Therefore they said,'If we live quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here,and if all the farmers come into the town and desert the country,the Ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger and be forced to go away.'This was,no doubt,the wisest plan;but as the Scottish clergy WOULD interfere with what they knew nothing about,and would perpetually preach long sermons exhorting the soldiers to come out and fight,the soldiers got it in their heads that they absolutely must come out and fight.Accordingly,in an evil hour for themselves,they came out of their safe position.
Oliver fell upon them instantly,and killed three thousand,and took ten thousand prisoners.
To gratify the Scottish Parliament,and preserve their favour,Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him,reproaching the memory of his father and mother,and representing himself as a most religious Prince,to whom the Solemn League and Covenant was as dear as life.He meant no sort of truth in this,and soon afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome Highland friends,who were always flourishing dirks and broadswords.He was overtaken and induced to return;but this attempt,which was called 'The Start,'did him just so much service,that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him afterwards as they had done before.
On the first of January,one thousand six hundred and fifty-one,the Scottish people crowned him at Scone.He immediately took the chief command of an army of twenty thousand men,and marched to Stirling.His hopes were heightened,I dare say,by the redoubtable Oliver being ill of an ague;but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no time,and went to work with such energy that he got behind the Royalist army and cut it off from all communication with Scotland.There was nothing for it then,but to go on to England;
So it went on as far as Worcester,where the mayor and some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway.His proclamation,however,was of little use to him,for very few Royalists appeared;and,on the very same day,two people were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause.Up came Oliver to Worcester too,at double quick speed,and he and his Ironsides so laid about them in the great battle which was fought there,that they completely beat the Scottish men,and destroyed the Royalist army;though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five hours to do.
The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good service long afterwards,for it induced many of the generous English people to take a romantic interest in him,and to think much better of him than he ever deserved.He fled in the night,with not more than sixty followers,to the house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire.There,for his greater safety,the whole sixty left him.He cropped his hair,stained his face and hands brown as if they were sunburnt,put on the clothes of a labouring countryman,and went out in the morning with his axe in his hand,accompanied by four wood-cutters who were brothers,and another man who was their brother-in-law.These good fellows made a bed for him under a tree,as the weather was very bad;and the wife of one of them brought him food to eat;and the old mother of the four brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the wood,and thanked God that her sons were engaged in saving his life.At night,he came out of the forest and went on to another house which was near the river Severn,with the intention of passing into Wales;but the place swarmed with soldiers,and the bridges were guarded,and all the boats were made fast.So,after lying in a hayloft covered over with hay,for some time,he came out of his place,attended by COLONEL CARELESS,a Catholic gentleman who had met him there,and with whom he lay hid,all next day,up in the shady branches of a fine old oak.It was lucky for the King that it was September-time,and that the leaves had not begun to fall,since he and the Colonel,perched up in this tree,could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below,and could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beating the boughs.
After this,he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered;
and,having been concealed all one day in a house which was searched by the troopers while he was there,went with LORD WILMOT,another of his good friends,to a place called Bentley,where one MISS LANE,a Protestant lady,had obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near Bristol.
Disguised as a servant,he rode in the saddle before this young lady to the house of SIR JOHN WINTER,while Lord Wilmot rode there boldly,like a plain country gentleman,with dogs at his heels.It happened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant in Richmond Palace,and knew Charles the moment he set eyes upon him;but,the butler was faithful and kept the secret.As no ship could be found to carry him abroad,it was planned that he should go-still travelling with Miss Lane as her servant-to another house,at Trent near Sherborne in Dorsetshire;and then Miss Lane and her cousin,MR.LASCELLES,who had gone on horseback beside her all the way,went home.I hope Miss Lane was going to marry that cousin,for I am sure she must have been a brave,kind girl.If I had been that cousin,I should certainly have loved Miss Lane.
