THOUGH we find Charles the Second at the commencement of this chapter seated comfortably enough upon the English throne, the question "How came he there?"—when we remember the straits and the crookeds through which he passed—very naturally suggests itself. There is an anecdote connected with his escape from Worcester, which we have not given before, because, as it rests chiefly on the authority of the "Merry Monarch" himself, the story is very likely to be dubious. Whether fact or fiction, we may give it a place in the history of his reign, for if the tale is made up, the manufacture is entirely his own, and so far may be considered to belong to his annals. We shall therefore follow the thread of the king's own narrative, and if the yarn he has spun was of a fabricated fabric, it is to Charles and not to us that the imposture must be attributed.
On the battle of Worcester being utterly lost, Charles began to think of saving himself; but his adherents, who had been thoroughly beaten, insisted on sticking to him with rather inconvenient loyalty. Feeling that a small party could run away much faster than a large one, he resolved to give his too faithful friends the slip; and when night came on he succeeded in doing so, leaving his supporters, who would have stuck to him till death, to shift for themselves. Charles, with that scamp Wilmot, afterwards Rochester, and three or four others, got clean off in a very dirty manner. Some advised the king to take shelter among the Scotch; but his majesty, having no desire to be regularly sold, declined putting himself in the power of a people who at that time valued the virtues for exactly what they might bring, and would no doubt have received the king with open arms as an eligible investment to be speedily realised. He determined, therefore, to proceed towards London, and, by the aid of a leathern doublet, grey breeches, and green jerkin, he "made up" very effectually as a stage countryman.
Taking with him a real countryman, one Richard Penderell, as a companion, Charles went into a wood, from the edge of which he saw a troop of horse: but the rain poured down in such torrents that the troop retired, instead of taking shelter in the wood, which was certainly the wisest course they could have adopted. The anecdote is, however, so essentially dramatic, that the soldiers were perfectly in character when they went quite in the opposite direction to that they should have taken, like those pursuers on the stage who usually overlook the person they are in search of, and who, to every one else, is most conspicuously visible. Charles's position on this occasion resembled, in a minor degree, the situation of the fugitive at the fair, who, pointing to a painted blind representing a tree with a hole cut down the centre of it, expressed his determination to conceal himself in "yonder thicket." Finding accommodation only for his body in the tree's imaginary trunk, his legs of course protruded from the "shady grove," when two assassins in hot pursuit tumbling over the out-hanging heels of the wretched runaway, exclaimed confidentially in the ears of the audience, "By 'ivins, he 'as eluded us!" Such must have been the good fortune of Charles, and the stupid blindness of the troop, when the former sat on the forest's edge, and the latter never noted him.
This incident being over, another soon afterwards ensued of an equally melodramatic character. Charles and Penderell, after travelling two nights on foot, had put up at the house of one of Penderell's brothers; but it was not thought safe to remain in it, and his majesty was recommended to an oak, whose parent stem would afford friendly shelter, while all the junior branches might be thoroughly relied upon. The king having supplied himself with bread, cheese, and beer, which could not have been table beer, for there was no table to put it on—though there were plenty of leaves—made the best of the imperfect accommodation that the tree afforded him. He had no sooner settled on his perch, and made himself a kind of nest in the boughs, than some soldiers entered on the o. p. side, and looked everywhere—except in the right place—for the fugitive monarch. His legs, as usual, were visible enough, but the troopers possibly mistook them for a pair of stockings hanging up to dry, and they were not even struck by the shoes at the end, that should have awakened them to the value of the booty. The most infantine participators in the game of hide-and-seek, would not have been at fault under circumstances of a similar kind; and there can scarcely be a doubt, that if any urchin had only raised a suggestive cry of "Hot beans and butter!" Charles would have been laid by the heels without a scruple on the part of those who were in search of him.
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Leaving his majesty's legs to dangle in the air, and allowing credulity to score one for his heels on the cribbage-board of fancy, we proceed to contemplate Charles in a more dignified position on the throne of England. He arrived at Dover on the 25th of May, with his two little brothers, who had grown to men, but were still called "the boys" by those who remembered them before their exile from the land of their forefathers. Monk received the royal trio, who rode to the hotel in the same hackney-coach with the general, forgetting that there had been a good deal of truly monkish cunning in the conduct of that individual, who being the latest with his service, obtained the favour due to much earlier and older royalists.
The principle of "first come, first served!" was in this instance laid aside, and the rule of "last come served best" was ungratefully adopted. A most unreasonable reaction towards royalty now ensued, and the anxiety to deal mercilessly with the regicides ran into a most sanguinary extreme, surpassing in fury the most bloodthirsty predilections of the fiercest republicans.