164 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA. In the Crowle Pennant, in the British Museum, is a German print representing the Queen kneeling in penance, the chaplets in her hands, and praying beneath the triple tree, this being the oldest existing representation in existence of the Tyburn gallows. It is moonlight, and the confessor is seated in the coach, which is drawn by six horses; at the coach-door is a servant bearing a torch. The print is of later date than the year of the reputed penance, 1628; but it is considered by printcollectors as untrustworthy as the story itself. The ill-behaviour of the French that the Queen brought over with her, occasioned Charles the First to write the following letters to the Duke of Buckingham, which are copied from the originals in the British Museum : "Steenie,-I write to you by Ned Clarke, that I thought I would here cause enufe in short tyme to put away the Monsers (his wife's French servants and dependants), either by attempting to steal away my wife, or by making plots amongst my own subjects. I cannot say certainlie whether it was intended, but I am sure it is hindered. For the other, though I have good grounds to belife it, and am still hunting after it, yet seeing dailie the Malitiousness of the Monsers, by making and fomenting discontents in my wyfe, I could tarie no longer from adverticing of you, that I mean to seek of no other grounds to casier (cashier) my Monsers, having for this purpose sent you this other letter, that you may if you think good advertise the queene (Mary of Medicis, widow of Henry the Fourth,) mother with my intention. "So I rest, "Your faithful constant loving friende, "Charles R." "Steenie,-I have received your letter by Dic Greme: this is my answer-I command you to send all the French away to-morrow, out of the town, if you can by fayre means (but stike not long in disputing), otherwise force them away lyke so many wyld beastes, until ye have shipped them, and so the devil goe with them. Lett me hear no answer, but of the performance of my command. "Your faithfull constant loving friende, "So I rest, "Charles R. Howell, in a letter dated March 15, 1626, says:—"The French that came over with her Majesty, for their petulancies and some misdemeanors, and imposing some odd penances upon the Queen, are all cashiered this week. It was a thing suddenly done; for about one of the clock, as they were at dinner, my Lord Conway and Sir Thomas Edmondes, came with an order from the King, that they must instantly away to Somerset House, for there were barges and coaches staying for them, and there they should have all their wages paid them to a penny, and so they must be content to quit the kingdom. This sudden, "THE SADDLE LETTER.” 165 undreamed-of order struck an astonishment into them all, both men and women; and running to complain to the Queen, his Majesty had taken her beforehand into his bedchamber, and locked the door upon them till he had told her how matters stood. The Queen fell into a violent passion, broke the glass window, and tore her hair, but she was cooled afterwards. Just such a destiny happened in France some years since to the Queen's Spanish servants there, who were all dismissed in like manner for some miscarriages. The like was done in Spain to the French, therefore 'tis no new thing." THE SADDLE LETTER AND CHARLES I. The long-known George and Blue Boar Inn, Holborn, which was taken down in 1864, for the site of the Inns of Court Hotel, is associated with a legendary tale, according to which here was intercepted a letter of Charles I., by which Ireton discovered it to be the King's intention to destroy him and Cromwell, which discovery brought about Charles's execution. In the Earl of Orrery's Letters we read: "While Cromwell was meditating how he could best come in with Charles, one of his spies of the King's bedchamber-informed him that his final doom was decreed, and that what it was might be found out by intercepting a letter sent from the King to the Queen (Henrietta Maria), wherein he declared what he would do. The letter, he said, was sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and the bearer of it would come with the saddle upon his head, that night, to the Blue Boar Inn, in Holborn ; for there he was to take horse and go to Dover with it. This messenger knew nothing of the letter in the saddle; but some persons at Dover did. Cromwell and Ireton, disguised as troopers, taking with them a trusty fellow, went to the Inn in Holborn; and this man watched at the wicket, and the troopers continued drinking beer till about ten o'clock, when the sentinel at the gate gave notice that the man with the saddle was come in. Up they got, and, as the man was leading out his horse saddled, they, with drawn swords, declared that they were to search all who went in and out there; but, as he looked like an honest man, they would only search his saddle. Upon this they ungirt the saddle and carried it into the stall where they had been drinking, and left the horseman with the sentinel; then, ripping up one of the skirts of the saddle, they found the letter, and gave back the saddle to the man, who, not knowing what he had done, went away to Dover. They then opened the letter, in which the King told the Queen that he thought he should close with the Scots. Cromwell and Ireton then took horse and went to Windsor; and, finding they were not likely to have any tolerable terms with the King, they immediately from that time forward resolved his ruin." " * For some notice of this veritable historical hoax of "The Saddle Letter,' see D'Israeli, Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First, v. 323. See also the Gentleman's Magazine, xxii. 204. Notes and Queries, 3rd series, iv. 410-7. 166 THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS PARLIAMENT, 1641. The importance of the Grand Remonstrance has not been adequately acknowledged by the ordinary historians of the Long Parliament. After the impeachment against Strafford had been carried, the Parliament found themselves in considerable danger from the lukewarmness and desertions which are almost always the consequences of success. A reaction set in against them, which in its consequences might have been most dangerous. They had to dread, on the one side, the effect of the ad captandum measures which Hyde was urging the King to bring forward, and on the other the employment of open force to disperse them -a possibility which was by no means too remote to cause anxious consideration. Under these circumstances, they resolved to embody in a document, to be published to all the world, their account of the grievances under which they had found the nation labouring, and of the steps which they had taken to redress them. "Declaration and Remonstrance intended to effect this purpose was first submitted for discussion on the 8th of November, and the debates on it continued with little intermission till the 15th of December. The Remonstrance consisted of no less than 206 articles. The great debate of all took place on the 22nd of November. The House met at ten in the morning, and the debate continued without intermission till one on the following morning. According to Clarendon, the members in favour of the Remonstrance "said very little, nor answered any reasons that were alleged to the contrary, but still called for the question, presuming their number if not their reason would serve to carry it, and after two o'clock of the morning, when many had gone home," &c. It now appears that Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Pym, and Hampden, all spoke in favour of it, as well as Denzil Holles, and Serjeant Glyn, and that hardly any one went home, inasmuch as 307 members voted on the great division, whilst only 308 and 310 voted on preceding ones on minor points. After the Remonstrance was carried, it was moved that it should be printed, and this excited a debate of a still more violent character than the motion that it should pass. It ended in the most extraordinary scene that ever occurred in Parliament. Several of the members that were in the king's intercst, in pursuance of what is now proved, by a letter from Secretary Nicholas to the King, to have been a set design, claimed a right to protest against the vote of the House; and thereupon Mr. Geoffrey Palmer, who at the Restoration became Attorney-General, in the excitement of the moment declared that he did "protest for himself and all the rest." The members of his party thereupon broke into the wildest excitement. All! all!" says D'Ewes, was cried from side to side, and some waved their hats over their heads, and others took their swords in the scabbards out of their belts, and held them by the pummels in their hands, setting the lower part on the ground, so as, if God had not prevented it, there was very great danger that mischief might have been done." With great tact Hampden interfered, by asking Palmer how he could answer 66 MARTYRDOM OF KING CHARLES I. 167 for those (of whom there might be many) who disapproved of the printing, but approved of the Remonstrance? His reply to the question gave time for the House to collect itself a little, and it adjourned at two in the morning, after deferring the question of the printing till another occasion. It is very curious to contrast this, the very extreme of violence into which the House of Commons was ever hurried, with the scenes which so frequently and so deeply disgraced the sittings of the various representative Assemblies of France.—(Saturday Review.) The attempted Arrest of the Five Members of the House of Commons followed on the 4th of January, 1641-2, and then began our Great Civil War. MARTYRDOM OF KING CHARLES I. This "Anniversary" of English history is one of the darkest, the deepest, and most impressive of any age or time; the death of Charles the First has a monumental record in our metropolis, and more than a monumental record in the heart of posterity and the memories of reading men. There are few subjects in English history-isolated by their peculiar beauty and absorbing interest, from all meaner incidents-more noble in spirit, more touching in remembrance, more forcible in impression, and more absolutely appealing by their character to the imagination and very soul of the painter, than this of the last moments of the fated Monarch. The associations which crowd themselves into the memory with the characters which form the grouping of the scene-the recollection of events which immediately preceded it in the awful drama of the times-the shadows of a dark history passing in pageantry before the mind, with strange contrasted forms of rebellion and fidelity, of courage and cowardice, of virtue and treachery, of piety and blasphemy, of grace, loveliness, affection, with selfishness, ferocity, and ambition: all the bad and good elements of humanity, in short, brought strikingly into play-these thoughts and memories, blending with the full inspiring awe and interest of the scene itself, lend it a pervading fervour and a deepened charm, and invest it with a sublime poetry that weaves its intense beauty not more in the grand reality of the breathing picture, than in the visions and aspirations of the gazer's mind. The subject, too, possesses an universality, for the history of the death of Charles is one familiar to the ear of the world. It was a life-sacrifice extorted by the rage of a people, and given by its victim without shame or fear. Charles was, indeed, perhaps more a king upon the scaffold than in any other contingency of his disturbed, unpeaceful life His countenance was described by the poets and historians of that and after times as wearing a look of resignation most dignified and serene: No storm in his human heart, No strife upon his brow, Where calmness, like a patient child, Seems the meek Monarch, as like one Whose gentle spirit sings 168 LAST WORDS OF CHARLES I. Its song of solace to the soul Before it spreads its wings! Yet that serenest heavenly look Fall only with the King: And Charles's calm, unquailing eye Shames all who thought he feared to die! The above grand crisis of morals, religion, and government is yet but imperfectly understood, notwithstanding so many books have been written and published in illustration of it. Coleridge attributes this labour lost to the want of genius or imagination in these works: "Not one of their authors seems to be able to throw himself back into that age: if they did, there would be less praise and less blame bestowed on both sides." LAST WORDS OF CHARLES I. Mr. Hargrave Jennings (Notes and Queries, second series, x.) has called attention to the solemn word, "Remember," the last word which Charles uttered on the scaffold; it was addressed to Bishop Juxon. Impressed by the King's manner when he was pronouncing the word, and suspicious of what the communication should be-also actuated by some arousing private curiosity independently of any political significance to be attached to it-the officers on duty, in the first instance, and the Commissioners of the Commons afterwards, insisted on Bishop Juxon declaring what the impartment was which the king made. He only told his questioners that the king's last words were meant as a message to his son, and that the private communication, and the word "Remember," enforcing it, were only to enjoin forgiveness of his enemies, by his son, in the future time. Those who had questioned Juxon seemed to have been content with this answer. Mr. Jennings is not satisfied that nothing lay under this solemn adjuration. "The words of the historian are: Charles, having taken off his cloak, delivered his 'George' to the prelate, pronouncing the word 'Remember!' In that awful moment the last opportunity for any farther dealing on earth-when the unfortunate Charles was literally bidding adieu to the world, and standing in the presence of the Angel of Death, with, as it were, the light of the other world disclosing upon his figure, he almost seeming to have ceased to have aught to do with this state of things, Mr. Jennings thinks it not likely-nor, in the nature of probabilities, is it to be believed that he was merely giving utterance to a common-place expression of general, unexalted forgiveness; and he |
