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Into this the youthful prince was led by Richard Penderell, one of the brothers. It was now broad day. Through the forest went the two seeming peasants, to its farther side, where a broad highway ran past. Here, peering through the bushes, they saw a troop of horse ride by, evidently not old soldiers, more like the militia who made up part of Cromwell's army.
They gone, the loyal master of Whiteladies sent for certain of his employees whom he could trust. These were six brothers named Penderell, laborers and woodmen in his service, Catholics, and devoted to the royal family. "This is the king," he said to William Penderell; "you must have a care of him, and preserve him as you did me." Thick woodland adjoined the mansion of Whiteladies.
By the earl of Derby's directions, he went to Boscobel, a lone house in the borders of Staffordshire, inhabited by one Penderell, a farmer. To this man Charles intrusted himself.
Cotton, a Catholic recusant and royalist. There he was received and secreted by William Penderell and his wife, the servants entrusted with the care of the mansion; and having recovered his strength, was conducted by the former to the royal army at Worcester. Clarendon, iii. 399, 403. Memoirs of the Stanleys, 112-114. Journals, Aug. 29. Leicester's Journal, 116. Boscobel, 6-8.
At a village near by lived an honest gentleman named Woolfe, who had hiding-places in his house for priests. Day was at hand, and travelling dangerous. Penderell proposed to go on and ask shelter from this person for an English gentleman who dared not travel by day. "Go, but look that you do not betray my name," said the prince.
Penderell left his royal charge in a field, sheltered under a hedge beside a great tree, and sought Mr. Woolfe's house, to whose questions he replied that the person seeking shelter was a fugitive from the battle of Worcester. "Then I cannot harbor him," was the good man's reply. "It is too dangerous a business. I will not venture my neck for any man, unless it be the king himself."
Fortunately in the afternoon he received by John Penderell a welcome message from Lord Wilmot, to meet him that night at the house of Mr. Whitgrave, a recusant, at Moseley. The king's feet were so swollen and blistered by his recent walk to and from Madeley,
Their friends, William Penderell and his wife, whom Charles called my dame Joan, stationed themselves near, to give warning of danger; he pretending to be employed in his duty as woodward, and she in the labour of gathering sticks for fuel.
Penderell led the way to a dense glade, where he spread a blanket which he had brought with him under one of the most thick-leaved trees, to protect the prince from the soaked ground. Hither his sister, Mrs. Yates, brought a supply of food, consisting of bread, butter, eggs, and milk. Charles looked at her with grateful eyes.
The flour-sprinkled fellow heard their footsteps in the darkness, and called out, "Who goes there?" "Neighbors going home," answered Richard Penderell. "If you be neighbors, stand, or I will knock you down," cried the suspicious miller, reaching behind the door for his cudgel. "Follow me," said Penderell, quietly, to the prince. "I fancy master miller is not alone."
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