Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1042

CHA impossible to support his forces by his former illegal expedients, he was compelled to convoke a parliament in the spring of 1640.

The new house of commons was remarkably moderate in its views and procedure. Even Clarendon acknowledges that it "was exceedingly disposed to please the king and to do him service." But the members, though willing to give a large supply, showed that they were not disposed to overlook the grievances under which the country was suffering, and the king in consequence dissolved the parliament in an angry speech, and threw several of the members into prison. By means of forced loans, and other similar expedients, he was enabled to equip and set in motion an army of upwards of twenty thousand men for the suppression of the Scottish insurrection. But his soldiers had no heart for the enterprise. The Scots crossed the borders, defeated a detachment of the English army who opposed their passage of the Tyne, and occupied the northern counties of England. Charles, in this extremity, was compelled to make a truce with the Scots, and to summon a parliament. The houses met in November, 1640, and proceeded at once with vigour and resolution to the work of redressing the grievances of the country. They passed a bill of attainder against Strafford, and brought him to the block, imprisoned Laud, and in various ways punished the other instruments of royal tyranny. They abolished the star-chamber, the high commission court, and the council of York; and wrung from the king an assent to a law providing that the existing parliament should not be prorogued or dissolved without its own consent. In the autumn of 1641 the houses were adjourned, and Charles visited Scotland, where he made large concessions for the purpose of gratifying the people, and used every artifice to gain over the leaders of the covenanting party. On his return from Scotland, the English parliament met after a recess of six weeks. The Irish rebellion had meanwhile broken out, and the puritans believing that it had been secretly encouraged by the court, and distrusting the king's sincerity, framed an address to him, called the "grand remonstrance," enumerating all the illegal and oppressive acts of his reign, and entreating him to employ only persons in whom the parliament could confide. But a reaction had now taken place both in the country and in the legislature. Many of the moderate reformers, who had cordially supported the previous measures of the parliament, were of opinion that sufficient concessions had now been made by the king, and rallied round the throne. The grand remonstrance was carried, after a fierce and protracted debate, by a majority of only eleven, and if Charles had only been true to himself and to his friends, there cannot be a doubt that he would soon have triumphed over the opposition of his enemies. But after a brief show of moderation, he suddenly, on the 3rd of January, 1642, sent down the attorney-general to impeach Lord Kimbolton, and five members of the house of commons, of high treason, at the bar of the house of lords, and next day went in person to the house with an armed force to seize these members at their post. They, however, had received intelligence of his design, and withdrew before his arrival, so that this perfidious and unconstitutional step, which was the direct cause of the civil war, completely failed, and indeed brought ruin on its author. The commons felt that they could no longer trust the king, that their own personal safety, as well as the security of the national rights, required that he should be deprived of the power to do them injury, and demanded that the militia should, for an appointed time, be intrusted to officers whom they should nominate. "No, not for an hour," was the indignant reply of the king. Both parties had now proceeded to such extremities, that nothing remained but an appeal to arms, and the royal standard was at length raised at Nottingham on the 25th of August, 1642.

Our limits will not permit us to enter into the details of this disastrous contest. The war was carried on for some time in a languid and desultory manner, and after two campaigns the issue was still doubtful. But the genius of Cromwell, and the intervention of the Scots, who sent an army of twenty thousand men under General Leslie to the assistance of the parliament, turned the scale in their favour, and the decisive battle of Naseby, on the 14th of June, 1644, completely ruined the royal cause. Charles ultimately fled for refuge to the Scottish army at Newark on the 5th of May, 1645; and after several months had been spent in negotiations and discussions, as he steadily refused to accede to the terms offered by the presbyterian party, he was, at his own request, delivered up to the English parliament. His removal to Holmby house, and seizure there by Cornet Joyce at the instigation of Cromwell, the march of the army to London, the submission of the parliament, the overthrow of the presbyterians, and the complete ascendancy of the republican party speedily followed. The first demands made by the army were exceedingly moderate; but when these were rejected by the king, who expected to hold the balance between the two parties, fierce invectives were launched against him by the army agitators; and Charles, becoming alarmed for his personal safety, fled to the Isle of Wight, where he was detained as a prisoner in Carisbrooke castle by Colonel Hammond the governor. Negotiations were again entered into with the king, but the terms offered were opposed by the Scottish commissioners, with whom he entered into a secret treaty; and encouraged by their support, he refused to accede to the demands of the parliament. This brought matters to a crisis. The extreme republicans now first broached their daring proposal to bring the king to trial, and to put him to death by a judicial sentence. The Scottish parliament, on the other hand, levied an army which marched into England for the purpose of restoring the king by force of arms. But the levies were raw and undisciplined, and the duke of Hamilton, their general, was utterly unfit for the management of such an enterprise, and they were totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston on the 17th of August, 1648. Several desultory risings of the royalists in various parts of England were at the same time crushed, and the army returning victorious to London, expelled the leaders of the presbyterian party from the house of commons, put a stop to all negotiations with the king, seized his person, and prepared to bring him to a public trial. A high court of justice was constituted for this purpose, consisting of the chief officers of the army and the other leaders of the republican party, and presided over by John Bradshaw, a lawyer. This unprecedented trial began on the 20th of January, 1649. Charles, who conducted himself throughout these proceedings with great dignity and firmness, was three times brought before the court, but persisted in declining its jurisdiction. He was brutally insulted by some of the soldiers and rabble, but bore their treatment with exemplary meekness and patience. On the 27th sentence of death was passed upon him, and on the 30th his head was severed from his body, on a scaffold erected in front of Whitehall palace. He died in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign, leaving six children, of whom the two eldest, Charles and James, successively ascended the British throne. Charles possessed many of the qualities which adorn private life, and if his lot had been cast in more propitious circumstances, he might have been a respectable and useful, if not a popular sovereign. But it was his misfortune to live at a period when the ancient forms of the constitution required to be accommodated to the growing intelligence and spirit of the people; and he perished in the vain attemp to resist the onward progress of freedom. The celebrated work entitled "Eikon Basilikè," which was published immediately after his death, and purported to be from his pen, was long regarded as authentic, but is now generally believed to have been written by Dr. Gauden, afterwards bishop of Worcester.—J. T.  CHARLES II., King of Great Britain, second son of Charles I., and of his queen, Henrietta, was born 29th May, 1630. His elder brother, Charles James, died on the day of his birth, 18th March, 1629. On the breaking out of the civil war, Charles, though a mere youth, took up arms in his father's cause. After the fatal battle of Naseby he retired to Scilly, and ultimately took refuge in Paris. The Scots, who had for some time felt aggrieved by the proceedings of the English parliament and army, deeply resented the execution of Charles I., and a few days after, on the 3rd of February, 1649, proclaimed Prince Charles king of Scotland in his stead. They still adhered, however, to their presbyterian principles, and they carefully stipulated that Charles should acknowledge the "solemn league and covenant," and confirm the presbyterian government and worship. He landed in Scotland on the 23rd of June, 1650, and on the 15th of July was again proclaimed at Edinburgh. The unpalatable terms exacted from him, and the austerity of manners prescribed by the covenanters, led him ever after to regard them and their religion with the deepest aversion. A few weeks after the arrival of the prince, Cromwell invaded Scotland at the head of a powerful army The cautious policy of David Leslie for a time completely foiled the attempts of Cromwell to force the Scottish lines, and reduced the English forces to the utmost 