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zeal and heat of that time was laid out on thesex. 50 His severity in the star-chamber and in the high commission court, but above all his violent and indeed inexcusable injustice in the prosecution of bishop Williams, were such visible blemishes, that nothing but the putting him to death in so unjust a manner could have raised his character; which indeed it did to a degree of setting him up as a pattern, and the establishing all his notions as standards, by which judgments are to be made of men, whether they are true to the church or not. His diary, though it was a base thing to publish it, represents him as an abject fawner on the duke of Buckingham, and as a superstitious regarder of dreams: his defence of himself, writ with so much care when he was in the Tower, is a very mean performance. He intended in that to make an appeal to the world. In most particulars he excuses himself by this, that he was but one of many, who either in council, star-chamber, or high commission, voted illegal things. Now though this was true, yet a chief minister, and one in high favour, determines the rest so much, that they are generally little better than machines acted by him. On other occasions he says, the thing was proved but by one witness. Now, how strong soever this defence may be in law, it is of no force in an appeal to the world; for if a thing is true, it is no matter how full or how defective the proof is. The thing that gave me the

x By no means. It was to introduce by degrees a spirit of decency and regularity in church matters, totally neglected by archbishop Abbot; to depress the growing spirit of

faction and sectarism; and to oppose a milder and more moderate mode of Christianity, by Arminianism, to the heats and fury of wild Calvinism. Cole.

strongest prejudice against him in that book is, that after he had seen the ill effects of his violent counsels, and had been so long shut up, and so long at leisure to reflect on what had passed in the hurry of passion in the exaltation of his prosperity, he does not, in any one part of that great work, acknowledge his own errors, nor mix in it any wise or pious reflections on the ill usage he met with, or the unhappy steps he had madez: so that while his enemies did really magnify him by their inhuman prosecution, his friends Heylin and Wharton have as much lessened him, the one by writing his life, and the other by publishing his vindication of himself.

count of

σιλική.

But the recoiling of cruel counsels on the authors The acof them never appeared more eminently than in the Eix Badeath of king Charles the first, whose serious and christian deportment in it made all his former errors be entirely forgot, and raised a compassionate regard to him, that drew a lasting hatred on the actors, and was the true occasion of the great turn of the nation in the year 1660. This was much heightened by the publishing of his book called Εἰκὼν Βασιλικὴ, which was universally believed to be his own and that coming out soon after his death had the greatest run in many impressions that any book has had in our age. There was in it a nobleness and justness of thought, with a greatness of 51 style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English languagea: and the piety of the prayers made all people cry out against the murder

y All this is full of malice ment. Cole. and ill judgment. S.

z It is likely he saw no reason to make such acknowledge

a I think it a poor treatise, and that the king did not write it. S.

of a prince, who thought so seriously of all his affairs in his secret meditations before God. I was bred up with a high veneration of this book: and I remember that, when I heard how some denied it to be his, I asked the earl of Lothian about it, who both knew the king very well, and loved him little he seemed confident it was his own work; for he said, he had heard him say a great many of those very periods that he found in that book. Being thus confirmed in that persuasion, I was not a little surprised, when in the year 1673, in which I had a great share of favour and free conversation with the then duke of York, afterwards king James the second, as he suffered me to talk very freely to him about matters of religion, and as I was urging him with somewhat out of his father's book, he told me that book was not of his father's writing, and that the letter to the prince of Wales was never brought to him. He said, Dr. Gawden writ it: after the restoration he brought the duke of Somerset and the earl of Southampton both to the king and to himself, who affirmed that they knew it was his writing; and that it was carried down by the earl of Southampton, and shewed the king during the treaty of Newport, who read it, and approved of it as containing his sense of things. Upon this he told me, that though Sheldon and the other bishops opposed Gawden's promotion, because he had taken the covenant, yet the merits of that service carried it for him, notwithstanding the opposition made to it. There has been a great deal of disputing about this book some are so zealous for maintaining it to be the king's, that they think a man false to the church that doubts it to be his: yet the evidence

since that time brought to the contrary has been so strong, that I must leave that under the same uncertainty under which I found it: only this is certain, that Gawden never writ any thing with that force, his other writings being such, that no man, from a likeness of style, would think him capable of writing so extraordinary a book as that is b.

treat with

Charles the

Upon the king's death the Scots proclaimed his The Scots son king, and sent over sir George Wincam, that king married my great aunt c, to treat with him while he second. was in the isle of Jersey. The king entered into a negociation with them, and sent him back with general assurances of consenting to every reasonable proposition that they should send him. He named the Hague for the place of treaty, he being to go thither in a few days. So the Scots sent over commissioners, the chief of whom were the earls of Cas-52 siles and Lothian, the former of these was my first wife's father, a man of great virtue and of a considerable degree of good understanding: [had it not

b Notwithstanding all that has been said or wrote upon this subject, whoever reads the book will plainly perceive that nobody but the king himself could write it: that Gawden might transcribe, and put it into the order it is in at present, and lord Southampton carry it to the king for his perusal and correction, is more than likely: but that Gawden should furnish the matter is utterly impossible. That king Charles the second or king James ever (never) approved of the contents, or had much veneration for their father's conduct or sentiments,

is not to be disputed: but the
duke of Somerset would readily
join in promoting Gawden for
the share they knew he had in
publishing a book so much to
the honour of their old master,
for whom they always profess-
ed the highest respect and duty.
This I know, that my grandfa-
ther, who was many years of his
bedchamber, and well known
to have been much trusted by
him, always looked upon it to
be authentic, and prized it ac-
cordingly. D.

c Was that the reason he
was sent ? S.

Montrose's offers.

been spoiled with many affectations, and an obstinate stiffness in almost every thing that he did :] he was so sincere, that he would suffer no man to take his words in any other sense than as he meant them he adhered firmly to his instructions, but with so much candour, that king Charles retained very kind impressions of it to his life's end. The man then in the greatest favour with the king was the duke of Buckingham: he was wholly turned to mirth and pleasure: he had the art of turning persons or things into ridicule beyond any man of the age: he possessed the young king with very ill principles, both as to religion and morality, and with a very mean opinon of his father, whose stiffness was with him a frequent subject of raillery. He prevailed with the king to enter into a treaty with the Scots, though that was vehemently opposed by almost all the rest that were about him, who pressed him to adhere steadily to his father's maxims and example d

When the king came to the Hague, William duke of Hamilton, and the earl of Lauderdale, who had left Scotland, entered into a great measure of favour and confidence with him. The marquis of Montrose came likewise to him, and undertook, if he would follow his counsels, to restore him to his kingdoms by main force: but when the king desired the prince of Orange to examine the methods which he proposed, he entertained him with a recital of his own performances, and of the credit he was in

d (This unprincipled nobleman is said to have betrayed the king in Scotland, and to have given Cromwell information of his counsels; which

though it came to the king's
knowledge, was excused in this
companion of his debauches.
See Pepys's Diary, lately pub-
lished, vol. II.
p. 24.)

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