The former was destined to oppose the king: the latter was appointed to march into the west, where Prince Maurice, with a small army which went continually to decay, was spending his time in vain before Lyme, an inconsiderable town upon the sea-coast.
The utmost efforts of the king could not raise above ten thousand men at Oxford; and on their sword chiefly, during the campaign, were these to depend for subsistence.
The queen, terrified with the dangers which every way environed her, and afraid of being enclosed in Oxford, in the middle of the kingdom, fled to Exeter, where she hoped to be delivered unmolested of the child with which she was now pregnant, and whence she had the means of an easy escape into France, if pressed by the forces of the enemy.

She knew the implacable hatred which the parliament, on account of her religion and her credit with the king, had all along borne her.

Last summer, the commons had sent up to the peers an impeachment of high treason against her; because, in his utmost distresses, she had assisted her husband with arms and ammunition which she had bought in Holland.[**] And had she fallen into their hands, neither her sex, she knew, nor high station, could protect her against insults at least, if not danger, from those haughty republicans, who so little affected to conduct themselves by the maxims of gallantry and politeness.
* Rush.

vol.vi.p.

621.
** Rush.