The Ablest of the Stuarts
Mi. Arthur. Bryant's new book seems to me by far the best have darkened the shadows.. If he had had occasion to world.
since " he would never forsake his friends as his father had Joins 131.:CIIAN. King Charles the Second. By Arthur Bryant. (Longmans. done." As for his treatment of Clarendon, he had ample 9s. 6d.) justification, for that honest and narrow soul had become No figure in our records stands to gain more from the juster impossible, and by his stubborn tactlessness was in a fair way and subtler methods of modern scholarship than Charles II. to bring down the monarchy.
He fought Parliament and won handsomely, so the ordinary His courage was never in doubt. He behaved like a man in Whig .historian, to whom the infallibility of Parliament was the Great Fire, and quelled a mutiny of the sailors by riding a principal article of faith, drew him as a monster of diabolical among them, and he was prepared on more occasions than craft and evil intent. His many failings were so exaggerated one to stand alone. Mr. Bryant writes thus of the crisis that they obscured his remarkable gifts of head and heart. of 1679 : "Alone, vilified, driven on every side, Charles remained calm and study of the man yet published. The author is very much patient. This middle-aged roue; who liked to be easy and see under Charles's charm, and sometimes might with reason those about him so, was now fighting almost single-handed against an utterly unscrupulous caucus and a maddened populaces for the reservation of the English monarchy and of decent dealing in pUblie deal with Charles's days in Scotland before Worcester he Fife. To that contest he brought a cool courage, a temper that would no doubt have found more to condemn. But the to the outer world remained imperturbable, and a skill in gauging picture is substantially just, and it is brilliantly painted. the deepest designs cf his adversaries that amounted to genius." Mr. Bryant is immensely learned, and he has gone to first- In spite of his love of pleasure he was, like Napoleon, pre- hand sources—particularly to the great mass of published eminently un etre polilique. He was a laborious worker and and unpublished contemporary letters, which, as he says knew more about the details of government than any of his truly, are the most reliable evidence. But the. book is never advisers. He was even a regular attender at the debates in overweighted with learning. Its architecture could scarcely the House of Lords ! As for his entourage, it was no doubt be bettered, for the salient points in Charles's career stand what Mr.- Bryant calls it, " a Court of cuckolds " ; but there out in due proportions, and the background of English life .was little drunkenness, gambling was discouraged, and it was is portrayed in intercalary chapters which are models of not extravagant. All his life Charles had to look at both sides how social history should be written. The style is full of of a shilling. The national services were shamefully starved colour and light, and the narrative marches with vigour to by Parliament ; he had to make up the deficit out of his own its dramatic close, but there is none of the false emphasis revenues, his wife's dowry, and loans from the French King, and fantastic subtlety which disfigure so many modern and all the time he was patiently trying to pay off his father's essays in rehabilitation. Mr. Bryant has a scholar's con- debts.
science as well as a scholar's equipment, and his artistic There were certain consistent principles in his policy. He sense is infallible. had the old Cavalier reverence for the laws—that was one It is not surprising that Charles should cast a spell over lesson that Clarendon had taught him. He wished to make the modern historian who takes the trouble to understand of England one people on a basis of reason and toleration, him, for few of his contemporaries could resist the charm and to restore what Clarendon called " its old good manners, of that dark, lined face, and the eyes at once shrewd and its old good-humour, and its old good nature " ; but he was quizzical and kindly. Though in many things more French in advance of his age, with the antagonisms of the Civil War than English, he read the hearts of his people. When in still unresolved. What he did not realize was the hatred of exile he would have nothing to do with assistance from the nation for Catholicism, and his cool secular good sense fell foreigners. " I do more fear," he wrote, " a French army on deaf ears. Too many people were still looking for a sign than the Presbyterians and the Independents ; it must be and a prophet, when, as Mr. Bryant well says, what was the resurrection of England's courage and loyalty must needed was a good chartered accountant. His personal recover England to the King." He had an instinct for influence was always cast on the side of mercy. He had what the plain man was thinking which enabled him, to the Parliaments which refused to look at facts or listen to reason. amazement of foreign observers, to stand alone against Ifs The first represented the reactionary side of the Cavaliers, and Parliaments. He was also the most companionable of men, the later ones were factious and corrupt. Even against the with his ready humour, his genuine good nature, and his Treaty of Dover may be set the intrigues between Louis and abounding intellectual vitality. Nothing that interested Shaftesbury's gang. Charles's policy throughout was to main- mankind came amiss to him. He planted gardens and Lain the prerogatives of the throne, both against ambitious collected strange animals ; he walked down all his courtiers, nobles and ignorant mobs. Let it not be forgotten that in his and raced, and yachted ; he was always making scientific worst years of penury he managed to keep a few regiments in experiments, and would sit up all night with the astronomers being, the nucleus of that army which under Marlborough to watch the eclipse of Saturn. He was the personification was to humble France and lay the foundations of the of the new spirit of inquiry and toleration which was replacing Empire.
the rigour of the Commonwealth. One who was so em- He succeeded. Before his death, at the age of fifty-five, phatically a man of his time could not fail to fascinate his he had made England prosperous and peaceful, doubled its merchant navy, established inany new industries, and beaten No doubt his character was an odd compost, but he had to the ground his impossible Parliaments. " If he had lived," many sterling virtues. He had strong affections, and I know wrote Welwood, " it's probable we might, in compliance with few letters more tender than those which he wrote .to him, have complimented ourselves out of all the remains of " Minette," his little sister Henrietta. He could not read liberty, if he had but a mind to be master of them." He the dispatches after the victory over the Dutch for tears, maintained the monarchy in its old form, and, as compared when he found Berkeley's name on the list of the dead. He with the parliamentary system which opposed it, the monarchy was kind to his mistresses when_ they grew old and fat, and, was a more honest and efficient form of government. It was in spite of his infidelities, he. was an affectionate husband left for later generations, after James had shown how futile a and retained the adoring love of his Queen. He has been monarchy could be, to devise a parliamentary machine on a accused of disloyalty to his friends, but the charge cannot better model. Charles, in virtue of his achievement, must be proved. He handsomely recompensed those who had rank high in the list of English statesmen and men of action ; aided him in the flight from Worcester, and would have if his work was afterwards undone, it was nevertheless done endowed every broken Cavalier if he could have found the well. As for the man, he represented that humane and money. He stood gallantly by his wife when half the nation enjoying temper which is a very deep and ancient thing in were howling against her creed, and his loyalty to his brother England. He was without the Christian virtue of continence, was almost his undoing. When the Lord Chief Justice. was but he had most of the others which his opponents notoriously threatened with impeaclunent, he bade him be of good cheer lacked,
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