utation of insincerity on Charles
I., like most party clamors, is difficult to be removed; though it may
not here be improper to say something with regard to it. I shall first
remark, that this imputation seems to be of a later growth than his
own age; and that even his enemies, though they loaded him with many
calumnies, did not insist on this accusation. Ludlow, I think, is
almost the only parliamentarian who imputes that vice to him; and
how passionate a writer he is, must be obvious to every one. Neither
Clarendon nor any other of the royalists ever justify him from
insincerity, as not supposing that he had ever been accused of it. In
the second place, his deportment and character in common life was free
from that vice. He was reserved, distant, stately; cold in his address,
plain in his discourse, inflexible in his principles; wide of the
caressing, insinuating manners of his son, or the professing, talkative
humor of his father. The imputation of insincerity must be grounded on
some of his public actions, which we are therefore in the third place
to examine. The following are the only instances which I find cited to
confirm that accusation. 1. His vouching Buckingham's narrative of
the transactions in Spain. But it is evident that Charles himself was
deceived: why otherwise did he quarrel with Spain? The following is a
passage of a letter from Lord Kensington, ambassador in France, to the
duke of Buckingham Cabbala p. 318. "But his highness (the prince) had
observed as great a weakness and folly as that, in that after they (the
Spaniards) had used him so ill, they would suffer him to depart, which
was one of the first speeches he uttered after he came into the ship.
But did he say so? said the queen (of France.) Yes, madam, I will
assure you, quoth I, from the witness of mine own ears. She smiled, and
replied, Indeed, I heard he was used ill. So he was, answered I, but
not in his entertainment; for that was as splendid as that country
could afford it; but in their frivolous delays, and in the unreasonable
conditions which they propounded and pressed, upon the advantage they
had of his princely person." 2. Bishop Burnet, in his History of the
House of Hamilton, (p. 154.) has preserved a letter of the king's to
the Scottish bishops, in which he desires them not to be present at the
parliament, where they would be forced to ratify the abolition of their
own order. "For," adds the king, "we do hereby assure you, that it