Sin,—Having succeeded at last in getting a letter to the
Spectator published, I find it rather hard to be accused of 'rushing into print,' but never mind! Mr. Michael Joyce has very kindly drawn my attention to the biography of Sir Henry Firebrace where references may be found of an attempt by Charles I to flirt with Mrs. Whorwood who does not appear to be quite as unattractive as Dr. Wingfield-Stratford suggests. These references are a little obscure but, in default of any other evidence, I am certainly prepared to apologise and to admit that this is 'the titbit that eludes' me and that it was magnified into an allaire by my prejudiced mind. Incidentally, my prejudices arc Radical and Republican, Dr. Wingfield- Stratford's are Tory and Royalist! 1 see no harm in admitting them.
Charles was 'liquidated' because he engineered the Second Civil War; as G. M. Young writes, 'The first war could be forgiven. Btit not another war.'
It is not true to say, as Dr. Wingfield-Stratford sug- gests, that my view of. Charles's untrustworthiness is widely held; surely the overwhelmingly 'popular' opinion of the king is that of a noble, unsullied martyr? Personally, I prefer to follow the judgments of such historians as Wedgwood—'He did not hold himself bound by any promises made to his opponents or. by the normal decencies of treaty negotiations'; Trevelyan—'. . . he was by temperament incapable of coming to an honest agreement and abiding by it'; and Woodward—He 'had all the virtues of a private gentleman except that of keeping his word,'—Yours
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