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Cromwell, and in his peculiar phraseology, speaks of the 'action of the English Regicides' as striking a damp-like death through the heart of Flunkeyism universally in this world.' As Hallam and Lord Macaulay have pointed out, the death of Charles upon the scaffold was on the part of his judges and executioners contrary to law and justice. The trial of the King was an outrage upon law, the beheading at Whitehall a political murder.

January 22, 1887.

THE SCENE OF THE EXECUTION

OF CHARLES I.

My friend, Canon Farrar of Durham, sometime Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, in a work published by Murray, 1859, has given the following account of the scene of the execution of Charles I, as drawn from old engravings and maps still preserved in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. 'The King was executed in front of the middle window of the present Chapel Royal, on the side facing the present street, and not, as is often supposed, on the other side. At that time, instead of the streets and gardens which now lie around, an old brick palace existed, not unlike parts of the present one of St. James's. Its outlying quadrangles and buildings stretched as far north as the present Scotland Yard, while one large quadrangle, containing the royal garden, lay immediately to the back of the Chapel Royal, on the side of which quadrangle, next the river, stood the royal apartments. The street which now runs in front of the chapel was about half its present width; a guard-house stood in front of the present Horse Guards, while immediately in front of the chapel was a tilting-ground; and a few yards to the south of it, i. e. in the direction of Westminster Abbey, a brick archway spanned the street, similar to that which now forms the principal entrance to the Palace of St. James's. The banqueting-hall, which forms the present Chapel Royal, is the

only portion ever completed of a grand design of James I for rebuilding the Palace. The older portion of the Palace was destroyed by fire in the time of William III, and the banqueting-hall was converted into a chapel by George I. On the day of the execution Charles I was brought (about 10 o'clock in the morning) from the Palace of St. James's across St. James's Park, and was conducted over the archway which has been above described; he then spent nearly three hours in worship, probably in a small chapel which then lay adjacent to the archway, to the south-east of the present Chapel Royal, and after his devotions was conducted through the interior of the present chapel to the scaffold, or was led completely through it to a portion (now destroyed) of the Palace which then stood a little to the north of the present chapel, and thence led to the scaffold; but the position of the scaffold was in front of the present building there can be no doubt.'

March 19, 1887.

6

THE EXHUMATION OF CHARLES I.

In the interesting extract from the copy of the Intelligencer, which the Mayor of Newport has in his possession, which appeared in the County Press of March 12, 1887, it is stated, The King's head is sewed on, and his corpse removed to St. James's, and embalmed.'

The body was afterwards removed to Windsor, but the exact place in St. George's Chapel where it was deposited was for a long time unknown. So hasty and so secret had been the interment, and so broken up the flooring of the chapel, that when, upon the Restoration, Charles II proposed to erect a monument over his father's remains, no one, not even aged persons who had been present at the late King's funeral, could say accurately where they were laid. In 1823, some repairs and alterations being made below the surface of the choir of St. George's Chapel, the workmen accidentally knocked away a portion of the end of the vault of Henry VIII,

and within were seen three coffins, two only, it was supposed, having been there before.

Sir Henry Halford, then Court physician, has given a description of the remains of this hitherto unknown coffin. On removing the pall a plain leaden coffin, bearing the inscription King Charles, 1648,' in large legible characters on a scroll of lead encircling it, immediately presented itself to view. Within the leaden coffin was found one of wood, very much decayed. The body of the King was carefully wrapped up in cere-cloth. On disengaging the face from its covering, the shape of the face was a long oval, and it bore a strong resemblance to the coins, the busts, and especially to the pictures of Charles I by Vandyke.

On holding up the head to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the head had evidently retracted themselves considerably, and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even, an appearance which could have been produced only by a heavy blow inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the last proof wanting to identify Charles I.

Instead of being buried in the Stuart vault of Westminster Abbey, the body of Charles I, after being carried to Windsor, rests in the Tudor grave of Henry VIII and of Queen Jane Seymour, that King's third wife, and the mother of Edward VI. Sir H. Halford's account was published by Murray, 1833.

April 2, 1887.

ROBERT DINGLEY, M.A., MINISTER OF
BRIXTON, ISLE OF WIGHT,
A.D. 1653-1659.
I.

BRIXTON, SO the name is spelt in the parish registers, which date from 1566, and sometimes Brixstone, though in the registers of the Bishop it is spelt Brighstone, and now more

frequently Brightstone, is one of the most picturesque villages on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. Sheltered by the over-hanging hills from the cold winds, it has a near prospect of the sea, and yet is not near enough to present those squalid and untidy features which mark so many seaside villages. One thing indeed is wanting without which a typical English village hardly seems complete. There is no stately home, either ancient or modern, standing amidst the 'tall ancestral trees,' indicating the residence of the lord of the soil. From very early times this parish formed part of the Manor of Swainston, and until a very recent date it has followed the fortunes of that estate. It is now the property of Charles Seely, Esq., of Brooke House. The result of this state of things has been that the squire of the parish has always been non-resident. In a purely agricultural place, the fact that there is no 'great house' within its limits gives more importance and dignity to the rectory-house.

The parsonage or rectory-house, standing close to the Decorated church in the midst of its delightful pleasaunce fragrant with flowers, is, with its surroundings, a lovely spot, and full of links with the past. The benefice, which is still in the hands of the Bishop of Winchester, is mentioned in the Dean's report to Bishop Woodlock, A.D. 1306, as having belonged to Calbourne as the mother-church. Warm disputes arose between the respective rectors before the independence of Brixton was established in the middle of Edward the Third's reign. The controversy reached such a height at one time, that the parish was placed by the Bishop under the jurisdiction of the Rector of Gatcombe till the differences could be settled. All however that makes Brixton Rectory House an object of so much interest to the English Churchman belongs to the period after the Reformation. To its great honour it has sheltered more famous ecclesiastics and men of letters than any other parsonage in the Isle of Wight. It was the house of the saintly Bishop Ken (Rector of the parish from July 6, 1667, till April 12, 1669), where, removed from the observation of all but his small, confiding flock, he again exercised himself in the duties of the Christian ministry till recalled by Bishop Morley to Winchester. Here Samuel, third son of the philanthropic William Wilberforce, brought

his young wife and aged father, to whom Brixton rectory was one of those delightful asylums, where after his money troubles he spent the closing years of 'that calm old age on which he entered with the elasticity of youth and the simplicity of childhood. . . . Climbing with delight to the top of the chalk downs or of an intermediate terrace, or walking long on the unfrequented shore.' In this quiet spot from 1830 to 1840 did Bishop Wilberforce spend the opening decade of his bustling and much occupied public life, and under a pear-tree in its garden wrote his Agathos. In the interval between his resignation of the headmastership of Winchester School and his elevation to the See of Salisbury Dr. Moberly was rector of this parish from 1866 to 1869, and published a volume with the title Sermons at Brightstone, 1869. The present Rector, Canon William Edward Heygate, is a learned theologian, and the author of many well-known devotional works, religious stories, and allegories.

To this list of clergymen of note who have been rectors of Brixton may be added that of a learned and 'painful '— that is, painstaking-Puritan divine, Robert Dingley, M.A., who was, during Cromwell's Protectorate, as he calls himself in the preface to one of his books, 'Minister of the Word at Brixton in the Isle of Wight, formerly Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.' A mistaken notion still lingers in some quarters that the Puritan clergy were men of low extraction, ill-bred, and uneducated-coarse and snuffling fanatics. They were men of as good, if not higher, birth than their brethren who belonged to the Laudian or Royalist party. At the beginning of the disputes between Charles I and the Parliament the more educated among the county gentlemen of England were opposed to the clergy who followed that prelate. They were not Puritans, but disposed to follow the ordinary faith of their forefathers. They disliked innovations, and though Laud was enabled to carry his purpose, they disliked the removal of the holy table from the middle of the church and its being placed altar-wise against the east wall. The attacks of the higher clergy upon Puritanism only irritated the upper middle classes and led to increased sympathy with those who were attacked. Sir John Dingley of Wolverton the father of Robert was a member of this

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