The day at length arrived, big with the fate of
England and her king—the twentieth of January,
memorable thenceforth through every age for the
most solemn and sublimely daring measure recorded
in the annals of the world. At an extremely
early hour the members of the high court of
justice, which had been constituted with the utmost
labour by the military council that swayed the helm
of state, so as to be a fair representation of all
ranks and classes of society, assembled in the
painted chamber. All the chief members of the
independent party in the commons—Lord Fairfax,
Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton, as the four generals,
with all the colonels of the army—the two chief
justices and the chief baron—six peers—five aldermen
of London—several from the most leading
barristers—and many baronets and country gentlemen
of note, had been at the first summoned to the
discharge of this unprecedented trust; but, when
the House of Lords refused its sanction to the

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

ordinance for bringing of the king to justice, the
peers and judges were omitted. Sir Harry Vane,
Algernon Sidney, St. John, and some other stanch
republicans, who, although friendly to the king's
deposition, were not consenting to his death, refused
to sit as members of the court; and many
more, either from fear or conscience, failed answering
to their names.

While the commissioners were here assembled,
Ardenne among the rest, news was brought to them
on a sudden that his majesty had landed at Sir
Robert Cotton's stairs, on which Cromwell, who
had been previously conversing with sundry of his
intimates among the judges, with the same air of
jocularity which had so strongly marked his conduct
during the earlier consultation, rose suddenly
from the place where he had been sitting, and
moved with rapid but unequal steps toward the
window. The keen eye of Sir Edgar followed
him, and, to his no small wonder, he perceived
that the hands, which the daring chieftain laid upon
the wainscot to support him as he leaned his body
forward to look upon the royal captive, quivered so
violently as almost to communicate a tremour to
his frame; and, when he turned away, after a long
and anxious gaze upon the destined victim, although
his eye was steady and unblenching, and
his mouth firmly compressed and calm, his whole
face, usually so rubicund and sanguine in its colouring,
was ghastly pale, and his lips white as
ashes. Marvelling greatly at this change in one
so stern and inaccessible to ordinary feelings; remembering,
too, the widely different glance with
which, at a more early period of his great career,
the eye of Cromwell had completely quelled the
proud man at whose aspect he now faltered; and
wishing to investigate the state of mind which

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

caused so strange a revelation of contending passions,
Sir Edgar was just stepping forward to address
him, when the doors were thrown wide open,
and the judges summoned to the court. Westminster
Hall, that most sublime and ancient specimen
of architecture, brought to perfection, which
modern art has vainly sought to imitate, by those
whom, in our overweening vanity, we children of a
later day presume to style barbarians, had been
prepared, with singular attention to details, for this
most dread solemnity. Benches, row above row,
covered with crimson velvet for the commissioners,
filled all the upper end; Bradshaw, the learned
and undaunted president, sat in the centre of
the front rank on a splendid chair, attired in rich
dark-coloured robes, and supported on the right
hand and the left by his assessors, Say and Lisle,
with a long table similarly decked before them.
The galleries were crowded almost to suffocation
by spectators pale with excitement and anxiety,
while the whole body of the building was filled
by an enormous multitude upon the right, and by
a regiment of musketeers upon the left, in caps of
steel and polished corslets, with their pieces loaded
and their ready matches lighted, a narrow passage
being marked out with silken cords between the
soldiery and populace, affording a free passage
from the doorway to the bar. The judges entered
in the midst of a silence so stern and deep, that
the slight rustling of their mantles and their feet
on the thick carpets, which were strewn within the
bar, was clearly audible. Solemn, severe, and sad,
they took their seats—each man of them, as it appeared,
almost oppressed by the intense feeling of
the vast responsibility which had been laid upon
him, and each determined to acquit himself as became
one called to act, as it were, before the real

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

and imbodied presence of his country and his God.
As Ardenne looked around him, he felt the blood
thrill painfully in every pore of his own frame! He
saw that the same process was at work in all
around him! Never had he beheld so pale a concourse!
Yet, amid all that colourless and ashy pallor,
there was no sign of trepidation or dismay; it
was the outward aspect of a mind within so rigidly
and painfully resolved, that it had gathered all the
blood toward its citadel the heart, not the weak
failing of the flesh through doubt or terror. Scarce
had their seats been taken ere the doors of that
great hall were opened, and a sedan chair, preceded
and surrounded by a guard of carbineers,
was carried to the bar, where a large chair of velvet
was set forth for the king's accommodation.
There was a pause of intense interest as the prisoner
stepped out—it seemed as if the heart of each
man in that huge apartment had ceased from its pulsations—
not a hand moved, not a breath was drawn.
It was, however, but for a moment; for the king
instantly came forth, dressed in his usual garb of
sable silk, decked only by the star and garter, and
wearing on his head his high-crowned hat, which
he did not remove, when, after a stern and haughty
look of mingled pride and sadness on the assembled
court, he calmly took the seat prepared for his reception.
Nor did he then, by any glance or sign of
courtesy, acknowledge or show any reverence to
the court; but, after sitting still for a few minutes'
space, arose again, and, having turned completely
round with his back toward the judges, gazed
steadfastly down the long area of the hall with the
same severe aspect as before, until the crier of the
court began to read the ordinance of parliament
commanding his arraignment in a sharp ringing
voice, that filled the whole apartment with its

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

distinct and high-pitched tones. Then he again sat
down, with his eyes fixed immoveably on the commanding
and undaunted features of the president.
The parliament's commission ended, the names of
all the judges were called over—and, first, that of
the president, who answered in a clear voice, quiet
and unmoved by any tremour. Then the lord-general
was summoned, and straight there was a
pause of unexpected silence, for no one answered.
Again the crier's accents wakened the echoes of
the hall—“Lord Fairfax!”—and this second time a
shrill voice, though musical and soft, replied. “He
has more wit,” it said, “than to be present here!”
The court rose in confusion—there was a momentary
tumult, and a clamour of stern import both
from the judges and spectators; but Bradshaw's
high notes, pealing like a silver trumpet's above the
din of tongues, enforced tranquillity, and, calling on
the officers to seize the person who had dared contemn
the court, appeased the short-lived riot. But
when, after a hasty search, no one could be discovered,
the calling of the commissioners proceeded,
until nearly eighty had answered to their names.

Then, with an air of deep religious feeling, mixed
with the consciousness of high authority, engraved
on his strong features, marked, as they were, by
lines of wearing thought, and pale from studious
vigils over the midnight lamp, Bradshaw arose;
and his voice, though it faltered not, was subdued
almost unto tenderness as he addressed the royal
culprit.

“Charles Stuart, king of England—the commons
of England, being deeply sensible of the calamities
that have been brought upon this nation, which are
fixed upon you as the principal author of them,
have resolved to make inquisition for blood; and,
according to that debt and duty which they owe to

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

justice—to God—to the kingdom, and themselves,
they have resolved to bring you to trial and to
judgment; and for that purpose have constituted
the high court of justice before which you are now
brought.”

This said, Cook, the attorney of the commonwealth,
who sat close to the person of the prisoner,
rose to address the court; but the king, having
in his hand a staff of ebony, tipped with a little
head of silver, laid it upon his shoulder, and, in the
deep tones of authority, commanded him to “Hold!”
which word he still reiterated with warmth, that
might almost have been termed violence, when he
perceived that he was disobeyed at the lord-president's
command.

“My lord,” the attorney said, “I come here to
charge Charles Stuart, the King of England, in the
name of the commons of England, with treason
and high misdemeanour. I desire that the said
charge may be read!” And the lord-president
giving direction to the clerk to read the charge,
the king, in a yet louder and more angry voice,
cried “Hold;” but Bradshaw, his large black eyes
flashing with indignation, sternly forbade the clerk
to notice the rude interruptions of the prisoner at
the bar, but to get on to his duty—and the indictment
was read instantly, containing, in effect, “that
he had been admitted King of England, and trusted
with a limited power to govern according to law;
and, by his oath and office, was obliged to use the
power committed to him for the good and benefit
of the people; but that he had, out of a wicked
design to erect himself an unlimited and tyrannical
power, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of
the people, traitorously levied war against the present
parliament and the people therein represented.”
It then enumerated the calamities which had

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

befallen England—the free and noble blood which
had been shed like water—the devastation of the
fair face of the land, the burning of its rich and
thriving cities, the slaughter of its bravest sons.
It pointed to the causes—the commissions signed
by his own hand for levying this domestic war—
the raising of his standard in the town of Nottingham—
his presence at Edgehill, and other battles
fought under his eye and at his instigation—so many
flagrant proofs that “he had been the author and
contriver of these unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars;
and was therein guilty of all the treasons, murders,
rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages,
and mischief to the nation which had been
committed in the said wars, or been thereby occastened;
and that he was, therefore, now impeached
for the said crimes and treasons, on the behalf and
in the name of all the good people of England—”

As the clerk read these words, while all the vast
assemblage was hushed in the deep silence of attention
and excitement, the same shrill voice which
had before proclaimed the absence of the Lord-general
Fairfax again exclaimed, in tones so thrilling
that they penetrated every portion of the building—
“No! nor one hundreth part of them.” The
tumult which ensued was yet more wild and more
alarming than before; the whole crowd sprang to
their feet with a hoarse savage murmur, and a rush
and a rustling of their feet and garments that
might be heard to a considerable distance. One
officer, a grim hard-featured fanatic, leaped forward
from the ranks, and pointing with his sheathed rapier
to that division of the galleries whence the
disturbance had proceeded, furiously shouted to his
men, bidding them “Level their muskets and give
fire!” A fearful scene ensued—the heavy rattling
of the matchlocks, as they were thrown forward,

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

ready for instant use, by the fierce soldiery, was
almost drowned by the cries, shrieks, and exclamations
of the spectators, many of whom were females,
all now in mortal terror at the prospect of
receiving an immediate volley, rushing in all directions
to and fro, and some of them endeavouring
to drop down into the body of the hall. Before,
however, time was given for the men to fire, it
was announced to the lord-president that the disturber
of the court was, in truth, no other or less
personage than the Lady Fairfax, who had taken
this extraordinary mode of testifying her dislike to
the proceedings, and had been now persuaded to
withdraw. On this announcement silence and
peace was once again restored, and after a few
moments the clerk went on with the arraignment,
repeating the offensive words more loudly than before—
“On the behalf and in the name of all the
good people of England, as a tyrant, traitor, and
murderer—and an implacable and public enemy to
the commonwealth of England.” Then, with remarkable
and singular ill-taste, and as ill-judgment,
Charles, who had been continually gazing about
the court in different directions, as if entirely free
from interest of any sort in the proceedings—now
lowering on the judges with cool contemptuous
haughtiness—now glaring with an eye of bitter hatred
on the dark soldiery which kept the avenues—
now gazing with an air of sad reproachful gravity,
not all unblent with pity, on the bulk of the
spectators—actually burst out into a loud and ringing
laugh as the word traitor was pronounced.

Bradshaw again arose majestically firm and
steady—though evidently moved to anger by the
open undisguised contempt of Charles—and with
strong emphasis, and evident determination to check
this disrespectful levity on the king's part, though

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

not without consideration for the high place and
natural displeasure of the prisoner at the proceedings
of the court, rebuked him for the tone and air
he had adopted—a tone and air becoming neither
his own dignity—his position at the present moment—
nor the exaited duties and great power of
the court before whom he stood arraigned. With
the same air of unconcealed contempt which he
had hitherto displayed, Charles listened to the
president's address, and answered by a denial of
the existence of any authority whatever in the court—
of any right pertaining unto them or to the
English people to hold their king to trial—or of
any legal power at all vested in those before whom
he now stood. Little occurred worthy of farther
note during the three days of this singular and all-important
ceremonial. The king, persisting in denial
of the court's authority, refusing to plead to
the indictment under which he stood arraigned,
and constantly breaking in with frivolous and uncivil
interruptions upon the business and proceedings
of the trial, was, at the end of the first day, remanded,
and the commissioners adjourned to the
ensuing Monday, the twenty-second instant. Upon
this second day the prisoner's behaviour was the
same; and, after some considerable altercation, he
was again remanded, and led back under close custody
to Sir Robert Cotton's house, where lodgings
were assigned to him during the hearing of his
cause. Again, on the next day, the twenty-third,
the court resumed, and, on the king's appearance
at the bar, the commonwealth's attorney instantly
craved judgment on him as contumacious; saying
that the innocent blood shed by him cried aloud
for justice. For the last time the prisoner was
commanded by the president to plead, and warned
that, by persisting in his present course, he would

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

but draw upon him an immediate judgment; but
Charles again refused to offer any answer or defence,
crying out that he “valued not the charge a
rush”—that he “would not now violate the trust
his people had reposed in him, by owning a new
court of judicature”—that “it was for their liberty
he stood, and, but for this, he would not here object
to giving satisfaction to the English people of the
clearness of his past proceedings.” The clerk accordingly
was ordered to record the prisoner's default—
and the court once again adjourned until
the twenty-seventh, sitting throughout the interval
caused by the king's determination in the painted
chamber daily, and hearing witnesses to the fact
of his setting up the standard of his cause at Nottingham—
the leading of his troops in armour at
Edgehill, Newbury, and Naseby—the issuing of
mandates and commissions to his officers for prosecution
of the war!—and seeking to establish proofs
with which they judged it needful to hold themselves
provided, in case of the king's choosing at
the last to plead. After this pause they met as
previously, upon the twenty-seventh, in the great
hall at Westminster, and the cause was once more
resumed; but still the king refused to answer or
submit; and then the president informed him that
the court had considered and agreed upon a judgment,
but yet—if he had any thing to say in defence
of himself in respect to the matter charged—
they were prepared to hear him. In reply, Charles
demanded to be heard before both houses of the
parliament, assembled in the painted chamber, before
the passing of the sentence. This, after an
adjournment of the court for half an hour to consider
on the king's proposition, was refused, as
being, in effect, but a new denial of their jurisdiction
as now constituted, and a fresh contempt. On

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

the return of the commissioners he was at once informed
that he had all too long delayed the court
already by his contempt and contumacy, and that
they were resolved unanimously to proceed to judgment
and to punishment. Then, in a long speech,
eloquent and lucid, and replete with arguments
which might appear most fitting to excuse and justify
such a proceeding, and to convince the world of
the right moral justice of a measure not certainly
in strict conformity with legal precedents, Bradshaw
proceeded to pass sentence on the prisoner—
and, toward the end of his oration, urged on the
king the scriptural example of David's late repentance
for his imitation.

Unmoved and haughty, with his dark features
marked by no expression save a slight scornful
sneer, Charles rose, still covered, and strove once
again to interrupt him—demanding to be heard
concerning those great imputations thus laid to his
charge, but was again reminded that he had refused
to own the court, and that too much delay
and liberty had been already granted to him. The
sentence was then read—the president affirming it
to be “the sentence, judgment, and resolution of
the whole court,” and all the members standing up
to testify their full concurrence with their speaker.
For the last time the royal culprit claimed to be
heard; but, at the president's direction, the guards
withdrew him, still exclaiming loudly—“that, since
he was not suffered for to speak, he might expect
what sort of justice other men should have of them!”
Various and wild were the expressions of disgust
and approbation among the multitude; some cried
“God save the king!” despite the angry scowls and
bitter menaces of the fanatical and furious guards—
others, and far the most in numbers, shouted,
with inflamed visages and bitter tones, “Justice!”

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

and “Vengeance!” and “Away with him!”—and
one, more brutal than the rest, offered to strike
him with his hand as he was led forth from the
hall, and actually spat upon his beard! The court
arose! the members dispersed to their homes! the
most unprecedented, singular, and solemn trial on
record in the anuals of the universe was ended—a
trial, wherein a puissant nation was the plaintiff—a
king, the son and grandson of a long line of mighty
and hereditary monarchs, the defendant—and the
point at issue, the momentous question whether
the kings of England should be despots over cringing
and soul-shackled slaves, or the first magistrates
of an enlightened, wise, and free, and potent
people! Happily for England! happily for the
world! the judges of that wondrous court were
equal to the task. Their verdict was the fiat of
their country's freedom—rational, moderate, and
stable! and to the world that verdict set forth an
example that has been followed, far and near, to
the establishment of liberty, and happiness, and
even-handed justice, in regions then obscured by
the thick night of tyranny and ignorance! By his
blood Charles Stuart sealed the charter of England's
constitution; and, though for a short time
the people lapsed again beneath a sway as absolute
as his, it was but for a time!—and the seeds sown
in that first revolution, moistened with noble blood,
and matured by the stormy breath of war, though
they lay dormant for a space, were not extinct, but
grew up to a fair and fertile crop, and so have
flourished since—and may they flourish so for
ever! It may be that the death of Charles was
a great legal wrong!—it may be that among his
judges many were actuated by insane and senseless
feelings of overstrained religion—that many
were urged on by personal resentments!—personal

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

hopes and fears!—personal pride!—and personal
ambition! But, not the less for these things, it
must be confessed that it was A GREAT MORAL
RIGHT! If Charles deserved to live, no tyrant ever
merited to die! If Charles had lived, England
had never been, what she now is, THE FREE! nor
would another land, the giant offspring of an immortal
mother, have carried those same principles,
for which her parent bled before her, into effect
over a space a thousand times more mighty! The
good traits of the man—such as they were, feeble
and faintly marked, and showing rather the absence
of strong vice than the existence of distinguishing
and vivid virtue—must neither hide nor
palliate the evil actions and worse motives of the
king! That it was his design to do away, so far
as in him lay, with England's constitution!—to
reign uncurbed by parliaments—the only salutary
check on regal sway!—to wield the boundless
power of the nation's sword, and grasp with the
same hand the vast resources of the nation's purse!—
to mould the church into an instrument and
weapon of his despotic government!—to reign, in
short, an absolute and autocratic sovereign!—none
can at this time doubt, unless they wilfully seal up
their minds against the truth! In desperate diseases,
means that at other times were desperate
and deadly must be applied to cure! and it may
be asserted, without much danger of disproof, that,
by the death of Charles, and by that only, could
the great principles of that immortal struggle have
been wrought out to their fulfilment. It was twice
needful!—needful, that it might hold up a terrible
and salutary dread to future tyrants—that it might
tear the roots of despotism from the soil they
would have rendered sterile!—and doubly needful,
that, by conducting England through the fearful

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

ordeal of democratic anarchy, it might infuse a yet
more salutary dread into the people, of liberty unregulated
and immoderate—licentiousness, not freedom!
These were, in part, the thoughts of Andenne
as he subscribed his name to that strange
instrument which, next to Magna Charta, may be
looked upon in its results as the chief cause of
England's present greatness. Under her previous
sovereigns, ambitious, great, and wise as many of
them doubtless were, England was but, at best, a
secondary power. Under her first and sole usurper
she blazed forth, on the instant, into a star of
almost solar magnitude; and, but for that death-warrant,
the navigation act had never given her dominion
over the boundless seas, nor made her, as
the great commercial nation, one of the mightiest
springs and morers of the universe.

What were the real motives of that man, who, if
he did not absolutely bring about, might, beyond
question, absolutely have prevented, the execution
of the king, no human understanding may divine.
But the great probability is, that, like most human
motives; they were of mingled strain—half fire and
half clay! Sir Edgar, in the course of the proceedings,
had been convinced, to his full satisfaction,
that the mind of Oliver was strangely and
unnaturally overwrought. His coarse and vulgar
jocularity at Ludlow's house—his paleness and unwonted
trepidation on the king's first appearance—
the little share he took in any portion of the trial,
for, except one outbreaking of fierce temper when
Mr. Downes, during the last adjournment, most pathetically
urged the members to grant his majesty's
demand of a joint conference of the three estates,
he had scarce taken any interest in what was
going forward—and, above all, his brutal and half-frantic
jests during the same adjournment, when

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

he daubed Henry Martin's face with ink, and jeered
and laughed so as to move the wonder of all present—
all these things, taken in connexion with the
state in which he found him when he visited his
chamber to beseech him after the sentence had
been passed, had proved to Ardenne, past all
doubt, that he was awfully perturbed in spirit. It
was late in the evening of the day following the
trial that Sir Edgar, who, though he had concurred
in the sentence, wished its mitigation,
sought Cromwell's lodging at Whitehall, nor was
it without some urgency that he compelled the soldiers
and domestics to admit him. The fortunate
commander was already in possession of the superb
apartments which had so lately called his fallen
rival master. In the first antechamber of that gorgeous
suite, two privates of the ironsides were sitting
by a blazing fire, its bright light flashing from
their steel armour and accoutrements in strong and
painful contrast to the luxurious decorations and
appliances of royal case among which they were
seated. The second and third rooms of the suite
were vacant, although dazzlingly illuminated by
many waxen lights; but, long before he reached
the door of the last room, Ardenne's attention was
aroused by the deep groans, mingled with broken
exclamations—snatches of fervent but disjointed
prayer, and bursts of passionate and painful weeping,
which fell upon his ear as he advanced. He
rapped against the panel, but his signal was unheard,
or, at the least, unheeded—though the
sounds which he had heard had now ceased, saving
only the sullen echoes of heavy and irregular steps,
distinctly audible even as they fell on the soft texture
of the three-plied Persian carpets. Scrupulous
though he was, and jealous almost to excess
of undue familiarity, Sir Edgar was too much

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

excited now to stand on points of form. He turned
the gilded handle, and almost noiselessly the door
revolved upon its hinges; and, in one of his most
dark moods, hypochondriac or conscience-stricken,
that wonderful man stood before him. The large
apartment sumptuously decked with furniture and
hangings of splendid crimson velvet—the toilet-table
with its appurtenances of transparent crystal
and plate of solid gold—the royal arms of England
embroidered on the tester of the bed, piled high
with coverlets of down and satin, passed scarcely
seen before the eyes of the spectator engrossed in
observation of the strange being who now tenanted
the halls of England's sovereign. A single light,
and that obscure and waning, stood on the central
table of some rich eastern wood, and on the hearth
a few decaying brands, which had been suffered to
burn low, smouldered with more of smoke than
flame, casting a sickly and unnatural light about
the chamber. But HE—the tenant!—with blood-shot
eyes, and features ghastly wan and haggard—
he strode to and fro with steps irregular and almost
staggering—now waving his extended arm on high—
now striking it upon his broad breast with a violence
denoted plainly by the heavy and dull sound
of the oft-repeated blows. Tears—copious and
agonizing tears—those which console not nor relieve,
but burn like vengeful fires—flowed down
his hollow cheeks—and his words, wild as his gait
and gestures, were now of bitter self-reproach, of
accusation, and remorse—now of sincere and humble
penitence—and now of fierce ecstatic triumph!—
but, in an instant, in the twinkling of the eye, as
he perceived that be was not alone, his air and aspect
were, as if by magic transformation, utterly
changed and calm.

“Ha! good Sir Edgar,” he exclaimed, “this is

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

a pleasure such as I have not long experienced—
nor, though such friendly visitations were once ordinary
things betwen us, of late days expected!”

“I have called on you,” Ardenne gravely replied,
“I have called on you now, lieutenant-general, not
for mere ordinary reasons, whether of friendship or
of ceremonial—but upon matters of great weight
and interest to England! To come to the point at
once, I have called here believing—and hoping
likewise—that I shall find in you a real and unselfish
patriot—one that regards not self-aggrandizement,
or fame, or wealth, or power, when compared
to his country's weal. In this hope—this belief—
I have come to implore you, as a friend and faithful
counsellor, that you will interpose your powerful
influence to shield this most unhappy king from
death. Justice required that he should be condemned—
justice is satisfied! The great example
is set forth to England and the universe!—all ends
are answered that his execution can attain! And
you, sir, who have won the brightest crown of warlike
honour that has been witnessed in these later
days, beware! Beware, I say, lest present times,
ay! and posterity to boot, shall deem that, in
permitting Charles to perish by the headsman's
axe, you have looked rather to your own than to
your country's interests! Kill him—for, in neglecting
to preserve, you actually kill no less than
if alone, and by a single mandate, you condemned
him—kill him, and it may well be you shall reign
yourself as monarch over England—but, to gain a
precarious, short-lived, and unhappy eminence, you
shall lose present peace and future glory—you
shall cast from you the esteem and love of those
who have bled and would die for you—you shall
stand high in solitary friendless state—without the
lingering consolation of a self-approving spirit!

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

Spare him—save him—and you shall be the first
for ever in the heart and judgment of every honest
Briten—while England's name exists, yours shall
live in coeval glory—the title of the loftiest worth—
the purest patriotism—the most disinterested
clemency that earth has witnessed since her young
surface bore the steps of giants and of angels!”

“Nay! you wax warm in eloquence!” Oliver
answered, coldly. “Surely your zeal doth eat you
up! yea, the desire of your heart doth rise up to
your brain, and cloud its better reason. I would—
ay, of a surety I do profess to you—I would lay
down not merely the poor honour—that vainest and
most fickle breath of human fantasy—which you
ascribe to me, to whom it is not due, but to the
Lord of Hosts!—but my life even—my existence
upon earth!—my hope of seeing England the freest
and the first of European princedoms!—that so
this bruised and bending reed might not be trodden
in the mire—this frail and half-cracked potsherd
might not be shivered into atoms! But, when the
Lord hath spoken, what mortal shall gainsay him?
Was it not borne into our hearts—branded with characters
of living fire upon the inmost tablets of our
souls—`Ye shall avenge my people—for their blood
and their children's blood, which he hath spilled
upon the ground that hath not drunk it up, calleth
aloud for vengeance!—yea! ye shall slay the king.'
Is it not written that `ye shall not suffer one of
them to live!' and what are we that we should contradict
Jehovali? I could not if I would—I could
not if I would—and that I would do so, as the
game stands, I say not—now save Charles Stuart
from the infliction of that righteous sentence which
you have aided to pass on him! The people have
arisen in their might—the people's voice hath gone
forth to the utmost portions of the world, `The

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

king shall surely die!' the people's voice is God's
voice! Hear it and tremble—hear it and obey!”

At once the latest hope of Edgar vanished; the
firm determination, evinced not by words only, but
by the cold hard eye, the compressed lip, the
clinched hand, and the hard-set teeth through
which the low stern voice was sent out in a harsh
and hissing whisper, proved to him so distinctly,
as to banish even hope, that Charles had not a
possibility, much less a chance, of life at Cromwell's
intercession! and from the lip of Cromwell
only could any intercession come that should prevail
over the angry prejudices and morose fanaticism
of the army! Seeing the fruitlessness of effort,
he desisted! With a sick heart and boding
spirit he departed from the presence of the arbiter,
whom even now he knew not whether to think an
over-zealous patriot or an ambitious hypocritical
adventurer, playing a deep game for a mighty venture,
and strode away to find in his lone lodging a
sleepless bed disturbed by ominous and sad presagings—
by doubts, by sorrow, by remorse!—for
he already had begun bitterly to repent the part
which he had borne in the great revolution now
about to terminate so tragically for the ruler—so
disastrously, as his fears told him, for the ruled—
and, above all, so fatally for England's permanent
and real peace. Scarcely had Edgar gone from
Cromwell's presence, before a new petitioner arrived,
and, with yet more of difficulty than the former
had experienced gained access to the presence
of his kinsman; for that petitioner was no
other than his cousin, Colonel John Cromwell, an
officer of the Dutch service, and commissioned as
his agent with the parliament by the Prince of
Wales, who at this time, resided at the Hague. In
the commencement of the interview the able and

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accomplished soldier confined himself to solemn
and ceremonious remonstrances against the act in
contemplation; assuring his great relative of the
resentment, horror, and disgust which this atrocious
crime—for so he hesitated not to call it—
would kindle throughout every Christian land!—
would kindle, not against England, nor the parliament,
nor army—but against him alone, who, as
the world well knew, could wind the reins of government
just as he listed, pointing the councils of
the one and wielding the war-weapons of the other!

“Tush! cousin,” answered Oliver, “tell me not
of atrocity and crime! 'Tis a great act of sovereign
and solemn justice!—but, were it as you say,
I have no power to alter it. It is the army, and
not I, who will inflict this justice on the king,
brooking not any let nor hindrance.”

“Remember you not, sir,” exclaimed the other,
“how, some twelve months ago, you did profess to
me, that `rather would you draw your sword in
the defence of Charles, than suffer these republicans
to harm one hair upon his head!'—have you
forgotten this and other such asseverations, or do
you wilfully and of aforethought violate your word?”

“Well, right well I remember it!” Cromwell
replied, in tones of great asperity, “and well you do
now to remember me of it; for so you remind
me of his base and lying insincerity, that drove the
faithful and brave army into such bitterness of
wrath as not even I could stem, either by force or
counsel! The times are changed—the times are
changed, and strangely! since I spoke so to you—
and on his own head be his blood!—for by his own
craft, his own ingrate and selfish subtlety, hath he
dragged down on him this ruin. If it be true, that
whom the gods have destined to destruction they
first deprive of reason, as the wise Ethnics did

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believe, then hath the Lord of Hosts hardened the
heart of this man that he should die, not live!”

“You are determined, then, to do this deed of infamy
and horror?” the foreign officer demanded.

“I am determined!” Oliver answered, sternly,
“I am determined not to interfere with England's
course of judgment. I have prayed for the king,
and fasted! yea, I have striven with the Lord
these many times that some way might be given
me to save him—but no return hath yet been made
to me, nor any sign, ner answer!”

Then Colonel Cromwell rose up from his seat,
and walking with light steps toward the doorway,
cautiously looked out, and satisfied himself that no
one was within earshot; then turning the key with
a wary hand, and dropping a strong night-latch,
he returned, and drawing from his bosom an emblazoned
parchment containing his credentials, and
a large sheet of vellum perfectly blank and vacant,
but signed at length and sealed, in his own name
and for his royal father, by Charles Stuart, prince
of Wales and heir apparent, he laid them on the
table under the eye of his bold kinsman.

“Cousin,” he said, “it is no time to dally now
with mere words in this matter. Look here at
this carte blanche. It is in your sole power now
to make—not yourself only—but your posterity,
and family, and kindred, happy, and great, and honourable
through all ages! Else, as they changed
their name in bygone days from Williams unto
Cromwell, so now must they be forced to change
it once again; for this one fact will bring such infamy
upon the name and the whole generation of
them, that no after ages will be able to wipe out
the shameful stain!”

The general's features worked convulsively, and
his face flushed crimson, and paled, and flushed

[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]

again, as he heard this address; and his hand
dropped down to his dagger's hilt, and griped it
with such force as if he would have buried his
strong fingers in the ivory pommel; but, when his
guest had ended, he answered in a quiet voice,
though evidently guarded and constrained.

“You have done!” he said, “you have done, sir,
and I have heard you out! I have been hitherto
calm!—very calm,” he continued, gradually warming,
as he spoke, into fierce ire; “I have endured
to hear my motives questioned—my assertions
doubted—and the great cause, of which I am a
most unworthy, but a most sincere supporter,
scoffed at, and vilified, and held up as atrocious in
the world's eye, infamous, and shameful! Calmly
I have endured all this!—nay, I have heard my
own good name traduced, my family dishonoured,
the name of Cromwell coupled—coupled, I say, as
if synonymous—with villany and its reward—disgrace!
Calmly I have endured this also! But
you have dared to bribe me! presumed to fancy
that you could buy me, not like a fettered captive
in the body, but like a renegado and apostate in
the chainless mind. You! you—a Cromwell—
have ventured, face to face, to offer me the basest
of affronts—to tender to me gold, and rank, and
titles, to turn me from my righteous purpose—to
seduce me from my conscience, my allegiance, and
my honour! Thank God—thank God!—I say,
thank God, if you believe in him—that I am regenerate,
and you a Cromwell—for were I one jot
more a sinner than I am—or you one tittle less
connected with my blood—then had I sheathed
this dagger”—and, as he spoke, he drew and dashed
the weapon furiously upon the ground before his
feet—“dudgeon deep in your heart! Begone! you
have your answer!”

Truly had Oliver said that the tempter was of

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his own blood; for he rose firmly from his chair,
and, with an erect and unflinching carriage, looked
full in his enraged kinsman's eye till he ceased
speaking; and then—“Tush! cousin Oliver,” he
said, “I care not for your vagaries of passion—I
am a soldier, man, and not a woman or a child,
that words can daunt me. But now you are distempered—
think of this matter deeply; weigh it,
and ponder on it ere you answer. I shall await, at
my inn, your reply until to-morrow morning. Give
you good-night and better temper!” and he withdrew,
believing in his heart that Oliver's rage was
but assumed, and that the golden bait would take.
But sadly was he destined to be deceived; for, at
about an hour after midnight, a messenger came to
him from Whitehall, and told him he might now
go to bed, for he must not expect any more answer
than he had unto the prince; for that the
council of the officers had again been seeking God—
and there was no hope for it, but the king must
die. Accordingly, upon the following morning, the
celebrated twenty-ninth of January, Charles, after
a mournful parting with his children, was led
through the palace-garden and park of St. James
to his own chamber at Whitehall, where he prayed
for a space with Bishop Juxon, who afterward accompanied
him to the block; thence to the banqueting-hall,
and thence, through a passage broken
in the wall, unto the scaffold. There, after a short
speech, which he concluded by declaring that he
“had a good cause—he had a gracious God—and,
therefore, he would say no more,” he laid down his
head on the block, and died, with such a perfect
dignity, such a serene and modest fearlessness, unmixed
with any thing of boldness or parade, as to
justify the observation, applied originally to another,
that “no action of his life became him like
the leaving of it!”

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