"baronet," which was conferred on a limited number of candidates on payment of £1095 each; but somehow the army was never raised. The whole race of Stuarts (as you will see) had notions of kingly power quite inconsistent with English freedom. Each of them sought to act as if he were absolute; whereas the English constitution, as already explained, is that of a limited monarchy. These notions, on James's part, led to unseemly contests between him and the parliament. That body remonstrated with him, for instance, about the intended marriage of his son: he set the ARMS OF SCOTLAND. minster Abbey. He 59th of his age. whole of them at defiance, and committed 66 A GENTLEMAN AND LADY OF THE TIME OF CHARLES I. Charles I. was the only son of the preceding king. He was of middle stature, his complexion brown, 'inclined 1625 to paleness,' his forehead not wide, his brows large, his eyes grey, quick and penetrating, and his nose somewhat large and round at the tip.' "* His chestnut hair fell in curls over his shoulders, and he wore a moustache and pointed beard. In the latter years of his life, his countenance showed such mingled marks of greatness and sadness, that an eminent sculptor remarked, that 'the man who was so strongly charactered, and whose dejection was so visible, was doomed to be unfortunate!' Charles had a strong tendency to stammer while speaking; but by adopting a measured style, and being sparing of words, he greatly overcame it, and was able at the closing scene of his life, to utter his words without a falter. He was an intense lover of art, and his private virtues were great and many; but so thoroughly had he imbibed his father's high notions of kingly power, that he refused to make those reasonable concessions to parliament *D'Israeli. which the altered circumstances of the times required; while the Commons, in turn, refused to supply enough of money to meet the expenses of the government. Becoming angry on this account, Charles dissolved his first parliament, after a sitting of only three weeks. Next year (1626,) he called another; but as they sought to impeach Buckingham, his favourite, the king dissolved their sitting before they had passed a single act. Buckingham had been the cause, not only of the Spanish war begun in the last reign, but of an unsuccessful French one in this: he was hated by the people, and was at last murdered in Portsmouth (in Hants.) In 1628, Charles summoned a third parliament, who drew up what is called "The Petition of Rights," and would give the king no money till he had assented to its demands. It required him, among other things, 1st. To levy no taxes without their consent; 2ndly. To billet no soldiers in private houses; and 3rdly, To detain no one in prison without a trial. This famous document 1628 forms a sort of second Magna Charta. The king gave his assent to it; and the Commons, in their joy, voted him a very large sum of about £400,000. Being now in a manner independent of them, the king began to act very arbitrarily the Commons grumbled: the king came to talk to them: they locked him out: when he fetched a locksmith to force the door, he found that they had adjourned for a week: he said that he would go down and see the "vipers" when they re-assembled: he did so, and dissolved parliament. Nine of the members he committed to the Tower; one of whom-Sir John Eliot-died there. Finding matters becoming so serious, Charles now made peace abroad, and began to rule in the most arbitrary manner. He fined citizens for breaking obsolete laws, noblemen on pretence that they encroached on his forests, and clergymen for such trifles as preaching against the crucifix. To aid him in these things, besides the Star-chamber already named, he now took advantage of two other similar courts. In Elizabeth's reign, commissioners had been appointed at irregular intervals to try certain offences; and the system had at length become permanently established under the name of "The Court of High Commission"-for the trial of religious opinions, heretical books, slauders, and immoral. ity. This court consisted of 44 commissioners, and had power to fine, imprison, and excommunicate. Then there was "The General of York," a tribunal established in that province of similar constitution to the last. Over it presided Sir Thomas Wentworh * Ecclesiastically, England is divided into two provinces-Canterbury and rk. 66 (Strafford,) a member of the third parliament, who at first opposed the king, and afterwards aided him by devising a scheme called Thorough;" which had it been fully followed, would no doubt have rendered Charles absolute. He was rewarded with a peerage, and made president of the northern province, and afterwards Viceroy of Ireland; where for seven years he applied his scheme of 'Thorough' so effectually, that the whole Irish people crouched in terror at his feet. Then came a fearful reaction, in which the Roman Catholics of that island, encouraged by Spanish priests and Spanish gold, murdered about 50,000 of the Protestant population, under circumstances of the most horrid barbarity-such as burning, drowning, and burying alive. Trying to do without a parliament, Charles sought to meet the national expenses by taxes of his own levying. The most obnoxious of these was Ship-money, which had been anciently collected in maritime towns, for the defence of the coast. But now he levied it on inland places as well; and applied it, not to defend the coast, but to support a standing army. Knowing this to be quite illegal, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, named John Hampden, refused to pay; but such was the corrup- 1637 tion of the judges (who could be dismissed at the royal pleasure,) that they decided against him. Hampden afterwards became a member of parliament. Charles tried to force the Kirk of Scotland to become episcopal : but on the first Sunday that the prayers were attempted to be read at St. Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh, a woman named Janet Geddes threw her stool at the dean's head, saying, "Out, thou false thief! dost thou say mass at my lug!" The Scottish people then signed a "Covenant," binding themselves to resist all attempts to interfere with their religion; and a General Assembly of the Kirk met and excommunicated all the bishops. For eleven years no parliament had met in England, a case unparalleled in its history. In 1640, however, Charles found himself so short of money, that he was compelled to summon his fourth parliament. It met, but refused to grant any money till the grievances of the nation had been inquired into and redressed. Charles therefore dissolved it, after a sitting of three weeks. He next tried to revive the Magnàtum Conventus; but though a council of peers assembled at his bidding, they nobly and wisely resolved to do nothing apart from the Commons. They also urged him to make peace with the Scots, who had by this time collected an army, crossed the border, and seized Newcastle (in Northumberland). A conference was therefore held at Ripon (in Yorkshire), between 16 of these peers and 8 of the leading Covenanters, when the Scots agreed to abstain from war on condition of receiving £5,500 weekly, till the difference between them and the king should be settled. The arrangement is called "The Treaty of Ripon." In this same year Charles summoned his fifth and last parlia ment. To prevent a dissolution, this parliament passed a measure that it should not be dissolved without its own consent. It sat for more than 19 years, and is therefore called "The 1640 Long Parliament." One of its first acts was to cause the execution of Wentworth (Earl of Strafford), on the charge of "treason against the liberty of the people." "It also imprisoned Archbishop Laud for four years; and then-on the professed charge of high treason, but really for his opposition to the Puritans-caused him to be beheaded in the 72nd year of his age. The nation now divided into two parties; one siding with the king, and the other with the parliament-a twofold political division which has continued in England ever since, though the names of the parties have from time to time been changed, and their political views greatly modified. Thus, at the present day, we have Conservative and Liberal; and a few years ago we had Tory and Whig. The royalists, then, in the reign of Charles I., were called Cavaliers; while the parliamentarians got the name of Roundheads. The former were so called on account of their gallant bearing and skill in horsemanship; and the latter received this strange name because, having read in the Bible 'if a man have long hair it is a shame,' they cut theirs short. On the 4th of January, 1642, the king entered the House of Commons attended by a large guard, and demanded that six of the members, whom he accused of high treason, should be given up to him. The Commons at once called out "Privilege! Privilege!" for the king, by acting in this manner, was violating Magna Charta : for, if these members had done wrong in parliament, they were responsible to the House itself; and if they had done wrong elsewhere, they should have been summoned before a civil court. This act, therefore, forms the commencement of THE REVOLUTION. Messages began to pass between the 1642 king and parliament, and the Commons demanded that he should give up to them the command of the army. quite as great a breach of the constitution as any that the king had made, for the command of the army is one of the most ancient rights of the English crown. Civil war was the consequence. The queen went to Holland to try and procure foreign aid, and to pawn the crown jewels in order to buy gunpowder. A large stock of arms was kept at Hull (in Yorkshire), This was |