When the King saw himself thus forsaken, not only by those whom he had trusted and favoured most, but even by his own children, the army in the last distraction, the country on every side revolting, and the city in an ungovernable fermentation, he called a general meeting of all the Privy Councillors and Peers in town to ask their advice and what was fit to be done. The general advice was that he should send commissioners to the Prince to treat with him, which, though sore against the King's inclination, the dejection he was in and the desperate state of his affairs made him consent to. The persons appointed were the Marquis of Halifax, the Earl of Nottingham, and the Lord Godolphin; and when they had waited on the Prince at Hungerford, desiring to know what it was that he demanded, after a day's consultation with those who were about him, he returned answer "that he desired a Parliament might be presently called, and no one continued in any employment who would not qualify himself according to law; that the Tower of London might be put in the keeping of the City, and the fleet and all strong places in the hands of Protestants; that the armies on both sides might not, while the Parliament was sitting, come within twenty miles of London; that a proportion of the revenue might be set apart for the payment of the Prince's army, and himself allowed to come to London with the same number of guards that the King had." These were the Prince's demands, which, when the King read, he owned more moderate than he expected; but before they came to his hands he had engaged himself in other resolutions. The priests and all violent Papists, who saw that a treaty with the Prince would not only ruin their whole design, but expose them as a mark and sacrifice to the malice of their enemies, persuaded the Queen that she would certainly be impeached, that witnesses would be set up against her and her son, and that nothing but violence could be expected. With these suggestions they wrought upon her fear so far, that she not only resolved to go to France herself, and take the child with her, but prevailed with the King likewise to follow her in a few days. The Queen went down to Portsmouth, and from thence in a man-of-war went over to France, taking along with her the midwife and those who were concerned in her son's birth, who not long after were all so disposed of that it never could be yet learned what became of them; and on the 10th of December, about three in the morning, the King went away in disguise with Sir Edward Hales, whose servant he pretended to be. They passed the river, throwing the Great Seal into it, which was afterwards found by a fisherman near Vauxhall, and in a miserable fisher-boat, which Hales had provided to carry them over to France, when, not having gone far, some fishermen of Feversham, who were watching for priests and such other delinquents as they fancied were making their escape, came up to them, and knowing Sir Edward Hales,