded and taken prisoner; the king himself, having given many proofs of personal valor, was obliged to fly. The whole Scottish army was either killed or taken prisoners. The country people, inflamed with national antipathý, put to death the few that escaped from the field of battle.

The king left Worcester at six o'clock in the afternoon, and without halting, travelled about twenty-six miles, in company with fifty or si ty 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 intrusted 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 honorable with himself: and having clothed the king in a garb like their own, they led him into the neighboring wood, put a bill in his hand, and pretended to employ themselves in cutting fagots. Some nights he lay upon straw in the house, and fed on such homely fare as it afforded. For a better concealment, ne mounted upon an oak, where he sheltered himself among the leaves and branches for twenty-four hours. He saw sev

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eral soldiers pass by. 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 neighborhood 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 neighborhood, 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 Penderells, 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 neighboring 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 gɔ elsewhere for a passage. He intrusted himself to Colone Windham of Dorsetshire, an affectionate partisan 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