1644, throughout both the west and the north of England, all opposition to the king was nearly subdued. In February of that year, however, another Scottish army crossed the border, and on the 2nd of July, at Marston Moor, the royalists sustained a defeat from the combined Scottish and parliamentary forces, which proved a fatal blow to the king's affairs. The brilliant exploits of the Marquis of Montrose in Scotland, at the end of this year and the beginning of the next, were thrown away in the circumstances in which his royal master now was. At length, on the 14th of June, 1645, was fought the battle of Naseby, which may be said to have finished the war. On the 5th of May, 1646, Charles delivered himself up to the Scotch army encamped before Newark, who, on the 30th of January, 1647, gave him up to the commissioners of the English parliament. On the 3rd of June he was forcibly taken by Cornet Joyce out of the hands of the commissioners, and carried to the army then lying at Triplow Heath, and now in open rebellion against their old masters of the parliament. On the 16th of August he was brought by the army to Hampton Court, from which he made his escape on the 11th of November, and eventually sought refuge with Hammond, the parliamentary governor of the Isle of Wight. Here he was detained a close prisoner in Carisbrook Castle till the 30th of November, 1648, when he was seized by Colonel Ewer, and carried to Hurst Castle, on the opposite coast of Hampshire, by an order of the council of officers in the army. Meanwhile risings in his favour, which had been attempted in various parts of the kingdom, were all suppressed without difficulty by the now dominant army. An army in the Presbyterian interest, which was advancing from Scotland under the conduct of the Duke of Hamilton, was met on the 17th of August, at Langdale, near Preston, by Cromwell, who, after completely routing it, penetrated as far as Edinburgh, and reduced everything to subjection in that quarter. On the 6th of December, Colonel Pride took possession of the House of Commons, with a strong detachment of soldiers, and cleared it by force of all the

members, except the minority of about a hundred and fifty, who were in the Independent interest. On the 23rd the king was brought in custody to Windsor, and on the 15th of January, 1649, to St. James's. On the 20th, he was brought to trial in Westminster Hall, before what was designated the High Court of Justice. Sentence of death was pronounced against him on the 27th, and he was executed by decapitation, on a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall,

at two in the afternoon of the 30th.

Charles I. had eight children by Queen Henrietta, of whom six survived him; namely, Charles, Prince of Wales, and James, Duke of York, afterwards Kings of England; Henry, created, in 1659, Duke of Gloucester; Mary, married to William, Prince of Orange, by whom she became mother of William, afterwards King of England; Elizabeth, who died a prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, September 8th, 1650, in her fifteenth year; and Henrietta Maria, who married Philip, Duke of Orleans, from whom, through a daughter, is descended the Royal family of Sardinia.

The literary works attributed to King Charles have been collected and published under the title of Reliquiæ Sacræ Carolinæ.' A list of them may be found in Horace Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors.' They consist chiefly of letters and a few state papers, and of the famous Eikon Basilike,' which first appeared immediately after the death of the king; but his claim to the authorship of this work has been much disputed, and is now generally considered to have been disproved. His majesty, however, was master of an easy and occasionally forcible English style, and he was a great friend to the fine arts, which he encouraged in the early part of his reign.

The original authorities for the history of the reign of Charles I. are very numerous. Among those of greatest importance may be mentioned Rushworth's 'Historical Collections;' Whitelock's 'Memorials of English Affairs; Clarendon's History of the Grand Rebellion;' and May's History of the (Long) Parliament.' The

general reader will find a sufficiently ample detail of the events of the time in the histories of Rapin, Hume, and Lingard. The most important of the recent works on the reign of Charles I. are those of Brodie, Godwin, and D'Israeli. The subject of the authorship of the "Eikon Basilike' has been re-agitated of late by Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in a work in which he contends that the book was the production of King Charles.

THOMAS WENTWORTH, afterwards Earl of Strafford, was born in Chancery-lane, London, on the 13th of April, 1593. He was the eldest son of Sir William Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, in the county of York, where his family are said to have been settled since the time of the Conquest. His family was one of the most opulent as well as ancient of the class known in England under the name of gentry, and had frequently intermarried with the higher aristocracy. The estate which Wentworth inherited from his father was worth 60007. a year, a very large sum at that time, probably equal to more than three times the amount in the present day. ('Strafford's Letters and Dispatches,' vol. ii., pp. 105, 106, folio edition, London, 1739, and Dr. Knowler's Dedication, prefixed to them.) He received part of his education at St. John's College, Cambridge. În 1611 he married the Lady Margaret Clifford, the eldest daughter of Francis, earl of Cumberland.

The

accuracy of this date as that of his first marriage, given by his friend Sir George Radcliffe, appears to be established by a letter dated 11th January, 1611, from Sir Peter Frechevile to his father Sir William Wentworth ; although the compilers of his Life in the 'Biographia Britannica' have chosen, in direct opposition to the statement of Radcliffe, the old and intimate friend of Wentworth, to place his marriage after his return from the Continent, towards the end of 1612 (by the old mode of reckoning, according to which the legal year began on the 25th of March, but by the new about the beginning of 1613), instead of in 1611, before his going abroad.

The same letter also shows that he was from his early years of studious and regular habits. He appears to have taken almost as much pains as Cicero recommends for the education of an orator. Sir George Radcliffe informs us that the excellence possessed by him in speaking and writing he attained first by reading well-penned authors in French, English, and Latin, and observing their expressions; secondly, by hearing of eloquent men, which he did diligently in their sermons and public speeches; thirdly, by a very great care and industry, which he used when he was young in penning his epistles and missives of what subject soever; but above all, he had a natural quickness of wit and fancy, with great clearness of judgment, and much practice, without which his other helps of reading and hearing would not have brought him to that great perfection which he had obtained. "I learned one rule of him," adds Sir George, "which I think worthy to be remembered; when he met with a well-penned oration or tract upon any subject or question, he framed a speech upon the same argument, inventing and disposing what seemed fit to be said upon that subject before he read the book; then reading the book, compare his own with the author, and note his own defects, and the author's art and fullness; whereby he observed all that was in the author more strictly, and might better judge of his own wants to supply them." (Strafford's Letters and Dispatches,' vol. ii. p. 435.)

In some of Strafford's earlier letters, particularly those