178 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chap. not daring to repose trust in any but those wholxxi. were exposed to more danger than himself, agitated1688. by disdain towards ingratitude , by indignationagainst disloyalty, impelled by his own fears andthose of others, precipitately embraced the reso-lution of escaping into France; and he sent offbeforehand the queen and the infant prince,under the conduct of count Lauzun , an oldand flight favorite of the French monarch. He himself disap-12th Dec. p eare( j j n the night-time, attended only by SirEdward Hales ; and made the best of his way toa ship, which waited for him near the mouth ofthe river. As if this measure had not been themost grateful to his enemies of any that he couldadopt, he had carefully concealed his intentionfrom all the world; and nothing could equal thesurprise, which seized the city, the court, andthe kingdom , upon the discovery of this strangeevent. Men beheld, all of a sudden , the reinsof government thrown up by the hand whichheld them; and saw none, who had any rightor even pretension , to take possession of them.

The more effectually to involve every thing* in confusion, the king appointed not any one,*vho should , in his absence, exercise any part ofthe administration ; he threw the great seal intothe river ; and he recalled all those writs, whichhad been issued for the election of the new par-liament. It is often supposed , that the sole motive,which impelled him to this sudden desertion, washis reluctance to meet a free parliament, and hisresolution not to submit to those terms, which