of the
confessors and martyrs of the primitive church than a disciple of our
own, nurtured in the lap of carnal security, with little show of
either zeal or devotion.

"Your Highness must depart--but whither?" said she, with an anxious
and inquiring glance directed to the minister.

"Take no thought for their safety; thy constancy hath earned their
deliverance. My safe-conduct will carry them unharmed beyond the reach
of their enemies; but let them not return. It is at their own peril if
they be found again harboured in this vicinage, and their blood be on
their own heads!"

They departed, and the subsequent history of the gallant Rupert is
well known. He joined the king at Oxford, and helped him to retrieve
his defeat at Newbury, bringing off his artillery left at Dunnington
Castle in the very face of the enemy. At the decisive Battle of Naseby
we find him performing feats of extraordinary valour; but, as before,
his headlong and precipitate fury led him into the usual error; and
though the loss of the battle was not to be attributed entirely to his
imprudence, yet a little more caution would have altered materially
the results of that memorable conflict. Harassed and dispirited, he
threw himself with the remainder of his troops into Bristol, intending
to defend it to the last extremity; but even here his constitutional
fortitude and valour seemed to forsake him: a poorer defence was not
made by any town during the whole war, and the general expectations
were extremely disappointed. No sooner had the Parliamentary forces
entered the lines by storm, than the Prince capitulated, and
surrendered the place to General Fairfax. A few days before, he had
written a letter to the King, in which he undertook to defend it for
four months, if no mutiny obliged him to surrender it. Charles, who
was forming schemes and collecting forces for the relief of the city,
was astonished at so unexpected an event, which was little less fatal
to his cause than the defeat at Naseby. Full of indignation, he
instantly recalled all Prince Rupert's commissions, and sent him a
pass to go beyond sea.

Several years afterwards we find him in command of a squadron of
ships, entrusted to him by Charles II, when an exile in Normandy.
Admiral Blake received orders from the Parliament to pursue him.
Rupert, being much inferior in force, took shelter in Kinsale, and
escaping thence, fled toward the coast of Portugal. Blake pursued and
chased him into