The "Eikon Basilike."

The "Eikon Basilike" ("Royal Image") was a book for many years supposed to have been written by Charles I. of England, during his imprisonment on the Isle of Wight. It is now known to have been written by Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter (1605-1662). The manuscript copy was put into the hands of the publisher, Richard Royston, on the 23d of December, 1648. Whether any copies were printed by the 30th of the following month, the day when Charles I. was executed, is doubtful; but there is no doubt that it was largely in circulation soon afterwards, and that it produced a powerful effect upon the Royalists, strengthening their doctrine in the divine right of kings, most of them believing that the king himself wrote it.

This work was the chief means of obtaining for Charles I. the designation of the "Royal Martyr," and to it has been attributed also the Restoration.

M. Guizot, in his history of the events of those times, says, "The manuscript had probably been read, perhaps even corrected, by Charles himself, during his residence in the Isle of Wight. In any case, it was the real expression and true portraiture of his position, character, and mind, as they had been formed by misfortune."

Nearly fifty thousand copies of it were sold within a year in England alone, and it did not fail to excite a deep interest in the faithful adherents of the House of Stuart: it also produced a general tendency among his avowed opponents to forget the faults of the unfortunate king, and to recall his virtues. The Government becoming alarmed at the effect of it upon the public mind, desired Milton to write an answer to the "Eikon Basilike," with the view of showing, that, whether written by the king or not, its political reasonings were invalid. Milton accepted the duty, and wrote what became one of his most celebrated works, called the "Eikonoklastes" ("Image-breaker"), more frequently spelled Iconoclastes.

The question of the authorship of the "Eikon Basilike" was long a matter of literary discussion; and in the last century we find Hume, in his History of England, advocating the claims of the king to the authorship, in preference to those of Dr. Gauden.

Numerous copies of the "Eikon Basilike" are preserved in public and private libraries in England: these copies have verses, written on the fly-leaves during the troubled period of the Commonwealth, showing that the grief of the people was deep and sincere, and that they considered the work to be "A Faithful Portraiture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings."

According to Hume, "it must be acknowledged the best prose composition which, at the time of its composition, was to be found in the English language." The bitter vein and scurrilous tone of the "Iconoclastes" has been considered a spot on Milton's fame.