362

CHAP.

X.

1683 .

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

inflamed their fury. His park was in the neighbourhood; andat that very moment a band of rioters was employed in pilla-ging his house and shooting his deer. The multitude assuredthe King that they would not hurt him: but they refused tolet him depart. It chanced that the Earl of Winchelsea, aProtestant, but a zealous royalist, head of the Finch family,and a near kinsman of Nottingham, was then at Canterbury.As soon as he learned what had happened he hastened to thecoast, accompained by some Kentish gentlemen. By theirintervention the King was removed to a more convenientlodging: but he was still a prisoner. The mob kept constantwatch round the house to which he had been carried; and someof the ringleaders lay at the door of his bedroom. Ilis de-meanour meantime was that of a man, all the nerves bf whosemind had been broken by the load of misfortunes. Some-times he spoke so haughtily that the rustics who had charge ofhim were provoked into making insolent replies. Then hebetook himself to supplication. “Let me go,” he cried; “ getme a boat. The Prince of Orange is hunting for my life. Ifyou do not let me fly now, it will be too late. My blood willbe on your heads. He that is not with me is against me.” Onthis last text he preached a sermon half an hour long. Heharangued on a strange variety of subjects, on the dis-obedience of the fellows of Magdalene College, on themiracles wrought by Saint Winifred’s well, on the disloyaltyof the black coats, and on the virtues of a piece of the truecross which he had unfortunately lost. “What have I done?”he demanded of the Kentish squires who attended him. “ Tellme the truth. What error have I committed?” Those towhom he put these questions were too humane to return theanswer which must have risen to their lips, and listened to hiswild talk in pitying silence.*

When the news that he had been stopped, insulted,roughly handled, and plundered, and that he was still a pri-soner in the hands of rude churls, reached the capital, many

* Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 251. Orig. Mem.; Letter printed inTindal's Continuation of Rapin. This curious letter is in the Ilarl. MSS.6852.