The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-01

Austria. ComplAmtS Wero hedio 'h"'
speech could not be had with King Charles,
so constantly was he in the apartment OF
bis nineteen-year-old wife. His only re-
gret was that he could not take her with
him to the council chamber. Il WISH
he once said, that we could always be to-
Rether, and that you could accompany me
to the council; but what would these
people Jay IL a woman were to busy herself
with matters Of government
We pass to the later and tragical part
Of the life OF Charles l., which began with
the meeting Of the Long Parliament in le41,
and with the successful impeachment OF
the Earl OF STAFFORD. The Queen had
been no friend OF STAFFORD in earlier days.
but our author shows that there is no reason
to doubt the sincerity Of her sympathy for
him In his hour OF trouble, or to underrate
her strenuous desire to avert the doom OF
the man she had at last come to regard as
her husbands most faithful servant Her
zeal, however. was not according to knowl-
edge, and it may easily be that her partl-
zanship proved more fatal to the Earl
than her enmity. 1t was a homer when
the dislike she had once felt for him might
nave turned to his advantage in the
eyes Of his enemies, but she made no secret
OF the opposite nature Of her present senti-
ments. THE Queen wrote STAFFORD him
sell, towards the end, lis infinitely gracious
toward me, above all that you can imagine.
and doth declare 1t in q very public and
strange manner so a. nothing can hurt
me, by Gods help. but the iniqnity and
necessity Of these times As things were,
nothing could save the unfortunate man.
Had it been possible to place confidence in
Charles's promise that the Earl should
never again be employed in the public
service, he might have escaped with life;
but such a pledge, the manifest result Of
coercion, could scarcely be expected to
carry weight. The Parliamentary Leaders
we're bent upon making all sure. stone
dead hath no fellow was Essex's grim
reply when Hyde would have pressed upon
him more merciful alternatives.
1t was soon apparent that Charles alone,
the master whom STAFFORD had served
with single hearted devotion, stood beween
the prisoner and the fate awaiting him.
STAFFORD was beheaded on May IL, 1912,
although as late as April 20 the King in a
memorable letter had assured the Earl that
@upon the word OF a king, he should not
suffer in life, honor or fortune Charles,
as we'll az STAFFORD, was soon to the
bitter lesson how weak a guarantee the
word of a king may prove. On May 4 the
doomed man wrote to release his master
from the pledge which had voluntarily been
given. BY his own consent to die he set
bis Maiesty's conscience at liberty When
the Bill Of Attainder was passed four days
later an armed mob demanded Charles's
signature. The Catholics about the Queen
made their confessions, as IL expecting in
slant death. Still the King hesitated.
How that hesitation ended is well known.
There has beer but one opinion about the
act by which he abandoned his devoted SER
want to the will Of his enemies. Mr.. Taylor
submits, however, that in condemning
Charles the circumstances should be taken
into account. The King may we'll have
argued that 1t was no question OF saving the
victim, but only Of perishing with him.
With or without the Kings formal consent
STAFFORD was TO die. An attack on the
palace seemed imminent, surrounded as it
was by q ra ging mob. Above all 1t was
on Henrietta, a woman. and weak and the
object of the Kings passionate affection,
that the vengeance Of that furiou rabble
would first be wreaked. IF my W person
were only in danger Charles said with tears
when at length he yielded to the pressure
brought to bear upon him, Il would gladly
venture it to save Lord Strafford's life; but,
seeing my wife, children and all my kingdom
are concerned In it, ] am forced to give way"
Our author, for his part, can see no reason
to question the Kings motives. If he sinned,
as doubtless he did sin, he atoned for it.
The opinion Of Gardiner, a historian who
will not be suspected of undue partially,
is quoted on the point: Let him who has
seen wife and child and all he holds dear
exposed to imminent peril and has refused to
save them by an act Of baseness cast the
first stone at Charles
1t will be remembered that Queen Hem
rietta was not in England at the time of her
husbands execution. She had been sent
to Exeter for an expected confinement,
and on June 10, 164t. a fortnight before the
disastrous battle OF Marston Moor. her
youngest child, the Princess Benriette,
afterward to become the Duchess Of Orleans,
sister-in-law Of Louis XIV, was born.
As Exeter was threatened by a Parliament
tary army, the new bom baby was confided
to the care Of Lady Dalkeith, a villiers by
birth and niece to the late Duke Of Buck
ingham. The mother, though still in a
condition Of extreme suffering, made her
way to the coast. whence she set sail for
France. On her landing she wal lodged
by a peasant In a matched cottage until
certain gentlemen Of the neighborhood,
hearing Of her arrival, more like a misera-
BILE heroine Of romanoe than a true queen"
brought carriages TO convey her elsewhere.
Thus Henrietta Maria returned to the land
Of her birth, quilted by her nineteen years
earlier as a bride Of fifteen. . She never saw
her husband again and not for sixteen
years did she revisit England, When che