CHAPTER I. CHAS. I. A.D. 1642. His Whether the king's misconduct arose from weakness or from vice, from want of firmness or want of principle, is a point which, deeply as it touches his personal character, cannot be allowed to have the least weight in the question between himself and the popular leaders. The consequences to others were the same. If the protestantism of the nation was outraged, if its liberties were endangered, it was of little importance to those who undertook their defence at the hazard of their own lives, whether Charles's heart or his head was most in fault. great apologist describes him as one with whom the most clamorous advisers were always the most successful. If he had not displayed a strength of character on some occasions which is scarcely consistent with it, the charitable supposition might be entertained that he was merely a weak man, rash in judgment, and easily diverted from his purpose. It is probable that he often surrendered his own judgment to worthless advisers, and was the dupe of their cabals. If we may trust the representations, not of factious republicans, but of his most faithful servants, his household was a nest of traitors. His closet and even the queen's bedchamber were had procured in Holland by pawning the crown jewels, sent out commissions of array to arm the people in all counties. . . . Thus he got contributions of plate, money, and arms in the country. While these things were in transaction the king made a solemn protestation before the lords, as in the presence of God, declaring that he would not engage in any war with the parliament, but only for his own defence; that his desire was to maintain the protestant religion, the liberties of the subject, and privilege of parliament. But the next day he did some action so contrary to this protestation, that two of the lords durst not stay with him, but returned to the parliament; and one of them coming back through Nottinghamshire, acquainted Mr. Hutchinson with the sad sense he had in discovering that falsehood in the king." p. 113. I. CHAS. I. A.D. 1642 haunted with spies. His secret whispers were CHAPTER repeated, his most confidential counsels were divulged. With high vaunts of honour, which stood them in the place of religion, the cavaliers who surrounded the king and formed his court were devoid of truth and virtue. Levity, selfishness, a disdain of moral restraints, and an audacious contempt of religion, marked them as a body. But habitual falsehood seems to have been the mastervice. It would be unjust to charge the depravity of the courtiers entirely upon the king; but it is difficult to believe that a sterner adherence to the truth in the king himself would not have imparted a purer tone to the morals of his household. The vices of the great are always contagious, and a court addicted to falsehood indicates a want of veracity in its head; at least it is certain that neither friend nor foe could place the least reliance upon the royal word of Charles. There is one circumstance which explains, and in some measure perhaps extenuates, the king's habitual insincerity. He was governed by the queen. This indeed, in the eyes of his puritan subjects, was an aggravation of his guilt, and their conclusion was not altogether unreasonable: her influence certainly increased their danger tenfold. Henrietta Maria was the evil genius of Charles. Her influence was always in exercise, and it was always bad. She was a papist and a foreigner; cold, heartless, and intriguing; capable of the most winning graces, but naturally insolent and proud. Of her beauty, the portraits which her devoted husband loved to multiply, and which still adorn the stately halls of C I. CHAS. I. A.D. 1642. * CHAPTER Windsor, leave nothing to be said. In her presence the king was impotent. Her tears, her rage, her feigned love, her unaffected arrogance subdued him, and still she retained firm possession of his heart. To pacify the queen, promises were not held sacred, and principles vanished like a mist. Without one English sentiment, without affection for its people or love for its sovereign, except so far as love was selfishness, she governed the council by intrigue, and the king by her personal influence. Whether Charles deserved the odium which assailed him may possibly be questioned; but no champion will appear to defend the heartless woman who forced her too complying husband into danger, and basely fled and left him to be a captive, and to die alone, when her own violent counsels were beginning to produce their fruit. We are disgusted with the brutality of the sectaries who denounced her in their prayers by name, and invoked the vengeance of heaven upon "Jezebel;" but even such acts of violence produce no reaction in her favour: for we are compelled to feel that, however unbecoming, they were not unmerited. The worst actions of Charles's life may traced at once to the queen's pernicious influence. His consent to the death of his minister and favourite, lord Strafford, within a week of the day on which he had written with his own hand to assure him that he had nothing to fear, is known to every one. He seemed meanly to sacrifice his minister in order to save himself; but in fact he yielded to be * See Mr. Warburton's collection of papers, "Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers." His character of the queen is still more unfavourable than my own. Her moral conduct, as a woman and a wife, was, it appears, by no means faultless. : I. CHAS. I A.D. 1642. the clamours of the queen, supported unhappily in CHAPTER this instance by the clergy about the court. It was the queen who plotted the mad attempt to seize the five members in the house of commons. It was she who prevailed upon the king to sign the bill for the degradation of the bishops, and their exclusion from the house of lords. Those who knew him most intimately believed that no possible emergency could induce him to consent to a measure so hateful to his feelings and so fatal to his cause. But the queen triumphed and some of his best advisers immediately withdrew from the council; others determined, in sheer despair, to be carried quietly along the stream.* There could in fact be no doubt as to the queen's intentions. She meant her husband to govern after the fashion of her native land, and she meant her children to be educated in the Romish faith. The weakest minds entertain the most gigantic projects. She thought herself capable of making the sovereign despotic, and of restoring the nation to the see of Rome. And we must add, that but for the puritans she would probably have succeeded, for a while at least, to the utmost of her wishes. These were the real motives by which the puritan party was induced to dare the fearful hazards and certain miseries of intestine war. To judge fairly of their conduct, we must place ourselves in their circumstances, and calculate, if we can, the conflicting perils of submission and resistance. If they trusted too much or too soon, they were undone; * Clarendon, i. p. 429. I. A.D. 1642. CHAPTER and civil liberty and the protestant faith fell with them. On the other hand, they seem to have CHAS. I. miscalculated their own strength. They made too vast an effort, and overshot the mark. The king was not so powerful, nor they themselves so weak, as they supposed. The vessel was in the storm, among rocks and shoals visible to the naked eye, and they spread every sail. The speed of the chariot was impetuous, and they lashed the horses. There were among themselves, and in the parliament, men warmly attached to the popular cause who were of this opinion. Enough, they said, had been already done; the king was humbled; protestantism was safe; the constitution was delivered. Foremost in this small party was sir Benjamin Rudyard, a fervent patriot, a calm sagacious statesman. He was an orator in the highest sense. His speeches remind us of the sententious wisdom of Tacitus. They were published at the time on fly sheets, and made a strong impression. On perusing them we feel how rich our country must have been in great men, since even Rudyard has been forgotten in the crowd. "No doubt,"* said he, in his place in parliament, on the 9th of July, 1642,-" no doubt there is a relative duty between a king and his subjects: obedience from a subject to a king: protection from a king to his people. The present unhappy distance between his majesty and the parliament makes the whole kingdom stand amazed in a terrible expectation of fearful calamities." He then proceeds to urge upon the house of commons the duty of conciliation, *Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 77. The speech was originally "printed for Richard Lownds, 1642.” |