and therefore exempt from examination. He was released on 4 August 1643, but on condition that he should go into exile on the Continent and not serve the king. These conditions he ignored and two days after his release he wrote to the king and set off for the royal court then at Oxford. In October 1643 he wrote to his wife in Devon to "remember me to as many in that country as you think worth the remembering", a sign of his disenchantment with the Parliamentarian members of the gentry of Devon, his neighbours and former friends. On 22 January 1644, in the Oxford Parliament he was appointed by the king as Lord Privy Seal, which office had previously been held 1572–73 by his maternal grandfather Lord Howard of Effingham. He held the post of Lord Privy Seal for the remainder of his life. He was appointed in 1644 Commissioner for the Defense of Oxford. In the Summer of 1644, on the approach of the Parliamentarian army from the east, Bourchier and his wife fled from Tawstock and Devon into the far west of Cornwall. For this action he was publicly criticised by certain royalists for having abandoned his post, and petitioned the king for redress to what he viewed as slander, stating that he feared for his safety and was thus entitled to withdraw. However, in another account, he claimed he went to Cornwall to inspect one of the poorly performing estates. In June 1645, the 15-year-old Prince Charles (the future King Charles II) visited Bourchier at Tawstock Court, which event is recorded in the surviving Tawstock household accounts. (Prince Charles had been sent for his safety from plague-stricken Bristol to Barnstaple, where he stayed at the house of Grace Beaple (d.1651), widow of the merchant Richard Beaple (d.1643), thrice Mayor of Barnstaple, from about 15 June to 8 July) Among the provisions purchased for the occasion were lobsters, artichokes, raspberries, and masards (cherries long grown in the locality). A cook was brought in from nearby Barnstaple and payments were made to the Prince's own cooks and musicians. Career during Commonwealth During the Commonwealth he was classed as a delinquent and in December 1648 the Standing Committee of Devon, responsible for the Articles of Delinquency accused him under five main charges: He had deserted the House of Lords and taken up arms against Parliament. He had actively worked