the memory of his father and mother, and representing himself as a
most religious Prince, to whom the Solemn League and Covenant was
as dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in this, and soon
afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome
Highland friends, who were always flourishing dirks and
broadswords. He was overtaken and induced to return; but this
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attempt, which was called ‘The Start,’ did him just so much
service, that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him
afterwards as they had done before.
On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one,
the Scottish people crowned him at Scone. He immediately took the
chief command of an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to
Stirling. His hopes were heightened, I dare say, by the
redoubtable Oliver being ill of an ague; but Oliver scrambled out
of bed in no time, and went to work with such energy that he got
behind the Royalist army and cut it off from all communication with
Scotland. There was nothing for it then, but to go on to England;
so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor and some of the
gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway. His
proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very few
Royalists appeared; and, on the very same day, two people were
publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause. Up came
Oliver to Worcester too, at double quick speed, and he and his
Ironsides so laid about them in the great battle which was fought
there, that they completely beat the Scottish men, and destroyed
the Royalist army; though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that
it took five hours to do.
The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good
service long afterwards, for it induced many of the generous
English people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think
much better of him than he ever deserved. He fled in the night,
with not more than sixty followers, to the house of a Catholic lady
in Staffordshire. There, for his greater safety, the whole sixty
left him. He cropped his hair, stained his face and hands brown as
if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes of a labouring
countryman, and went out in the morning with his axe in his hand,
accompanied by four wood-cutters who were brothers, and another man
who was their brother-in-law. These good fellows made a bed for
him under a tree, as the weather was very bad; and the wife of one
of them brought him food to eat; and the old mother of the four
brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the wood,
and thanked God that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At
night, he came out of the forest and went on to another house which
was near the river Severn, with the intention of passing into
Wales; but the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were
guarded, and all the boats were made fast. So, after lying in a
hayloft covered over with hay, for some time, he came out of his
place, attended by COLONEL CARELESS, a Catholic gentleman who had
met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up in the
shady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the King that
it was September-time, and that the leaves had not begun to fall,
since he and the Colonel, perched up in this tree, could catch
glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, and could hear the
crash in the wood as they went about beating the boughs.
After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered;
and, having been concealed all one day in a house which was
searched by the troopers while he was there, went with LORD WILMOT,
another of his good friends, to a place called Bentley, where one
MISS LANE, a Protestant lady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to
ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near Bristol.