King Charles I : a Study
 
 
 ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SEA OF LOVE 
 THE CRESCENT MOON 
 
 JOHN LONG, LIMITED, LONDON
 
 KING CHARLES I 
 
 FROM THE PORTRAIT IX MIDDLE TEMPLE HALL 
 
 By permission of the Treasurer and Masters of the Bench
 
 King Charles I 
 
 A Study 
 
 By 
 
 Walter Phelps Dodge 
 
 Of the M';ddle Temple, Barrister-at-La<w 
 
 Author of "Piers Gaveston," "From Squire to Prince," 
 " The Real Sir Richard Burton " 
 
 With Frontispiece 
 
 London 
 
 John Long, Limited 
 
 Norris Street, Haymarket 
 
 MCMXII
 
 
 First published in 1912 

 
 TO 
 
 ADA, vSTUART AND ROSEMARY 


 
 Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE STUARTS . . 13 
 
 II. KING JAMES I . 19 
 
 III. CHARLES PRINCE OF WALES . . 24 
 
 IV. THE ACCESSION OF KING CHARLES I 34 
 V. THE KING AND THE COMMONS . 39 
 
 VI. THE KING . . . 47 
 
 VII. UNPEACEFUL YEARS . . 56 
 
 VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END . . 64 
 
 IX. REBELLION . . 75 
 
 X. THE DEATH OF THE KING . . 85 
 
 XI. REACTION . . 90 
 
 XII. THE VERDICT OF HISTORY . . 93 
 


 
 Author's Note 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL has for so long been 
 overpraised that the reaction was bound to 
 come. Modern interest in English history 
 turns from the Puritan to the Cavalier, and 
 the world realizes that the deification of the 
 Huntingdon Squire has been overdone a 
 mere temporary eclipse of the more en- 
 during fame of the White King. 
 
 One finds endless books on Cromwell, 
 ancient and modern ; few writers, however, 
 have devoted themselves to Charles I. For 
 this reason the Author hopes that there 
 may be room for a study of the Stuart 
 King. 
 
 REFORM CLUB, LONDON 
 June i$tfi, 1912 
 
 ii
 
 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE STUARTS 
 
 A WORLD of romance, of loyalty, of faith- 
 fulness unto death belongs to those words 
 " The Stuarts." Was ever such a family 
 known before ? Will ever such a family 
 come again into the ken of sordid poli- 
 ticians prating ape-like of a " democracy " 
 they fail to understand ? Mary Queen of 
 Scots Charles I The Old Chevalier 
 Bonnie Prince Charlie and perhaps one 
 might add Charles II, the Merry Monarch. 
 Three dour Stuarts only add to the lustre 
 of the others James I, James II, and 
 Henry de Jure the Ninth Cardinal 
 York. 
 
 What was the charm of the Stuarts ? 
 13
 
 14 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Why did men die for them blithely with 
 " God Save the King " on their lips ? The 
 Stuart charm was subtle, elusive, magnetic 
 the charm of a dignity of long descent 
 added to a very human chain of faults, 
 faults that were generous always. To use 
 a modern word, the Stuarts were victims of 
 temperament an obstinate vein of sadness 
 pursued their gayest moments, a haunting 
 sense of tragedy paralysed too often their 
 efforts. One might almost say that Pre- 
 destination was the fly in their ointment. 
 
 Charles I would have been a better King 
 north of the Tweed. He was more of a 
 Scot than an Englishman. It is too often 
 forgotten that he was, in a sense, a foreign 
 Prince, a foreign King. 
 
 The average man knows that James I 
 was the successor of Queen Elizabeth and 
 that Mary Queen of Scots was his mother. 
 He knows also that the Stuarts were 
 reigning in Scotland when the vacant 
 English Throne came to King James. It
 
 The Stuarts i 5 
 
 is odd that the dry bones of History are so 
 seldom clothed with even a tithe of the 
 interest belonging to them. The average 
 historian is accurate but uninteresting. The 
 Stuarts were Scottish nobles before they 
 were Scottish Kings. On the whole, in 
 spite of the ever-present rivalry of the 
 powerful House of Douglas, who origin- 
 ally claimed the Scottish Throne, they 
 ruled firmly if not wisely. The poetic 
 imaginative strain in the Stuarts appealed 
 to Gael and Celt, if not to smug Low- 
 landers. Quick at a jest, they never lost 
 their level of kingly dignity. The Stuart 
 charm was at its best in Mary Queen of 
 Scots, who, as she showed most clearly the 
 virtues of the race, betrayed too plainly 
 their faults. Brave but obstinate, clever 
 but vacillating, persistent but persuadable, 
 she like all the Stuarts could not play a 
 waiting game. Her cleverness was im- 
 patient of lesser men with smaller minds, 
 and the intolerable self-sufficiency of that
 
 1 6 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 overrated man John Knox gave rise to un- 
 wisely scathing comments on his mind, body 
 and estate comments that cost her and her 
 successors dear. Nothing feeds hatred like 
 ridicule, and the Stuart sense of humour 
 was unfortunately too keen for the heavy 
 wits of Edinburgh and London. There 
 was ever a pinch of Attic salt in the witti- 
 cisms of the Stuarts, and their jests were too 
 often at the expense of their friends. Too 
 much has been written and imagined of 
 the Stuart belief in rule by Divine Right. 
 On the other hand, if the Stuart Kings had 
 believed less in themselves and more in 
 Divine Right, their story would be more 
 commonplace and less interesting. The 
 least of the Stuarts, James I, was the most 
 convinced that he reigned by direct wish of 
 the Creator. Had his mother, Mary Queen 
 of Scots, succeeded Elizabeth the prospects 
 opening before the family would have been 
 brighter. According to Skelton, Fortune 
 played a scurvy trick in bringing first to
 
 The Stuarts 17 
 
 the English Throne the only Stuart who 
 was a grotesque and undignified pedant. 
 He was the son of his father more than his 
 mother. No trace of her fatal fascination 
 lurked in his heavy features and heavier 
 wits. Much undeserved sympathy for his 
 mother's execution hung around him, but 
 Romance was far to seek in him or his. 
 The tendency of the Stuarts towards 
 favourites was both a misfortune and a 
 fault ; although the melancholy ghost of 
 Piers Gaveston might have wailed a warn- 
 ing. Having ruled Scotland for centuries, 
 the problem before the House of Stuart at 
 the " setting of that bright Occidental Star 
 Queen Elizabeth" as the King James 
 Version of the Prayer Book has it was the 
 ruling of England for centuries to come. 
 A stronger man than James I would have 
 doubted ; but he, strong in his conceit, 
 brave in his vanity, calmly mounted the 
 vacant Throne, and laid the foundation- 
 stone of the tragedy of Whitehall. It
 
 1 8 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 must not be forgotten that the Stuarts 
 reaped the whirlwind where the Tudors 
 had sowed the wind. The misrule of 
 Henry VIII, the tyranny of Queen Mary, 
 the absolute rule of Queen Elizabeth all 
 these had roused a spirit of opposition in 
 the Commons and in the country. 
 
 The Tudors were followed by the Stuarts, 
 and curiously enough the first of the Eng- 
 lish Stuarts was Tudor in all but name. In 
 this way King Charles I was heavily handi- 
 capped when he came to the Throne.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 KING JAMES I 
 
 To understand Charles I, the character and 
 reign of his father, James I, must be con- 
 sidered, little as it tempts the student of 
 the House of Stuart. 
 
 James I, the son of Mary Queen of Scots 
 and Darnley, was born soon after the killing 
 of Rizzio in 1566. In 1589 he wooed and 
 married Anne of Denmark with the one 
 faint touch of romance in the whole of his 
 dull and gloomy character the wisest fool 
 in Christendom, as Sully called him. The 
 chroniclers of the day speak of him as " gey 
 ill to live wi'." 
 
 Of the five children three survived : Henry 
 
 Prince of Wales, born in 1594 ; Charles, 
 
 born at Dunfermline in 1600 ; and Elizabeth, 
 
 who married the Elector Palatine and became 
 
 19
 
 2O King Charles I : a Study 
 
 the ancestress of King George V, who may 
 claim, in a sense, to be a " Stuart King." 
 
 The accession of King James was popular 
 with Catholics, Puritans and Anglicans alike. 
 He was welcomed by the adherents of the 
 " Old Faith " as the son of that Mary Queen 
 of Scots who had been a faithful Daughter 
 of the Church. The Puritans thought as a 
 Scot he would sympathize with their views, 
 while the Anglicans having regard to his 
 education in Protestant theology and his 
 partially successful attempts to super-impose 
 Episcopacy on the Scotch Presbytery gave 
 way to joyful anticipations of his probable 
 course. How he disappointed each and all 
 in turn may be read in the monumental 
 pages of Rawson Gardiner. The Puritanic 
 leaven in the Commons was not well disposed 
 to James as time went on, and there wanted 
 not Members to whisper that the King's 
 title to the Throne was not a parliamentary 
 title, Henry VIII having preferred the 
 family of his sister Mary to the family of
 
 King James I 21 
 
 his sister Margaret. James, however, was 
 King, and took good care not to lose sight 
 of the fact. The constant quarrel between 
 King and Commons related chiefly to sub- 
 sidies a sordid ground of contention. The 
 Commons in their small-minded jealousy of 
 the King cannot be defended. In their wish 
 to rule they neglected the foreign interests 
 of the country predecessors of the " Little 
 Englanders " of to-day. Both Commons 
 and people complained that the King ignored 
 the popular prejudice against Spain and a 
 Spanish marriage for the heir to the Crown. 
 The Armada was not forgotten in England. 
 To James, however, suprema lex regis voluntas, 
 and he was content in his fatuous self- 
 sufficiency. Indeed the sacrifice of Sir 
 Walter Raleigh to please the King of Spain 
 was regretted by no less a person than 
 Henry Prince of Wales, who angrily asked, 
 " Why does my father keep such a bird in 
 the cage ? " 
 
 Sir Walter Scott in the Fortunes of Nigel
 
 22 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 gives a capital picture of the Court of King 
 James, while Calderwood in his Collections 
 is illuminating. 
 
 The domestic life of the King was not 
 ideal. Anne, the Queen, was frivolous and 
 only eager for amusement. Their oldest 
 son, Henry Prince of Wales, was brave and 
 determined, giving promise of a strong 
 character to come. He was generous and 
 lovable, protecting always his delicate younger 
 brother Charles, whom he promised half in 
 jest to make Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
 Prince of Wales was not fond of books, but 
 liked an open-air life,andwishedtobeasoldier, 
 and more especially a sailor. He was devoted 
 to his sister Elizabeth, and knightly to all 
 women. A letter from Charles to Henry 
 has been preserved showing the relations 
 between the brothers as well as giving a 
 glimpse of the Royal writer : 
 
 " Sweet, sweet brother, I thank you for 
 your letter. I will give anything that 1 have 
 to you, both my horses and my books and
 
 King James I 23 
 
 my pieces or my crossbows or anything that 
 you would have. Good brother, love me 
 and I shall ever love and serve you." 
 
 It was a sad day for England and for the 
 Stuarts when Henry was struck down by a 
 fierce attack of typhoid from which he failed 
 to recover. His death in time made Charles 
 King.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 CHARLES PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 WHEN he was baptized Charles had been 
 created Duke of Albany December 23rd, 
 1600 ; he was made Duke of York Janu- 
 ary 1 6th, 1605, and upon the death of his 
 elder brother he was in due course created 
 Prince of Wales. As a child he was weak 
 and fragile, and gave his medical attendants 
 much worry. It was chiefly owing to his 
 governess, Lady Carey, that Charles out- 
 grew his childish ailments, as well as the 
 lisp he had inherited from his father. From 
 a shy and delicate boy he grew into a stately, 
 thoughtful youth, fond of outdoor sports 
 and the possessor of sturdy health. Of his 
 sister Elizabeth Charles was fond, and his 
 
 devotion was returned by the fascinating 
 24
 
 Charles Prince of Wales 25 
 
 future Queen of Bohemia, who had much 
 of the charm of her grandmother, the Queen 
 of Scots. 
 
 The influence of the King and Queen 
 over their surviving son was less than 
 nothing. The frivolous Queen, rushing 
 from ballroom to cloister, always at one 
 extreme or the other, did not understand her 
 grave and meditative son ; while the clown- 
 ing of the King jarred the princely dignity of 
 Charles. The Prince talked too little his 
 reticence grew into silence as he advanced 
 in age, while his Royal father talked too 
 much. It was a curious Court ; the King 
 pedantically wise and foolish by turns, 
 familiar, lacking in dignity ; the Queen 
 flighty, religious ; the Prince of Wales 
 walking apart with a melancholy mien and 
 disdainful air, while the witty Princess 
 Elizabeth made fun of each and all. The 
 shrewd Scotch common sense of which the 
 King had a share, was partly lacking in
 
 26 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 the Prince of Wales. The suppressed anger 
 felt by Charles at his father's lack of dignity 
 found a vent in complaints to Buckingham, 
 who was his favourite, as well as his father's. 
 A noble nature driven in upon itself by 
 uncongenial surroundings, is apt to sour 
 or smoulder until an ill-advised explosion 
 gives relief. Charles was never soured, 
 but his lack of self-control at times was 
 dangerous to himself and not safe for Eng- 
 land. Why his father called him " Baby 
 Charles" is hard to guess, for his character 
 is ill-defined by the clumsy pet name. 
 Buckingham was a clever man to be loved 
 alike by men so different as the first James 
 and the first Charles. His sudden rise 
 destroyed the perfect balance of his mind. 
 He was " Steenie" to both, and posed 
 as the best friend of the lonely Prince. 
 Buckingham's influence over Charles was 
 not so bad as some historians infer. His 
 counsels were indeed rash and dangerous,
 
 Charles Prince of Wales 27 
 
 but not actively bad. At times the King 
 endeavoured to impress his views of the 
 divine right of kingship upon his heir 
 11 That which concerns the mystery of the 
 King's power is not lawful to be disputed," 
 may be called a sententious summing up of 
 the views of the King. 
 
 In time the King grew tired of Buck- 
 ingham, particularly after the Spanish fiasco ; 
 but he retained his affection for " Steenie " 
 to the end. 
 
 In theology Charles took but little in- 
 terest, although he had his grandmother's 
 dislike for sour Puritanism, that Puritanic 
 spirit so often serving as a cloak for 
 cold-blooded dissipation your full-blooded 
 Puritan is ever a hypocrite. 
 
 As a linguist Charles was distinguished ; 
 he was well grounded in law and mathe- 
 matics, and a good classical scholar. Music 
 and art claimed him actively as well as 
 a patron. His collection of pictures was
 
 28 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 priceless a collection afterwards dispersed 
 by the boorish spite of Cromwell. 
 
 Charles was a man of medium height. 
 An indefinable air of haunting sadness clings 
 about the mournful dignity of all his 
 portraits. His grey eyes contrasted with 
 his chestnut hair and dark colouring, while 
 his high forehead showed intellect of no 
 mean order. His smile was fascinating, 
 and his address winning. He was called 
 by Browning " the man with the mild 
 voice and the mournful eyes," while the 
 changing intonations of his speech gave his 
 least word a charm it hardly deserved. In 
 disputing Charles was quick, yet solid ; 
 his arguments carefully marshalled, well 
 reasoned and well put ; often he astonished 
 a disputant by his instant grasp of a situa- 
 tion. He was a clever man of good judg- 
 ment ; but a certain mental laziness, added 
 to a lack of self-control, often made him 
 take a course insufficiently thought out. A
 
 Charles Prince of Wales 29 
 
 clean delicacy of mind distinguished the 
 Prince of Wales from his early years, 
 enabling him to walk unstained through the 
 corruption of his father's Court, and made 
 him, as a young man, able to blush like a girl 
 at broad expressions. As he grew older, 
 the Prince often listened to the debates in 
 the House of Lords, and constantly settled 
 disputes between the haughty Buckingham 
 and the older peers, affronted by his mete- 
 oric rise. When he chose to exert himself 
 Charles showed a wonderful tact and power 
 of managing men. He knew his powers, 
 but often his scorn of feebler minds led 
 him to ignore situations he might easily 
 have dominated. 
 
 As Charles approached maturity the ques- 
 tion of his marriage became more pressingly 
 important. Here the King was tactless. 
 He ignored the dislike for Spain inherent 
 in English minds since Queen Mary had 
 married the King of Spain. The Spanish
 
 30 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 diplomat Gondomar was a clever man, and 
 looked forward to another Royal Spanish 
 alliance with England. The Infanta her- 
 self, however, was not anxious for the 
 match, and her brother Philip disliked the 
 idea, as did Philip's greatest and most trusted 
 Minister Olivarez. Charles had fallen in 
 love with an exquisitely painted miniature 
 of the Infanta in 1622, and the romance of 
 the possible marriage of a Prince of Wales 
 to a Spanish Princess appealed strongly to 
 him, so that Buckingham's suggestion of a 
 sudden visit to Spain was welcomed. 
 
 Rawson Gardiner, with a great lack of 
 historical perspective, unduly blames Charles 
 for his share in this knight errantry. On 
 their way to Madrid the Prince and Buck- 
 ingham passed through Paris, where they 
 caught a glimpse of the Princess Henrietta 
 Maria, daughter of Henry IV and Marie 
 de Medicis, and future Queen of England. 
 At this time, however, the thoughts of
 
 Charles Prince of Wales 3 1 
 
 Charles were fixed on the Spanish Alliance, 
 both on account of his romantic passion for 
 the Infanta and because he thought such a 
 marriage would consolidate his sister's posi- 
 tion as wife of the Elector Palatine. Once, 
 however, arrived at Madrid, Charles found 
 that amateur diplomacy even when evolved 
 from the astute mind of George Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham, was a broken reed. 
 The Palatinate was sacrificed and the In- 
 fanta was adamant. She wished to marry 
 no heretic Prince. This rebuff was un- 
 wholesome for Charles, and angered in- 
 tensely the King of England. Charles is 
 said to have welcomed the fleet that was to 
 carry him home with enthusiasm ; while 
 Buckingham became the bitter foe of Spain 
 and the Spanish Royal House. King James, 
 seriously disturbed, resolved to lose no fur- 
 ther time ; and an Embassy was at once 
 despatched to Paris to demand the hand of 
 the Princess Henrietta Maria from the
 
 32 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Queen Mother, and from her brother King 
 Louis XIII. 
 
 At this time the Princess was in her 
 fifteenth year, and is described by the 
 Special Ambassador as " a lovely, sweet 
 young creature. Her growth is not great 
 yet but her shape is perfect." The Prin- 
 cess, on her part, mused long and happily 
 over a miniature of the Prince of Wales. 
 The marriage was of course a political one 
 a move on the European chessboard. A 
 matrimonial alliance between France and 
 England would cry " Check " to the am- 
 bitions of Spain ; and the Prince of Wales 
 would secure a lovely and youthful bride, 
 half in love with his miniature. Of course 
 King James and his Ministers got the worst 
 of the long-drawn-out negotiations. Riche- 
 lieu was more than a match for them all. 
 Finally the marriage treaty was signed on 
 December I2th, 1624. But now the weary 
 old King was ready to lay down his burden
 
 Charles Prince of Wales 33 
 
 of Empire ; as a King he had been a pathetic 
 failure, as a man he was not a success. 
 Deep learning was his, but no useful know- 
 ledge ; undignified, yet claiming more than 
 Royal dignity, the son of Mary Queen of 
 Scots went down to his grave unmourned, 
 unhonoured and unwept. James I died 
 on March 2yth, 1625, and Charles I reigned 
 in his stead.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE ACCESSION OF KING CHARLES I 
 
 THE Prince of Wales had been a haughty, 
 dreamy youth, disdainful of his father's 
 Court a stately, lonely figure with a touch 
 of the mysterious sadness that genius often 
 shows magnetic alike to man and woman 
 the embodied spirit of romance. Such 
 was Charles the Prince ; what of Charles 
 the King ? A very serious sense of the 
 responsibilities of kingship had been de- 
 veloped in the Prince of Wales, but he 
 somehow failed to realize the spirit of the 
 times. In the full-blooded Henry VIII 
 the people had rejoiced. Edward VI was 
 beloved as one understanded of the people. 
 Mary's reign was not a success. England 
 was proud of her Virgin Queen but James I 
 had appealed neither to the State nor to party 
 
 34
 
 Accession of King Charles 135 
 
 or faction. With the irritation induced by 
 his reign his unfortunate and well-meaning 
 son had to contend. It was a bitter heri- 
 tage. 
 
 The beginning of the new reign was 
 auspicious. About six weeks after the 
 death of King James, Princess Henrietta 
 Maria was married by proxy to Charles 
 King of England on May ist, 1625, before 
 the great west door of Notre Dame. On 
 the 1 6th of June the Queen arrived in 
 London and received a great popular wel- 
 come. All things promised well for the 
 House of Stuart. 
 
 The political creed to which Charles 
 during his reign was consistent has its 
 admirers as well as its opponents ; to this 
 day there is an element in English public 
 life that finds it hard to keep its temper 
 when Charles I is praised ; and, on the 
 other hand, the absurd and ridiculous Legiti- 
 mist and Jacobite Societies and Leagues are 
 out of court. They hardly exist. It is,
 
 36 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 however, hard to defend the Commons 
 during the reign. 
 
 Rawson Gardiner says of the Lower 
 House, " it was as yet but an incoherent 
 mass." Mistakes were made by King and 
 Commons alike. Both were at fault. 
 Charles, however, acted with a single eye 
 to the interests of his country ; the Com- 
 mons had a whole-souled devotion to their 
 own. When an irresistible force meets an 
 immovable rock, something is apt to hap- 
 pen, and happen many things did. John 
 Richard Green, in his distorted view of 
 this reign, glorified the Puritans, who were 
 gradually coming to the front in Parlia- 
 ment. Macaulay, however, takes the saner 
 view, in giving as a reason for the Puritans' 
 dislike of bear-baiting, not the pain suffered 
 by the bear, but the pleasure felt by the on- 
 lookers. 
 
 The first twenty years of the reign had 
 many crowded hours. Events marched
 
 Accession of King Charles I 37 
 
 rapidly, and there was no pause in the 
 procession of important happenings. 
 
 The Royal Marriage Alliance with France 
 had proved a stumbling-block to Spain. 
 Neither Gondomar nor Philip proved a 
 match for Richelieu the Master Diplomat. 
 Later, indeed, Cromwell's mistaken foreign 
 policy so bitterly analysed by Bolingbroke 
 in strengthening the French power has 
 been strongly criticized by later writers. 
 According to Skelton, the political situation 
 in England may be separated into three 
 periods the first, one of constitutional 
 development on normal lines ; the second, 
 showing a disregard for constitutional prece- 
 dent ; the third, a period of civil war 
 culminating in the farcical trial and murder 
 of the King leading to a Restoration. 
 
 The first mistake of the new reign was 
 the predominance of Buckingham. His 
 foreign adventures were more or less 
 failures ; as one studies the course of events 
 in Holland, before Cadiz, at Rochelle, one
 
 38 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 marvels at the lack of judgment shown by 
 the Duke. Brilliant erratic self-sufficient, 
 George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, drove 
 by his ill success and insolence the first nail 
 in the oncoming scaffold at Whitehall. The 
 King (less haughty as King than he had 
 been as Prince) and Queen (" nimble and 
 black-eyed, brown-haired, and in a word 
 a brave lady ") were personally popular ; 
 and it needed the four years of Bucking- 
 ham's control to diminish the love of the 
 people for their King. It was, however, a 
 bad four years for England ; Buckingham 
 was the evil genius of the King.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE KING AND THE COMMONS 
 
 THE first Parliament of Charles was not un- 
 like the last Parliament of James. As usual 
 the Commons lost no time in asserting 
 themselves. At the beginning of a new 
 reign the great permanent revenues of the 
 Crown were voted for life by means of a 
 grant known as " tonnage and poundage." 
 In their insolence an insolence no Tudor 
 Sovereign would have stood for a moment 
 in defiance of precedent, the Commons 
 voted this grant for one year only an impu- 
 dent encroachment on Constitutional usage. 
 The new Bill, however, did not get 
 through the House of Lords then, as 
 now, the vigilant guardian of the public 
 interest ; and the duties were levied as 
 before by Crown officers. 
 39
 
 40 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 The request of the King for " subsidies " 
 having been only partially granted, the 
 Finance Minister at the King's order 
 renewed the request when the Houses met 
 at Oxford. The King himself condescended 
 to make a personal request. His whole 
 revenues had been exhausted in the public 
 service ; he was cramped for means to pay 
 the Royal obligations he was young and at 
 the beginning of his reign. If he now met 
 with kind and dutiful usage it would en- 
 dear the Parliament to him and preserve a 
 perfect accord between himself and his 
 subjects. 
 
 But the faithful Commons were stubborn. 
 They cherished legends of the contemptuous 
 way in which they had been flouted by 
 Queen Elizabeth, and thirsted for revenge. 
 Their reasons for refusal were commonplace 
 they objected to Buckingham's foreign 
 policy, they did not approve of the war, 
 and pretended they were acting in the 
 public interest.
 
 The King and the Commons 41 
 
 Charles' strong Anglicanism was suspect 
 by the narrow Puritans in the Commons. 
 They wished to establish eternal damnation 
 by Statute, and Calvin was their patron 
 saint. It is a curious commentary on their 
 success that there is now in America of all 
 places a " Church of St. Charles the 
 Martyr." 
 
 The King made a mistake in beginning 
 his relations with the Commons by a request. 
 Henry VIII would have ordered where 
 Charles I entreated. It was too late when 
 Charles, conscious of his mistake, dissolved 
 abruptly his first Parliament. Charles be- 
 came King in March, 1625, and before 1630 
 three separate Parliaments had been sum- 
 moned and dissolved. Comment is need- 
 less. 
 
 The situation rapidly becoming a crisis 
 speaks for itself. The Commons would 
 not grant supplies until their so-called 
 " grievances " were redressed. 
 
 At this time injudicious writers widened
 
 42 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 the breach by foolish books on the doctrine 
 (they made it a dogma) of Divine Right 
 and the virtue of passive obedience. As 
 always they were "plus Royalistes que le 
 Roi " and did the Royal Stuart no good 
 service. 
 
 The Commons were wrong from the 
 standpoint of constitutional law and legal 
 history their refusal to grant supplies made 
 it difficult for the King to keep his treaty 
 engagements with Gustavus Adolphus and 
 Christian of Denmark. 
 
 The hired assassins of Tilly swept like 
 locusts over the cities of Northern Germany, 
 because the Commons of England refused 
 to follow precedent. It is admitted now 
 that the Commons went too far for public 
 safety in their attempted grasp of power ; 
 and the Petition of Right was the only 
 legislative fruit rare but unrefreshing of 
 these successive Parliaments which is worthy 
 of mention. It was technically a " declar- 
 atory Statute," and was the cause of much
 
 The King and the Commons 43 
 
 argument among gentlemen of the long robe. 
 The question at issue was simple : could a 
 subject be imprisoned by the King unless 
 the cause of imprisonment appeared on the 
 warrant ? Naturally there were cases where 
 it was against the public interest to state the 
 cause, and this was generally admitted. A 
 Resolution was passed by the Lords to the 
 effect that the power of the King was regal 
 as well as legal ; this, however, was dis- 
 pleasing to the Commons, more tender of 
 their privileges than of their honour, and an 
 impasse was averted. Finally both Houses 
 declared that the Act was not to be con- 
 sidered as affecting the Prerogative a 
 lawyer's futile compromise. 
 
 Rawson Gardiner aptly says that many a 
 compensating change would be needed before 
 the real preponderance in the Constitution 
 passed from King to Commons. 
 
 Sir John Eliot was the only leader of any 
 weight in these short-lived early Parliaments 
 of Charles I. The absurd praise lavished
 
 44 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 on him is to be wondered at ; he was an 
 average orator, and possessed many of the 
 elements of the party hack. His jealousy 
 of Buckingham resulted in a torrent of 
 invective, strewn with false accusations un- 
 supported by any proof. His ridiculous 
 comparison of Buckingham with Sejanus of 
 Tacitus was cleverly characterized by the 
 King, who said, when dissolving Parliament, 
 "If the Duke is Sejanus I must be Tiberius." 
 Eliot's attack on Buckingham was the direct 
 cause of the Duke's murder by the half- 
 witted Felton, who brooded over what he 
 supposed to be his country's wrongs until 
 his mind gave way ; and a knife-thrust at 
 Portsmouth ended the brilliant life of the 
 favourite. 
 
 The disputes with the Commons fretted 
 Charles and did not improve his temper. 
 More than once he went down to the House 
 and reproved the Members : 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, here is much time spent 
 in enquiring into grievances. I would have
 
 The King and the Commons 45 
 
 more time bestowed in preventing and re- 
 dressing them." 
 
 The childish charges of " bad faith " made 
 against the King arose in connection with 
 his supposed mental reservations in con- 
 nection with the Petition of Right a 
 measure he naturally, holding to his Royal 
 Prerogative, regarded with little favour. But 
 who could define the " mental reservations 
 of the King " ? The charge refutes itself. 
 That the King acted hastily in ordering 
 Eliot's arrest for words spoken in the House 
 is true, but that Eliot was a " Parliamentary 
 Martyr " is absurdly untrue. 
 
 Charles was wiser in addressing the 
 Commons on the Petition of Right. He 
 said : 
 
 " And I assure you that my maxim is that 
 the people's liberties strengthen the King's 
 prerogatives, and that the King's prerogative 
 is to defend the people's liberties." 
 
 King and people were alike wearied by 
 constant Parliamentary quarrels. The coun-
 
 46 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 try was as tired of the Commons as the 
 King. Little blame attaches to Charles for 
 his decision to try personal rule for a time. 
 The country had confidence in its King and 
 little or none in its Commons. How would 
 the experiment succeed ?
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE KING 
 
 THE period of personal rule from 1629 to 
 1640 was peaceful and prosperous. These 
 eleven years without a Parliament gave a 
 much-needed rest to the country, sick of 
 wrangling and talk for talk's sake. Even 
 in these enlightened days an eleven-years' 
 rest from dreary debates would not be un- 
 welcome, particularly as in this year of 
 Grace 1912 the House of Commons is 
 notoriously unrepresentative of the people. 
 As a benevolent despot King Charles I was 
 more of a success than as a King with a 
 Parliament. The years between the Parlia- 
 ments were among the most pleasant in the., 
 life of Charles. Political persecutions were 
 unknown, tonnage and poundage were 
 quietly levied, and there was peace in the 
 
 47
 
 48 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 land. True, the electoral franchise was 
 paralysed for the moment, but nobody was 
 a penny the worse ; and private judgment 
 was unlimited. 
 
 An illuminating example of the difference 
 between historians is found in the opinion 
 of the Puritans they were fanatics who 
 misclaimed the name expressed by Carlyle 
 and Hume. To the former they were heroes, 
 to the latter eccentrics. As a matter of fact 
 they were to a certain extent both. 
 
 Cromwell was called by Hume a fanatical 
 hypocrite no bad description of the man 
 who was to his enemies the arch-traitor ; 
 who boasted "a sturdy red ridge of nose 
 and a coarse fleshy face, swollen and dark." 
 Contrast this description with a contemporary 
 one of the King. " King Charles looked 
 well a stately melancholy in his delicate 
 features, that saddened the beholder bend- 
 ing low before him." 
 
 There is a baffling something in the 
 personality of the King that defies analysis.
 
 The King 49 
 
 No one with the possible exception of his 
 grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots has 
 been so bitterly blamed. No one has been 
 so unwisely praised. Yet undeserved censure 
 and unwise praise have failed both to 
 lower the prestige of the most tragic King 
 in history. 
 
 What was the character what was the 
 aim of this King who dismissed his Parlia- 
 ments and ruled alone ? The acts of Charles 
 were of two kinds ; those dictated by his 
 heart and those instigated by his head. 
 Where his feelings were concerned the 
 King was hasty and rash. His mind worked 
 slowly but clearly and showed the discretion 
 of a statesman. Because his mental pro- 
 cesses were slow, he was often irresolute and 
 acted before he had really decided. His 
 enemies called him insincere as a matter 
 of fact he was merely undecided. With 
 a strong Minister at his elbow Charles I 
 would have been a great King. Unfortun- 
 ately he was King and Prime Minister
 
 50 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 both a Wilhelm I without his Bismarck. 
 This lack of statesman-like counsel explains 
 many mistakes of the reign. 
 
 The Court was serious, far from extrava- 
 gant and favoured no immorality. After 
 the death of Buckingham the King got on 
 better with the Queen when she had ceased 
 to miss the intriguing French Catholics who 
 had come with her to England. A loyal and 
 affectionate Queen was the reward of the 
 King's devotion, and the influence of Hen- 
 rietta Maria remained paramount with her 
 husband up to the end. The King's melan- 
 choly dissolved before the gay vivacity of 
 the Queen, and his manner grew more 
 gracious as he saw more of his charming 
 Consort. A fairly large family shared the 
 King's love. Charles Prince of Wales ; 
 James Duke of York (afterwards Charles II 
 and James II) ; Princess Henrietta, Prin- 
 cess Mary, the little Duke of Gloucester, 
 and Princess Elizabeth a charming family 
 group.
 
 The King 5 i 
 
 For the administrative side of his king 
 ship Charles had a decided gift including 
 great executive ability. He insisted upon 
 a close examination of all State papers, and 
 was intolerant of errors, whether of judg- 
 ment or merely technical. 
 
 To Buckingham's influence succeeded 
 that of Wentworth and Laud the Earl of 
 Strafford and the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 They soon became sworn friends, and at the 
 same time confidential Ministers of their 
 Royal master. Strafford was a great states- 
 man ; devoid of personal ambition, he was 
 content to remain what he was, a great noble 
 working for the State. As such, he was in- 
 tolerant of the Commons, and wished the 
 King to rule without their aid. " The grand 
 manner" was his by right, and his influence 
 over men was immense by the force of 
 character that was in him. His foreign 
 policy was peaceful. He shared the views 
 of Montrose, who wrote to the King from
 
 52 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Scotland : " They will never rest until they 
 have made you a man of straw." 
 
 Strafford had made a success of his Com- 
 missions. As Lord Deputy of Ireland, he 
 had guided his Irish Parliaments with the 
 iron hand in the velvet glove. He might 
 have done the same in England. He was 
 a born administrator a strong, sincere, fear- 
 less servant of the King. 
 
 Laud was equally as sincere, but his dis- 
 cretion was less. In 1633 he who was Bishop 
 of London, became Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, an honour due to the great church- 
 man. Unfortunately for him the Puritans, 
 with their usual lack of intelligence, sus- 
 pected him of leaning towards Rome an 
 unfounded but a dangerous feeling. The 
 oft-quoted opinion expressed by Laud on 
 the King is apocryphal, "A mild and gracious 
 Prince who knows not how to be, or to be 
 made, great." Such was Laud a burning 
 flame ignis ardens in his zeal for the
 
 The King 53 
 
 Church, unconscious that his religious fire 
 was to consume both himself and his King. 
 
 During the peaceful interval of eleven 
 years, the triumvirate the King, Laud, and 
 Strafford governed, and governed with suc- 
 cess. The King gentle, gracious, good, 
 and with a strong sense of duty ; Strafford 
 brave, forcible, relentless, sincere, reaction- 
 ary ; Laud faithful to King and Church, 
 intolerant of any opposition to either. 
 
 Until 1636 there was perfect quiet in 
 England, and during these peaceful years, 
 on the Slepe Hall Estate, living the mono- 
 tonous life so well described by Carlyle was 
 a sturdy fanatic in the making ; a " solid, 
 substantial, inoffensive farmer of St. Ives," 
 who was more or less of a hypochondriac, 
 tainted with the ideas or lack of ideas of 
 the Fifth Monarchy Men one Oliver 
 Cromwell, the man who, if he had failed, 
 would have been branded as a rebel and 
 a traitor ; the man who, as he succeeded at 
 the sacrifice of his honour, became Lord
 
 54 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Protector of England the most overrated 
 man in history, and the pet of those modern 
 English " Democrats " whom he would have 
 been the first to despise and exile. 
 
 Imagine Cromwell and Bernard Shaw ! 
 Think of Cromwell's comment on the 
 " Lives " of him written by Lord Rosebery 
 and Mr. Roosevelt and Lord Morley, 
 " Lives " in which more of the author than 
 the subject appears. 
 
 Cromwell's mind compared with that of 
 his contemporary, Lord Falkland, is like 
 water compared with wine and rather 
 muddy water yet who knows of Falk- 
 land ? 
 
 Cromwell's religious fervour was partly 
 real religious mania and partly pose. He 
 began as a sincere but unsuccessful reformer, 
 he ended as an insincere but successful 
 politician a possible good man gone wrong. 
 
 Until the end of 1636, peace brooded 
 over England. Then came distant mur- 
 murs of the coming storm. The advertising
 
 The King 55 
 
 Hampden, the Labour Member of the time, 
 was to call in question the legality of ship- 
 money ; and the loyal Scots were troubled 
 by the incredible folly of Laud in pressing 
 his Prayer Book upon the Church of St. 
 Giles in 1637. Thunder was in the air.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 UNPEACEFUL YEARS 
 
 UNTIL 1637, when there was trouble in 
 Scotland, the personal rule of Charles had 
 been a success. The loyalty of the Scots 
 had been shown at the Coronation in 1633 
 at Holyrood when Charles was crowned 
 King of Scots ; but there was even then a 
 hint of the troubles to come troubles 
 of which Laud was the far from innocent 
 cause. In the days to come the loyalty 
 of the Scots proved a broken reed for the 
 King, although for his son and grandson 
 it revived in all its former strength. There 
 is no doubt that the King was unjustly 
 blamed for the acts of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 As one authority well puts it, the differ- 
 56
 
 Unpeaceful Years 57 
 
 ence between the possible Church of the 
 Commons and the actual Church of Laud, 
 was one of organic principle the Commons 
 insisted on uniformity of belief, while 
 the Archbishop was satisfied with uni- 
 formity of ritual, a distinction clearly with 
 a difference. There had been some out- 
 cry over the famous " Declaration " that 
 after service on Sundays the people 
 might enjoy their sports in good old English 
 fashion. The Puritans made a great scandal 
 over this, considering it more fitting that 
 the people should sit at home in Sunday 
 gloom and praise the Lord by getting 
 drunk. The Declaration on Uniformity also 
 (still found in the Prayer Book) was criticized 
 as well. Laud of course was the instigator 
 of both Declarations. The outcry against 
 Laud was machine - made, although he 
 weakened his position by having the Declara- 
 tion of Sports read in churches an act 
 hardly necessary, although it must be re-
 
 58 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 membered the Declaration had first been 
 made in the reign of James I. 
 
 Up to now in the contest between King 
 and Commons the nation had sided with 
 the King, whose position was in accordance 
 with precedent. 
 
 So much drivel has been written by time- 
 serving party hacks who called themselves 
 " historians " on the encroachment by the 
 King on the Constitution, that it is hard 
 to remember that the Commons were en- 
 croaching on the powers of the King. 
 Falkland on behalf of the King saw this 
 clearly, and stated it without the hysteria 
 that weakened Cromwell's arguments for 
 the Commons. Gardiner says, " Never 
 since the accession of the Stuart Dynasty 
 had the finances been in so flourishing a 
 condition as in 1638." If financial pros- 
 perity is a test of success, Charles' personal 
 rule was no failure. 
 
 The greatest mistake made by the King
 
 Unpeaceful Years 59 
 
 was his decision to add to his revenues by 
 levying ship-money. There was little public 
 excitement over the levy until Hampden 
 and a few others courted publicity by refus- 
 ing to pay the tax. The absurd eulogy 
 lavished on this passive resister for his non- 
 payment of a county rate is dear to dema- 
 gogues of all ages but it is rather ridiculous. 
 If immortality is the reward of failure to 
 pay one's taxes, Olympus must be over- 
 crowded. 
 
 English counties bordering on the sea 
 were forced to provide a certain number of 
 ships for the King to protect the narrow 
 seas. Charles, however, made a change in 
 announcing that he would accept a money 
 payment instead. This money payment 
 was exacted from the inland counties, and 
 in their case was of doubtful legality, as 
 there was no precedent. The judges, how- 
 ever, did not consider precedent binding. 
 There is much to be said on both sides.
 
 60 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 England, however, needed a navy. Parlia- 
 ment was not in session, and patriotism 
 should not have balked at technicalities. 
 The whole country was interested in the 
 navy. Why should the sea-board counties 
 bear the whole burden ? In this connection 
 it should be noted that the proceeds of all 
 the levies made by the King were used for 
 the benefit of the nation and not for his own 
 pleasure or profit. The logical course of 
 events is here curious. The agitation against 
 the levy of ship-money would have died 
 down had not Parliament been summoned 
 in 1640. 
 
 Parliament was called together on ac- 
 count of the Scotch troubles, for which 
 Laud was responsible hence the meeting 
 of Parliament was the cause of the re- 
 bellion. 
 
 The riots of July, 1637, when the Prayer 
 Book was introduced at St. Giles', led to the 
 Glasgow Assemblies and the Solemn League
 
 Unpeaceful Years 61 
 
 and Covenant. The signers of the Covenant 
 were Royalists as a rule, loyal to the Stuarts, 
 but fiercely intolerant of any interference 
 with their religion. Scotland was in a tur- 
 moil of confusion ; several provisional 
 Governments were in existence and border 
 raids were imminent. 
 
 Twice Charles was defeated by the 
 Covenanters once in 1637, once in 1640, 
 and the fanatical Calvinists were not soothed 
 by their successes. Had Charles been vic- 
 torious he could easily have crushed out the 
 smouldering embers of discontent in Eng- 
 land ; defeated, the flames grew slowly, but 
 bit deeply into the national edifice. 
 
 The Treaty of Ripon was a confession of 
 failure ; the two northern counties were to 
 remain in charge of the Scots until the pro- 
 visions of the Treaty were fulfilled, the Scots 
 army meanwhile receiving ^25,000 for its 
 successful treason the Scots were ever 
 philanthropists. North of the Tay, how-
 
 62 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 ever, the clans were loyal, and the High- 
 landers, unlike the Lowlanders, had little in 
 common with the ten lost tribes, guided as 
 they were by James Graham, Duke of Mont- 
 rose, who was no huckster. 
 
 Charles' finances were now exhausted, and 
 on Strafford's advice he summoned the 
 "Short Parliament" on April I3th, 1640, 
 and dissolved it again on May 5th. 
 
 Another mistake was made by the King 
 in dismissing this Parliament, which was 
 strongly Royalist and well disposed to His 
 Majesty. According to Clarendon, it was 
 the fault of Sir Harry Vane, who was jealous 
 of Strafford and a friend of Pym. The King 
 wished to have twelve " subsidies " in ex- 
 change for ship-money, which was to be 
 abandoned, but StrafFord persuaded him to 
 let Vane tell the Commons he would be con- 
 tent with eight. Vane, however, played a 
 double game. He informed the Commons 
 that the King was displeased with them, and
 
 Unpeaceful Years 63 
 
 then gave the King to understand that the 
 Commons were disloyal. Upon this Charles 
 with promptitude and acting from his heart 
 instead of from his head dissolved Parlia- 
 ment. It was a fatal error.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END 
 
 AND now naked and unashamed the ghost 
 of rebellion stalked through Merrie England. 
 Religious imbeciles prated of themselves as 
 the weapons of God, and blasphemed against 
 the Most High. Their name for the Cava- 
 liers was " Malignants " an echo of their 
 own malignancy. Indeed, the epidemic 
 form of morbid Puritanism resembled in 
 no slight degree the epidemic of tarantella 
 dancing in the kingdom of Naples and the 
 Two Sicilies a pity it did not take the form 
 of sleeping-sickness. Strafford now came 
 to the fore ; he had come from his Irish 
 Lordship to help the King whose funds were 
 exhausted, and his first practical act was to 
 raise ^20,000 for the public services. The 
 64
 
 The Beginning of the End 65 
 
 King, however, found the expenses of an 
 army enormous ; and with reluctance, and 
 ungraciously, the King was forced to sum- 
 mon another Parliament, much less loyal 
 than the "Short Parliament." Public senti- 
 ment was craftily stirred against the King; 
 play was made of his Scottish defeats, and 
 there was much criticism of the sudden 
 dissolution of Parliament. 
 
 On a drear November day the 3rd in 
 1640, the ill-omened "Long Parliament" 
 met in London. 
 
 The Royalists (the Anglicans) and the 
 Parliament men (chiefly Presbyterians) were 
 face to face ; and wise men all through 
 England prayed for agreement and hoped 
 that the spectre of rebellion might pass 
 from their fair land. Their prayer, how- 
 ever, was not to be granted, although keener 
 minds could see hope for the future in the 
 dislike of the frothing mouthy Independents 
 for the Presbyterians.
 
 66 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 At the outset the chances were balanced, 
 but the Puritans did not hesitate to doctor 
 the weights to bring the balance down on 
 their side. They struck heavily and at 
 once. After one week Strafford was im- 
 peached. Strafford's defence was brilliant ; 
 it was a record of unbroken success ; yet it 
 availed him little. The influence of Pym 
 was paramount with this Parliament, and 
 Pym was jealous of Stratford. Pym a 
 man with a small mind, petty, revengeful- 
 saw his chance, and Strafford and Laud 
 were sent to the Tower. At one time 
 Pym and Strafford had been friends, when 
 both were opposed to Buckingham ; but, 
 when their careers parted, Strafford's lead- 
 ing to power and Pym's to obscurity, Pym 
 had made a threat Strafford would have 
 done well to heed : 
 
 " You are going to leave us I see ; but 
 we will never leave you while you have a 
 head on your shoulders."
 
 The Beginning of the End 67 
 
 Here the King may be justly criticized. 
 Strafford, in feeble health, had not wished 
 to come to London. He knew that in 
 Yorkshire among his own people Pym 
 was powerless, but he dreaded London 
 town. The King was persistent, naturally 
 anxious to have his powerful Minister by 
 his side ; he promised the Earl that if he 
 came not a hair of his head should be in 
 danger. 
 
 Trusting to his Sovereign's word the 
 fated man hurried to Westminster to 
 lodge in the Tower. 
 
 During the time of his impeachment and 
 trial Straffbrd, according to an authority, 
 behaved very nobly, and ate his heart out 
 imputing blame to no one. 
 
 The King never forgave himself for his 
 surrender to the morbid fanatics who 
 clamoured for Strafford's death, and re- 
 garded his own murder as in a sense an 
 act of expiation for Strafford's execution.
 
 68 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 That the childish charges against the Earl 
 of Strafford should culminate in an accusa- 
 tion of high treason is almost unbelievable. 
 If there was any traitor, it was Pym, not 
 Strafford, who is now restored to his proper 
 place in history. Every lying art was suc- 
 cessfully used to obtain a verdict of guilty, 
 and every pressure brought to bear on the 
 King and Queen to confirm the verdict. 
 The House of Lords acted, as judges, with 
 fairness ; but when the Commons, fearful 
 that the frivolity of their evidence would 
 be recognized, resorted to an Act of At- 
 tainder, a small majority carried the Act, 
 and Lords became equally guilty with Com- 
 mons in the ignominious proceedings. It 
 was a hard matter to get Charles' consent, 
 but it was finally wrung from him on the 
 only ground that led him to consent that 
 so England might be saved from civil war. 
 He was warned that the Queen's life was 
 m peril, and in his agony for country and
 
 The Beginning of the End 69 
 
 Queen, he passed the Bill and at Strafford's 
 own request. He had written to the King : 
 " So now to set Your Majesty's con- 
 science at liberty I do most humbly be- 
 seech Your Majesty to pass this Bill. . . . 
 Sir, my consent shall more acquit you 
 herein to God than all the world can do 
 besides. To a willing man there is no in- 
 jury done." 
 
 Strafford was sincere in what he had 
 written, but believed the King would pro- 
 tect him to the end. " Put not your trust 
 in Princes," he said, when he heard that the 
 unhappy King had consented more anxious 
 for the King's honour than for his own life. 
 He was ready to go. For his country he 
 had done his best, his King honestly 
 anxious to keep civil war from his people 
 had failed him ; his health had broken, there 
 was little to live for. He had wished to 
 say farewell to his venerable friend Laud, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Lieu-
 
 70 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 tenant of the Tower refused permission ; 
 but from the window of his cell Laud 
 blessed his friend as the sad procession 
 passed on at dawn to Tower Hill. From 
 the headsman's block Strafford sent his fare- 
 wells. " I thank God," said he, " I am not 
 afraid of death, nor daunted with any 
 discouragement, but do as cheerfully 
 put off my doublet at this time as ever 
 I did when I went to bed." Such was the 
 end of the Earl of Strafford on May i2th, 
 1641. 
 
 The King paid bitterly for his mistake 
 in consenting to the execution. Firmness 
 at that time would have curbed the insolent 
 Commons ; this giving in only encouraged 
 their greed for more and greater concessions. 
 During the next fourteen months the con- 
 test between the King and the coming re- 
 bellion, personified in Pym, was bitter to a 
 degree. 
 
 The rebellion broke out in the summer
 
 The Beginning of the End 7 1 
 
 of 1642, and the King went into camp at 
 Nottingham on August 22nd, a step re- 
 gretted most by Falkland and his followers. 
 The country at large was tired of the ten- 
 sion, and was eager for acts and some form 
 of settlement that would confirm either King 
 or Commons in authority the people did 
 not much care which, although loyalty to 
 King was a more tangible and satisfactory 
 thing than loyalty to a sour abstraction like 
 a Parliament. StrafFord's death convinced 
 the King that Parliament wished to deprive 
 him of all the constitutional privileges vested 
 in the Sovereign. Pym the Parliament 
 incarnate believed (or said he believed) 
 that Charles was aiming at despotic power. 
 No via media could bridge such different 
 ways of thought, and each side hastened 
 with grim joy to the arbitrament of the 
 sword. 
 
 The Commons had passed a Bill which 
 provided that Parliament could not be dis-
 
 72 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 solved without its own consent. It is an 
 awful thought that the Long Parliament 
 might be sitting yet ! This is merely one 
 instance of the encroachment upon the Royal 
 prerogative one of many. The Court ,of 
 
 r 
 
 Star Chamber, by this time abolished, never 
 deserved the hard things said of it too 
 much importance has been attached to what 
 was merely a peg on which to hang de- 
 nunciations of the King. 
 
 The actual cause of the raising of the 
 Royal Standard at Nottingham was the 
 seizure of the munitions of war at Hull, 
 stored by the King for his northern expedi- 
 tion. On the 1 8th of August the Parlia- 
 ment had the incredible audacity to denounce 
 as traitors all who gave aid to the King. 
 Traitors were good judges of treachery. 
 This followed hard on the King's natural 
 refusal to accept the policy of the egregious 
 Pym set forth in written propositions, placed 
 before His Majesty on June 3rd. These
 
 The Beginning of the End 73 
 
 absurd claims of Parliament included the 
 following conditions : 
 
 No new Peers were to be allowed to sit 
 without the consent of the Commons. 
 
 The children of Catholics were to be 
 educated as Protestants. 
 
 The Commons were to select the Judges, 
 the King's Guard, the King's Council, and 
 the King's officials. 
 
 These conditions were, of course, offered 
 to be declined they were to be used as an 
 excuse to start what the Puritans called a 
 " war " but it was a traitors' war. Charles 
 throughout preserved a wonderful self-con- 
 trol. After StrafFord's execution he went to 
 Scotland at Montrose's instigation, and was 
 well received. This was a wise act ; but it 
 was neutralized by his attempt to arrest the 
 five, members. His visit to the Commons 
 by the Queen's advice was a fatal error.
 
 74 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 The arrest would have been illegal, even if 
 successful ; as a failure, the attempt was 
 worse than illegal. Nothing remained but 
 to fight it out.
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 REBELLION 
 
 THE question as to who was responsible for 
 the outbreak of armed rebellion is easy to 
 answer. 
 
 Hallam, prejudiced as he was against the 
 King, admits that the absurd claim of 
 Parliament for the control of the militia 
 could not be entertained by a constitutional 
 monarch. 
 
 The Commons were not fighting for the 
 liberties of the people, they were fighting for 
 their own power as they would never have 
 dared to fight against Henry VIII or 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 The first rebellion began when the Royal 
 Standard was raised at Nottingham on 
 August 22nd, 1642 ; it virtually ended at 
 75
 
 76 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Naseby on June I4th, 1645 though there 
 were desultory engagements till the end of 
 the year. The tide of battle ebbed and 
 flowed during these years within well-defined 
 limits. Before the fighting began the 
 Parliament men professed to believe that 
 one short campaign would convince the 
 King of their overwhelming superiority. 
 Probably there were men with the King who 
 were hardly less confident. Both were 
 mistaken. The hostile forces, so far as we 
 can judge, were not unequally matched. 
 Before many weeks had passed it was found 
 that the main strength of the Puritans lay 
 in the eastern and south-eastern counties, 
 the main strength of the King in the 
 northern, the south-western and the Welsh. 
 At one time a line drawn from Berwick-on- 
 Tweed to the Isle of Wight would have 
 separated the districts friendly or hostile to 
 Charles ; as the Royalists grew strong the 
 line might have been drawn from Bridling-
 
 Rebellion 77 
 
 ton Bay to the Solent ; as their strength 
 waned, from Chester to Exeter along the 
 borders of Wales. But even when the 
 fortunes of the Puritans were at their 
 darkest a narrow band of Parliamentary 
 counties Lancaster, Cheshire, Stafford, 
 Warwick divided the Royalist north from 
 the Royalist south. The separation was 
 always a grave misfortune for Charles he 
 was strong at York, he was strong at 
 Oxford ; but going from one to the other 
 he had to pass through an enemy's country. 
 London was the Parliamentary capital, 
 Oxford the Royalist ; but soon after the 
 commencement of the war the great cities of 
 Bristol, York, and Exeter declared for, or 
 were captured by, the King ; and each 
 became a separate base of operations for the 
 Royalists' generals. It may be said with 
 confidence that without London the Par- 
 liament would have been powerless ; and it 
 was only on its democratic handicraftsmen
 
 78 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 and truculent apprentices that they could 
 count with confidence. The moneyed men 
 were mostly for the King. Prince Rupert 
 Rupert of the Rhine was a strong asset of 
 the King ; a dashing cavalry leader, he 
 harassed the sneaking Roundheads and won 
 some glorious victories. His boldness 
 spoiled his strategy, or he would have won 
 Edgehill and London. So Marston Moor 
 was lost so Naseby. The other two great 
 Royalist generals were Brentford and Hopton. 
 The King himself was a soldier King and 
 brave, like all the Stuarts. It must be 
 admitted that he bore himself well through- 
 out the war. He was ready to welcome 
 any overture for peace. He made the first 
 advances ; he would, in his own words, "take 
 the honey out of the gall." Some hysterical 
 historians insist that he was unduly obstinate. 
 The pretensions of the Parliament, however, 
 as we have seen, were exorbitant, and it 
 cannot be said that they were abated by
 
 Rebellion 79 
 
 disaster. No basis for peace could be found 
 in such an attitude. 
 
 The propositions submitted on various 
 occasions by the Parliament to the King, 
 with a victorious army and a clear half of 
 England behind him, were simply prepos- 
 terous. When the tide began to turn in 
 their favour their conditions of peace became 
 more and more intolerable. After the first 
 eighteen months the fortunes of the Royal- 
 ists began to decline, especially at Marston 
 Moor on July 2nd, 1644, and at Naseby on 
 June I4th, 1645. 
 
 At this time Cromwell, now more of a 
 soldier and less of a zealot, began to re- 
 model his army, and the discipline of his 
 well-paid mercenaries carried the day. 
 Cromwell was not a great general, he was a 
 lucky one ; the highest praise would call him 
 an efficient drill sergeant. 
 
 In the first rebellion the Queen herself 
 was active in the field. A woman of
 
 8o King Charles I : a Study 
 
 supreme energy, she was never idle. On 
 land or on water, she was equally in her 
 element. Under the hottest fire of the 
 enemy, or in the wildest winter weather, she 
 proved herself the daughter of Henry of 
 Navarre. On one occasion, we are told, she 
 lay tossing for nine days on the boisterous 
 North Sea. Never losing the high spirits 
 which accompanied her in every position in 
 which she was placed, she laughed heartily 
 at the fears of her attendant ladies. " Com- 
 fort yourselves, my dears," she said, "Queens 
 of England are never drowned." The 
 Commons were furious ; they framed a Bill 
 of Attainder ; had they caught her, she 
 would have gone the way that StrafFord and 
 Laud had gone. 
 
 Next to Prince Rupert came a brilliant 
 soldier who never failed to acquit himself 
 with distinction. Montrose was the Scottish 
 Falkland. When he entered public life he 
 felt that the popular liberties were in peril ; 
 and like Falkland and Strafford, he took
 
 Rebellion 8 1 
 
 the popular side. But as soon as the sus- 
 picion crossed his mind that Argyle and the 
 confederates were playing the King false, 
 that they were aiming at political change 
 rather than religious liberty, he quitted 
 them at once and finally. 
 
 His Scotch campaign was the last glow of 
 the setting sun of the fortunes of the King. 
 Thereafter there was naught but gloom. 
 
 During the war, although Parliament was 
 in session, its authority was lessening day 
 by day. Even before the close of the first 
 rebellion the army disdained what it con- 
 sidered the do-nothing policy of " the 
 Rump." Cromwell, filling his army with 
 Independents to the exclusion of Presby- 
 terians, looked on them with suspicion ; and 
 their only act of note was the execution of 
 Laud, who had languished in the Tower for 
 many weary months. When Charles left 
 Oxford on April 2yth, 1646, the struggle 
 was practically over, particularly when he 
 chose to go to the Scots army then before
 
 82 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Newark. The Scots had informally in- 
 timated their desire to come to terms with 
 him ; but he might have known that the 
 question of religion would present a barrier. 
 They were fanatical Presbyterians far more 
 fanatical than the English ; and Charles's 
 obstinate loyalty to the Anglican Church 
 never wavered. Even as a fugitive he 
 would consent to no compromise that 
 might weaken his Church. He would 
 probably have fared better had he trusted 
 himself to one or other of the English 
 parties. The continued presence of a Scots 
 army in England (when the war had ceased) 
 was on all hands viewed with disfavour ; and 
 when it was found that the King was in 
 their camp, the desire to be rid of this flock 
 of locusts naturally grew. Nor were the 
 Scots unwilling to go. They had eaten up 
 the northern counties. If they could get 
 their bill settled, there was no reason why 
 they should remain. But what was to be 
 done with Charles ? It can be justly charged
 
 Rebellion 83 
 
 against the Scots that they sold their King 
 for ,400,000. It is certainly not correct to 
 say that the Scots sold Charles as Judas sold 
 our Lord ; it would be nearer the mark to 
 say that they held him as a " material 
 guarantee " for payment of the debt due 
 to them by the English Parliament. It 
 does not admit of doubt that the possession 
 of Charles's person tended, to say the least, 
 to a prompt settlement of accounts. Unless 
 they had got paid, the Scots would not have 
 retired ; unless they had got Charles, the 
 English would not have paid at least till 
 later. On the retirement of the Scots, 
 Charles was sent by the Parliament to Holm- 
 by House, in Northamptonshire. After, he 
 was in the custody of the rabid Indepen- 
 dents. Thence it was but a step to West- 
 minster Hall and the scaffold at Whitehall. 
 That the King made a mistake in trusting 
 the Scots under the circumstances is true. 
 In ordinary times and during normal hap- 
 penings the Stuarts could trust their northern
 
 84 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 subjects, but at this time the irritation 
 caused by Laud's unwise attempts to ritual- 
 ize the Kirk was too recent, the pain of 
 recent religious wounds too keen, to allow 
 the dormant loyalty of the Scots full play 
 sunt lachrymae rerum.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE DEATH OF THE KING 
 
 A BRASS plate on the floor of Westminster 
 Hall marks the spot where the King of 
 England stood before his self-appointed 
 judges and confounded their basely un- 
 sound platitudes. At the trial the King 
 refused to plead, alleging the illegality of 
 the Court. 
 
 So set were these regicides on the death 
 of the King and their own advancement 
 v that the Clerk of the Court, one John 
 Phelps, a barrister of the Middle Temple, 
 scrawled his name an unnecessary number 
 of times over the formal writings of the 
 Court. 
 
 After the trial the regicides issued a 
 warrant as follows : 
 
 85
 
 86 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 "TO COLONEL FRANCIS HACKER, COL- 
 ONEL HUNCKS, AND LIEUTENANT- 
 COLONEL PHAYR, 
 
 "AND TO EVERY OF THEM. 
 
 " At the High Court of Justice 
 for the Trying and Judging 
 of Charles Stuart, King of 
 England, 29th January, 1648. 
 
 "WHEREAS Charles Stuart, King of 
 England, is and standeth convicted, attainted 
 and condemned of High Treason and other 
 high Crimes ; and Sentence upon Saturday 
 last was pronounced against him by this 
 Court, To be put to death by the severing 
 of his head from his body ; of which 
 Sentence execution yet remaineth to be 
 done : 
 
 " These are therefore to will and require 
 you to see the said Sentence executed, in 
 the open Street before Whitehall, upon the 
 morrow, being the Thirtieth day of this 
 instant month of January, between the 
 hours of Ten in the morning and Five in
 
 The Death of the King 87 
 
 the afternoon, with full effect. And for so 
 doing, this shall be your warrant. 
 
 " And these are to require all Officers 
 and Soldiers, and others the good People 
 of this Nation of England, to be assisting 
 unto you in this service. 
 
 " Given under our hands and seals, 
 "JoHN BRADSHAW, 
 " THOMAS GREY c LORD GROBY,' 
 " OLIVER CROMWELL." 
 (And Fifty-six others.) 
 
 The trial was farce, the murder was 
 tragedy. Never did Charles Stuart appear 
 so great, never did the inborn nobility of 
 the man appear to better advantage than 
 before the little men of little minds who 
 acted as his judges ; and nowadays in West- 
 minster Hall who thinks of the "judges" 
 who even remembers their names ? It is 
 of the murdered King one thinks not of 
 his murderers. And the last scene of all : 
 the Majesty of England on the scaffold at
 
 88 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 Whitehall ! Pearls before swine ! And yet 
 Charles the King was never more King of 
 England than on the day of his murder. 
 His speech on the scaffold is illuminating : 
 he said, " And truly I desire their liberty 
 and freedom as much as anybody whoso- 
 ever ; but I must tell you that their liberty 
 and freedom consists in having of govern- 
 ment those laws by which their life and 
 their good may be most their own. It is 
 not having share in government, sirs ; that 
 is nothing pertaining to them." The death 
 of the Sovereign was the doom of Cromwell. 
 England might forgive rebels she could 
 not pardon murderers. More than this 
 the killing of Charles I re-established 
 monarchy in England for all time. When 
 the head of Charles I was severed from his 
 body England trembled. The King died 
 like a king, like a Stuart, and like a man. 
 Small wonder that the Royal Martyr's fate 
 made Royalists of Roundheads. Small
 
 The Death of the King 89 
 
 wonder that the Royal Ghost kept sleep 
 from Cromwell's eyes. 
 
 " He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 
 But with his keener eye 
 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 Nor called the gods with vulgar spite 
 To vindicate his helpless right, 
 
 But bowed his comely head 
 
 Down as upon a bed."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE REACTION 
 
 WITH the murder of the King a dark pall 
 of remorse and sorrow came heavily down 
 on England. Cromwell had gone too far. 
 From a so-called defender of the people's 
 liberties he had become a regicide, and no 
 diadem of Lord Protector could hide the 
 mark of Cain upon his brow. Apart from 
 the act considered as a crime, it was a 
 political blunder from Cromwell's point of 
 view. The tragic pathos of the last scene, 
 the kingly dignity shown by " the Man 
 Charles Stuart " on the scaffold, went home 
 to unimaginative Englishmen as a lifelong 
 imprisonment would not have done. The 
 death at Whitehall relighted the torch of 
 monarchy in England ; and Charles II was 
 proclaimed in place of Charles I. The mid- 
 go
 
 The Reaction 91 
 
 night funeral at Windsor in a snowstorm, 
 when the White King was borne to his rest, 
 only intensified the sense that a crime had 
 been done by the nation. It must be re- 
 membered that to the great inarticulate mass 
 of the English people the killing of the 
 King was " the greatest murder committed 
 that ever story mentioned except the crucify- 
 ing of our Saviour." Nor was the reaction 
 slow in coming. England stirred itself in 
 its sleep, and a slow, dull sense of wicked- 
 ness was abroad in the body politic. The 
 dour Scotch Presbyterians shuddered at 
 what they had done ; and only the fanatic 
 Anabaptists and Independents forbore to 
 shed a tear at England's shame. The 
 gentle, knightly, dauntless King was gone, 
 and the scheming Squire of Huntingdon 
 governed in his stead governed a restless, 
 bitter people, a people turning in the blind- 
 ness of its agony to the next Stuart. 
 
 How Oliver Cromwell relentlessly forced 
 England to obey by sheer force of numbers ;
 
 92 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 how he intrigued with the Scotch and killed 
 the Irish ; how Richard, his son, tried to 
 imitate him and failed (for while Oliver 
 Cromwell had a certain factitious strength, 
 the whole Cromwell family was mercenary 
 and feeble to a degree) how Monck was 
 loyal to his King and brought hkn back to 
 his adoring subjects, every schoolboy knows. 
 As the bells pealed and the crowds shouted 
 at the homecoming of the Merry Monarch, 
 here and there a few skulking figures 
 affronted the glad light of day the pitiful 
 remnants of" Cromwell's Ironsides," most 
 of them new gilded by Court favour. 
 Charles Stuart was avenged.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE VERDICT OF HISTORY 
 
 HISTORY has summed up the case and given 
 the verdict. 
 
 Charles I was a statesman, not a politician. 
 Had he been both he would have saved his 
 head and lost his reputation. The irritation 
 of the nation, smarting under the clumsy 
 and goading rule of James I more clown 
 than king wanted a vent. This feeling, 
 properly directed, would have been satisfied 
 in foreign conquests, but direction of any 
 kind, safe or otherwise, was lacking. The 
 King, trusting his subjects, was misled by 
 traitors working for their own ends, and was 
 too gentle with the mob. As man Charles I 
 was too good for his people, as King he was 
 not strong enough. 
 
 The verdict of history has taken a con- 
 93
 
 94 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 crete form. Looking up Whitehall, on a 
 charger, sceptre in hand, Le Sueur's statue 
 of the White King dominates the scene of 
 his martyrdom. Of all the Royal statues in 
 London this is beyond all doubt the most 
 impressive, not on account of its artistry or 
 the tragic site, but because it is the statue 
 of Charles the Martyr King. 
 
 What names of his reign rank with the 
 King's? Laud? StrafFord ? victims of 
 abortive ambition both. Pym ? Hampden ? 
 successful Jack Cade and Wat Tyler. 
 Oliver Cromwell ? here we are on different 
 ground. A man of mediocre abilities, quick 
 to seize a chance, he reaped where the Stuarts 
 had sown a cuckoo in the Royal nest. In 
 spite of the nauseous mid-Victorian hero- 
 worship lavished on the " Lord Protector " 
 (he protected his family well), he remains 
 an accident in English History, while the 
 discords of the jangling air of democracy 
 he played on an imitation Royal harp have
 
 The Verdict of History 95 
 
 hardly yet died away. Even among his 
 soldiers Cromwell was not the idol 
 " democrat " historians have asserted. How 
 absurd was the description " Cromwell's 
 Ironsides " is shown by the fact that Monck 
 proved them to be laths painted to look 
 like iron when he proclaimed King Charles 
 II. Praise of Cromwell is a slowly dying 
 fashion, but the Stuarts are coming into 
 their own again. It has been a common 
 error to call them ungrateful, but if the 
 Stuarts had been less generous and more 
 forgetful there would be three more English 
 Kings in History a James III, a Charles 
 Edward, and a Henry IX. If King Charles I 
 had directly succeeded his grandmother, 
 Mary Queen of Scots, England would have 
 escaped the unfortunate reign of James I, 
 and English History, lacking the Common- 
 wealth, would be a cleaner thing. James, 
 for the time, destroyed the dignity of Royalty. 
 Charles restored it, but at the cost of his life.
 
 96 King Charles I : a Study 
 
 In spite of his mistakes, in spite of his mis- 
 placed trust in Roundhead and Cavalier alike, 
 " the Man Charles Stuart " remains the 
 King of Romance the tragic King the 
 great but the unfortunate >King of 
 England. 
 
 FINIS 
 
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