The Palace ruins.
Our next illustration is of the PALACE ruins, but we have only space to insert a story of Charles the First, that happened when he was staying here, recorded by Mr. Savage, who was then living in Southwell. For fuller details of the Cathedral and Palace we refer our readers to the larger guides.
STORY OF KING CHARLES AND THE SHOEMAKER.
In the autumn of the year 1645, Charles the First, by the invitation of the Archbishop, who himself was absent, had taken refuge at the Palace with a few faithful friends. It was the King's last visit but one to Southwell, and a melancholy time for him, as he had been defeated at the Battle of Naseby only a few months before. Autumn was drawing on, and the falling leaves seemed in sympathy with his sorrow, as he wandered sadly about unknown to all. From these sad thoughts his mind was presently withdrawn to a trivial, though by no means unimportant, matter; his shoes had been long neglected, and were now almost worn out. It struck him that, in this moment of leisure, he had the opportunity of replacing them with a new pair. Seeing a shoemaker’s shop he entered it and began to talk to the owner. Now this happened to be a fanatic Puritan named Lee, and when after some minutes’ conversation the King bade him measure him for a pair of shoes, and Lee had taken the King's foot into his hand, he suddenly started back in alarm, eyed him attentively, and refused to proceed. The King asked him what was the matter, and Lee replied, “I had a dream last night, and I was warned that a customer would come to my shop, and that I had better have nothing to do with him. You exactly resemble that customer as I saw him in my dream. I was also warned that this customer was doomed to destruction, and that no one would thrive who undertook work for him.”
The unhappy King had himself just been the victim of a terrible dream, which had come only too true. Superstitious by nature, and rendered additionally so by his many misfortunes, he felt that here was a confirmation of his worst fears. He uttered a cry expressive of his resignation to Providence, and retired, more than ever depressed, to the Palace.
The "Saracen's Head".
The next time the King came to Southwell he stayed at the “SARACEN'S HEAD,” a very old inn, probably taking its sign from the times of the Crusaders. You can still see the very room where he lodged on the left of the entrance gate, and here it was, on May the 5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch leaders, who wrote to the Parliament from Southwell “that it made them feel like men in a dream.” So here his captivity really began, for he entered the old inn as a King, and he left it as a prisoner under the guard of Lothian and his Scotch escort. Here he slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway at the “Saracen’s Head” he may be said to have started on that fatal journey that terminated on the scaffold at Whitehall.
Long after the Restoration, a Stone Lozenge, with the Royal Arms on it, was put up (you may see it on the front of the inn over the gateway, with the date 1693) to commemorate the fact of Charles the First having once occupied the house.