LETTER FROM CHARLES IN CARISBROOKE CASTLE, TO THE MAR- In the archives of His Grace the Duke of Argyll is preserved a letter from the royal prisoner of Carisbrooke Castle, which shows the extremities to which the King was then reduced. He appeals to Argyll, notwithstanding their former differences, to embrace his cause, as it rested on grounds which were never in question between them. The copy of the original will be found in the sixth report of the Royal Commission on Historical MSS., p. 612, from which document I have extracted it. 'Carsbrooke, 23 Deember, 1647. Argile, howsoeuer heere to fore you and I haue differed in judgement, I belive now that the present state of affaires are such as will make you heartely embrace my cause, it being grounded upon those particulars that were neuer in question between you and me. And for those things wherein you and I may be yet of seueral opinions, I haue given such satisfaction to the Scots Commissioners that with confidence, I desyre your concurrence in what hath been agreed betweene them and me, knowing your zeale to your country and your many professions to me; as thes bearer will more at large tell you, to whom referring you, I rest 'Your most asseured reall constant frend, 'CHARLES R. 'I desyre you to beliue whatsoeuer Traquaire will tell you in my name. For the Marquis of Argyle.' The nobleman to whom this letter was addressed was the head of the Scotch Covenanters, and was himself put to death after the return of the royal family. I add a few details which show the bearing of this interesting letter upon the history of the period. After his escape from Hampton Court the King reached Carisbrooke Castle on Sunday, November 14, 1647. Soon after his detention in the Isle of Wight, the Parliament offer their well-known four propositions or bills as the basis of a personal treaty to the King, who promised them an answer in a few days (see letter from the Earl of Denbigh at Newport to the Earl of Manchester, Speaker of the House of Peers, Lords' Journals, Dec. 24). Meanwhile the King is negotiating with the Scotch Commissioners, who offer him less onerous terms, and it is to these that the letter refers. Charles I was at this time occupying the apartments on the first floor of the gabled building, which is now the residence of the keeper of the castle, and was forming that first plan of escape which was never attempted. In connexion with this design to escape, which was fixed for Dec. 28, Captain Burley, a gentleman of good family at Yarmouth, attempted to raise the people of the Island by the sound of a drum and the cry for God, King Charles, and the people,' to march to the Castle and rescue their sovereign. Few besides women and boys obeyed the summons; the feeble band was speedily dispersed, and the leader seized by the soldiers from Carisbrooke Castle. It appears that the authorities had some inkling of this plan, for in the Lords' Journals, Dec. 22, is a letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax at Windsor to Wm. Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, desiring that, for the better guarding of the Isle of Wight, Vice-Admiral Colonel Rainsborough may be dispatched to his charge. So passed the King's Christmas at Carisbrooke Castle, if it be permissible to speak of Christmas, since (as we have been reminded by an article in the Saturday Review, Dec. 27, 1884) in 1645 the keeping of Christmas Day had been stamped out by the Parliamentary and Puritan masters of England, as one consequence of the abolishment of the Book of Common Prayer and the establishment of their own Directory.' January 10, 1885. THE SECRET CONDITIONS OF THE SCOTCH COMMISSIONERS WITH CHARLES I AT CARISBROOKE CASTLE, a. D. 1647-48. THE main political, if not personal, interest of Charles I's detention in Carisbrooke Castle turns upon the King's negotiations with the Scotch, and also with the Parliamentary Commissioners. A somewhat new light has been thrown upon the conditions laid down by the Scotch Commissioners in consequence of the publication of the Lauderdale MSS. by the Camden Society, 1884. A well-informed historical writer in the Saturday Review, Jan. 10, 1885, has called attention to a curious document contained in the Lauderdale papers, viz. the draft with its erasures and corrections of the secret conditions made by the Scotch Commissioners with Charles I in the Isle of Wight. This remarkable paper, it may be added, has been printed in the Athenæum of January 26, 1878, by Mr. Scott of the British Museum MSS. department. The Commissioners were the Earl of Lanark, brother of the Marquis, afterwards created by the King Duke, of Hamilton, himself a moderate royalist always, and the Earl of Lauderdale, with his big red head,' a warm Presbyterian. Both of these noblemen had kept up a secret intercourse with the King at Hampton Court, and after his detention at Carisbrooke Castle they openly declared themselves against the four bills proposed by the English Parliament. Clarendon has asserted that the private treaty which the Commissioners at length concluded with the King contained many things dishonourable to the English nation. From Lauderdale Bishop Burnet (the historian) heard of, though he never saw, the terms entered into by Charles I in his efforts to induce the Scots to restore him to his freedom and dignity. The Saturday Reviewer points out that Burnet's account of the communications made to him by Lauderdale goes a good deal beyond anything contained in the original draft. There are provisions for the benefit of "Scottish men" which, if known, would no doubt have raised fierce jealousy in England, but nothing so startling as the promise, which is mentioned by both Burnet and Clarendon, to cede the English bordercounties to Scotland.' This private treaty is more remarkable for what it omits than what it contains. 'The kirk . . . is not even mentioned, a fact that will excite no astonishment among those who are acquainted with the hatred of the nobles to the Presbyterian yoke.' This discovery of the original draft more than confirms the sober judgement of Hallam, in his Constitutional History (vol. i. p. 633), that there was nothing very derogatory to England in the treaty. The modern authority for the particulars of the King's imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle is the work of the late Mr. George Hillier, Charles I in the Isle of Wight. Since that book was published, certain new facts have been brought to light, and some reference to them in these pages may assist some one hereafter who will undertake the office of writing again the closing chapter of Charles I's life, when a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle. January 31, 1885. RATE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF A THE following entry from the calendar of the House of Commons MSS. speaks well for the religious earnestness and zeal of the Corporation of Newport: 1647. July 24. Petition of the Mayor and Burgesses of Newport, in the Isle of Wight, in behalf of themselves and the inhabitants of the borough. They have for the last five years applied to Parliament to make their town parochial; for in it are 4,000 souls and no minister yet settled, but weightier affairs have prevented the passing of any measure. They pray leave to assess the inhabitants at not more than two shillings in the pound towards the maintenance of a godly minister and assistant.' Lords' Journals, ix. 351. Annexed: (1) 'Application for an ordinance in accordance with the prayer of preceding petition.' It appears that this ordinance was not carried out till March 17, 1653, when, as may be seen in an extract from the Court Book, p. 76, which will be found in Appendix No. xliv of Worsley's History, a rate of one shilling and sixpence in the pound was made for this purpose, where it is also stated that the population of the town and borough consists of 2,500 souls and upwards. The statement in the petition to Parliament about 4,000 souls, if not a clerical error, must therefore have been an exaggerated estimate. this point the Corporation records might throw light. On The pertinacity and self-denial of the good people of Newport in taxing themselves for the maintenance of a minister cannot be understood without a glance at the general subject of the 'Lectureships,' once a 'burning' question, but now an extinct volcano. About 1624, greatly to the credit of the Puritans, a project was set on foot throughout England towards raising a fund for buying in lay impropriations for supporting 'godly ministers.' The plan was not unlike that since effected by the Simeon Trustees. The fund was vested in 'Feoffees, who afterwards made some noise in the world under that name.' So writes Mr. Carlyle. These Lectureships' in corporate and market towns thus set up were supplied by persons supplemental to the regular clergy. The lecturers themselves were obnoxious to Archbishop Laud, who was more of an ecclesiastical despot than a theological bigot, because of their irregular proceedings and disregard of Episcopal supervision. Heylin, Laud's biographer, says 'They were neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red-herring'; and Charles I, in a royal letter issued in 1633 at Laud's instigation, speaks of them in contemptuous terms. Without taking their character from their enemies, these lecturers were probably men wanting in independence of character, forced to preach what their patrons wished them to give forth from their pulpits. Sir John Oglander hits off their character in a word when he speaks of the Newport |