During the progress of the war, the queen returned from the Continent and joined the king. She had some difficulty, however, and encountered some personal danger, in her efforts to return to her husband. The vice-admiral, who had command of the English ships off the coast, received orders to intercept her. He watched for her. She contrived, however, to elude his vigilance, though there were four ships in her convoy. She landed at a town called Burlington, or Bridlington, in Yorkshire. This town stands in a very picturesque situation, a little south of a famous promontory called Flamborough Head, of which there is a beautiful view from the pier of the town.
The vice-admiral cannonades the queen.
The queen succeeded in landing here. On her arrival at the town, she found herself worn down with the anxiety and fatigue of the voyage, and she wanted to stop a few days to rest. She took up her residence in a house which was on the quay, and, of course, near the water. The quay, as it is called, in these towns, is a street on the margin of the water, with a wall, but no houses next the sea. The vice-admiral arrived at the town the second night after the queen had landed. He was vexed that his expected prize had escaped him. He brought his ships up near to the town, and began to fire toward the house in which the queen was lodging.
The Landing of the Queen.
This was at five o'clock in the morning. The queen and her attendants were in their beds, asleep. The reports of the cannon from the ships, the terrific whistling of the balls through the air, and the crash of the houses which the balls struck, aroused the whole village from their slumbers, and threw them into consternation. The people soon came to the house where the queen was lodging, and begged her to fly. They said that the neighboring houses were blown to pieces, and that her own would soon be destroyed, and she herself would be killed. They may, however, have been influenced more by a regard to their own safety than to hers in these injunctions, as it must have been a great object with the villagers to effect the immediate removal of a visitor who was the means of bringing upon them so terrible a danger.
The queen's danger.
These urgent entreaties of the villagers were soon enforced by two cannon-balls, which fell, one after another, upon the roof of the house, and, crashing their way through the roof and the floors, went down, without seeming to regard the resistance, from the top to the bottom. The queen hastily put on her clothes, and went forth with her attendants on foot, the balls from the ships whistling after them all the way.
She seeks shelter in a trench.