The king’s account of his visit to Madeley from “an authentic edition of Pepys’ narrative,” published from the original MS. in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, as given in the Boscobel Tracts, is as follows:— “As soon as I was disguised I took with me a country fellow, whose name was Richard Penderell, whom Mr. Giffard had undertaken to answer for to be an honest man. He was a Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them, because I knew they had hiding holes for priests, that I thought I might make use of in case of need. “I was no sooner gone (being the next morning after the battle, and then broad day) out of the house with this country fellow, but being in a great wood, I set myself at the edge of the wood, near the highway that was there, the better to see who came after us, and whether they made any search after the runaways, and I immediately saw a troop of horse coming by, which I conceived to be the same troop that beat our three thousand horse; but it did not look like a troop of the army’s, but of the militia, for the fellow before it did not look at all like a soldier. “In this wood I staid all day, without meat or drink; and by great good fortune it rained all the time, which hindered them, as I believe, from coming into the wood to search for men that might be fled thither. And one thing is remarkable enough, that those with whom I have since spoken, of them that joined with the horse upon the heath, did say that it rained little or nothing with them all the day, but only in the wood where I was, this contributing to my safety. “As I was in the wood I talked with the fellow about getting towards London: and asking him many questions about what gentlemen he knew, I did not find he knew any man of quality in the way towards London. And the truth is, my mind changed as I lay in the wood, and I resolved of another way of making my escape; which was, to get over the Severn into Wales, and so to get either to Swansey, or some other of the sea-towns that I knew had commerce with France, to the end I might get over that way as being a way that I thought none would suspect my taking; besides that, I remembered several honest gentlemen that were of my acquaintance in Wales. “So that night, as soon as it was dark, Richard Penderell and I took our journey on foot towards the Severn, intending to pass over a ferry, halfway between Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury. But as we were going in the night, we came by a mill where I heard some people talking (memorandum, that I had got some bread and cheese the night before at one of the Penderell’s houses, I not going in), and as we conceived it was about twelve or one o’clock at night; and the country fellow desired me not to answer if any body should ask me any questions, because I had not the accent of the country.