(1600-1649)
[Illustration: Charles I. [TN]]
Charles I. was born at Dunfermline, November 19, 1600, was a sickly
child, unable to speak till his fifth year, and so weak in the ankles
that till his seventh he had to crawl upon his hands and knees. Except
for a stammer, he outgrew both defects, and became a skilled tilter and
marksman, as well as an accomplished scholar and a diligent student of
theology. He was created Duke of Albany at his baptism, Duke of York in
1605, and Prince of Wales in 1616, four years after the death of his
dear brother, Prince Henry, had left him heir to the crown of three
kingdoms. A Spanish match had been mooted as early as 1614; but it was
not till February 17, 1623, that, with Buckingham, his inseparable
friend, Charles started on the romantic incognito journey to Madrid, its
objects to win the hand of the Infanta, and to procure the restitution
of the Palatinate to his brother-in-law, Frederick. Both he and his
father swore to all possible concessions to the Catholics, but nothing
short of his own conversion would have satisfied the Spanish and papal
courts; and on October 5th he landed again in England, eager for rupture
with Spain.
The nation's joy was speedily dashed by his betrothal to the French
princess, Henrietta Maria (1609-69); for the marriage articles pledged
him, in violation of solemn engagements to Parliament, to permit her and
all her domestics the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and to
give her the up-bringing of their children till the age of thirteen.
On March 27, 1625, Charles succeeded his father, James I.; on June 13th
he welcomed his little bright-eyed queen at Dover, having married her by
proxy six weeks earlier. Barely a twelvemonth was over when he packed
off her troublesome retinue to France--a bishop and 29 priests, with 410
more male and female attendants. Thenceforth their domestic life was a
happy one; and during the twelve years following the murder of
Buckingham (1592-1628), in whose hands he had been a mere tool, Charles
gradually came to yield himself up to her unwise influence--not wholly
indeed, but more than to that of Stafford even, or Laud. Little
meddlesome Laud, made archbishop in 1633, proceeded to war against the
dominant Puritanism, to preach passive obedience, and uphold the divine
right of kings; while great Stafford, from championing the Petition of
Right (1628), passed over to the king's service, and entered on that
policy of "Thorough" whose aim was to make his master absolute. Three
Parliaments were summoned and dissolved in the first four years of the
reign; then for eleven years Charles ruled with but one, in its stead,
with subservient judges, and the courts of Star Chamber and High
Commission. In 1627 he had blundered into an inglorious French war; but
with France he concluded peace in 1629, with Spain in 1630. Peace,
economy, and arbitrary taxation were to solve the great problem of his
policy, how to get money, yet not account for it. Not that Charles cared
for money in itself, or had far-reaching projects of tyranny (he failed
to enter into Stafford's scheme); but he had inherited a boundless
egoism, and content with his own petty self, had little sympathy with
the dead heroism of the Tudor age, none at all with the nascent ardor of
democracy. The extension of the ship-tax to the inland counties was met
by Hampden's passive resistance (1637); Laud's attempt to Anglicize the
Scottish Church, by the active resistance of the whole northern nation.
Once more Charles had to call a Parliament; two met in 1640--the Short
Parliament, which lasted but three weeks, and the Long, which outlasted
Charles.
It met to pronounce Stafford's doom; and his plot with the army
detected, Charles basely sacrificed his loyal servitor, his own kingly
word, to fears for the queen's safety; no act weighed heavier on him
afterward. The same signature that sent Stafford to the block gave
assent to a second bill, by which the existing Parliament might not be
dissolved without its own consent. That pledge, as extorted by force,
Charles purposed to disregard; and during his visit to Edinburgh, in the
autumn of 1641, he trusted by lavish concessions to bring over the Scots
to his side. Instead, he got entangled in dark suspicions of plotting
the murder of the covenanting lords, of connivance even in the Ulster
massacre. Still, his return to London was welcomed with some enthusiasm,
and a party was forming in the Commons itself, of men who revolted from
the sweeping changes that menaced both church and state. Pym's "Grand
Remonstrance" justified their fears, and Charles seemed to justify the
"Grand Remonstrance" by his attempt to arrest the five members (January
4, 1642); but that ill-stricken blow was dictated by the knowledge of an
impending impeachment of the queen herself. On August 22d he raised the
royal standard at Nottingham; and the four years civil war commenced, in
which, as at Naseby, he showed no lack of physical courage, and which
resulted at Naseby in the utter annihilation of his cause (June 14,
1645).
No need here to track him through plot and counterplot with Catholics,
Presbyterians, and Sectaries, with the Scots and the Irish, with the
Parliament and the Army; enough that, quitting his last refuge, Oxford,
he surrendered himself on May 5, 1646, to the Scots at Newark, and by
them, in the following January, was handed over to the Parliament. His
four months captivity at Holmby House, near Northampton; his seizure on
June 3d by Cornet Joyce; the three months at Hampton Court; the fight on
November 11th; the fresh captivity at Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of
Wight--these lead up to the trial at Westminster of the tyrant, traitor,
and murderer, Charles Stuart. He had drawn the sword, and by the sword
he perished, for it was the Army, not Parliament, that stood at the back
of the judges. Charles faced them bravely and with dignity. Thrice he
refused to plead, denying the competence of such a court: and his
refusal being treated as a confession, on the third day fifty-five out
of seventy-one judges--sixty-four more never were present--affixed their
names and seals to his death-warrant; four days later, sentence was
pronounced.
No need here to tell the well-known story of his meekness toward his
persecutors, of the pathetic parting from two of his younger children,
of his preparation for a holy death; or how, on the morning of January
30, 1649, he passed to that death on the scaffold in front of Whitehall,
with a courage worthy of a very martyr. On the snowy 7th of February
they bore the "white king" to his grave at Windsor in Henry VIII.'s
vault; in 1813 the Prince Regent had his leaden coffin opened. Six
children survived him--Charles and James, his successors; Mary, Princess
of Orange (1631-60); Elizabeth (1635-50); Henry, Duke of Gloucester
(1639-60); and Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans (1644-70), the last born
ten weeks after Charles's final parting from his queen. At the
Restoration Charles II. appointed, on his sole authority, a form of
prayer, with fasting, for the day of the martyrdom of the Blessed King
Charles I., to be annexed to the Common Prayer Book, with the other
state services; it kept its place there till 1859.
A far stronger man than Charles might scarcely have extricated himself
from the difficulties that beset him; true, those difficulties were
largely of his own creating. But was he right in abandoning Stafford?
should he also have sacrificed wife, faith, and crown? If yes, then was
he wholly in the wrong; if no, he was partly--for once at least--in the
right. Vices, other than duplicity, he had none, as we use the word. He
was vague, vacillating, obstinate, unable to lead or to be led;
superstitious, heedful of omens; unsympathetic and reserved where he did
not love; intolerant of opposition to his will. But he was a good
husband, a good father, a good churchman--no man so good was ever so
bad a king; no man so fallible believed so honestly in his
infallibility. For Charles was honest to his own convictions. His very
duplicity was due sometimes to schooling in "kingcraft," but oftener to
inability to see two sides of a question. Now he saw one, and now the
other, but never both sides at once; and, just as he saw, so he spoke.
Milton's charges against him of "all manner of lewdness" rank with
Milton's charge that he poisoned his father. Indeed, as a pattern of
culture and purity, few princes are worthy to be named beside him.
His children all loved and respected him. His little daughter Elizabeth,
held as a prisoner by his foes, wrote of him with such womanly sympathy
and admiration as even now brings tears to our eyes. His last letter of
advice to his son Charles is a model hardly to be improved on. Parts of
it read as follows:
"I had rather you should be Charles _le bon_, than _le grand_, good,
than great; I hope God hath designed you to be both; having so early put
you into that exercise of His graces and gifts bestowed upon you, which
may best weed out all vicious inclinations, and dispose you to those
princely endowments and employments which will most gain the love, and
intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place you.
"With God, I would have you begin and end, who is King of kings, the
sovereign disposer of the kingdoms of the world, who pulleth down one
and setteth up another.
"The best government and highest sovereignty you can attain to, is to be
subject to Him, that the sceptre of His word and spirit may rule in your
heart.
"The true glory of princes consists in advancing God's glory, in the
maintenance of true religion and the church's good; also in the
dispensation of civil power with justice and honor to the public peace.
"Piety will make you prosperous, at least it will keep you from becoming
miserable; nor is he much a loser that loseth all, yet saveth his own
soul at last.
"To which centre of true happiness, God (I trust) hath and will
graciously direct all these black lines of affliction which He hath been
pleased to draw on me, and by which He hath (I hope) drawn me nearer to
Himself. You have already tasted of that cup whereof I have liberally
drunk; which I look upon as God's physic, having that in healthfulness
which it wants in pleasure.
"Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of religion devour
not all, or the best, encouragements of learning, industry, and piety;
but with an equal eye and impartial hand distribute favors and rewards
to all men, as you find them for their real goodness both in abilities
and fidelity, worthy and capable of them.
"And if neither I nor you be ever restored to our right, but God, in His
severest justice, will punish my subjects with continuance in their sin,
and suffer them to be deluded with the prosperity of their wickedness, I
hope God will give me and you that grace which will teach and enable us
to want, as well as to wear, a crown, which is not worth taking up or
enjoying upon sordid, dishonorable and irreligious terms.
"Keep you to true principles of piety, virtue, and honor; you shall
never want a kingdom.
"A principal point of your honor will consist in your deferring all
respect, love, and protection to your mother, my wife, who hath many
ways deserved well of me, and chiefly in this, that having been a means
to bless me with so many hopeful children (all which, with their mother,
I recommend to your love and care), she hath been content with
incomparable magnanimity and patience to suffer both for and with me and
you.
"Farewell, till we meet, if not on earth, yet in heaven."
[Illustration: Princess Elizabeth in Prison.]
But Charles was predestined to sorrow. "A tragic face!" said the
sculptor Bernini, as he looked on the triple portrait by Vandyke.
Already the shadow of a violent death overclouded those fine, weak
features.