Charles having escaped from his durance with the army at Hampton Court (November 11, 1647), rode to Titchfield, the Earl of Southampton’s place, where he might have sailed by Portsmouth Harbour to the Continent, as his intention was; but, by a mistake, Colonel Hammond, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, was brought to Titchfield, and he conducted the King to Carisbrooke, where he became again a prisoner. Here three attempts seem to have been made, chiefly by some gentlemen of the island, to give him freedom during the twelve months of his detention. On the first of these occasions it was arranged that Charles should pass through the window of his room, and let himself down to the ramparts, below which a guide with a horse was waiting, and a boat was ready to take him to a ship in the offing; but an iron bar in the window prevented his getting through, and so the King had to wave off his friends. The window in question is discernible from the outside of the King’s lodgings; it adjoins the only buttress of the wall, and is walled up. On another occasion implements having been provided for him, Charles managed to saw through and remove the bar which impeded him, and all arrangements were made for his flight, but a rascally officer, one Major Rolfe, was entrusted with the secret and betrayed it. So, when the King was about to make the attempt, he observed below more people than were expected, and wisely decided to remain where he was. It was said that Rolfe intended to have shot the King as he descended. After being there for a year, Charles was removed, with scant ceremony or respect from Carisbrooke. At daybreak one morning a party of soldiers were sent, who, rousing him from bed, took him off to Hurst Castle, a fort on the mainland, standing at the extremity of the spit of land, near Lymington, which stretches across the Solent Strait to within a mile of the opposite island. Here the King was detained for a month, when he was taken to Windsor. To Carisbrooke were sent the two royal children, the year succeeding their father’s judicial murder, but in less than a month the Princess Elizabeth was found dead in her room, her face resting on the Bible given her by her father at their last interview. Prince Henry remained there nearly two years. An attack was made on the castle at the outbreak of the civil war by the mayor and people of Newport, in obedience to the instructions of the Parliament, in order to get rid of the King’s captain, the Earl of Portland, and his successor, Lord Pembroke; and the fortress was yielded on honourable terms. After the Restoration, the governor, Lord Cutts, made great and lamentable alterations in the old fabric, quite modernizing a part of it; but at a recent date the Government have restored the work in a judicious manner, and brought to light some hidden and interesting features.