The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-21 00:00:00

ELIOT WARBUIITON'S NEW

WORK.

MEMOIRS OF PRINCE RUPERT AND
THE CAVALIERS ; including their Private
Correspondence, now first published. from the Ori•
ginal Manuscripts. By Eliot Warburton, Author
of " The Crescent and the Cross." 3 Vols.
To publish a work commemorative of the adher-
ents of King Charles the First, at a moment
when liberalism, merging, in many instances,
into extreme democracy, reigns paramount,
appears, at first sight, almost an act of auda-
city. On consideration, however, we find the
adventure of Mr. Eliot Warburton singularly well-
timed. It is because the principle* of democracy are
triumphant that we can so well afford to consider the
history of the Cavaliers. On the eve of a battle the
most generous foeman will be anxious to underrate
the strength and talents of his opponents, but after
the victory it is otherwise. After the victory, con-
scious of our dearly bought security, we may, with-
out scruple, extol the courage and bear witness to the
virtues of the fallen. The tree people of England, the
inheritors of the dearly-purchased fruits of the
civil war—

The sons of sires that bathed
Crowned and sceptred tyranny ;
That defitd the chain and scaffold
For their birthright,"
and gloriously obtained it, can now regard with sym-
pathetic admifation the daring and disinterested
devotion of the loyal Cavaliers. Eyes are now sad-
dened with sympathy for the sorrows of King
Charles which, two hundred years back, would
have sparkled with indignation against the tyrant.
Hearts now throb with exultant admiration

at the records of Rupert's chivalrous gallantry
and incredible triumphs, which two centuries since
would have throbbed stoutly beneath the buff-doublet
of the Roundhead, and stirred up their owners to resist
to the death the foreign prince and the abettors of
tyranny. Therefore it is we look upon these volumes
as being equally well-timed in their appearance as they
are interesting in their:contents. Mr. Eliot Warburton
himself participates largely in those double ser.
ti-
ments to which we have just referred. As the bio-
grapher of the Cavaliers, his sympathies (couldit be
otherwise ?) are largely enlisted in favour of his heroic
heroes individually. Nevertheless, he is no advocate of
oppression. He deplores the acts, while he exculpates
the actors. The portrait of King Charles, for example,
drawn by his courteous and tender, hut, nevertheless,
truthful hand, is perhaps as faithful a representation
of the character of that unfortunate monarch viewed
in the most favourable light as is the picture of Van-
dyke of his outer man. The following passage de-
scribes the feelings of very many among us with
regard to our early impression of King Charles, it
also affords a striking evidence of Mr. WarLurton's
loyal prepossessions and liberal convictions (it was with
"reluctance," be it observed, that he relinquished his
loyal belief). As the King rode towards Nottingham,
preparatory to raising his standard, it is said that
his countenance was very melancholy ; and here Mr.
Warburton eloquently exclaims—
" Well might he be very melancholy;' well might
the shadow of his soul's misfortune be dark upon that
brow—that lofty brow, so familiar to our memory! How
many of us can recollect our childish sympathy for the
first time touched by the power of art, as we gazed upon
the portrait of that mournful face: the itinc,cent boyish
enthusiasm thut kindled within-us as we heard from
loyal lips of the wrongs and sufferings for which so many
of our fathers died. It was only in after years, when re-
luctantly forced to abandon the once literal creed of kings
can do no wrong,' that we detected other characteristics
besides those of nobleness and truth in the mar tyr monarch
of Vandyke and the Cavaliers. Yet even then, when
better read in the dark facts and darker calumnies that
history reveals, we trace in those sad features the cha-
racters of weakness rather than of wiekednk,s*; the un-
erring signs of a vacillating mind are visible; and that
high-arched brow and uncertain lip, the delicate soft
hand that drops by his side with all the helpless grace
..f a girl, the very attitude in which he stands—all be-
sp,iik a spirit ill-calculated to encounter the storms of
a state. It is not only after misfortune and disappoint-
ment had done their work, that these characteristics be-

come visible in the portraits of Charles. From the very
fin.t, even when he sat to Velasquez during his romantic
visit to romantic Spain, buoyed up by lusty youth and
a bridegroom's hope—even then his portrait wears a sad,
doomed look, as it he felt already destined to expiate
the crimes and follies of his tyrant ancestors."
Mr. Warburton's narrative is necessarily one-sided,
not in an invidious sense, not with regard to the
manner of its expression, but to the matter of its
details. It does not profess to be a history of the
civil war, it is a history of the doings and sufferings
of the dauntless Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers.
"We must now bid adieu to politics," says the
author to his reader at the commencement of the
second volume ; "ter good or ill,,like Sir Edmund
Varney, we are enlisted with the Cavaliers, and must
take the consequences. Henceforward, like the com-
batants, we shall be too much occupied in the field to
think of abstractions. The king's banner is dis-
played, the trumpets are sounding to the standard,
and we have only to march forward with our Cava-
liers." A dangerous but most attractive invitation.
We accept it, and we do march forward; but how-
ever much, for the time, carried away by the infectious
ardour of the gallant body we are accompanying, we run
little risk of being induced to enlist under the royal ban-
ner ; tor, thanks to Mr. Warburton's first volume, the
most ignorant student of history is already " tore-
warned" and consequently " forearmed." We might
almost imagine that our author, aware of the fatal
fascination of his theme, had conscientiously resolved
to give a warning to the unwary, and place the bane
and antidote alongside. It is only in the
second volume, be it remembered, that he exclaims
" We must bid adieu to politics—we are enlisted
with the Cavliers !" In the first volume he has given
a " summary of everts preceding the war," in which
with a masterly hand he exhibits those errors and
faults on the part of Charles, which occasioned and
excused the rebellion of the people. " Charles I,"
says Mr. Warburton, "was heartily welcomed to the
throne by the people of England. Had he understood
their true position and his own he might have been
indeed the noblest King in Christendom." Charles
was, however, far from possessing that all-important
knowledge. His ideas were retrogressive, his people's
progressive. From the very first the King and his
Parliament were at variance, but as yet
the King had, apparently, the upper hand.
During the after portion of this history we
often have occasion to lament the misfortunes of
Charles, but while so lamenting we must not forget
what is recorded in the commencement of the first
volume. We must not forget, when disposed to
censure the severity of the Parliament, how in the
beginning of his reign the King had continually
exercised his prerogative by dissolving the Parliament
almost as soon as it was elected, and at one time had
refused to call a Parliament for " eleven long years."
During these years "the King ruled at will," we
quote Mr. Warburton, "as despotically as any
sovereign in Europe." The country was at peace,
" but the repose was only such as ensues when
mortification has supervened upon some deadly
wound ; the disease that inwardly consumed the nation
was fast increasing under the hectic mask of health.
The stern Parliamentary physicians watched its pro-
gress patiently from afar or from prison, biding their
time. . . Men did not know at first that they were
enslaved, no more than Charles knew that he was
become a despot. . . The endurance of the men of
England was daily put to a more trying tea ; every
successful invasion of their rights was taken as a
proof that they would bear still more. Cruel expe-
dients to raise revenues were put in practice ; odious
monopolies invaded the comfort of every man's fire-
side, and there was no redress or any prospect thereof."
We find in a foot note the following quaint quota-
tion from Sir J( hu Culpepper, upon the universality
of taxes :—" These, like the frogs of Egypt,
have gotten possession of our dwellings, and
we have scarcely a room free from them ; they
find i
sip in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by our
p; a onw erdye fir; i
they ng bhex,rn oursery
k ea
share
a3u; ens vfraotm,
with v ‘th'
haeesandintgo butlerbfoo:itin;
andhfie
ir
his pantry
powdering
have
they will not bate us a pin." At the close of the
eleven years it was found necessary to summon " the
great paymaster, a Parliament (we again quote Eliot
Warburton), for every extra. parliamentary source
had been drained dry. They met (on the 13th of
April, 1640); the King asked for money, the Com-
mons for redress ; neither party attained its desires.
The SHORT PARLIAMENT was dissolved on the sth of
May." On the 3d of November the LONG PARMA.
MENT first assembled. Here Charles " encountered
an array more awful than ever confronted him on
the battle-field. Pyin and Hatnpien had been riding
a circuit of all England to collect and to distribute
statistics of the people's wrongs; St. John and Holies
had digested and arrayed a record of these wrongs ;
Fiennes and Vane had dilated on them. Falkland,
Hyde, Rudyart , Selden, were also there pleading the
ON
people's wrongs ; GS !—that word rang
through real rights of the op-
pressort
through all England, and
overwhelmed and silenced in
were for a time overw
the sound." We have given these quotations, and
we might give many similar ones as an evidence of
T bu rton' s sentiments, not-
the liberality of Mr. NI
withstanding his occasional
panegyrics. on the Cava.
advocacy of their
Tiers, and his (at times) seeming
cause. In spite of the romantic interest attaching
introductory
to the exploits of the Cavaliers, the _
ing, hardly
chapters of this work are, to our thinking,
less attractive. This portion is, in point of style,
superior to the rest. It is written with a simple and
energetic eloquence that renders it most effective and
most emphatic. The King's ill-timed visit to the
Parliament House to demand the arrest of the " five"
Members is an admirable specimen of Mr. Warbur-
ton's felicitous and highly picturesque style :
" By such advice the doomed King committed the
crowning error of his whole disastrous reign. lie pro-
ceeded suddenly to the House at Commons, at:ended
by four hundred cavaliers and servants.' The tramp I
of armed men was for the first time audible in OW '