rilAKLKKOI 



CHARLES I. OF ENGLAND 115 



jealously endeavoured to promote education, agri- 

 culture, arts, manufactures, and commerce. He 



'ted great national works, one of which was a 



to connect the Khino an<l tlie Danube; but 



lie .Iccnic.l n. .tiling beneath liis attention \vlii<-h 



i tied i In- interests of his empire or of his sub- 

 ject-. lie required his subjects to plant certain 

 kinds of fruit trees, the cultivation of which was 

 exiended northwanl in Europe. His own 

 domain- were an example of superior cultivation. 

 He had a school in his palace for the sons of his 

 its. He built sumptuous palaces, particularly 

 ut his favourite residences, Aix-la-Chapelle and 

 Ingelheim for he had no fixed capital and many 

 churches. Learned men were encouraged to come 

 to hi- court. He himself possessed an amount of 

 learning unusual in his age ; he could speak Latin 

 and read Greek. He attempted to draw up a 



Miiarof his own language. Charlemagne was 

 of more than ordinary stature, and of a noble and 

 commanding presence. He was fond of manly 



ises, particularly of hunting. His fame spread 

 to all parts of the world : in 798 Haroun Al-Raschtd 

 vnt ambassadors to salute him. He enjoyed good 

 health till shortly before his death, 28th January 

 814. He was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v. ), in 

 a church which he had built there. The greatness 

 of his dynasty terminated with his own life. The 

 rule of Charlemagne was a noble attempt to con- 

 solidate order and Christian culture among the 

 nations of the West. It was a mighty task which 

 cou hi have been continued and consummated only 

 by a succession of sovereigns of like energy and 

 sagacity with himself. As his successors were 

 weaklings, his empire fell to pieces ; yet in many 

 ways he has had a permanent influence on Euro- 

 1 .111 history. He established much of what were 

 d- Mined to be the beginnings of a new order. 

 Besides his Capitularies (q.v.), there are extant 

 letters and Latin poems ascribed to him. His life 

 was written in Latin by his secretary, Eginhard 



. i, the best editions being by Jaff6 (1876) and 

 Holder ( 1882). See works by Cutts ( 1882), Mom- 

 bert (1889), Hodgkin (1897), and Wells (1898); also 

 ( 'ii A \ si ..vs I>E GESTES and ROMANCES. 



Charleroi, a town in the Belgian province of 

 Eainault, on the Sambre, 35 miles S. by E. of 

 I'.mssels by rail. It canies on considerable manu- 

 factures in hardware, glass, woollen-yarn, &c. The 

 district is rich in coal, and the number of smelting- 

 furnaces and nail-factories in the neighbourhood is 

 very threat ; whilst the huge ironworks of Couillet 

 lie within a mile of the town. The fortifications, 

 heirun by the Spaniards in 1666, fell next year into 

 the hands of the French, and were completed by 

 Van ban. After six exchanges of ownership between 

 the French and Spaniards, the Peace of Aix-la- 

 Chapelle (1748) left Charleroi in the possession of 

 Austria. In 1794, after a protracted and desperate 

 resistance, it capitulated to the French, when the 

 fortifications were dismantled. The importance 

 <>f the place from a strategic point of view became 

 apparent during the campaign of 1815, when, 

 three days before Waterloo, Charleroi was occupied 

 l>y Napoleon, and the fortifications were restored ; 

 lint in 1866 they were finally demolished. Pop. 

 I *><>(>) 12,150; (1886)20,511; (1891)21,376. 



< liarlcs, surnamed Martel ( ' the Hammer ' ), 

 *v;is the natural son of Pepin of Heristal, mayor of 

 lie palace under the last Merovingian kings, and 

 vas 1. 01 n about 688. After his father's death in 

 ru. he was chosen as their duke by the Austrasian 

 I ranks, and at the close of a struggle with the 



! Meustrian Franks became in 720 undisputed mayor 

 >f the palace and real ruler of the Franks, the 

 itular kings being mere puppets in his hands. He 



, aad much hard fighting with the Saxons and other 



Htuhlinrn Teutonic races, a* the Alemanni and 

 Bavarians, but his great service to ChriMtendotn 

 and to civilisation was that he rolled back the 

 surging tide of Moslem conquest. The Saracen* 

 had already taken Bordeaux, overrun the duchy 

 of Aquitania, and advanced to the Loire, when 

 Charles met them between Tours and Poitiers 

 (732), and after a desperate battle, in which their 

 leader, Abd-ur- Rahman, fell, completely defeated 

 them. This was one of the most important victories 

 in the world's history, and saved western civilNa 

 tion from hopeless retrogression and ruin. * But 

 for it,' says Gibbon, 'perhaps the inteipreta- 

 tion of the Koran would now be taught in the 

 schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demon- 

 strate to a circumcised people the sanctity and 

 truth of the revelation of Mahomet.' Charles 

 finished his work by defeating the Saracens again 

 in 737, when they had advanced in the Burgunuian 

 territories as far as Lyons, and by driving them out 

 of Languedoc. He died on 22d October 741 at 

 Quiercy on the Oise, in the midst of his victories, 

 his projects, and his greatness, leaving the govern- 

 ment of the kingdom to be divided between his 

 two sons Carloman and Pepin the Short. 



Charles I., born at Dunfermline on 19th 

 November 1600, was a sickly child, unable to speak 

 till his fifth year, and so weak in the ankles that 

 till his seventh he had to crawl upon his hands and 

 knees. Except for a stammer, he outgrew both 

 defects, and became a skilled tilter and marksman, 

 as well as an accomplished scholar and a diligent 

 student of theology. He was created Duke of 

 Albany at his baptism, Duke of York in 1605, and 

 Prince of Wales in 1616, four years after the death 

 of his dear brother, Prince Henry, had left him heir 

 to the- crown of three kingdoms. The Spanish 

 match had been mooted as early as 1614 ; out it 

 was not till 17th February 1623 that, with Buck- 

 ingham, his inseparable friend, Charles started on 

 the romantic incognito journey to Madrid, its 

 objects to win the hand of the Infanta, and to pro- 

 cure the restitution of the Palatinate to his brother- 

 in-law, Frederick. Both he and his father swore to 

 all possible and many impossible concessions to the 

 Catholics, but nothing short of his own conversion 

 would have satisfied the Spanish and papal courts ; 

 and on 5th October he landed again in England, 

 eager for rupture with Spain. The nation's joy was 

 speedily dashed by his betrothal to the French 

 princess, Henrietta Maria (1609-69); for the mar- 

 riage articles pledged him, in violation of solemn 

 engagements to parliament, to permit her and all 

 her domestics the free exercise of the Catholic 

 religion, and to give her the upbringing of their 

 children till the age of thirteen. 



On 27th March 1625 Charles succeeded his father, 

 James I.; on 13th June he welcomed his little 

 bright-eyed queen at Dover, having married her bv 

 proxy six weeks earlier. Barely a twelvemonth 

 was over when he packed off her troublesome 

 retinue to France a bishop and 29 priests, with 

 410 more male and female attendants. Thence- 

 forth their domestic life was a happy one : and 

 during the twelve years following the murder of 

 Buckingham (1592-1028), in whose hands he had 

 been a mere tool, Charles gradually came to yield 

 himself up to her unwise influence, not wholly in- 

 deed, but more than to that of StrarTord even, or 

 Laud. Little, meddlesome Laud, made archbishop 

 in 1633, proceeded to war against the dominant 

 Puritanism, to preach passive obedience, and up- 

 hold the divine right of kings ; whilst great Strafford, 

 from championing the Petition of Right (1628), 

 passed over to the king's service, and entered on 

 that policy of ' Thorough ' whose aim was to make 

 his master absolute. Three parliaments were sum- 

 moned and dissolved in the first four years of the 



