Doctors seldom take much interest in politics. It is their general
experience that for all the tumult and the shoutings of politicians
nobody ever seems one penny the better for the uproar, for vast sums are
wasted which would be much better expended in a way that we really do
know something about, such as the cure of disease and the public health
generally. In some ways the most interesting thing about the “Martyred
Monarch” is the expression of wistful melancholy which is shown on the
famous portrait by Van Dyck. It is undoubtedly due to this portrait that
so much sympathy has always been felt for him; and the tragedy of King
Charles has always impressed thoughtful men as a tragedy from the Greek.
In his early youth he stammered so badly that until he was ten he could
hardly speak at all. Stammering is supposed to be a nervous habit due to
a psychasthenic phobia; and the worst case of stammering that I ever knew
was said to have been acquired by a nervous child of three, owing to a
negligent nurse having locked him up in a dark cupboard while she read
novels. Stammerers often express themselves by their pen; and several
eminent writers, both in the past and in the present day, have been
stammerers. Not less acute than other men—indeed often far more acute
than the average—yet as they are invariably shy they are incapable of
showing it in conversation; and the brutal outburst of Carlyle concerning
poor Charles Lamb reflects an opinion that is too often held by the
impatient and intolerant.
King Charles had during his day the finest collection of art-treasures
in Europe; and in that fact we see the essentially refined and
artistic character of the man, for he not only had the treasures, but
understood them. Stammering often tends to improve as the man grows
older. Demosthenes is said to have cured himself by shouting at the sea
waves, while King Charles succeeded to a large extent by speaking with
extraordinary slowness and dignity, though to some extent the habit
remained with him to the end. Strangely enough the sad and pathetic
expression on Van Dyck’s portrait is not unlike the sad and pathetic
expression on the famous portrait statue of Demosthenes by Polyeuctes;
although of course Demosthenes was of a much more aggressive character
and more ready to make himself felt in public than Charles Stuart.
But in Van Dyck’s portrait we see probably the unconscious infantile fear
in the baby Charles that ultimately led him to stammer; and possibly
in the utterly wrong-headed obstinacy of the king in holding on to an
impossible position, we see the determination that resulted in his curing
himself sufficiently to attain the crown.
An incident occurred during his trial that may have led to a false
impression. “They will not suffer me to speak,” he cried brokenly as they
led him away. Is it possible that during that dreadful moment the old
bad habit of his childish days returned, so that King Charles actually
_could_ not speak for the time?
He is said to have been one of the few kings of really noble domestic
character, a faithful husband and affectionate father. Yet though he
could be faithful to his wife he could not help telling lies to his
friends.
“Vanquished in life his death
By beauty made amends;
The passing of his breath
Won its defeated ends.”
Charles was temperate, chaste and serious; he treated those about him
with punctilious courtesy and expected the same in return.
But it may be that in the twistings and turnings of his political
career we see the qualities that are not inconsistent with the artistic
temperament.
As for the apparent cause of Charles’s stammering, that is quite
impossible even to guess. It is possible that he, a naturally sensitive
and refined little boy, may have been unconsciously terrified by his
father’s unpleasant personal habits. At any rate, let us keep a soft spot
in our hearts for the ill-fated king.
Whence came the somewhat nervous strain that runs, like a brass thread,
through the whole dynasty of the Stuarts, I hesitate to speculate:
perhaps from Darnley, father of James I. They always make me think of
a set of naughty children wedged between the great gloomy Tudors and
the unpleasant Hanoverians. There was James I, who is generally held
by the English to have been an egregious person; next, Charles I, who,
probably, would have done better as a poet; then Charles II, who was by
far the cleverest of them, but was too lazy; and lastly the gloomy and
exceedingly immoral—if all tales are true—James II, who was a man too
much under the influence of religion. It is said that he used to get
absolution after every time that he visited his mistress. Then there was
that poor, lonely, stupid Anne, who could not, for some reason, rear a
single one of her numerous children.