At Boscobel he found Colonel Careless, one of those devoted adherents who, to aid his escape from Worcester, had charged the enemy at the opposite gate.  Careless had often provoked, and as often eluded, the resentment of the Roundheads; and experience had made him acquainted with every loyal man, and every place of concealment, in the country.  By his persuasion Charles consented to pass the day[b] with him amidst the branches of an old and lofty oak.[1] This

[Footnote 1:  This day Humphrey Penderell, the miller, went to Skefnal to pay taxes, but in reality to learn news.  He was taken before a military officer, who knew that Charles had been at Whiteladies, and tempted, with threats and promises, to discover where the king was; but nothing could be extracted from him, and he was allowed to return.—­Boscobel, 55.  This, I suspect, to be the true story; but Charles himself, when he mentions the proposal made to Humphrey attributes it to a man, at whose house he had changed his clothes.—­Account from the Pepys MS. p. 9.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1651.  Sept. 5.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1651.  Sept. 6.]

celebrated tree, which was afterwards destroyed to satisfy the veneration of the Cavaliers, grew near to the common path in a meadow-field, which lay in the centre of the wood.  It had been partially lopped a few years before, and the new shoots had thrown round it a thick and luxuriant foliage.  Within this cover the king and his companion passed the day.  Invisible themselves, they occasionally caught a glimpse of the red-coats (so the soldiers were called) passing among the trees, and sometimes saw them looking into the meadow.  Their friends, William Penderell and his wife, whom Charles called my dame Joan, stationed themselves near, to give warning of danger; he pretending to be employed in his duty as woodward, and she in the labour of gathering sticks for fuel.  But there arose no cause of immediate alarm; the darkness of the night relieved them from their tedious and irksome confinement; and Charles, having on his return to the house examined the hiding-place, resolved to trust to it for his future security.[1]

The next day, Sunday,[a] he spent within doors or in the garden.  But his thoughts brooded over his forlorn and desperate condition; and the gloom on his countenance betrayed the uneasiness of his mind.  Fortunately in the afternoon he received by John Penderell a welcome message from Lord Wilmot, to meet him that night at the house of Mr. Whitgrave, a recusant, at Moseley.  The king’s feet were so swollen and blistered by his recent walk to and from Madeley,

[Footnote 1:  Careless found means to reach London, and cross the sea to Holland, where he carried the first news of the king’s escape to the princess of Orange.  Charles gave him for his coat of arms, by the name of Carlos, an oak in a field, or, with a fesse, gules, charged with three royal crowns, and for his crest a crown of oak leaves, with a sword and sceptre, crossed saltierwise.—­Boscobel, 85.]