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He could not then countermand the Rendezvous; but at once he detached Whalley and his horse-regiment, to gallop to Holmby, take Colonel Graves's place, and see that no harm was done. By that time, however, Joyce had completed his business.
A certain cornet, of the name of JOICE, arrived at Holmby House one night, attended by four hundred horsemen, went into the King's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in the other, and told the King that he had come to take him away. The King was willing enough to go, and only stipulated that he should be publicly required to do so next morning.
The cornet then said that his orders were to take the king away with him. The king declined going, unless the commissioners went too. The cornet made no objection, saying that the commissioners might do as they pleased about accompanying him, but that he himself must go. The party set off from Holmby and traveled two days, stopping at night at the houses of friends to their cause.
Always through the night at Holmby a light was kept burning in the King's chamber, in the form of a wax-cake and wick inside a large silver basin on a low table by the bed, on which also were placed the King's two watches and the silver bell with which he called his grooms. Hist. III. 551 and 557-9; Clar. 608; but chiefly Herbert's Memoirs, 15-25, 61-65, 124-126, and 131.
Herbert mentions that Dum spiro spero was a favourite motto with Charles, inscribed by him on many books. Of course there were continued negotiations between Charles and the Parliament. Anything done in this way, however, during the four months of the stay at Holmby, hardly deserves notice.
As early as Wednesday June 2, or two days before the Rendezvous at Newmarket, there had been a suspicious appearance of parties of horse gathering to a body near Holmby.
There was at this time, at a town called Holmby or Holdenby, in Northamptonshire, a beautiful palace which was known by the name of Holmby House. King Charles's mother had purchased this palace for him when he was the Duke of York, in the early part of his life, while his father, King James, was on the throne, and his older brother was the heir apparent.
He had been in various posts of Parliamentary employment, procured for him by Philip, Earl of Pembroke; but, having accompanied that Earl when he went to Newcastle as one of the Commissioners to take charge of the King, he had attracted the King's regard, so that, on the dismissal of some of the King's attendants at Holmby, he was selected to be one of the grooms of the bedchamber.
Others, such as Kate Coventry , a very lively and agreeable book, mix sport with general character and manners-painting. Others, such as Holmby House , The Queen's Maries , etc., attempt the historical style. The danger of the kind showed less in them than in some imitators of a lower class, of whom Captain Hawley Smart was the chief, and a chief sometimes better than his own followers.
I suspect that, whatever Cromwell and Ireton may have privately sanctioned, the thing was managed among the Agitators; and it does not seem impossible that the original design was to seize Graves at Holmby, quash his supposed plotting there with Lord Dunfermline, and take possession of the King for the Army without removing him.
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