and elected Lord Charlemont their president—a post which he accepted chiefly with the hope of being able, by his moderation and prudence, to control the acts of so powerful and dangerous a body. In this he was to a great extent successful, and his moderation, sagacity, temper, and firmness enabled him not only to do good service to the state, but to strengthen the hands of the real patriots in their efforts to obtain reform. During the progress of the great political events of this period, Lord Charlemont exercised a more efficient and beneficial influence than any other man. The head of a great party, to a certain extent in antagonism with the British government, he yet commanded the esteem and respect of the latter. With a high spirit of the purest patriotism, he held back from all the honours and advantages which were offered to him, and his whole conduct exhibits no taint of ambition—no spirit of self-aggrandizement. In 1786 Lord Charlemont was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy—an office he most worthily filled, having contributed several papers to the Transactions. After he had attained his sixty-second year, the health of Lord Charlemont became infirm; but he did not relax his vigilance or activity in taking his part in all the leading political events of his time; and shortly before his death he was faithfully at his post resisting the great measure of the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland. But the excitement and agitation of the struggle was too much for him. His constitution was entirely shattered, and he died on the 4th of August, 1799, in his seventy-first year. If the talents and genius of Charlemont were inferior to those of Grattan and Flood, and others of his contemporaries, the rare and eminent combination of high and useful qualities, the purity of his heart, his integrity and patriotism, all assign him a place amongst the highest of his day. Accomplished, high-minded, and eminently moral; endowed with the most refined intellectual tastes, the noblest aspirations, the most endearing social affections, he was a politician without the tincture of corruption, and a patriot without the alloy of a selfish motive. He was created an earl in 1763.—J. F. W.
CHARLEMONT, Sir Tobias Caulfield, first lord, born in 1565, was descended from an ancient family of Oxfordshire, and at an early period of life served under the celebrated Martin Frobisher, with whom he went to the Azores in the expedition to these islands, where he conducted himself in a manner to elicit high approbation. He was present in a naval campaign under Howard of Effingham against a Spanish fleet destined for Ireland, on which occasion he won new honour and fame. Subsequently he entered the land service, being engaged under Essex and other commanders, serving in France and Belgium, and signalizing himself at the siege of Dreux, where he was severely wounded. In 1598 he went to Ireland in command of a troop of horse, and rose rapidly into honour and public trust during the wars against the earl of Tyrone. In 1602 Lord Mountjoy gave him the command of Charlemont fort, then lately built to command the Blackwater, as a key to Tyrone's county, where his services obtained him large grants of the estates of the rebel earl; in 1615 he was appointed one of the council for Munster; and in 1620 was created Lord Caulfield, baron of Charlemont. He died in 1627.—J. F. W.
CHARLEMONT, William, second viscount, grandnephew of the preceding, took a distinguished part in the wars which preceded the revolution of 1688, and was visited with attainder and sequestration by the parliament of James II., but was reinstated by William III. He served with distinction under the earl of Peterborough in Spain, especially at the siege of Barcelona and the attack upon Monjuich, when he received the thanks of the king of Spain. He rose to the rank of major-general, and was made governor of the counties of Tyrone and Armagh.—J. F. W.
CHARLES. The emperors, kings, and princes of this name we notice under the names of their respective countries:—1. England; 2. Germany; 3. France; 4. Navarre; 5. Spain; 6. Sweden; 7. Naples; 8. Savoy and Sardinia:—
I.—CHARLESES OF ENGLAND.
CHARLES I., King of Great Britain, the second son of James Sixth of Scotland and First of England, and of Anne of Denmark his wife, was born at the palace of Dunfermline, 19th November, 1600. His Scotch title was Duke of Albany; but after his father's accession to the throne of England, Charles was created Duke of York. The death of his elder brother, Henry, in 1612 opened to him the succession to the throne, and in 1616 he was formally created Prince of Wales. He was a very weakly child; but as he advanced towards manhood his strength gradually increased, and at twenty he was distinguished for his skill in manly exercises. He received an excellent education, and was of a gentle and serious disposition; but his close intimacy with his father's infamous favourite, the frivolous Buckingham—"Steenie," as James called him—exercised an injurious influence upon his character, and sowed the seeds of those political errors which lost him both his kingdom and his life. In 1618 James entered into negotiations with the Spanish court for the marriage of Charles to the sister of the reigning king of Spain. But though the prince undertook an incognito journey to Madrid in 1623 for the purpose of expediting the match, it was ultimately broken off, mainly through the artifices of Buckingham, whose violence and dissolute conduct had rendered him as obnoxious to the Spaniards as to his own countrymen. In 1625 Charles espoused Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, a most unfortunate union for himself and his family. On the 17th of March of that same year he succeeded his father in the throne. His accession was hailed with great favour by the nation; but as he inherited his father's principles of government, and his arrogant favourite still continued to sway the councils of the young king, his popularity was shortlived. The nation had now become conscious both of its rights and its strength, and the spirit of freedom kept pace with the growing wealth and intelligence of the people. An inevitable collision soon took place between the nation and their new sovereign. His first parliament met in June, 1625; but as the commons showed their determination to obtain the redress of grievances rather than to vote liberal supplies for carrying on the war with Spain, the king dissolved them on the 12th of August. A second parliament, which was convoked in the spring of 1626, adopted the same policy as its predecessor, impeached the obnoxious Buckingham, and was preparing a remonstrance against the levying of tonnage and poundage—an odious and oppressive tax—without the consent of the legislature, when Charles, alarmed and indignant at its proceedings, dissolved parliament on the 15th of June. He then had recourse to forced loans and other arbitrary methods of raising money, and imprisoned nearly eighty gentlemen who refused to comply with his illegal demands. The ill success of a war with France, which was brought about by the violence and profligacy of Buckingham, compelled Charles to summon a third parliament in 1628. The commons voted five subsidies, or £280,000, to the king, but refused to pass this vote into law until Charles gave his solemn assent to the "petition of right"—the second great charter of the liberties of England, as it has been termed—by which he bound himself to abstain from forced loans and other illegal taxes, and from arbitrary imprisonments and billeting soldiers on the people. As soon as the parliament was prorogued, however, the king violated his promise, and resumed those arbitrary assertions of his prerogative which had been expressly provided against in the "petition of right." When the legislature again met, therefore, the contest with the king was renewed; and Charles, finding that the commons were determined to vindicate their rights, dissolved the parliament on the 10th of March, and committed Sir John Elliot and several others of its leading members to prison.
Charles now resolved to call no more parliaments, and entered upon a course which would soon have entirely destroyed the liberties of his subjects. Taxes were raised by his own arbitrary authority; ship-money was, for the first time, levied from the inland counties; the puritans were imprisoned, fined, and cruelly mutilated; and an attempt was systematically made to reduce parliament in future to a nullity. At length the king and his adviser, Laud, attempted to force a liturgy upon Scotland, and this foolish project produced an open rebellion among the inhabitants of his ancient kingdom, and ultimately led to the total overthrow of his long-cherished schemes. The Scots entered into a general combination against this religious innovation, framed the famous document called the "national covenant," which was eagerly signed by all classes of the community, and at length took up arms in defence of their religions liberties. Charles marched northward in the spring of 1639, at the head of a powerful army, for the purpose of enforcing submission to his decrees; but on reaching the borders of Scotland he wavered in his resolution, and in the end concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his forces. But this peace was not of long duration. The Scots proceeded to carry out their own religious views, and abolished episcopacy. Charles attempted to reassemble an army, with the view of coercing them; but finding it
