former parliaments and English kings is extremely acute and valuable. In the Maxims of State, a short treatise, not written, like the one last mentioned, to serve an immediate purpose, Raleigh's naturally honest and noble nature asserts itself. In this he explicitly rejects all the immoral suggestions of Machiavel, and lays down none but sound and enlightened principles for the conduct of governments. Thus, among the maxims to be observed by an hereditary sovereign, we read the following:

15. To observe the laws of his country, and not to encounter them with his prerogative, nor to use it at all where there is a law, for that it maketh a secret and just grudge in the people's hearts, especially if it tend to take from them their commodities, and to bestow them upon other of his courtiers and ministers.

It would have been well for Charles I. if he had laid this maxim to heart before attempting to levy ship-money. Again:

17. To be moderate in his taxes and impositions; and when need doth require to use the subjects' purse, to do it by parliament, and with their consents, making the cause apparent to them, and showing his unwillingness in charging them. Finally, so to use it that it may seem rather an offer from his subjects than an exaction by him.

A political essay, entitled The Cabinet Council, was left by Raleigh in manuscript at his death, and came into the hands of Milton, by whom it was published with a short preface. Though acute and shrewd, like all that came from the same hand, this treatise is less interesting than those already mentioned, because it enters little into the consideration of general causes, but consists mainly of practical maxims, suited to that age, for the use of statesmen and commanders.

Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) was the attempt of an intelligent and humane man to convince his countrymen of the large part which imposture played in the annals of witchcraft, and of the cruelty and absurdity of the treatment often dealt out to the witches.

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CHAPTER IV.

CIVIL WAR PERIOD.

1625-1700.

1. THE literature of this period will be better understood after a brief explanation has been given of the political changes which attended the fall, restoration, and ultimate expulsion of the Stuart dynasty.

The Puritan party, whose proceedings and opinions in the two preceding reigns have been already noticed, continued to grow in importance, and demanded with increasing loudness a reform in the Church establishment. They were met at first by a bigotry at least equal, and a power superior, to their own. Archbishop Laud, who presided in the High Commission Court,' had taken for his motto the word 'Thorough,' and had persuaded himself that only by a system of severity could conformity to the established religion be enforced. Those who wrote against, or even impugned in conversation, the doctrine, discipline, or government of the Church of England, were brought before the High Commission Court and heavily fined; and a repetition of the offence, particularly if any expressions were used out of which a seditious meaning could be extracted, frequently led to an indictment of the offender in the Star Chamber (in which also Laud had a seat), and to his imprisonment and mutilation by order of that iniquitous tribunal. Thus Prynne, a lawyer, Bastwick, a physician, and Burton, a clergyman, after having run the gauntlet of the High Commission Court, and been there sentenced to suspension from the practice of their professions, fined, imprisoned, and excommunicated, were in 1632 summoned before the Star Chamber, and sentenced to stand in the pillory, to lose their ears, and be imprisoned for life. In 1633 Leighton, father of the eminent Archbishop Leighton, was by the same court sentenced to be publicly whipped, to lose both ears, to have his nostrils slit, to

1 Established by Queen Elizabeth to try ecclesiastical offences.

be branded on both cheeks, and imprisoned for life. In all these cases the offence was of the same kind;-the publication of some book or tract, generally couched, it must be admitted, in scurrilous and inflammatory language, assailing the government of the Church by bishops, or the Church liturgy and ceremonies, or some of the common popular amusements, such as dancing and playgoing, to which these fanatics imputed most of the vice which corrupted society.

In

To these ecclesiastical grievances Charles I. took care to add political. By his levies of ship-money, and of tonnage and poundage, by his stretches of the prerogative,-by his long delay in convoking the Parliament, and many other illegal or irritating proceedings, he estranged most of the leading politicians, the Pyms, Hampdens, Seldens, and Hydes,-just as by supporting Laud he estranged the commercial and burgher classes, among whom Puritanism had its stronghold. November 1640 the famous Long Parliament met; the quarrel became too envenomed to be composed otherwise than by recourse to arms; and in 1642 the civil war broke out. Gradually the conduct of the war passed out of the hands of the more numerous section of the Puritan party-the Presbyterians -into those of a section hitherto obscure-the Independents -who were supported by the genius of Milton and Cromwell. This sect originally bore the name of Brownists, from their founder, Robert Browne (1549-1630): they went beyond the moderate Puritans in regarding conformity to the Establishment as a sin, and therefore forming, in defiance of the law, separate congregations. But their later writers, such as Milton and Owen, compensated for this indomitable sectarianism by maintaining the doctrine of toleration; against the Presbyterians they argued that the civil magistrate had no right to force the consciences of individuals. They took care, indeed, to make one exception; there was to be no toleration for the Roman Catholic worship. As for what you mention about liberty of conscience,' said Cromwell to the delegates from Ross, I meddle not with any man's conscience. But if by liberty of conscience you mean a liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know, where the Parliament of England have power, that will not be permitted.'1 Still it was a great thing to have the principle once boldly asserted and partially applied; for Catholics as well as others were sure to benefit sooner or later from its extension.

6

2. In the civil war, the clergy, four-fifths of the aristocracy 1 See Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell.

and landed gentry, with the rural population depending on them, and some few cities, adhered to the King. The poets, wits, and artists, between whom and Puritanism a kind of natural enmity subsisted, sought, with few exceptions, the royal camp, where they were probably more noisy than serviceable. On the other hand, the Parliament was supported by the great middle class, and by the yeomen or small landed proprietors. It had at first but one poet (Wither was then a royalist), but that one was John Milton.

The King's cause became hopeless after the defeat of Naseby in 1645; and after a lengthened imprisonment he was brought to the block by the army and the Independents, ostensibly as a traitor and malefactor against his people; really, because, while he lived, the revolutionary leaders could never feel secure. There is a significant query in one of Cromwell's letters, written in 1648, whether "Salus populi summa lex" be not a sound maxim.'

.

But before the fatal window in Whitehall the reaction in the public sentiment and conscience commenced. Cromwell, indeed, carried on the government with consummate ability and vigour; but after all he represented only his own stern genius, and the victorious army which he had created; and when he died, and in the rivalries of his generals the power of that army was neutralised, England, by a kind of irresistible gravitation, returned to that position of defined and prescriptive freedom which had been elaborated during the long course of the middle ages.

2a. To this result a little book largely contributed, the Eikon Basilike, or kingly image.' Issuing from the press on the day (January 31, 1649) after the execution of Charles I., and professing to be The Pourtraicture of his sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings,' drawn by his own hand, it instantly obtained a wide circulation, and awakened on all sides an intense sympathy and sorrow, which, when the question came on of restoring to the throne the son of the sufferer, became a political factor of great power. In the first edition' the book is in twenty-seven chapters, followed by a separate paper headed Meditations upon Death. The first chapter is Upon His Majesty's calling this last Parliament,' i.e., the Parliament which met in October 1640. The second is on Strafford's execution; the third on the affair of the Five Members; the fourth on the Insolency of the Tumults,' referring to the disturbances in London in the winter of 1641-2.

1 There is a copy of this first edition in the Bodleian. On the title page, after the Latin motto, appears only the date MDCXLVIII.,' whereas in other editions, printed during the two months after the king's execution, are the words Reprinted in R. M. [regis memoriam] An. Dom. 1648.' (See a Reprint of this first edition with an Introduction by Mr. E. Scott, of the Brit. Mus., 1880.)

The seventh is Upon the Queen's departure and absence out of England; ' the eighth, on the fate of the Hothams. The other chapters deal with various occurrences in the Civil War in which the king was concerned, up to the 27th and last, which is addressed To the Prince of Wales.' In each chapter Charles, (assuming him to be the author), first discusses the facts, justifying or blaming his own or others' conduct in regard to them, and then subjoins a prayer, such as would easily be suggested to a man of a religious temper by the preceding considerations.

It is well known that the authorship of this book has been vehemently disputed from time to time. A certain Dr. John Gauden, a Cambridge man-a time-serving person who, for a sermon preached to the House of Commons, in November 1640, against images and other 'superstitions of popery,' had been installed in the living of Bocking, and then privately obtained institution of it from Laud, the patron,-is believed by many to have written the book. Writing to Lord Clarendon in January 1661, to urge his claim to a good (i.c., a lucrative) bishopric, Gauden specified, as the invaluable and unique service which he had rendered to the royal cause, that he was the author of Eikon Basilike. The book and figure [frontispiece], he says, 'was wholly and only my invention, making, and designe, in order to vindicate the king's wisdom,' &c. Clarendon long delayed to reply; at last he wrote that he should treat Gauden's communication as a secret, that he wished he had never heard it, and thought, if it became public, no one but Mr. Milton' would be glad of it. Gauden died in 1662. His widow, who survived him some years, left a written statement behind her, giving a circumstantial narrative of her husband's connection with the Eikon, of which she declared him to be the sole author. This narrative came to light about 1690, and gave occasion for a paper war, lasting some twenty years. The matter was again keenly debated about forty years ago, when Dr. Wordsworth wrote Tracts on the Ikon Basilike, to prove the royal authorship, and was answered by Todd and others.

The external evidence which has been produced on one side or the other is far too complicated and voluminous for examination in these pages. I can only say that, being unconscious of any prior bent, I have myself arrived, after considerable study of the matter, at the following conclusions:

1. That Gauden was not a truthful man. A notable instance is his having written to the King, about the beginning of 1662, that he had told the secret to none but him and his brother, while, in fact, as we have seen, he had told it the year before to Clarendon (Clarendon Papers).

2. That not one of the five witnesses, named either by Gauden or his wife as persons who knew and could attest the truth of his story, appears ever to have actually confirmed it. One of them, indeed, Bishop Morley, is said to have expressed in 1674 the contrary belief (Church Quarterly Review, vol. vii.)

3. That a considerable body of evidence has been adduced to show, that the earlier chapters of the Eikon were composed by the king before the battle of Naseby (June 1645), taken by the enemy among other papers in his cabinet on that field, and restored to him soon afterwards on an application being made to Fairfax. Now Gauden's story is to the effect that he did not begin to busy himself with the composition of the Eikon before 1647.