I have withheld this return too long; of which I am by so much the more ashamed, by how much I found yours so full of kindness. I will pretend to no excuse; but if your good nature will suggest, that the deep sense of my afflictions doth so oppress my spirits, as it renders me altogether indisposed to the least intercourse, you will be charitable, and take me right.

Would you believe, that, to my sorrows for the sufferings of our dear master the King, and the danger of the public, the generality of men in this kingdom (and probably in many other parts too) should charge me with the scandal of having betrayed his Majesty into the Isle of Wight, and that by compact with the Parliament and Army before his departure from Hampton Court? And,

to obtain belief the better, have digested that their calumny into this form; that I did conspire with them to affright his Majesty away from thence, that they might have the better opportunity, being at a greater distance from London, to destroy him; which to effect, the nearness of that place made it very difficult, if not impossible; and that my reward for this service hath been a great sum of money? Thus from several hands. Which reproach, though I never deserved, and take myself to be very much above any thing of that kind: yet since there is no person, ambitious to acquire or preserve an honest reputation, but is awake, and always carries about him a tenderness to the least prejudice or diminution thereof; I cannot but be touched with some sense of that unhappy report, and give you, in whose good esteem I am much concerned, the true state of my part in that action, so far as may enable you to satisfy, if you meet with him, the most malicious person against me.

That I was commanded by their Majesties and the Prince's Highness to return into England, with instructions to endeavour, by the best means imaginable, such a compliance between his Majesty and the Army, as might have influence, and beget a right understanding between his Majesty and the Parliament, is a truth well known. That

my infirmities are so great, and so public, as that it had been better for their service to have given that employment to some other of more eminent endowments, I do acknowledge with great humility. But that I did fulfil that trust with all industry and fidelity to their Majesties, I appeal to God and them, and do not doubt but I have my portion of favour, and stand still numbered in the catalogue of those subjects, whom they are yet pleased to stile faithful.

What passed between me and any member either of the Parliament or Army, as it will not at all advantage his Majesty's affairs to relate, so will it not any way conduce to my vindication. This word I shall only let fall, that a wiser man than I, or whoever is my greatest censurer, would and ought to have given credit to them, when power and interest, accompanied with large expressions of good will, were the arguments and motives, to gain belief of their real intentions. Nay truly, though his Majesty had known they intended nothing less than the performance of those duties to their sovereign and country, I cannot find (I know not what a quicker sighted man might have done) how in prudence his Majesty could have pursued any other interest, or made any other application than what he did, considering the power under which he was: which shall serve by

way of glance at my part of negotiation in general, because even therein likewise I am not without some prejudices in many men's conceptions.

Some few weeks before his Majesty's remove from Hampton Court, there was scarce a day, in which several alarms were not brought to his Majesty, by and from very considerable persons (both well affected to him, and likely to know much of what was then in agitation) of the resolution, which a violent party in the Army had to take away his life and that such a design there was, there were strong inducements to perswade; and I hope charity will be afforded to those many, who were, and still are of that belief, since I confess myself to be of that number. Which practice seemed to his Majesty the more probable, for that many other particulars, which were said in those informations to precede that action, fell out accordingly.* Whereupon his Majesty thought it not wisdom longer to despise the possible means left him for the prevention of that danger; and therefore resolved to retire himself from thence, but with this positive intention, not to desert this kingdom, either by crossing the seas, or going into Scotland. The reasons his

* "There was not" (in Ashburnham's Apology)

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any clear

"relation of any probable inducement that prevailed with the King to undertake that journey." Lord Clarendon.