of York made the same statement to him in 1675, came to light on the sale of Anglesey's library in 1686. Mrs. Gauden had made Gauden's authorship the ground of an application for the remission of claims upon his estate. A document written by her shortly before his death was found among papers referring to the ‘Eicon’ after her death in 1671. A list of these papers was given in ‘Truth brought to Light’ (1693), with an abstract of her narrative, which was fully printed in Toland's ‘Amyntor’ (1699). Anthony Walker, who had been Gauden's curate at Bocking, published in 1692 a ‘True Account of the Author of a Book entituled,’ &c. He professed to have been Gauden's confidant during the publication, and to have helped to send the book to press. The accounts of Gauden, his wife, and his curate are in some respects contradictory; but they agree in asserting that Gauden sent the book for approval to Charles I, through the Marquis of Hertford, during his imprisonment at Carisbrook, and that he afterwards published it from a copy which he had retained. A doubtful story that Mrs. Gauden expressed repentance (Hollingworth, Character of Charles I) is balanced by another that she swore upon the sacrament to its truth (Ludlow no Liar).
Royalist writers, on the other hand, state that Charles began the book at Theobalds in March 1641 (Princely Pelican). It was also said that the manuscript was lost at Naseby, and restored by a Major Huntington, of Cromwell's regiment. This story, mentioned by contemporary writers, was repeated by Huntington himself to Dugdale in 1679. Dugdale repeats the story with some variation in his ‘Short View of the late Troubles’ (1681). Huntington, however, says that the book was in the handwriting of Sir Edward Walker, with interlineations by Charles I. Now Walker wrote certain ‘Memorials’ which he gave to Charles I, which were lost at Naseby, recovered by means of an officer in the army, restored to the king, and afterwards published (Walker, Historical Discourses, 1705, p. 228). It is therefore obvious that this, and not the ‘Eicon,’ was the book recovered by Huntington.
Much further evidence was produced in the later controversy. Dr. Hollingworth's ‘Defence of Charles I,’ ‘Character of Charles I,’ and ‘Vindiciæ Carolinæ’ in 1692, Thomas Long's examination of Anthony Walker's account in 1693, Thomas Wagstaffe's ‘Vindication of King Charles the Martyr,’ 1697 (3rd edit. 1711), and J. Young's ‘Several Evidences concerning the Author,’ &c., 1703, are the chief royalist pamphlets, the earliest of which were answered in Toland's ‘Amyntor,’ 1699, and by an author who, under the name of General Ludlow, wrote ‘Ludlow no Lyar’ in a ‘Letter to Dr. Hollingworth,’ Amsterdam, 1692. According to the royalists, Dr. William Dillingham [q. v.] is said on the authority of his son to have read part of the manuscript when Charles was at Holmby House, and afterwards recognised the passages in the ‘Eicon;’ Sir John Brattle stated in 1691 that he was employed with his father to arrange the papers at Hampton Court before Charles's flight; Colonel Hammond is reported to have said that he found manuscript sheets of the ‘Eicon’ in Charles's chamber at Carisbrook; Levet, a page, deposed in 1690 that he saw papers in Charles's handwriting during the Newport treaty, and was convinced of the identity; and Sir Thomas Herbert, writing in 1679, states that he found a copy among the king's papers in his own handwriting. Besides some similar evidence, one of the printers employed by Royston (printer of the book) stated that the manuscript, in the handwriting of Oudart, secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas, was brought by Symmons, rector of Raine, near Bocking, and understood to be sent from the king. Mrs. Gauden says that her husband sent the manuscript through Symmons, who was arrested on account of his share in the business, and died in prison. It is suggested that Gauden was allowed by Symmons to copy the book on its way to the press, and upon the Restoration determined to claim it for himself. An old servant of Gauden (Wagstaffe, p. 64) said that he had sat up with his master, who had to copy a manuscript and return it to Symmons in haste. The chief question of external evidence is whether more weight should be given to the statements of the persons who profess to have seen the manuscript in Charles's hands, especially before Gauden could have sent it (which evidence is mainly hearsay evidence, and was first produced forty years after the events referred to), or to the admission of Gauden's claim by the authorities at the Restoration. The internal evidence, from the resemblance of the ‘Eicon’ to Gauden's writings, and from the information apparently in possession of the author, has been much discussed, and most fully and recently by Mr. C. E. Doble in the ‘Academy’ for May and June 1883. He gives very strong reasons for accepting Gauden's claim.
