Abduction of the King by Joyce: 4 June 1647

Alleged disinclination of Charles to revisit either University

Although monarchy, as an institution, was still to linger on for another year, the close of 1647 saw the Commonwealth virtually established in both universities. On the occasion of the royal arrest at Holmby, as cornet Joyce himself relates the story, Charles demanded of his captor whither he was to accompany him? ‘To Oxford,’ was the reply. The king objected,—he thought Oxford ‘unhealthy.’ Then Joyce suggested Cambridge. And again the monarch objected, intimating that he preferred Newmarket; and to Newmarket, accordingly, it was arranged that he should be escorted. The royal disinclination again to be seen at either seat of learning might well seem, indeed, to require no explanation, and we might easily believe that, however devoid of real sympathy with the nation at large, Charles could have had little desire to be the helpless spectator of the changes that had taken place at Cambridge since his memorable visit to the university some five years before, when, amid deafening cheers and demonstrations of the profoundest loyalty, he had mounted his coach at St John's gate on his departure for Huntingdon.