There were other schemes, one to seek refuge in Sir John Oglander's House, in the Isle of Wight; and there was a talk of a ship being ordered to be somewhere ready for him; but when the escape was made, it appeared to have been just as ill contrived as all the rest of Charles's escapes. Ashburnham and Berkeley had contrived to meet the king in the evening in the gallery of Hampton Court, and settled the mode of escape. It was the king's custom, on the Mondays and Thursdays, to write letters for the foreign post, and in the evenings he left his bedchamber between five and six o'clock and went to prayers, and thence to supper. On one of these evenings, Thursday, the 11th of November, Whalley, finding the king much later than usual in leaving his chamber, became uneasy, went thither, and found him gone. On the table he had left some letters, one to the Parliament, another to the Commissioners, and a third to Colonel Whalley. In the letter to the Parliament he said liberty was as necessary to kings as others; that he had endured a long captivity in the hope that it might lead to a good peace, but that, as it did not, he had withdrawn himself; that, wherever he might be, he should earnestly desire a satisfactory agreement without further bloodshed, and was ready to break through his cloud of retirement and show himself the father of his country whenever he could be heard with honour, freedom, and safety. [Illustration: CARISBROOKE CASTLE, ISLE OF WIGHT. (_From a photograph by F. G. O. Stuart, Southampton._)] It appeared that he had escaped by way of Paradise, a place so called in the gardens; his cloak was found lying in the gallery, and there were tramplings about a back gate leading to the waterside. Legge accompanied him down the backstairs, and Ashburnham and Berkeley joined them at the gate. The night was dark and stormy, which favoured their escape. They crossed the river at Thames Ditton, and made for Sutton, in Hampshire, where they had horses in readiness. Why they had not provided horses at a nearer point does not appear. In the night they lost their way in the forest, and reaching Sutton only at daybreak, and hearing that a county committee on Parliamentary business was sitting there, they got out their horses, and rode away towards Southampton.