Page:The Queens of England.djvu/510

 462 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. his 1 eluctant wife to Abingdon. The bitterness of their parting, though deprived of its full intensity from the ignorance of either that it was to be, as it afterward proved, forever, yet was at the time augmented by the frail condition of her health, which appealed to every impulse of conjugal affection for sup- port, and by the contrast between the glory of her entrance into Oxford and the disheartening circumstances under which she now quitted those walls, which were amongst the very last to maintain the standard of royalty against rebellion. The king's distress at her hapless condition is forcibly expressed in his brief note written in French to her physician : "Mayerne ! for the love of me, go to my wife ! C. R." Arrived at Exeter, she found the citizens already preparing for a siege, and remitted a sum of money to the king, which she had received from Anne of Austria ; with characteristic self-denial scarcely retaining sufficient to supply her own wants ; and at the advance of Lord Essex at the head of the rebels, only a fort- night after the bi'rth of the Princess Henrietta (June 16, 1644), she applied to him for safe conduct to Bath, where she hoped to recruit her strength and obtain some repose for her shattered spirits. To her application the brutal answer was returned that "the earl intended to escort her to London, where the Par- liament were resolved to impeach her ;" a reply which elicited from the queen the touching sentiment expressed to the Duke of Hamilton, "God forgive them for their rebellion, as I assure you I forgive them from my heart what they do against me." Her reputation for courage was also enhanced by a display of fortitude upon this fearful occasion, which amazed her attend- ants. Rallying by one strong effort of the will her enervated powers, Henrietta rose to meet the emergency with all the undaunted resolution of that sire who had been indeed the first warrior of his age. In disguise, and almost fainting with pain and weakness, she escaped, with her confessor and two faith- ful adherents, to a hut on the road to Plymouth, leaving her infant behind to the protection of a few loyal followers, upon whose fidelity she could rely, and set sail from Pendennis only ten days before Charles arrived to raise the siege of Exeter. So closely was she pursued by the parliamentary cruisers that her captain set every sail, and being impeded by a shot from the enemy, was about, at the queen's command, to set fire to the magazine rather than allow his vessel to be taken, when he was rescued by a French fleet from Dieppe, under whose escort she reached Ghastel ; whence, on foot, ill, destitute and