Torbay was thought the best place for the fleet to lie in, and it was proposed to land the army as near as possible; but when it was perceived next morning, that we had overrun it, and had nowhere to go now but to Plymouth, where we could promise ourselves no favourable reception, the Admiral began to give up all for lost, till the wind abating, and turning to the south, with a soft and gentle gale carried the whole fleet into Torbay in the space of four hours.
The foot immediately went on shore, the horse were next day landed, and the artillery and heavy baggage sent to Topsham, the seaport of Exeter, where the Prince intended to stay some time, both to refresh his men and to give the country an opportunity to declare its affections. When the Prince entered Exeter, the Bishop and Dean ran away, the clergy stood off, the magistrates were fearful, and it was full a week before any gentlemen of the country joined him, though they saw every day persons of condition coming in to him—among the first of whom was Lord Colchester, eldest son to the Earl of Rivers, Lord Wharton, Lord Abingdon, and Mr. Russell, Lord Russell's brother.
Seymour was then Recorder of Exeter. He joined the Prince, with several other gentlemen of quality and estate, and gave the good advice of having an association signed by all who come in, as the only means to prevent desertion, and to secure them entirely to the Prince's party.
The heads of the university of Oxford sent Dr. Finch, son to the Earl of Winchelsea, then made Warden of All Souls College, to assure the Prince that they would declare for him, inviting him at the same time to come to Oxford, and to accept of their plate if he needed it. A sudden turn from those principles which they carried so high not many years before! But all this was but a small accession.
The King came down to Salisbury, and sent his troops twenty miles farther; whereupon the Prince, leaving Devonshire and Exeter under Seymour's government, with a small garrison and the heavy artillery under Colonel Gibson, who was made Deputy Governor as to the military part, advanced with his army; and understanding that some officers of note (Lord Cornbury, Colonel Langston, and others) designed to come over and bring their men with them, but that they could not depend on their subalterns, he ordered a body of his men to advance, and favour their revolt. The parties were within two miles of one another, when the whisper ran about that they were betrayed, which put them in such confusion that many rode back, though one whole regiment, and about a hundred besides, came over in a body, which gave great encouragement to the Prince's party, and (as it was managed by the flatterers) was made an instance to the King of his army's fidelity to him, since those who attempted to lead their regiments away were forced to do it by stratagem, which, as soon as they perceived, they deserted their leaders and came back.
But all this would not pacify the King's uneasy mind. His spirits sank, his blood was in such a fermentation that it gushed out of his nose several times a day, and with this hurry of thought and dejection of mind all things about him began to put on a gloomy aspect. The spies that he sent out took his money, but never returned to bring him any information; so that he knew nothing but what common report told him, which magnified the number of his enemies, and made him believe the Prince was coming upon him before he had moved from Exeter. The city of London, he heard, was unquiet; the Earls of Devonshire and Danby and Lord Lumley were drawing great bodies of men in Yorkshire; the Lord Delamere had a regiment in Cheshire; York and Newcastle had declared for the Prince; and the bulk of the nation did so evidently discover their inclinations for him, that the King saw he had nothing to trust to but his army; and the army, he began to fear, was not to be relied on. In conclusion, when he heard that Lord Churchill and the Duke of Grafton (who was one of King Charles's sons by the Duchess of Cleveland), and the most gallant of all he had, were gone to the Prince, and soon after that Prince George, the Duke of Ormond, and the Lord Drumlanrig, eldest son to the Duke of Queensberry, had forsaken him, he was quite confounded, and not knowing whom to depend on any longer, or what further designs might be against him, he instantly went to London.
The Princess Anne, when she heard of the King's return, was so struck with the apprehension of his displeasure, and what possibly might be the consequence of it, that she persuaded Lady Churchill to prevail with the Bishop of London to carry them both off. The Bishop, as it was agreed, received them about midnight at the back-stairs, and carried them to the Earl of Dorset's, where they were furnished with what they wanted, and so conducted them to Northampton, where that Earl soon provided a body of horse to serve the Princess as her guard; and not long after a small army was formed about her, which, according to their desire, was commanded by the Bishop of London.
At this time there was a foolish ballad went about, treating the Papists, and chiefly the Irish, in a ridiculous manner, which made an impression on the army, and thence on the whole country, not to be imagined but by those who saw it; and a bold man adventured to publish in the Prince's name another Declaration, setting forth the desperate designs of the Papists, and the great danger the nation was in by their means, and requiring all persons to turn them out of their employments, to secure all strong places, and to do their utmost in order to execute the laws, and bring all things again into their proper channel. The paper was penned with a good spirit, though none ever claimed the merit of it, and no doubt being made but that it was published by the Prince's direction, it set everything to work, and put the rabble and apprentices to pulling down mass-houses and doing many irregular actions.
When the King saw himself thus forsaken, not only by those whom he had trusted and favoured most, but even by his own children, the army in the last distraction, the country on every side revolting, and the city in an ungovernable fermentation, he called a general meeting of all the Privy Councillors and Peers in town to ask their advice and what was fit to be done. The general advice was that he should send commissioners to the Prince to treat with him, which, though sore against the King's inclination, the dejection he was in and the desperate state of his affairs made him consent to. The persons appointed were the Marquis of Halifax, the Earl of Nottingham, and the Lord Godolphin; and when they had waited on the Prince at Hungerford, desiring to know what it was that he demanded, after a day's consultation with those who were about him, he returned answer "that he desired a Parliament might be presently called, and no one continued in any employment who would not qualify himself according to law; that the Tower of London might be put in the keeping of the City, and the fleet and all strong places in the hands of Protestants; that the armies on both sides might not, while the Parliament was sitting, come within twenty miles of London; that a proportion of the revenue might be set apart for the payment of the Prince's army, and himself allowed to come to London with the same number of guards that the King had."
These were the Prince's demands, which, when the King read, he owned more moderate than he expected; but before they came to his hands he had engaged himself in other resolutions. The priests and all violent Papists, who saw that a treaty with the Prince would not only ruin their whole design, but expose them as a mark and sacrifice to the malice of their enemies, persuaded the Queen that she would certainly be impeached, that witnesses would be set up against her and her son, and that nothing but violence could be expected. With these suggestions they wrought upon her fear so far, that she not only resolved to go to France herself, and take the child with her, but prevailed with the King likewise to follow her in a few days. The Queen went down to Portsmouth, and from thence in a man-of-war went over to France, taking along with her the midwife and those who were concerned in her son's birth, who not long after were all so disposed of that it never could be yet learned what became of them; and on the 10th of December, about three in the morning, the King went away in disguise with Sir Edward Hales, whose servant he pretended to be. They passed the river, throwing the Great Seal into it, which was afterwards found by a fisherman near Vauxhall, and in a miserable fisher-boat, which Hales had provided to carry them over to France, when, not having gone far, some fishermen of Feversham, who were watching for priests and such other delinquents as they fancied were making their escape, came up to them, and knowing Sir Edward Hales, took both the King and him, and brought them to Feversham.