Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/130

74 of their own accord, without either authority (as some aver) or countenance of the general, upon fair pretences had frequent consultations; but intermeddling with affairs of State, were not unlike those that like to fish in troubled waters, and being men very popular in the army, had thence their impulse and approbation. What the results of councils amongst them was, who was, or by what spirits agitated? Yet about this time the House was rent and the Speaker went unto the army, which soon after marched through London to the Tower, to which was committed the Lord Mayor and other dissenting citizens; in which confusion the King proposing a treaty, the Agitators, in opposition, published a book intituled "An Agreement of the People which concerned his Majesty's Person and Safety." But thence (as was well known) several things in it designed were rumoured, which fomented parties and created jealousies and fears, and by some artifice insinuated,and a representation by letter gave his Majesty an occasion of going from Hampton Court in the night, and in disguise, with two grooms of his Majesty's bed-chamber, Mr. Asburnham and Mr. Legge, as also Sir John Berkeley, and about the middle of November, an. 1647, passed through a private door into the park, where no sentinel was, and at Thames Ditton crossed the river, to the amazement of the Commissioners, who had not the least fore-knowledge of the King's fears or intentions, and no less to the astonishment of the Lords and others, his Majesty's