ering it desirable at that period to cut down certain trees
on my recently purchased estate, I proceeded with Thomas Hodge the
carpenter, and various other artificers of my parishioners (all being
friends and dependents of the great lady), and with saws and other
instruments did level the whole row of very large oaks and elm trees
which bordered the only high-road from Oxford; and by some strange
accident, all the trees did fall exactly across the same, and made it
utterly impossible to move thereupon with cart or waggon; so that it
was much to be suspected that the guns, which we heard were ordered to
come up from Wallingford, could by no means get over the obstruction.
It is also to be observed that Master George Railsworth, the mason,
who had contracted to repair the strong bridge over our stream, did
take this opportunity of taking down two of the arches of the same,
and could find no sufficient assistance to enable him to restore them,
which made the road impassable for horse or man. On the following
day, namely, the fifth day of November, we heard that all the king's
soldiers were suddenly ordered from all parts up to London, and that
the Marquess of Danfield had been left to his imprisonment in
Mallerden Court. Whereupon I bethought me it would be safe to venture
up once more, and bring my daughter Waller to the securer custody of
my excellent wife. Next morning, at early dawn, I accordingly did go
up, and was admitted, after a short parley, by the gatekeeper, which
had a helmet on his head and a sword in his hand. Speedily I was in
the arms of my daughter Waller, who looked as happy as if none of
these scenes had been transacted before her eyes; and moreover did
refuse, in very positive terms, to leave the Court till her dear
friend Alice--I would say the Lady Lucy--returned. I reasoned with
her, and reprimanded her, and showed her in what a fearful state of
danger we all were, by reason of the rebellion we had been guilty of
against his majesty the king. Whereupon the child did only laugh, and
told me, "Here she would abide until the time came." And with this
enigmatical expression I was fain to be content; for she would
vouchsafe me no other. And, corroborative of all which, she said, she
relied on the assurances made unto her to that effect by Sir Walter
Ouseley, one of the young gentlemen which had acted as bridegroom's
man to the noble Viscount Lessingholm, and was now in the Court as
his lieutenant in the d