Grisman's (a printer employed by Royston) press. One of these apprentices-James Clifford by name-had already been, as he expresses it, 'an actuary' in several 'things published by King Charles,' particularly the letter between him and Mr. Alexander Henderson, who endeavoured to persuade the King to favour the Presbyterian Government. By a curious coincidence he had also printed one of Dr. Gauden's tracts, The Religious and Loyal Protestation, and this circumstance gives additional weight to his assertion that

'Dr. Gauden was never concerned in that copy of the Icon from which he printed it, and that they had no part of the copy from Dr. Walker.' 'And withal,' he adds, 'I do declare that the King, for fear the original should miscarry, ordered Mr. Oudart, secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas, Principal Secretary of State, to transcribe it, and lodged the original in the Lord Marquis of Hertford's hands; and by the copy of Mr. Oudart Mr. Milbourn and myself (it being the way of livelihood I took to, being turned out of Magdalen College, in Oxford, for my loyalty) did print the said book; after the printing of which a great part was seized in Mr. Symmons's lodgings.'

The original copy, in the King's own hand, for which he had himself designed and executed a frontispiece with appropriate mottoes, was afterwards presented by the King to Mr. Symmons, taken by Mr. Symmons to Mr. Dugard's press, and there printed. The corrector of the press-or, to use his own words, the 'peruser of the royal original'-Dr. Edward Hooker, 'further testifieth that Mr. Dugard having thus printed the book, and it coming to be known, he was thrown into prison and turned out of the Merchant Taylors' School; and Mr. Hooker went to travel for several years.'

Several copies were printed and distributed by Mr. Symmons among his friends at Fowey. 'I have seen,' says Mr. Young, 'several of these books so sent, and have heard divers worthy inhabitants of that loyal corporation affirm what I say. Two or three are still living." The active share taken by Mr. Symmons in the printing and publication of the book exposed him to imminent peril. He fled for his life to France, was apprehended at Gravesend and placed in custody, but before his examination he caught the small-pox and died (March 29, 1649). After his death

repeated attempts were made,' we read, 'upon Mrs. Symmons, both by threats and promises, to induce her to say on the authority of her husband that the book was not the King's; but she continued firm, and many years afterwards, to persons on each side of the contro

1 Young's Several Evidences, p. 16.

versy, she gave numerous and distinct accounts, all concurring with one another, and declared that her husband lived and died persisting (what she herself also firmly believed) that the book was the King's.'

Such is a rapid sketch of the origin and history of the Icon Basilikè, supported by the testimony of living witnesses whose eyes had seen the ink of the royal handwriting not yet dry upon the page, whose ears had heard the King speak many of the paragraphs as they now appear in the book. They are the links which form an unbroken chain of evidence from the moment when the King first conceived the idea of the book to the day of his murder, when it was published and placed in the hands of the people. These testimonies, though numerous, from all parts of the kingdom, agree together; they are direct and certain; most of them are attested by the hand and seal of one or two witnesses. They do not spring only from the Royalist side; those which bear most directly upon the case are supplied by the King's enemiesthe officer who routed his cavalry at Naseby, the major of Cromwell's own regiment of horse, the commissioner appointed by the Parliament to examine the royal papers, the governor of Carisbrook Castle while the King was a captive within its walls. The only direct evidence upon which Gauden's claim may be said to rest is that of his wife and his curate, Dr. Walker, testimonies which, it has been seen, conflict with each other and are full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Not one of the witnesses on whom they rely to support this claim can be proved to have ever opened their lips upon the subject. Two of these-Lord Hertford and Bishop Morley-give direct evidence on the opposite side. To Lord Hertford's keeping the original manuscript, in the King's own hand, was entrusted; Bishop Morley with his dying breath sends an emphatic message to Lord Clarendon that the book was written by the King, and by him alone. A third-Lord Capel-is proved to have been in strict imprisonment at the time, and could, therefore, not have been communicated with at all. Lastly, Gifford, the curate cited by Dr. Walker, delivers his opinion on a most solemn occasion that the book was written by the King, and his name suggests a saying of Mrs. Gauden condemning in the strongest terms the fraud practised by her husband in the matter. It only remains to speak of what has been called the 'internal evidence.' If there were no external evidence to be produced on either side, the King's claims to the authorship of the book might very well rest upon the internal evidence alone. To borrow the words of Hume

'These meditations resemble, in elegance, purity, neatness, and simplicity, the genius of those performances which we know with certainty to have flowed from the royal pen, but are so unlike the bombast, perplexed, rhetorical, and corrupt style of Dr. Gauden, to whom they are ascribed, that no human testimony seems sufficient to convince us that he was the author. Yet all the evidences which would rob the King of that honour tend to prove that Dr. Gauden had the merit of writing so fine a performance and the infamy of imposing it on the world as the King's.'1

Persons contemporary with the publication of the Icon Basilikè aver that not only no man but King Charles could have written the book, but that the King himself could not have written it had he not been in trouble and suffering. If we consider it as a private book of devotion, we find a sincerity and depth of religious thought, a fervour of expression, which make it well-nigh impossible to believe that these meditations should not have sprung from the soul of the person who utters them. Again, the exactness of the personal application argues a perfect knowledge of those secrets of the inmost heart which are open to none but the individual himself and his God.

As a history of the King in his public capacity there is no record, not even that of Clarendon, which gives us a better opportunity of studying the minute details of his policy and the motives by which it was prompted. As a literary composition, it has been questioned whether the King was capable of arranging these fragments of autobiography in so clear and concise a manner, and of describing them in a style at once so simple and majestic. To this we may answer that the composition, when it first appeared as the King's work, excited no surprise in the minds of those who were best able to judge of his capabilities in this matter-Sir Edward Hyde and the Secretary of State Sir Edward Nicholas. They were indeed full of admiration, but surprise, much less distrust, never entered their thoughts. Sir Edward Nicholas calls it 'the most exquisite, pious, and princely piece I ever read; '2 Sir Edward Hyde, the immortal monument he hath left behind him.'3 And many a reference to the private letters of these and others of the King's friends and ministers will prove that, while they often bewail the errors of his policy, their confidence in his moral and intellectual abilities remains to the last unshaken. The high opinion of the King's capacities was not

1 Hume, Hist. of England, vol. vii. p. 154.

2 Carte's Ormond Letters, vol. i. p. 226.

3 Clarendon Papers, vol. ii. p. 480, April 12, 1649, quoted in Tracts on the Icon Basilikè,' pp. 228-9.

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confined to the Royalists alone. Whitelock speaks of 'his great parts and abilities, strength of reason, and quickness of apprehension.' Sir Henry Vane complains that they have been much deceived in his Majesty, who was represented to them as a weak person, but that they found him a person of great parts and abilities.' Cromwell, it is known, observed that had the King followed his own judgment he would have 'fooled them all. If we examine the twenty-eight chapters of which the book is composed, we shall find that in each and all of these chapters the King first appears in his public character as a monarch speaking to his people, and secondly as a private individual, examining in all humility and penitence his motives and actions, with a view to the strict account that he must one day render to his Maker. It records, it is hardly necessary to say, the chief events which occurred between the years 1640-8 of his reign. The first seven chapters treat of those which immediately preceded the civil war.

(1) The summoning of the last Parliament. (2) The death of Strafford. Here we read in every sentence the bitter repentance of the King, springing from the depths of his soul; nor could any hand but his own have traced the painful fluctuations of his mind between 'my own unsatisfiedness in conscience and a necessitie (as some told mee) of satisfying the importunities of some people,' till I was perswaded by those that I think wished mee well to chuse rather what was safe than what seemed just, preferring the outward peace of my kingdom with men before that inward exactness of conscience with God.' We also find there the tribute to the one person (Juxon) who counselled mee not to consent against the voice of my conscience.' And if we compare this chapter with the King's private letters to Strafford, we shall see that both open in the same manner. 'I never met with a more unhappy conjuncture of affairs than in the business of this unfortunate Earl,' says the Icon. 'Strafford,' the letter begins, 'The misfortune that is fallen upon you by the strange mistaking and conjuncture of these times,' &c. And many points of resemblance similar to this are to be discovered throughout the two compositions. (3) His Majesty's going to the House of Commons to demand justice on the five members. (4) The insolence of the tumults. (5) The passing of the Bill for the Triennial Parliaments. (6) His retirement from Westminster, the date, as we have seen, when he first 'set his hand to paper to vindicate his innocence.' (7) The Queen's departure out of England, one of the most beautiful chapters in the book.

1 Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. ii. p. 12.

So far the Icon Basilikè had advanced when it was lost on the field of Naseby. After that time, on its being restored to the King, he added from time to time twenty-one more chapters, often revising and transcribing the whole during the enforced leisure of his captivity, during which transcriptions it is easy to understand that insertions were made in the previous chapters.' It concludes with meditations upon death, after the votes of non-addresses and his closer imprisonment in Carisbrook Castle.

It may be interesting, before taking leave of this autobiography, perhaps the most interesting of its kind that was ever written, to describe the external aspect of a copy of one of the earliest (1648) editions of the book. This copy, now in the hands of the writer, is a small duodecimo volume, bound in dark brown calf, with the royal initials surmounted by a crown on either side.2 The frontispiece, common to this and all subsequent editions, was designed and executed, according to Mr. Symmons, by the King's own hand. The mottoes were for the most part his choice also, with the exception of two or three added by Mr. Edward Hooker, the corrector of the press, and William Marshall, the engraver. The copy of verses which is placed beneath the engraving bears the signature 'G. D.,' not signifying, as the advocates of Gauden's claim have endeavoured to assert, Gauden designed' or 'Gauden, Dean,' but 'Guglielmus Dugardus,' the author of the verses, the learned printer and master of the Merchant Taylors' School, who was utterly ruined at the time for the part he took in printing the King's book.

The comparison between the chapter on Strafford and the King's letter to that unfortunate nobleman has been quoted as an instance of the individual pieces of internal evidence which help to prove the authenticity of the King's book. We will only select one more out of the numerous testimonies which might be cited of this class. It was a constant habit with the King to write in his books and papers short sentences in Latin and other languages. A certain copy of verses called Majesty in Misery: an Imploration to the King of Kings, well known to be written by King Charles

1 This remark, however obvious, is not unimportant, inasmuch as objections have been raised to the possibility of the earlier chapters having been written before Naseby fight, on the ground of their containing references to subsequent transactions.

2 The title-page still bears the name of 'Dr. Hewett,' showing that the copy must at one time have belonged to 'that excellent preacher and holy man,' as he is called by Evelyn in his Diary (p. 257.) Dr. Hewett perished on the scaffold in 1648, the last martyr to the Royal cause.