life of Charlemagne is the Vita Caroli Magni, by Eginhard, who also writes An/tales. There is a good Life, in English, by G. P. K. James. Sketches of Charlemagne in histories of a more general kind are innumerable ; probably the best recent one is to be found
iu Martin s Histoire de France.CHARLEMAGNE, Jean Armand (1759-1838), a French dramatic author, was born at Bourget in 1759. He was intended for the church, but only remained a few j months at the theological seminary. He first became a , solicitor s clerk, and then entered the army, and served in the American war of independence. At the age of twenty- four he returned to France, and commenced publishing tracts on social subjects, but it was ten years later before he began to write for the stage. He is the author of a large number of comedies and poems and romances, and of an essay, published in 1794, and entitled Observations de quelq ties pat riotes sur la necessite de conserver les monuments de la litteratnre et des arts.
CHARLEMONT, a great fortress on the Franco-Belgian frontier, on a rock above the town of Givet. See Givet.
CHARLEROI, a town of Belgium, in the province of Hainault, about 33 miles south of Brussels, on the Sambre, a navigable tributary of the Meuse. It is the seat of a court of primary instance, and possesses a gymnasium, an academy of painting, a hospital, a parish church dating from the time of Louis XIV., and a prison erected in 1852 in the style of a feudal castle. Situated iu the midst of an extensive mining district, it has developed into one of the most important industrial centres in the country, carry ing on a large manufacture of glass, iron, cutlery, cotton cloth, and woollen yarn. Several thousand persons are engaged in the nail trade alone ; and the forges of Couillet. about two miles from the town, supply a third of the whole quantity of cast-iron produced in the kingdom. In 1870 upwards of 24,000 people were employed in the coal mines of the district ; and 3,832,850 tons of coal were brought to the surface. Abundant means of transit are afforded by the railways, which form a junction at the town, and by the Brussels and Charleroi canal, which was opened in 1832, and forms a connection at the capital with the Wille- broek canal to Antwerp. In 1866 the population of the town was 12,150.
Charleroi was founded in 1666 by Charles II. of Spain, on the site of the village of Charnoy, which changed its name to tfie present form in honour of the king. The fortifications, however, which the Spaniards had commenced, were interrupted by the approach of the French, and their completion was due to the genius of Vauban. During the rest of the century it passed more than once from French to Spanish, and from Spanish to French posses sion ; in 1746 it was captured by the prince of Conti, but in 1749 it was restored to the house of Austria. During the Revolutionary War in 1794 it was four times besieged by the French, to whom it was ultimately compelled to surrender on the 25th of June. The following year saw the destruction of the fortifications, but they were restored in 1815.
CHARLES I. (1600-1649), king of England, born at Dunfermline on the 19th November 1600, was the second and favourite son of James I. By the death of his brother Henry, he became Prince of Wales in 1612, but the first public matter of importance in which he was concerned was the Spanish marriage. At first he was quite indifferent to the affair, and in 1622 he was full of a dream that he would lead an army into the Palatinate, and set his dear sister upon her throne. But, by the beginning of the next year, Buckingham had filled him with the romantic notion of setting off, in defiance of all policy, on a private visit to Spain. His conduct while at Madrid displays the weakest side of his character. He took a violent fancy for the Infanta, whom he seriously alarmed by leaping over the wall of the garden in which she was walking, in order that he might enjoy the private conversation which Spanish etiquette refused to permit. With a mixture of infatuation and duplicity, he bore with repeated insults; he allowed his chaplains to be excluded from the palace, and his retinue to be sent back to England, and gave way to each of the cver-growi-ng demands of the Spanish favourite Olivarez. He promised what he knew he had no power to fulfil, the abrogation of the penal laws against the Catholics within three years ; he listened respectfully to the arguments of the Spanish theologians, and promised to listen whenever the princess should require it ; he addressed to the Pope a disgraceful letter, which, while binding him to nothing, gave rise to the greatest expectations ; and thus he held out hopes of a conversion which, according to his own subsequent declaration, he believed would never take place. At last the Spaniards made up their minds to the match ; but, though immediately before leaving Spain Charles swore to carry out the marriage, his ardour had cooled, and Buckingham was throwing cold water on the dying embers. James was persuaded to demand the restoration of the Palatinate to the elector Frederick as an essential preliminary ; the match was broken off; and in 1624 Buckingham had arranged a marriage with Henrietta Maria of France. Not the least dishonourable part of Charles s conduct in connection with this affair was his treatment of the earl of Bristol, the English ambassador to Spain. This only too faithful servant of the Crown he was mean enough to subject, at the instigation of his favourite, to a persistent and illegal persecution. On the summons of the second parliament of his reign he commanded that Bristol s writ should be withheld ; he sought to punish him in an under hand way by forbidding his attendance ; and when the earl continued to insist on his rights, and, after two years of confinement to his house, laid the king s letter before the Lords with a req-uest for leave to impeach the duke, he even accused him of high treason, and employed his personal influence against him. The reason of all this was that Bristol had offended Buckingham ; and the faults which were laid against him were really chargeable to his accusers. In the first place, he had been too well deceived by Charles s acting, had imagined that he was really inclined to Catholicism, and had offered, if this were so, to keep the matter secret ; and, secondly, he had sought to preserve his country s honour by striving to prevent the capricious rupture of the treaty which had been completed with Spain.
In March 1 625 Charles came to the throne. The excited joy with which he had been welcomed home from Spain had given way to suspicion as fuller reports of his conduct spread abroad, and there was now prevalent an anxious dread of the growth of Catholicism. The first Parliament sent Montagu to the Tower for preaching the doctrines of divine right and the real presence; and, as difficulties arose concerning the old method of levying tonnage and poundage, it refused to grant the impost for more than a year. From a paper of Sir John Eliot s,[1] it would seem that this was in tended merely as a temporary measure ; but to please the duke of Buckingham, Charles dissolved the Parliament, and took a pitiful revenge by making Montagu royal chaplain.
The king was now at the disposal of his favourite, who was full of great and warlike schemes. All were, however, doomed to failure. The English sailors refused to fight against the Huguenots of Eochelle; the expedition against Cadiz was mismanaged from first to last ; and, worst of all, the pawning of the crown jewels brought in but a very small sum. It was necessary to summon another Parliament.
first. The House of Lords vindicated its independence by acquitting the earl of Bristol. The Commons, led by the ardent and eloquent Sir John Eliot, ventured on the
bold step of exhibiting eight articles of impeachment
- ↑ See Forster s Sir John Eliot, vol. i. p. 214.
