Sad indeed is the story of the ill-fated King Charles I., who came to Carisbrooke of his own free will after his escape from Hampton Court in November, 1647. This was not his first visit to the island; that had taken place very many years before, when, as a small boy of nine, he had been brought by his father to hunt in the great forest of Parkhurst. When he arrived as a fugitive, he was courteously received, and at first treated as a guest, but bit by bit all his attributes of royalty were stripped from him, and he realized the bitterness of imprisonment without honour. As he grew more sensible of the hopelessness of his future, he ceased to care for his appearance, and lived very quietly, eating little and reading much, such books as Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_, and Bishop Andrewes' _Sermons_. While he was at Carisbrooke he was said to have written the _Eikon Basilike_, the authorship of which is now generally attributed, however, to Bishop Gauden. The King certainly did write at least one poem at the castle, one verse of which runs: "The fiercest furies that do daily tread Upon my grief, my grey discrowned head, Are those that owe my bounty for their bread." Once in the month of March, 1648, and again in the May following, he made attempts at escape abortively. The first time he found the window through which he tried to pass too narrow for his head, and the second time, though the obstructing bars had been sawn through, it was of no avail, for the plot had been revealed, and guards were waiting below. The small window which was the scene of both attempts is one of the principal details of interest for visitors. Towards the end of the same year the King had a long conference with the representatives of the Parliament at Newport, but the issue had been predetermined, and the commission might have borne as its motto the celebrated words of the tyrant to his victim: "You will be tried and convicted." Eventually the King was seized and carried over to the mainland, there, on the last day of January, 1649, to meet his death at Whitehall.