troubled time. On hearing which Colonel Bamfield was filled with
dismay; but, knowing that at heart the people were loyal towards
the Stuarts, he confided the identity of his passenger, and
begged him not to betray them in this hour of peril. To give his
appeal further weight, he promised the fellow a considerable sum
if they safely reached the frigate; for human nature is weak, and
greed of gold is strong. On this, the bargee, who was a loyal
man, promised he would help them to the best of his powers; the
lights were therefore extinguished, the oars drawn in, and, the
tide fortunately answering, the barge glided noiselessly down
under cover of night, and passed the block-house unobserved. In
good time they reached the frigate, which, the duke and Colonel
Bamfield boarding, at once set sail, and in a few days landed
them at Middleburgh. James proceeded to the court of his sister,
the Princess of Orange, and later on joined his mother in France.

At the age of twenty he served in the French army, under Turenne,
against the Spanish forces in Flanders, and subsequently in
several campaigns, where he invariably showed himself so brave
and valiant that the Prince de Conde declared that if ever there
was a man without fear, it was James, Duke of York. Now it
happened that in 1658 the Princess of Orange went to Paris in
order to visit the queen mother, as the widow of Charles I. was
called. The Duke of York was in the gay capital at this time,
and it soon became noticed that he fixed his attention overmuch
on one of his sister's maids of honour, Anne Hyde. This
gentlewoman, then in her twenty-first year, was the possessor of
a comely countenance, excellent shape, and much wit. Anne was
daughter of Edward Hyde, a worthy man, who had been bred to the
law, and proved himself so faithful a servant to Charles I., that