In the morning, we are told, Charles rose early and, ‘near the secret place where he lay, had the convenience of a Gallery to walk in where he was observed to spend some time in his Devotions.’ Later he came down and helped to fry mutton collops, Major Careless having gone to a neighbouring fold and secretly procured a sheep. He stayed at Boscobel for most of the day on Sunday. One contemporary account reports that he sat down to a dish of chicken, was shaved and had his hair trimmed more ‘as short at the top as the scissors would do it, but leaving some about the ears, according to the Country mode.’ For his bed ‘a little Pallet was put in the secret place’ – the priest hole in the attic.
On that Saturday evening at Boscobel, Charles enjoyed considerably more comfort than he had experienced since fleeing Worcester. The soldiers left and at dusk Charles and Careless returned to the house. While we were in the tree we see soldiers going up and down in the thickest of the wood searching for persons escaped, we seeing them now and then peeping out of the woods. And there we sat all the day.Īt White Ladies the pursuing soldiers had been confident of having their man ‘within a day or two’, and as Charles and Careless sheltered in the oak, Cromwell’s troops drew close. … got up into a great oak that had been lopped some 3 or 4 years before and so was grown out very bushy and thick not to be seen through.
Second and charles jobs how to#
He told me that it would be very dangerous either to stay in the house or go into the wood (there being a great wood hard by Boscobel) and he knew but one way how to pass all the next day and that was to get up into a great oak in a pretty plain place where we could see round about us for they would certainly search all the wood for people that had made their escape.
The king’s account, dictated 30 years later to Samuel Pepys, records their decision: They resolved to head out on foot once more under cover of darkness – this time heading for Boscobel House, a mile from White Ladies.Ĭharles consulted with William Careless, another fugitive staying at the house. Their hopes of reaching Wales dashed, Richard and Charles were forced to turn back. They reached the house of a trusted ally in a town called Madeley, but learned that the Severn was heavily guarded. At one point they were forced to run down a country lane and hide behind a hedge after being challenged by the miller at Evelith Mill. Charles practised his disguise, learning from Richard a country fellow’s speech and manner of walking – a ‘lobbing jobsons gate’, as one 17th-century writer describes it. They decided to cross the river Severn into Wales and from there sail to France.Īs soon as it was dark Charles and Richard set out on foot. They stayed there through a long, wet day – reportedly with just a blanket to sit on and a ‘mess of milk and some butter and eggs’ – and planned an escape. The other troops left and Richard Penderel, the eldest of five brothers summoned to the house, led Charles out to a wood. Shears were produced and the long, dark royal locks cropped short. At White Ladies, Charles’s coat and breeches were removed and he was dressed in country clothes: green breeches, a leather doublet, a coarse hemp shirt and an old grey hat.
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