[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Charles Dickens —> John McLaren Ralston —> Next]
Oliver Cromwell and Ireton at The Blue Boar
John McLaren Ralston
Engraver: E. Dalziel
1878
Wood engraving
13.9 cm high by 10.6 cm wide (5 7/16 by 4 3/16 inches)
Dickens's A Child's History of England, Chapter XXXIII, 164.
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [See commentary below.]
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
It is much to be believed that if the King could have been trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. Even Oliver Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man could enjoy his possessions in peace, unless the King had his rights. He was not unfriendly towards the King; he had been present when he received his children, and had been much affected by the pitiable nature of the scene; he saw the King often; he frequently walked and talked with him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace at Hampton Court, whither he was now removed; and in all this risked something of his influence with the army. But, the King was in secret hopes of help from the Scottish people; and the moment he was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new friends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possibly do without him. At the very time, too, when he was promising to make Cromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his old height, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them. They both afterwards declared that they had been privately informed that such a letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle which would be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be sent to Dover; and that they went there, disguised as common soldiers, and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with the saddle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein found the letter. I see little reason to doubt the story. [Chapter XXXIII — "England under Charles the First," Fourth Part, 161-62]
Until 1864, The Blue Boar at Holborn in central London had been infamous as a stop on the route to public hangings at Tyburn Tree. Dickens as an adopted Londoner would have been well aware of another historical association of the old coaching inn, for it was here in 1647 that Oliver Cronwell and his son-in-law intercepted a letter from Charles the First, then under house arrest. Cromwell and Henry Ireton, who had disguised themselves as common soldiers, at sword-point searched the royal messenger and found the incriminating letter sewn into the saddle, although the messenger knew nothing about the letter. The letter proved that the King intended to join forces with the Scots and put an end the parliamentary regime. The discovery of the royal plot sealed the fate of Charles the First, who was imprisoned and subsequently pronounced guilty of treason on 30 January 1649. In Ralston's much-reproduced realisation of the dramatic scene, Cromwell taps Ireton on the shoulder as he sees the messenger carrying the saddle as across the inn-yard.
When Cromwell read the King's secret message to the Queen — "He should know in time how to deal with the rogues, who instead of asilken garter should be fitted with a hempen cord" — the cunning general realized that Charles was making a reference to a hanging noose instead of the Garter that he had occasionally promised Cromwell for his national service. This passage convinced Cromwell that the King could not to be trusted in his negotiations. Even from imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle, Charles continued to try to bargain with the Scots. On 26 December 1647, Charles signed a secret treaty with the Scots. Under the agreement, called the "Engagement," Scotland promised to invade England on Charles's behalf and restore him to the throne on condition that Presbyterianism be established throughout England within three years.
Avery, Gillian, ed. Charles Dickens: "A Holiday Romance" and Other Writings for Children with All the Original Illustrations. Everyman edition. London: J. M. Dent, 1995.
Dickens, Charles. A Child's History of England". Illustrated by John McLaren Ralston. Household Edition. London: Chapman & Hal1, 1878. XVIII.
_______. A Child's History of England in Works. Centenary Edition. 36 vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910-12.
Last modified 7 March 2021