Note see Appendix — Chapter X

Page 221.—Morrice, chaplain to Lord Broghill, tells the well-known story how Cromwell and Ireton, in the disguise of troopers, found a letter of the king’s to the queen, concealed in a saddle. He heard the story from Lord Broghill, who had heard it from Cromwell. Morrice says that in the letter “the king acquainted the queen that he was courted by both factions, the Scotch Presbyterians and the army, and which bid fairest for him should have him; but he thought he should close with the Scots sooner than the other” (Morrice’s Life of Broghill, prefixed to Orrery State Letters, 1743). The contents of the letter are usually taken from Richardson’s account of a conversation he had with Lord Bolingbroke. “Lord Bolingbroke told us” [i.e., Pope and Richardson] (12th June, 1742), “that Lord Oxford had often told him that he had seen and had in his hand an original letter that Charles I. wrote to the queen, ‘that she might be entirely easy as to whatever concessions he should make, for that he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues’” [i.e., Cromwell and the others], “‘who, instead of a silken garter should be fitted with an hempen cord.’” Richardson merely says that those concerned awaited and intercepted the letter, without specifying persons or place. (Richardsoniana, by the late Jonathan Richardson, jun., 1776).