CHAP. VI - Fall of the King

Summary

While the fate of Charles I was being staked on the dubious issue of battle, he remained in strict custody in Carisbrook castle. His imprisonments had all in some sense been voluntary: he had fled for refuge to the Scots, and not unwillingly had followed the English commissioners to Holmby, and the cornet of Cromwell's army to Hampton Court: in a kind of flight before the Agitators he repaired to the Isle of Wight. At every change he conceived new hopes; during every imprisonment he was busy with open negotiations or secret dealings of the very widest import. Still he had many quiet hours of profound retirement. Among the books which he then read are mentioned, first of all the Bible with commentaries on it, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the historical plays of Shakespeare, Tasso's Gierusalemme—nothing actually historical, for his spirit inclined less to facts than to the ideal and to theory. He loved to think, and write, and pray alone. Of the state of mind in which he was evidence is afforded by the little book ‘Suspiria Regalia,’ as it was originally called, or ‘Eikon Basilike,’ as it was afterwards named, a collection of prayers and self-examinations, which were put into the form of a book by another hand, but contained much that was actually of his own composition. They agree in places word for word with what are known to have been his expressions through sources revealed at a much later date.