EIKON BASILIKE, ikon ba-Sil'i-ke (Gr. "the royal image'), a work. the full title of which is Eixtry paces : 'The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Suf ferings.) It was published 9 Feb. 1649, 10 days after the execution of Charles I, and within 12 months ran through 50 editions in various lan guages. It professes to be Charles' own com position in the form of a diary. It is written in an affectedly dignified strain, and contains numerous assertions of love for his misguided and ungrateful people. At the Restoration, Gauden, afterward bishop of Worcester, laid claim to the authorship, and a memorandum in the copy of the Earl of Anglesea, lord privy seal under Charles II, affirms that claim with the authority of Charles II and the Duke of York. Milton's answer to it, (Eikonoklastes) (that is, “imagebreaker") appeared the same year by order of Parliament. Gauden professed
to have begun the work in or about the year 1647, and to have submitted a MS. copy of it to the king. On the other hand, those who maintain that the work was by Charles, assert that he had written the first six of its 28 chap ters before the battle of Naseby (1645). The question is one of much complexity. His torians generally, from Lingard to Green, have pronounced against Charles; while some of those who have sifted his claims are in his favor. (See G AUDEN, Jon N ). Consult Almack, 'Bibliography of the King's (1896); Doble, in the 'Academy) (1883)Scott, E. J. L., 'Comments in Edition of the Work' (1880) ; Wordsworth, Christopher, 'Who Wrote Icon Basilike?) (1824-25) • Tucker, 'On the Author of Icon Basilike (Berlin 1874).