On the day after the king’s execution appeared a work, entitled [Greek:  EIKON BASILIKAe], or the Portraicture of his Sacred Majesty in “his Solitude and Sufferings.”  It professed to be written by Charles himself; a faithful exposition of his own thoughts on the principal events of his reign, accompanied with such pious effusions as the recollection suggested to his mind.  It was calculated to create a deep sensation in favour of the royal sufferer, and is said to have passed through fifty editions in the course of the first year.  During the commonwealth, Milton made a feeble attempt to disprove the king’s claim to the composition of the book:  after the restoration, Dr. Gauden, a clergyman of Bocking, in Essex, came forward and declared himself the real author.  But he advanced his pretensions with secrecy, and received as the price of his silence, first the bishopric of Exeter, and afterwards, when he complained of the poverty of that see, the richer bishopric of Worcester.

After the death of Gauden his pretensions began to transpire, and became the subject of an interesting controversy between his friends and the admirers of Charles.  But many documents have been published since, which were then unknown, particularly the letters of

Gauden to the earl of Clarendon (Clarendon Papers, iii.  App. xxvi.-xxxi., xcv.), and others from him to the earl of Bristol (Maty’s Review, ii. 253.  Clarendon Papers, iii.  App. xcvi.; and Mr. Todd, Memoirs of Bishop Walton, i. 138).  These have so firmly established Gauden’s claim, that, whoever denies it must be prepared to pronounce that prelate an impostor, to believe that the bishops Morley and Duppa gave false evidence in his favour, and, to explain how it happened, that those, the most interested to maintain the right of the king, namely Charles II., his brother the duke of York, and the two earls of Clarendon and Bristol, yielded to the deception.  These difficulties, however, have not appalled Dr. Wordsworth, who in a recent publication of more than four hundred pages, entitled, “Who wrote[Greek:  EIKON BASILIKAe]” has collected with patient industry every particle of evidence which can bear upon the subject; and after a most minute and laborious investigation, has concluded by adjudging the work to the king, and pronouncing the bishop an impudent impostor.  Still my incredulity is not subdued.  There is much in the[Greek:  EIKON BASILIKAe] itself which forbids me to believe that Charles was the real author, though the latter, whoever he were, may have occasionally consulted and copied the royal papers; and the claim of Gauden appears too firmly established to be shaken by the imperfect and conjectural improbabilities which have hitherto been produced against it.

NOTE D, p. 276.

The Massacres at Drogheda and Wexford.

I. Drogheda was taken by storm on the 11th of September, 1649.  Cromwell, on his return to Dublin, despatched two official accounts of his success, one to Bradshaw, president of the council of state; a second to Lenthall, the speaker of parliament.  They were dated on the 16th and 17th of September; which probably ought to have been the 17th and 18th, for he repeatedly makes such mistakes in numbering the days of that month.  These two documents on several accounts deserve the attention of the reader.