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] engagement of the king, my master, and of the promises I had from their party in London." He adds, that if any better conditions could be had from any other quarter, these ought not to be thought of. Montreuil wrote twice more, the last time on the 20th of April, expressing no better opinion of the Scots, and saying that they would admit none of his majesty's followers except his two nephews, Rupert and Maurice, with him, and such servants as were not excepted from the pardon; and that they could not then refuse to give them up to the parliament, but would find means to let them escape.

A more gloomy prospect for the king than the one in that quarter could scarcely present itself. It appears that he had not yet agreed to their ultimatum, the concession of the supremacy of the presbyterian church, and therefore there was no actual treaty between them. But all other prospects were utterly closed; Charles must choose between the Scots and the parliament, the latter body pursuing a contemptuous and ominous silence. Fairfax and Cromwell were now within a day's march of the city, and Charles made his choice of the Scots. Yet so undecided even at the moment of escaping from the city was he, that he would not commit himself irrevocably to the Scots, by announcing to them his departure, and the direction of his journey. It is remarkable, indeed, that he had not before, or even now, thought of endeavouring to escape to Ireland, and making a second stand there with the confederates, or of getting to the continent and awaiting a turn of fortune. But he seemed altogether like a doomed mortal, who could not fly his fate, justifying the feeling of Bernini, the sculptor, who on seeing the portrait of him painted by Vandyke in his youth, and sent to Rome for the execution of his bust, started back, and declared the possessor of that face born to destruction. In Vandyke's four celebrated paintings of him, we see him riding, as it were, on the path of his gloomy destiny. A melancholy, deep and fixed as death, reigns in his whole form and in every feature; and on that path he had gone, not with a wild impetuosity, but with a solemn, desperate, and downcast hardiness, blind to all the signs of heaven and earth, the most wretched and incorrigible of men.

About two o'clock on the morning of the 27th of April, Charles set out from Oxford, disguised as the servant of Ashburnham. He had his hair cut short by Ashburnham, and rode after that gentleman and Hudson, the chaplain, who knew the country well, and was their guide. They rode out unsuspected over Magdalen Bridge, Charles having, groom-like, a cloak strapped round his waist. To prevent particular attention or pursuit, several others of them rode out at the same time in different directions. Charles and his pretended masters got without suspicion through the lines of the parliamentary army, and reached Henley-on-Thames in safety. But once in temporary safety, Charles appeared more undecided than ever. He did not attempt to send word to the Scots to meet him; but, says Clarendon, he was uncertain whether to go to the Scottish army, or to get privately into London, and lie concealed there till he might choose what was best. Clarendon says he still thought so well of the city of London, as not to have been unwilling to have found himself there. But certainly the city of London had never shown itself more favourable to him than the parliament; and now with the parliament in the ascendant, it was not likely that it would undertake to contend with it for the protection or rights of the king. Charles still hoped, Clarendon says, that he might hear of Montrose making a fresh movement in his behalf, in which case he would endeavour to get to him; and he never, for a long time after, gave up the hope of still hearing something from Ireland in his favour. From Henley, he therefore directed his way to Slough, thence to Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Brentford, so near did he reach London, and then again go out to Harrow. His uncertainty increased more and more. He proceeded towards St. Albans, and near that town was alarmed by the sound of horses' feet behind them. It was only a drunken man; but to avoid danger they kept out of St. Albans, and continued through the bye-ways to Harborough, where he was on the 28th. Two days after he had got to Downham, in Norfolk, and spent some time in inquiring after a vessel that might carry him to Newcastle or Scotland: he had still no idea of escaping to the continent. He seems to have expected at Harborough some message from the Scots or from Montreuil, but as none was there, he had despatched Hudson to Montreuil, at Southwell. No prospect of escape by sea offering—for the coasts were strictly guarded by the parliamentary vessels—Charles, on Hudson returning with a message from Montreuil, that the Scots still declared that, they would receive the king on his personal honour; that they would press him to do nothing contrary to his conscience; that Ashburnham and Hudson should be protected; that if the parliament refused, on a message from the king, to restore him to his rights and prerogatives, they would declare for him, and take all his friends under their protection; and that if the parliament did agree to restore the king, not more than four of his friends should be punished, and that only by banishment. All this Montreuil, according to Hudson's own account afterwards to parliament, assured Charles by note, but added that the Scots would only give it by word of mouth, and not by writing.

This was at the best very suspicious; but where was the king to turn? He was treated with the most contemptuous silence by the parliament, which was at this very moment hoping to make him unconditionally their prisoner. Fairfax had drawn his lines of circumvallation round the city five days after the king's departure, ignorant that he had escaped, and in the full hope of taking him. For nine days he was wandering about, nobody knowing where he was, and during that time Clarendon says he had been in different gentlemen's houses, where "he was not unknown, but untaken notice of."

On the 5th of May he resolved, on the report of Hudson, to go to the Scots, and accordingly, early on that morning he rode into Southwell, to Montreuil's lodgings, and announced his intention of going to the Scots. The manner in which he was received there, is related in very contradictory terms by Ashburnham and Clarendon. Ashburnham says that some of the Scottish commissioners came to Montreuil's lodgings to receive him, and accompanied him with a troop of horse to the headquarters of the Scots' army at Kelliam, where they went after dinner, and were well received, many lords coming instantly to wait on him