CHARLES 



1275 



CHARLES 



crush the insurrection. In 1640 the famous 

 Long Parliament assembled (so-called because 

 it remained in session twelve years), but 

 Charles succeeded no better with this assembly 

 than with the others, and civil war began 

 when he attempted to seize five of its leading 

 members. The king had on his side the nobil- 

 ity, gentry and clergy, while the Puritans and 

 the people of the great trading towns sup- 

 ported Parliament. In the course of the strug- 

 gle the "man of the hour," Oliver Cromwell, 

 came into prominence, and his great victories 

 at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645) 

 marked the ruin of the king's cause. In 1646 

 Charles escaped to Scotland, but was delivered 

 up to the English Parliament. In 1649 he was 

 tried, condemned as a public enemy of the 

 nation and beheaded. The. private life of this 

 unfortunate king was blameless. 



Charles II (1630-1685), son of Charles I, was 

 the first of the restored Stuart line. In 1651 

 he was proclaimed king by the Scotch, but 

 his army was defeated by Cromwell at Worces- 

 ter, and he fled to France. The death of 



Cromwell in 1658 and the popular dissatisfac- 

 tion with the Commonwealth as a form of 

 government opened the way for his return, 

 and in 1660 he was crowned as Charles II of 

 England. His first Parliament gave him all 

 the privileges which earlier assemblies had 

 fought to keep his father from enjoying. 

 Among the important events of his reign were 

 a war with the Dutch, the great plague and 

 fire of London, the Rye House Plot and the 

 passage by Parliament in 1679 of the famous 

 Habeas Corpus Act. 



The court of Charles II was accounted the 

 most immoral in all English history, and the 

 evil life of the king and his associates was 

 reflected in the literature of the Restoration 

 Period. B.M.W. 



Related Subjects. 



the following articles 

 Commonwealth of 



England 



Cromwell, Oliver 

 Divine Right of Kings 

 Habeas Corpus 

 Hampden, John 



The reader is referred to 

 in these volumes : 



Long Parliament 



Naseby, Battle of 



Petition of Right 



Restoration, The 



Rye House Plot 



Star Chamber 



France in Reiqn of Charles V] 



* i ~--<~ *< 



Coronation i of Charles VII 



' ' 



CHARLES OF FRANCE 



HARLES [France], the name of ten 

 sovereigns who have worn the crown of France. 

 The first was Charles the Bald, youngest son 

 of Charlemagne's son Louis, who received the 

 western portion of his father's empire when it 

 was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. 

 The kingdom over which he ruled until 877 

 was the nucleus of modern France, and he is 

 therefore known as Charles I of France. 

 Charles II, surnamed THE FAT, ruled from 885 

 until 887, when his subjects, wearied by his 

 cowardly method of defending the country 

 from the attacks of the Northmen, deposed 

 him. 



Charles III, called THE SIMPLE, came to the 

 throne in 893. During his reign the territory 

 later known as Normandy was ceded to the 



Northmen, and Lorraine was conquered. Im- 

 prisoned during a revolt of his subjects, he 

 died in captivity in 929. Charles IV, known 

 as THE FAIR, was king of France from 1322 to 

 1328, the last of the Capetian line (see CATO- 

 TIAN DYNASTY). His rule was marked by the 

 strengthening of the royal power and the sup- 

 pression of the lawless nobles in the kingdom. 

 Charles V, surnamed THE WISE (1337-1380), 

 was bora in the same year in which the Hun- 

 dred Years' War (which Me) began. When 

 his father, John the Good, was taken captive 

 by the English at the Battle of Poitiers, in 

 1356, Charles ruled in his stead and waa 

 crowned king in 1364. He fought England for 

 several years, wresting from his enemies nearly 

 all that they had won from his father, and 



