impossible to support his forces by his former illegal expedients, he was compelled to convoke a parliament in the spring of 1640.
The new house of commons was remarkably moderate in its views and procedure. Even Clarendon acknowledges that it "was exceedingly disposed to please the king and to do him service." But the members, though willing to give a large supply, showed that they were not disposed to overlook the grievances under which the country was suffering, and the king in consequence dissolved the parliament in an angry speech, and threw several of the members into prison. By means of forced loans, and other similar expedients, he was enabled to equip and set in motion an army of upwards of twenty thousand men for the suppression of the Scottish insurrection. But his soldiers had no heart for the enterprise. The Scots crossed the borders, defeated a detachment of the English army who opposed their passage of the Tyne, and occupied the northern counties of England. Charles, in this extremity, was compelled to make a truce with the Scots, and to summon a parliament. The houses met in November, 1640, and proceeded at once with vigour and resolution to the work of redressing the grievances of the country. They passed a bill of attainder against Strafford, and brought him to the block, imprisoned Laud, and in various ways punished the other instruments of royal tyranny. They abolished the star-chamber, the high commission court, and the council of York; and wrung from the king an assent to a law providing that the existing parliament should not be prorogued or dissolved without its own consent. In the autumn of 1641 the houses were adjourned, and Charles visited Scotland, where he made large concessions for the purpose of gratifying the people, and used every artifice to gain over the leaders of the covenanting party. On his return from Scotland, the English parliament met after a recess of six weeks. The Irish rebellion had meanwhile broken out, and the puritans believing that it had been secretly encouraged by the court, and distrusting the king's sincerity, framed an address to him, called the "grand remonstrance," enumerating all the illegal and oppressive acts of his reign, and entreating him to employ only persons in whom the parliament could confide. But a reaction had now taken place both in the country and in the legislature. Many of the moderate reformers, who had cordially supported the previous measures of the parliament, were of opinion that sufficient concessions had now been made by the king, and rallied round the throne. The grand remonstrance was carried, after a fierce and protracted debate, by a majority of only eleven, and if Charles had only been true to himself and to his friends, there cannot be a doubt that he would soon have triumphed over the opposition of his enemies. But after a brief show of moderation, he suddenly, on the 3rd of January, 1642, sent down the attorney-general to impeach Lord Kimbolton, and five members of the house of commons, of high treason, at the bar of the house of lords, and next day went in person to the house with an armed force to seize these members at their post. They, however, had received intelligence of his design, and withdrew before his arrival, so that this perfidious and unconstitutional step, which was the direct cause of the civil war, completely failed, and indeed brought ruin on its author. The commons felt that they could no longer trust the king, that their own personal safety, as well as the security of the national rights, required that he should be deprived of the power to do them injury, and demanded that the militia should, for an appointed time, be intrusted to officers whom they should nominate. "No, not for an hour," was the indignant reply of the king. Both parties had now proceeded to such extremities, that nothing remained but an appeal to arms, and the royal standard was at length raised at Nottingham on the 25th of August, 1642.
Our limits will not permit us to enter into the details of this disastrous contest. The war was carried on for some time in a languid and desultory manner, and after two campaigns the issue was still doubtful. But the genius of Cromwell, and the intervention of the Scots, who sent an army of twenty thousand men under General Leslie to the assistance of the parliament, turned the scale in their favour, and the decisive battle of Naseby, on the 14th of June, 1644, completely ruined the royal cause. Charles ultimately fled for refuge to the Scottish army at Newark on the 5th of May, 1645; and after several months had been spent in negotiations and discussions, as he steadily refused to accede to the terms offered by the presbyterian party, he was, at his own request, delivered up to the English parliament. His removal to Holmby house, and seizure there by Cornet Joyce at the instigation of Cromwell, the march of the army to London, the submission of the parliament, the overthrow of the presbyterians, and the complete ascendancy of the republican party speedily followed. The first demands made by the army were exceedingly moderate; but when these were rejected by the king, who expected to hold the balance between the two parties, fierce invectives were launched against him by the army agitators; and Charles, becoming alarmed for his personal safety, fled to the Isle of Wight, where he was detained as a prisoner in Carisbrooke castle by Colonel Hammond the governor. Negotiations were again entered into with the king, but the terms offered were opposed by the Scottish commissioners, with whom he entered into a secret treaty; and encouraged by their support, he refused to accede to the demands of the parliament. This brought matters to a crisis. The extreme republicans now first broached their daring proposal to bring the king to trial, and to put him to death by a judicial sentence. The Scottish parliament, on the other hand, levied an army which marched into England for the purpose of restoring the king by force of arms. But the levies were raw and undisciplined, and the duke of Hamilton, their general, was utterly unfit for the management of such an enterprise, and they were totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston on the 17th of August, 1648. Several desultory risings of the royalists in various parts of England were at the same time crushed, and the army returning victorious to London, expelled the leaders of the presbyterian party from the house of commons, put a stop to all negotiations with the king, seized his person, and prepared to bring him to a public trial. A high court of justice was constituted for this purpose, consisting of the chief officers of the army and the other leaders of the republican party, and presided over by John Bradshaw, a lawyer. This unprecedented trial began on the 20th of January, 1649. Charles, who conducted himself throughout these proceedings with great dignity and firmness, was three times brought before the court, but persisted in declining its jurisdiction. He was brutally insulted by some of the soldiers and rabble, but bore their treatment with exemplary meekness and patience. On the 27th sentence of death was passed upon him, and on the 30th his head was severed from his body, on a scaffold erected in front of Whitehall palace. He died in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign, leaving six children, of whom the two eldest, Charles and James, successively ascended the British throne. Charles possessed many of the qualities which adorn private life, and if his lot had been cast in more propitious circumstances, he might have been a respectable and useful, if not a popular sovereign. But it was his misfortune to live at a period when the ancient forms of the constitution required to be accommodated to the growing intelligence and spirit of the people; and he perished in the vain attemp to resist the onward progress of freedom. The celebrated work entitled "Eikon Basilikè," which was published immediately after his death, and purported to be from his pen, was long regarded as authentic, but is now generally believed to have been written by Dr. Gauden, afterwards bishop of Worcester.—J. T.
CHARLES II., King of Great Britain, second son of Charles I., and of his queen, Henrietta, was born 29th May, 1630. His elder brother, Charles James, died on the day of his birth, 18th March, 1629. On the breaking out of the civil war, Charles, though a mere youth, took up arms in his father's cause. After the fatal battle of Naseby he retired to Scilly, and ultimately took refuge in Paris. The Scots, who had for some time felt aggrieved by the proceedings of the English parliament and army, deeply resented the execution of Charles I., and a few days after, on the 3rd of February, 1649, proclaimed Prince Charles king of Scotland in his stead. They still adhered, however, to their presbyterian principles, and they carefully stipulated that Charles should acknowledge the "solemn league and covenant," and confirm the presbyterian government and worship. He landed in Scotland on the 23rd of June, 1650, and on the 15th of July was again proclaimed at Edinburgh. The unpalatable terms exacted from him, and the austerity of manners prescribed by the covenanters, led him ever after to regard them and their religion with the deepest aversion. A few weeks after the arrival of the prince, Cromwell invaded Scotland at the head of a powerful army The cautious policy of David Leslie for a time completely foiled the attempts of Cromwell to force the Scottish lines, and reduced the English forces to the utmost
extremity; but the folly of the committee of estates and kirk led to the battle of Dunbar on the 3rd of September 1650, in which the Scots were completely defeated, and the whole country south of the Forth, together with the capital, fell into the hands of the victors. The coronation of Charles, however, took place at Scone on the 1st of January, 1651. In the course of the following summer, Cromwell turned the position of the Scottish army at Stirling, and Charles adopted the desperate expedient of marching into England, in the hope that his friends in that country would flock to his standard. In this expectation, however, he was completely disappointed. The Scottish forces were overtaken at Worcester by Cromwell, at the head of an army nearly three times their number, and, after a fierce and protracted engagement, were totally routed on the 3rd of September. Charles himself with great difficulty made his escape. Clothed in the garb of a peasant, he found refuge sometimes in a barn, at other times in wretched hovels. On one occasion he concealed himself for twenty-four hours among the branches and leaves of a large oak. After a variety of romantic adventures and hairbreadth escapes, he at last found refuge in France, forty-five days after his defeat at Worcester. He continued to reside on the continent, principally in France and Flanders, often in great distress, until 1660. The resignation of Richard Cromwell, the cabals of the officers, the dissolution of the rump parliament, and the apprehensions of a military despotism, led the great mass of the people of England to turn their eyes towards the heir of their ancient race of monarchs. The new parliament declared in his favour. General Monk had previously entered into secret negotiations for his restoration to the throne, and at length, on the 25th of May, 1660, Charles landed at Dover; four days later he made his entry into London amid the most extravagant demonstrations of joy, and took up his residence in the palace of his ancestors.
It soon appeared that adversity had taught Charles neither self-denial nor industry, and that he had returned from exile indolent, selfish, unfeeling, faithless, ungrateful, and insensible to reproach or shame. The reforms which the long parliament had introduced were at once swept away, and the old abuses restored. A number of the regicides and leading republicans were put to death with the most revolting cruelties, episcopacy was re-established, and the puritan clergy expelled from office and treated with shocking insolence and cruelty. The old cavaliers, who had lost their all in the royal service, were suffered to pine in want and obscurity, while the revenues of the court were profusely squandered on harlots and buffoons. Scotland, which had freely spent its blood and treasure in the support of his claims, was treated with great injustice and severity. The presbyterian form of worship, which Charles had solemnly sworn to maintain, was abolished, and "black prelacy," which the Scots abhorred, was set up in its room. The supporters of the covenant were fined, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death; the entire proceedings of the various parliaments which had been held since 1633, were at once annulled, and all the barriers which had been raised to protect the civil and religious liberties of the nation, were at one swoop annihilated. The injury which the profligate conduct of Charles and his associates inflicted upon the cause of religion and morality, was perhaps even more fatal than his arbitrary measures, to the well-being of the community; and there can be no doubt that his shameless debaucheries contributed in no small degree to produce that deeprooted and general corruption of morals and manners which throughout his reign disgraced the nation.
Our space will not permit us to do more than glance at the leading events which occurred during the quarter of a century Charles occupied the throne. In 1663 the government engaged in hostilities with Holland, which were so grossly mismanaged that the Dutch fleet burned the ships which lay at Chatham; and this war terminated in a humiliating peace. At this disastrous period too the plague broke out in London, and in six months swept away six hundred thousand human beings. The great fire followed, which laid a large portion of the metropolis in ruins. In 1668 the sagacious counsels and skilful management of Sir William Temple brought about a treaty between England, Holland, and Sweden, commonly called the Triple Alliance, for the purpose of thwarting the ambitious schemes of Louis XIV.; but this wise and popular policy was speedily abandoned. The lavish expenditure of Charles on his licentious pleasures kept him always in poverty, in spite of his liberal civil list and the large sums which he contrived to divert from the public funds to his own private use. The once loyal and subservient parliament began to exhibit unequivocal signs of reluctance to allow the public money to be squandered on debasing indulgences and frivolous amusements; and so great was the anxiety of Charles to escape this irksome dependence on the commons for the supply of his necessities, that he stooped to become the hired lacquey of the French king, and bartered his own reputation, the independence of his crown, the honour and interests of his kingdom, and the safety of Europe, for the purpose of satisfying the rapacity of his worthless courtiers and the profusion of his female favourites. In 1670 he entered into a secret treaty with France, by which he bound himself in return for the promise of a large subsidy, to make a public profession of the Roman catholic faith, and to assist Louis in making war upon Holland, and in his designs upon the Spanish monarchy. War was accordingly declared against the United Provinces, and the funds for carrying it on were obtained by gross fraud and a violation of faith with the public creditors. But the policy was as unsuccessful as it was unprincipled and unpopular, and Charles was compelled to dismiss the infamous cabal ministry from office, and to make peace with Holland in 1674. His domestic policy was equally detested by the people. He claimed and exercised the power of suspending by his own authority the penal laws against Roman catholics and protestant nonconformists, and, by his marked popish leanings, excited great alarm for the safety of the established church and of the protestant religion. Throughout the excesses and judicial murders caused by the alleged discovery of the pretended popish plot, Charles, though convinced of its falsehood, readily went with the current. But he strenuously resisted the attempt to exclude the duke of York from the succession to the throne on the ground of his profession of the Romish faith, and three times dissolved the parliament, rather than sanction the exclusion bill passed by the commons. In the end, a tory reaction set in throughout the country, and rose to such a height that the whigs were speedily at the mercy of the court. A series of attacks on the constitution of the country followed. It was resolved that no more parliaments should be called. The charters of the great towns, in which the strength of the whigs lay, were confiscated; the persecution against the nonconformists was renewed; Russell and Sydney were brought to the scaffold by the most glaring perversion of law and justice; the Scottish covenanters were goaded into rebellion by the oppressive and merciless misgovernment of Middleton, Lauderdale, and the duke of York, and put to death with the most shocking tortures. In the midst of these despotic and cruel proceedings, Charles was suddenly seized with a fit of apoplexy on the 2nd of February, 1685, and expired on the 6th, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the twenty-fifth of his reign. A few hours before his death he made a profession of the Romish faith, which he had long held in secret, and received absolution from a popish priest. Charles possessed excellent abilities, and was good-tempered, witty, affable, and polite; but he was an unfaithful husband, a cold-hearted and treacherous friend, a profligate man, and a bad sovereign.—J. T.
CHARLES-EDWARD Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, called the Pretender, was the grandson of James II., the exiled king of Great Britain, and son of the titular chevalier St. George, by his wife, the Princess Clementina Sobieski, granddaughter of the celebrated King John Sobieski of Poland. Charles-Edward was born on the 31st of December, 1720. He was skilled in manly exercises, but his intellectual training was shamefully neglected, and he was allowed to grow up in almost entire ignorance of the constitution of the country which he aspired to govern; while his instructors took care to instil into him those antiquated notions of hereditary divine right, and passive obedience, which had proved so disastrous to his family. Various projects for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty had been entertained by the French government, and afterwards laid aside. At length, in the spring of 1745, Charles-Edward determined to undertake an expedition to Scotland on his own resources, with such pecuniary assistance as he was able to obtain from private individuals. Charles landed on the 25th of July at Moidart, Inverness-shire, with a train of only seven persons, afterwards called "the seven men of Moidart." The general rendezvous of his adherents was appointed to be at Glenfinnan, a desolate sequestered vale about fifteen miles from Fort-William, and there, on the 19th of August, the Jacobite standard was unfurled by the old marquis of Tullibardine.
