manded of him that he should place the rest, as well as the whole body of the militia, in the hands of persons to be recommended by them; to which the King of course demurring, they passed ordinances, to which the remnant of Peers who still gave their attendance assented, enjoining the submission of the whole military force of the kingdom to their commands. These, and several less important acts of palpable rebellion, were always qualified by an abuse of terms too gross to deceive even the most ignorantthey enjoined the parties to whom their commands were addressed to obey such and such " the orders of his Majesty, signified unto them by both Houses of Parliament.”

Charles, who during this period of confusion had sojourned at his different houses not far from the capital, was now convinced of the necessity of preparing for a civil war, which had become inevitable, and of providing for the safety of himself and his family. Having seen the Queen embark for Holland, taking with her the Crown Jewels, wherewith to raise some supply for the commencement of the awful struggle which approached, he moved northward by slow journeys, amid the daily increasing acclamations and loyal vows of his country people of all classes, and surrounded by the flower of his nobility; and, having passed some time at York, in the councils and preparations which the greatness of the occasion required, at length set up his standard at Nottingham, on the twenty-fifth of August, 1642.

Thus began that tremendous war in which the one party strove to defend his possession of powers and faculties which had descended to him by an hitherto uncontroverted inheritance from a long line of ancestors, and to the exercise of which he conscientiously believed himself to be completely entitled-the other, not only to divest him of every attribute his right to which lay within the possibility of doubt, but to wrest from him, and to arrogate to itself, many of yet higher importance to which it could not legitimately pretend even to the shadow of a claim. At this memorable point we mean to close the present Memoir, the main objects

of which have been to unfold the events which gradually produced the awful contest; to lay a ground for inferences to be drawn from them by others of the true character of the unfortunate Monarch; and to shew, by a succinct but faithful outline of facts, that Charles, throughout the whole of the collision between himself and his Parliaments, was rather " sinned against than sinning;" and that he fell at length a sacrifice to his endeavours to support the integrity of that ever fluctuating system called "the constitution," in the state in which he found it when he ascended the Throne. To answer these purposes enough has been already shewn.

Indeed a detail of the circumstances of the seven years war, if these sheets could allow scope for it, would be almost impertinent. Such, in strictness, belong to the general history of a country, and have, with some few modern exceptions of dazzling effect, little actual concern with the personal memoirs of the Prince who rules it. If he appear with his army in the field, the connection is, singularly enough, yet more remote, for he becomes then merely the dignified organ of his military councils, and the exalted encourager by his presence of the confidence and the prowess of his legions. That such was the station in which Charles appeared during nearly the whole of the war is well known to all historical readers; nor is it less notorious that, after its sad termination, when the authors of the rebellion had, according to the almost fatal progress of revolutions, given place to the wretched herd by which they were overpowered, he fell a captive into those base and bloody hands, sold for money by his Scottish subjects. Here, thrown wholly on his own resources, his true character at length shone forth in all the splendor of virtue, piety, perfect heroism, and almost wisdom. Such was the Prince who, through the ambition, the folly, or the malignity of a few of his subjects; and the ignorance, the fanaticism, the groundless fears, or the low interests, of the rest, was consigned by the vilest of them to a violent death, on the thirtieth of January, 1648.