After stating the intrepid conduct of his Majesty on the scaffold, the historian concludes his narrative thus: "Then the King, making some pious and private ejaculations before the block, as before a desk of prayer, he submitted without that violence they intended for him, if he refused his sacred head to one stroke of an executioner, (that was disguised then, as the actors were all along,) which severed it from his body.-So fell CHARLES the First, and so expired with him the liberty and glory of three nations ;* being made in that very place an instance of human frailty, where he used to shew the greatness and glory of majesty." *This is a true expression on the part of the venerable historian, as will be seen by a subsequent part of this Appendix: For, how enormous soever might have been some acts of administration during the reign of king Charles, the usurper who subsequently exercised the functions of royalty appears in several of his public measures to have adopted the sentiments of Rehoboam when he said to the people: "Whereas my predecessor did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: He hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." seni age. In these notes I have produced many things in favour of King Charles the First and Archbishop Laud-two rather unpopular personages in the preBut though unpopular on account of many transactions in which they were implicated, both of them were possessed of eminent virtues, which they displayed to the greatest advantage in the course of their unmerited misfortunes. In the exercise of strict impartiality, it becomes me to record their virtues as well as their failings; and when my readers have perused all that I have written, I hope it will be made as apparent to them as it has lon een to myself, that their personal virtues far transcended the sum of their imputed failings. Another opportunity will occur for demonstrating that the British Constitution, even at the particular juncture of its deepest depression in the reign of King Charles, contained within itself copious materials for self-restoration; and that the violent course pursued by the Calvinistic mal-contents, was not that which the laws suggested for the redress of grievances. This has already been briefly proved in the extracts from Judge Jenkins. I refer the reader to the Works of Arminius, (vol. 1. p. 456.) for my recorded opinions of King James and his unfortunate successor; and 1 now subjoin the concluding paragraph of that article, in proof of my exemption from criminal party bias in the narration of facts: "Such petty enterprizes as these, in which James was artfully enlisted, were degrading to the royal character; and the impetuosity with which he prosecuted them, tended greatly, in that new age of thought, to alienate men's minds from the regal dignity and the established institutions, which have their best security in the manifestations of affection and respect on the part of those for whose benefit they are sustained and administered. Flattered as the great pacificator of nations by those that needed his aid, and boasting in private of his successful cunning and policy, which he was pleased to call kingcraft,' his majesty imbibed very false ideas both of his own capabilities and of his royal power and prerogatives, and infused, into the minds of his children, the same unmanageable notions, which seemed to descend as by generation to the last of his unfortunate race. In forming a judgment conceruing his immediate successor, we are too apt to contemplate Charles as an insulated personage; but if we consider the high veneration in which he held his royal father's published sentiments both on religion and politics, instead of viewing him as the self-tutored despot, we shall rather pity him as an obedient son, who, from mistaken yet conscientious motives, endeavoured to carry into practical effect those tyrannical principles about the truth of which neither his royal parent, nor any of those around his person, would ever suffer him to hesitate. But the decisive national crisis was far advanced at the very commencement of his reign, and had assumed a most |