e for two hours, like besiegers in the approaches to a
town, the balls passing over their heads harmlessly, though sometimes
covering them with the earth which they threw up as they bounded by.
At length the tide began to ebb, and the vice-admiral was in danger of
being left aground. He weighed his anchors and withdrew, and the queen
and her party were relieved. Such a cannonading of a helpless and
defenseless woman is a barbarity which could hardly take place except
in a civil war.

The queen rejoined her husband, and she rendered him essential service
in many ways. She had personal influence enough to raise both money
and men for his armies, and so contributed very essentially to the
strength of his party. At last she returned to the Continent again,
and went to Paris, where she was still actively employed in promoting
his cause. At one of the battles in which the king was defeated, the
Parliamentary army seized his baggage, and found among his papers his
correspondence with the queen. They very ungenerously ordered it to be
published, as the letters seemed to show a vigorous determination on
the part of the king not to yield in the contest without obtaining
from the Parliament and their adherents full and ample concessions to
his claims.

As time rolled on, the strength of the royal party gradually wasted
away, while that of Parliament seemed to increase, until it became
evident that the latter would, in the end, obtain the victory. The
king retreated from place to place, followed by his foes, and growing
weaker and more discouraged after every conflict. His son, the Prince
of Wales, was then about fifteen years of age. He sent him to the
western part of the island, with directions that, if affairs should
still go against him, the boy should be taken in time out of the
country, and join his mother in Paris. The danger grew more and more
imminent, and they who had charge of the young prince sent him first
to Scilly, and then to Jersey--islands in the Channel--whence he made
his escape to Paris, and joined his mother. Fifteen years afterward he
returned to London with great pomp and parade, and was placed upon the
throne by universal acclamation.

At last the king himself, after being driven from one place of refuge
to another, retreated to Oxford and intrenched himself there. Here he
spent the winter of 1646 in extreme depression and distress. His
friends deserted him; his resources were expended; his hopes were
e