On the evening of Saturday the twenty-second the King assured some of the gentlemen, who had been sent to him from London with intelligence and advice, that he would see them again in the morning.

He went to bed, rose at dead of night, and, attended by Berwick, stole out at a back door, and went through the garden to the shore of the Medway.

A small skiff was in waiting.

Soon after the dawn of Sunday the fugitives were on board of a smack which was running down the Thames.

[614] That afternoon the tidings of the flight reached London.