when the Commissioners and Colonel Whalley missed him; upon which they entered the Room:—they found his Majesty had left his cloak behind him in the Gallery in the Private Way. He passed, by the back stairs and vault, towards the Water-side.
He left some Letters upon the table in his withdrawing room, of his own handwriting; whereof one was to the Commissioners of Parliament attending him, to be communicated to both Houses, “and is here enclosed.” * * *
We do not give his Majesty’s Letter ‘here enclosed’: it is that well-known one where he speaks, in very royal style, still every inch a King, Of the restraints and slights put upon him, —men’s obedience to their King seeming much abated of late. So soon as they return to a just temper, ‘I shall instantly break through this cloud of retirement, and show myself ready to be Pater Patriæ,’—as I have hitherto done.
The Ports are all ordered to be shut; embargo laid on ships. Read in the Commons Journals again ‘Saturday 13th Nov. Colonel Whalley was called in; and made a particular Relation of all the circumstances concerning the King’s going away from Hampton Court. He did likewise deliver-in a Letter directed unto him from Lieutenant-General Cromwell, concerning some rumours and reports of some design of danger to the person and life of the King: The which was read. Ordered, That Colonel Whalley do put in writing the said Relation, and set his hand to it; and That he do leave a Copy of the said Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell.’[2]
Colonel Whalley’s Relation exists; and a much fuller Relation and pair of Relations concerning this Flight and what preceded and followed it, as viewed from the Royalist
