understand his own position, and so continually aggravated the evils which existed.

In 1628 he lost his old friend the Duke of Buckingham, who was stabbed at Portsmouth by Felton, a fanatical soldier, for the sake of a private grudge, and neither Strafford nor Archbishop Laud, who henceforth became the King's chief advisers, were men calculated to widen his sympathies.

For eleven years no Parliament was summoned, and the money which Charles needed was raised by taxes such as the Petition of Right had rendered illegal.

The spirit of Puritanism was growing throughout the land, and the policy of Laud tended but to increase it.

He and Charles were alike high-minded lofty Churchmen, with a true and deep spirit of devotion to their faith, but it was a cruel fate which made them rulers in England at a time when tolerance, insight into human nature, and wide sympathies were the first requisites in those who would govern by peace.

Strafford was sent as Lord Deputy to Ireland, and carried out his high-handed measures in such a way as to bring about external order at least in that unfortunate country, but little permanent good was effected; discontent smouldered below the

surface, ready always to break out into open rebellion. Laud, too, had carried his labours out of England, and had raised a storm of indignation in Scotland by imposing a Liturgy on the Church there, and in 1638 the National Covenant was signed in Scotland by men of all classes.

Two years later Charles was forced to summon a Parliament, but neither from it, nor from the Council he called at York, could he get the supplies he needed, so in November 1640 he summoned his famous Long Parliament.

Tragic events now followed closely on one another; the Commons' belief in Strafford and Laud as the King's most dangerous advisers led to the impeachment of both, the execution of Strafford, and the imprisonment of Laud. Then came the Grand Remonstrance, and Charles' most fatal mistake, that of impeaching the five members for joining with the Covenanters against him. The five members were Pym, Hampden, Haselrig, Hollis, and Strode.

The King went in person to the House to demand the impeachment, and as he "stepped through the door which none of his predecessors had ever passed," so writes Gardiner, "he was, little as he thought it, formally acknowledging that power had passed into new hands. The revolution which his

shrewd father had descried when he bade his attendants to set stools for the deputies of the Commons as for the ambassadors of a king, was now a reality before him. He had come to the Commons because they would no longer come to him." But Charles understood nothing of the significance of the occasion; "in his eyes," says Gardiner, "there was visible no more than a mortal duel between King Charles and King Pym."

The scene which followed was painful and undignified; the five members, urged by their colleagues, had left the House before the King's arrival, and when Charles called on them by name only silence answered him.

"Where are they?" he demanded of the Speaker, Lenthall, after vainly scanning the benches of the House. "May it please your Majesty," was the diplomatic reply, "I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here; and I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this to what your Majesty is pleased to demand of me." And the King saw that his effort had failed. "Well, well," he said, and tried to show no emotion, "'tis no matter; I think my eyes are as good as another's." He saw there was no more to be done then, and

tried to make the most dignified exit possible. "Since I see all my birds are flown," he said, "I do expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as they return hither. But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other. And now, since I see I cannot do what I came for, I think this no unfit occasion to repeat what I have said formerly, that whatsoever I have done in favour and to the good of my subjects, I do mean to maintain it. I will trouble you no more, but tell you I do expect, as soon as they come to the House, you will send them to me; otherwise I must take my own course to find them." And, unable at the last to keep to the judicial tone he had assumed, he added, "For their treason was foul, and such a one as they would all thank us to discover."

Then he left the House with his nephew and his band of armed men, and low cries of "Privilege, privilege" followed him from the angry members.

This scene was the beginning of the first Civil War.

On the 23rd of October 1642 was fought the indecisive battle of Edge Hill, whence the King marched on London, and then weakly retreated to Oxford, which became henceforth his headquarters.

He was at the head of a gallant army, and his nephew, Prince Rupert, the son of his sister, Elizabeth, and the ex-Elector Palatine, was a brave and fiery leader, though more of the gallant mediæval type than was quite fitted to cope with such men as Ireton and Cromwell.

The battles followed one another in rapid succession on June 18th, 1643, the Royalists were victorious at Chalgrove Field, near Oxford, and there Hampden received his death-blow, and three months later the Parliamentary army gained the day at the first battle of Newbury, where the gallant Lord Falkland was killed. Before the end of that year Pym had died, and Charles had made a league with the Irish Roman Catholics, which brought him little but ill-will, while the Parliamentary party had openly made friends with the Scotch Presbyterians.

The battle of Marston Moor, July 2nd, 1644, gave the North, which had hitherto been faithful to the Crown, into the hands of the opposite party, and though Charles held his own at the second battle of Newbury, on October 27th, his power was really waning.

He refused the terms offered at the treaty of Uxbridge, on the 10th of January 1645; he had the grief of seeing the aged Archbishop Laud be