sons to their Monarch and to England! For a long time we find Hyde and Falkland co-operating with the fiercest Puritans against their spiritual mother, leading the attack even against all the heads of that Church which had endeavoured to repress the rebellious spirit then abroad. And yet what were the real grievances alleged against Laud and his colleagues? The most weighty charge of oppression that has come down to us, and one which liberal historians are never tired of repeating under every possible form, is founded on the just, and, we may even add, moderate, though somewhat barbarous, punishment of those foul-mouthed varlets, Prynne and Bastwick, whose ears were clipped, according to a custom perhaps "better honoured in the breach than the observance;" though, had the liars been bastinadoed through every market-town in Great Britain for their insolent calumnies, they would only have received their due. Prynne subsequently confessed as much in terms of self-abhorrence and yet these men are "the innocent victims of tyranny and martyrs of the Gospel," enshrined by some of our contemporaries in their British Gallery of Worthies, among the Hampdens and Cromwells, who are, truly, worthy of such companionship! However this might be, those, who were subsequently loyalty's leaders joined in the first lawless outcry against Church and State, and abetted the audacity of a Pym and the cunning of a Hampden. Finally, it is true, that these men, Hyde and Falkland, in some degree redeemed the past by maintaining the cause of order, though then only faintly and partially. Falkland, be it remembered, (a man who has been immensely overrated by all parties,) voted even for the expulsion of the bishops from the Upper House,—a measure eventually carried through Cavalier cowardice alone.

There is one circumstance, too, which seems to be generally forgotten, and which is, nevertheless, proved by the pages of Clarendon, though it tells much against himself, which we must not leave unnoticed. When the king was at last induced to make those who had trampled upon his counsellors, and cast his beloved friend Laud into the Tower, his new ministers of state,-when he had received the firmest assurances from both Hyde and Falkland that they would in future endeavour firmly to maintain the cause of order and true freedom,-he on his part replied to their assurances by an obviously as conditional assurance, that he would in future undertake no great measure without consulting them. About a week or ten days after this, the bishops, being fiercely beset by Puritan mobs on their passage to the House of Lords, pray for a guard of honour, and, this being refused them, declare that it is in that case impossible for them to attend to

their parliamentary duties, and so protest against the House's proceeding without them. For this offence they were actually arraigned for high treason—and, will it be credited?-in that very house, in which sat Hyde and Falkland, those true friends of the King and the Church, those wise and faithful counsellors, the only voice raised against the committal of the bishops to the Tower, was that of one unknown member (perhaps the brave Sir Ralph Hopton), who, says Clarendon, had the courage to affirm, "he did not believe them guilty of high treason, but that they were stark mad, and he therefore desired they might be sent to Bedlam." After this, is it not really astounding that historians should affect wonder at the king's having ceased to place confidence in men who had been guilty, as Hyde and Falkland had been on this occasion, of such utterly despicable moral cowardice? Can we wonder that he should have resolved, not through the influence of Digby, but urged by his own royal and indignant soul, to interpose in defence of the insulted and degraded Church and State, and arrest the chief offenders? We really cannot find words to express our astonishment at the obstinacy with which writer after writer, treating of this period, will close his eyes to the facts of the case, and assume that the king was either guilty of an unjustifiable breach of trust towards such friends of the Church as Hyde and Falkland, or of absurd apprehensions of the revolutionary progress of events, in this his royal and constitutional attempt to bring the five members to trial before a jury of their fellow-countrymen. There cannot be a doubt that no men ever before or since have urged such insolent and revolutionary language within our halls of legislature as these men had been guilty of on principle and for a long season. Yet Clarendon even has the audacity to suggest, that the cause of order was rapidly progressing at this very moment in the House of Commons, where he and Falkland did not dare to open their lips in behalf of the thus scandalously oppressed heads of their Church, oppressed, nay, condemned to an imprisonment which lasted for years for a temperate and extremely natural protestation. The truth is, that the eyes of Churchmen have been hoodwinked on this subject by the account Clarendon has given of the business, who, of course, did his utmost to make out a case for himself and excuse his inexcusable pusillanimity, and who consequently abuses the bishops for their "excessive folly and daring," and almost ventures to approve of their immurement for their "crime.'

We will not here trace further the progress of events. What we have said may have sufficed to show, that throughout the whole parliamentary struggle King Charles stood virtually alone, the friends of order and the Church in either house being for a long

time cowardly or lukewarm, and never opposing a fitting front to the encroachments of their Puritanic adversaries, From the breaking out of the war to the termination of the royal career, slander itself has devised but few charges against King Charles's memory, though here too some cases of imaginary faithlessness have been discovered by the industry of certain modern historians. However, during this latter eventful period the deportment of our royal martyr will generally speak for itself. It is on the earlier portion of his career that his foes bend their arrows most spitefully; and it is with regard to this that his friends too often desert his cause, yielding with a moral cowardice, akin to that of Hyde of old, to the noisy and factious cries of his malignant adversaries. On this account, too, we have not been able to deny ourselves the satisfaction of tracing this very hasty summary of those earlier years, and correcting certain vulgar errors, which seem to spring forth anew, "ill weeds that grow apace," however carefully the honest inquirer may fancy he has rooted them from the soil.

Mr. Eliot Warburton, the author of "The Crescent and the Cross," in the highly praiseworthy work before us, has rendered himself obnoxious to certain of our sweeping charges anent faintheartedness in the supporters of the cause of royalty. He professes to abjure all partisanship; yet one side or other a writer must needs take in the treatment of such a theme, and it is very obvious that Mr. Warburton's heart, at least, is with the Cavaliers, from the beginning to the end. Nevertheless, whilst lauding and loving the martyr monarch, he joins, though apparently unwillingly, in some of the ancient calumnies against him; twits him with insincerity, though with marvellous little foundation for the charge; suspects him of designs upon the liberties of England, certainly without being borne out in his suspicions by the real facts of the case; and finally, from time to time, assumes a tone of superior pity, which ill befits any Churchman who treats of the fortunes of the Royal Martyr. Mr. Warburton-we are sorry to bring such an accusation, but the truth must be told— is inclined to yield far too much authority to the current of opinions of the present hour. Thus, for instance, not contented with blackening the memory of the greatest, take her for all in all, of English sovereigns, Queen Elizabeth, he follows Miss Strickland in drawing the most unjustifiable and cruel conclusions from that touching picture of her dying hour, which has been left us by her godson Harrington, who loved and honoured her so sincerely, and who little imagined that he was sharpening a barb for the quiver of calumny, when he recorded in simple words, which might well draw tears from gentle eyes, how his royal mis

6

tress humbly sought for the intercession of the Church's representative', that beloved and aged man, who knelt beside her couch, and who offered up his prayers for her departing spirit to the great Lord and Saviour of queen and beggar; how she herself lay patiently, her hands clasped, her eyes upraised to Heaven, until her soul departed from its earthly tabernacle. It is extraordinary, that a record of this nature, written in sincere affection, should have been converted to such a purpose; but such is the cry of the hour, and, alas! Mr. Warburton has not failed to swell it. Thus, too, he falls in with the usual commonplace eulogiums of Hampden and Falkland; though Clarendon in his own days, and Southey since then, in the pages of the Quarterly,' have so thoroughly demonstrated the duplicity and ambition of the former traitor, and the vacillating temper and very inferior mental faculties of the latter must be apparent to the dispassionate inquirer, who will take the trouble to think for himself upon the subject. By the bye, we may be permitted to observe, that the portrait of Falkland, which Mr. Warburton has given us in his present work, should convince the admirers of that weak though well-meaning man, that he was not "the angel" they conceive him. To us, at least, there appears a degree of vulgarity in his countenance, which is inconsistent with mental greatness, and only partially redeemed by the equally incontestable presence of good temper and physical courage. However, opinions may differ as to physiognomy, and we therefore will not waste more words upon this subject.

As yet we have said nothing of Mr. Warburton's more immediate hero, Prince Rupert, having been naturally drawn aside in the first instance by the memory of that royal and saintly countenance, of which Mr. Warburton himself speaks so feelingly, as awakening his first heart's love even in his childish years. Let us now turn to the work before us, and pursue its progress cursorily, but with some attention, culling a few brilliant extracts to enliven our graver pages. The preface is modest and gentlemanly. In it Mr. Warburton says with truth of his princely hero, that "no person, perhaps, except his royal master, was ever more exposed to calumny, or less defended." Why did not Mr. Warburton keep this fact more strictly in view in the course of his subsequent biography? The account given of his authorities is extremely satisfactory, and attention is very naturally called to the important "Benett Collection," the main source of whatever new lights" Mr. Warburton has afforded us. The introductory chapter ensuing is well and clearly written, but throughout with too apparent a tendency to please all parties, and to

66

1 The Archbishop of Canterbury.

avoid the imputation of "cavaliership." Mr. Warburton's first sentence is characteristic. "The cause of the Cavaliers," he says, 66 was once the cause of half the men of England." (We should rather say of five-sixths of them.) "Fortunately for us, that cause was unsuccessful, yet not altogether lost: shorn by the parliament's keen sword of the despotic and false principle that disgraced it, its nobler and better elements survived, imparting firmer strength and a loftier tone to our constitution." Now here we must distinctly deny that any absolute principle, beyond the maintenance of order according to the established forms of Church and State, was held either by King Charles or his supporters generally. Mr. Warburton probably alludes to the unrestricted exercise of the royal prerogative; and this is, undoubtedly, too important a question to enter upon here parenthetically,—yet so much we may say: the king did not resolve on having recourse to arms until a mutinous minority of the Commons, which had illegally declared their house incapable of dissolution, had usurped all power, and called on the sovereign to resign even the semblance of authority into their "loyal hands." Is Mr. Warburton of opinion that the crown ought not to be one of the three branches of the legislature? If not, then let him read King Charles's own proclamations and declarations, undoubtedly penned by his own royal hands on the breaking out of the civil war, wherein he will find the nature of the British Constitution as well, if not better, expounded than it ever has been before or since. 66 Is," asked the indignant monarch, "the dignity, privilege, and freedom of Parliament (Parliament, whose wisdom and gravity have prepared so many wholesome laws, and whose freedom distinguishes the condition of our subjects from those of any monarchy in Europe) precious unto our people? Where was that freedom, and that privilege, when the House of Commons presumed to make laws without the House of Peers, as they did in their vote upon the protestation?" &c. &c. And again : "It is evident that no man can be moved with it (the Puritans' accusation), who doth not believe a dozen or twenty factious, seditious persons to be the High Court of Parliament, which consists of King, lords, and commons. And for the privileges of it (Parliament), whoever doth not believe, that to raise an army to murder or depose the King, to alter the whole frame of government and established laws of the lands, by extemporary extravagant votes of and resolutions of either or both houses, to force and compel the members to submit to the faction and treason of a few, and to take away the liberty and freedom of consultation from them,-be the privileges of Parliament,-he must confess that the army now raised by us is no less for the vindication and preservation of Parliaments than for our own