King Alfred, during the unsettled times of the Saxon heptarchy, is an example of a reverse of fortune successfully overcome by temporary disguise and concealment. Striving with the Danes for the possession of his own country, he was worsted, and compelled to provide for his safety by flying to a small island in Somersetshire, in the midst of marshes. This little oasis in the desert afterwards obtained the name of Ethelingey, or Prince’s Island. From a swineherd who resided there the king received shelter, and under his roof he remained for months. It happened one day that the swain’s wife placed some loaves on the hearth to be baked. The king was at the moment sitting by the fire, trimming his arrows. The woman, who was ignorant of his rank, said to him, “Turn thou those loaves, that they burn not; for I know that thou art a great eater.” Alfred, whose thoughts and time were otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction, and the good woman, finding on her return the cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely; upbraiding him that, though he was so negligent in watching her warm cakes, he always seemed very well pleased to eat them. Alfred, it is said, subsequently munificently rewarded the peasant, whose name was Denulf, recommended him to apply himself to letters, and afterwards made him Bishop of Winchester.
Some fugitives of Alfred’s party, at length, coming to the same place, recognised him, and remained with him, forming the nucleus of his future army. After six months passed in this retreat, he sought to surprise the main army of the Northmen, which was still encamped in Wiltshire. But, before striking any blow, he resolved to inspect the camp of the enemy in person. His early predilection for Saxon poetry and music qualified him to assume another disguise, that of a harper, and in this character he went to the Danish camp. His harp and singing excited notice; he was admitted to the king’s table, heard his conversation with his generals, and contemplated their position unsuspected. He then returned to his own troops in safety, and, taking advantage of his knowledge of the place, conducted them to the most unguarded quarter of the enemy’s camp, who were soon put to flight with great slaughter. This success paved the way for his ultimately regaining his crown and kingdom. Such is the story which has been handed down to us by some writers; but it was unknown to Asser, the biographer and contemporary of Alfred, and its truth is more than doubtful.
Richard Cœur de Lion, at the close of those chivalrous adventures which made his name so renowned in the crusades, having left the Holy Land, on his way home, sailed to Corfu. On his arrival at that island, he hired three coasting vessels to carry him and his suite to Ragusa and Zara. Aware of the danger to which he was exposed from the animosity and machinations of his enemies, he concealed his dignity under the name of Hugh the Merchant. The beards and hair of Richard and his companions had grown long from neglect, and they wore the garments of pilgrims. Driven by a storm on the Istrian coast, they landed between Venice and Aquileia, and proceeded towards Goritz, where it was necessary to solicit passports from the governor. He happened to be Maynard, the nephew of that Conrad who was stabbed in the streets of Tyre, and whose death was maliciously ascribed to Richard. Richard had purchased three rubies from a merchant at Pisa, and one of them was fixed in a gold ring. Consulting his native liberality, rather than remembering his assumed character, Richard sent this ring as a present to the governor, when he asked his protection. Startled at the value of the gift, Maynard asked who were the persons that wished for passports. He was answered that they were pilgrims from Jerusalem; but the man who sent the ring was Hugh the Merchant. “This is not the gift of a merchant, but of a prince,” said he, still contemplating the ring: “this must be King Richard;” and he returned a courteous but evasive answer.
Richard felt that, in a country where he had so many bitter enemies, suspicion was equivalent to discovery, and that, if he remained, his safety was compromised. He quitted therefore his party, and by the assistance of a German youth, as his guide, travelled three days and nights without food. Pressed at last by hunger, he rested near Vienna, where his enemy the Duke of Austria then was. A second incautious liberality again excited suspicion; and he was obliged to remain in a cottage whilst the youth procured necessaries for him. Richard supplied his messenger with so much money, that the ostentatious display of it in the market by the youth excited curiosity. On his next visit to the market he was seized, and put to the torture, by which he was compelled to reveal the name and asylum of the king. The Duke surrounded the cottage with his soldiers, who called on Richard to surrender, but the monarch refused to yield to any one but to the Duke himself. A cruel imprisonment followed his arrest, but he was at last restored to his kingdom.
The romantic story of his favourite Blondel, seeking him throughout Europe in the disguise of a minstrel, and discovering his prison, by singing his favourite air under the walls of it, is believed to have no other foundation than the lay of some sentimental troubadour.
The beautiful and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots excited a romantic interest and affection in her immediate followers, which has scarcely diminished at this distance of time; and in the attempt to escape from her evil fortune, in which she was strenuously aided by those followers, she was more than once obliged to assume a disguise to impose on the ever-wakeful vigilance of her enemies.
It is well-known that this celebrated beauty, through the political, as well, as it is believed, the personal jealousy of Queen Elizabeth, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, situated in the midst of a lake, which being thus cut off from all communication with the surrounding country, was thought sufficiently secure, for the purposes of safe custody. But her beauty, and pitiable misfortunes, rendered her an object of compassion to many about her, and several attempts were made to rescue her from her rigorous confinement.
Mary had one day nearly succeeded in making her escape from the castle, disguised as a laundress. She had actually seated herself in the boat, when she was betrayed by inadvertently raising to her cheek a hand of snowy whiteness; her beauty in this instance, as in many others, proving the greatest source of her misery.
William Douglas, soon after, had the address to steal the keys of the gates, from the hall in which Sir William Douglas his father, and his mother, were sitting at supper. The queen, apprised of the circumstance, once more descended to the edge of the lake, where a boat was waiting, and having entered it, her maid assisted in rowing; as they approached the shore, William Douglas flung the keys into the lake. Having quitted the boat, the queen mounted a palfrey, and rode to Middry, the residence of Lord Seaton, where she was surrounded by her friends. She did not, however, long enjoy this respite from her misfortunes, the defeat of her army, at the fatal battle of Langside, in 1568, consigning her to a long and barbarous imprisonment, and, ultimately, to the scaffold.