re. He set his own authority above all laws, and persistently
disregarded the rights of the people. At last he became involved in so
many difficulties that he was obliged to reassemble the two houses.
Then followed the long struggle between the king and the Parliament,
which resulted in the Civil War. The supporters of the Crown
represented chiefly the upper classes, and were called Cavaliers. The
Parliamentarians were for the most part Puritans, and were men of
fervent piety.

There were six years of fighting, beginning with the battle of
Edgehill, and culminating in the Parliamentary victory at Naseby.
Charles was tried and condemned as a "tyrant, traitor, murderer, and
public enemy." On the 30th of January, 1649, he was executed in front
of Whitehall Palace, walking to the scaffold with the same kingly
dignity which he had shown throughout his life. "I go," said he, "from
a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can take
place." His body was laid among others of England's royal dead at
Windsor.

The picture reproduced in our illustration is not thought to be the
original work of Van Dyck's hand, for that precious painting was
destroyed by a fire in the Palace of Whitehall. It was a fortunate
circumstance that while it was still in existence, Sir Peter Lely,
court painter to Charles II., made a fine copy of it, which is now in
the Dresden Gallery. A competent critic (Lionel Cust) tells us that
the Dresden picture is so excellent that "it is difficult to believe
it to be other than an original by Van Dyck."

AUTHORITIES.--Green: _A Short History of the English People;
D'Israeli: Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I._

VIII

THE MADONNA OF ST. ROSALIA

On the summit of Monte Pellegrino, in the island of Sicily, stands a
colossal statue of St. Rosalia. Like the old Greek statue of Victory
on the island of Samothrace,[8] or to use a modern instance, like the
statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island in New York harbor, St. Rosalia
serves as a beacon to mariners. The Sicilians hold the saint in great
reverence, and celebrate her memory in two annual festivals. From the
eleventh to the fifteenth of July are horse-races, regattas,
illuminations, and all sorts of gayeties in her honor. In September
there is a solemn procession to her chapel.

[Footnote 8: See Chapter XV. in the volume on _Greek Sculpture_ in the
Riverside Art Series.]

St. Rosalia was a Sicilian maiden of noble fa