for war showed how little he intended it: that he sent to the two houses, at different times, before as well as after his imprisonment, forty messages for peace; and, in order to the obtaining it, made more concessions than he could justify, and such as he afterwards bewailed with the sorrows of a most sincere and bitter repentance: and lastly, that to prove himself to have been by no means the author of that desolating war, he appealed, upon the scaffold, to the respective dates of his own and the parliamentary commissions for levying troops. Whoever shall reflect upon all these particulars, will find himself obliged to draw from thence two conclusions; first, that the king was perfectly innocent of the war, and all its dismal consequences: secondly, that the lead> ers of the faction had formed a plan, which they were determined not to rest till they had carried into execution, for the total overthrow of the constitution in church and state, and the introduction of a presbyterian republic in its room; for the effecting which they were always upon the watch, ready to make their advantage with the people, prepared for their purpose by seditious pamphlets and enthusiastic sermons, of every hasty and precipitate measure into which they could trepan or force their sovereign. Such appears plainly and undeniably to have been the scheme projected and invariably pursued by the heads of that party which was formed by what has

d Eikon, sect. 19.

* Printed in the Reliquiæ Carolinæ.

* See his prayer and confession subjoined to the Eikon.
• See his last speech as given by the historians.

been lately called a coalition of PATRIOTS and PURITANS, but what may, perhaps, be more properly styled a combination of REBELS and SCHISMATICS, or rather of REBELLIOUS SCHISMATICS, both principles being duly mixed and thoroughly incorporated into the constitutions of the parliamentary leaders". "And if," says a very acute and sagacious writer, and one who is far from being a friend to monarchical principles, upon an ample survey of the transactions of those times, and the circumstances the king was in, "if his political prudence was insuffi"cient to extricate him from so perilous a situation, "he may be excused; since, even after the event, "when it is commonly easy to correct all errors, one "is at a loss to determine what conduct, in his "circumstances, could have maintained the author"ity of the crown, and preserved the peace of the "nation. Exposed to the assaults of furious, im

ઉ

placable, and bigoted factions, it was never per"mitted him, without the most fatal consequences, "to commit the smallest mistake; a condition too rigorous to be imposed on the greatest human "capacity1." In a word, then, we may conclude, that had this prince lived in better times, and reigned over a people uninfected with the insinuating, inflating, and souring leaven of fanaticism, he had been the delight of mankind, and his kingdom the joy of the whole earth.

But so had God ordained, that he was to be eminent in another way, and to be "made perfect

1 See Hume, p. 146.

i Hume, p. 469.

"through sufferings," like his blessed Master, of whose passion, and behaviour under it, he certainly held forth the most lively portraiture that ever was drawn in the fainter colours of mere humanity. Therefore it pleased the Almighty to cast this choice and most precious piece of royal gold into the burning fiery furnace of adversity, where he is universally allowed to have shone to the last with unrivalled and undiminished lustre. The same Divine Person, who came down to the three children in the Babylonian furnace, evidenced his presence with this his faithful servant in all his afflictions, by that uniform equanimity, that absolute resignation, that invincible patience, that winning meekness of love, by which he is said to have gained as many hearts as he conversed with persons. Men thought they could never sufficiently admire the unaffected ease and cheerfulness with which he descended from his regal dignities, and passed through all the various scenes of his pitiable calamities, the heaviest of which seem never to have excited any emotion in his mind, but that of compassion for his infatuated persecutors. It was observed particularly by his curious and prying attendants, that the letter which brought him the first news of his being sold by the Scotch to his implacable enemies in England, produced not the least alteration in his countenance*; being only

sorry," as himself expresses it, "that they should "do it, and that his price should be so much above "his Saviour's'." Confined to the frightful solitude

k Hume, p. 422.

VOL. III.

1

Eikon, sect. 23.
sect.

2 E

of a prison, from which, so great was his sense of honour and probity, he would not escape when it was in his power, because he had given his word to the parliament, although he knew certain death was the consequence-confined, I say, to the frightful solitude of a prison, and cut off from all intercourse with earth, being denied the attendance of his very chaplains to minister to him in his spiritual necessi ties, he kept the communication with Heaven still open, and from thence received supplies the more abundant for his exclusion from the ordinary means of grace. Here he experienced the benefit of having been conversant in the Scriptures in the days of vigour and prosperity, when he walked in the garden of God; and from the divine precepts and promises, which are the flowers of that garden, extracted those lessons of eternal wisdom, which proved his support and consolation when the dark and stormy winter of adversity set in upon him; and which will ever continue to afford both instruction and comfort to the afflicted soul that shall make her abode in his inimitable meditations-a book inferior only to the sacred writings, and which it were much to be wished were the companion of every son and daughter of the church of England. A writer who cannot be suspected of any partiality on the side of the king's religion, yet speaking of his amiable deportment during his imprisonment, bears this testimony to its power in him-" The great source, whence the king "derived consolation amidst all his calamities, was "undoubtedly religion;" let us be permitted to add, it was the Christian religion, as professed in the

church of England; "a principle which, in him, seems to have contained nothing fierce nor gloomy, "nothing which enraged him against his adversaries, "or terrified him with the dismal prospect of futurity. "While every thing around him bore a hostile aspect; while friends, family, relations, whom he passionately loved, were placed at a distance, and "impotent to serve him; he reposed himself with "confidence in the arms of that Being who pene"trates and sustains all nature," let us add, who likewise in Jesus Christ redeemed the world, "and "whose severities, if received with piety and resig"nation, he regarded as the surest pledge of unex"hausted favour"."

Thus prepared, he had nothing to do, but to wait with patience, and obey with joy, the divine summons to quit the "wilderness," and "pass over Jordan" into "that good land," to those "everlasting hills," the prospect of which had long been the solace and delight of his soul "in the house of her pilgrimage." During the solemn mockery of his unheard-of trial, the audacious insolence of his pretended judges, the barbarous and brutal insults, the revilings and the spittings of the merciless soldiers, "his soul," as the aforementioned writer beautifully expresses it, "without effort, or affectation, seemed only to re"main in the situation familiar to it, and to look "down with contempt on all the efforts of human "malice and iniquity"." On the fatal morning-fatal, alas! to England, not to him-he arose with