CHAPTER VI.FALL OF THE KING.
While the fate of Charles I was being staked on the dubious issue of battle, he remained in strict custody in Carisbrook castle. His imprisonments had all in some sense been voluntary: he had fled for refuge to the Scots, and not unwillingly had followed the English commissioners to Holmby, and the cornet of Cromwell’s army to Hampton Court: in a kind of flight before the Agitators he repaired to the Isle of Wight. At every change he conceived new hopes; during every imprisonment he was busy with open negotiations or secret dealings of the very widest import. Still he had many quiet hours of profound retirement. Among the books which he then read are mentioned, first of all the Bible with commentaries on it, Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, the historical plays of Shakespeare, Tasso’s Gierusalemme—nothing actually historical, for his spirit inclined less to facts than to the ideal and to theory. He loved to think, and write, and pray alone. Of the state of mind in which he was evidence is afforded by the little book ‘Suspiria Regalia,’ as it was originally called, or ‘Eikon Basilike,’ as it was afterwards named, a collection of prayers and self-examinations, which were put into the form of a book by another hand[533], but contained much that was actually of his own composition. They agree in places word for word with whatA.D. 1648.are known to have been his expressions through sources revealed at a much later date. The earlier portions contain much that is spurious, and was thought of afterwards; but the later ones, in which opposition to the Presbyterians is the main topic, and their claims to exclusive dominion in the kingdom are contested, possess historical value. These may very likely belong to the times of this imprisonment. They express throughout Charles I’s resolution not to let himself be degraded to the position of a king who may follow neither his reason nor his conscience: he believes himself to merit more gratitude from the people of England by the resistance he is now offering, than by the concessions which he had formerly allowed to be extorted. In the Isle of Wight he was at first, as we saw, treated with much consideration: he was permitted to send for the furniture to which he was accustomed from Hampton Court to Carisbrook castle: the governor attended him out hunting, or he could ride about the island alone. After the refusal of the four bills this ceased. He was no longer allowed the comfort of talking on religious topics with his usual chaplains; his confidential servants were removed; he was confined within the fortifications: every day brought him some new annoyance such as a prisoner has to endure. The unsuccessful attempts at escape increased the severity of the surveillance and seclusion.
Once a great prospect was opened to him while in the Isle of Wight. During the agitation of the year 1648 caused by the Scottish invasion, the moderate party in Parliament had carried the proposal to proceed to new dealings with the King without regard to previous resolutions to the contrary. Although the Scots had since been defeated, the matter nevertheless had its legal result, without opposition from the Independents, who indeed used very magnanimous language[534]. At the King’s suggestion Newport was selected for the conferences, and in the middle of September theA.D. 1648.commissioners of Parliament arrived. A house was found in the little place, suitable for the King’s abode and for the conferences; and on Monday, September 18, they were opened with the ancient ceremonial. The chaplains, now allowed to return to the King, stood behind his throne: at some distance from him the commissioners took their seats, five lords with Northumberland at their head, and nine members of the Lower House, including Henry Vane, probably the only one of them all who did not wish for peace, and Denzil Hollis[535].
The King’s advantage lay in the fact that the commissioners withdrew the four bills, and announced terms very nearly corresponding to those which the Scots had set forth, but more advantageous, inasmuch as there was no longer any need to take notice of the special wishes of the Scots.
It is true that the King was very reluctant to believe in any real result of these negotiations: he would not allow anything to be intermitted on account of them which could be attempted elsewhere in defence of his cause: he himself once excused the concessions to which he agreed, on the ground that they would lead to nothing. The old duplicity of his policy did not quit him in these moments of a serious, if not dangerous position. Still it is worth while to note the points in which the two parties approached an understanding: had there once been an end to vacillation, or had an agreement been concluded, the King would have held firmly to it, and would have been kept to it by the other side.
The first point discussed related to the security of Parliament itself: it required the revocation of all declarations, accusations, and judgments issued against its proceedings, or against individual members. The King, who had always himself demanded an amnesty, raised no objection to this: he took offence at the introductory words, which stated that the Parliament had been compelled to take up arms in self-defence, for it might seem as if the King thus took on himselfA.D. 1648.the guilt of having caused the war: but he was told that the words of a preamble were of no legal force, but a mere form of reconciliation, and he determined not to break off on this point. He only made it a condition, in order to avoid injurious conclusions, that no single article was to have any validity till the whole treaty was completed; and vigorously as the Independents in the Lower House opposed the acceptance of this condition, they were not at that time (Sept. 26) strong enough to hinder it.
The second article, whereby the military power, stronger and more extensive than the King had himself ever possessed—for it included Ireland and the Channel Islands—was surrendered to Parliament for twenty years, he accepted now, many as were the objections which he might have felt. His personal motive was very much the same as that which induced the Scots to make their concessions to Parliament. He calculated on removing through the restoration of peace the causes which induced the nation to bear the pressure of so strong a standing force. It had swelled like a flood during the tumult of the strife: might it not return into its old channels when the weather changed? What the storms of resistance could not achieve might be accomplished perhaps by the sunshine of friendly concession.
Every day the hostile influence of the Independents grew stronger; and in order to make peace possible in spite of them Charles gave way on most of the other points. He surrendered to Parliament the nomination to the most important offices for twenty years, recognised all the orders issued by it under the Great Seal, abandoned his own, and consented that the moneys requisite for satisfying the State creditors should be raised in case of necessity without his co-operation. With respect to the punishments which Parliament desired, he made at last only a few exceptions, which did not touch the principle: he granted to the city of London the right of nominating the Governor of the Tower, and definitely renounced his feudal rights as represented by the Court of Wards.
Nevertheless all would have broken down, and the evil consequences would have been imputed to the King, had heA.D. 1648.not shown some compliance also in relation to the clergy and their property. In the capital, which was favourable to him, an address was carried praying for the payment of the Presbyterian clergy out of the goods of the chapters. The King at last prevailed on himself to assent to an alienation, though only temporary, of the Church property[536]. He only insisted that it should be revocable by the ordinary legal forms, and that the lawful incumbents should be cared for: the bishops were to be suspended, not abolished, and the introduction of Presbyterianism to have validity only for three years: as to accepting the Covenant, he was as steadfast as ever in refusing this.
The treaty thus completed contained a compromise between the old Newcastle propositions and the proposals suggested in the King’s answer to them. It seems to have more importance than has ever yet been attributed to it. It deserves notice as being the final result of the negotiations so long carried on between the King and Parliament: and it is well worth while to discuss the prospects opened by it. The substance of it is that the Scottish system would have been established, but in a more moderate form, and free from the special provincial tendencies of the Scots. Parliament would have been preponderant over the crown for a long term of years, but the monarchy itself would have been preserved. That the King’s person was inviolable was throughout these negotiations the assumption on which the Grandees based their demand for security to themselves, as they were not in this position[537]. As against the Independent views it would probably have again taken root in men’s minds. And there is scarcely room to doubt that the army, as was expected, must have been overthrown had it come to carrying out this treaty. Moreover the Presbyterian Church would have attained not to exclusive dominion, butA.D. 1648.to a safe position: for public opinion could scarcely in the course of three years have undergone such a change as to bring about its annihilation. The episcopate would not have been destroyed, but would have lost its political importance by its exclusion from the House of Lords: it would not have raised itself very high above the Presbytery[538]. England would have approached much more nearly to the Protestant forms of the Continent, and would have lost somewhat of its stiff peculiarity, but have gained in influence on ecclesiastical movements, especially in France. It would have been a different England, without any marked preponderance of the aristocracy, thoroughly Protestant, but conservative in regard to the throne, less exclusive and egotistical in its relations with the outside world, the champion in every way of the other Teutonic races and nations. The continuity of law would never have suffered any real interruption.
The majority of Parliament was for the treaty. In the debate upon it the Lower House resolved not indeed that they would accept it, for matters were not yet ripe for this step, but that the House found in the King’s declarations a basis for proceeding to the restoration of peace in the country[539]. The Upper House unanimously voted the same. The capital manifested the liveliest desire to see the King once more in the midst of it, for the completion of the negotiations.
Meanwhile the army had developed totally opposite views. After holding back for a short time it returned to the exhibition of its ultra-religious and anti-monarchical tendencies in all their vehemence. Already in his despatch after Preston, Cromwell had said that the hand of God was in it all, that the people was as the apple of God’s eye, while He rejected kings, and that they must now take courage and destroy out of the land those who troubled it; then would God beA.D. 1648.glorified and the land have His blessing—words deemed dark, which yet are clear. At the beginning of the campaign the officers had opposed the agitation which was recommencing in the army, but gradually they let it take its course. The regiments in which originally it had its chief seat issued urgent addresses for the limitation of the duration of Parliament, and for the punishment of those who had taken part in the last troubles: they demanded the thorough execution of justice upon all, common people, lords, even the King, who must clear himself of the charge of having caused innocent blood to be shed. The officers perceived that at the Newport negotiations the plan had been formed of opposing to them a compact and tenacious alliance. After some hesitation the general council of the army joined the leading regiments in a great remonstrance, which bore the name of the Generals, in which all accommodation with the King was rejected[540]. For under whatever conditions he might be restored, he would always exercise influence over Parliament, and perhaps even in that now sitting win a preponderant party to his side. In the future also, unless a system of election were introduced entirely free from all crown influence, there would be corrupted Parliaments and the fear of a return to absolute power. Parliament was urged to renew the resolutions passed at the beginning of the year, which it had then been understood would lead to the trial of the King: the public weal was the highest law; and who had shown himself so hostile to it as the King? The arguments by which the execution of Strafford had been justified were now repeated. There were cases for which existing legislation had not sufficiently provided: in such cases the supreme council of the nation had authority to proceed.
The Parliament had still spirit enough to leave the remonstrance unnoticed, and to continue the negotiations with the King[541]. But the army was only the more excited.A.D. 1648.It observed that the King persisted in refusing much on which, after former engagements, Parliament might have insisted: and this fact it regarded as proof of an intention to oppose the army, and perhaps to begin a new war, like the last, in league with the King. The first idea was to cause a new breach in Parliament, and use this as occasion for proceedings similar to those of two years before: but this was rejected, as it seemed too dangerous to leave their adversaries in possession of power, if only for a day or two. Or again, they thought of inducing the minority to make a solemn protest against the majority: but this step, as we know, lay outside the ideas and precedents of the English House of Commons. At last the conviction prevailed that the army, which did not consist of mercenaries, had not only the right, but the duty, even without any forms of this kind, to avert the evil which it saw coming. With the modern idea that kings were bound to govern according to laws approved by the people, was united the doctrine, derived from the records of the remotest antiquity, that the country in which innocent blood had been shed could only be purified by the blood of him who had shed it: as now the King had incurred the chief guilt of the blood shed in England, the country, if it restored him to his power, would draw down upon it the vengeance of God[542]. In a meeting of officers of the army and Independent members of Parliament it was agreed not to endure a state of things which gave occasion for fearing so great an evil. They would have felt themselves fully justified in taking the government directly into their own hands: but as yet they could not do without the authority of Parliament, and moreover some of its principal leaders were in league with them. TheirA.D. 1648.resolution was ultimately to change the majority in the Lower House: and at a council of a few chiefs the names were settled of those who were to be excluded.
Everything was already prepared for the execution of these projects. The army, under the pretext of wishing to insure the payment of its arrears, had advanced to the capital, and occupied the positions in the suburbs most important from the military point of view, leaving the city militia to fulfil its duties in Westminster only. Meanwhile the King had been removed from the Isle of Wight, whence he might perhaps have escaped or been carried off to London, to the gloomy and solitary rock of Hurst Castle on the coast of Hampshire, where he was kept in safe custody. The army was already dominant over the two powers, the Royal and Parliamentary, which were trying to unite in opposition to it.
On December 4, 1648, the Parliament had still courage to protest against the removal of the King from the island, as having taken place without the assent of Parliament. On the 5th, as has been mentioned, it declared the King’s answers sufficient to form a basis on which to negotiate for the restoration of peace, and that the conference should be with the King in person: General Fairfax was requested to take steps for the conveyance of the King to London. The Lower House still reckoned on the authority of the Parliamentary majority by which everything had been done hitherto: it could not yet believe that any personal injury could be inflicted on a born king after he had made the greatest concessions possible to him, but still thought to advance in the course of developing its ancient rights, when suddenly it was recklessly checked by the power of the sword.
On the 6th of December the members, who saw themselves threatened, but were still conscious of their former strength and importance, repaired to St. Stephen’s Chapel, with the intention of causing the King to be brought to London for the opening of definite peace negotiations. When they arrived they found no longer the guard of city militia: picquets of the army had occupied Westminster early in the morning and had driven off the militia. As the Presbyterian members ascended the stairs, or entered the antechamber, they wereA.D. 1648.arrested. They asked by whose orders, and under what commission this was done, for they still thought that a valid order could proceed only from themselves, and must be based on parliamentary resolutions. Like Joyce at Holmby, Colonel Pride, who was on duty at Westminster, pointed to the line of soldiers with drawn swords and lighted matches. The House when it assembled sent its sergeants to summon back into the chamber the members who were detained in the adjoining Queen’s court: the result was that next day those who had prompted this step were also arrested.
The number of members excluded was reckoned at ninety-six, those arrested at forty-seven: only those were allowed to take any further part in the sittings who signed a protest against the vote of December 5, of whom there were about eighty[543]. But in spite of this scanty number they proceeded to act as though they formed the true Parliament. They carefully revoked all that had been done in opposition to the resolutions passed at the beginning of the year, so that these latter regained their full force. This was a far more violent proceeding than that of two years before. Then the army had reinstated at their own request the members who had fled in consequence of tumultuous scenes; now it had no pretence of a legal justification.
This was the time at which the elections for renewing the Common Council took place in the city: and doubtless, had they been free, they would have given results favourable to the King and to peace. The transformed Parliament ordered that no one should be admitted therein, or hold any city office, who had favoured the Scottish invasion, or had shared in the tumults which had taken place during the last year in London and its neighbourhood. Neither among the city authorities nor in Parliament was any man to be endured who did not recognise the authority of the army, or who might oppose its interests.
On December 9/19 some regiments of horse and foot again entered London. They imposed heavy contributions, andA.D. 1649.arrested the suspected and their opponents[544], but otherwise maintained strict discipline. The city was bridled, the Lower House transformed into a mere instrument of the army: it could now proceed to do what had long been intended, and bring the King to legal trial as the great criminal.
Even as the prisoner of the army Charles I, since it had broken with him, had twice become dangerous to it, once through his treaty with the Scots, and again through his pacific dealings with Parliament. He was so still at this moment: so long as he lived the Independent leaders, who had laid violent hands on him, felt their own existence threatened by his. They thought that they must either condemn the King, or themselves be accounted guilty[545]. Moreover his condemnation would imply the complete victory and sanctioning of their principles.
In the present state of the Lower House there was no difficulty about carrying through the impeachment. The King was therein designated as Charles Stuart, at present King of England. He was first charged with the same crime for which Strafford had been condemned, namely with having sought to overthrow the ancient liberties and fundamental laws of the nation, and to introduce a tyrannical and arbitrary government. The second and chief accusation was that he had caused civil war, and filled the country with rapine and bloodshed. His punishment was demanded chiefly that henceforth no magistrate might hope to remain unpunished, if he tried to bring the English nation to bondage or to any other form of ruin. The draft was accepted in the Lower House on January 1, 1649, and the next day was sent to the Lords.
They had assembled in greater numbers than usual: as a rule there were not more than four of them, now there were twelve, and their opposition was unanimous. Lord Manchester declared it inconceivable that the King shouldA.D. 1649.be accused of high treason against Parliament, for Parliament consisted of King, Lords, and Commons, and there could be none without the King. Lord Northumberland remarked that nineteen twentieths of the inhabitants of the country were doubtful which of the two parties had begun the war, and that there was no law to meet the case; it would be unreasonable to proceed where the facts were doubtful, and even if they were certain no law was applicable. Then the proposal for erecting a court of justice to try the King came on for discussion. Denbigh, the Speaker of the House, who found his name among those who had been designated as members of this court, declared at this point that he would rather let himself be torn in pieces than take part in so abominable a thing. The two drafts were unanimously rejected, and the House adjourned for a week, that it might not be further troubled with the matter immediately.
As the House of Lords thus refused its co-operation, so that no vote of the two Houses of Parliament was to be expected, on what ground of even colourable legality could any further proceedings rest? In the earlier conflicts the idea had been mooted that the Lower House represented the nation, and might go its way without the Lords; but this had never yet happened. The view too that Parliament of itself possessed the supreme power, though it had now and then been expressed, had as yet found no approval in Parliament itself. It had based the authority which it exercised on the fiction that the King’s will was virtually contained in the resolutions of the two Houses. Now however no further use could be made of this, and a principle was wanted, which should dispense with all reference to King or Lords: the idea they adopted was that of national sovereignty, and of its being represented by the Commons.
On January 4 the Lower House formed itself into a Committee to draw up resolutions stating the extent of its rights. For this purpose it laid down three main principles, that the source of all power, under God, was in the people; that the supreme power belonged to the Commons, as having been elected by the people and representing it; and that what they declared to be law was so, even without the assent of theA.D. 1649.King and the Lords. After the House had resumed, these principles were recognised by one member after another[546]. It was in itself an event of incalculable importance that an idea originating in the realm of philosophic abstractions, after having been adopted by a strong faction possessing the power of the sword, thus obtained acceptance in the ruling constitutional body of a great nation. No single political idea in the course of the last few centuries has exercised an influence at all comparable to that of the sovereignty of the people. Repressed at times, and influencing only opinions, and then breaking out again, often recognised, but never realised, and always making its way, it has furnished the ever active leaven of the modern world. The Scots had thought to unite the sovereignty of the people with monarchy by divine right: but the Independents opposed the latter with vigour. The idea of popular sovereignty was adopted in its full strength, but at the same time, it must be owned, in a form which contradicted its substance. The theoretical maintenance of the fullest rights of popular independence was coupled with practical subjection to military power.
In the House of Lords, in the absence of Manchester and Northumberland, a proposal was made by way of compromise for a lawful resolution, by which it should for the future be accounted high treason if a King levied war against the Parliament and realm of England[547]: in such a case he should be tried before Parliament. The difference is obvious, as thereby the old constitution, and also the safety of the King, would have been secured. But on the grounds of the principle once adopted and recognised as valid, before which all formal legality vanished, the Lower House as then constituted deemed itself justified in proceeding on its course. It resolved that the ordinance rejected by the Lords for erecting a tribunal toA.D. 1649.judge the King should be issued in the usual forms of English procedure. Accordingly the Commission already named assembled and appointed a high court of justice, the members of which were immediately nominated. A far greater number, originally 150, had been intended, but not more than sixty or seventy actually met, only four of them being lawyers, one of whom, John Bradshaw, was chosen president: the rest were generals and colonels in the army, members of Parliament, country gentlemen, aldermen, and citizens of London, and some lords, like Thomas Lord Grey of Groby, adherents of the army and its ideas. All was prepared for its sittings to begin in Westminster Hall on January 20.
Charles I might probably still have escaped the night before he was removed from Newport (November 29). His attendants represented to him that it was now no less necessary, and quite as possible, for him to fly as when he was at Hampton Court. But the Parliament at the opening of the conferences had not only taken precautions which made success at least doubtful, but had also obtained from him a promise not to quit the island during the conferences or for twenty days afterwards. He was told in vain that the state of things had altered, since it was no longer Parliament, but the army, that governed. Although this Prince, so long as he was free, was fond of dealing with different parties on contrary principles, yet when he had once given his word he deemed himself irrevocably bound by it. When the question was pressed upon him, he answered by a flat refusal. ‘They have made a promise to me, and I to them; I will not be the first to break mine[548].’ Charles I had scarcely an apprehension that the views of the Agitators, before which he had fled from Hampton Court, were now shared by the officers who had once prevailed over them. But the disrespectful violence with which he was carried off, at the moment when he was expecting peace, made a crushing impression upon him. When his friends gathered round him to kiss his hand at his departure, they saw for the first time clouds on his brow and melancholy in his demeanour.
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At Hurst Castle the fear seized him that he should be murdered there. It was more a blockhouse than a castle, having been built by Henry VIII for the defence of the coast, on a tongue of land projecting into the sea, with the waves beating round it on all sides but one, with narrow, dark, and prison-like rooms. No good was presaged on seeing the governor, a man of stern looks, long thick black hair and beard, a huge sword by his side, and a partisan in his hand. The King had been before warned against Major Harrison, as a man quite capable of putting him to death. When in the night the drawbridge was heard to fall, and it was announced that Major Harrison had just arrived, the King really thought that this man was going to murder him, as some of his ancestors had been secretly and treacherously slain: the place seemed to him just suited for such an act. Harrison however was very far from harbouring the thought ascribed to him: he came to bring the King the acceptable tidings that he was to be removed from the worst to the best of his castles, that of Windsor.
On the way he was greeted at Winchester by a portion of the gentry with the old respect; at Windsor he felt almost at home again; his former apartments had been prepared for him, and he was served at table, for instance, with the ancient ceremony, the cup-bearer presenting him the cup on his knee: a walk on the beautiful terrace was naturally far more pleasant than his view at Hurst Castle over the lonely sea. Now for the first time he heard what had taken place in Parliament, and that the party which had been negotiating with him was ruined. He began to be afraid that they would deprive him of the government: he thought that they would offer the throne to his son, and confine him in some fortress, perhaps the Tower: of this he was convinced. When informed that he was to be brought to London, he exclaimed ‘God is everywhere.’
It was not a long imprisonment, nor secret murder that awaited him, but what no one had expected, a formal trial in the full glare of publicity. At St. James’s, whither he was at once conducted, the forms of homage with which he was accustomed to be served were finally dropped: and onA.D. 1649.January 20 he was brought before the tribunal which was to pronounce sentence of life or death on him. There was much suspense as to whether he would recognise the tribunal and answer to the accusation. The Independents intimated that, if he defended himself, fourteen days would be necessary for his trial, but that, if he refused, the end would be reached in four days[549].
The members of the court kept on their hats when the King entered Westminster Hall, conducted by Colonel Tomlinson and an armed escort: he too did not uncover his head. They did not recognise him as their king, nor he them as his judges. At the first words of the indictment, which said that the supreme power had been entrusted to him by the people, he interrupted the clerk who was reading it with the remark that he possessed the royal power by hereditary right, it had not been entrusted to him (by men): the violent expressions which followed, in which he was described as a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy, he received with ironical laughter. Then the Lord President requested him to answer to the indictment; in reply, he asked first to be informed by what lawful authority he was here tried: he would submit to any such, but to recognise an unlawful authority would be to violate the duty he owed to God. Further than this he could not be induced to go. As his went away his eyes fell on the sword which lay on the table: he said that he was not afraid of it[550].
The next sitting, on January 22, is not without interest controversially. At a meeting of the judicial commission with the Lower House it had been decided that the King could not be allowed to call in question its legality, even conditionally: the sitting was opened with a declaration that the court had weighed the objection made by the accused, but had convinced itself that its competence, being founded on the authority of the Commons of England, admitted of no doubt. The King was astonished at their giving him noA.D. 1649.reasons, and went on further to develope his own. He said that he had been defending not his own cause only, but had been standing up for the rights of the people: for if a power raised itself up without law, and wanted to make laws and to upset the fundamental laws of the realm, who in the country would be secure of his life or could call anything his own? The President interrupted him with the remark that the court sat there in the name of the Commons of England, to whom the King was answerable, like his forefathers. The King rose and said that he desired that any precedent could be shown him, for the Commons of England had never been a court of justice. He was not allowed to say any more: when he was again alone, he wrote down what he had intended to say. It was mainly that that procedure only could be lawful which was by the law of God, or by the law of the land. No one would maintain that the former allowed any proceedings against the King, for the Scripture said that where the word of a king was, there was power, and no man could say to him What doest thou? Nor could the King be tried according to English law, for every indictment ran in his name, and the old principle was that the King could do no wrong. Charles I, in maintaining his superiority in opposition to the supposed commission of the people, which moreover had never been asked for[551], returns always to the necessity for laws and a government to protect life and property. But what was the case then? how had the two Houses of Parliament been treated? The Upper House had been thrust aside, and most part of the Lower excluded from the sittings by force or terror. What would be the result if a power, governing without order or law, sought to overturn the old form of the constitution under which England had flourished for centuries? He had been brought there against his will, but he was defending along with his own rights the liberty of the people also.
It is not stated in the protocols, but a member of the court has related, that the King’s appeal to his divine rightA.D. 1649.was met by a similar claim on behalf of the Commons. He and the people had appealed to the sword, which had decided in favour of the people: but the people would not hold the sword in vain, but sought expiation for the blood that had been shed. It might have been in reference to this that the King added, that he had taken up arms to maintain the fundamental laws of the realm.
The question in this trial is not strictly one of legal procedure. It brings to light the opposition of the two powers which move the world, the inherited, historically formed power, interwoven with existing laws and prevailing social ideas, and that which ascribes to the representation of the people, even though, as in this case, highly imperfect, an unlimited authority before which all historical rights vanish. The idea of the sovereignty of the people and the divine right of kings enter as it were into a bodily struggle with each other.
It almost seems as if Charles I had felt tempted to answer, for he spoke readily and in these days well[552]: it seemed to him easy to rebut the accusation in single points, and to bring his innocence to light; but this would have constituted a recognition of the tribunal, which he would never allow to be laid to his charge: he would have deemed it to be sanctioning illegality, and sacrificing the rights and dignity of his crown.
The tradition goes that at this juncture offers were once more made to him by the army: he was promised that his life should be spared, that he should even retain the crown, if he would agree that the army should remain as an independent body under the officers which it then had, or which the council of war should name, and be empowered itself to collect, by the aid of an extensive martial law, the land-tax to be devoted to its pay. Charles I is said to have answered that he would not subject his people to the arbitrary power of an armed faction: he would sacrifice himself for his people.
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At the request of the Prince of Wales the States-General sent an extraordinary embassy to intercede for the King’s life; but the Lower House did not think proper to give them an audience. Queen Henrietta prayed for leave to come back and be with her husband: the contents of her letter were known, but Parliament set it aside unopened. The French ambassador did not venture to interfere: he was afraid that it would not only avail nothing, but irritate them against France; for there was already a talk of aiding the insurrection which had broken out in Paris[553]. At last Mazarin determined to send De Varennes to London as ambassador-extraordinary, warning him at the same time that he must avoid injuring the interests of France by his intervention on behalf of Charles I; but De Varennes had not gone further than Boulogne before all was over in London.
At St. James’s Charles I seems to have cherished the belief that his life would not be touched, because, according to ancient usage, his death would totally destroy the legal rights of Parliament: but the theory already adopted had made this custom meaningless.
Undeterred by the King’s protestations, or by any considerations of this kind, the court, after some evidence had been taken, resolved, on the sixth day of the proceedings, January 25, to condemn the King to death as a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy of the commonwealth of England. Two days later the sentence was to be made known to the prisoner. The King then asked for one more hearing before the two Houses; not that he would have had any special proposition to make, but that he wanted an audience before whom to speak his mind. The President remarked that this amounted to the King’s wishing to speak to the members of the court without acknowledging its authority. Without further delay the sentence was read, by which Charles Stuart was condemned to death for his treasons and crimes. Charles again tried to speak,A.D. 1649.but was prevented with insulting haste. ‘They cannot endure’ he said, ‘that their King should speak to them: what justice have others to expect at their hands?’
Life was over: after preparing himself, with the assistance of Bishop Juxon and by receiving the Sacrament, to appear before God, and give account to Him to whom alone he felt that he was answerable, he had only one royal and fatherly duty to perform: he sent for his two children who were at hand (they were living at Sion House), his daughter Elizabeth, aged thirteen, and his youngest son Henry of Gloucester, who numbered nine years. He told the boy that the army intended, it was reported, to make him King, but that he had two elder brothers, and would endanger his soul and forfeit his father’s blessing, if he accepted the crown. He begged his daughter not to grieve on his account, for it was a glorious death that he was to suffer, he was dying for the laws and liberties of his country, and for the true Protestant religion. He advised her to read Laud’s book against Fisher to strengthen her in this faith. He advised her and her sisters to obey their mother, his son James to reverence his elder brother as his King. That this latter would ascend the throne was to him beyond all doubt. Then, said he, they would all be happier than if he had remained alive (he meant under the conditions which he had accepted at Newport): he had forgiven all his enemies, and his children might do the same; but they must never trust them, for they had been false to him and, as he feared, to their own souls. He added withal that he died as a martyr.
He had often expressed the wish once more to meet the people of his capital, who had again inclined in his favour: it was granted to him on the scaffold. This was erected at Whitehall, on the spot where the kings were wont to show themselves to the people after their coronation. Standing beside the block at which he was to die, he was allowed once more to speak in public. He said that the war and its horrors were unjustly laid to his charge; the guilt was with those who had robbed him of his lawful authority over the armed forces. Yet God’s judgments were just, for an unrighteous sentence which he had once permitted was nowA.D.1649.avenged by a like sentence on himself. If at last he had been willing to give way to arbitrary power and the change of the laws by the sword, he would not have been in this position: he was dying as the martyr of the people, passing from a perishable kingdom (the phrase is his own) to an imperishable. On the suggestion of the bishop he again declared that he died in the faith of the Church of England, as he had received it from his father. Then bending to the block, he himself gave the sign for the axe to fall upon his neck. A moment, and the severed head was shown to the people, with the words—‘This is the head of a traitor.’ All public places, the street-crossings, and especially the entrances of the city, were occupied by soldiery on foot and on horseback. An incalculable multitude had however streamed to the spot. Of the King’s words they heard nothing, but they were aware of their purport through the cautious and guarded yet positive language of their preachers. When they saw the severed head, they broke into a cry, universal and involuntary, in which the feelings of guilt and weakness were blended with terror—a sort of voice of nature, whose terrible impression those who heard it were never able to shake off.
To some it will appear scarcely allowable, in the light of our times, to revert to the question how far the words repeatedly uttered by Charles I in the solemn moments between this life and eternity, that he died as a martyr, really expressed a truth. Certainly not so in the sense that has been attached to them, that he was merely a sufferer who lived and bled for the known truth. He was rather a prince who all his life long fought for his own rights and power, which he, if ever man did, personally exercised, seeking at first to extend, and later only to defend them, by all means in his power, open and secret, in council and in the field, in the battle of words and with actual weapons, and who perished in the conflict.
Let us figure to ourselves the characteristics of the several epochs of his government. For the nature of a man does not appear at once: it is rather in the separate phases of his life that his real self is developed, and the attributes which compose his character are exhibited.
A.D. 1649.
In the first stage of his public life Charles I, like most princes on their accession, seems to have felt a certain wish to be popular. Filled with personal antipathy to Spain, he rejected, even in his father’s lifetime, his system of foreign and domestic policy, which certainly gave occasion for some blame, but was universally circumspect. After he had ascended the throne he followed the same course, but then he discovered the strength of the forces which he had undertaken to resist, and the untrustworthiness of the elements on which he relied for support. In foreign affairs, especially German, he rather increased the evils and complications: we find him at war with the two great powers, between which his father had sought to steer: but at last he contented himself with a neutral position, after concluding peace with them both. In domestic politics the popular principles which he had at least partially recognised and then sought to prevent from attaining general acceptance, arrived at a full consciousness of their strength: the King stooped to neutralise by secret protests the concessions which he could not publicly refuse to them. In all things he appears never self-reliant, rather enterprising and active than of steadfast strength; justified in his own eyes, but not before the world, which above all things desires firmness and success.
There followed a period of tranquillity at home and peace abroad. The King turned his activity to commercial enterprise, and occupied his intellect with literature and art, in which he found endless delight. Intellectual conversation appeared to him the greatest of all pleasures which man can enjoy. His wife afforded him this through her attendants as well as herself, and it was for this that he first valued her. At the same time he came back to the idea of completing his father’s system, of subjecting the three kingdoms to ecclesiastical uniformity, and extending the royal prerogative so far that no parliamentary claims should have a chance of shaking it. He appears dignified, tranquil, polished, but inclined to violent repression and systematic coercion.
Then the storm broke upon him, with a universal movement of disobedience and resistance. After some violent efforts which were unsuccessful, at sight of the general desertionA.D. 1649.the King was impressed with a feeling that he had gone too far. To a harsh stubbornness, which seemed incapable of being shaken, succeeded a compliance even disgraceful. The men who had most powerfully represented the royal ideas were abandoned, and concessions never to be revoked were granted to their opponents. All seemed to depend on satisfying their claims, so as to establish an equilibrium between prerogative and parliamentary rights, when at last he discovered that this was impossible. The great current of European affairs, which had taken a turn in favour of purely Protestant ideas, aided his opponents, who had before all things adopted these opinions. When Charles I prepared to resist them, he caused the full development of the hostile powers, and saw himself reduced to the necessity of abandoning his capital to them. This was for him a period of manifold errors, of false and deceitful policy, of secret agony.
When now the inalienable rights of the crown, and not only the political influence, but the status and possessions of the Episcopal Church were attacked, the King’s innate antipathy to the demands made on him revived in all its strength. Free from the accidental and changeful influence of the capital, in the air of the distant counties where the old notions of the monarchy still had life, under the influence of his wife, who though insulted and a fugitive was still active from a distance, he resolved to take up arms. Then he showed himself courageous, warlike, not without strategical talents: he had successes which gave a hope of the restoration of his authority. But his enemies not only gathered foreign forces against him, but developed in their midst a fanatical and also military faction, which went far beyond their original tendencies. The King did not hesitate to oppose both with a zeal which far exceeded his real strength. By his orders the battle of Marston Moor was fought: he himself decided at Naseby not to wait for the attack of the enemy, but to advance against them. Thus he failed in the field, and the defeat scattered his adherents.
James I had probably during his lifetime too high an idea of the strength of his opponents; Charles I certainly had too slight a one: just as at the beginning, when he provoked warA.D. 1649.with Spain, so at the time when he sought to impose his ecclesiastical laws on the Scots—undertakings from which all his difficulties proceeded—he knew neither the depth of the lawful desires of Parliament, nor the purport of the opposition already begun: he cherished splendid hopes when nearest to his ruin. For he trusted chiefly to the intrinsic power of the rights and ideas for which he fought. Though imprudent in his undertakings, he was at bottom of solid understanding: often undecided and untrustworthy—we know how fond he was of having two strings to his bow—he never lost sight of the high importance of his cause: he was naturally inclined to concessions, but neither the threats of his enemies nor the entreaties of his confidants could induce him to cross the line which he had marked out with sagacity and conscientiousness, in religion and politics: he held immoveably the convictions on which depended the connexion between the crown and the established Church. In misfortune he appears not without moral greatness. It would have been easy for him to save his life, had he conceded to the Scots the exclusive domination of Presbyterianism in England, or to the Independents the practical freedom of the army, as they themselves desired. That he did not do so is his merit towards England. Had he given his word to dissolve the episcopal government of the Church, and to alienate its property for ever, it is impossible to see how it could ever have been restored. Had he granted such a position to the army as was asked in the four articles, the self-government of the corporations and of the commons, and the later parliamentary government itself, would have become impossible. So far the resistance which he offered cannot be estimated highly enough. The overthrow of the constitution, which the Independents openly intended, made him fully conscious, perhaps not of their ultimate intention, the establishment of a republic, but certainly of his own position. So far there was certainly something of a martyr in him, if the man can be so called who values his own life less than the cause for which he is fighting, and in perishing himself, saves it for the future.
END OF VOL. II.