ic and reserved where he did
not love; intolerant of opposition to his will. But he was a good
husband, a good father, a good churchman--no man so good was ever so
bad a king; no man so fallible believed so honestly in his
infallibility. For Charles was honest to his own convictions. His very
duplicity was due sometimes to schooling in "kingcraft," but oftener to
inability to see two sides of a question. Now he saw one, and now the
other, but never both sides at once; and, just as he saw, so he spoke.
Milton's charges against him of "all manner of lewdness" rank with
Milton's charge that he poisoned his father. Indeed, as a pattern of
culture and purity, few princes are worthy to be named beside him.

His children all loved and respected him. His little daughter Elizabeth,
held as a prisoner by his foes, wrote of him with such womanly sympathy
and admiration as even now brings tears to our eyes. His last letter of
advice to his son Charles is a model hardly to be improved on. Parts of
it read as follows:

"I had rather you should be Charles _le bon_, than _le grand_, good,
than great; I hope God hath designed you to be both; having so early put
you into that exercise of His graces and gifts bestowed upon you, which
may best weed out all vicious inclinations, and dispose you to those
princely endowments and employments which will most gain the love, and
intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place you.

"With God, I would have you begin and end, who is King of kings, the
sovereign disposer of the kingdoms of the world, who pulleth down one
and setteth up another.

"The best government and highest sovereignty you can attain to, is to be
subject to Him, that the sceptre of His word and spirit may rule in your
heart.

"The true glory of princes consists in advancing God's glory, in the
maintenance of true religion and the church's good; also in the
dispensation of civil power with justice and honor to the public peace.

"Piety will make you prosperous, at least it will keep you from becoming
miserable; nor is he much a loser that loseth all, yet saveth his own
soul at last.

"To which centre of true happiness, God (I trust) hath and will
graciously direct all these black lines of affliction which He hath been
pleased to draw on me, and by which He hath (I hope) drawn me nearer to
Himself. You have already tasted of that cup whereof I have liberally
drunk; which I look upon as God's physic, having that in he