“That is all that I learnt from Lancaster, save that instructions have been given that no pains should be spared to secure the persons of those engaged in the plot, and that a special watch was to be set at the northern ports, lest they should, finding their guilt discovered, try to escape from the kingdom.  So you see that your good father, Sir Marmaduke, is in a state of sore peril, and that the rest of us, including yourself, will be in a like strait if they can lay hands on us.”

“But it is all false!” Charlie exclaimed.  “It is a lie from beginning to end.”

“That is so, but we cannot prove it.  The matter is so cunningly laid, I see no way to pick a hole in it.  We are Jacobites, and as such long regarded as objects of suspicion by the Whig magistrates and others.  There have been other plots against William’s life, in which men of seeming reputation have been concerned.  This man’s story will be confirmed by the man who set him on, and by other hidden papers, if necessary.  As to the discovery of the documents, we may know well enough that the fellow himself put them there, but we have no manner of proof of it.  It is evident that there is nothing for us but to leave the country, and to await the time when the king shall have his own again.  My other friends, who were with me this afternoon when the news came from Lancaster, all agreed that it would be throwing away our lives to stay here.  We all have money by us, for each has, for years, laid by something for the time when money will be required to aid the king on his arrival.

“Having agreed to take this course, we drew up a document, which we all signed, and which will be sent in when we have got clear away.  In it we declare that being informed that accusations of being concerned in a plot against the life of William of Orange have been brought against us, we declare solemnly before God that we, and also Sir Marmaduke Carstairs and his son, are wholly innocent of the charge, and that, although we do not hesitate to declare that we consider the title of the said William to be king of this realm to be wholly unfounded and without reason, and should therefore take up arms openly against it on behalf of our sovereign did occasion offer, yet that we hold assassination in abhorrence, and that the crime with which we are charged is as hateful in our sight as in that of any Whig gentleman.  As, however, we are charged, as we learn, by evilly disposed and wicked persons, of this design, and have no means of proving our innocence, we are forced to leave the realm until such time shall arrive when we can rely on a fair trial, when our reputation and honour will weigh against the word of suborned perjurers and knaves.