"For she does not believe it. She says Roger would never have come and told us had it been so. She has not the slightest fear it can be true. It has lightened my heart wonderfully. Roger is not quite just in saying I can believe in anything I wish. "_March_.--A biting March for the good cause. On the 14th brave Sir Ralph Hopton surrendered in Cornwall. On the 22nd brave old Sir Jacob Astley (he who made the prayer before Edgehill fight, 'Lord, if I forget Thee this day, do not Thou forget me'), was beaten at Stow in Gloucestershire, as he was bringing a small force he had gathered with much pains, to succour the king at Oxford. 'You have now done your work and may go to play,' he said to the rebels who captured him, 'unless you fall out among yourselves.' Gallant sententious old veteran that he is! "_May_.--His Majesty has taken refuge with the Scottish army at Newark. "We marvel he should have trusted his sacred person with Covenanted Presbyterians. But in good sooth he may well be weary of wandering, and may look for some pity yet in his own fellow-countrymen. Not that they showed much to the sweet fair lady his father's mother. "We hear it was but unwillingly he went to them at night, between two and three o'clock in the morning, on the 27th of April. A few days since he left the shelter of Oxford, faithful to him so long; riding disguised as a servant, behind his faithful attendant Mr. Ashburnham. Once he was asked by a stranger on the road if his master were a nobleman. 'No,' quoth the king, 'my master is one of the Lower House,' a sad truth, forsooth, though spoken in parable. It is believed amongst us that he would fain have reached the eastern coast, thence to take ship for Scotland, to join Montrose and the true Scots with him. For his flight was uncertain, and changed direction more than once--to Henley-on-Thames, Slough, Uxbridge; then to the top of Harrow Hill, across the country to St. Albans, where the clattering hoofs of a farmer behind them gave false alarm of pursuit; thence by the houses of many faithful gentlemen who knew and loved him, but respected his disguise and made as though they knew him not; to Downham in Norfolk; to Southwell, and thence, beguiled by promises some say, others declare throwing himself of his own free will like a prince on the ancient Scottish loyalty, he rode to Newark into the midst of the Earl of Leven's army. "_August_, 1646.--The civil war, they give out now, is over. Every garrison and castle in the kingdom have surrendered. In June, loyal Oxford; and now, last and most loyal of all, on the 19th of August, Ragland Castle, with the noble old Marquis of Worcester, who hath ruined himself past all remedy in the king's service, and in this world will scarce now find his reward.