The Coming of the King

LONDON: WARD LOCK & CO. LIMITED 1904


The history which I propose writing will, I believe, be of value for various reasons. It will clear my name from various aspersions, and it will enable me to explain what, to many, seem events of an extraordinary nature. For I have done nothing which makes me fear the light, neither have I any desire to offer excuses for the actions which shall be here set down. What I have done I have done in good faith, knowing all the time of the probable results which would follow.
Moreover, I think it is well that many of the happenings of the time of which I write should be recorded, for surely the days of my youth were strange days, full of intrigue, full of mystery; and more, they were days in which one of the greatest battles ever known in our country was fought, a battle which had momentous issues in the life of our people.
Not that I am able to give a description of many events which took place. That would be impossible; but as I was drawn, in spite of myself as it seems to me, to be an actor in many stirring scenes, I have had peculiar opportunities for knowing the truth. In addition to this, I was trained by my father to follow the custom of the times, and to describe in a diary an account of my daily doings. I shall therefore be able, if ever my memory fails me, to refer to the books which have been carefully kept, and thus place a correct account of matters before those who happen to read.
I had a peculiar training even for youths of that period. For from the time of Archbishop Laud to the coming of King Charles II, nearly every family of note took sides in the great struggle through which the nation passed. Either a man was a Royalist or a Parliamentarian, a believer in the supreme and unquestionable rights of the king, or a supporter of the new order of things. There seemed no half-way house wherein a man might rest. Thus the nation was divided into two great camps, and if one was not in one of these camps he was in the other. But I was trained to hold myself aloof from both, and to distrust them equally.