It was owing to the indefatigable exertions of Henrietta, that the king had been enabled to meet his opponents in the field.  During her residence in

[Footnote 1:  See Clarendon’s Life, 76-80; Whitelock, 68; and the letters in the king’s works, 138-140.  Before Henrietta left England, he had promised her to give away no office without her consent, and not to make peace but through her mediation.  Charles, however, maintained that the first regarded not offices of state, but offices of the royal household; and the second seems to have been misunderstood.  As far as I can judge, it only meant that whenever he made peace, he would put her forward as mediatrix, to the end that, since she had been calumniated as being the cause of the rupture between him and his people, she might also have in the eyes of the public the merit of effecting the reconciliation.—­Clarendon’s Life, ibid.] [a]Holland she had repeatedly sent him supplies of arms and ammunition, and, what he equally wanted, of veteran officers to train and discipline his forces.[b] In February, leaving the Hague, and trusting to her good fortune, she had eluded the vigilance of Batten, the parliamentary admiral, and landed in safety in the port of Burlington, on the coast of Yorkshire.[c] Batten, enraged at his disappointment, anchored on the second night, with four ships and a pinnace, in the road, and discharged above one hundred shot at the houses on the quay, in one of which the queen was lodged.[d] Alarmed at the danger, she quitted her bed, and, “bare foot and bare leg,” sought shelter till daylight behind the nearest hill.  No action of the war was more bitterly condemned by the gallantry of the Cavaliers than this unmanly attack on a defenceless female, the wife of the sovereign.  The earl of Newcastle hastened to Burlington, and escorted her with his army to York.  To have pursued her journey to Oxford would have been to throw herself into the arms of her opponents.  She remained four months in Yorkshire, winning the hearts of the inhabitants by her affability, and quickening their loyalty by her words and example.[1]

During the late treaty every effort had been made to recruit the parliamentary army; at its expiration, Hampden, who commanded a regiment, proposed to besiege the king within the city of Oxford.  But the ardour of the patriots was constantly checked by the caution of the officers who formed the council of war.  Essex invested Reading; at the expiration of ten days[e]

[Footnote 1:  Mercurius Belgic.  Feb. 24.  Michrochronicon, Feb. 24, 1642-3.  Clarendon, ii. 143.  According to Rushworth, Batten fired at boats which were landing ammunition on the quay.]

[Sidenote a:  Chap.I.A.D. 1643] [Sidenote b:  1643 Feb. 16.] [Sidenote c:  1643 Feb. 22.] [Sidenote d:  1643 Feb. 24.] [Sidenote e:  1643 April 27.]

it capitulated; and Hampden renewed his proposal.  But the hardships of the siege had already broken the health of the soldiers; and mortality and desertion daily thinned their numbers, Essex found himself compelled to remain six weeks in his new quarters at Reading.