Charles I. at Hurst. 153 



brightly or dimly,* which detracts so much from any interest 

 we might otherwise feel for him in his days of care and sorrow. 

 A closet is shown where he is said to have been confined, and 

 where his Golden Rules are said to have hung; but from Herbert's 

 memoirs, evidently neither the room where he lived or slept. f 

 Herbert's account of Hurst is so graphic that I give it nearly in 

 full : " The wind and tide favouring, the King and his attend- 

 ants crossed the narrow sea in three hours, J and landed at 

 Hurst Castle, or Block House rather, erected by order of King 

 Henry VIII., upon a spot of earth a good way into the sea, 

 and joined to the firm land by a narrow neck of sand, which is 

 covered over with small loose stones and pebbles ; and upon both 

 sides the sea beats, so as at spring tides and stormy weather the 

 land passage is formidable and hazardous. The castle has very 

 thick stone walls, and the platforms are regular, and both have 

 several culverines and sakers mounted. . . . The captain 

 of this wretched place was not unsuitable ; for, at the King's 

 going ashore, he stood ready to receive him with small observance. 

 His look was stern. His hair and large beard were black and 

 bushy. He held a partizan in his hand; and, Switz-like, had 

 a great basket-hilt sword on his side. Hardly could one see a 



* Sir Thomas Herbert's Memoirs of the two last Years of the Reign of 

 King Charles /., Ed. 1702, pp. 87, 88. 



f Warwick calls the King's rooms "dog lodgings" (Memoirs, p. 334) ; 

 but it is evident from Herbert (Memoirs, p. 94) that both Charles and his 

 attendants were well treated, which we know from Whitelock (Memorials 

 of English Affairs, p. 359 ; London, 1732) was the wish of the army, as 

 also from the letter of Colonel Hammond's deputies given in Rushworth 

 (vol. ii., part iv., p. 1351). Of Colonel Hammond's own treatment of 

 the King we learn from Charles himself, x ;ho, besides speaking of him as 

 a man of honour and feeling, said "that he thought himself as safe in 

 Hammond's hands as in the custody of his own son " (Whitelock, p. 321). 



J Evidently a misprint for three-quarters of an hour. 



X 



