Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
1864.
The circumstances which I am about to relate to my juvenile readerstook place in the year 1647. By referring to the history of England, ofthat date, they will find that King Charles the First, against whom theCommons of England had rebelled, after a civil war of nearly fiveyears, had been defeated, and was confined as a prisoner at HamptonCourt. The Cavaliers, or the party who fought for King Charles, had allbeen dispersed and the Parliamentary army under the command of Cromwellwere beginning to control the Commons.
It was in the month of November in this year that King Charles,accompanied by Sir John Berkely, Ashburnham, and Legg, made his escapefrom Hampton Court, and rode as fast as the horses could carry themtoward that part of Hampshire which led to the New Forest. The kingexpected that his friends had provided a vessel in which he mightescape to France, but in this he was disappointed. There was no vesselready, and after riding for some time along the shore, he resolved togo to Titchfield, a seat belonging to the Earl of Southampton. After along consultation with those who attended him, he yielded to theiradvice, which was, to trust to Colonel Hammond, who was governor of theIsle of Wight for the Parliament, but who was supposed to be friendlyto the king. Whatever might be the feelings of commiseration of ColonelHammond toward a king so unfortunately situated, he was firm in hisduties toward his employers, and the consequence was that King Charlesfound himself again a prisoner in Carisbrook Castle.
But we must now leave the king and retrace history to the commencementof the civil war. A short distance from the town of Lymington, which isnot far from Titchfield, where the king took shelter, but on the otherside of Southampton Water, and south of the New Forest, to which itadjoins, was a property called Arnwood, which belonged to a Cavalier ofthe name of Beverley. It was at that time a property of considerablevalue, being very extensive, and the park ornamented with valuabletimber; for it abutted on the New Forest, and might have been supposedto have been a continuation of it. This Colonel Beverley, as we mustcall him, for he rose to that rank in the king's army, was a valuedfriend and companion of Prince Rupert, and commanded several troops ofcavalry. He was ever at his side in the brilliant charges made by thisgallant prince, and at last fell in his arms at the battle of Naseby.Colonel Beverley had married into the family of the Villiers, and theissue of his marriage was two sons and two daughters; but his zeal andsense of duty had induced him, at the commencement of the war, to leavehis wife and family at Arnwood, and he was fated never to meet themagain. The news of his death had such an effect upon Mrs. Beverley,already worn with anxiety on her husband's account, that a few monthsafterward she followed him to an early tomb, leaving the four childrenunder the charge of an elderly relative, till such time as the familyof the Villiers could protect them; but, as will appear by our history,this was not at that period possible. The life of a king and many otherlives were in jeopardy, and the orphans remained at Arnwood, stillunder the care of their elderly relation, at the time that our historycommences.
The New Forest, my readers are perhaps aware, was first inclosed byWilliam the Conqueror as a royal forest for his own amuse