“Thank God you are here, my Lord Ashburnham,” the king said.  “Fortune is always so against me that I feared something might occur to detain you.  Ha!  Master Furness, I am glad to see so faithful a friend.”

The king and Major Legg now mounted, and the little party rode off.  Their road led through Windsor Forest, then of far greater extent than at present.  Through this the king acted as guide.  The night was wild and stormy, but the king was well acquainted with the forest, and at daybreak the party, weary and drenched, arrived at Sutton, in Hampshire.  Here they found six horses, which Lord Ashburnham had on the previous day sent forward, and mounting these, they again rode on.  As the sun rose their spirits revived, and the king entered into conversation with Ashburnham, Berkeley, and Harry as to his plans.  The latter was surprised and disappointed to find that so hurriedly had the king finally made up his mind to fly that no ship had been prepared to take him from the coast, and that it was determined that for the time the king should go to the Isle of Wight.  The governor of the Isle of Wight was Colonel Hammond, who was connected with both parties.  His uncle was chaplain to the king, and he was himself married to a daughter of Hampden.  It was arranged that the king and Major Legg should proceed to a house of Lord Southampton at Titchfield, and that Berkeley and Lord Ashburnham should go to the Isle of Wight to Colonel Hammond, to find if he would receive the king.  Harry, with his followers, was to proceed to Southampton, and there to procure a ship, which was to be in readiness to embark the king when a message was received from him.  Agents of the king had already received orders to have a ship in readiness, and should this be done, it was at once to be brought round to Titchfield.

“This seems to me,” Jacob said, as, after separating from the king, they rode to Southampton, “to be but poor plotting.  Here has the king been for three months at Hampton Court, and could, had he so chosen, have fixed his flight for any day at his will.  A vessel might have been standing on and off the coast, ready to receive him, and he could have ridden down, and embarked immediately he reached the coast.  As it is, there is no ship and no arrangement, and for aught he knows he may be a closer prisoner in the Isle of Wight than he was at Hampton, while both parties with whom he has been negotiating will be more furious than ever at finding that he has fooled them.  If I could not plot better than this I would stick to a scrivener’s desk all my life.”

It was late in the afternoon when they rode into Southampton.  They found the city in a state of excitement.  A messenger had, an hour before, ridden in from London with the news of the king’s escape, and with orders from Parliament that no vessel should be allowed to leave the port.  Harry then rode to Portsmouth, but there also he was unable to do anything.  He heard that in the afternoon the king had crossed