War was yet not declared, but there was great store of ammunition in Hull which might, thought Charles, be useful by and by. So he, with two or three hundred others, set out from York to see about the matter, and as he drew near this town—fortified then with a great wall and many towers—he sent a message to bid the governor dine with him. I do not know if there is any vestige left of the wall to which Charles presently came, or any record of the spot where he paused, dumbfounded, before the gate. This, he surely thought, as he scanned the walls and the closely shut gates and the hostile draw-bridges, this was a strange welcome to his city of Hull, the King's Town! Here were no sheriffs marching out to meet him as at York, nor gay trainbands, nor kneeling mayors; but walls manned with soldiers who were anything but gay, and inhospitable gate-keepers whom he could by no means persuade to let him pass, and on the ramparts the unhappy governor, Sir John Hotham. "And when the King commanded him to cause the port to be opened," says Clarendon, "he answered like a distracted man that no man could understand; he fell upon his knees, used all the execrations imaginable, that the earth would open and swallow him up if he were not his Majesty's most faithful subject." Yet in spite of all his protestations this man "of a fearful nature and perplexed understanding" was quite clear in his mind as to what his intentions were, and not too fearful to carry them out. The King should not come in.
Then solemnly, from below the wall they might not enter, the King's officers made proclamation that Sir John Hotham, Governor of Hull, was a traitor; and Charles, with his head high but his spirits very low, rode on to Beverley in the shadow of the Great Rebellion.
Our plight at this moment is not the same as his. If his difficulty was to enter Hull, ours lies in the leaving of it—supposing, that is to say, that we wish to cross the Humber by the ferry. There are no arrangements of any kind for shipping cars. A narrow, precipitous gangway, with a right-angled turn in the middle, is the only means of passing from the quay to the ferry-boat. The transit is a matter of difficulty for any car—for a large one it is impossible. Hull, however, is a progressive place, as befits the town of that most progressive king who saw its possibilities so long ago. Very soon, we cannot doubt, the shipping of a car on the shores of the Humber will be less like a feat in a circus than it is at present.
INDEX
Agincourt, Battle of, [195]
Ainsty of York, [187]
Airedale, [15]