20

AFTER THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER.

way. In this extremity Lord Derby said that he had been received kindly at an old house in a secluded woody country, between Tong Castle and Brewood, on the borders of Staf fordshire. It was named "Boscobel," he said; and that word has henceforth conjured up to the mind's eye the remembrance of a band of tired heroes riding through woody glades to an ancient house, where shelter was given to the worn-out horses and scarcely less harassed riders.

But not so rapidly did they in reality proceed. A Catholic family, named Giffard, were living at White-Ladies, about twenty-six miles from Worcester. This was only about half a mile from Boscobel: it had been a convent of Cistercian nuns, whose long white cloaks of old had once been seen, ghost-like, amid forest glades or on hillock green. The White-Ladies had other memories to grace it besides those of holy vestals or of unholy Cavaliers. From the time of the Tudors, a respectable family named Somers had owned the White-Ladies, and inhabited it since its white-garbed tenants had been turned out and the place secularized. "Somers's House," as it was called (though, more happily, the old name has been restored), had received Queen Elizabeth on her progress. The richly cultivated old conventual gardens had supplied the Queen with some famous pears, and, in the fullness of her approval of the fruit, she had added them to the City arms. At that time one of these vaunted pear-trees stood securely in the market-place of Worcester.

At the White-Ladies Charles rested for half an hour; and here he left his garters, waistcoat, and other garments, to avoid discovery, ere he proceeded. They were long kept as relics.

The mother of Lord Somers had been placed in this old house for security, for she was on the eve of giving birth to the future statesman, who was born in that sanctuary just at this time. His father at that very moment commanded a troop of horse in Cromwell's army, so that the risk the Cavaliers ran was imminent. The King's horse was led into the hall. Day was dawning; and the Cavaliers, as they entered the old conventual tenement, and saw the sunbeams on its walls, perceived their peril. A family of servants named Penderell held various offices there and at Boscobel. William took care of Boscobel; George was a servant at White-Ladies; Humphrey was the miller to that house; Richard lived close by, at Hebbal Grange. He and William were called into the royal presence. Lord Derby then said to them, "This is the King; have a care of him, and preserve him as thou didst me."

DISGUISING THE KING.-VILLIERS IN HIDING.

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Then the attendant courtiers began undressing the King. They took off his buff-coat, and put on him a noggon coarse shirt," and a green suit and another doublet-Richard Penderell's woodman's dress. Lord Wilmot cut his sovereign's hair with a knife, but Richard Penderell took up his shears and finished the work. "Burn it," said the king; but Richard kept the sacred locks. Then Charles covered his dark face with soot. Could any thing have taken away the expression of his half-sleepy, half-merry eyes?

They departed, and half an hour afterward Colonel Ashenhurst, with a troop of Roundhead horse, rode up to the WhiteLadies. The King, meantime, had been conducted by Richard Penderell into a coppice-wood, with a bill-hook in his hands for defense and disguise. But his followers were overtaken near Newport; and here Buckingham, with Lords Talbot and Leviston, escaped, and henceforth, until Charles's wanderings were transferred from England to France, George Villiers was separated from the Prince. Accompanied by the Earls of Derby and Lauderdale, and by Lord Talbot, he proceeded northward, in hopes of joining General Leslie and the Scotch horse. But their hopes were soon dashed: attacked by a body of Roundheads, Buckingham and Lord Leviston were compelled to leave the high road, to alight from their horses, and to make their way to Bloore Park, near Newport, where Villiers found a shelter. He was soon, however, necessitated to depart: he put on a laborer's dress; he deposited his George, a gift from Henrietta Maria, with a companion, and set off for Billstrop, in Nottinghamshire, one Matthews, a carpenter, acting as his guide; at Billstrop he was welcomed by Mr. Hawley, a Cavalier; and from that place he went to Brookesby, in Leicestershire, the original seat of the Villiers family, and the birth-place of his father. Here he was received by Lady Villiers-the widow, probably, of his father's brother, Sir William Villiers-one of those contented country squires who not only sought no distinction, but scarcely thanked James I. when he made him a baronet. Here might the hunted refugee see, on the open battlements of the church, the shields on which were exhibited united quarterings of his father's family with those of his mother; here, listen to old tales about his grandfather, good Sir George, who married a serving-woman in his deceased wife's kitchen; and that serving-woman became the leader of fash

* Sir George Villiers's second wife was Mary, daughter of Antony Beaumont, Esq., of Glenfield (Nichols' Leicestershire, iii. 193), who was son of Wm. Beaumont, Esq., of Cole Orton. She afterward was married successively to Sir Wm. Rayner and Sir Thomas Compton, and was created Countess of ckingham in 1618,

22

VILLIERS APPEARS AS A MOUNTEBANK.

ions in the court of James. Here he might ponder on the vicissitudes which marked the destiny of the house of Villiers, and wonder what should come next.

That the spirit of adventure was strong within him, is shown by his daring to go up to London, and disguising himself as a mountebank. He had a coat made, called a "Jack Pudding Coat:" a little hat was stuck on his head, with a fox's tail in it, and cocks' feathers here and there. A wizard's mask one day, a daubing of flour another, completed the disguise it was then so usual to assume: witness the long traffic held at Exeter Change by the Duchess of Tyrconnel, Frances Jennings, in a white mask, selling laces and French gew-gaws, a trader to all appearance, but really carrying on political intrigues; every one went to chat with the "White Milliner," as she was called, during the reign of William and Mary. The Duke next erected a stage at Charing Cross-in the very face of the stern Rumpers, who, with long faces, rode past the sinful man each day as they came ambling up from the Parliament House. A band of puppet-players and violins set up their shows; and music covers a multitude of incongruities. The ballad was then the great vehicle of personal attack, and Villiers's dawning taste for poetry was shown in the ditties which he now composed, and in which he sometimes assisted vocally. While all the other Cavaliers were forced to fly, he thus bearded his enemies in their very homes: sometimes he talked to them face to face, and kept the sanctimonious citizens in talk till they found themselves sinfully disposed to laugh. But this vagrant life had serious evils: it broke down all the restraints which civilized society naturally and beneficially imposes. The Duke of Buckingham, Butler, the author of Hudibras, writes, "rises, eats, goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls and the Antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartar customs, and never eats till the great cham, having dined, makes proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit, that walks all night, to disturb the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of his life, and loses his time as men do their ways in the dark: and as blind men are led by their dogs, so he is governed by some mean servant or other that relates to his pleasures. He is as inconstant as the moon which he lives under; and although he does nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things that come and go; but like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays