Portrait of John Ashburnham, who both helped to arrange Charles I’s flight to the Isle of Wight and later tried secretly to arrange his escape, painted by Daniel Mytens around 1628?30
© National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
It was under such tense and duplicitous circumstances that coded letters were smuggled in and out of the castle, usually by servants, between the king, Royalist agents and apparent sympathisers who were plotting an escape. Some of them were almost certainly double agents and so, for the most part, Parliament knew something of the plans.
The escape manager on the outside was probably
Jane Whorwood
, a gentlewoman with widespread influential connections, especially in London and Edinburgh. She worked with Jane Wheeler who was a courier and for a time, they despatched and received letters to and from Charles via a servant, Mary (Lee), who looked after the king’s linen. Among Whorwood’s correspondents were John Ashburnham, who was often based at
Netley Abbey
near Southampton, and her uncle, William Hamilton, Earl of Lanark and one of Charles’s principal supporters in Scotland.
Whorwood suspected that there were informers in the network, notably John Loe, a merchant who offered ship transport. Also, the king often consulted William Lilly, a famous astrologer in London, either through coded letters, or through Jane Whorwood visiting in person. Strange as it may seem to us, astrologers were widely consulted and Lilly had a reputation of being able to see the future, so some escape plans were revealed to him. He almost certainly leaked them to Parliament.
Read more on Jane Whorwood