Unhappily for them the whole business was miserably mismanaged. Such a rising could only hope to succeed if it were kept the most profound secret. But so far from being a secret, it was, says Clarendon, "the common discourse of the town." There was a great appearance every morning at Lord Holland's lodging of officers who were known to have served the king--.
his commission showed in many hands; and no question being more commonly asked than--when doth my Lord Holland go out? and the answer--Such and such a day; and the hour he did take horse, when he was accompanied by an hundred horse from his house was publickly talked of two or three days before.[85]
But these indiscretions were not all. The first rendezvous was to be at Kingston-on-Thames--the charming old town full of old red brick houses, and sunny walled gardens full of lilacs and laburnums and cedars of Lebanon, ten miles southwest of London. Here Lord Holland stayed for two nights and one whole day, expecting numbers to flock to his standard, "not only of officers, but of common men who had promised and listed themselves under several officers."[86] During his stay, some officers and soldiers, both of foot and horse did come. But the greater number of those who resorted to Kingston were "many persons of honor and quality," who came down from London for the day in their coaches to visit the little army, and returned to town again, "to provide what was still wanting and resolved to be with him soon again."
Is it not a pitiable story? Want of plan, of management, of forethought, of seriousness. The whole thing arranged like a play upon the stage. The fair ladies, and the gallant cavaliers in their curly wigs and deep Vandyke collars, driving down on the hot summer day to visit their friends, and laugh and talk over the great victory that without doubt they would win--the victory that would restore the king to his throne, and drive the Parliamentarians into the sea. And beautiful young Francis Villiers, in the heyday of his youth and strength--his debts all paid two days before[87]--longing for a chance to strike a blow for the king who had been a father to him.
How the grim puritan soldiers must have laughed at such a set of amateurs in the art of War. They were not far-off--those grave fighting men.