HISTORICAL COINCIDENCES.

The

BY a signal providence (says Wheatly), the bloody rebels chose that day for murdering their King, on which the history of Our Saviour's sufferings (Mat. xxvii.) was appointed to be read as a Lesson. blessed martyr had forgot that it came in the ordinary course; and, therefore, when Bishop Juxon (who read the morning office immediately before his martyrdom) named this chapter, the good Prince asked him if he had singled it out, as fit for the occasion; and when he was informed it was the Lesson for the day, could not without a sensible complacency and joy admire how suitably it concurred with his circumstances.

Macaulay, in his History of England, speaking of the Seven Prelates committed to the Tower by James II., says: "On the evening of Black-Friday, as it was called, on which they were committed, they reached their prison just at the hour of divine service. They instantly hastened to the chapel. It chanced that in the second Lesson are these words: In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments.' All zealous churchmen were delighted with this coincidence, and remembered how much comfort a similar coincidence had given nearly 40 years before, to Charles I., at the time of his death."

A strange story of the ill-fated bust of Charles I., carved by Bernini, is thus told: Vandyke having drawn the King in three different faces,—a profile, threequarters, and a full face,-the picture was sent to Rome for Bernini to make a bust from it. He was unaccount

ably dilatory in the work; and upon this being complained of, he said that he had set about it several times, but there was something so unfortunate in the features of the face that he was shocked every time that he examined it, and forced to leave off the work; and, if there was any stress to be laid on physiognomy, he was sure the person whom the picture represented was destined to a violent end. The bust was at last finished, and sent to England. As soon as the ship that brought it arrived in the river, the King, who was very impatient to see the bust, ordered it to be carried immediately to Chelsea. It was conveyed thither, and placed upon a table in the garden, whither the King went with a train of nobility to inspect the bust. As they were viewing it, a hawk flew over their heads with a partridge in his claws, which he had wounded to death. Some of the partridge's blood fell upon the neck of the bust, where it remained without being wiped off. This bust was placed over the door of the King's closet at Whitehall, and continued there till the palace was destroyed by fire. (Pamphlet On the Character of Charles I., by Zachary Grey, LL.D.)

Howell, in a letter to Sir Edward Spencer, Feb. 20, 1647-8, refers to the proximate execution of Charles I. as follows: "Surely the witch of Endor is no fable; the burning Joan of Arc, at Rouen, and the Marchioness d'Anere, of late years, in Paris, are no fables: the execution of Nostradamus for a kind of witch, some fourscore years since, who, among other things, foretold that the senate of London will kill their King."

QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA DOING PENANCE AT TYBURN.

IN the Crowle Pennant, in the British Museum, is a German print of considerable rarity, representing Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I., doing penance beneath the triangular gallows at Tyburn. At a short distance is the confessor's carriage, drawn by six horses; the Queen is kneeling in prayer beneath the gibbet; in the coach is seated "the Luciferian Confessour," and a page, bearing a lighted torch, stands to the left of the carriage door. The authenticity of this print has been impeached; but we have a distinct record of the strange scene which the engraver has here illustrated.

It will be recollected that by the marriage articles of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, the latter was permitted to have a large establishment of Roman Catholic priests; from which it was inferred that the marriage was assented to on the part of the Papal Hierarchy, with the secret intention of rendering it the stepping-stone to the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in this country. The glaring imprudence with which the Queen's household endeavoured to effect their purpose, and the very indirect subjugation in which they enthralled their royal mistress, however, occasioned their absolute dismissal from the kingdom, by Charles himself, within little more than a twelvemonth after their arrival here.

Henrietta Maria is described in letters of her time as a beautiful woman, in stature reaching to the King's shoulders she was "nimble and quiet, black-eyed, brown-haired, and, in a word, a brave lady." Very

soon after her arrival in England, her enthralment by the priesthood was witnessed by the King: being at dinner, and being carved pheasant and venison by His Majesty, the Queen ate heartily of both, notwithstanding her confessor, who stood by her, had forewarned her that it was the eve of St. John the Baptist, and was to be fasted.

Henrietta's clergy were the most superstitious, turbulent, and Jesuitical priests that could be found in all France. Among their "insolencies towards the Queene," it is recorded that Her Majesty was once sentenced by her confessor to make a pilgrimage to Tyburn, and there to do homage to the saintship of some recently-arrived Roman Catholics. "No longer agoe than upon St. James, his day last, those hypocritical dogges made the pore Queene to walk afoot (some sidd barefoot) from her house at St. James's, to the gallowes at Tyborne, thereby to honour the saint of the day, in visiting that holy place, where so many martyrs (forsooth!) had shed their blood in defence of the Catholic cause. Had they not also been made to dable in the dirt in a fowl morning, fro' Somersett House to St. James's, her Luciferian Confessour riding allong by her in his coach! Yea, they made her to go barefoot, to spin, to eat her meat out of tryne (treen or wooden) dishes, to wait at table, and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances. It is hoped, after they are gone, the Queene will, by degrees, finde the sweetness of liberty in being exempt from those beggarly rudiments of Popish penance." (Ellis's Original Letters, First Series, vol. iii. pp. 241-3. Harl. MSS. 383.)

It appears that the French were first turned out

of St. James's and sent to Somerset House: a letter states that they were immediately ordered "to depart thence (St. James's) to Somerset House, although the women howled and lamented as if they had been going to execution, but all in vaine, for the Yeomen of the Guard, by that Lord's (Conway) appointment, thrust them and all their country folkes out of the Queen's lodging, and locked the dores after them. It is said, also, the Queen, when she understood the design, grewe very impatient, and brake the glass windows with her fiste: but since, I hear, her rage is appeased, and the King and shee, since they went together to Nonsuche, have been very jocund together."

Then, we have an amusing account of the peculations committed by these "French freebooters" on the Queen's "apparrell and linen," when they left her little more than one gown to her back. In about a month, the King, probably from some fresh machination of the discarded train, thus issued his commands to the Duke of Buckingham:

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Steenie,-I have received your letter by Dic Greame. This is my Answer: I command you to send all the French away to-morrow out of the Towne. If you can, by fair means (but stike not longe in disputing), otherways force them away, dryving them away lyke so maine wyld beastes untill ye have shipped them, and so the Devill go with them. Lett me heare no answer but of the performance of my command. So I rest, "Your faithful constant, loving friend, "CHARLES R.

Yet, the crew would not go without an order from the King, which reply being sent post, next morning