THE GREAT ESCAPE Part 2: To Catch a King

Lord Wilmot had a problem. After the crushing defeat at the battle of Worcester (September 3 1651), he had safely brought the King to a sympathetic Catholic house (“Whiteladies”). However the fact remained that they were many, many miles away from the coast and with every road in England bristling with soldiery all on the look out for “a tall dark man some two yards high” (in an age when the average height of a man was about 5’ 10” – being over 6’ set him apart from his fellows) , their chances of getting the defeated King safely back to France seemed slim.

The King was stripped of his distinctive clothes and dressed in a green jerkin, grey cloth breeches, leather doublet and greasy soft hat – “a la mode the woodman”. His precious Order of St. George was given to one of his party and after surviving its own adventures (including being hidden in a refuse heap) it would eventually be reunited with its owner. His hair was cut and his face and hands were stained with walnut juice.

Charles first struck out for Wales but was forced to turn back when he found the access routes across the Severn heavily guarded. He turned back to Boscobel where he took refuge in a massive oak tree in company with a Major Carlis (also on the run from Worcester). The two remained secure in their tree (a descendant of which still exists today) while below them the soldiers scoured the wood. After a few days rest at Boscobel, he began his journey to freedom. He reunited with Wilmot at Moseley Old Hall, where he was forced to take refuge in a priest hole while the house was searched.

From Moseley he and Wilmot travelled to Bentley Hall, the home of a Colonel Lane. There one of the great heroines of history enters the tale – Jane Lane. As Jane had planned to travel to Abbot’s Leigh ( a few miles beyond Bristol) to visit her sister, who was about to give birth, it was agreed that Charles would travel with her, as her servant. His disguise moved up market and he became William Jackson, servant to Mistress Lane. A servant who had no idea how to ride a double horse or even how to doff his hat with proper subservience. Lord Wilmot, whose idea of a disguise, was to carry a falcon on his wrist, rode with them.

They reached Abbots Leigh on September 12, after encountering troops on the road and hearing from a blacksmith that “that rogue Charles Stuart had been captured, who deserved to hang…”. There he was forced to keep to his room on pretence of fever when he discovered one of the household had served in his regiment. With a hefty reward on his head, his former soldier posed more of a risk than a regiment of roundheads.

Unable to find a boat in Bristol and with the Welsh ports watched, the party decided to head south still with Jane Lane to provide the cover story. They passed through Somerset and were forced to bypass the most obvious point of escape, Dorset because of the heavy enemy presence. Their aim was to reach Lyme (later awarded the “Regis” in recognition of its loyalty). There a boat was arranged to depart from nearby Charmouth. Charles parted company with the courageous Jane Lane and in company of another fearless woman, Juliana Coningsby, the party went down to meet their boat. The boat never arrived (the skipper having been locked in his bedroom by his outraged wife!) and once more the King’s party were forced back on their own resources. They were now in a part of the country where Charles was well known and he risked detection at every turn.

His refuge (or his “Ark” as it was described by the lady of the house) was the home of Colonel Wyndham, Trent Manor. There the King spent two weeks while Wilmot scoured the coast looking for a boat. On 13 October, Charles set out again, heading for Sussex. A boat had been arranged under the cover story of transporting a pair of illegal duelists and for the price of 60 pieces of silver, a boat was arranged to leave from Shoreham harbor. On Wednesday 15 October at 4am, King Charles II finally sailed away from England to spend the next nine years in penniless exile in France.

Some interesting facts about the great escape:
• Some 60 people were “in” on the secret (and ‘so many of them women’!) but not one claimed the reward
• Despite being forced to sleep on hard pallets, being squashed into priest holes or forced to spend days in trees, the main source of discomfort for the King were his shoes. Shoes could not be found to fit his feet and so he suffered dreadful blisters and in his later years developed something of an obsession for well fitting shoes!
• The King learned more about the way his people lived than any other monarch. While he was at Boscobel he asked for mutton for his supper. Mutton was a meat reserved only for the most special of occasions and could not be readily provided.
• In his travels he encountered for the first time the hidden world of the English catholics and his talks with Father Huddleston would have a profound effect on him.
The "Royal Oak" became a cult, a "symbol of royalty and romance" (Fraser). After the Restoration the King's birthday, May 29th was designated "Oak Apple Day" and remained a public holiday until the 1850s.


To read more on the Great escape:
Antonia Fraser KING CHARLES II
Wikipedia
and for the best fictional account:
Georgette Heyer THE ROYAL ESCAPE
(I had a lot of fun with this story in my own BY THE SWORD )

THE GREAT ESCAPE (Part 1): The Battle of Worcester

One of the world’s most thrilling “great escape” stories has to be the escape of Charles II after the defeat at the Battle of Worcester on September 3 1651. Just about every old house or inn on his route lays claim to having sheltered him and it has been the subject of many works of fiction (including the basis for my own BY THE SWORD).

The young Prince Charles had fled to the continent at the end of the first civil war (1645). There he kicked his heels at the court of his cousin, the young Louis XIV, very much the poor relation. His chance to return to England and regain his throne came in 1650 when the Scots, disenchanted by their former allies, invited him to Scotland. He was crowned King of Scotland as the Scots raised an army to defeat the English Parliamentarian forces. The Scots kept such tight control over their young King that his life was a misery and many of Charles’ most talented commanders were denied a role in this new army. After the Scots were roundly defeated at the Battle of Dunbar on September 3 1650, it is said Charles threw his hat in the air and laughed.

Undeterred by their defeat, the Scots Army marched into England. As they made their way down the west coast, Cromwell (the new commander of the Parliamentary forces since the resignation of Sir Thomas Fairfax) and his army raced down the East coast. They met at Worcester. The forces Charles had expected to flock to his banner did not eventuate. The King’s supporters in England had wearied of war and weighed down by debt and fines lacked the heart for another fight. The Earl of Derby bringing supporters from the Isle of Man was intercepted at Wigan and escaped with only a handful of men.

Charles dithered in Worcester as Cromwell closed in on him. At the age of twenty one he relied heavily on his advisors and their advice contradicted each other. The poor young King was harangued from every side…should they abandon Worcester and retreat into sympathetic Wales or stay and make a fight of it? The debates in The Commandery (a building that still exists in Worcester and is well worth a visit) raged on until it became too late to do anything but stand and face whatever Cromwell would throw at them.

Cromwell chose September 3 (the day of his victory in Scotland the year before) to launch his attack. The King’s forces failed to capitalise on Cromwell’s one moment of vulnerability when he sent half his forces across the River Severn to attack Worcester from the South while the main force attacked from the East. Watching the progress of the battle through a spy glass from the tower of Worcester Cathedral, dressed in his buff leather coat with a red sash and his Order of St. George around his neck, the young King ordered his forces out of the city to take on Cromwell in the field.

It was a bold move and leading his men, on foot, up the hill out of the Sidbury Gate, no one would question the King’s courage. He believed that General Leslie would appear with cavalry in support of his charge. Leslie failed him and after three hours of pitched battle, with Fort Royal lost, the King’s men began a mad retreat back inside the city. Sidbury Gate was blocked with an overturned cart, its animals dead in the traces. Undeterred the desparate royalists clawed their way back into the city as night fell with the parliamentary forces hot on their heels.

By chance Charles’ lodgings were in a house near St. Martin’s gate, the only gate still open to them (the house still exists - see Picture. Led by Lord Wilmot, a small, loyal band of his men, harried the shocked and desparate young King out of the city and north to an even more uncertain fate.

The fate of those who were captured after the battle makes a sad postscript. The Earl of Derby was beheaded, the Duke of Hamilton died of his wounds and the many rank and file of the Scottish Army were largely sent as "white slaves" to the Barbardos, Guyana or Virginia (ah yesl...the subject of another of my books THE KING'S MAN - can you tell this is one of my favourite subjects?).

Next month…THE GREAT ESCAPE Part 2: “Read on and Wonder…” (Thomas Blount in his introduction to Boscobel written in 1660)