Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
History
Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
Great Britain -- Biography; Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714
Carlyle had no doubt that Charles was not the author. 'My reading
progresses with or without fixed hope. I struggled through the
"Eikon Basilike" yesterday; one of the paltriest pieces of vapid,
shovel-hatted, clear-starched, immaculate falsity and cant I have ever
read. It is to me an amazement how any mortal could ever have taken
that for a genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced
Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such a set
of meditations. It got Parson Gauden a bishopric.'--Letter of November
26, 1840 (Froude's _Thomas Carlyle_, 1884, vol. i, p. 199).
Page 57, l. 4. Thomas Herbert (1606-82), made a baronet in 1660.
Appointed by Parliament in 1647 to attend the King, he was latterly
his sole attendant, and accompanied him with Juxon to the scaffold.
His _Threnodia Carolina_, reminiscences of Charles's captivity, was
published in 1702 under the title, _Memoirs of the Two last Years of
the Reign of that unparalleled Prince, of ever Blessed Memory, King
Charles I_. It was 'printed for the first time from the original MS.'
(now in private possession), but in modernized spelling, in Allan
Fea's _Memoirs of the Martyr King_, 1905, pp. 74-153.
l. 10. Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), bishop of Salisbury, 1689, the
historian whose characters are given in the later part of this volume.
His _Mémoires of the Lives and Actions of James and William Dukes of
Hamilton_, 1677, his first historical work, appeared while Warwick was
writing his _Mémoires of Charles_. It attracted great attention, as
its account of recent events was furnished with authentic documents.
'It was the first political biography of the modern type, combining
a narrative of a man's life with a selection from his letters' (C.H.
Firth, introduction to Clarke and Foxcroft's _Life of Burnet_, 1907,
p. xiii).
l. 15. _affliction gives understanding_. Compare Proverbs 29. 15,
and Ecclesiasticus 4. 17 and 34. 9; the exact words are not in the
Authorised Version.
l. 30. Robert Sanderson (1587-1663), Regius Professor of Divinity at
Oxford, 1642, Bishop of Lincoln, 1660. Izaak Walton wrote his _Life_,
1678.
Page 58, l. 20. Sir Dudley Carleton (1573-1632), created Baron
Carleton, 1626, and Viscount Dorchester, 1628; Secretary of State,
1628.
l. 21. Lord Falkland, see pp. 71-97; Secretary of State, 1642.
Page 59, ll. 11-13. Plutarch, Life of Alexander the Great; opening
sentences, roughly paraphrased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account