The King had just returned from church, and sat down to dinner, when Rupert, Maurice, Gerard, Willys and some other officers entered the room. Rupert "came in discontentedly, with his hands at his sides, and approached very near the King." Charles thereupon ordered the dinner to be taken away, and, rising, walked to a corner of the room. Rupert, Gerard and Willys followed him. Willys spoke first, asking, respectfully enough, to be told the names of his accusers. Rupert broke in impatiently: "By God! This is done in malice to me, because Sir Richard hath always been my faithful friend!" Gerard then launched into a protest on his own account, and Rupert again interrupted, saying: "The cause of all this is Digby!"--"I am but a child! Digby can do what he will with me," retorted the King bitterly.--A long and violent altercation followed. Rupert referred to Bristol, and the King sighed, "O nephew!" { 197} and then stopped short. Whereupon Rupert cried, for the third time: "Digby is the man that hath caused all this distraction between us!" But the King could endure no more: "They are all rogues and rascals that say so!" he answered sharply, "and in effect traitors that seek to dishonour my best subjects!" There was no more to be said; Gerard bowed and went out. Rupert "showed no reverence, but went out proudly, his hands at his sides."[50]
That evening the Princes and their party sent in a petition to the effect that: "Many of us trusted in high commands in Your Majesty's service, have not only our commissions taken away without any cause or reason expressed, whereby our honours are blemished to the world, our fortunes ruined, and we rendered incapable of command from any foreign prince,--but many others, as we have cause to fear, are designed to suffer in like manner."[51] They repeated their demand for trials by court-martial, and desired that, if this were refused, they might have passes to go over seas. The King answered that he would not make a court-martial the judge of his actions, and sent the passes. Next morning about ten o'clock, the two princes and Lord Gerard came privately to the bed-chamber to take their leave. Gerard "expressed some sense of folly,"[52] but the Princes offered no apology, and, with about two hundred officers, they rode off to Belvoir, "the King looking out of a window, and weeping to see them go."[53]
