After the defeat at Worcester, on the 3rd of September, 1651, Charles II., on his arrival at Kidderminster, by the advice of the Earl of Derby, and under the guidance of Francis Yates, brother-in-law of Penderell, retired to “Boscobel,” a lone house on the borders of Staffordshire, where lived one Richard Penderell, a farmer, and his four brothers. By the aid of the Penderells, Charles clothed himself in the garb of a peasant, and carried a bill-hook with him into the woods, where daily he pretended to be employed cutting faggots. His only attendant at that time was Colonel Careless, a Roman Catholic. The suspicion of the Parliamentary army was, however, aroused by two strangers staying at such a lone place as Boscobel, and detachments of troops were, in consequence, sent in search of them, and it was then that Charles and Colonel Careless hid themselves in the branches of an oak tree. By the assistance of a Benedictine monk, named Hudleston, Lord Wilmot then joined the King, and by his proposition, they, with Penderell, repaired, at night, to the house of a Mr. Whitegrave, a Catholic gentleman residing some distance from Boscobel. The King, in relating his escape, used to say that the rustling of Richard’s calf-skin breeches was the best guide for him during the dark night’s walk. Here they were pursued by the parliamentarian army; and Colonel Lane, at whose house Lord Wilmot had been concealed, being made acquainted with the critical position of Charles, offered to conceal him in his house at Bentley. From there he retired to Bristol, at the house of Mr. Norton, a kinsman of Colonel Lane, in the hope of being able to obtain a passage to the continent, as “William,” the servant to Miss Jane Lane (sister of Colonel Lane), but no vessel would leave there for a month. Charles, being thus frustrated in his object, placed himself under the guardianship of Colonel Windham, of Dorsetshire, in whose charge he continued nine days, and then went to Heale, within three miles of Salisbury, where he remained until the necessary arrangements had been made by Lord Wilmot, for his passage from Brighthelmston to France.