A touching expression of Royalist sympathy occurs in the parish register of Woodford, in the county of Essex, where there is recorded a collection for the benefit of Charles' chaplains and servants, about a year after his death. Their claims were urged in a petition which stated that the King's domestics, to the number of forty, were in great distress, and that their means of support out of his revenues were still detained, so that they could in nowise maintain either themselves, their wives, or their families, and therefore they sought the charity of all good Christians.[23] [Sidenote: _Scotch Treaty with Charles._] Charles Stuart was in Holland at the time of his father's execution. The Scotch estates, as early as the 5th of February, shewed their loyalty to the Stuarts by proclaiming the Prince of Wales to be their King. Robert Baillie here again comes to our assistance, and we find him writing in February, 1649, to his cousin Spang, then sojourning at the Hague, in the following terms:-- "We have sent the bearer (Sir Joseph Douglas), a worthy gentleman, to signify so much to his Majesty, at the Hague; we purpose speedily to send an honourable commission from all estates. The dangers and difficulties wherewith both his Majesty and all his kingdoms at this time are involved are exceeding great and many. The first necessary and prime one (as all here, without exception, conceive), doth put his Majesty and his people both, in a hopeful proceeding, and his Majesty's joining with us in the national Covenant, subscribed by his grandfather King James, and the Solemn League and Covenant wherein all the well-affected of the three kingdoms are entered, and must live and die in, upon all hazards. If his Majesty may be moved to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to sacrifice their lives for his service; if he refuse, or shift this duty, his best and most useful friends, both here and elsewhere, will be cast into inextricable labyrinths, we fear, for the ruin of us all."[24] In these sentences of Baillie's letter, which crossed the winter's sea in Sir Joseph Douglas' despatch box, side by side with a more important document, we find the key-note struck of all the diplomacy then going on between the King and the Scotch. Spang, soon after receiving the letter, is found busy with endeavours to promote the accomplishment of the object designed by his fellow-countrymen. Writing at once to his cousin to express sympathy in his horror at Charles' execution--which Dutch ministers bewailed in sermons from chosen texts--and to shew his exultation at the thought of what his friends in Scotland had accomplished, this resident at the Hague informs us that he had obtained an interview with the Prince of Orange,--the young man, who, it will be recollected, was married at Whitehall in 1641. The writer represents him as concerned for the Protestant religion, and says he heard him express the opinion that Charles might be brought to