England Still Pays Pension to King’s Rescuer

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 564, 17 January 1929, Page 13

England Still Pays Pension to King’s Rescuer

Descendants of Girl Who Saved Charles 11. £lB/11/- A YEAR The story of a King's gratitude to an English girl who, nearly 300 years ago, saved his life, is still being told by an annuity which to this day is being paid to a professor of English In the University of British Columbia, according to “The New York Times.” Semi-annually, the Canadian professor receives £9 5s 6d from the British Government. Two elderly booksellers in Vancouver are almost as interested in this ancient pension as Dr. Francis E. Walker himself is. He always spends it with them. He browses about their shops hunting for copies of the works of seventeenth century poets or of the early English essayists. It is an old story In his family, one that is passed on from father to son, and it tells of a girl ancestor of his who hid the son of Charles I. when he was in danger from the Roundheads. She was a Mrs. Elizabeth Pendrell Yates. Before her marriage she lived with her brothers on the Pendrell property, Bescovel, near Midlands. Charles, who had been proclaimed King by the Scots, while the Protectorate was in power, had much trouble gaining his throne. He had to carry on an intermittent war with Cromwell, and at the time of the Bescovel incident had just been defeated at the Battle of Worcester. The Roundheads were very desirous of catching the pretender. Had [ they caught him undoubtedly they would have beheaded him, but while they scoured the country looking for him he sought refuge at the Pendrell house. It was to Elizabeth that he described his plight. She, of course, knew quite well the serious state of the country and the danger which she would be in were she to aid the fugitive and be discovered. But Charles was a handsome lad and to her he was the King. Kings in those days were attractive to English maids. She was greatly fluttered, but also decidedly anxious to save him. To leave him hiding in the house would be .to invite disaster. Cromwell’s men would hunt and open and prod every last nook and corner once they arrived at Bescovel. Elizabeth hit upon the thought of hiding him in a great oak tree which, with heavy trunk and spreading branches, adorned their garden. So up the oak went Charles, who was to be the next King of England, and he stayed there the whole day while Cromwell’s soldiers searched the house and the premises. It was a nervous business for him as he looked through the leaves at his belligerent enemies. In that cramped position he remained until night fell. Then Elizabeth Pendrell and her brothers told him how to reach the coast safely, and he escaped to France. A turn in the tide of English affairs came in 16G0, and Charles ascended j the throne. He did not forget the dar- | ing girl who had saved him. To her i and her brothers he awarded annuij ties in perpetuity, Elizabeth’s share j being fifty pounds per annum. This j was quite a sum in those days. | Eventually Elizabeth married. She I lived out her time and her pension j passed to her eldest son, a Yates. Down through the Yates family the pension ran for many years, and then through a succeeding family, the Dysons. The pensioner’s name changed to Walker, and the pension was later split Into four parts. Dr. Walker is a descendant of one of the families that received a fourth of the annuity. Years ago the British Government realised that its treasury was cluttered up with pensions of all descriptions. Some of these it quit paying. Others it bought off by paying a lump sum. The Pendrell annuity was one of those cut off. This was in the time of Dr. Walker’s grandfather. Repfesentatlons were at once made to the Court and the permanency of a grant made in perpetuity by a King of England was recognised and payments were resumed. Professor Walker has just returned from England. He visited the ancestral home and was given two shoots from Charles’s tree, which is said to have lived, like the sign of a King’s I gratitude, through all the intervening I I 268 years.