Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/94

 though the prince was assured that on disbanding his army Fairfax himself would safely convey him to the parliament (ib. i. 537); and while Goring betook himself to France, the prince, though orders continued to reach him from the king for his departure to the continent, continued to move about in the west, with the hope of heading a force for this relief of Exeter. After the arrest of Greenville and the rout of Hoptori at Torrington, the prince moved by way of Truro to Pendennis Castle at Falmouth (February 1616). Here he received information of a design, known to many persons of consideration in Cornwall, for seizing his person. Though the time had now obviously arrived for obeying the king'a positive and repeated command, it was not till the beginning of March that the council resolved that the prince should remove to Jersey or the Scilly Isles, the latter being announced as the goal of his voyage. Fairfax was within twenty miles of Falmouth, while Jermyn's promise of reinforcements from France remained unfulfilled. Accordingly 2 March 1645-6 the prince sailed in a frigate that had been kept in readiness, and reached Scilly 4 March. The army under Hopton, already completely demoralised, was speedily dissolved. (For further details of these tmnsactions see coloured narrative, v. 187-322; Sir Richard Greenville wrote his own account; Lord Hopton's is in the Ormonde Papers, ed. by Carte and cited by, i. 21 n.)

Charles was in the Scilly Isles from 4 March to 16 April 1646 with Hyde. Colepepper, who was with him on his arrival, speedily left for France, while Hopton and Capel only reached him a few days before his departure. During his stay he received a message from both houses of parliament, dated 30 March, and inviting him, ‘in a loving and tender way,’ to ‘come in’ to them. In his answer he asked to he enabled to consult the king before assenting (, i. 587-8, ii. 12, cf., i. 24 n.) According to Clarendon (v. 360), the islands were on 12 April surrounded by a fleet of twenty-seven or twenty-eight sail, which was, however, dispersed by a two days’ storm. The opportunity was not to be lost; and the resolution to leave Scilly, in which, with the exception of Berkshire, the council was unanimous, was determined by letter written by Charles I to his son from Hereford soon after Naseby, but hitherto, in accordance with the king‘s wishes, kept secret by the prince (, v. 361). A fair wind brought the fugitives to Jersey 17 April, where entreaties reached Charles from Queen Henrietta Maria to pursue his flight to Paris. His council urged objections to this plan; while Digby, who had arrived with two frigates from Ireland, proposed to carry the thither. In Paris both Colepepper and Digby were converted to the queen's views; Jermyn supported them, and the news of the king having placed himself in the hands of the Scots at Newark (5 May 1616) clinched the prince's resolution. But though the perceived further resistance to be useless, Hyde, Capel, Hopton, and Berkshire declined to accompany the prince to France, where he arrived about July. Hyde and his friends declared their commission at an end (ib. v. 387-407). Thus closes what may be called the first chapter of Charles’s public career.

Cardinal Mazarin had encouraged the removal to France of the heir to the English throne. But he hesitated under the circumstances to identify himself with his interests. The prince was therefore at first treated with something like studied neglect by the French court. His mother annexed to her allowance his own slender pittance, and kept him as dependent upon herself as possible (ib. v. 413-415, 554-5). After, it is said, being baulked in his desire of taking service in the French army under the Duke of Orleans, he was prostrated by a long attack of aguish fever (, 21-2; Monarchy Revived, 28). He remained at Paris for rather more than two years, being there, as Burnet (i. 184) asserts, introduced to the vices and impieties of the age by the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Percy, without being grounded in the principles of religion by his mathematical tutor, Thomas Hobbes. (After the Restoration a pension was granted to Hobbes by Charles II: see Vitæ Hobbianæ Auctarium, xxxiii., in vol. xii. of Works, 1839). In 1648 the prince was to have played a prominent part in the so-called second civil war, but the scheme of placing him at the head of an invading Scottish army came to nothing. In July, however, he arrived at Helvoetsluys, and sailed thence with nineteen English ships faithful to the king, and a reputed force of twenty thousand men. He reached the Thames, where he took some prizes, issued a proclamation specially intended to conciliate the Scots and the Londoners, and then returned to Holland (, i. 82 n.;, ii. 367-8; or his letter to the lords, ib. 376-6; for his offer to give up his prizes to the merchant adventurers on payment of 20,000l., ib. 872).

In Holland, notwithstanding some hesitation, Charles was courteously received and liberally treated (, ii. 399, 408), but he cannot have spent many gloomier months than these. He was attacked by the small-pox (ib. 436), and while his fleet