THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST

CHAPTER I.


The circumstances which I am about to relate to my juvenile readers
took place in the year 1647. By referring to the history of England,
of that date, they will find that King Charles the First, against whom
the Commons of England had rebelled, after a civil war of nearly five
years, had been defeated, and was confined as a prisoner at Hampton
Court. The Cavaliers, or the party who fought for King Charles, had
all been dispersed and the Parliamentary army under the command of
Cromwell were beginning to control the Commons.

It was in the month of November in this year that King Charles,
accompanied by Sir John Berkely, Ashburnham, and Legg, made his escape
from Hampton Court, and rode as fast as the horses could carry them
toward that part of Hampshire which led to the New Forest. The king
expected that his friends had provided a vessel in which he might
escape to France, but in this he was disappointed. There was no vessel
ready, and after riding for some time along the shore, he resolved to
go to Titchfield, a seat belonging to the Earl of Southampton. After a
long consultation with those who attended him, he yielded to their
advice, which was, to trust to Colonel Hammond, who was governor of
the Isle of Wight for the Parliament, but who was supposed to be
friendly to the king. Whatever might be the feelings of commiseration
of Colonel Hammond toward a king so unfortunately situated, he was
firm in his duties toward his employers, and the consequence was that
King Charles found himself again a prisoner in Carisbrook Castle.

But we must now leave the king and retrace history to the commencement
of the civil war. A short distance from the town of Lymington, which
is not far from Titchfield, where the king took shelter, but on the
other side of Southampton Water, and south of the New Forest, to which
it adjoins, was a property called Arnwood, which belonged to a
Cavalier of the name of Beverley. It was at that time a property of
considerable value, being very extensive, and the park ornamented with
valuable timber; for it abutted on the New Forest, and might have been
supposed to have been a continuation of it. This Colonel Beverley, as
we must call him, for he rose to that rank in the king's army, was a
valued friend and companion of Prince Rupert, and commanded several
troops of cavalry. He was ever at his side in the brilliant charges
made by this gallant prince, and at last fell in his arms at the
battle of Naseby. Colonel Beverley had married into the family of the
Villiers, and the issue of his marriage was two sons and two
daughters; but his zeal and sense of duty had induced him, at the
commencement of the war, to leave his wife and family at Arnwood, and
he was fated never to meet them again. The news of his death had such
an effect upon Mrs. Beverley, already worn with anxiety on her
husband's account, that a few months afterward she followed him to an
early tomb, leaving the four children under the charge of an elderly
relative, till such time as the family of the Villiers could protect
them; but, as will appear by our history, this was not at that period
possible. The life of a king and many other lives were in jeopardy,
and the orphans remained at Arnwood, still under the care of their
elderly relation, at the time that our history commences.