uttered this unkingly and unmanly
falsehood, his fixed purpose was to depart before daybreak. Already he
had entrusted his most valuable moveables to the care of several foreign
Ambassadors. His most important papers had been deposited with the
Tuscan minister. But before the flight there was still something to be
done. The tyrant pleased himself with the thought that he might
avenge himself on a people who had been impatient of his despotism by
inflicting on them at parting all the evils of anarchy. He ordered the
Great Seal and the writs for the new Parliament to be brought to his
apartment. The writs which could be found he threw into the fire. Those
which had been already sent out he annulled by an instrument drawn up
in legal form. To Feversham he wrote a letter which could be understood
only as a command to disband the army. Still, however, the King
concealed his intention of absconding even from his chief ministers.
Just before he retired he directed Jeffreys to be in the closet early on
the morrow; and, while stepping into bed, whispered to Mulgrave that the
news from Hungerford was highly satisfactory. Everybody withdrew except
the Duke of Northumberland. This young man, a natural son of Charles the
Second by the Duchess of Cleveland, commanded a troop of Life Guards,
and was a Lord of the Bedchamber. It seems to have been then the custom
of the court that, in the Queen's absence, a Lord of the Bedchamber
should sleep on a pallet in the King's room; and it was Northumberland's
turn to perform this duty.

At three in the morning of Tuesday the eleventh of December, James rose,
took the Great Seal in his hand, laid his commands on Northumberland not
to open the door of the bedchamber till the usual hour, and disappeared
through a secret passage; the same passage probably through which
Huddleston had been brought to the bedside of the late king. Sir Edward
Hales was in attendance with a hackney coach. James was conveyed to
Millbank, where he crossed the Thames in a small wherry. As he passed
Lambeth he flung the Great Seal into the midst of the stream, where,
after many months, it was accidentally caught by a fishing net and
dragged up.

At Vauxhall he landed. A carriage and horses had been stationed there
for him; and he immediately took the road towards Sheerness, where a
boy belonging to the Custom House had been ordered to await his arrival.
[574]

CHAPTER X

The Flight of James known; great Agitat