all others out of the way at the instant of his Majesties arrival All which after a while answered their desires even beyond their expectation Between nine and ten the next morning the Colonel and his Lady walking towards the fields adjoining to the house espied the King riding before Mrs Lane and Mr Lassels in their company Assoon as his Majesty came near the Colonel He called to him Frank Frank 〈◊〉 how dost thou do By which gracious pleasance the Colonel perceived that though his Majesties habit and countenance were much changed yet his Heroick spirit was the same and his mind immutable The Colonel to avoid the jealous eyes of some neighbours instantly conveyed the King and Mrs Lane into the Lady Wyndham's Chamber where the passions of Joy and Sorrow did a while combat in them who beheld his Sacred Person For what loyal Eye could look upon so Glorious a Prince thus eclypsed and not pay unto him the homage of tears But the consideration of his Majesties safety the gracious words of his own mouth confuting the sad reports of his untimely death together with the hope of his future preservation soon dried them up In al short time the Colonel brought the Lord Wilmot to the King and then the Ladies withdrew into the Parlour having first agreed to call Mrs Lane Cousin and to entertain her with the same familiarity as if she had been their near Relation That day she stayed at Trent and the next morning early Mr Lassels and she departed His Majesty after he had refreshed himself commanded the Colonel in the presence of the Lord Wilmot to propose What way he thought most probable for his Escape into France for thither he desired with all speed to be transported The Colonel the King giving him this opportunity entertained and encouraged his Majesty with this remarkable passage of Sir Thomas Wyndham his Father Who not long before his death in the Year 1636 called unto him his five Sons having not seen them together in some years before and discoursed unto us said he of the long Peace and Prosperity this Kingdom had enjoyed under its Three last Glorious Monarchs Of the the many Miseries and Calamities which lay sore upon our Ancestors by the several Invasions and Conquests of Forein Nations and likewise by Intestine Insurrections and Rebellions And notwithstanding the strange mutations and Changes in England He shewed how it pleased God in love to our Nation to preserve an undoubted Succession of Kings to sit in the Regal Throne He mentioned the healing Conjunction of the two Houses of York and Lancaster and the blessed Vnion of the two Crowns of England and Scotland stopping up those fountains of Blood which by National feuds and quarrels kept open had like to have drowned the whole Island He said he feared the beautiful garment of Peace would shortly be torn in pieces through the Neglect of Magistrates the general Corruption of manners and the prevalence of a Puritanical faction which if not prevented would undermine the very pillars of Government My sons We have hitherto seen serene and quiet Times but now prepare your selves for cloudy and troublesom I command you to honour and obey our Gracious Soveraign and in all times to adhere to the Crown and though the Crown should hang upon a Bush I charge you forsake it not These words being spoken with much earnestness both in gesture and manner extraordinary he arose from his chair and left us in a deep consultation what the meaning should be of The Crown hanging upon a Bush These words Sir said the Colonel made so firm an impression in all our breasts that the many afflictions of these sad Times cannot raze out their undelible characters Certainly these are the days which my Father pointed out in that Expression And I doubt not God hath brought me through so many dangers that I might shew my self both a dutiful Son and a loyal Subject in faithfully endeavouring to serve your Sacred Majesty in this your greatest Distress After this Rehearsal the Colonel in obedience to his Majesties command told the King That Sir John Strangways who had given many testimonies of his loyalty having two Sons both of them Colonels for his Royal Father lived but four miles from Trent That he was a person of great fortune and interest in Dorsetshire and therefore he supposed that either Sir John or his Sons might be serviceable to his Majesties occasions The King in prosecution of this proposal commanded the Colonel to wait on them and accordingly the next morning he went over to Melbury the place where Sir John dwelt No sooner was he come thither but he met with Colonel Giles Strangways and after usual salutations they walked into the Park adjoyning to the house where Colonel Wyndham imparted the reason and end of his present Visit Colonel Strangways his answer was That he was infinitely grieved because he was not able to serve his Majesty in procuring a Vessel according to expectation That he knew not any one Master of a Ship or so much as one Mariner that he could trust All that were formerly of his acquaintance in Weymouth being for their loyalty banished and gone beyond the sea and in Pool and Lime he was a meer stranger having not one Confident in either A hundred pounds in Gold he delivered to Colonel Wyndham to present to the King which at his return by command was deposited in the hands of the Lord Wilmot for his Majesties use About this time the Forces under Cromwell were retreated from Worcester into the several Quarters of the Country some of which coming to Trent proclaimed the Overthrow of the Kings Army and the Death of the King giving out that he was certainly killed And one of them affirmed that he saw him dead and that he was buried among the rest of the slain no injury being offered to his body because he was a Valiant Soldier and a Gallant man This welcome News so tickled the Sectaries that they could not hold from expressing their joy by making Bonfires firing of Guns Drinking and other jollities And for a close of all to the Church they must and there ring the Kings knell These rude Extravagancies moved not his Majesty at all but onely as if he were more troubled for their madness than his own misfortune to this most Christian and compassionate Expression Alas poor people Now though the King valued not the menaces of his proud Enemies being confident they could do him no hurt yet he neglected not to try the faithfulness of his Friends to convey him out of their reach Thus the former design proving unsuccessful and all hope of Transfretation that way being laid aside the Colonel acquainted his Majesty that one Captain William Ellesden of Lime formerly well known unto him with his Brother John Ellesden by means of Colonel Bullen Reymes of Wadden in Dorsetshine had conveyed over into France Sir John Berkley now Lord Berkley in a time of
CLAVSTRVM REGALE RESERATVM or The Kinges Concealment at Trent published by A. W. In vmbrâ alarum tuarum sperabo donec transeat iniquitas LONDON Printed for Will Nott at the Queens Arms in the Pell Mell. 1667. P. Williamson fecit TO THE QUEEN'S Most Excellent MAJESTY THis little Book having obtained liberty after a long Imprisonment to walk abroad prostrates it self at Your Majesties feet for patronage and protection In it Your Majesty may behold GOD's wonderful Mercy and Providence in keeping and preserving our Gracious Soveraign from the hands of His Enemies when they so pleased themselves with the hopes of seising His Sacred Person after the Battel of Worcester As they had invented and prepared new ways to afflict His Majesty such as till then never entred into the hearts of the worst of Tyrants before them But it pleased God to frustrate the hopes and designs of the Kings Adversaries and to restore His Majesty to His Fathers Throne Which that He may long enjoy with Your Majesty in Health Peace and Happiness Is and shall be the prayers of Your MAJESTIE's Most obedient and most Faithful Servant ANNE WYNDHAM Claustrum Regale Reseratum OR The KING'S Concealment AT TRENT HOw that after the Battel of Worcester His Sacred Majesty most wonderfully escaped the hands of his blood-thirsty Enemies and under a Disguise in the company of Mrs Jane Lane safely arrived at Abbots-Leigh in Somersetshire the seat of Sir George Norton lying near to the City of Bristol hath been fully published unto the World His Majestie 's Journey from thence to the house of Colonel Francis Wyndham at Trent in the same County his Stay there his Endeavour though frustrate to get over into France his Return to Trent his final Departure thence in order to his happy Transportation are the subject of this present Relation A Story in which the Constellations of Providence are so refulgent that their light is sufficient to confute all the Atheists of the world and to enforce all persons whose faculties are not pertinaciously depraved to acknowledge a watchful Eye of GOD from above looking upon all Actions of Men here below making even the most wicked subservient to his just and glorious designs And indeed whatsoever the Antients fabled of Gyges's Ring by which he could render himself Invisible or the Poets fancied of their Gods who usually carried their chief Favourites in the Clouds and by drawing those aerial Curtains did so conceal them that they were heard and seen of none whilst they both heard and saw others is here most certainly verified For the Almighty so closely covered the King with the wing of his Protection and so clouded the Understanding of his cruel Enemies that the most piercing Eye of Malice could not see nor the most Barbarously-bloody Hand offer Violence to his Sacred Person God smiting his pursuers as once he did the Sodomites with blindness who with as much eagerness sought to sacrifice the Lords Anointed to their fury as the other did to prostitute the Angels to their lust But before the several Particulars of this Story are laid open two Questions easily foreseen which will be readily asked by every Reader call for an Answer The one is Why this Relation so much expected so much longed for has been kept up all this while from publick view And the other How it comes to pass that now it takes the liberty to walk abroad Concerning the first it must be known that a Narrative of these Passages was by especial command from his Majesty written by the Colonels own hand immediately after the Kings return into England which being presented to his Majesty was laid up in his Royal Cabinet there to rest for some time it being the Kings pleasure for reasons best known to his Sacred self that it should not then be published And as his Majesties command to keep it private is a satisfactory answer to the first so his licence now obtained that it might travel abroad may sufficiently resolve the second question But besides this many prevalent reasons there are which plead for a publication the chief of which are briefly these That the implacable Enemies of this Crown may be for ever silenced and ashamed who having neither Law nor Religion to patronize their unjust undertakings construed a bare Permission to be a Divine Approbation of their Actions and taking the Almighty to be such a one as themselves blasphemously entitled God to be the Author of all their wickedness But the arm of God stretched out from heaven to the rescue of the King cutting off the clue of their Success even then when they thought they had spun up their thred hath not left them so much as an apron of fig-leaves to cover the nakedness of their most shameful proceedings The next is That the Truth of his Majesties Escape being minced by some mistaken by others and not fully set forth by any might appear in its native beauty and splendor That as every dust of gold is gold and every ray of light is light so every jot and title of Truth being Truth not one grain of the treasure nor one beam of the lustre of this Story might be lost or clouded it being so rare so excellent that aged Time out of all the Archives of Antiquity can hardly produce a Parallel Singularly admirable indeed it is if we consider the Circumstances and Actors The Colonel who chiefly designed and moved in this great Affair could not have had the freedom to have served his Majesty had he not been a Prisoner his very Confinement giving him both a liberty and protection to act For coming home from Weymouth upon his Parole he had the opportunity to travel freely and safely without fear of being stopped and taken up And being newly removed from Sherborne to Trent the jealous eye of Somersetshire Potentates had scarce then found him out whose malevolent Aspect afterwards seldom suffered him to live at home and too too often furnished his house with very unwelcom guests Others who contributed their assistance were persons of both sexes and of very different conditions and qualities And although their endeavours often proved successless though they received discouragements on one hand were terrified with threats on the other That a seal of silence should be imprinted upon the lips of Women who are become proverbial for their garrulity That faithfulness and constancie should guard the hearts of Servants who are usually corrupted with rewards or affrighted with punishments That neither Hope nor Fear most powerful passions heightned by Capital animadversions proclaimed against All that should conceal and large Remunerations promised to such as should discover the King could work nothing upon any single person so as to remove him or her from their respective duty but that all should so harmoniously concenter both in the Design and also afterward keep themselves so long close shut up under the lock of secrecy that nothing could be discovered by the most exquisite art and
These reasons joined with his Majesties command prevailed with his Lordship and though he thought it a bold adventure yet it not only allayed the fury but also took out the very sting of those wasps insomuch that they who the last night talked of nothing but searching began now to say that Cromwell's late success against the King had made the Colonel a Convert All being now quiet about home the Colonels Lady under a pretence of a Visit goes over to Sherborn to hear what news there was abroad of the King And towards evening at her return a Troop of horse clapt privately into the town This silent way of entring their Quarters in so triumphant a time gave a strong alarm to this careful Lady whose thoughts were much troubled concerning her Royal Guest A stop she made to hearken out what brought them thither and whither they were bound But not one grain of Intelligence could be procured by the most industrious enquiry When she came home she gave his Majesty an account of many stories which like flying clouds were blown about by the breath of the people striving to cover her trouble with the vail of cheerfulness But this the King perceiving to be rather forced then free as at other times was earnest to know the cause of her discomposure And to satisfie his Majesties importunity she gave him a full relation of the Troop at Sherborn At which his Majesty laughed most heartily as if he had not been in the least concerned Yet upon a serious debate of the matter the Colonel and his Lady supplicated the King to take a view of his Privy chamber into which he was perswaded to enter but came presently forth again much pleased that upon the least approach of danger he could thither retreat with an assurance of security All that night the Colonel kept strict watch in his house and was the more vigilant because he understood from Sherborn that the Troop intended not to quarter there but only to refresh themselves and march And accordingly not so much as looking towards Trent about two of the clock next morning they removed towards the Sea-coast This fear being over the King rested all the time of his stay at Trent without so much as the apprehension of a disturbance The strangeness of which will be much increased by the addition of what a Captain who served under Cromwell at Worcester reported to two Divines of undoubted veracity long before the King 's blessed Restauration That he was followed and troubled with Dreams for three nights together That the King was hid at Trent near Sherborn in a house nigh to which stood a Grove or patch of trees and that thither he should go and find him This suggestion thus reiterated was a powerful spur to prick him forwards But the hand which held the reins and kept him back was irresistible Now the hands of his Majesties enemies were not only restrained from doing him evil but the hands of his friends were strengthened to do him good In order to which Colonel Eward Phelips of Montacute in the County of Somerset came from Sarum to his Majesty Septemb. 28. with this intelligence That his brother Colonel Robert Phelips was employed to Southampton to procure a Vessel of whose transaction his Majesty should receive a speedy account In the mean time Captain Thomas Littleton a Neighbour of Colonel Wyndham was dispatch'd up into Hampshire where by the aid of Mr. Standish he dealt with the Master of a Ship who undertook to carry off the Lord Wilmot and his company upon the condition his Lordship would follow his direction But the hope of Colonel Phelips his good success at Hampton dash'd this enterprise and the Captain was remanded to Trent and to make no progress till farther order Upon the first of October Mr. John Sellick Chaplain to Mr. Coventry brought a Letter to his Majesty In answer to which the King wrote back That he desired all diligence might be used in providing a Vessel and if it should prove difficult at Hampton trial should be made farther That they should be ascertained of a Ship before they sent to remove him that so he might run no more hazards then what of necessity he must meet with in his passage from Trent to the place of his Transportation October the fifth Colonel Phelips came from the Lord Wilmot and Mr. Coventry to his Majesty with this assurance That all things were ready And that he had informed himself with the most private ways that so he might with greater probability of safety guide his Majesty to the Sea-side Assoon as the King heard this message He resolved upon his Journey Colonel Wyndham earnestly petitions his Majesty that he might wait on him to the shore But his Majesty gave no grant saying It was no way necessary and might prove very inconvenient Upon the renewing his request the King commanded the contrary but sweetned his denial with this promise That if he were put to any distress he would again retreat to Trent About ten next morning October the sixth his Majesty took leave of the old Lady Wyndham the Colonels Lady and Family not omitting the meanest of them that served him But to the good old Lady he vouchsafed more then an ordinary respect who accounted it her highest honour that she had three Sons and one Grandchild slain in the defence of the Father and that she her self in her old age had been instrumental in the protection of the Son Both Kings of England Thus his Sacred Majesty taking Mrs Juliana Coningsby behind him attended by Colonel Robert Phelips and Peters bade Farewel to Trent the Ark in which God shut him up when the Floods of Rebellion had covered the face of his Dominions Here he rested Nineteen days to give his faithful Servants time to work his deliverance And the Almighty crowned their endeavours with success that his Majesty might live to appear as Glorious in his Actions as Couragious in his Sufferings FINIS