in pursuit of this strange flight, which had a crown for its
object. If I had been able to reach London before him,
without doubt the prize of the race would have been mine;
but he overtook me at Worcester.

"The genius of England was no longer with us, but with him.
On the 5th of September, 1651, sire, the anniversary of the
other battle of Dunbar, so fatal to the Scots, I was
conquered. Two thousand men fell around me before I thought
of retreating a step. At length I was obliged to fly.

"From that moment my history became a romance. Pursued with
persistent inveteracy, I cut off my hair, I disguised myself
as a woodman. One day spent amidst the branches of an oak
gave to that tree the name of the royal oak, which it bears
to this day. My adventures in the county of Stafford, whence
I escaped with the daughter of my host on a pillion behind
me, still fill the tales of the country firesides, and would
furnish matter for ballads. I will some day write all this,
sire, for the instruction of my brother kings.

"I will first tell how, on arriving at the residence of Mr.
Norton, I met with a court chaplain, who was looking on at a
party playing at skittles, and an old servant who named me,
bursting into tears, and who was as near and as certainly
killing me by his fidelity as another might have been by
treachery. Then I will tell of my terrors -- yes, sire, of
my terrors -- when, at the house of Colonel Windham, a
farrier who came to shoe our horses declared they had been
shod in the north."