ee er eee ee, 
By C. Penruddocke. 19 
How awfully sticky the King’s fingers, and Mr. H.’s cloak must 
have been, and did’nt the King make the most of his short sleep 
after being smuggled up the back stairs to an attic at Bentley. If 
the King felt any mortification at reading the proclamation 
for his capture his attention was soon taken off by the 
necessity of effecting a new disguise to correspond with the part he 
was to assume of an accomplished serving-man. Without any delay 
Colonel Lane supplied him with a suit of ordinary grey cloth, like 
the holiday suit of a farmer’s son, which converted him from 
William Jones, the woodman of Boscobel, into William Jackson, a 
neighbouring tenant’s son. He then instructed him in his new 
Smollett. 
‘duties, and finally mounted the disguised groom on what was called 
in those days a good double gelding—that is, a sturdy, quiet, long- 
backedhorse, fit and broken to carry two persons. The gentleman 
or servant sat astride on a saddle in front, and the lady on a pillion 
—something like a circus rider’s saddle—behind. Thomas De Grey, 
De Grey’s Compleat in a work called “ The Compleat Horseman,” 
ee ek and published in 1670, quotes Sir Henry Lee 
LL, p. 35. as a famous breeder of horses, and that he 
preferred those which possessed one white foot be-speckled with black 
motley spots! Picture to yourselves William Jackson in the twilight 
of a September morning caracolling round from the Bentley stables 
on such an animal as described, and, hat in hand, modestly waiting 
at the front door for the coming of Mistress Jane Lane. What was 
passing in the mind of the young King as he waited thus? We 
‘Hume's Hist. know how tired he got of the Puritanical manners 
oe and mock modesty of his Scotch subjects. “ His 
affability, his wit, his gaiety, his gentlemanly dis- 
engaged behaviour were treated as so many vices.” It must have 
been agreeable to him to think of the companionship of this fair and 
honest English lady, who was putting herself into every conceivable 
danger to secure his safety. While thus musing Mistress Lane 
1 Cap. 14 of an Act passed 12th August, 1651, enacted “‘ correspondence with 
Charles Stuart or his party prohibited under pain of high treason, and to be 
proceeded against by a council of war, &. This Act to continue in force till the 
first day.-of December, 1651.” 
Father Cyprien says, “Mademoiselle Lane was lifted behind the King.” 
Memoirs Mission Capuchin Friars. c 2 
