due guard, and Parliament Commissioners, keep watch ‘for the security of his Majesty.’ In the Army, his Majesty’s real purpose becoming now apparent, there has arisen a very terrible ‘Levelling Party’; a class of men demanding punishment not only of Delinquents, and Deceptive Persons who have involved this Nation in blood, but of the ‘Chief Delinquent’: minor Delinquents getting punished, how should the Chief Delinquent go free? A class of men dreadfully in earnest;—to whom a King’s Cloak is no impenetrable screen; who within the King’s Cloak discern that there is a Man, accountable to a God! The Chief Officers, except when officially called, keep distant: hints have fallen that his Majesty is not out of danger.—In the Commons Journals this is what we read:
‘Friday 12th November 1647. A Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell, of 11th November, twelve at night, was read; signifying the escape of the King; who went away about 9 o’clock yesterday’ evening.[1]
Cromwell, we suppose, lodging in head-quarters about Putney, had been roused on Thursday night by express That the King was gone; had hastened off to Hampton Court; and there about ‘twelve at night’ despatched a Letter to Speaker Lenthall. The Letter, which I have some confused recollection of having, somewhere in the Pamphletary Chaos, seen in full, refuses to disclose itself at present except as a Fragment:
“FOR THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LENTHALL, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: THESE”
“Hampton Court, Twelve at night,
11th Nov. 1647.”
“Sir”—* * * * Majesty * * withdrawn himself * * at nine o’clock.
The manner is variously reported; and we will say little of it at present, but That his Majesty was expected at supper,
- ↑ Commons Journals, v. 356.
