removed, and his entreaties that he might have at least one restored to him were disregarded. The Government were so far acting consistently, seeing that in 1645 an ordinance. of Parliament was made forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer. But there is no excuse for the petty bigotry and tyranny of the House of Commons, when, expressing their indignation that 'because he may not have Episcopal men to preach to him he hears none at all,' they determined (Dec. 12, 1647) to use what means they could to convince His Majesty of his error, and appointed some of their members to consider of some able divines to be speedily sent to him.' Surely the ill-fated King might have been allowed to read his Bible in peace, without having to listen to the traditional glosses of fierce polemic preachers upon the book he loved. Their invectives against the heinousness of Episcopacy and the abominations of a liturgy could only disturb his mind from those higher and better thoughts which his enforced captivity was calculated to produce. If it is difficult to see why the King came to Carisbrooke Castle, it is still more a mystery why he did not escape. In July, 1648, the Prince of Wales appeared in the Downs with a good fleet. The son's first attempt we should naturally think would have been to liberate his father, but though young Charles remained absolute master of the sea and coast for several weeks he made no effort to rescue the King. Clarendon says plainly the person of the King was not wanted, or, at least, that it cannot be imagined how wonderfully fearful some persons in France were that he should have made his escape, and the dread they had of his coming thither.' Charles had been an affectionate husband of that lively Frenchwoman, Henrietta Maria, small of stature, and so self-willed and overbearing that she could not control her temper even in public. She, with a stronger and steadier purpose than belonged to her husband, had from the first been one of his most mischievous counsellors, and, from Clarendon's statements, appears at this important juncture to have resisted the only means to secure his life. This indifference to his escape, to use no stronger name, on the part of the Queen and his eldest son must have added to the misery of the royal prisoner. No wonder that he should have attempted those ill-conceived plans of escape through the window of the Castle. Sinking men catch at straws. Hallam, on the authority of Colonel Cooke's narrative, printed with Herbert's memoirs, makes the charge that though Charles had given his parole to Colonel Hammond and had the sentinels removed in consequence, he was engaged during the most part of his stay at Carisbrooke in schemes for an escape. If this charge of breaking his word as a King and a gentleman can be substantiated, it is the one recorded blot in the King's imprisonment in Carisbrooke, which effected so much in purifying his character from its faults and imperfections. The German historian, Niebuhr, said that he could discover in eminent men of various periods an impoverishment and decay of heart and intellect dating from a crisis in their lives, when they had wilfully thrown off some great sorrow which might have given them consistency and depth. The adversity of Charles in his imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle, which he did not exaggerate when he called it 'Majesty in Misery,' educated him for the kingly dignity of demeanour with which he stood before his judges on his trial before the revolutionary tribunal, and also for the dauntless courage with which he confronted death. The 'dum spiro spero' of Carisbrooke Castle was the preparation for the resignation of the 'dum exspiro spero' with which 'his head was severed from his shoulders before thousands of spectators in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace.' November 7, 1885. THE TRATTLE FAMILY. My readers, as well as myself, are much indebted to my former parishioner, and always good friend, Mr. H. Pinnock, for having opened up a correspondence with Mr. Langdale upon the Trattle family. Mr. Langdale's communication throws light upon the social position of that family. From the fact that more than one bearing that name filled the office of Mayor of Newport it might be inferred that this family was held in much respect by their fellow-townsmen. John Trattle, by marrying a descendant of Sir Marmaduke Langdale, so well known from the part he took in the fatal fight of Naseby Field, conferred dignity and rank upon his children. Probably Mr. Langdale's pedigree will not help to clear up the obscurity that still hangs over the heroine of the touching incident of the November rose, but it is interesting to find that a member of the distinguished cavalier family of Langdale should have been married to one of the same name as the gentlewoman whose graceful act of womanly kindness drew from the royal fugitive the expression of his hearty thanks. It is evident from several letters received by me that the effort to trace the history of this now extinct family is attracting considerable attention, which it is to be hoped will result in our obtaining a little more information than we now possess of a woman who, by her act of sympathy with the sorrow of a fallen king, has had her name recorded in history. February 14, 1885. EARLY VISITS OF CHARLES I TO THE ISLE OF WIGHT. Ir is not generally known that Charles I before his detention in Carisbrooke Castle, A. D. 1647, paid three different visits to the Isle of Wight, at intervals of nine years between each. The first visit was August 2, 1609, when Charles, who was born with the century, was a boy of nine. The Prince, who was then Duke of York, as his elder brother, Henry, was then alive, accompanied his father, James I. That King, who spent his life in field sports during a portion of the year, and lying in bed the greater part of the day when he was not so pleasantly engaged, came to the Isle of Wight to hunt. In the registers of the parish of Carisbrooke there is the following contemporary record of this visit under the hand of John Baker, Vicar of Carisbrooke. 6 (King) James landed . . . and sawe a muster at Honyhill, dined at the Castle, and saw in (the) afternoone most of the Island with Prince Charles, his sonne on the West Meadowe and hunted in the parke, killed a bocke, and so departed again to Bewley the 2nd of August, A.D. 1609, being Wednesday. J. BAKER.' This visit is not noticed in Nicholas's Progresses of James I, but it is there shown that the King was about this time at Bewley (Beaulieu). The second visit was on August 27, 1618, when Charles by the death of his brother Henry had become Prince of Wales. Of this second visit are two contemporary records, one of which is found in the Carisbrooke Registers, as follows: 'Prince Charles landed at the Cowes, and came into the forest, and saw a skirmish there, and went from thence to Alvington down, and over the Island, and came to the Castle and thence to Newport, where he dined at Mr. James' house, and his grace departed to the Cowes and took ship and went to Portsmouth, the year 1618, the 27th of August, being Thursday. Jo. BAKER.' The house at Newport which hospitably entertained the Prince must, I apprehend, have belonged to one or other of the two Jameses, uncle and nephew, antiquarians and controversial divines, both of them natives of Newport, and living at that time, or, if not to them, to a connexion of theirs. Sir John Oglander in his MSS. records that on this same occasion Coming through the Castle holde, and being passed by the sign of the Lyon clawing the Fryar, the Prince turned about his horse to beholde it, and demanded the meaning thereof. Answer was made yt we served all Papists and Priests in yt manner.' The third visit took place June 20, 1627, when two years after his accession Charles I hastily came to the Isle of Wight. His object was to make a personal inspection of the Scotch troops then quartered in the Island, on their way to join the ill-planned expedition of the King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, to the Isle of Rhé. The Duke sailed from Portsmouth a week afterwards, on June 27, with his hundred ships and seven thousand land troops, to return with a disgraced flag and the loss of half his troops. Landing at Ryde earlier than was expected, the King found Sir John Oglander waiting to receive him, by whom without other escort he was guided to the place of review at Arreton Down. Here he knighted Barnabas Leigh of Northcourt, and left again at 3 p.m., having neither eaten nor drunk in the Island. In another entry in his memoirs Sir John gives but a sorry account of these Scotch regiments when they were billeted in the island. 'They caused,' he says, ' various inconveniences, and were almost the undoing of the whole Island: a people so insolent by reason of their unanimous holding together and the weakness of their commanders, as being most inexperienced soldiers, and fathering all things on a national quarrel, insomuch as none daring to apprehend the malefactors, they became fearful to our countrymen; but of themselves (I speak of the meaner sort of them) a base, poor-spirited, cowardly people, but for the better sort, brave gentlemen.' Sir John Oglander adds that for his own part he was then at London soliciting the Council to be free of them. Sir John, though Royalist to the backbone, had no love for Charles's worthless favourite, Buckingham, and says that in order to get money for this expedition to Rochelle, the Duke gave to the inferior sort the making of forty baronets, which they out of their want sold for £150 and £200 a piece, which is the reason so many of inferior rank, both in our country and elsewhere, had precedency in honour. When, August 23, 1628, Buckingham was killed by the knife of an assassin in a house at Portsmouth, Sir John writes: 'Felton, live ever, for thou hast brought to dust January 24, 1884. |