One of the few persons to whom Charles II. showed real gratitude for their devotion to his interests at the risk of their lives and fortunes, was Jane Lane, the sister of Colonel Lane, of Bentley Hall, in Staffordshire.

After the battle of Worcester, during which memorable contention between legitimacy and usurpation young Charles behaved in so gallant a manner, that his friends and his country might reasonably have hoped everything from so brave and fearless a leader, retreat was all that was left to the defeated prince and his followers. Pursued, hunted, and in the utmost peril, Charles reached the city of Worcester, then the scene of carnage and tumult. There he tried to rally his discomfited and harassed troops. Mounting a fresh horse, he rode up to his soldiers, and, with vehement entreaties, conjured them to stand their ground, and support their cause to the last, passionately exclaiming, that he would rather at once fall by their muskets, than live to see the consequences of their desertion. By the exertions of Colonel Careless and other noble cavaliers, Charles was enabled to make good his escape from Worcester. From that moment the adventures of the fugitive King were as romantic as any that fiction could present; and often, in after days, in the midst of his gay and thoughtless court, would he allude to those moments of peril and distress, when death awaited him at every turn; when he wandered, homeless, penniless, faint, and wretched, fearing in every stranger a betrayer, and in every acquaintance a traitor.