CHARLES I. (160o--1649), king of Great Britain and Ire land, second son of James I. and Anne of Denmark, was born at Dunfermline on Nov. 19, 1600. At his baptism he was created duke of Albany, and on Jan. 16, 1605 duke of York. In 1612, by the death of his elder brother Henry, he became heir-apparent, and was created prince of Wales on Nov. 3, 1616. In 162o he took up warmly the cause of his sister the queen of Bohemia, and in 1621 he defended Bacon, using his influence to prevent the chancellor's degradation from the peerage. The prince's marriage with the Infanta Maria, daughter of Philip III. of Spain, had been for some time the subject of negotiation, James desiring to obtain through Spanish support the restitution of his son-in-law, Frederick, to the Palatinate ; and in 1623 Charles was persuaded by Buckingham, who now obtained a complete ascendancy over him in opposition to wiser advisers and the king's own wishes, to make a secret expedition himself to Spain, put an end to all formalities, and bring him his mistress himself ; "a gallant and brave thing for his Highness." "Steenie" and "Baby Charles," as James called them, started on Feb. 17, arriv ing at Paris on the 21st and at Madrid on March 7, where they assumed the unromantic names of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown. They found the Spanish court by no means enthusiastic for the marriage and the princess herself averse. The prince's imme diate conversion was expected, and a complete religious tolerance for the Roman Catholics in England demanded. James engaged to allow the infanta the right of public worship and to use his influence to modify the law, but Charles himself went much further. He promised the alteration of the penal laws within three years, conceded the education of the children to the mother till the age of 12, and undertook to listen to the infanta's priests in matters of religion, signing the marriage contract on July 25, 1623. The Spanish, however, did not trust to words, and Charles was informed that his wife could only follow him to England when these promises were executed. Moreover, they had no in tention whatever of aiding the Protestant Frederick. Meanwhile Buckingham, incensed at the failure of the expedition, had quar relled with the grandees, and Charles left Madrid, landing at Portsmouth on Oct. 5, to the joy of the people, to whom the proposed alliance was odious. He now with Buckingham urged James to make war on Spain, and in Dec. 1624 signed a marriage treaty with Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France. In April Charles had declared solemnly to the parliament that in case of his marriage to a Roman Catholic princess no concessions should be granted to recusants, but these were in Sept. 1624 de liberately promised by James and Charles in a secret article, the first instance of the duplicity and deception practised by Charles in dealing with the parliament and the nation. The French on their side promised to assist in Mansfeld's expedition for the re covery of the Palatinate, but Louis in October refused to allow the men to pass through France ; and the army, without pay or provisions, dwindled away in Holland to nothing.
On March 27, 1625, Charles I. succeeded to the throne by the death of his father, and on May I he was married by proxy to Henrietta Maria. He received her at Canterbury on June 13, and on the 18th his first parliament assembled. On the day of his marriage, Charles had given directions that the prosecutions of the Roman Catholics should cease, but he now declared his intention of enforcing the laws against them, and demanded subsidies for carrying on the war against Spain. The Commons, however, responded coldly. Charles had lent ships to Louis XIII. to be used against the Protestants at La Rochelle, and the Com mons were not aware of the subterfuges and fictitious delays intended to prevent their employment. The Protestant feelings of the Commons were also aroused by the king's support of the royal chaplain, Richard Montagu, who had repudiated Calvinistic doctrine. They only voted small sums, and sent up a petition on the state of religion, also reflecting upon Buckingham, whom they deemed responsible for the failure of Mansfeld's expedition, at the same time demanding counsellors in whom they could trust. Parliament was accordingly dissolved by Charles on Aug. 12. He hoped that greater success abroad would persuade the Commons to be more generous. On Sept. 8, 1625, he made the treaty of Southampton with the Dutch against Spain, and sent an expedition to Cadiz under Sir Edward Cecil, which, however, was a failure. In order to make himself independent of parlia ment he attempted to raise money on the crown jewels in Hol land, and to diminish the opposition in the Commons he ex cluded the chief leaders by appointing them sheriffs. When the second parliament met, however, on Feb. 6, 1626, the oppo sition, led by Sir John Eliot, was more determined than before, and their attack was concentrated upon Buckingham. On March 29, Charles, calling the Commons into his presence, accused them of leading him into the war and of taking advantage Of his difficulties to "make their own game." "I pray you not to be deceived," he said, "it is not a parliamentary way, nor 'tis not a way to deal with a king. Remember that parlia ments are altogether in my power for their calling, sitting, and dissolution; therefore as I find the fruits of them good or evil, they are to continue or not to be." Charles, however, was worsted in several collisions with the two houses, with a conse quent loss of influence. He was obliged by the peers to set at liberty Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, whom he had put into the Tower, and to send a summons to the earl of Bristol, whom he had attempted to exclude from parliament, while the Commons compelled him, with a threat of doing no business, to liberate Eliot and Digges, the managers of Buckingham's impeachment, whom he had imprisoned. Finally in June the Commons answered Charles's demand for money by a remonstrance asking for Buck ingham's dismissal, which they decided must precede the grant of supply. They claimed responsible ministers, while Charles con sidered himself the executive and the sole and unfettered judge of the necessities of the State. Accordingly on the 15th Charles dissolved the parliament.
The king was now in great need of money. He was at war with Spain and had promised to pay £30,000 a month to Christian IV. of Denmark in support of the Protestant campaign in Ger many. To these necessities was now added a war with France, Charles had never kept his promise concerning the recusants; disputes arose in consequence with his wife, and on July 31, 1626, he ordered all her French attendants to be expelled from Whitehall and sent back to France. At the same time several French ships carrying contraband goods to the Spanish Nether lands, were seized by English warships. On June 27, 1627, Buck ingham with a large expedition sailed to the Isle of Re to relieve La Rochelle, then besieged by the forces of Louis XIII. Though the success of the French Protestants was an object much de sired in England, Buckingham's unpopularity prevented support being given to the expedition, and the duke returned to Plymouth on Nov. i i completely defeated. Meanwhile Charles had en deavoured to get the money refused to him by parliament by means of a forced loan, dismissing Chief Justice Crewe for de clining to support its legality, and imprisoning several of the leaders of the opposition for refusing to subscribe to it. These summary measures, however, only brought a small sum into the treasury. On Jan. 2, 1628, Charles ordered the release of all the persons imprisoned, and on March 17 summoned his third parliament.
Instead of relieving the king's necessities the Commons imme diately proceeded to discuss the constitutional position and to formulate the Petition of Right, forbidding taxation without con sent of parliament, arbitrary and illegal imprisonment, com pulsory billeting in private houses, and martial law. Charles, on May I, first demanded that they should "rest on his royal word and promise." He obtained an opinion from the judges that the acceptance of the petition would not absolutely pre clude in certain cases imprisonments without showing cause, and after a futile endeavour to avoid an acceptance by return ing an ambiguous answer which only exasperated the Commons, he gave his consent on June 7, in the full and usual form. Charles now obtained his subsidies, but no real settlement was reached, and his relations with the parliament remained as un f riendly as bef ore. They proceeded to remonstrate against his government and against his support of Buckingham, and denied his right to tonnage and poundage. Accordingly, on June 26, they were prorogued. New disasters befell Charles, in the assassi nation of Buckingham, and in the failure of the fresh expedition sent to Re. In Jan. 1629 the parliament reassembled, irritated by the exaction of the duties and seizure of goods during the interval, and suspicious of "innovations in religion," the king having forbidden the clergy to continue the controversy concern ing Calvinistic and Arminian doctrines, the latter of which the parliament desired to suppress. While they were discussing these matters, on March 2, 1629, the king ordered them to adjourn, but amidst a scene of great excitement the speaker, Sir John Finch, was held down in his chair and the doors were locked, whilst resolutions against innovations in religion and declaring those who levied or paid tonnage and poundage enemies to their country were passed. Parliament was immediately dissolved, and Charles imprisoned nine members, leaders of the opposition, Eliot, Holles, Strode, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Heyman, Ho bart and Long. Eliot, the most formidable of his opponents, died in the Tower of consumption after long years of close and unhealthy confinement, Charles even refusing to surrender his corpse to his family.
For 1I years Charles ruled without parliaments and with some success. There seemed no reason to think that "that noise," to use Laud's expression concerning parliaments, would ever be heard again by those then living. A revenue of about f 618,000 was obtained by enforcing the payment of tonnage and poundage, and—while avoiding the taxes, loans, and benevolences forbidden by the petition of right—by monopolies, fines for knighthood, and for pretended encroachments on the royal domains and forests, which enabled the king to meet expenditure at home. In Ireland, Charles, in order to get money, had granted the Graces in 1628, conceding security of titles of more than 6o years' standing, and a more moderate oath of allegiance for the Roman Catholics, together with the renunciation of the shilling fine for non=attend ance at church. He continued, however, to make various at tempts to get estates into his possession on the pretext of invalid title, and on May 12, 1635, the City of London estates were sequestered. Charles here destroyed one of the most valuable settlements in Ireland founded by James I. in the interests of national defence, and at the same time extinguished the historic loyalty of the city of London, which henceforth steadily favoured the parliamentary cause. In 1633 Wentworth had been sent to Ireland to establish a mediaeval monarchy and get money, and his success in organization seemed great enough to justify the attempt to extend the system to England. Charles at the same time restricted his foreign policy to scarcely more than a wish for the recovery of the Palatinate, to further which he engaged in a series of numerous and mutually destructive negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus and with Spain, finally making peace with Spain on Nov. 5, 163o, an agreement which was followed on Jan. 2, 1631, by a further secret treaty, the two kings binding themselves to make war on the Dutch and partition their terri tories. A notable feature of this agreement was that while in Charles's portion Roman Catholicism was to be tolerated, there was no guarantee for the security of Protestantism in the terri tory to be ceded to Spain.
In 1634 Charles levied ship-money from the seaport towns for the increase of the navy, and in 1635 the tax was extended to the inland counties, which aroused considerable opposition. In Feb. 1637 Charles obtained an opinion in favour of his claims from the judges, and in 1638 the great Hampden case was de cided in his favour. The apparent success, however, of Charles was imperilled by the general and growing resentment aroused by his exactions and whole policy, and this agaid was small compared with the fears excited by the king's attitude towards religion and Protestantism. He supported zealously Laud's rigid Anglican orthodoxy, his compulsory introduction of unwelcome ritual, and his narrow, intolerant and despotic policy, which was marked by several savage prosecutions and sentences in the Star Cham ber, drove numbers of moderate Protestants out of the Church into Presbyterianism, and created an intense feeling of hostility to the Government throughout the country. Charles further in creased the popular fears on the subject of religion by his wel come given to Panzani, the pope's agent, in 1634, who en deavoured unsuccessfully to reconcile the two churches, and afterwards to George Conn, papal agent at the court of Henrietta Maria, while the favour shown by the king to these was con trasted with the severe sentences passed upon the Puritans.
The same imprudent neglect of the national sentiment was pursued in Scotland. Charles had already made powerful enemies there by a declaration announcing the arbitrary revocation of former church estates to the crown. On June 18, 1633, he was crowned at Edinburgh with full Anglican ceremonial, which lost him the hearts of numbers of his Scottish subjects and aroused hostility to his government in parliament. Af ter his return to England, he gave further offence by ordering the use of the surplice, by his appointment of Archbishop Spottiswoode as chan cellor of Scotland, and by introducing other bishops into the privy council. In 1636 the new Book of Canons was issued by the king's authority, ordering the communion table to be placed at the east end, enjoining confession, and declaring excommunicate any who should presume to attack the new prayer-book. The latter was ordered to be used on Oct. 18, 1636, but it did not arrive in Scotland till May 1637. It was intensely disliked both as "popish" and as English. A riot followed its first use in St. Giles' cathedral on July 23, and Charles's order to enforce it on Sept. 1 o was met by fresh disturbances and by the establishment of the "Tables," national committees which now became the real though informal government of Scotland. In 1638 the national covenant was drawn up, binding those that signed it to defend their religion to the death, and was taken by large numbers with enthusiasm all over the country. Charles now drew back, promised to enforce the canons and prayer-book only in a "fair and legal way," and sent the marquis of Hamilton as a mediator. The latter, however, a weak and incapable man, desirous of popu larity with all narties. and unfaithful to the king's interests.
yielded everything, without obtaining the return of Charles's subjects to their allegiance. The assembly met at Glasgow on Nov. 21, and in spite of Hamilton's opposition immediately pro ceeded to judge the bishops. On the 28th Hamilton dissolved it, but it continued to sit, deposed the bishops and re-established Presbyterianism. The rebellion had now begun and an appeal to arms alone could decide the quarrel between Charles and his subjects. On May 28, 1639, he arrived at Berwick with a small and ill-trained force, thus beginning what is known as the first Bishops' War; but being confronted by the Scottish army at Duns Law, he was compelled to sign the treaty of Berwick on June 18, which provided for the disbandment of both armies and the restitution to the king of royal castles, referring all questions to a general assembly and a parliament. When the assembly met it abolished episcopacy; but Charles, who on Aug. 3, had returned to Whitehall, refused his consent to this and other measures proposed by the Scottish parliament. His ex treme financial necessities, and the prospect of renewed hostilities with the Scots, now moved Charles, at the instigation of Straf ford, who in September had left Ireland to become the king's chief adviser, to turn again to parliament for assistance as the last resource, and on April 13, 1640, the Short Parliament as sembled. But on its discussing grievances before granting sup plies and finally refusing subsidies till peace was made with the Scots, it was dissolved on May 5. Charles returned once more to measures of repression, and on the loth imprisoned some of the London aldermen who refused to lend money. He prepared for war, scraping together what money he could and obtaining a grant through Strafford from Ireland. His position, however, was hopeless; his forces were totally undisciplined, and the Scots were supported by the parliamentary opposition in England. On Aug. 20 the Scots crossed the Tweed, beginning the so-called second Bishops' War, defeated the king's army at Newburn on the 28th, and subsequently occupied Newcastle and Durham. Charles at this juncture, on Sept. 24, summoned a great council of the peers; and on Oct. 21 a cessation of arms was agreed to by the treaty of Ripon, the Scots receiving £85o a day for the maintenance of the army, and further negotiations being trans ferred to London. On Nov. 3 the king summoned the Long Parliament.
At this great crisis, which would indeed have taxed the resolu tion and resource of the most cool-headed and sagacious states man, Charles failed signally. He might have taken his stand on the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the crown, resisted all encroachments on the executive by the parliament by legal and constitutional means, which were probably ample, and in case of necessity have appealed to the loyalty of the nation to support him in arms; or he might have waived his rights, and, acknowl edging the mistakes of his past administration, have united with the parliament and created once more that union of interests and sentiment of the monarchy with the nation which had made England so powerful. Charles, however, pretended to do both simultaneously or by turns, and therefore accomplished neither. The illegally imprisoned members of the last parliament, now smarting with the sense of their wrongs, were set free to stimulate the violence of the opposition to the king in the new assembly. Of Charles's double statecraft, however, the series of incidents which terminated the career of the great Strafford form the most terrible example. Strafford had come to London in Nov., having been assured by Charles that he "should not suffer in his person, honour or fortune," but was impeached and thrown into the Tower almost immediately. Charles took no steps to hinder the progress of the proceedings against him, but entered into schemes for saving him by bringing up an army to London, and this step exasperated Strafford's enemies, and added new zeal to the prose cution. On April 23, after the passing of the attainder by the Commons, he repeated to Strafford his former assurances of pro tection. On May 1 he appealed to the Lords to spare his life and be satisfied with rendering him incapable of holding office. On the 2nd he made an attempt to seize the Tower by force. On the loth, yielding to the queen's fears and to the mob surging round his palace, he signed his death-warrant. "If my own person only were in danger," he declared to the council, "I would gladly venture it to save my Lord Strafford's life; but seeing my wife, children, all my kingdom are concerned in it, I am forced to give way unto it." On the i 1 th he sent to the peers a petition for Strafford's life, the force of which was completely annulled by the strange postscript: "If he must die, it were a charity to reprieve him until Saturday." This tragic surrender of his great and devoted servant left an indelible stain upon the king's charac ter, and he lived to repent it bitterly. One of his last admonitions to the prince of Wales was "never to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the crown." It was regarded by Charles as the cause of his own subsequent misfortunes, and on the scaffold the remembrance of it disturbed his own last moments. The surrender of Strafford was followed by another stupendous concession by Charles, the surrender of his right to dissolve the parliament without its own consent, and the parlia ment immediately proceeded, with Charles's consent, to sweep away the star-chamber, high commission and other extra-legal courts, and all extra parliamentary taxation. Charles, however, did not remain long or consistently in the yielding mood. In June 1641 he engaged in a second army plot for bringing up the forces to London, and on Aug. 1 o he set out for Scotland in order to obtain the Scottish army against the parliament in England; this plan was obviously doomed to failure and was in terrupted by another appeal to force, the so-called Incident, at which Charles was suspected (in all probability unjustly) of having connived, consisting in an attempt to kidnap and murder Argyll, Hamilton and Lanark, with whom he was negotiating. Charles had also apparently been intriguing with Irish Roman Catholic lords for military help in return for concessions, and he was suspected of complicity in the Irish rebellion which now broke out. He left Scotland more discredited than ever, having by his concessions made, to use Hyde's words, "a perfect deed of gift of that kingdom," and without gaining any advantage.
Charles returned to London on Nov. 25, 1641, and was imme diately confronted by the Grand Remonstrance (passed on the 22nd), in which, after reciting the chief points of the king's mis government, the parliament demanded the appointment of ac ceptable ministers and the constitution of an assembly of divines to settle the religious question. On Jan. 2, 1642, Charles gave office to the opposition members Colepeper and Falkland, and at the same time Hyde left the opposition partly to serve the king. Charles promised to take no serious step without their advice. Nevertheless, entirely without their knowledge, through the in fluence of the queen whose impeachment was intended, Charles on the 4th made the rash and fatal attempt to seize with an armed force the five members of the Commons, Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hesilrige and Strode, whom, together with Mandeville (afterwards earl of Manchester) in the Lords, he had impeached of high treason. No English sovereign ever had (or has since that time) penetrated into the House of Commons. So complete and flagrant a violation of parliamentary liberties, and an appeal so crude and glaring to brute force, could only be justified by complete success; but the court plans had been betrayed, and were known to the offending members, who, by order of the House, had taken refuge in the city before the king's arrival with the soldiers. Charles, on entering the House, found "the birds flown," and returned baffled, having thrown away the last chance of a peaceful settlement. (See LENTHALL, WILLIAM.) The next day Charles was equally unsuccessful in obtaining their surrender in the city. "The king had the worst day in London yesterday," wrote a spectator of the scene, "that ever he had, the people crying `privilege of parliament,' by thousands and prayed God to turn the heart of the king, shutting up their shops and standing at their doors with swords and halberds." On the loth, amidst general manifestations of hostility, Charles left Whitehall to prepare for war, destined never to return till he was brought back by his victorious enemies to die.
Several months followed spent in manoeuvres to obtain the control of the forces and in a paper war of controversy. On April 23 Charles was refused entry into Hull, and on June 2, the parliament sent to him the "Nineteen Propositions," claiming the whole sovereignty and government for the parliament, in cluding the choice of the ministers, the judges, and the control of the army, and the execution of the laws against the Roman Catholics. The military events of the war are described in the article GREAT REBELLION.
The negotiations carried on at Uxbridge during Jan. and Feb. 1645 failed to secure a settlement, and on June 14 the crushing defeat of the king's forces, by the new model army, at Naseby practically ended the civil war. Charles, however, refused to make peace on Rupert's advice, and considered it a point of honour "neither to abandon God's cause, injure my successors, nor forsake my friends." His chief hope was to join Montrose in Scotland, but his march north was prevented by the parlia mentary forces, and on Sept. 24 he witnessed from the walls of Chester the rout of his followers at Rowton Heath. He now entered into a series of intrigues, mutually destructive, which, becoming known to the different parties, exasperated all and diminished still further the king's credit. One proposal was the levy of a foreign force to reduce the kingdom ; another, the supply through the marquis of Ormonde of I o,000 Irish. Corre spondence relating to these schemes, fatally compromising as they were if Charles hoped ever to rule England again, was dis covered by his enemies, including the Glamorgan treaty, which went much further than the instructions to Ormonde, but of which the full responsibility has never been really traced to Charles, who on Jan. 29, 1646, disavowed his agent's proceedings. He simultaneously treated with the parliament, and promised toleration to the Roman Catholics if they and the pope would aid in the restoration of the monarchy and the church. Nor was this all. The parliamentary forces had been closing round Oxford. On April 27 the king left the city, and, on May 5, gave himself up to the Scottish army at Newark, arriving on the 13th with them at Newcastle. On July 13 the parliament sent to Charles the "Newcastle Propositions," which included the extreme demands of Charles's acceptance of the Covenants, the abolition of episcopacy and establishment of Presbyterianism, severer laws against the Roman Catholics and parliamentary control of the forces, with the withdrawal of the Irish cessation, and a long list of royalists to be exempted from pardon. Charles returned no definite answer for several months. He imagined that he might now find support in Scottish royalism, encouraged by Montrose's series of brilliant victories, but these hopes were destroyed by the latter's defeat at Philiphaugh on Sept. 13. The Scots insisted on the Covenant and on the permanent establish ment of Presbyterianism, while Charles would only consent to a temporary maintenance for three years. Accordingly the Scots, in return for the payment of part of their army arrears by the parliament, marched home on Jan. 3o, 1647, leaving Charles behind, who under the care of the parliamentary commissioners was conducted to Holmby House. Thence on May 12 he sent his answer to the Newcastle Propositions, offering the militia to the parliament for ten years and the establishment of Pres byterianism for three, while a final settlement on religion was to be reached through an assembly of 20 divines at Westminster. But in the midst of the negotiation with the parliament Charles's person was seized, on June 3, 1647, by Cornet Joyce under in structions of the army, which soon afterwards, occupied London and overpowered the parliament, placing Charles at Hampton Court.
If Charles could have remained firm to either one or the other faction, and have made concessions either to Presbyterianism or on the subject of the militia, he might even now have prevailed. But he had learned nothing by experience and continued at this juncture his characteristic policy of intrigue and double-dealing, "playing his game," to use his own words, negotiating with both parties at once, not with the object or wish to arrive at a settle ment with either, but to augment their disputes, gain time and profit ultimately by their divisions. The "Heads of the Pro posals," submitted to Charles by the army on July 28, 1647, were terms conceived on a basis far broader and more statesman like than the Newcastle Propositions, and such as Charles might well have accepted. The proposals on religion anticipated the Toleration Act of 1689. There was no mention of episcopacy, and its existence was thereby indirectly admitted, but complete religious freedom for all Protestant denominations was provided, and the power of the church to inflict civil penalties abolished, while it was also suggested that dangers from Roman Catholics and Jesuits might be avoided by means other than enforcing attendance at Church. The parliament was to dissolve itself and be succeeded by biennial assemblies elected on a reformed franchise, not to be dissolved without their own consent before 120 days, and not to sit more than 24o days in the two years. A council of state was to conduct the foreign policy of the state and conclude peace and war subject to the approval of parlia ment, and to control the militia for ten years, the commanders being appointed by parliament, as also the officers of state for ten years. No peer created since May 21, 1642, was to sit in parliament without consent of both Houses, and the judicial de cisions of the House of Lords were to be ratified by the Com mons. Only five persons were excepted from amnesty, but royal ists were not to hold office for five years and not to sit in the Commons till the end of the second biennial parliament. Pro posals for a series of reforms were also added. Charles, however, was at the same time negotiating with Lauderdale for an invasion of England by the Scots, and imagined he could win over Crom well and Fairfax by "proffers of advantage to themselves." The precious opportunity was therefore allowed to slip by. On Sept. 9 he rejected the proposals of the parliament for the establish ment of Presbyterianism. His hopes of gaining advantages by playing upon the differences of his opponents proved a complete failure. Fresh terms were drawn up by the army and parliament together on Nov. Io, but before these could be presented, Charles, on the II th, had escaped to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. Thence on the 16th he sent a message offering Presby terianism for three years and the militia for his lifetime to the parliament, but insisting on the maintenance of episcopacy. On Dec. 28 he refused his assent to the Four Bills, which demanded the militia for parliament for 20 years, and practically forever annulled the honours recently granted by the king and his declara tions against the Houses, and gave to parliament the right to adjourn to any place it wished. On Jan. 3, 1648, the Commons agreed to a resolution to address the king no further, in which they were joined by the Lords on the 15th.
Charles had meanwhile taken a further fatal step which brought about his total destruction. On Dec. 26, 1647, he had signed at Carisbrooke with the Scottish commissioners the secret treaty called the "Engagement," whereby the Scots undertook to invade England on his behalf and restore him to the throne on condition of the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years and the suppression of the sectarians. In consequence the second civil war broke out and the Scots invaded England under Hamilton. The royalist risings in England were soon suppressed, and Crom well gained an easy and decisive victory over the Scots at Preston. Charles was now left alone to face his enemies, with the whole tale of his intrigues and deceptions unmasked and exposed. The last intrigue with the Scots was the most unpardonable in the eyes of his contemporaries, no less wicked and monstrous than his design to conquer England by the Irish soldiers ; "a more prodigious treason," said Cromwell, "than any that had been perfected before ; because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one another; this to vassalize us to a foreign nation." Cromwell, who up to this point had shown himself fore most in supporting the negotiations with the king, now spoke of the treaty of Newport, which he found the parliament in the act of negotiating on his return from Scotland, as "this ruining hypocritical agreement." Charles had engaged in these negotia tions only to gain time and find opportunity to escape. He had stipulated that no concession from him should be valid unless an agreement were reached upon every point. He had now con sented to most of the demands of the parliament, including the repudiation of the Irish cessation, the surrender of the delin quents and the cession of the militia for twenty years, and of the offices of state to parliament, but remained firm in his refusal to abolish episcopacy, consenting only to Presbyterianism for three years. Charles's devotion to the church is undoubted. In April 1646, before his flight from Oxford, inspired perhaps by superstitious fears as to the origin of his misfortunes, he had delivered to Sheldon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, a written vow (now in the library of St. Paul's cathedral) to restore all church lands held by the crown on his restoration to the throne; and almost his last injunction to the prince of Wales was that of fidelity to the national church. His present firmness, however, in its support was caused probably less by his devotion to it than by his desire to secure the failure of the whole treaty, and his attempts to escape naturally weakened the chances of success. Cromwell now supported the petitions of the army against the treaty. On Nov. 16 the council of officers demanded the trial of the king, "the capital and grand author of our troubles," and on Nov. 27 the parliamentary commissioners re turned from Newport without having secured Charles's consent. Charles was removed to Hurst Castle on Dec. 1, where he re mained till the 19th, thence being taken to Windsor, where he arrived on the 23rd. On the 6th "Pride's Purge" had removed from the Commons all those who might show any favour to the king. On the 25th a last attempt by the council of officers to come to terms with him was repulsed. On Jan. i the remnant of the Commons resolved that Charles was guilty of treason by "levy ing war against the parliament and kingdom of England"; on the 4th they declared their own power to make laws without the lords or the sovereign, and on the 6th established a "high court of justice" to try the king. On the i9th Charles was brought to St. James Palace, and on the next day his trial began in Westminster Hall, without the assistance of any of the judges, who all refused to take part in the proceedings. He laughed aloud at hearing himself called a traitor, and immediately de manded by what authority he was tried. He had been in treaty with the parliament in the Isle of Wight and taken thence by force ; he saw no lords present. He was told by Bradshaw, the president of the court, that he was tried by the authority of the people of England, who had elected him king ; and when Charles retorted that he was king by inheritance and not by election, and that England had been an hereditary kingdom for more than I,000 years, Bradshaw cut short the discussion by adjourning the court. On the 22nd Charles repeated his reasoning, adding, "It is not my case alone; it is the freedom and liberty of the people of England, and do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties, for if power without law may make laws . . . I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or anything he calls his own." On the 23rd he again refused to plead. The court was adjourned, and there were several signs that the army in their prosecution of the king had not the nation at their back. While the soldiers had shouted "Justice! justice!" as the king passed through their ranks, the civilian spectators from the end of the hall had cried "God save the king!" After some considerable opposition and reluctance on the 26th the court decided unanimously upon his execution, and on the 27th Charles was brought into court for the last time to hear his sentence. His request to be heard before the Lords and Commons was rejected, and his attempts to answer the charges of the president were silenced. Sentence was pronounced, and the king was removed by the soldiers, uttering his last broken protest : "I am not suffered to speak. Expect what justice other people will have." In these last hours, Charles, who was probably weary of life, showed a remarkable dignity and self-possession, and a firm resignation supported by religious faith and by the absolute con viction of his own innocence, which, says Burnet, "amazed all people and that so much the more because it was not natural to him. It was imputed to a very extraordinary measure of super natural assistance . . . ; it was owing to something within him self that he went through so many indignities with so much true greatness without disorder or any sort of affectation." Nothing in his life became Charles like the leaving it. "He nothing com mon did or mean Upon that memorable scene." On the morn ing of Jan. 29 he said his last sad farewell to his younger children, Elizabeth and Henry duke of Gloucester. On the 3oth at ten o'clock he walked across from St. James's to Whitehall, calling on his guard "in a pleasant manner" to walk apace, and at two he stepped upon the scaffold from a window, probably the middle one, of the Banqueting House. He was separated from the people by large ranks of soldiers, and his last speech only reached Juxon and those with him on the scaffold. He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any; "but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom con sists in having government. . . . It is not their having a share in the government ; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things." These, together with his declaration that he died a member of the Church of England, and the mysterious "Remember" spoken to Juxon, were Charles's last words. "It much discontents the citi zens," wrote a spectator; "ye manner of his deportment was very resolutely with some smiling countenances, intimating his willing ness to be out of his troubles." (Notes and Queries, 7th ser., viii. 326). "The blow I saw given," wrote another, Philip Henry, "and can truly say, with a sad heart, at the instant whereof I remember well, there was such a grone by the Thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again. There was according to order one Troop immediately marching fromwards Charing Cross to Westminster and another fromwards Westminster to Charing Cross, purposely to masker" (i.e., to overpower) "the people and to disperse and scatter them, so that I had much adoe amongst the rest to escape home without hurt" (Letters and Diaries of P. Henry [1882], I2).
Amidst such scenes of violence was at last effected the destruc tion of Charles. "It is lawful," wrote Milton, "and hath been held so through all ages for any one who have the power to call to account a Tyrant or wicked King, and after due conviction to depose and put him to death" ( Tenure of Kings and Magis trates). But here (it might well be contended) there had been no "due conviction." The execution had been the act of the king's personal enemies, an act technically illegal, morally unjustifiable because the supposed crimes of Charles had been condoned by the later negotiations with him, and indefensible on the ground of public expediency, for the king's death proved a far greater obstacle to the re-establishment of settled government than his life could have been. The result was an extraordinary revulsion of feeling in favour of Charles and the monarchy, in which the incidents of his misgovernment were completely forgotten. He soon became in the popular veneration a martyr and a saint. His fate was compared with the Crucifixion, and his trials and suffer ings to those of the Saviour. Handkerchiefs dipped in his blood wrought "miracles," and the Eikon Basilike, published on the day of his funeral, presented to the public a touching, if not a genuine, portrait of the unfortunate sovereign. At the Restoration the anniversary of his death was ordered to be kept as a day of fasting and humiliation, and the service appointed for use on the occasion was only removed from the prayer book in The conception of Charles as a martyr for religion has still its appeal. "Had Charles been willing to abandon the church and give up episcopacy," says Bishop Creighton, "he might have saved his throne and his life. But on this point Charles stood firm, for this he died and by dying saved it for the future" (Lec tures on Archbishop Laud p. 25). Gladstone, I' eble, Newman write in the same strain. "It was for the says Gladstone, "that Charles shed his blood upon the scaffold" Re marks on the Royal Supremacy [185o], p. 57). "I rest," says Newman, "on the scenes of past years, from the Upper Room in Acts to the Court of Carisbrooke and Uxbridge." The injustice and violence of the king's death, however, the pathetic dignity of his last days, and the many noble traits in his character, cannot obscure the ultimate causes of his downfall and destruction. The constitutional struggle between the crown and parliament had not been initiated by Charles I. In some degree he inherited a situation for which he was not responsible. According to the ideas of kingship which then prevailed, he can not justly be blamed for defending the prerogatives of the crown as precious and sacred personal possessions which it was his duty to hand down intact to his successors; for his refusal to yield up the control of the executive to the parliament or the army ; or for his defence of the national church. But the great constitu tional and religious points of dispute between the king and parlia ment, though doubtless involving principles vital to the national interests, would not alone have sufficed to destroy Charles. Monarchy was too much venerated, was too deeply rooted in the national life, to be hastily and easily extirpated. The state craft of Charles had consisted throughout in an unhappy series of subterfuges, falsehoods and deception from the fraud concern ing the concessions to the Roman Catholics at his marriage, and the evasions with which he met the Petition of Right, to the abandonment of Strafford, and the simultaneous negotiation with, and betrayal of, all parties. The bond of union between his people and himself had been early broken, and compromise is only possible between parties which can trust one another, and which are sincere in their endeavour to reach agreement. Thus on Charles himself largely falls the responsibility for the catas trophe.
His character and motives fill a large place in English history, but they have never been fully understood and possibly were largely due to physical causes. His weakness as a child was so extreme that his life was despaired of. He outgrew physical defects, and as a young man excelled in horsemanship and in the sports of the times, but always retained an impediment of speech. At the time of his accession his reserve and reticence were espe cially noticed. Buckingham was the only person who ever enjoyed his friendship, and after his death Charles placed entire con fidence in no man. His character was marked by a weakness which shirked and postponed the settlement of difficulties, by a meanness and ingratitude even when dealing with his most de voted followers, by an obstinacy which only feigned compliance, by an untruthfulness which differed widely from his son's un blushing deceit. Yet Charles, in spite of his failings, had many fine qualities. Clarendon, who was fully conscious of them, who does not venture to call him a good king, and allows that "his kingly virtues had some mixture and alloy that hindered them from shining in full lustre," declares that "he was if every any, the most worthy of the title of an Honest Man, so great a lover of justice that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful action except that it was disguised to him that he believed it just," "the worthiest of gentlemen, the best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father and the best Christian that the age in which he lived produced." With all its deplorable mistakes and failings Charles I.'s reign belongs to a sphere in finitely superior to that of his unscrupulous, corrupt, selfish but more successful son. His private life was without a blemish. Immediately on his accession he had suppressed the disorder which had existed in the household of James I., and let it be known that whoever had business with him "must never approach him by backstairs or private doors" (Salvetti's Corresp. in Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. app. pt. i. p. 6) . He maintained a strict sobriety in food and dress. He had a fine artistic sense, and Milton reprehends him for having made Shakespeare, "the closest companion of his solitudes." "Monsieur le Prince de Galles," wrote Rubens in 1625, "est le prince le plus amateur de la pein ture qui soit au monde." He succeeded in bringing together dur ing 20 years an unrivalled collection, of which a great part was dispersed at his death. He showed a noble insensibility to flattery. He was deeply and sincerely religious. He wished to do right, and was conscious of the purity of his motives. Those who came into contact with him, even the most bitter of his opponents, were impressed with his goodness. The great tragedy of his life, to be read in his well-known, dignified, but weak and unhappy features, and to be followed in his inexplicable and mysterious choice of baneful instruments, such as Rupert, Laud, Hamilton, Glamorgan, Henrietta Maria—all in their several ways working out his de struction—seems to have been inspired by a fateful insanity or in firmity of mind or will, recalling the great Greek dramas in which the poets depicted frenzied mortals rushing into their own de struction, impelled by the unseen and superior powers.
The king's body, after being embalmed, was buried by the few followers who remained with him to the last, hastily and without any funeral service, which was forbidden by the authorities, in the tomb of Henry VIII., in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where his coffin was identified and opened in 1813. An "account of what appeared" was published by Sir Henry Halford, and a bone ab stracted on the occasion was replaced in the vault by the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) in 1888. Charles I. left, besides three children who died in infancy, Charles (afterwards Charles II.) ; James (afterwards James II.) ; Henry, duke of Gloucester (1639-166o) ; Mary (1631-1660), who married Wil liam of Orange; Elizabeth (1635-165o); and Henrietta, duchess of Orleans (1644-1670).