King: "my very children have forsaken me!"
In his wildness, after debating with such
lords as were in London, whether he should
or should not call a Parliament, and after
naming three of them to negotiate with the
Prince, he resolved to fly to France. He had
the little Prince of Wales brought back from
Portsmouth; and the child and the Queen
crossed the river to Lambeth in an open boat,
on a miserable wet night, and got safely away.
This was on the night of the ninth of December.

At one o'clock on the morning of the
eleventh, the King, who had, in the meantime,
received a letter from the Prince of Orange,
stating his objects, got out of bed, told LORD
NORTHUMBERLAND who lay in his room not
to open the door until the usual hour in the
morning, and went down the back stairs (the
same, I suppose, by which the priest in the
wig and gown had come up to his brother,)
and crossed the river in a small boat: sinking
the great seal by the way. Horses having
been provided, he rode, accompanied by SIR
EDWARD HALES, to Feversham, where he
embarked in a Custom House Hoy. The
Master of this Hoy, wanting more ballast, ran
into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where the
fishermen and smugglers crowded about the
boat, and informed the King of their suspicions
that he was a "hatchet-faced Jesuit."
As they took his money and would not let
him go, he told them who he was, and that
the Prince of Orange wanted to take his life;
and began to scream for a boat; and then to
cry, because he had lost a piece of wood on
his ride which he called a fragment of our
Saviour's cross. He put himself into the
hands of the Lord Lieutenant of the county,
and his detention was made known to the
Prince of Orange at Windsor—who, only
wanting to get rid of him, and not caring
where he went, so that he went away, was
very much disconcerted that they did not let
him go. However, there was nothing for it
but to have him brought back, with some
state in the way of Life Guards to Whitehall.
And as soon as he got there, in his infatuation,
he heard mass, and set a Jesuit to say
grace at his public dinner.

The people had been thrown into the
strangest state of confusion by his flight, and
had taken it into their heads that the Irish
part of the army were going to murder the
Protestants. Therefore, they set the bells
ringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned
Catholic Chapels, and looked about in all
directions for Father Petre and the Jesuits,
while the Pope's ambassador was running
away in the dress of a footman. They found
no Jesuits; but a man who had once been a
frightened witness before Jeffreys in court,
saw a swollen, drunken face, looking though
a window down at Wapping, which he well
remembered. The face was in a sailor's
dress, but he kriew it to be the face of that
accursed Judge, and he seized him. The
people, to their lasting honour, did not tear
him to pieces. After knocking him about a
little, they took him, in the basest agonies of
terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at
his own shrieking petitions, to the Tower for
safety. There he died.

Their bewilderment continuing, the people
now lighted oonfires and made rejoicings, as if
they had any reason to be glad to have the
King back again. But, his stay was very
short, for the English guards were removed
from Whitehall, Dutch guards were marched
up to it, and he was told by one of his late
ministers that the Prince would enter
London next day and he had better go to
Ham. He said, Ham was a cold damp place,
and he would rather go to Rochester. He
thought himself very cunning in this as
he meant to escape from Rochester to France.
The Prince of Orange and his friends knew
that, perfectly well, and desired nothing
more. So, he went to Gravesend, in his
royal barge, attended by certain lords, and
watched by Dutch troops, and pitied by the
generous people, who were far more forgiving
than he had ever been, when they saw him in
his humiliation. On the night of the twenty-third
of December, not even then understanding
that everybody wanted to get rid of him,
he went out, absurdly, through his Rochester
garden, down to the Medway, and got away
to France where he rejoined the Queen.

There had been a council in his absence, of
the lords, and the authorities of London.
When the Prince came, on the day after the
King's departure, he summoned the Lords to
meet him, and soon afterwards, all those who
had served in any of the Parliaments of King
Charles the Second. It was finally resolved
by these authorities that the throne was
vacant by the conduct of King James the
Second, that it was inconsistent with the
safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom
to be governed by a Popish prince, that the
Prince and Princess of Orange should be
King and Queen during their lives and the
life of the survivor of them, and that their
children should succeed them if they had any.
That if they had none, the Princess Anne
and her children should succeed; and if she
had none, the heirs of the Prince of Orange.

On the thirteenth of January, one thousand
six hundred and eighty-nine, the Prince and
Princess, sitting on a throne in Whitehall,
bound themselves to these conditions. The
Protestant religion was established in
England, and England's great and glorious
Revolution was complete.