m 



CHA1U.KS II. 



in 



UsfcUMr-s favourite, MM 

 by the war that bed jeat 



d mj iaeapable Book- 



" 



with contest between UM king 



Md Ik* parhMMj* Mw latter firmly refaemf to grant UM supplies 

 ilia 11 ' bf hat Msjisl; mntU they bad obtaiaed both a redress of 

 nwvaiwse aad a rOautitt^ of UM prsrocetive. Charles, on his part, 



b* oast, were thrown away in the circumstances in which hi* roynl 

 uMtor now was. At length, on the Illhof JUIM 1645 wu fought tlm 

 battle of NaMby, whioh may b* Mid to bar* fiuUhod the wu. On 

 the 5th of SUy 1644 CharUe delivered himself up to the Scotch army 

 encamped before Newark, who on tbe 30th of January 1647 gar* him 

 up to the oouimiaionr* of the Koglub parliament. On the 3rd of 

 un he WM forcibly taken by Cornet Joyce out of the hand* of tho 

 imlatioaers, and carried to the army then lying at Triplow Hoath, 



prrumUTe 

 rse of this A 



Arst 



Aiagupon f 



by boldly putting it ill force. In the 

 throe parliament* were suooessively called 



with which be 



m.tne.TitT a 

 Ion of Riftta, 

 imant, sad fa 



Ujittm aad dismissed. Tbe Ant met 13th of June 1625, and WM 

 ' 13th of Attgmrt in the same year; the second met 6th of 

 , UM. aad WM dissolved, before it bad passed a single act, 



June; tbe third aH ITU, of Maroh 1618, WM suddenly pro- 



rorMd Mth of Joae. WM called together for a second session 20th of 

 JaanaiJ 14ft, aad WM Anally dissolved 10th of March of the same 

 year. All this time tbe proceedings of the king continued to be of 

 tho saost arbitrary character. Money WM collected from the people 

 by faros ; UM influence of the crown WM exercised in tho most open 

 to overawe UM judges, in oases in whioh the liberty of tbe 

 WM concerned; the Ant privilefe of parliament iteelf WM 

 by UM eainre of members of UM BOOM of Commons, and 

 to prison, for words alleged to have been spoken by 

 Nor is CharUe free from the charge of having 

 vring and subterfuge to escape from the demands 

 irisnl Be U especially eiposed to the charge of 

 d indirectness by hi* conduct in tbe affair of tbe 

 whioh WM passed In the Ant session of his third 

 to which be WM eventually compelled to give his 

 Thai WM UM greatest, indeed it may be said the only victory 



by UM popular party in the course of the struggle; and it 



WM rendered ineffectual for the present by the temporary success of 

 the king U UM plan which be at length adopted of governing without 

 Immediately before entering on this line of policy he 

 peace, first, on tbe 14th of April 162 with France, with 

 r be bad entered (in July 1620) into a foolish war, every 

 operation in whioh WM a disgraceful failure ; and secondly, on the 5th 

 of November 1630 with Spam, the war with which hid not been more 

 creditable to his arms. Meanwhile also the ssessinst.ion of Buckingham! 

 on the 23rd of August 1688, had rid him of this evil advUer. 



UK principal advisers now were tbe queen. Bishop Laud, and Went- 

 worth, orsated earl of Strafbrd. Tbe state of things now established, 

 aad which may be described M the complete subjugation of the consti- 

 tution by UM prerogative of the crown, Usted for nearly eight yean. 

 The only memorable attempt at resistance WM that made by Hamp- 

 den, who refused to pay bis assessment of ship-money, and whose case 

 WM argued before the twelve judges in April 1637, and decided in 

 favour of the erown. Meantime however the opposition of the people 

 of ftirrtHv* to UM Episcopal form of church government, which had 

 far some tine bean established among them, suddenly burst out into 

 Aarat The Ant disturbances took place at Edinburgh, in tbe end 

 of July 1687. aad by the beginning of the following year tho whole 

 eosmtry WM in a state of insurrection against the roval authority. In 

 three circumstance* Charles called together hie fourth parliament, 

 "I me* on the 13th of April 1640. The temper which the mem 

 sd however induced him to dissolve it on the 5th of May 

 But the Scotch army having entered England on the 20th 

 of August, be again found himself forced to have recourse to the 

 repr<aisMati*M of UM people. Tbe result WM, the meeting on the 

 M of November of a fifth parliament, which is generally known 

 under UM name of the Loaf Parliament 



Tbe Ant proceedings of this assembly amounted to entering into a 

 with UM Scottish insurgents. By one bill after 

 king WM stripped of all the most objectionable of his 

 . The Oooiiaoos also voted that no bishop shall have any 

 t nor bear any sway in temporal affair*, and that no 

 iss|j ins n shall be la tbe commission of tbe peaoa. Of his advisers, 

 Laud WM sent to the Tower, and Strafford WM executed in conformity 

 an act of attainder, his Msnntlng to which ha. always been 

 Jed M one of UM gnat stains on the character of Charles. Laud 

 WM exeouted after ho bad remained a prisoner in the Tower 

 l four years. After having yielded everything elss however, 

 rfueed his aameot to the Militia BUI, which WM presented 

 to htm In February 1442, the object of whioh WM to transfer all the 

 military power of the kingdom into the bands of the parliament The 

 Ant blood drawn B the civil war which followed WM at the indecisive 

 battle of K-lffebUl. fought on Sunday, tbe 23rd of October, in that 

 After thai UM war extended itself over the whole kingdom. 

 to incline to UM royal ride, and at the 



C- 



botinawg of UM year 1644, throughout both the'weet and the north 

 of RogUnd, all oppueition to the king w nearly subdued. InKebruary 

 of that year however another HooUish army eroessd the border, and 

 oa UM tad of July, at Marston Moor, the royalists; sustained a defeat 

 from UM combined Scottish and parliamentary forces, which proved a 

 I blow to UM king's aaVirs. The brilliant eiploits of tho Yarqnis 

 in Scotland, attheoodofthisyearandthe beginning of 



and now in open rebellion against their old matter* of tho parliament. 

 On the 16th of August he WM brought by the army to Hampttfn Court, 

 'ram which be made his escape on the llth of November, and eventu- 

 ally sought refuge with Hammond, the parliamentary governor of the 

 U of Wight. Here be WM detaiued a cloee prisoner in Carisbrook 

 CasUe till the SOth of November 1648, when he WM seised by Colonel 

 iwcr, and carried to Hurst Castle, on the opposite coast of Hampshire, 

 >y an order of the council of officers in the army. Meanwhile risings 

 n his favour, which bad been attempted in various parts of the 

 lingdom, were all suppressed without difficulty by the now dominant 

 irmy. An army in the Presbyterian interest, which ws advancing 

 r rum Scotland under the conduct of the Duke of Hamilton, WM met 

 on UM 17th of August at Lang lulo near Praiton by Cromwell, who 

 after completely routing it penetrated M far M Edinburgh, and 

 reduced everything to subjection in that quarter. On the 6th of 

 December, Colonel Pride took poMeesion of the House of Common*, 

 with a strong detachment of soldiers, and cleared it by force of all the 

 members, exospt the minority of about 150, who were in the inde- 

 pendent interest On the '23rd the king WM brought in custody to 

 Windsor, and on the 15th of January 1649 .to St James's. On the 

 20th he WM brought to trial iu Westminster Hall, before what WM 

 designated the High Court of Justice. Sentence of death WM pro- 

 nounced against him on the 27th, and ho wu executed by decapitation 

 on a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, 

 at two in the afternoon of the 30th. 



Charles I. had eight children by Queen Henrietta, of whom six 

 survived him, namely, Charles, prince of Wales, and James, duke of 

 York, afterwards kings of Eugland ; Henry, afterwards created duke 

 of Gloucester ; Mary, married to William, prince of Orange, by whom 

 she became mother of William, afterwards king of England ; Elixabeth, 

 who died a prisoner in Carisbrook Cattle, 8th of September, 1650, in 

 her fifteenth year; and Henrietta Maria, who married Philip, Juke of 

 Orleans, from whom, through a daughter, is descended the royal family 

 of Sardinia. 



The liu-rary works attributed to King Charles have been collected 

 and published under the title of 'Reliquie Sacra Carolinto.' A list 

 of them may be found in Horace Walpole's 'Royal and Noble 

 Authors.' They consist chiefly of letters and a few state papers, and 

 of the famous ' Eikon Basilike,' which first appeared immediately after 

 the death of the king : but hu claim to the authorship of this work 

 has been much disputed, and is now generally considered to have 

 been disproved, though the Rev. Dr. Ch. Wordsworth iu his work 

 entitled, ' Who wrote the Eikon Basilike,' and the replies which he 

 published in answer to the reviews of that work, has strongly contended 

 that the ' Eikon ' WM the production of the king. Charles however 

 was certainly oue of the most elegant and forcible English writers of 

 his time, and a great friend to the fine arts, which he encouraged in 

 the early part of his reign. 



(The original authorities for the hUtory of the reign of Charles I. 

 are very numerous. Among those of greatest importance may bo 

 mentioned Husbworth's ' Historical Collections ; ' Whitelock's ' Memo- 

 rials of Kngluh Affairs ; ' Clarendon's ' History of the Grand Rebellion ; ' 

 and May's 'Hutory of the (Long) Parliament;' to which must be 

 added, both for its invaluable mass of original letter*, M well M for the 

 ' Elucidations ' of the editor, Carly le's ' Letters of Oliver Cromwell* An 

 important recent addition to the documentary matter is the collection 

 of letters despatched weekly by Charles to his queen during the whole 

 of the year 1040, and printed under the editorial care of Mr. J. Bruce, 

 by the Camden Society, 1856. The general reader will find perhaps 

 a sufficiently ample detail of the events of the time iu the histories of 

 Hapin, Hume, and Lingard, and he will do well to read the recent 

 senes of works on this period by M. Ouizot, M exhibiting Charles 

 and his opponents from a point of view somewhat different from that 

 of the English historians, and also M giving the running commentary 

 of a thoroughly well-informed historian and statesman, who has him- 

 self lived and taken part in a revolutionary struggle in many respects 

 bearing no faint resemblance to that of the reign of Charles I. It will 

 b* enough to mention the volumes of Brodie, Godwin, 1 ('Israeli, &a, 

 M among the more recent works on the reign of Charles L) 



CHARLES 1L, King of England, tho second son of Charles I., 

 WM born on the 2!)th of May, 1630. His elder brother, named 

 Charles James, born 18th March 1620, had died on the day of his 

 birth. On the breaking out of the civil wnr, in 1642, the Prince of 

 Walos, then only twelve years of age, WM appointed by his father to 

 the command of the troop of bone which ho raised M a body-guard 

 on taking up his quarters at York ; and in 1645 he WM sent to servo 

 with the royal troops in the west, with tho title of general. On the 

 ruin of the royal cause after the battle of Nascby, the prince retired, 

 Ant to Kcilly, and afterwards to Jersey, from whence in September 

 1040, ho went to Paris, and joined the queen, hit mother. He after- 



