They
retired, and the next morning received passports to go where they pleased.
But it was now[a] time for the king himself to depart. The enemy's forces
multiplied around Newark, and the Scots were advancing to join the
blockade. In the dead of the night[b] he stole, with five hundred men, to
Belvoir Castle; thence, with the aid of experienced guides, he threaded the
numerous posts of the enemy; and on the second day reached, for the last
time,[c] the walls of Oxford. Yet if he were there in safety, it was owing
to the policy of the parliament, who deemed it more prudent to reduce the
counties of Devon and Cornwall, the chief asylum of his adherents. For this
purpose Fairfax, with the grand army, sat down before Exeter: Cromwell
had long ago swept away the royal garrisons between that city and the
metropolis.[1]
The reader will have frequently remarked the king's impatience for the
arrival of military aid from Ireland. It is now time to notice the
intrigue on which he founded his hopes, and the causes which led to his
disappointment. All his efforts to conclude a peace with the insurgents
had failed through the obstinacy of the ancient Irish, who required as an
indispensable
[Footnote 1: Clarendon, ii. 719-723. Rushworth, vi.
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