King Edward III., with a great curtain before it, 47.

A Portrait of Buchanan, 31. 10s.

Queen Elizabeth, in her robes, 17.

The Queen Mother, in mourning, 31.

The King, when a Boy, 27.

Picture of the Queen, when with child, 5s.

The valuable collection of coins sold, on the average, at about a shilling a-piece. The pictures, together with the furniture of nineteen' palaces which had belonged to Charles, and the remains of the jewels and plate which had not been already sold for the maintenance of the royal cause, fetched the comparatively trifling sum of one hundred and eighteen thousand and eighty pounds, ten shillings, and sixpence.

It has been remarked as a singular circumstance, that a sale so magnificent, and so extensive as to occupy three years in its accomplishment, should have failed in exciting a greater degree of attention in foreign princes. This apathy, however, may in some degree have originated in feelings of delicacy. Lord Clarendon mentions, incidentally, that some of the king's pictures, as well as the rich furni

' Granger incidentally mentions the number of the king's palaces as twenty-four. Including the old Scotch palaces they probably amounted to even more than this number.

* One remarkable relic escaped the cupidity of the Parliament. This was a splendid collar of the Order of the Garter set alternately with ballast rubies and pearls. It had long been an heirloom of the Crown of England, but had recently been sold by the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Holland “beyond the seas," by order of Charles I.— Rymer's Fœdera.

ture of his palaces, were privately purchased by the Spanish envoys for their master. The unsettled state of the public mind in England may account for the want of taste displayed in our own country upon this melancholy occasion. Those who had the mind to appreciate, and the power to purchase, had been displaced by those who had neither. It may here be remarked that some idle toys, obtained probably for the amusement of Henrietta, or the decoration of her apartments, were purchased at large prices, while, as we have already seen, the works of the first artists were valued at sums which, in these days, would scarcely exceed the annual interest of their purchasemoney.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARLES I.

Charles at the Battle of Naseby - His Flight from OxfordHis Arrival at Newark, and Ungracious Reception by the Scottish Army-Treachery of the Scots-Imprisonment of Charles at Holmby - His Amusements There - Charles and Major Bosville - The King Is Denied All Intercourse with the Ministers of His Own Church, and Deprived of His Attendants His Health and Diet-Insolence of Cornet Joyce Removal of the King from Holmby - His Reception at Childerley - Professions of Fidelity by Cromwell and Fairfax - Charles's Arrival at His Palace at NewmarketFreed from the Annoying Attentions of Joyce - The King's Interview with His Children - The Bowling-green at Whitchurch -Arrival of Charles at Hampton Court - His Court There Secret Compact between Him and Cromwell - Morrice's Story of the Letter in the Saddle- Interview at Sion House between Charles and His Children - His Advice to Them.

FORTUNATELY for ourselves, as well as for the reputation of Charles, it is on the story of his private, and not of his public life on the details of his social virtues, and not on his political delinquencies which it is our province to dwell. Charles the First as king, and Charles the First as a private individual, rise before us as two distinct beings. We despise the one, while we almost reverence the other.

Let us then hurry over the political history,

and the more stirring events, of the reign of Charles. His contests with the House of Commons; his vexatious and illegal levies on the purses of his subjects; his tyrannical interference with their religious scruples; his insolent seizure of the "five Members;" the terrible retribution which followed his blunders and his misconduct; his final rupture with his subjects; the raising of the Standard at Nottingham; the changes and chances of the great Civil War; the king's successes at Worcester and Edgehill, and his disasters at Marston Moor and Naseby; these events, and the moral to be deduced from them, we leave to the graver pens of the historian and the philosopher. Let us return to the personal history of Charles.

The battle of Naseby was decisive to the fortunes of the misguided monarch, and from henceforward he virtually ceased to be a king. It was at the close of this action that he is said to have ridden along the ranks, animating his men with his voice and hand, and imploring them not to desert him in his need. "One charge more," he exclaimed, "and we recover the day." His courage, in fact, has never been called in question even by his most furious maligners, and on more than one occasion elicited the admiration of his enemies. During the course of the civil struggles, it ever appeared as eminent on the field of battle, as it afterward shone illustrious on the scaffold.

But after the battle of Naseby, misfortune followed misfortune; the west of England was overrun by the Parliamentary forces; Bristol surrendered to Fairfax, and Devizes to Cromwell. At length, surrounded by enemies on all sides, the unhappy king had no choice but to throw himself into Oxford, which had been faithful to him in every change, and where, for the last time, he was destined to be regarded and respected as a free monarch. But Fairfax was rapidly approaching with a victorious army. The prospect of being led away captive by his own subjects; the thought of their triumphant shouts, of falling into the power of men whom he regarded as insolent rebels and absurd enthusiasts, was too humiliating to be endured. Accordingly, though not till Fairfax was within three days' march of Oxford, the king decided on flight. But even at the very moment of departure, such was his constitutional irresolution, that he had scarcely made up his mind which way to turn, or in what friend to trust, whether to throw himself on the mercy of the citizens of London, or to trust himself to the generosity of the Scottish army, which was then encamped at Newark. It was only when danger or death opposed him face to face, that the real heroism of Charles's character was manifested. To Lord Digby, we find him writing at this period : "I desire you to assure all my friends, that if I cannot live as a king, I shall die like a gentleman,