About two o'clock on the morning of the 27th of April, Charles set out from Oxford, disguised as the servant of Ashburnham. He had his hair cut short by Ashburnham, and rode after that gentleman and Hudson the chaplain, who knew the country well and was their guide. They rode out unsuspected over Magdalen Bridge, Charles having, groom-like, a cloak strapped round his waist. To prevent particular attention or pursuit, several others of them rode out at the same time in different directions. Charles and his pretended masters got without suspicion through the lines of the Parliamentary army, and reached Henley-on-Thames. But now that he was in temporary safety, he appeared more undecided than ever. He did not attempt to send word to the Scots to meet him; but, says Clarendon, he was uncertain whether to go to the Scottish army, or to get privately into London, and lie concealed there till he might choose what was best. Clarendon declares that he still thought so well of the City of London, as not to have been unwilling to have found himself there. But certainly the City had never shown itself more favourable to him than the Parliament; and now with the Parliament in the ascendant, it was not likely that it would undertake to contend with it for the protection or rights of the king. Charles still trusted that he might hear of Montrose making a fresh movement on his behalf, in which case he would endeavour to get to him; and he never for long after abandoned the hope of still hearing something from Ireland in his favour. From Henley, he therefore directed his way to Slough, thence to Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Brentford, so near did he reach London, and then again off to Harrow. His uncertainty increased more and more. He proceeded towards St. Albans, and near that town was alarmed by the sound of horses' feet behind them. It was only a drunken man; but to avoid danger they kept out of St. Albans, and continued through the bye-ways to Harborough, where he was on the 28th. Two days afterwards he reached Downham in Norfolk, and spent some time in inquiring after a vessel that might carry him to Newcastle or Scotland. He seems to have expected at Harborough some message from the Scots or from Montreuil, but as none was there, he had despatched Hudson to Montreuil at Southwell. No prospect of escape by sea offering—for the coasts were strictly guarded by the Parliamentary vessels—Charles determined to go over to the Scots on Hudson returning with a message from Montreuil that they still declared that they would receive the king on his personal honour; that they would press him to do nothing contrary to his conscience; that Ashburnham and Hudson should be protected; that if the Parliament refused, on a message from the king, to restore him to his rights and prerogatives, they would declare for him, and take all his friends under their protection; and that if the Parliament did agree to restore the king, not more than four of his friends should be punished, and that only by banishment. All this Montreuil, according to Hudson's own account afterwards to Parliament, assured Charles by note, but added that the Scots would only give it by word of mouth and not by writing.

At the best this was suspicious; but where was the king to turn? He was treated with the most contemptuous silence by the Parliament, which was at this very moment hoping to make him unconditionally their prisoner. Fairfax had drawn his lines of circumvallation round Oxford five days after the king's departure, ignorant that he had escaped, and in the full hope of taking him. For nine days Charles was wandering about, nobody knowing where he was, and during that time Clarendon says he had been in different gentlemen's houses, where "he was not unknown, but untaken notice of."

On the 5th of May he resolved, on the report of Hudson, to go to the Scots, and accordingly, early on that morning he rode into Southwell, to Montreuil's lodgings, and announced his intention. The manner in which he was received there is related in very contradictory terms by Ashburnham and Clarendon. Ashburnham says that some of the Scottish Commissioners came to Montreuil's lodgings to receive him, and accompanied him with a troop of horse to the headquarters of the Scottish army at Kelham, where they went after dinner, and were well received, many lords coming instantly to wait on him with professions of joy that his majesty had so far honoured their army as to think it worthy of his presence after so long an opposition. Clarendon, on the other hand, declares that "very early in the morning he went to the general's lodgings, and discovered himself to him, who either was, or seemed to be, exceedingly surprised and confounded at his majesty's presence, and knew not what to say, but presently gave notice to the committee, who were no less perplexed."

Both of them, however, agree that the Scots soon convinced Charles that they considered that he had surrendered himself unconditionally into their hands; that he had not complied with their terms, and that there was no treaty actually between them; and from all that appears, this was the case. Charles had trusted to the assurances of Montreuil, and had really no written evidence of any engagement on the part of the Scots, nor was any ever produced. Some of the lords, says Ashburnham, desiring to know how they might best testify their gratitude to his majesty for the confidence he had reposed in them, he replied that the only way was to apply themselves to the performance of the conditions on which he had come to them. At the word "conditions," Lord Lothian expressed much surprise, and declared he knew of no conditions concluded, nor did he believe any of the Commissioners residing with the army knew of such. On this Charles desired Montreuil to present a summary of the conditions concluded with the Commissioners in London, sanctioned by the King of France. It should, however, be borne in mind that since then the army Commissioners had met with the commissioners from London at Royston, and had agreed to the terms to be offered to the king. When Ashburnham, therefore, affirms that many of the Commissioners of the army still protested their ignorance of these conditions, it can only mean that such conditions were not concluded with the king, either there or anywhere, for Charles had never consented to accept them. When Charles, therefore, asked them what they meant, then, by inviting him to come to them, and why they had sent word that all differences were reconciled, and that David Leslie should meet him with an escort of horse, they replied that this was on the understanding that his majesty meant to accept their terms, from which they had never receded, and that they now thought that by his coming to them he had meant to accept the cardinal condition—the taking of the Covenant.

FLIGHT OF CHARLES FROM OXFORD. (See p. [51].)

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Charles must have been well aware of the truth of all this, but he was a man who played fast and loose so constantly, that it was impossible to make any treaty with him. At the very time that he was preparing to leave Oxford, so alive were all these quibbles and evasions in his mind, that he wrote to Lord Digby, expressing his intention to get to London if he could, "not," he says, "without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the Presbyterians or the Independents to side with me, for extirpating one another, that I shall really be king again." This proves that on setting out from Oxford, he had held himself loose from any compact with the Scots, and did not mean to go to them at all if he could manage to cozen the Presbyterians or Independents to take his part, and "extirpate one another."

Such a man was as slippery as an eel. He now insisted solemnly on the existence of the very conditions that he had purposely kept clear of. The Scots stood by their offered terms, and exhorted him to accept the Covenant, entreating him with tears and on their knees to take it, or to sanction the Presbyterian worship if he could not adopt it, and pledging themselves on that condition to fight for him to the last man. But this Charles would not do. He was still—though beaten and voluntarily surrendered to his enemies—as full of the persuasion of the divinity of kingship as ever. He therefore undertook to give the word to the guard, in virtue of his being the chief person in the army; but old Leven quickly undeceived him, by saying, "I am the older soldier; your majesty had better leave that office to me."

It was now necessary to apprise the Parliament of the king having entered their camp—a piece of intelligence which produced a wonderful sensation. Fairfax had already announced to the Parliament that the king had escaped out of Oxford, and was believed to have gone towards London, whereupon the two Houses had issued a proclamation forbidding any one to harbour or conceal his person on pain of high treason, and of forfeiting the whole of their estate, and being put to death without mercy. All Papists and other disaffected persons were ordered, on the supposition that the king might be in London, to remove before the 12th of May to twenty-five miles' distance from the metropolis, leaving, before they went, a notice at Goldsmiths' Hall of the places to which they intended to retire. When the letter arrived from the Scottish Commissioners, the Parliament was filled with jealousy and alarm. There had long been a feeling of the design of the Scots, supported by the Presbyterians, assuming an undue power; and now to hear that they had the king in their hands was most embarrassing. They instantly sent word to the Scots that his majesty must be disposed of according to the will of the two Houses of Parliament, and that for the present he must be sent to Warwick Castle; that Ashburnham and Hudson, the king's attendants, should be sent for by the sergeant-at-arms or his deputy, to be dealt with as delinquents; and that a narrative must be prepared of the manner in which the king came to the Scottish camp, and forthwith sent to the two Houses. To enforce these orders, they commanded Poyntz to watch the Scottish army with five thousand men, and Sir Thomas Fairfax to prepare to follow him.