POLITICAL HISTORY 



and most of the king's attendants were removed from Hampton Court. 353 

 On 9 November Charles received a mysterious letter informing him 

 that the Levellers, his enemies in the army, had resolved on his death. 354 

 He could still communicate with Ashburnham, and that night Berkeley 

 was brought secretly to the palace and final preparations were made for 

 the escape. 856 On the Thursday, 1 1 November, the king retired early 

 to his room ; 856 horses were brought to the back door of the garden, 

 to which there was a passage from the king's room, 357 and accom- 

 panied by Ashburnham, Berkeley and Legge he made his escape 

 unnoticed. 3 " 



The alarm was given within half an hour of his departure, but 

 the king and the fugitives were already across the river. The officers 

 who broke into the king's apartments found only some letters on the 

 table in the king's handwriting, and a cloak cast aside on the way 

 to the water. 859 Colonel Whalley immediately sent word to Cromwell 

 at Putney, who apparently hastened over to Hampton Court, and 

 having assured himself of the king's escape dispatched the news to 

 Speaker Lenthall. 360 



Middlesex seems to have shared the general Royalist reaction which 

 preceded the second Civil War. The county joined with Kent, Essex, 

 and Surrey in a declaration to the army under Fairfax in which were 

 rehearsed the ' many miseries' of the time, and the attempts to restore 

 prosperity to the nation by the proposed ' re-establishment of his Majesty 

 unto his royal rights, the Settlement of Religion and Liberty according 

 unto the known received Laws, and (upon payment of their arrears) the 

 disbanding of the army.' 361 Having affirmed the failure of the Parliament 

 to attain ' the ends for which we first engaged them,' and that the Parlia- 

 ment had ' for divers years continued free-born people of England in a 

 greater servitude than at any time since the Norman Conquest,' 

 the gentlemen of the county announced their intention to arm, and ' by 

 our power (God assisting) to command what we could not entreat.' To 

 this end they ' heartily and seriously ' invited the soldiers of the army 

 either to ' repair unto us with your horses and arms,' or to go to their 

 own homes, in which case their whole arrears should be paid. 362 Little 

 result seems to have come of the Declaration. The second Civil War 

 was soon over as far as Middlesex was concerned. 



A general rising was planned by the queen and Jermyn, which was 

 to follow the appearance of the Scots in England. The earl of Holland, 

 who through the influence of the lord of Carlisle had made his peace 



*" Ashburnham, Narrative, ii, 100. *" Ibid. 105. '" Berkeley, Memoirs, 161. 



*" Clarendon, op. cit. iv, 263, says that Charles pretended indisposition, but Berkeley (Memoirs, 50) 

 that it was his custom to retire early on Thursday to write letters for the foreign post. 



157 Clarendon, op. cit. iv, 263. ** Warwick, Memoirs, 305. 



"* Bulstrode, Memoirs, 162. 



560 Com. Journ. v, 350; Rushworth, Coll. vii, 871 ; Carlyle, CnmvielFs Letters, i, 264. Dated 

 ' Hampton Court, Twelve at night, 1 1 Nov. 1 647.' 



861 ' The joint declaration of the several Counties of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, and Surrey, unto the 

 soldiers of the army, now under the command of the Lord Fairfax' (B.M.). 



** ' The joint Declaration.' 



47 



