GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



skiff. " St. Victor had wrapped up in his warm cloak the infant 

 heir of so many kings " . . . "It was," says Macaulay, " a 

 miserable voyage. The night was bleak, the rain fell : the wind 

 roared : the water was rough : at length the boat reached Lam- 

 beth ; and the fugitives landed near an inn where a coach and 

 horses were in waiting. Some time elapsed before the horses could 

 be harnessed. Mary, afraid that her face should be known, would 

 not enter the house. She remained with her child, cowering for 

 shelter from the storm under the tower of Lambeth Church, and 

 distracted by terror whenever the ostler approached her with his 

 horses. . . . 



" At length the coach was ready. St. Victor followed it on 

 horseback. The fugitives reached Gravesend safely, and em- 

 barked in the yacht which was waiting for them. ... St. Victor, 

 having seen her under sail, spurred back with the good news to 

 Whitehall." 



Thus far in Macaulay 's graphic language ; everybody knows 

 the sequel how in the early morning of the following day, 

 James himself rose, in abject fear of meeting with his father's 

 fate, commanding Northumberland not to open the bedchamber 

 door until the usual hour. Taking the Great Seal in his hand, 

 he disappeared through a secret passage, and left Whitehall. He 

 crossed the . river at Millbank in a small wherry, and as he passed 

 Lambeth threw the Great Seal into the stream, whence three 

 months later, it was dragged to light in a fishing net. 



And as that picture belongs to Lambeth, so, too, does the coura- 

 geous action of Archbishop Sancroft, who, to meet the emergency 

 that immediately arose, and to stop the confusion and uproar 

 which followed when next morning the King's flight was known, 

 issued from the seclusion of his Palace, and put himself at the 

 head of a hastily-organized Provisional Government, until the 

 Prince of Orange should arrive. 



But, with James' further adventures, though they are interesting 

 as a novel, the story of Lambeth Palace has 'nothing to do. 



Yet once more in its history we see the old place alive with 

 men at arms, for the third time threatened with destruction, and 

 the lives of its inmates menaced by a London mob, even as they 

 had been in the days of Wat .Tyler, and during the primacy of 



Laud. 



. 



54 



