14 CHARLES II. IN DORSET. 



rooms in the inn to a runaway bridal party from Devonshire, he 

 telling her that there was a young man to come thither the next 

 Monday that had stolen a gentlewoman to marry her, and (fearing 

 lest they should be followed and hindered) that he desired to 

 have the house and stables at liberty to depart at whatever hour 

 of the night he should think fittest. All precautions being now 

 taken, the eventful morning of Monday, the 22nd of September, 

 arrived, and the Royal party proceeded from Trent to Charmouth, 

 the King attended by Colonel Wyndham as his guide, and riding 

 double before Mrs. Juliana Coningsby (Lady Wyndham's niece), 

 whose services were probably necessary to personate the supposed 

 Devonshire bride. Lord Wilmot and Peters accompanied them 

 at a convenient distance to avoid suspicion. History is silent 

 as to the route to Charmouth taken by the royal party, but it 

 may not probably be far removed from that given by the late 

 Harrison Ainsworth in his novel called " Boscobel," which, though 

 a work of fiction, has for its basis a considerable amount of 

 historical truth the author being well acquainted with the 

 Boscobel Tracts and the novel itself, in fact, being dedicated to 

 Mr. Hughes. The novelist makes them take for a time the 

 Valley of the Yeo, and then, heading more to the south, they 

 appi-oached Pilsdon and Lewesdon Hills. In fact, he says, " the 

 road led them over Pillesdon Pen, and they then descended into 

 the valley in which stood Pillesdon, the residence of Sir Hugh 

 Wyndham, the colonel's uncle, but they did not go near the 

 mansion." In all probability they came down the Vale of 

 Marshwood at that time, as now, a secluded and sparsely popu- 

 lated district, which a century and a quarter later called forth 

 from Hutchins the remark that " few gentry ever resided in this 

 tract," for they met Ellesdon, as previously arranged, at a lonely 

 house belonging to his father, situated about a mile and a-half 

 from Charmouth, among the hills to the north. At nightfall the 

 Royal party moved on to Charmouth, where Ellesdon took his 

 leave in the full confidence that everything had been satisfactorily 

 arranged. " About an hour after came Limbry to the inn, and 



