142 ESCAPE AND ADVENTURES OF CHARLES. 66 [1651. "What without interruption. On their way, the king's horse cast a shoe. news?" said the serving-man to the smith. None, since the beating of those rogues, the Scots; he didn't hear that that rogue Charles Stuart had been taken yet." Charles thought that rogue ought to be hanged, and the smith applauded him as an honest man for his opinion. At Bristol, there was no vessel in which the fugitive could embark, and he had to seek another place of refuge. After a day's rest, he went to Trent House, the residence of colonel Wyndham, a devoted royalist; and his faithful Miss Lane and her cousin accompanied him. Here he remained till a vessel was engaged at Charmouth, near Lyme, to convey to St. Malo a nobleman and his servant. In other disguises Charles proceeded to the coast; but the master of the vessel was locked in his room by his wife, who declared that she and her children should not be ruined for the sake of any royalist. He now hurried, with Wyndham and Wilmot, to Bridport. The town was filled with soldiers, about to embark for Jersey. The king, in his old quality of servant, led the horses through a crowd of troopers, thrusting them out of the way with many a coarse word. There was now no immediate expedient but to return to Trent House. A second ship was engaged at Southampton; but was taken up for the transport of troops. His abode with colonel Wyndham now became unsafe. Another retreat was found in Wiltshire; and in a week a vessel was engaged to sail from Shoreham. The king and his friends again started on the 13th of October, with dogs, as a coursing party, proceeding to the Sussex Downs. They stopped that night at the house of a brother-in-law of one of Charles' friends; and the next day were at Brighthelmstone. This town of marine luxury was then a mean village; and there, at supper, the captain of the engaged vessel recognised the king; and said he would venture his life and all for him. The landlord also said to him-" God bless you. I shall be a lord, and my wife a lady, before I die." At five o'clock on the morning of the 15th the proscribed Charles Stuart went on board; and on the afternoon of the 16th he and Wilmot were landed at Fécamp. The secret of the royal fugitive had been entrusted to forty-five persons, whose names are recorded; and with no one of them was he ever in danger through treachery or want of caution. Charles and Wilmot, in the travel-stained disguises which they had been compelled to adopt in the place of silks and love-locks, reached Rouen. Their miserable appearance made it difficult for them even to obtain the shelter of an inn. The king managed to obtain some money; and it soon became known that the fugitive of Worcester was safe. On the 29th of October he left Rouen; and, met by his mother and his brother James, he was once more safe in the Louvre. In a dispatch of the 1st of November, we have a glimpse of Charles and Henrietta Maria: "The queen keeps altogether at the Louvre since the king's coming hither. * She is constantly wonderful merry, and seemeth to be overjoyed to see the king safe near her; but he is very sad, and sombre for the most part. That cheerfulness which, against his nature, he strove to show at his first coming hither, having lasted but a few days; and he is very silent always, whether he be with his mother, or in any other company."* Certainly his condition was not a pleasant one. It ** * Sir Richard Brown s dispatch.-Green's "Letters," p. 373. 1651.] CHARLES RETURNS TO FRANCE. 143 was very deplorable," says Clarendon. "France was not at all pleased with his being come thither, nor did quickly take notice of his being there. The queen his mother was very glad of his escape, but in no degree able to contribute towards his support; they who had interest with her finding all she had, or could get, too little for their own unlimited expense." The queen's pension from the French court was irregularly paid; "nor had the king one shilling towards the support of himself and his family." WHITELOCKE'S DESCRIPTION OF CROMWELL'S ARMY, IN A CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN. WE shall have occasion, in its due place in the text, to notice the embassy of Whitelocke to Sweden, at the end of 1653. His conversations with the famous queen, Christina, the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, are singularly interesting; far more so than the ordinary records of diplomacy. We select one conversation, in which the Ambassador Extraordinary describes to the accomplished sovereignwho had an admiration of Cromwell very unusual amongst crowned heads-the composition of that Army with which the General won his great victories. At the first private interview between the queen of Sweden and the English minister, Whitelocke having presented her with his instructions which he saw she perfectly understood, her majesty went at once to matters in which she expressed her personal opinions, and sought for information beyond the ordinary range of state discussions: "Queen Your General is one of the gallantest men in the world; never were such things done as by the English in your late war. Your General hath done the greatest things of any man in the world; the Prince of Condé is next to him, but short of him. I have as great a respect and honour for your General, as for any man alive; and I pray, let him know as much from me. “Whitelocke. My General is indeed a very brave man; his actions shew it ; and I shall not fail to signify to him the great honour of your majesty's respects to him; and I assure your majesty, he hath as high honour for you as for any prince in Christendom. 66 Queen. I have been told that many officers of your army will themselves pray and preach to their soldiers; is that true? "Whitelocke. Yes, madam, it is very true. When their enemies are swearing, or debauching, or pillaging, the officers and soldiers of the parliament's army used to be encouraging and exhorting one another out of the word of God, and praying together to the Lord of Hosts for his blessing to be with them; who hath shewed his approbation of this military preaching, by the successes he hath given them. "Queen. That's well. Do you use to do so too? "Whitelocke. Yes, upon some occasions, in my own family; and think it as proper for me, being the master of it, to admonish and speak to my people when there is cause, as to be beholden to another to do it for me, which sometimes brings the chaplain into more credit than his lord. 66 Queen. Doth your General and other great officers do so? "Whitelocke. Yes, madam, very often, and very well. Nevertheless, they maintain chaplains and ministers in their houses and regiments; and such as are godly and worthy ministers have as much respect, and as good provision in England, as in any place of Christendom. Yet 'tis the opinion of many good men with us, that a long cassock, with a silk girdle, and a great beard, do not make a learned or good preacher, without gifts of the Spirit of God and labouring in his vineyard; and whosoever studies the Holy Scripture, and is enabled to do good to the souls of others, and endeavours the same, is no where forbidden by that Word, nor is it blameable. The officers and soldiers of the parliament held it not unlawful, when they carried their lives in their hands, and were going to adventure them in the high places of the field, to encourage one another out of His 1553.1 WHITELOCKE AND QUEEN CHRISTINA. 145 Word who commands over all; and this had more weight and impression with it than any other word could have; and was never denied to be made use of but by the popish prelates, who by no means would admit lay people (as they call them) to gather from thence that instruction and comfort which can no where else be found. "Queen. Methinks you preach very well, and have now made a good sermon. 1 assure you I like it very well. "Whitelocke. Madam, I shall account it a great happiness if any of my words please you. "Queen. Indeed, sir, these words of yours do very much please me; and I shall be glad to hear you oftener on that strain. But I pray tell me, where did your General, and you his officers, learn this way of praying and preaching yourselves? "Whitelocke. We learnt it from a near friend of your majesty, whose memory all the protestant interest hath cause to honour. Queen. My friend! who was that? "Whitelocke. It was your father, the great king Gustavus Adolphus, who upon his first landing in Germany (as many then present have testified), did himself in person upon the shore, on his knees, give thanks to God for his blessing upon that undertaking; and he would frequently exhort his people out of God's word; and God testified his great liking thereof, by the wonderful successes he was pleased to vouchsafe to that gallant king.”* "Journal of the Swedish Ambassy in 1653-4." Arms of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell's return to London-Reforming policy of Cromwell-Conference on the Settlement of the Nation-Foreign Relations of the Commonwealth-Differences with the United Provinces -Dutch War-Commerce-The Navigation Act-The Navy of England-Blake-Battles of Blake and Van Tromp-Petition of the Army to the Parliament-Dialogue between Cromwell and Whitelocke-The question of future Representation-Dissolution of the Long Parliament-Public Opinion on the Dissolution-Summons for a Parliament. THE Parliament and people of England felt that Cromwell had saved the Commonwealth. He had done more than maintain a form of government. He had stopped the triumphant return to unlimited power of a prince who, once seated at Whitehall by military superiority, would have swept away every vestige of the liberty and security that had been won since 1640. The greater part of Europe was fast passing into complete despotism; and the state vessel of England would have been borne along helplessly into that shoreless sea. The enemies of Cromwell-the enthusiastic royalists and the theoretic republicans-saw, with dread and hatred, that by the natural course of events, the victorious General would become the virtual head of the Commonwealth. He probably could not suppress the same conviction in his own breast. Ludlow thus writes of Cromwell's return to London after the battle of Worcester: "The General, after this action, which he called the crowning victory, took upon him a more stately behaviour, and chose new friends; neither must it be omitted, that instead of acknowledging the |