'Remember.' He wished the block might have been a little higher, but it was answered it could not be other

wise now. The king said, 'When I put out my hands this way, then He prayed a few words standing, with his hands and eyes lifted towards heaven, and then stooping down, laid his neck on the block. After a little time, the king stretched forth his hand, and the executioner took off his head at one stroke. When his head was held up to the people, there was nothing to be heard but shrieks and groans and sobs; the unmerciful soldiers beating down poor people for this little tender of their affection to their prince. Thus died the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best father, and the best Christian, that the age in which he lived produced."*

CROMWELL, AND THE COMMONWEALTH. CHARACTER OF CROMWELL.

OLIVER CROMWELL was the son of a private gentleman, of Huntingdon, and was born on the 24th of April, 1599. Being the son of a second brother, he inherited a very small paternal fortune. From accident or intrigue, he was chosen member for Cambridge, in the long parliament; but he seemed at first to possess no talents for oratory; his person being ungraceful, his dress slovenly, and his elocution homely, tedious, ob

* Clarendon.

scure and embarrassed. He made up, however, by zeal, what he wanted in natural powers; and, being endowed with unshaken intrepidity and dissimulation, he rose through the gradations of preferment, to the post of lieutenant-general, under Fairfax; but, in reality possessing the supreme command of the whole army; and after a series of wonderful successes in England, Ireland, and Scotland, prompted by ambition, and aided by the most dexterous ingenuity and effrontery, he actually assumed the absolute dictatorship of the British nation.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.

AFTER the death of King Charles, the House of Commons published a proclamation, forbidding all persons on pain of death, to acknowledge the late king's son, or any other as sovereign of England. They likewise abolished the House of Lords, thus taking into their own hands the sovereignty of the kingdom.

Their own House, which should be composed of five hundred and thirteen members, consisted then only of eighty; a new great seal was ordered to be made, on which was engraven these words, "The Parliament and Commonwealth of England." The king's statue in the Royal Exchange had been already pulled down, and now this inscription was fixed in its place, "Charles, the last king, and the first tyrant."

ESCAPE OF CHARLES II.-After the decisive battle of Worcester, in which he was totally defeated by Cromwell, Charles, in his endeavours to escape from the kingdom, encountered many hardships, and met with some of the most singular and romantic adventures.

He wandered about the country for six weeks in all sorts of disguises, sometimes dressed as a postilion, sometimes in woman's apparel, and sometimes as a woodcutter. On one occasion he was obliged to pass a day and a night among the branches of an oak tree, where he actually heard the voices of the soldiers in pursuit of him. Here Charles and his companion Colonel Carlos climbed, by means of a henroost ladder; and the family of the house (Boscobel) supplied them with victuals by means of the nut-hook. This tree is still standing, and is enclosed with a brick wall. Charles was obliged to travel almost alone through byepaths and unfrequented roads, half spent with hunger and fatigue, till at length he found means to escape from the coast of Sussex, in a small fishing-boat, and was safely landed in Normandy.

THE COMMONWEALTH.-After the battle of Worcester, Cromwell returned to London, where he was met by the Speaker of the House of Commons, accompanied by the mayor and magistrates of the City in their formalities, and entertained by them at a public dinner, where the same honours were shown to him as had been paid to the kings. He began now to complain of the long parliament, which, on the 20th of April, 1653, he dissolved by force; and two days after published a declaration of his reasons, signed by himself and his council of officers. On December 16th, he assumed the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and thus, in effect, became the absolute King of Great Britain. He, however, applied himself diligently to the management of the several parties in and out of the parliament, and supplied the courts of justice in Westminster Hall with the ablest lawyers, but acted

in the most arbitrary and oppressive manner, where his own interest was concerned.

He obtained an act of parliament abolishing royalty in Scotland, and annexing that country as a conquered province to England. War was then declared against the Dutch, in consequence of the ambassadors from the parliament to Holland having been murdered by the royalists there. During this war, several great engagements at sea took place between the English admiral, Blake, and the Dutch Admiral, Van Tromp; and at length the Dutch, humbled by repeated defeats, sued for peace.

In 1657, the parliament agreed to offer Cromwell the title of King; but, as he found this proposition disagreeable to his best friends, he declined it, and resolved upon a new inauguration, which was accordingly performed in Westminster Hall, June 26th, with all the splendour of a coronation.

His latter days were miserable, his favourite daughter on her death-bed upbraided him with his crimes. Conspiracies were formed against him, and a book was written entitled "Killing no Murder," to show that to kill him would be an act of virtue. Cromwell read this book, and is said never to have smiled afterwards. He wore armour under his clothes, and constantly kept a loaded pistol in his pocket. He travelled in a great hurry, attended with a numerous guard; never returned from any place by the road he went; and never slept above two or three nights in the same chamber. A tertian ague came at last to deliver him from this life of wretchedness and anxiety; and he died on the 3rd of September, 1658, in his fifty-ninth year. He had surped the government nine years.

RICHARD, his son, was the next day proclaimed Protector; he was mild, easy, and void of ambition; and finding a strong party was formed against him among the republican officers, he very wisely resigned his office : thus ended the Commonwealth of England. Richard retired to live on his paternal fortune at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, where he died in 1712.

XXVI.

CHARACTER OF CHARLES THE SECOND.

CHARLES THE SECOND, after an exile of twelve years in France and Holland, was restored to the throne of his ancestors 29th May, 1660, by the assistance of General Monk, whom he afterwards created Duke of Albemarle.

Charles was tall in stature; his complexion was swarthy, and marked with strong harsh lineaments. His penetration was keen, his judgment clear, his understanding extensive, and his conversation lively and engaging. He was easy of access, polite and affable; and his talents of wit and ridicule remarkable. Had he been limited to a private station, he would have passed for the most agreeable and best natured man of the age in which he lived. But these good qualities were overbalanced by his weakness and defects. He was irreligious, immoral, careless, and indolent; neither eager to punish his enemies, nor to reward his friends. Numbers who had lost everything in his service, suf