LX. 1648 CHAP. brace, who, having been in Charles's service as a page, was allowed to remain in attendance upon his old master. Firebrace had arranged for the conveyance of the secret correspondence, which continued to pass between Charles and his friends outside the walls of his prison, and he now, in combination with Mr. Worsley, of Appuldercombe, and Mr. Newland of Newport, and Richard Osborne, one of the King's attendants, was completing the preparations for his escape. Feb. 7. Rumours However secret the conspirators might be they of a design. could not altogether veil their designs from the eyes of those whose interest it was to penetrate beneath the surface. As early as February 7, the Derby House Committee had information of a plan for breaking into the King's chamber from the floor above him, and of thus conveying him away through rooms in which there were no guards. Later, on March 13, the committee had vague information of another plan which appears to have originated with Firebrace, and their imperfect knowledge led them to direct Hammond to find out the secret by every means in his power. Firebrace's plan. An attempt was accordingly made by Hammond According to Firebrace's plan, the night fixed for AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE. out of the open casement of his bedroom window, which looked on the inner court of the castle,1 in which, strange to say, no sentry had been placed. Firebrace would then conduct him to the castle wall and lower him on the other side by means of a PLAN OF CARISBROOKE CASTLE IN 1648. 335 CHAP. LX. 1648 rope. Once over the wall Charles would then descend the mound on which the castle was built, after which he would find no farther difficulty, except a low counterscarp which could easily be surmounted. On the other side Worsley and Osborne were to be stationed with horses, whilst Newland was to be in attendance at the water's edge with a lusty boat' ready to carry Charles wherever he pleased to go. sugges The only part of this scheme in which Firebrace Firebrace's anticipated difficulty was the initial one. The open- tions. ing between the side of the casement and the upright bar in the middle was, he thought, too narrow to ad 1 The traditional window, shown to visitors as that through which Charles attempted to escape, has no claims to that distinction. See Hillier's Narrative, 120. CHAP. LX. 1648 mit of the King's getting his body through, and he therefore urged Charles to enlarge it by cutting through a plate at the bottom which seems to have held the upright bar against which the casement shut. Charles however obstinately refused to accept his suggestion. He had, he said, tried the aperture with his head, and he was sure where that would pass, the body would follow.' Besides, the cutting of the plate might easily attract observation. Unfortunately for Charles, when the appointed night arrived, Firebrace's anticipation proved to be too March 20. Well grounded. Charles struggled in vain to force his body through the casement, and, after placing in the window a lighted candle, as a signal that he had failed, retired discomfited to bed. As no breath of the attempt reached the Parliamentary authorities for more than a fortnight, it still seemed possible to renew it, and Charles continued to entertain hopes that, when a corrosive substance had been fetched from London, he would be able to remove the bar more silently than if he had filed it through.2 Failure of the attempt. March 27. Royalist London. There can be no doubt that if the King had been feeling in really at large, a welcome would have been accorded to him before which even the army would have found it difficult to stand. In London, at least, the overwhelming preponderance of opinion was in his favour. On March 27, the anniversary of the King's accession, more bonfires were lit in the city than at any time since Charles's return from Spain. All who passed along the streets in coaches were compelled to drink the King's health, and shouts for 1 66 By cutting the plate the casement shut to at the bottom, which then might easily have been put by." This is by no means clear, but may bear the interpretation given above. 2 Firebrace's Narrative, printed with Herbert's Memoirs, ed. 1702. THE INDEPENDENTS TAKE ALARM. 337 LX. 1648 King Charles were mingled with execrations poured CHAP. out upon Hammond, who was charged with barbarous usage of his prisoner. The butchers vowed that if they could catch him 'they would chop him as small as ever they chopped any of their meat.' Marten proposes to King. pendents with the While these scenes were being acted in the streets Marten called upon the House of Commons to go depose the through stitch with their work, and to take order about deposing the King." No wonder that the Independent leaders hesitated to embark on SO hazardous a course. Feeling that unless they could The Indegain friends in England their case was desperate, negotiate they had for some time been approaching the City City, with conciliatory offers. They were ready, they said, to restore to the municipal authorities the command over the London militia and the Tower, to withdraw the soldiers from Whitehall and the Mews, and to release the imprisoned aldermen on the sole condition of a hearty support against the Scots. Their overtures were made in vain. Nothing, they were told, would content the City short of the King's restoration.2 Even to that Cromwell and the Independent leaders had no insuperable objection provided only that sufficient security could be obtained for his good behaviour, and there is reason to believe that the English commissioners had some time before been instructed to offer to the Scots, as a condition and make of peace, that the King should be set at liberty and the Scots. restored to the throne if he would content himself to be with powers considerably less than he had exercised under conbefore the civil war. The Presbyterians, they added, ditions. might have their share of court offices, but the power 1 Letters of Intelligence, March 30, Clarendon MSS. 2,751, 2,754. 2 Ib. March 23, Clarendon MSS. 2,743; ? to Lanark, March 28, Hamilton Papers, 169; Walker's Hist. of Independency, i. 83. an offer to The King restored CHAP. 1648 March 28. Cromwell at Farnham. over the militia must be reserved to the Independents.1 A security to be obtained by placing the King on the throne and keeping an army on foot to restrain his actions was certain to prove illusory in the end, and that it should have been proposed at all is to be taken as evidence of the desperate straits to which the Independent leaders were driven. Yet there is reason to believe that overtures were at this time made to Charles himself. Even Marten seems to have been subdued, for the time, by the imminence of the danger. "If we must have a government," he said, "we had better have this King and oblige him than to have him obtruded on us by the Scots, and owe his restitution to them." 2 On March 28 Cromwell was at Farnham on private business. A report at once sprang up that he had gone to communicate with Hammond, and it was also said that the Earl of Southampton was at The Scots were to abstain from interference in England: 'ma però con conditione di rimettere il Rè in libertà e dentro il suo primo potere, però con gran modificatione, promettendo a loro parte negl' ufficii della Corte Reale, ma non nella militia.' Newsletter, March 24, Roman Transcripts, R.O. The statement that some negotiation of the kind was opened is confirmed by a passage in a subsequent letter from Loudoun to the King: "Lest my deportment may be misrepresented to your Majesty, I hold it my duty to let you know that the carrying on of the late engagement against the judgment and declarations of the Kirk, refusing to secure religion . . . and the rejecting of the desires of the commissioners sent to your Majesty's Parliament of this Kingdom from the Houses of your Parliament of England, who did offer in their name to join with this Kingdom in making their applications to your Majesty by treaty upon the propositions for removing of all differences and giving satisfaction in all things which could consist with justice and honour. . . did convince me of the unlawfulness of that unhappy engagement." Loudoun to the King, Oct. 1648. MS. in the possession of Mr. John Webster, of Edgehill, near Aberdeen. 2 ... ? to Lanark, March 28, Hamilton Papers, 170. |