# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Castle of Mont Orgueil

CASTLE OF MONT ORGUEIL.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “UNDER THE ICE,” “HALF-HOURS WITH FOREIGN AUTHORS,” &c.
Built on the summit of a rock on the east coast of Jersey, the Castle of Mont Orgueil not only gives a beautiful view of the scenery of the island, but also commands an extensive sea-view, reaching on a clear day as far as the French coast. Looking in the latter direction, the spectator, at or near low-water, sees innumerable rocky islets scattered on every side. Many of these are covered at ordinary tides, and most of them at the periods when the tides are highest, which on ​this coast reach the altitude of forty feet. By the signs which are placed on some of these rocks, the fisherman is able to run his boat ashore without risk of bringing it in contact with the sharp granite points concealed within a few inches of the surface; but though the fisherman, who has been accustomed to the port from his boyhood, may do this, any other man attempting it would surely be wrecked, and in that case his chances of escape from death would be small indeed. Strangely as the name of this castle may sound in English ears, it is associated with events among the most interesting in our national history. Held in turn by Frenchmen, Englishmen, and natives of the island, all of whom have been besiegers and besieged, there can hardly be a square yard of the rock on which it stands from which a soul has not departed to give an account of its deeds. Sometimes it has been a place of refuge, at other times a prison. It was the former to the young man Charles Stuart, the latter to the unfortunate Prynne, the uncompromising enemy of his house, whose miserable cell is still to be seen. In fact, the castle is still in excellent preservation, and little injured by the events of the past; and so slight is the influence which time can exercise on the granite blocks of which it is built, that it may continue to occupy its present position for ages to come.
Not many days since, while examining the external works, my eye was caught by the appearance of a chain dangling from the wall of the highest part of the castle. The links were of considerable thickness, and were terminated by a stout ring; the upper end of the chain being attached to the wall by means of a staple driven into the mortar between two stones as far below the parapet as a man could reach by bending over. I afterwards found that this chain, though strong in appearance, was in reality so eaten into by rust as to be incapable of sustaining even a moderate weight. At the moment when my attention was first drawn to it I was conversing with an old gentleman, who had selected the lower parapet as an eligible spot from which to enjoy the view and his book, and at the same time to inhale the pure air which swept across the sea. Though a stranger—or, perhaps, because I was a stranger—to him, he freely gave me all the information concerning the castle which he possessed; and if he had lived in it all his days, and his days had been as many as those of Methuselah, and he had been a witness of the landing of Cæsar on the part of the island where it stands, I doubt whether he could have been better acquainted with the minute details of its history. To my inquiry as to the purpose for which the chain was fastened in such a place, he replied:
“That chain is connected with one of the most exciting incidents enacted here, and but for its assistance England would never have numbered among its kings a second Charles Stuart.”
“Will you be good enough,” I asked, “to tell me what that incident was?”
“Certainly,” he answered.
I seated myself on one of the guns, and imagining, from the deliberate manner in which the old gentleman chose a spot to sit down upon, that his tale would be a long one, I lighted a cigar, which I had bought at a shop before beginning the ascent, in payment for which I had tendered a shilling, and received in return the cigar and twelvepence change—an advantageous arrangement for the purchaser, not attainable, I imagine, in any other portion of Her Majesty’s dominions.
During the time (he began) that King Charles was in Jersey, several attempts were made to carry him off by private adventurers, who knew that wealth, if not honours, would be accorded to the man who should be fortunate enough to place him in the hands of Cromwell. Among those whose ambition or thirst for gold, or some other motive, prompted them to ponder on a method of effecting his capture, was a man whose real name was unknown, but who was afterwards spoken of by the natives of Jersey as the Gipsy, or Captain Whitehead. That he was not really a gipsy, however, was evident from his appearance. Though swarthy as one of that race, he had not their dark hair or eyes, but, on the contrary, was a fair-haired man with blue eyes. He was rather short and strongly built, wore his hair and beard cut close; and his aspect altogether is said to have excited the suspicion that he was of a very superior class to the gipsies with whom he associated. By some he was said to have joined these wanderers out of love for a girl of the gang, others said he had been a soldier among the Royalists, and had been bribed by the Parliamentarians to try to capture the fugitive prince; and many other rumours were current in the island concerning him. Probably most of these rumours were only originated after the occurrence I am going to tell you; but one thing is pretty certain, that he was a man of great determination, and, whether actuated solely by hatred of Charles, or by this feeling and ambition combined, that he was no stranger to him.
I should mention here that what I am about to relate came to my knowledge while examining a great chest of papers which was left by my wife’s father, who was one of the jurats of the island. The manuscript was not in his writing, though not unlike it, which satisfied me that if not written by him, it was probably written by his father or grandfather; for I dare say you have noticed that a striking resemblance exists in the handwriting of the male descendants of a family: I have myself seen this resemblance so strong, that it was only by a close comparison I could detect any difference in that of the father or the grandfather, and their issue.
The tide was dashing fiercely against a rugged mass of granite, beating itself into a heap of foam, or flying into the air in large drops, which sparkled like diamonds where the misty vapour which rose with them was thin enough to allow the white rays of the morning sun to shine upon them. On this rock was seated two gipsies, one of whom, with outstretched arm, was trying to indicate the exact position of a boat to Captain Whitehead, who was standing a little above them, his hand held above his eyes to shield them from the sun.
“Aye,” said the captain, “I can see it plainly enough. Turner must be a fool to keep on ​flashing the glass in that way. Does he think there are no eyes in the castle yonder sharp enough to see that the reflection is not from the the water? Here, Catty, bring me your looking-glass! Be quick, or that owlish lover of yours will have the Philistines upon him.”
The young woman he called to was lying beside a fire which was burning on the shore a few yards behind him. She jumped up instantly, ran into the tent, and returned with a small round looking-glass, which she handed to the captain, who immediately directed it towards the sun, and sent a stream of intense light across the sea in the direction of a boat, which was only just visible from where he stood. The signals from the boat were not renewed; and after waiting two or three minutes, apparently to satisfy himself that this was the case, he said—“We may as well get some breakfast. It will be two hours before it is high-water, and by that time Turner will have run into the bay.” He turned as he said this, and grasping a handful of the curls which hung from the young gipsy’s head in a caressing familiar manner, as though she were a child, approached the fire where the breakfast was preparing. There was in this action, simple in itself, that which told of a confidence between the two based on something stronger than a similarity of interest. On the part of the man it might have been nothing more than a feeling of brotherly regard; but the deep-red flush which glowed in her cheek, and the moist brightness which darkened the always dark eyes of the girl, showed that the feeling of affection with which she regarded him was very strong indeed. As she was a principal instrument in the plot which was being organised, it is necessary to say that she had not only the beauty which is conferred by the possession of regular features, dark-brown eyes, surmounted by narrow, arched, well-defined black eyebrows, a small mouth with full rosy lips, and a mass of black curls which rested on her shoulders and back; but she had, in addition, that attractive expression which seems to spring from a growing consciousness of beauty, and a sense of some mysterious happiness to be enjoyed in the future, the precise nature of which is unknown to the maiden who is just entering womanhood. The adventurous roving life she had been accustomed to, being natural to her, had merely given her a confident hearing, without that air of effrontery which would have been perceptible had she quitted a different sphere to enter on a gipsy’s life from choice.
By the time breakfast was finished, the boat, with Turner and two other men, was rounding Plate Roque; and as soon as she was made fast, one of them filled a basket with fish and went away in the direction of Mont Orgueil Castle; while the other two, having filled a second basket, carried it to the gipsy encampment, as though their object was simply to trade with the gipsies. Turner was one of the latter; the other was a gipsy belonging to the gang, and not a regular boatman. Captain Whitehead advanced to meet Turner, and the two sat down on a rock at some distance from the gipsy tent. The Captain was the first to speak.
“Well, Turner,” he began eagerly, “have you arranged with Clinton where he is to lie with the brig?”
“Yes.”
“And he thoroughly understands the instructions I gave you for him with respect to the signals?”
“I suppose so. He told me I should know the position of his vessel by seeing three lanterns one above the other, and I was to steer for them if anything happened to you; that as regarded the other signals you might reckon on his keeping a sharp lookout.”
“What else did he say?”
“That on Sunday night he would lie off the castle as short a distance from the outermost rock as would keep the brig safe and allow him to set all sail at an instant’s notice without risk of striking. Also, that he would have a boat manned, and ready to push off from the side the moment he saw the signal you had mentioned.”
“That part of the business is settled, then. Now, let me tell you what has been done since you sailed; for no time must now be lost in making the grand stroke which will make us rich if successful, and, what I care for most, give me a chance of paying off an old score.”
“To tell you the truth, I wish you were going into the business without having any old score on your mind. Those things only blind the judgment at the critical moment; though I cannot deny that it is apt to suggest ingenious schemes for effecting the desired object.”
“May the——Well, there is no use in talking of that now. Catty is admitted into the castle to sing and dance whenever she pleases. Charles himself wanted to dance with her once, but he has got some careful guardians he is too much afraid of to disobey, who objected. However, a king never wants tools, and there is a young fellow among the soldiers who has asked her repeatedly to come up, on the nights when he is on duty—which is pretty often, on account of the smallness of the garrison—as Charles is anxious to see her dance in his private apartment.”
“But how will that assist your scheme?”
“In this way. You know there is a low door about five feet from the rock on the seaward side of the tower which faces the sea?” (Turner made a sign in the affirmative.) “That door opens on a staircase which leads up to a little cell, and passing through a door which opens into this cell you enter a narrow passage, from which there is a short staircase, leading right into the room which Charles uses as a sleeping-room. Catty is as surefooted as a goat, and she will manage to get the man to let her in by this door, under the pretence that she is not likely to be seen by her people in that case. Any excuse will do, especially as it will suit him better than letting her in by the postern.”
“And has Catty agreed to do this?” interrupted Turner, eagerly.
“Oh, you need not be alarmed on the score of her morals,” answered the other. “The moment the door is opened for her to enter we jump in after her. The rest you know; and you see how easy our adventure is made by Charles’s own weakness.”
​On the day preceding that originally fixed for the enterprise, the conspirators assembled on the shore among the rocks, which concealed them from the view of the garrison in Mont Orgueil Castle, and also from the sight of persons who might happen to pass along the road, the more effectually that the distance between them was quite half-a-mile. Besides Captain Whitehead, there were present Turner, seven gipsies, and an Englishman who had been landed in Boulay Bay from the brig. It was in consequence of the message brought by this man that the conspirators were collected here. He had been sent to say that the wind was so favourable for a run to England, and would probably continue to blow so steadily from the same quarter for some hours, that Lieutenant Clinton thought it would be a great pity if advantage were not taken of it, particularly as at that season of the year the contrary wind blew so much more frequently. The commander of the brig, in anticipation that his suggestion would be adopted, likewise sent word that he would come round the island at sunset, and would be on the lookout for the signal on the Whale Rock; to which point he would send a boat with well-armed men on board as soon as the red light was shown, and would hoist the lanterns on board the brig as arranged.
Captain Whitehead had explained the plan by means of which he proposed they should enter the castle. The information he had got through the gipsy-girl relative to the way in which the interior of the tower was built and occupied, seemed to make the enterprise he had undertaken so easy of execution that there was scarcely anything to be said beyond this. There were no difficulties to smooth over, no objections to be met, and no arguments to be invented with the view of making the undertaking appear more facile than it really was. They were sitting in almost perfect silence therefore, probably meditating on the gain which each would derive from the delivery of Charles to his enemies in England, and waiting the return of the gipsy-girl Catty. This girl, though kind-hearted and thoughtless enough at ordinary times, had thrown herself into the furtherance of the plot with all the energy and zeal which characterises her sex when engaged in perfidious schemes, in the successful result of which not only their vanity is concerned, but the desire to receive the approbation of the man they love—a desire which is greatest when they have the most doubt whether that man loves them. It was late in the afternoon before the girl was seen waving the handkerchief she had taken from her head from a rock about midway between them and the shore. Captain Whitehead went first towards her; and the others, after waiting a few minutes, followed him, though they took different ways to reach the same spot, and appeared to be searching for something as they went with great care and attention. After a brief conversation with the gipsy-girl, Captain Whitehead told the others, when they had all arrived, that nothing would be changed in the manner of carrying out the enterprise from what had been already planned.
The night was as dark as it could he close to the sea on a calm night, where it is never entirely dark. The conspirators had no difficulty in getting to the foot of the castle unnoticed. The girl Catty came alone along the road which runs from St. Clement s Bay, and, passing round the foot of the rock on which the castle is built, began at once to ascend it towards the door in an oblique direction—a gentle stroke of the hands together being the only signal she gave to her accomplices of her arrival. It required great care to make but slow progress, on account of the steepness of the rock; nevertheless, she was closely followed by Captain Whitehead, who was followed by Turner, the gipsies creeping after each other in succession. The girl drew herself up against the door, and waited till the captain whispered to her in a low voice to knock, he himself halting at such a distance from it as to he concealed by the curvature of the wall in the event of the soldier taking the precaution to peep out before removing the whole of the fastenings. This caution on the part of the leader of the conspirators was not unnecessary: for, as you will see if you are not afraid to descend the rotten staircase, there is a stout chain which is long enough to allow the door to be opened a few inches without its removal from the hook. As if somebody had been standing behind the iron-plated door waiting for this sound, it was no sooner heard than there was a creaking of bolts, succeeded by a low rattling of the links of a chain. A short silence followed, and the girl could just distinguish the face of the young soldier who had acted as the medium of communication between her and Charles. A moment more and the door was gently opened. She stepped quickly on the threshold, and before it could be closed again she had, with Dalilah-like treachery, thrown her arms round the young man, and forced him gently back against the wall. It is not unlikely that he, having no reason to believe that she was a Lucretia, put the interpretation on her action most flattering to his self-love. At all events, he does not seem to have suspected treachery, and in the thoughts of deceiving his master was as quiet as the conspirators could desire. He did not remain long in this fool’s-paradise; for a dark figure which knelt beside the girl, after remaining motionless for a moment, suddenly thrust its arm upwards, a dull gleam was visible in the darkness, and the girl felt the man she was clasping in her arms slide gently from them to the ground without uttering a sound. A deed like this had not entered her thoughts, and she turned hastily, and without heeding the caution whispered into her ear, began to descend the rocks, taking the direction opposite to that by which the men of her tribe were approaching.
The captain having satisfied himself that Turner was close behind him, concluded that the others also were following, and began to ascend the staircase leading to Charles’s room. Holding a dagger in his hand, the captain crept quietly up the narrow winding stairs; so quietly, that if Charles heard him, he might well have imagined that it was merely his agent, and the girl whose presence he was expecting. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of dull blows, as though a body was being violently driven against thick timber or stone. Stifled cries for help, which, ​though faint, were carried up the passage as along a tube, and into the cell where I have told you Prynne was imprisoned, and from thence echoed up the staircase beyond, and into Charles’s bed-room. The captain stood still to listen, and thus checked the progress of those behind him. Low groans mingled with ejaculations, in a tongue which he knew to be the gipsy dialect, but could not understand, ascended to his ear, and with these came the more familiar tone of an English voice, faintly beseeching for help.
Alarmed for the success of his enterprise by these sounds, he was puzzled as to what had happened, and undecided whether to advance or retreat while there yet seemed time. From this state of indecision he was released by the hindmost of the gang of gipsies, who finding that those above him were motionless, guessed the reason, and silently pushed his way past the others, till he reached Captain Whitehead, to whom in a few words he explained what had taken place. He, himself, had been the last but one to enter the tower, and just before he reached it, the gipsy behind him had caught hold of his ankle. At first he supposed that he had done so merely to save himself from falling; but, as he turned his head to look at him, he heard the inarticulate sound which his people were accustomed to use when an enemy was by, and he then saw that a man was following them at three or four yards’ distance. Conceiving that the intention of this man was to get into the tower in the dark unheeded, under the impression that he was a member of the tribe, and to secure the door, so as to catch them all like rats in a trap when he had given the alarm to the garrison, the gipsy and the one who followed him halted on the lower stair, the former removing one of his garments with the view of throwing it over the man’s head, and preventing him from crying out. This plan partially succeeded; but the Englishman, though taken by surprise, and almost suffocated, struggled furiously against his two assailants; and though he was prevented from calling aloud, and eventually forced to succumb beneath the ill-directed blows of their daggers, he did not die unavenged, for one of them fell beneath him, and lay there, moaning out his soul in the strange accents of a language unintelligible to all but those of his own race. Before the captain had hardly received this explanation both voices were silent, and he continued his way upwards. It had not occupied a minute, but when he reached the bedroom he was just too late to capture the occupant, who having heard the sounds, though he believed they were caused by the young soldier and the girl, was too eager to receive the latter to remain seated, and had approached the head of the stairs to listen. Something at the last moment excited his suspicion, and he ran across the room to the staircase which led up to the top of the tower, and then turned round to look behind him at the very moment Captain Whitehead stepped into the chamber. The captain glanced round him and saw that it was empty, but as he did so, he saw a shadow vanishing up the opposite stairs. He rushed recklessly after it, pursued by his accomplices; but, active as he was, he could not travel so fast as the man he pursued, who not only had the advantage of being familiar with the passage, but was much more lightly clothed. Heedless of everything but the accomplishment of the object he had in view, and not diverted from the direct line taken by the unfortunate man who was destined so often in his younger days to experience the bitterness of being hunted like a wild beast, he stumbled on. On arriving on the platform at the top of the tower, and finding himself in the open air, he looked eagerly about him, fully expecting to see Charles before him, helpless, and utterly unable to offer resistance. To his great surprise not a human being was visible. No search was necessary, for the space was so very small, and moreover there was nothing there which could serve as a screen or hiding-place. Imagining he must have concealed himself in some recess on the stairs, the captain descended to the bedroom. He found the door opening from it into the body of the building occupied by the soldiers and the prince’s friends and attendants, still barred. It was evident, therefore, Charles could not have escaped by that way. Taking a light in his hand he again mounted the staircase, but from the bottom to the top there was no place in which a man could hide himself. On reaching the platform the captain went carefully about it, to ascertain if there were any means of quitting it except by the way in which he had himself come, and then discovered what was evidently a trap-door; though whether it opened on a staircase, or a well, or anything else, he could not make out, for he and his companions were unable to raise it, showing that it was either locked or bolted underneath. While he was weighing in his mind the possibility of Charles having made his escape by this way, a gipsy touched his shoulder, and caused him to look over the parapet. There just below him, but still beyond his reach, he saw a white face looking upwards at him, which became even whiter and assumed a more terror-stricken expression as he bent over to examine it more closely, with the aid of the light he still held. The captain did not utter a word; but a name which no man caught came trembling from the lips of Charles. The former laid his dagger on the parapet, and extinguished the light, lest anybody might see it and give the alarm; then grasping the stone with his left hand, he lowered his right as if to help the prince to ascend. Finding his intended victim took no heed of his hand, he took up the dagger, his followers crowding around him, some holding his clothing, and all looking eagerly over the wall and watching his movements. At first he made only a pretence of cutting through the chain, for he seemed to be sawing at it for some seconds before the sound produced by actual contact showed that his dagger had only struck against another metal, instead of the rope he had assumed it to be. It was to defeat an attempt to sever it, and to ensure the safe descent of the person who might be on the rope-ladder, which was provided ready to be hooked to it, that the chain had been fixed. Unfortunately, Charles had not the time to attach the ladder even if it had been at hand, which it was not, as such a pressing emergency had never ​been foreseen. The captain next tried to seize the chain, but his fingers barely reached the staple which held it to the wall. Baffled and enraged, he pulled furiously at one of the blocks of stone which formed the coping; and Charles, who could just distinguish the action, must have suffered the agonies of death at the thought that it was intended to dash it down upon his head. He still, however, clung desperately to the chain, knowing that he would become a mere mass of mangled flesh if he loosed his hold, and believing that if he accepted the help of his enemies to return to the platform he would perish beneath the blows of their daggers. All that I have described as following his discovery had only occupied the shortest possible space of time. At the first moment terror and surprise deprived him of the use of his voice, if not of his reason; but the action of Captain Whitehead seemed to give him vigour to cry out. His cries, however, uttered in the open air, at such a height, and outside the walls of the castle, were unheard by the garrison.
It was while these things were being enacted on the top of the castle, that a soldier of the garrison who had been visiting his friends was returning towards it. The greater part of the road which now runs from St. Martin’s down to the beach yonder, south of the castle, was in existence then; but the shortest way, and that usually taken by persons coming to the castle in the daytime, was reputed to be haunted, and it was very seldom indeed that anybody came that way after nightfall. It so happened that this soldier was an Englishman, named Cooper, a native of Amesbury in Wiltshire; and it was perhaps from his familiarity with the grand Druidic ruins of Stonehenge that he felt a kind of contempt for the ghosts which could dwell in the insignificant ruins, attributed to that priesthood, which the natives of Jersey avoided with so much awe. At any rate, instead of taking the broader road he took the path which skirted these ruins, and while passing along, and occasionally throwing a side-glance at them, he saw a red light burning on one of the rocks furthest from the shore. He stopped to look at it, wondering what it could mean. It was not a fire—its vivid colour and the steadiness with which it burned showed that. He went on a few steps and it was hidden; then he came back and it was still there. He again changed his position; and though the red light was invisible, his eye was drawn to three ordinary lights shining one above the other, which, from the manner in which they rose and fell, he saw immediately were on board a vessel. If he had seen the latter alone, he would have thought nothing of it, because it was a common thing for the fishing-vessels when they lay off the coast all night to hoist lights, which enabled those on shore to say what particular vessel it was; but taken along with the coloured light, the like of which he had never seen in the island, he fancied it might have some meaning which he and his comrades were interested in discovering. No sooner had this idea entered his head, than he pushed on as fast as he could along a path which was both rough and obscure, till he reached the gate of the castle. Directly he was admitted he told the soldiers, who were amusing themselves after the boisterous fashion of the time in practical jokes and noisy pastimes, of what he had seen. A sergeant went at once to the room where the officers were sitting, drinking and singing, and told them. Some of these thought it did not concern the garrison, others thought it did; and as among the latter happened to be the principal officer, he went to consult the commander of the little band, who was sitting with the few noblemen who resided here with Charles. To reach this room he had to pass the door which opened into his royal master’s sleeping room, and in doing so he stood still a moment and listened. He heard the low murmur of voices, but that was all, and he went on his way. After he had told what Cooper had seen, somebody present asked where the prince was. Another answered that he had gone to bed with the headache, whereupon the officer who had come with the news said that he had heard some persons talking in his room as he passed it. So few in number were those who dwelt in the castle, that everybody looked about him, and perceived simultaneously that no person was absent from their circle. There was a general rising: some drew their swords, others took up axes or other weapons equally effective in a close fight, and all made their way to the door of Charles’s room. One of them knocked, but there was no answer. He knocked again and louder, but still no response; all was as silent as we believe the grave to be.
Alarmed by this, a nobleman present suggested that it would be well to go up to the top of the castle, and descend by the staircase which opened into Charles’s room. The suggestion was followed without anybody speaking. One after the other they mounted the stairs which led to the summit, the noise of their own feet drowning all external sounds till they halted to unfasten the bolts which secured the trap-door, which was the same Captain Whitehead had in vain tried to raise from the outside. Then it was that some indistinct idea of what was going forward arose in their minds. The bolts were hastily drawn back, the door dashed violently upwards, and each man sprang on the platform with the agility of a tiger. The group of conspirators were so intently occupied in watching or aiding the efforts of Captain Whitehead to detach a stone, that three or four of Charles’s friends were on the platform and had heard his cries for help before they were perceived. The conspirators had no time to consider whether to fight or fly, for the cavaliers were upon them, hewing and striking almost at random. The struggle was a momentary one, the conspirators being either forced over the parapet and crushed by their fall on the rocks below, or struck to the ground and left for dead. Captain Whitehead and Turner were the only two who made what could be termed a resistance, but the latter was soon overcome; a blow from an axe fell on his forehead, and the blood rushed into his eyes. He made a feeble attempt to press it out with the fingers of his left hand, but while in the act of doing it he received stabs and blows sufficient to have destroyed life in an elephant. The leader of the conspirators sold his life at a dearer rate; but he, too, fell like the rest before the number of ​his assailants. In the meantime some of the cavaliers, as soon as they perceived the position of the prince, had been engaged in rescuing him, which was not a difficult matter with the aid of the rope-ladder. He had managed to get his foot in the ring, and thus sustained himself without much fatigue; but his hands were bruised and bleeding from the way in which they had been crushed between the chain and the wall. Notwithstanding his wounds, and the effects of the terror he must have felt, he did not suffer himself to be taken down the stairs till he had examined the faces of the dead men who lay on the platform. On seeing the face of the man known as Captain Whitehead, he ordered his body to be put aside from the rest, and the next day he directed it to be taken to the nearest churchyard and buried.
I think (concluded the old gentleman), that you will agree with me, that this was one of the narrowest escapes Charles ever had. But this is not the only way in which that chain is connected with the prince. Years afterwards, Dean Bandinel and his son, who were charged with being accessories to the murder of his father, Charles I., were sent here as prisoners; and in their attempt to escape, by means of a rope fastened to that same chain, one was dashed to death and the other dreadfully maimed.