paying any attention to the king's affairs, and Charles, greatly irritated, dissolved the houses when they had sat only a few months. He was still, of course, in want of money, and was obliged to borrow of his ministers and councillors. With great difficulty he raised a body of soldiers, which he sent against the Scots, who had now advanced as far as Newburn. The armies met there, and the royal troops were defeated. The king was then in greater difficulties than ever; he had no resource but to call a parliament again; and that one was elected which never ceased to sit till it had overturned the constitution, slain the king, and its members were driven out by Cromwell. Without a pause they entered on business by striking a blow at the king, which proved decisive in the end, though then its consequences could not have been fully perceived. They impeached lord Strafford, who (as we have before said) had formerly been one of the puritan party, but who had now for some time been the chosen minister of the king. When he left his former party Pym, one of the leaders of the commons, said to him, "You have left us, but we will not leave you, while your head is on your shoulders." This malignant promise was faithfully and wickedly kept. They brought the earl to trial, and although, in a long and eloquent speech, he confuted all the accusations of his enemies, he was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. Nothing remained but for the king to assent to the bill of attainder. Charles, who tenderly loved Strafford, long refused to do so, though urged by all his courtiers to comply, for his own sake. Juxon, bishop of London, alone advised him to act entirely on the dictates of his conscience, and to refuse to sign the bill at all risks if he felt he ought not. While he was overpowered by agitation and doubt, he received a letter from the fallen minister, entreating him for the sake of public peace, no longer to defer his assent to his (Strafford's) death. "My consent," he wrote, "will more acquit you to God than all the world can do besides. To you I resign the life of this world with all imaginable cheerfulness." This noble generosity was ill repaid. The king signed the fatal bill by commission, and Strafford was beheaded on Tower Hill. While the great earl's fate was pending, and the king's mind was pre-occupied and distracted, a bill was brought to him, the purport of which was, that parliament should not be dissolved, prorogued, or adjourned without its own consent. The unhappy king, absorbed in grief, probably in utter despair, signed it, scarcely knowing what he did, and thus made the commons masters of the kingdom.

The parliament had previously impeached archbishop Laud, whom they had sent to the Tower on a charge of high treason before Strafford was executed, and whom they caused to be treated with great indignity, subjecting the old archbishop to every possible discomfort and confiscating his property before his trial.

The oppressive Star Chamber and High Commission Court, were next dissolved, and a bill was passed to annihilate the most dangerous and the principal articles of the king's prerogative.

The Irish papists, thinking that they saw now an opportunity of throwing off the English yoke, rose in arms and massacred all the Protestants in the kingdom without respect to age or sex. This Irish rebellion had been set on foot by a gentleman named Roger More, but it soon passed the limits he would have assigned it, and, shocked at the enormities he had caused, he abandoned his country and went to Flanders. The king appealed to the parliament for aid in this new and terrible difficulty,— but in vain. A spirit of hatred was awake now, and the puritans thought more of destroying the monarchy and hierarchy, and getting power themselves, than of rescuing or aiding their unhappy protestant brethren in Ireland.

While they professed the utmost zeal for the Irish protestants they took no active steps for the suppression of the rebellion; but they levied money under pretence of the Irish expedition, reserving it for their own purposes; they took arms from the

And

king's magazines, with the secret intention of using them against himself. though no forces were for a long time sent to Ireland, and very little money was remitted there to relieve the extreme distress of the English, the people, believing their votes (which breathed nothing but the destruction of the Irish rebels), never imputed the fault of the continuance of the troubles to the commons, but to the king.

The house next presented a remonstrance to the king, couched in laudatory terms of themselves, and insolent towards him; and every effort was made to excite the people to insurrection. The populace crowded round Whitehall and menaced the king; several reduced officers and young gentlemen of the Inns of Court offered their services to defend the monarch, and between them and the populace frequent skirmishes ensued. By way of reproach these youths named the rabble "Roundheads," from the short cropped hair they wore. The rabble, in their turn, named the gentlemen Cavaliers.

The king, enraged to find that every concession he made brought only another demand, was betrayed now into a fatal indiscretion. He sent Herbert, the attorneygeneral, to the peers to enter an accusation of high treason against lord Kimbolton and five commoners-Hollis, Hampden, Pym, Strode, and sir Arthur Hazlerigg. These men were the very heads of the popular party, and the Commons were greatly enraged. The house voted all acts of violence against them breach of privilege, and commanded every one to defend the liberty of the members; they would not yield them to the sergeant-at-arms, who was sent to demand them. The king, irritated by their opposition, resolved to go to the house next day and demand them in person. This resolution was betrayed to Pym by the countess of Carlisle, and the five members had time to withdraw before the sovereign arrived. Thus the royal purpose was defeated; and after a painful scene the king departed. The accused members took refuge in the city, and after a time, when the populace had been roused to mutinous demonstrations, returned in triumph to the house. From that moment the royal cause was hopeless. Pym said that the people must not be restrained in the expression of their just desires, and tumults arose in the city again and again. The queen was threatened with impeachment and fled to Holland; and the commons next demanded the command of the militia. Charles, to avoid the violence which threatened to extort this last-left prerogative of the crown from him, resolved to leave London; and withdrew to York with his two elder sons. Here the chief nobility and gentry of the kingdom flocked to him; for now moderate men began to condemn the action of the parliament, and to see that they had given themselves many despotic masters in place of one. Civil war soon after broke out. Lord Essex (the divorced husband of the wicked lady Somerset), who had sided with the parliament, became their general; the king had however the allegiance of the greater number of his nobles, and the services of his two nephews, Rupert and Maurice, the sons of his sister Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia.

The first conflict was fought at Edgehill, Warwickshire, October 23rd, 1642, and remained a drawn battle. The siege of Reading followed. The royalists won a battle in 1643 at Lansdown near Bath, and at Devizes; and in a skirmish at Chalgrove field, near Oxford, Hampden was killed. The king, hearing of his wound was grieved for him, and would have sent his own surgeon to attend on him, but before the doctor could reach him Hampden died. Had Charles marched at that time to London the civil war would probably have been soon ended, for everything there was in confusion; but unfortunately he was badly advised, and instead of advancing to the capital marched against Gloucester, which he could not succeed in taking.

The parliament had meantime entered into a treaty with the Scots, and having

the power of taxation could always command what money they required; while the king's supplies were only the free-will offerings of his people, and his soldiers were volunteers.

The parliament also impressed men, and were more arbitrary in their exactions than the king had ever been. The battle of Marston Moor was the beginning of Charles's misfortunes. Prince Rupert was there defeated by Oliver Cromwell, who then first displayed his great military genius, fighting at the head of a body of troops which he had levied and disciplined himself.

Before this battle, however, archbishop Laud was brought to trial (he had suffered hitherto without trial!) and was beheaded. The liturgy was abolished the day he died; the church of England disestablished, and its services prohibited. The last battle (which decided the fate of Charles) was fought at Naseby in Northamptonshire. The king was totally defeated and obliged to fly to Oxford, which Fairfax prepared to besiege. Charles dreading the indignity of being taken prisoner by his fanatical and rebellious English subjects, and thinking that the Scots, his own countrymen, would protect him from insult (he being their native-born king) took the fatal resolution of giving himself up to the Scotch army. He soon found his mistake; they treated him as a captive, and their preachers insulted the too confiding king.

The parliament at once proceeded to treat with the Scots for the possession of the sovereign's person, and after some hesitation the Scotch army actually sold their monarch for the sum of £400,000, the arrears of their pay due from the parliament! The king was immediately conveyed to Holmby Palace. On the way the whole country flocked to meet him, accompanying him on the road with tears and prayers for his safety. Another party had however been rising since the commencement of the civil war-the Independents, headed by Oliver Cromwell, who possessed supreme influence over the whole army. This sect was as adverse to the intolerant presbyterians as the presbyterians had been to the English church, and as the side who possessed the king's person would have a great advantage in future political arrangements, Cromwell sent one of his officers to seize Charles at Holmby and bring him to the camp at Cambridge. Charles was henceforward carried about by the army in all their marches. At last he was taken to Hampton Court, from whence he escaped; but again fell into the hands of the parliament, and was kept a prisoner in the Isle of Wight. He was seized here by Cromwell's order and conveyed finally to Windsor. Events now progressed rapidly; colonel Pride, at the head of two regiments, blockaded the house of commons, seized in the passages forty-one members of the presbyterian party, excluded a hundred and sixty more, and only left sixty members in the house, all, of course, of the independent faction.

Having thus disembarrassed himself of the presbyterians, Cromwell proceeded to deal with his royal prisoner, whom he determined to try for high treason. Charles was brought to trial, condemned and beheaded, exhibiting all through his varied sufferings great patience, fortitude and courage. His death crowned the crimes of

the rebellion, and with him died, for a time, the liberties of Englishmen. Charles married Henrietta Maria of France, and had six children: Charles, James, Henry, Elizabeth, an infant daughter, and Henrietta.

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, AND AN HISTORICAL GHOST STORY. CLARENDON.

The duke continued in the same degree of favour at the least with the son, which he had enjoyed so many years under the father. Which was a rare felicity; seldom known, and in which the expectation of very many was exceedingly disappointed; who, knowing the great jealousy and indignation that the prince had heretofore had against the duke, insomuch as he was once very near striking him, expected that he would now remember that insolence, of which he then so often complained; without considering the opportunity the duke had, by the conversation with the prince, during his journey into Spain, (which was so grateful to him,) and whilst he was there, to wipe out the memory of all former oversights, by making them appear to be of a less magnitude than they had been understood before, and to be excusable from other causes, still being severe enough to himself for his unwary part, whatsoever excuses he might make for the excess; and by this means to make new vows for himself, and to tie new knots to restrain the prince from future jealousies. And it is very true, his hopes in this kind never failed him; the new king, from the death of the old even to the death of the duke himself, discovering the most entire confidence in, and even friendship to him, that ever king had showed to any subject: all preferments in church and state given by him; all his kindred and friends promoted to the degree in honour, or riches, or offices, as he thought fit, and all his enemies and enviers discountenanced, and kept at that distance from the court as he appointed.

But a parliament was necessary to be called, as at the entrance of all kings to the crown, for the continuance of some supplies and revenue to the king, which have been still used to be granted in that season. And now he quickly found how prophetic the last king's predictions had [proved], and were like to prove. The parliament that had so furiously advanced the war, and so factiously adhered to his person, was now no more; and though the house of peers consisted still of the same men, and most of the principal men of the house of commons were again elected to serve in this parliament, yet they were far from wedding the war, or taking themselves to be concerned to make good any declarations made by the former; so that, though the war was entered in, all hope of obtaining money to carry it on was even desperate; and the affection they had for the duke, and confidence in him, was not then so manifest, as the prejudice they had now, and animosity against him, was visible to all the world: all the actions of his life ripped up and surveyed, and all malicious glosses made upon all he had said and all he had done : votes and remonstrances passed against him as an enemy to the public; and his ill management made the ground of their refusal to give the king that supply he had reason to expect, and was absolutely necessary to the state he was in. And this kind of treatment was so ill suited to the duke's great spirit, which indeed might easily have been bowed, but could very hardly have been broken, that it wrought contrary effects upon his high mind, and his indignation, to find himself so used by the same men. For they who flattered him most before, mentioned him now with the greatest bitterness and acrimony; and the same men who had called him our saviour, for bringing the prince safe out of Spain, called him now the corrupter of the king, and betrayer of the liberties of the people, without imputing the least crime to him, to have been committed since the time of that exalted adulation, or that was not then as much known to them, as it could be now; so fluctuating and unsteady a testimony is the applause of popular councils.

This indignation, I say, so transported the duke, that he thought it necessary to publish and manifest a greater contempt of them than he should have done; causing

this and the next parliament to be quickly dissolved, as soon as they seemed to entertain counsels not grateful to him, and before he could well determine and judge what their temper was in truth like to prove and upon every dissolution, such who had given any offence were imprisoned or disgraced; new projects were every day set on foot for money, which served only to offend and incense the people, and brought little supply to the king's occasions, yet raised a great stock for expostulation, murmur, and complaint, to be exposed when other supplies should be required. And many persons of the best quality and condition under the peerage were committed to several prisons, with circumstances unusual and unheard of, for refusing to pay money required by those extraordinary ways; and the duke himself would passionately say, and frequently do, many things, which only grieved his friends and incensed his enemies, and gave them as well the ability as the inclination to do him much harm.

In this fatal conjuncture, and after several costly embassies into France, in the last of which the duke himself went, and brought triumphantly home with him the queen, to the joy of the nation; in a time, when all endeavours should have been used to have extinguished that war, in which the kingdom was so unhappily engaged against Spain, a new war was as precipitately declared against France; and the fleet, that had been unwarily designed to have surprised Cales, under a general very unequal to that great work, was no sooner returned without success, and with much damage, than the fleet was repaired, and the army reinforced for the invasion of France; in which the duke was general himself, and made that notable descent upon the Isle of Rhé, which was quickly afterwards attended with many unprosperous attempts, and then with a miserable retreat, in which the flower of the army was lost. So that how ill soever Spain and France were inclined to each other, they were both mortal enemies to England; whilst England itself was so totally taken up with the thought of revenge upon the person who they thought had been the cause of their distress, that they never considered, that the sad effects of it (if not instantly provided against) must inevitably destroy the kingdom; and gave no truce to their rage, till the duke finished his course by the wicked means mentioned before, in the fourth year of the king, and the thirty-sixth of his age.

John Felton, an obscure person, who had been bred a soldier, and lately a lieutenant of a foot company, whose captain had been killed upon the retreat at the Isle of Rhé, upon which he conceived that the company of right ought to have been conferred upon him, and it being refused to him by the duke of Buckingham, general of the army, he had given up his commission of lieutenant, and withdrawn himself from the army. He was of a melancholic nature, and had little conversation with anybody, yet of a gentleman's family in Suffolk, of good fortune and reputation. From the time that he had quitted the army, he resided in London; when the house of commons, transported with passion and prejudice against the duke of Buckingham, had accused him to the house of peers for several misdemeanours and miscarriages, and in some declaration had styled him, "the cause of all the evils the kingdom suffered, and an enemy to the public."

Some transcripts of such expressions, (for the late license of printing all mutinous and seditious discourses was not yet in fashion,) and some general invectives he met with amongst the people, to whom that great man was not grateful, wrought so far upon this melancholic gentleman, that, by degrees, and (as he said upon some of his examinations) by frequently hearing some popular preachers in the city, (who were not yet arrived at the presumption and impudence they have been since transported with,) he believed he should do God good service, if he killed the duke; which he shortly after resolved to do. He chose no other instrument to do it with than an ordinary knife, which he bought of a common cutler, for a shilling and, thus