His Maties Farewell Speech unto y Lords Com'ssioners at Newport in y Isle of Wight.* "My Lords, You are come to take your leaue of mee, and I beleeue wee shall scarce euer see each other againe : -but Gods will be done. I thank God I haue made my peace wth him, & shall wthout feare undergoe what he shall please to suffer men to doe unto mee. My Lords, you cannot but knowe that in my fall and ruine you see yo' owne, and that also neere to you. I pray God send you better frends then I haue found. I am fully informed of ye whole carriage of ye plott against me & myne, and nothing soe much afflicts mee as the sense and feelinge I haue of ye sufferings of my subjects, and ye mischief that hangs ouer my three Kingdomes, drawne upon them by those who (upon pretences of good) violently pursue their owne interestes and ends." These words his Matie deliuered wth much alacrity and cheerefullnes, wth a countenance, & serene carriage free from all disturbance. Thus he parted wth ye Lords leauing many tender impressions (if not in them) yet in ye other hearers.† His Maties farewell Speech to the Lodes at Newport, 1o Dec. 1648. * The Commissioners were the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Middlesex; Viscount Say and Sele; Lord Wenman; Messrs. Pierpoint, Hollis, Crew, Bulkeley; Sirs Henry Vane, jun., Harbottle Grimstone, and John Potts; Serjeants Glynne and Browne, and some others. This conference took place almost immediately before the King's death. On the 4th of December took place the third day's debate in the House of Commons of the question whether the royal concessions in the Newport treaty were a ground of settlement; which, at five o'clock next morning, was resolved in the affirmative by a majority of 129 to 83. The day following, Wednesday the 6th of December, was the day of Pride's Purge. Within a month from that date the King was brought to trial; and on the 29th January, 1648-9, the death-warrant was signed. CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR EDWARD NICHOLAS AND VARIOUS MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY; DURING THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR EDWARD NICHOLAS AND THE ROYAL FAMILY, AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES I. THE subjoined letters, in continuation of the preceding correspondence, will be found to require little illustrative comment. They embrace the brief and unsuccessful royalist campaign which closed on the field of Worcester; they contain illustrations of Charles the Second's distrust and dislike of his Presbyterian friends and supporters; but they derive perhaps their chief interest from the gossiping details in which the deceased King's sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, so largely indulges, and in which the fears and jealousies, the enjoyments and privations of the Exiles, the fluctuation of her nephew's hopes, Cromwell's assumption of power, the vagaries of the errant Queen of Sweden, the attempts of the Queen-mother Henrietta to make Roman Catholics of her children, and the childhood of that young Prince of Orange for whom those attempts were preparing a throne, are curiously and impartially mixed up. The letter of earnest remonstrance to the Duke of Gloucester, "concerning his being tempted to turne papist," bearing the signature of his elder brother, is a somewhat strange comment on the faith in which Charles the Second died. Sir, PARIS, Nov. 6, 1649. St. No. To giue you an account of the vastnesse of this packett, give me leaue to tell you, that together with this booke wch I send you, there came in half a * Charles, at the period of his father's death, was at the Hague with his brother in law, the Prince of Orange; after which he went to France to join his mother; but having been proclaimed King throughout Ireland, with the exception of Dublin and Londonderry, he would have proceeded there, had he not been forewarned that |