The Start

By Cryssa Bazos

Following the execution of his father by Parliament in 1649, Charles Stuart was a king without a throne. He scanned the dance floor for likely partners to help him reclaim his crown, but France, Spain and the Netherlands were taking turns examining the potted plants. There were no takers until Scotland stepped forward and motioned to the orchestra.

Jean Le Pautre [Public Domain] via
Wikimedia Commons

It was a slow and hesitating waltz, broken by alternate periods of negotiation and stubbornness on both sides. Scotland was looking for a Covenanted king, one who would uphold Presbyterianism across the three kingdoms (Scotland, England and Ireland). Reluctantly Charles agreed, and around Midsummer's in 1650, he landed in Scotland to take up one crown and fight for another.

This partnership did not start off with the surest foot. Almost immediately, the Scottish government treated Charles with all the courtesy of a royal hostage. The decision to invite him to Scotland had not been without controversy. Many of the more hardline Covenanters objected, mistrusting his commitment to the Covenant. To them, Scotland was the New Jerusalem, and they looked upon Charles with his Anglican father and Catholic mother with stern disapproval. They were relentless in their determination to make a good Presbyterian out of him.

Over the next three months, the Scottish Parliament debated which of his companions and servants were to be purged from the royal household and/or banned from the country. Some, like the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Wilmot, were given clearance to stay, but on September 27th, the Commission of the Kirk and the Committee of Estates in Perth ruled in favour of an expulsion from the country of twenty-three of the King’s companions and two others to be removed from court.

Sir James Balfour, Lord Lyon King of Arms, brought the list to Charles who requested that Balfour not act against nine individuals until he had time to petition Lord Chancellor Loudoun on their behalf.

Sir James Balfour, by unknown artist
[Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

The Chancellor refused Charles's petition and the day fixed for the removal of the courtiers was October 3, 1650.

This was when Charles decided to escape from his gilded cage and head north to the Highlands where loyalties were more firmly for King than Kirk.

Charles gathered a few companions to accompany him. The Duke of Buckingham was against the plan and tried to dissuade him, but when Charles remained resolute, he readily agreed to keep his whereabouts secret.

This plot to escape is known as the Start.

On October 3rd, the same day as the expulsion of his loyal companions, Charles and his companions rode out of Perth under the pretext of a hawking trip. They travelled northeast and rested at Dundee, then with their host, Viscount Dudhope, they continued north to Auchterhouse. There they stopped and repeated the process, only this time welcoming the Earl of Buchan into their company.

Dudhope and Buchan urged Charles to continue north to the mountains where they were confident that they would find an army of 7,000 pro-Royalist Highlanders. They continued to Cortachy (still no Highlander army) until they could go no further. With dark beating them down, they took their rest in a hamlet in Clova.

Meanwhile, back in Perth, the Duke of Buckingham was concerned. It may have been that he feared for Charles, wandering the countryside with little to no protection. More likely, he was concerned about his own precarious position in Scotland should Charles's expedition fail. Regardless, after having promised his discretion, Buckingham spilled the details of the Start to Balfour: the King was not hawking--he was on his way to the Highlands.

Balfour went into immediate damage control. He sent out an urgent message to Colonel Robert Montgomery, a trustworthy (and moderate) soldier with a regiment of 700 horse at his disposal, to fetch the King back. Not wanting to give away to the Committee that he had lost the King, Balfour arranged to send along one of Charles's hawks, "that the game might be played out with spirit."

Montgomery wasted no time and sent riders ahead. Just before daybreak, two of Montgomery's men found Charles "laying in a nasty room, on an old bolster above a mat of sedge and rushes." By seven that morning, Montgomery arrived in Clova in time to escort Charles back to Perth, with the King's hawk in hand.

When Charles returned to Perth, he was sent to his bedchamber and forced to hear sermons. But the Start was not a complete waste. Instead of increasing Charles's restrictions, the Committee of Estates was shocked into granting him concessions. They realized that they could not afford to lose him to the Highlanders and lose their advantage. The result was that Charles was invited to attend the Committee of Estates sessions.

And what of Buckingham and his loose tongue? Charles forgave Buckinghman for betraying his plans to Balfour, but did he forget?

Nearly a year after the Start, when Cromwell defeated the Royalist army at Worcester, Charles barely escaped the field and headed north with a company of his lords, including Buckingham. By the time they reached Staffordshire, it became apparent to Charles that if he were to escape, he would have to part from his lords and travel incognito. Buckingham was not invited to accompany him, nor was he told where Charles was headed.

To be fair, Charles only took Lord Wilmot in his confidence, but I suspect that Buckingham’s earlier betrayal still rankled. When Charles finally reached France, after six weeks of dodging Cromwell’s men, his initial account soon took on the flavour of tall tales that Mark Twain would have cherished. If you’ve ever been asked the same question over and over again, you can appreciate why Charles threw in a bit of spice.

The Ambassador of Venice for Paris wrote this to the Doge in Venice about Charles’s adventures, dated November 19, 1651:

“I went yesterday evening to welcome the Grand Duke and the Princes back from the country. In the course of conversation the Grand Duke told me of the clever means adopted by the king of England to escape from Cromwell. In the army, when it was seen that all was lost, he took counsel with the duke of Buckingham, who was in the same plight as himself. The duke decided to disguise himself as a falconer, with the goshawks on his arm.”

The Start may have ended in disappointment for Charles, but it did shift the focus to him as a sitting monarch and not a royal hostage. As well, it served as a practice run before his next, and more desperate, escape when capture would have cost him his life.


References:

The Historical Works of Sir James Balfour

Cromwell's Scotch Campaigns: 1650-51, by William Scott Douglas

British History Online: 'Venice: November 1651', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 28, 1647-1652, ed. Allen B Hinds (London, 1927), pp. 202-206 http://www.british-history

[This is an Editor's Choice archive post, originally published on EHFA 5th March 2016

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Cryssa Bazos is an award-winning historical fiction author and 17th-century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. Her debut novel, Traitor's Knot, was the Medalist winner of the 2017 New Apple Award (historical fiction), a finalist for the 2018 EPIC eBook Awards (historical romance) and the RNA Joan Hessayon Award. Her second novel, Severed Knot, was longlisted for the Historical Novel Society 2018 New Novel Award and tells the story of a Scottish PoW transported down to Barbados as an indentured servant.

Connect with Cryssa through her Website, Facebook, and Twitter (@CryssaBazos). Traitor's Knot is available through Amazon, and Severed Knot is available through Amazon and other Online Retailers. 

The Brothers Penderel

by Cryssa Bazos

One of the most famous adventures in British history is the six week escape of Charles II following the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Worcester. This was during the 3rd English Civil War when Charles II marched his Scottish army south against Cromwell’s Parliamentarian forces on September 3, 1651. With the Royalist army in shreds and his bid to regain his crown momentarily crushed, Charles Stuart managed to escape Worcester and head north. So desperate were they to catch him, Parliament offered a thousand pound reward. Even with such a fortune, the king still escaped to France. How did he do it with Parliament beating the countryside for him?

Charles Stuart only survived through the assistance of the extraordinarily brave people, many of them commoners, who helped to hide him at great risk to themselves. The Penderel brothers, servants to a middle class family, were the first to put their life on the line for their king.

At pre-dawn in the early hours of September 4th, less than twenty four hours after the battle, an exhausted Charles Stuart with his close companions (including the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Wilmot) showed up at White Ladies in Shropshire seeking shelter. White Ladies was once a priory, but after the dissolution of the monasteries (over a hundred years earlier), the site passed to private ownership, and a farm house had been built beside the crumbling priory. In 1651, the Giffard family owned White Ladies and the surrounding area, including Boscobel House, a hunting lodge several miles away. 

White Ladies arch;
by Nilfanion - Wikimedia UK, CC BY-SA 4.0

A distant cousin of the Giffards, Major Charles Giffard, happened to be one of Charles’s companions, and as dawn approached, led the party to White Ladies where they could take shelter. Major Giffard knew his kin were loyal to the King and would gladly open their doors to receive their monarch, but when they arrived there, they discovered that the Giffards were not in residence. Instead, they were welcomed by their servants, John Penderel, his wife Joan and his brother George.

It was George who answered the knock, in his night shirt and cap. I can imagine his surprise when he answered the summons only to find the rightful heir to the British throne on the door step. There was likely a great deal of gaping involved. John Penderel had more presence of mind and welcomed the weary party into the parlour, where his wife passed out refreshments of sack and biscuits.

A few hours later, John sent a lad, Bart Martin, to fetch his brothers. The oldest Penderel, William, was the caretaker of Boscobel House, while Richard (also known as Trusty Richard) lived nearby in Hobbal Grange with their mother. The last Penderel brother, Humphrey, was also fetched.

Meanwhile, Charles’s party debated what they were to do and where to go. Word had reached them that one of the King’s generals, David Leslie, had been spotted in the area with three thousand of his men. Most were in favour of joining forces with Leslie in order to reach Scotland, but Charles flatly refused. General Leslie had not committed his reserve troops in the battle which was one of the factors in their defeat. In the end, the party agreed that those who wanted to leave should go, while Charles would make his own way, to where, no one was to be told. Secretly, Charles had made arrangements with Lord Wilmot to meet him in London, should either of them make it, but the implication was that each man would be getting there on their own.

Charles remained with the Penderels while the rest of his comrades left. Good thing, because later that morning, those who had left were all captured not far from White Ladies along with Leslie’s two thousand men!

Word reached the Penderels, and there was no time to waste. They had to somehow hide the King before the dragoons made a sweep of the area, as they would surely do. The Penderels scrounged up a coarse noggin shirt, a green suit and leather doublet for Charles. William, being the tallest, cobbled together rough shoes from his own footwear, the trick being that Charles’s feet were considerably bigger than William’s. 

Charles II at White Ladies, by Isaac Fuller
National Portrait Gallery NPG 5247
via Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

Hiding him would be a challenge. They couldn’t risk having Charles found at White Ladies, and they were expecting that the dragoons would insist on searching the house when they came, so Richard Penderel took Charles to a nearby coppice to hide. There the two men sat, in miserably wet weather. Richard had the presence of mind to beg blankets and provisions from his brother-in-law, Francis Yates, another Royalist.

Soon the militia arrived, and they were combing the woods looking for more of Leslie's men. In their hiding spot, they could see the militia beating the woods looking for more of Leslie’s men. By some bizarre twist (a fiction writer couldn’t get away with this), the rain only fell on the section where Richard and Charles hid. Instead of continuing their search, the poor weather chased them away.

I like to believe that it was here, soaked to the bone and having had a narrow escape, that Richard convinced Charles not to try for London and instead to ferry over the Severn and cross into Wales. From there, he could reach a port and arrange passage to the Continent.

They waited for night to descend before setting out on foot. Half-way between Bridgenorth and Shewsbury, around midnight, they came upon Evelith Mill and found a miller standing in the doorway of his mill, his white shirt visible in the dark. Richard warned Charles not to speak, as he didn’t have the manners or accents of a country fellow. When the miller heard them approach, he stepped out and challenged them:

“Who goes there?” the miller demanded.
“Neighbours going home,” Richard said.
And being disagreeable and belligerent, the miller said, “If you be neighbours, stand, or I will knock you down.”

Then from inside the mill, a burst of laughter erupted, and not knowing who the miller was entertaining, nor wanting to take any chances, Richard and Charles dashed for the gate leading to a “dirty lane up a hill.”

The miller screamed, “Rogues! Rogues!” and men ran out of the mill to investigate. Not knowing if they were soldiers, Richard and Charles dove over a hedge and hid in a ditch. They waited for half an hour to make sure they weren’t being chased.

Richard had to quickly concoct Plan B. He knew of an old Catholic gentleman, Francis Wolfe, who lived not far in Madeley and who would give them shelter for the rest of the night. If you recall, Richard’s nickname was Trusty Richard and he lived up to his monicker. When Wolfe asked who his companion was, anyone else would have made up an alias, but not Trusty Richard Penderel. He blurted the truth. I imagine Charles had a few bad moments until he realized Richard’s trust had not been misplaced. Wolfe was completely overwhelmed and pledged his aid to the king. Unfortunately, the only place he could safely keep them was his barn. Madeley had a number of priest holes but they had been found out and so weren’t safe to hide a cat in them, but who would ever think to hide a king in a barn?

The next morning, while Charles rested in his loft, Richard scouted the situation ahead. Bad news. All the ferry crossings were being watched by Cromwell’s men. There was no choice than to return back to the Giffard’s estate. After a simple meal of cold meat, Wolfe darkened Charles’s hands with walnut oil to make him look more weathered. Just before midnight, Richard and Charles set out again, this time for Boscobel House. 

Boscobel House
By Oosoom at Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

They arrived at 3am and found another Worcester with William Penderel. Major Carlis (also Careless) came from the area and knew the Giffards and their servants. But now there were two of them to hide. In the morning, William came up with another creative solution. All the priest’s holes in Boscobel had been previously uncovered so the house was not safe. William’s solution was to hide the men in plain sight, and he put them up in an oak tree. William had been tending the trees for years, and besides being sturdy, they were very thick and bushy at the top. 

The Royal Oak at Boscobel
By Oosoom at Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

Up Carlis and Charles went into the tree (thereafter known as the Boscobel tree, or the Royal Oak), and the Penderels handed up a basket full of bread, cheese and ale for them to pass the time. While the two men hid in the tree, the Penderels kept close to the area, going about their wooding duties. 

Imagine how William would have felt when the militia showed up, to once again scour the area for fugitives. The militia passed right under the Boscobel tree, not once looking up. As an aside, a descendent of the original oak still lives on the property.

The next day, being Sunday, William kept the fugitives indoors, and Charles spent his time eating mutton and reading. His poorly shod feet were blistered and sore, and he could barely walk on them. Mistress Penderel personally bathed his feet. Remembering the trouble at the mill, the Penderels also took this time to coach Charles as to how to speak with a country accent.

Later that afternoon, John Penderel came to Boscobel to say that he had made arrangements for Charles to travel to the next safe house, Moseley Old Hall in Wolverhampton, the home of Thomas Whitgreave. Since Charles was still suffering with his feet and he couldn’t walk, Humphrey Penderel fetched his mill horse for Charles.

Charles left Boscobel with all five Penderels along for company. Along the way, Charles’s horse stumbled and Humphrey quipped, it was “not to be wondered at, for it had the weight of three kingdoms upon its back.”

In the wee hours, the Penderel brothers safely delivered Charles Stuart to Moseley Old Hall, where they commended him to the care of his new host, Thomas Whitgreave. He was one step closer to freedom.

Epilogue

When Charles Stuart was restored to his throne in 1660, he did not forget the Penderels. To Trusty Richard, the King bestowed an annual pension of one hundred pounds to be paid to him and his descendants in perpetuity. The other Penderels also received a pension, though a lesser amount. To this day, Penderel descendants are still receiving their share of the annuity.

Oak Apple Day is celebrated on the anniversary of Charles's birthday, with sprigs of oak leaves in honour of the Boscobel tree.

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Cryssa Bazos is an award winning historical fiction writer and 17th century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. Her debut novel, Traitor's Knot, is published by Endeavour Press and placed 3rd in 2016 Romance for the Ages (Ancient/Medieval/Renaissance). For more stories, visit her blog cryssabazos.com.

Connect with Cryssa on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter (@CryssaBazos), Instagram and her Website.

Traitor's Knot is available on Amazon in eBook and paperback.

Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales

By Cryssa Bazos

When people think of Charles II of England, they usually think of Charles the Merry Monarch. Yet there was more to this intelligent man than the number of mistresses (and illegitimate children) he had. His life was defined by war, loss, and exile, and in the end, restoration. He fought to reclaim his father’s throne during one of the most tumultuous and complex times in English history. To understand who he was before becoming the Merry Monarch, allow me to introduce his early years when he was still the Prince of Wales.

Charles Stuart by Philippe de Champaigne

Charles was the eldest son and heir of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria (sister to Louis XIII of France). His grandfather, King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) united the crowns of Scotland and England upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Charles was born on May 29, 1630 in St. James’s Palace in London, and as the story goes, a bright star shone in the afternoon sky to mark his birth. Ironically, this star was Venus.

Charles took after his mother’s French heritage, with his dark looks. Henrietta Maria called him her ‘black boy', though not with affectionate fondness. Whereas most mothers are often blind to their children’s ‘imperfections’, Henrietta Maria was hypersensitive. Shortly after Charles’s birth, Henrietta wrote about her son to a former nanny, “he is so fat and so tall…I will send you his portrait as soon as he is a little fairer, for at present he is so dark I am ashamed of him.” Charles never became fair, but at 6’2” he fulfilled the promise of exceptional height.

The Children of Charles I

Over the next several years, Charles was joined by a clutch of brothers and sisters in order of birth: Mary (later Princess of Orange), James (King James II & VII), Anne, Elizabeth, Henry (Duke of Gloucester), and Henrietta (Duchess of Orleans, but known affectionately as Minette). He was particularly close to his brother James, who ultimately ascended the throne after him. The two had experienced the upheaval of the civil war together, and even when James later converted to Catholicism, Charles supported his decision even though it was politically inconvenient. Some have attributed Charles’s deathbed conversion to Catholicism as having signalled his support for his brother on the eve of James’s ascension to the throne.

When Charles was eight, he was given over to the care and education of William Cavendish, then Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Cavendish was a notable horseman and the father of dressage. A long-time political player from a wealthy family, he instilled in Charles the gift to see men for what they were and the ability to work with them according to their talents. He also fostered in Charles a love of horsemanship.

Charles’s keen wit came through even at this young age. Having a strong aversion to taking physic, he wrote a clever note to Cavendish, which also demonstrated his affection for his guardian:

“My Lord, I would not have you take too much physic, for it doth always make me worse, and I think it will do the like with you. I ride every day, and am ready to follow any other directions from you. Make haste to return to him that loves you. Charles, P.”

Charles had a very different personality than his stubborn father. Had he been king during this time, war may very well have been avoided, and with it, years of bloodshed.

But civil war did break out, and Charles’s idyllic childhood came to an abrupt end in 1642 when Parliament raised an army against his father. Charles was given a titular captaincy and a troop of horse named after him, the Prince of Wales Regiment. At this time, his dashing cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, came to lead his Majesty’s horse, and the young Charles looked up to his cousin as any impressionable twelve-year old would.

During the first major battle of the war (Edgehill), Charles should never have been anywhere near the fighting, and yet typically, he was and had a close shave with the enemy. His safety, and that of his brother James, was entrusted to the famous physician, Dr. William Harvey. In later years, the doctor became celebrated for documenting the circulation of blood, but at this moment, with two armies clashing on a field, the good doctor withdrew with his charges to the shelter of a hedgerow and the comforts of an absorbing book. The fighting heated and now being too close for comfort, Charles and his brother fled across a field to reach the safety of a barn. An enemy troop of horse saw the pair running, and without realizing who they were, gave chase. Fortunately, another Royalist troop headed off the enemy cavalry before they could capture the King’s sons, thereby avoiding a checkmate.

A History of England

In March 1645, Charles had been named Captain-General of his father’s forces in the west and was stationed in Bristol, relying on Edward Hyde as one of his chief advisors. Charles has always proved loyal to those who had shown him loyalty; years later when he won back his throne, he elevated Hyde to Chancellor and bestowed upon him an earldom.

By June 1645, the war had turned against the King. Following their defeat at Naseby, the Royalist army was in shambles. It soon became necessary to send Charles to the west where he would be safer from the threat of Parliament. As well, plague was becoming a threat in Bristol. Charles and his retinue left Bristol and travelled west to Barnstaple, and in September, continued to Cornwall. But by the spring of 1646, the mainland was not safe for the King’s heir, and he was forced to sail for the Isles of Scilly and then to Jersey.

iStock Photos

Sailing across the Channel to Jersey flared Charles’s sense of adventure. While on board the privateer, the Proud Black Eagle, he took the helm for a time. His ship was forced to flee from a fleet of Parliamentary ships, but they managed to safely sail into Jersey harbour.

Clearly this made an impression on him, for when he needed to come to his father’s aid, he chose to do it on the water. In 1648, one of the king’s supporters in Scotland, the Duke of Hamilton, raised an army for the King who was a prisoner of Parliament by this time. Wanting to be in readiness to join in the fray, Charles left France for Holland with a small fleet under his command. With some degree of schadenfreude, he happened to chance upon a naval mutiny in the Parliamentary fleet. Ten ships put aside their officers and placed themselves under Charles’s command. From there, Charles and his expanded fleet sailed for the Downs.

In the Channel, while waiting for favourable news on land, he played the privateer (or pirate, depending on your perspective). Things did not always go well for the Pirate Prince. His fleet suffered from internal divisions and a betrayal from some of the Prince’s supporters (though it was thwarted). Even the weather conspired against him. Just as his ships were geared to engage against the Parliamentary fleet, a fierce storm drove them apart. Unfortunately, rescuing the King was not in the cards, and Cromwell defeated Hamilton’s army.

One thing bore fruit from Charles’s Channel runs, an act of respect that paid dividends three years later. One of the prizes he seized was a ship captained by Nicholas Tattersell. Charles readily released the ship, which was no small relief to Tattersell. Years later, when Charles was a desperate fugitive with a reward of a thousand pounds offered for his capture, his last hope for finding passage on a ship ended up with Tattersell. Though Charles dressed and acted like a commoner, Tattersell had not forgotten the man who had captured his ship—nor did he forget that the Prince had promptly released it to him. Tattersell agreed to help Charles and spirited Charles safely to France.

And finally, one of my favourite stories of Charles involves the carte blanche. Before his father’s execution on January 29, 1649, after Parliament had tried and found the King guilty, the story goes that Charles sent a carte blanche (a blank piece of paper with his signature) to Parliament so that they could fill in their own terms for sparing his father’s life. If true, the ramifications to Charles were enormous.

Did it actually happen or is it a 19th century fabrication or error? I like to believe in its veracity, not only because it is his signature that appears on the bottom of this blank document, but also is entirely in keeping with the nature and character of Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales.

References:

Memoirs of the Court of Charles the Second, Anthony Hamilton

Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe: Excerpt From: Lady Anne Harrison Fanshawe.

Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War, by John Stubbs

Carte Blanche, by T. C. Skeat 

BCW Project


Media attributions:

Charles Stuart: By Philippe de Champaigne - Europicture.de, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

The Children of Charles I of England, by Sir Anthony van Dyck in 1637, Wikimedia Commons

A history of England from the landing of Julius Caesar to the present day (1913): Internet Archive Book Images via Visual hunt / No known copyright restrictions

Charles II signature: By Connormah, Charles II [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Cryssa Bazos is a historical fiction writer and 17th Century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War (ECW). For more stories about the English Civil War and the 17th Century, visit her blog.