in his defence, and there is much reason to believe that it states the truth. When my Lord Capell, Duke Hamilton, and the Earl of Holland, were beheaded in the Palace Yard, Westminster [soon after the King], my Lord Capell asked the common hangman, "Did you cut off my master's head?" "Yes," saith he. "Where is the instrument that did it?" He then brought the axe. "Is this the same axe? are you sure?" said my lord. "Yes, my lord," saith the hangman; "I am very EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. sure it is the same." My Lord Capell took the axe and kissed it, and gave him five pieces of gold. I heard him say, "Sirrah, wert thou not afraid?" Saith the hangman, "They made me cut it off, and I had thirty pounds for my pains." We have engraved two of the relics associated with this solemn event in our history. First is the Bible believed to have been used by Charles, just previous to his death, and which the King is said to have presented to Bishop Juxon, though this circumstance is not mentioned in any contemporaneous account of the execution. The only notice of such a volume, as a dying gift, appears to be that recorded by Sir Thomas Herbert, in his narrative, which forms a part of The Memoirs of the last Two Years of the Reign of that unparalleled Prince, of ever-blessed memory, King Charles I.; London, 1702, p. 129, in the following passage:-The King thereupon gave him his hand to kiss, having the day before been graciously pleased, under his royal hand, to give him a certificate, that the said Mr Herbert was not imposed upon him, but by his Majesty made choice of to attend him in his bedchamber, and had served him with faithfulness and loyal affection. His Majesty also delivered him his Bible, in the margin whereof he had, with his own hand, written many annotations and quotations, and charged him to give it to the Prince so soon as he returned.' That this might be the book above represented is rendered extremely probable, on the assumption that the King would be naturally anxious that his son should possess that very copy of the Scriptures which had been provided for himself when he was Prince of Wales. It will be observed that the cover of the Bible is decorated with the badge of the Principality within the Garter, surmounted by a royal coronet (in silver gilt), enclosed by an embroidered border; the initial P. being apparently altered to an R., and the badges of the Rose and Thistle upon a ground of blue velvet: the book was, therefore, bound between the death of Prince Henry, in 1612, and the accession of Charles to the throne in 1625, when such a coronet would be no longer used by him. If the Bible here represented be that referred to by Herbert, the circumstance of Bishop Juxon becoming the possessor of it might be accounted for by supposing that it was placed in his hands to be transmitted to Charles II., with the George of the Order of the Garter belonging to the late King, well known to have been given to that prelate upon the scaffold. The Bible was, when Mr Roach Smith wrote the above details in his Collectanea Antiqua, in the possession of James Skene, Esq, of Rubislaw.* Next is engraved the silver clock-watch, which had long been used by King Charles, and was given by him to Sir Thomas Herbert, on the morning of his execution. The face is beautifully engraved; and the back and rim are elaborately chased, and pierced with foliage and scrollwork. It has descended as an heir-loom to William Townley Mitford, Esq.; and from its undoubted Mr. Skene, the last survivor of the six friends to whom Sir Walter Scott dedicated the respective cantoes of Marmion, now (1862) resides in Oxford. floor of the chapel, they found a vault in the centre of the quire, containing two coffins, believed to be those of Henry VIII. and his queen Jane Seymour; and there his coffin was placed, with no ceremony beyond the tears of the mourners, the Funeral Service being then under prohibition. The words 'King Charles, 1648,' inscribed on the outside of the outer wooden coffin, alone marked the remains of the unfortunate monarch. These sad rites were paid at three in the afternoon of the 19th of February, three weeks after the execution. beard, so characteristic of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained. When the head had been entirely disengaged from the attachments which confined it, it was found to be loose, and without any difficulty was taken up and held to view. . . The back part of the scalp was perfect, and had a remarkably fresh appearance; the pores of the skin being more distinct, as they usually are when soaked in moisture; and the tendons and filaments of the neck were of considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and, in appearance, nearly black.... On holding up the head to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves considerably; and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance, transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even.'" The coffin of King Charles was seen in the reign of William III., on the vault being opened to receive one of the Princess Anne's children. It remained unobserved, forgotten, and a matter of doubt for upwards of a century thereafter, till, in 1813, the vault had once more to be opened for the funeral of the Duchess of Brunswick. On the 1st of April, the day after the interment of that princess, the Prince Regent, the Duke of Cumberland, the Dean of Windsor, Sir Harry Halford, and two other gentlemen assembled at the vault, while a search was made for the remains of King Charles. The leaden coffin, with the inscription, was soon found, and partially opened, when the body of the decapitated king was found tolerably entire and in good condition, amidst the gums and resins which had been employed in preserving it. At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discoloured. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately: and the pointed The first Lord Holland used to relate, with some pleasantry, a usage of his father, Sir Stephen Fox, which proves the superstitious veneration in which the Tories held the memory of Charles I. During the whole of the 30th of January, the wainscot of the house used to be hung with black, and no meal of any sort was allowed till after midnight. This attempt at rendering the day melancholy by fasting had a directly contrary effect on the children; for the housekeeper, apprehensive that they might suffer from so long an abstinence from food, used to give the little folks clandestinely as many comfits and sweetmeats as they could eat, and Sir Stephen's in *Sir Henry Halford's Account of what appeared on opening the coffin of King Charles I., &c. 1813. tended feast was looked to by the younger part of the family as a holiday and diversion.-Correspondence of C. J. Fox, edited by Earl Russell. There is a story told regarding a Miss Russell, great-grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell, who was waiting-woman to the Princess Amelia, daughter of George II., to the effect that, while engaged in her duty one 30th of January, the Prince of Wales came into the room, and sportively said, "For shame, Miss Russell! why have you not been at church, humbling yourself with weepings and wailings for the sins on this day committed by your ancestor?' To which Miss Russell answered, Sir, for a descendant of the great Oliver Cromwell, it is humiliation sufficient to be employed, as I am, in pinning up the tail of your sister!'-Rede's Anecdotes, 1799. THE CALVES'-HEAD CLUB. The Calbes'-Head Club. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1735, vol. v., following piece of intelligence: Some young p. 105, under the date of January 30, gives the noblemen and gentlemen met at a tavern in Suffolk Street [Charing Cross], called themselves the Calves'-Head Club, dressed up a calf's head in a napkin, and after some huzzas threw it into a bonfire, and dipt napkins in their red wine and waved them out at window. The mob had strong beer given them, and for a time some healths proposed, grew so outrageous that hallooed as well as the best, but taking disgust at they broke all the windows, and forced themselves into the house; but the guards being sent for, prevented further mischief.' The Weekly Chronicle, of February 1, 1735, states that the damage was estimated at some hundred | bourhood.' Horace Walpole says the mob pounds, and that the guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neigh destroyed part of the house. Sir William (called Hellfire) Stanhope was one of the mem bers. This riotous occurrence was the occasion Which, if not scand- was brand- alum magnatum. It is a singular fact that a political club of this revolutionary character should have been in existence at so late a period as the eighth year of the reign of George II. We find no mention of it for many years preceding this time, and after the riot it was probably broken up. The first notice that we find of this strange club is in a small quarto tract of twenty-two pages, which has been reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany. It is entitled The Secret History of the Calves-Head Club; or, the Republican unmask'd. Wherein is fully shewn the Religion of the Calves-Head Heroes, in their Anniversary Thanksgiving Songs on the 30th of January, by them called Anthems, for the Years 1693, 1694, 1695, 1696, 1697. Now published to demonstrate the restless implacable Spirit of a certain Party still amongst us, who are never to be satisfied until the present Establishment in Church and State is subverted. The Second Edition. London, 1703. The Secret History, which occupies less than half of the twenty-two pages, is vague and unsatisfactory, and the five songs or anthems are entirely devoid of literary or any other merit. As Queen Anne commenced her reign in March 1702, and the second edition of this tract is dated 1703, it may be presumed that the first edition was published at the beginning of the Queen's reign. The author states, that after the Restoration the eyes of the Government being upon the whole party, they were obliged to meet with a great deal of precaution, but now they meet almost in a public manner, and apprehend nothing. Yet all the evidence which he produces concerning their meetings is hearsay. He had never himself been present at the club. He states, that happening in the late reign to be in company of a certain active Whig,' the said Whig THE CALVES'-HEAD CLUB. informed him that he knew most of the members of the club, and had been often invited to their meetings, but had never attended: that Milton and other creatures of the Commonwealth had instituted this club (as he was informed) in opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr Sanderson, Dr Hammond, and other divines of the Church of England, who met privately every 30th of January, and though it was under the time of the usurpation had compiled a private form of service of the day, not much different from what we now find in the Liturgy.' From this statement it appears that the author's friend, though a Whig, had no personal knowledge of the club. The slanderous rumour about Milton may be passed over as unworthy of notice, this untrustworthy tract being the only authority for it. But the author of the Secret History has more evidence to produce. By another gentleman, who, about eight years ago, went, out of mere curiosity, to their club, and has since furnished me with the following papers [the songs or anthems], I was informed that it was kept in no fixed house, but that they removed as they saw convenient; that the place they met in when he was with them was in a blind alley about Moorfields; that the company wholly consisted of Independents and Anabaptists (I am glad, for the honour of the Presbyterians, to set down this remark); that the famous Jerry White, formerly chaplain to Oliver Cromwell (who, no doubt of it, came to sanctify with his pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day), said grace; that, after the cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they impiously called it, was sung, and a calf's skull filled with wine, or other liquor, and then a brimmer, went round to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant, and delivered the country from his arbitrary sway.' Such is the story told in the edition of 1703; but in the edition of 1713, after the word Moorfields, the narrative is continued as follows: where an axe was hung up in the club-room, and was reverenced as a principal symbol in this diabolical sacrament. Their bill of fare was a large dish of calves'-heads, dressed several ways, by which they represented the king, and his friends who had suffered in his cause; a large pike with a small one in his mouth, as an emblem of tyranny; a large cod's head, by which they pretended to represent the person of the king singly; a boar's head, with an apple in its mouth, to represent the king. After the repast was over, one of their elders presented an Ikon Basilike, which was with great solemnity burned upon the table, whilst the anthems were singing. After this, another produced Milton's Defensio Populi Anglicani, upon which all laid their hands, and made a protestation, in form of an oath, for ever to stand by and maintain the same. The company wholly consisted of Anabaptists,' &c. As a specimen of the verses, the following stanzas may be quoted from the anthem for 1696, in reference to Charles I. :— This monarch wore a peaked beard, And merciful as Nero. MEMORIALS OF CHARLES I. THE BOOK OF DAYS. 'The Church's darling implement, And scourge of all the people, 'But they, perceiving his designs, Grew plaguy shy and jealous, This tract appears to have excited the curiosity of the public in no small degree; for it passed, with many augmentations as valueless as the original trash, through no less than nine editions. The fifth edition, published in 1705, contains three additional songs, and is further augmented by Reflections' on each of the eight songs, and by A Vindication of the Royal Martyr Charles the First, wherein are laid open the Republicans' Mysteries of Rebellion, written in the time of the Usurpation by the celebrated Mr Butler, author of Hudibras; with a Character of a Presbyterian, by Sir John Denham, Knight.' To a certainty the author of Hudibras never wrote anything so stupid as this Vindication,' nor the author of Cooper's Hill the dull verses here ascribed to him. CONVIVIAL CLUBS IN LANCASHIRE. to look on the affectionate grief of those who, on There are also extant IA: the migravit 30.1647 or locket, in the form of a heart, which may be presumed each to have been suspended near the heart of some devoted and tearful loyalist. The sixth edition is a reprint of the fifth, but graved profile head of the king within, oppoIn the example here presented, there is an enhas an engraving representing the members of the site to which, on the inside of the lid, is inclub seated at a table furnished with dishes such cribed, 'Prepared be to follow me, C.R. On one as are described in the extract above quoted, and of the exterior sides is a heart stuck through with the axe hung up against the wainscot. A with arrows, and the legend, 'I live and dy in man in a priest's dress is saying grace, and four other persons are seated near him, two on each side; two others seem by their dress to be men of rank. A black personage, with horns on his head, is looking in at the door from behind; and a female figure, with snakes among her hair, probably representing Rebellion, is looking out from under the table. The eighth edition, published in 1713, contains seven engravings, including the one just described, and the text is augmented to 224 pages. The additional matter consists of the following articles: An Appendix to the Secret History of the Calf's Head Club;' Remarkable Accidents and Transactions at the Calf's Head Club, by way of Continuation of the Secret History thereof, these Accidents' extend over the years 1708-12, and consist of narratives apparently got up for the purpose of exciting the public and selling the book; 'Select Observations of the Whigs;' 'Policy and Conduct in and out of Power. Lowndes mentions another edition published in 1716. Hearne tells us that on the 30th January 1706-7, some young men in All Souls' College, Oxford, dined together at twelve o'clock, and amused themselves with cutting off the heads of a number of woodcocks, 'in contempt of the memory of the blessed martyr.' They had tried to get calves'-heads, but the cook refused to dress them.* MEMORIALS OF CHARLES I. It is pleasanter to contemplate the feelings of tenderness and veneration than those of contempt and anger. We experience a relief in turning from the coarse doings of the Calves'-Head Club, * Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, i. 121. |