The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-19


 could be divested of it except through rebellion and treason.
 The earliest indication of the impend- ing contest was in connection with the refusal of parliament to grant the sup plies needed for the expenses of the government until grievances caused by the incapacity, greed and insolence of the Duke of Buckingham, the personal favorite and chief advisor of the crown, had been redressed. In place of yield ing to the humble petition of the parlia- ment or even temporizing, the leaders In the popular movement, were sent to the tower by command of the king and parliament itself dissolved with the angry message: q must let you know that I will not allow any of my ser wants to be questioned among you" From this time onward to the day of his execution, there is nowhere to be found a suggestion that he recognized any authority as coordinate with his own. Among his last words on the scaffold were these: As for the peo- ple desire their liberty and freedom, which consists in their having govern ment. It Is not their having a share in the government that is nothing appertaining to them, A subject and a sovereign are different things"
 He felt that he was a sovereign to whom was entrusted an authority that was final; and that what were were only such as had been begged or stolen or extorted from his predeces- sors. Parliaments might indeed advise and petition, but their paramount duty was obedience While in his private relations no imputation of a want of veracity rests upon his character, his official conduct was marked with hab- itual duplicity His reluctant assent to the Bill of Rights confirming the provisions of Magma Charta, entrusted with it's habitual and contemptuous disregard, his alternate offers to Pres byterans and Independents to crush each other and the whole tenor of his private correspondence show how deep ly his whole nature had been penetrat- ed with the lessons he had been taught, as to the character of his rights as a sovereign.
 His chief advisors were two men, ! tdCl GtllldIhdDiS LID way IliCtiSeiS Wentworth and William Laud. To the first, as Earl of Strafford, was en- trusted whatever related to the man agement of the state; to the second as primate of England whatever special ly concerned the authority of the church Strafford was a man of com ! manding abilities, with many of the qualifications of a great statesman. Much injustice is often done to the memory of Laud in representing him as merely a superstitious, tyrannical big ot. He was something much more than this. The impress of his opinions as to the supreme authority of the church is felt on both sides of the Att lantic to this day, and within the mem ory of many of us had almost con- vulsed the English church establish | ment. In patristic learning, he had 1 few equals. No father of the church, 1 however obscure, no council of the church, of however little authority, that magnified the civil and eeelesias- | tical power of the clergy escaped his notice.
 The absorbing passion which domi- 1 litLti IliS NilclG w ctS lliS utlCl- ' 1 imitation to reduce to absolute con- | formity every species of dissent from the one indivisable Catholic church, as he viewed it. To accomplish this end, he went tothe extreme verge of Prot estantism. While upon dissenters from his ideal church, either as non conformlst within it's communion, or sectaries without, when their oppo- sition became too pronounced, he in- fiicted cruel punishment which either ruined them in their fortunes or mutil- l ated their persons.
 | Btween these two ministers, each de- | voted with the remarkable energy of his nature to the maintenance of the divine right and paramount authority of the crown, King Charles succeeded | for years in carrying on the govern ment without the concurrence and in- defiance of the authority of parliament | by the exercise of what was called the royal prerogatives. Although the word prerogative has long ceased to be used In any objectionable sense by English statesmen, it was then the one word around which centered the con-
 
 sions of all England. The question at issue was whether England should re- main the England of the middle ages, 1 essentially feudal in the state and sac erdotal in the church., or should adapt itself to the growing intelligence of the age and the newer conditions of so- ciety. At the beginning of the strug- gle, attachment to the monarchy was practically universal, while to the church, as established by law, the chief dissent was among those who, while remaining in her communion, looked with suspicion and dislike upon | all tendencies to any affiliation with the church of Rome and to the posses sion of secular authority by the priest hood That feeling among most we'll conditioned Englismen of to-day, which many of us fail to comprehend, is the | tion or the law or flag of their coun- try, but personal loyalty to the crown, | whether worn by a weak monarch like | George the Third. or by his worthless successor, or by the present estimable i sovereign. This feeling which is now becoming with many little more than a mere sentiment, in the time of King | Charles was an over-mastering princi- | pie of duty among an overwhelming majority of the nobility and gentry of | England.
 While more enlarged views of the re- ]