Meantime the party were anxiously waiting at the inn; but it afterwards appeared that the man who had been engaged, going home to change his linen, confided to his wife the nature of his commission.  This alarmed her exceedingly, as that very day a proclamation had been issued announcing dreadful penalties against all who should conceal the Prince or any of his followers; and the woman was so terrified that when her husband went into the chamber to change his linen she locked the door, and would not let him come out.  Charles and his friends were greatly disappointed, but they were obliged to make the best of it, and stayed at the inn all night.  Early in the morning Charles was advised to leave, as rumours were circulating in the village; and he and one or two others rode away to Bridport, while Lord Wilton stayed at the inn, as his horse required new shoes.  He engaged the ostler at the inn to take his horse to the smithy, where Hamnet the smith declared that “its shoes had been set in three different counties, of which Worcestershire was one.”  The ostler stayed at the inn gossiping about the company, hearing how they had sat up with their horses saddled all the night, and so on, until, suspecting the truth, he left the blacksmith to shoe the horse, and went to see the parson, whom Charles describes as “one Westly,” to tell him what he thought.  But the parson was at his morning prayers, and was so “long-winded” that the ostler became tired of waiting, and fearing lest he should miss his “tip” from Lord Wilton, hurried back to the smithy without seeing the parson.  After his lordship had departed, Hamnet the smith went to see Mr. Westly—­who by the way was an ancestor of John and Charles Wesley—­and told him the gossip detailed to him by the ostler.  So Mr. Westly came bustling down to the inn, and accosting the landlady said:  “Why, how now, Margaret! you are a Maid of Honour now.”

“What mean you by that, Mr. Parson?” said the landlady.

“Why, Charles Stewart lay last night at your house, and kissed you at his departure; so that now you can’t be but a Maid of Honour!”

Margaret was rather vexed at this, and replied rather hastily, “If I thought it was the King, I should think the better of my lips all the days of my life; and so you, Mr. Parson, get out of my house!”

Westly and the smith then went to a magistrate, but he did not believe their story and refused to take any action.  Meantime the ostler had taken the information to Captain Macey at Lyme Regis, and he started off in pursuit of Charles; but before he reached Bridport Charles had escaped.  The inn at Charmouth many years afterwards had been converted into a private house, but was still shown to visitors and described as the house “where King Charles the Second slept on the night of September 22nd, 1652, after his flight from the Battle of Worcester,” and the large chimney containing a hiding-place was also to be seen there.

[Illustration:  OMBERSLEY VILLAGE:  “THE KING’S ARMS,” WHERE CHARLES II RESTED DURING HIS FLIGHT AFTER THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER, 1652.]