Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/574

580 courtiers that he would not concede an atom. He then appointed a council of five lords—of whom two were papists and the third Jeffreys—to keep order during his absence, sent off the prince of Wales to Portsmouth to the care of the duke of Berwick, the commander, and set out for Salisbury. The reached his camp on the 19th, and ordered a review the next day, at Warminster, of Kirke's division. Churchill and Kirke were particularly anxious that he should proceed to this review, and Kirke and Trelawny hastened on to their forces on pretence of making the necessary preparations. On the other hand, count de Roye as earnestly dissuaded James from going to Warminster; he told him that the enemy's advanced foot was at Wincanton, and that the position at Warminster, or even that where they were at Salisbury, was untenable. James, however, was resolved to go; but the next morning, the 20th, he was prevented by a violent bleeding at the nose, which continued unchecked for three days.

Scarcely had this impediment occurred when news came that the king's forces had been attacked at Wincanton, and worsted by some of the division of General Mackay. James was now assured that, had he gone to Warminster, he would have been seized by traitors near his person, and carried off to the enemy's quarters. He was advised to arrest Churchill and Grafton; but, with his usual imprudence, he refused, and summoned them along with the other officers to a military council, to decide whether they should advance or retreat. Feversham, Roye, and Dumbarton argued for a retreat; Churchill persisted in his recommendation of an advance to the post at Warminster. The council lasted till midnight, when Churchill and Grafton, seeing that their advice was not followed, felt the time was come to throw off the mask, and therefore rode directly away to the prince's lines. The next morning the discovery of this desertion filled the camp with consternation, and this was at its height when it was known that Churchill's brother, a colonel, Trelawny, Barclay, and about twenty privates had ridden after the fugitives. It was said that Kirke was gone too, but it was not the fact; and he was now arrested for having disobeyed orders sent to him from Salisbury; but he professed such indignation at the desertion of Churchill and the others, that the shallow-minded king set him again at liberty. The deserters were received by William, with a most gracious welcome, though Schomberg remarked of Churchill that he was the first lieutenant-general that he bad ever heard of running away from his colours.

In James's camp all was confusion, suspicion, and dismay. There was not a man who was sure of his fellow, and the retreat which commenced more resembled a flight. Numbers who would have fought had they been led at once to battle, now lost heart, and stole away on all sides. The news that found its way every hour into the demoralised camp was enough to ruin any army. From every quarter came tidings of insurrection. The earl of Bath, the governor of Plymouth, had surrendered the place solemnly to William; Sir Edward Seymour, Sir William Portmau, Sir Francis Warre—men of immense influence in Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, were already with William at Exeter; a paper had been drawn up and signed by the leading persons there to stand by the prince, and, whether he succeeded or whether he fell, never to cease till they had obtained all the objects in his declaration; Delamere had risen in Chester, and had reached Manchester on his way south; Danby had surprised the garrison at York; the town had warmly welcomed him, and a great number of peers, baronets, and gentlemen were in arms with him. Devonshire was up in Derbyshire; he had been amongst the very earliest movers in the invitation to William; and there still stands a little thatched cottage at Whittington, betwixt Chesterfield and Chatsworth, where he and the other signers of the invitation had first planned the resistance to James, whence it bears to this day the name of the "Revolution House;" and where, in 1788, the centenary of this great national event was celebrated by the descendants of the chief actors, amid a great assembly of the gentry of the neighbouring counties. Devonshire had called together the authorities and people of Derby, and published his reason for appearing in arms, calling on them to assist all true men in obtaining a settlement of the public rights in a free parliament. At Nottingham he was met by the earls of Rutland, Stamford, Manchester, Chesterfield, and the lords Cholmondeley and Grey de Ruthyn.

These were tidings of a reaction as determined as James's headstrong career had been; but the worst had not yet overtaken him. On the evening of November 24th he had retreated towards London as far as Andover. Prince George of Denmark, the husband of the princess Anne, and the duke of Ormond, supped with him. Prince George was a remarkably stupid personage, whose constant reply to any news was, "Est-il possible?" When the intelligence of one desertion after another came he had exclaimed, "Est-il possible?" But the moment supper was over and the king gone to bed, prince George and Ormond mounted and rode off to the enemy too. When James the next morning was informed of this mortifying news, he coolly replied, "What, is Est-il-possible gone too? were he not my son-in-law, a single trooper would have been a greater loss." With the prince and Ormond had also fled lord Drumlaurig, the eldest son of the duke of Queensberry, Mr. Boyle, Sir George Hewit, and other persons of distinction. The blow was severe; and though James at the first moment, being stunned, as it were, seemed to bear it with indifference, he pursued his way to London in a state of intense exasperation. There the first news that met him was the flight of his own daughter, Anne. Anne was bound up, soul and body, with the Churchills, and it had no doubt been for some time settled amongst them that they should all get away to the prince her brother-in-law. Her correspondence with her sister, the princess of Orange, pretty well indicated this conclusion. Accordingly, on hearing that the Churchills and her own husband had deserted, and the king was coming back to London, says lady Churchill in her own account, "This put the princess into a great fright. She sent for me, told me her distress, and declared that, rather than see her father, she would out at window. This was her expression. A little before a note had been left with me to inform me where I might find the bishop of London—who in that critical time absconded—if her royal highness should have occasion for a friend. The princess, in her alarm, immediately sent me to the bishop. I acquainted him with her resolution to leave