2. II.
TAILOR TURNED SOLDIER.
There was no mistaking the face or figure of this
singular person who thus came at a critical moment to
decide the fate of the king. I recognized at a glance
the important look, the nose in the air, the short figure,
and the free-and-easy air of the ex-tailor of London,
who had dropped his civil garb for the uniform of a
cornet in the Cromwellian Independents.
Joyce rode straight up to the great portal, dismounted,
and, walking on the points of his feet to increase his
stature, head raised and nose elevated as before, gave
a thundering knock.
“Your pleasure?” said the leader of the troop which
had escorted the king, appearing at the door and confronting
Joyce.
“To see Charles Stuart, formerly King of England,”
was the reply, in a consequential voice.
“From whom do you come?”
“Where is Charles Stuart?”
“He is not at leisure to see you.”
Joyce turned to his men.
“Attention!” he said. “Get ready to fire through
this door!”
“Are you mad?” cried the officer.
Joyce quietly gave an order to his men, and they
leveled their musquetoons at the door.
“Hold!” said the officer. “His majesty shall himself
decide whether he will grant you an interview.”
The officer closed the door as he spoke, and ascended
to the apartment occupied by the king. Joyce had
quietly walked up behind him, and entered the room at
the same moment. In his hand was a cocked pistol.
“It is hard to obtain audience, it seems, in this
house,” he said, consequentially.
The king was half indignant, half amused, at sight
of this unceremonious personage.
“Who are you?” he said.
“It is enough, sir, that you must come with me,”
was the reply.
“Whither?”
“To the army.”
“The army! By what warrant?”
Joyce pointed through the window to his men, drawn
up, armed, and ready.
“There is my warrant,” he said.
The king smiled, and seemed to yield to the comedy
of the occasion.
“Your warrant is writ in fair characters, and legible
without spelling,” he said. “But here are the worshipful
commissioners of parliament, sir. Be pleased,
gentlemen, to decide this affair, as I am not in a condition
to make my authority respected.”
The grave commissioners entered as the king spoke,
and the foremost said to Joyce, coldly,—
“Have you orders from parliament to carry away
the king?”
“No,” said Joyce.
“From the general?”
“No.”
“By what authority, then, do you come?”
“By my own authority.”
The commissioners frowned.
“We will write to the parliament to know their
pleasure,” said the leading commissioner.
Joyce turned to the king.
“You will prepare to go with me immediately, sir,”
he said.
“We protest against this outrage!” came from the
commissioner.
“So be it; and you can write to parliament. Meanwhile,
the king must go with me.”
And, turning to the officer, he said,—
“If the king has a coach, order it. I will set out
in half an hour.”
Turning his back, the important functionary thereupon
went out of the room and down-stairs, where he
mounted again and drew up his men in order of battle.
A stormy discussion followed; but there was no
means of resisting. The guard stationed at Holmby
House to watch the king were seen laughing and talking
with Joyce's men, their army comrades. The
commissioners yielded, the king entered his coach,
and the vehicle, followed by the troop led by Joyce,
rapidly rolled away. I had been made prisoner anew
by the redoubtable ex-tailor. Mounted on horseback,
I trotted along scarcely observed in the party. Two
days' journey brought us to Cambridge, and thence—
the people crowding along the route to be touched by
his majesty for the king's evil—the captive was conducted
to Hampton Court.
Strange fate of the fallen monarch, to return thus to
the scene of his happiness and power! At Hampton
Court he had spent the serenest hours of his life. Here
he had basked in the smiles of his beautiful queen and
shared the gambols of his innocent children; here he
had reigned a king, only to return to the place a poor
prisoner, disarmed and doomed to destruction!
