CHAP. IX. The King came in, attended by a guard, under Colonel Hacker, and took his seat in a chair of crimson velvet, at the bar, then suddenly rose, looked around, and sat down amidst deep silence. The president now addressed him. "Charles Stuart, King of England, the Commons of England assembled in parliament, taking notice of the effusion of blood in the land, which is fixed on you as the author of it, and whereof you are guilty, have resolved to bring you to a trial and judgment, and for this cause the tribunal is erected." Coke, the solicitor, then delivered the charges to the clerk, who began to read them. "Silence," said the King, touching Coke on the shoulder with his cane. The gold head of the cane dropped off; a short but violent emotion appeared in his features at this ominous circumstance; he picked up the head, and sat down again thoughtfully. An ominous circum stance. The The charges stated that Charles Stuart, being a King with limited power to govern according to law, for the benefit of the people, and the preservation of their rights and liberties, had designed to erect in himself an unlimited power, and to take away the remedy of misgovernment reserved in the fundamental constitution, in the right and power of frequent and successive parliaments. They then enumerated the principal occasions on which, in execution of his purpose charges. of levying war on the present parliament, he had caused the blood of many thousands of the free people of this nation to be shed; and they affirmed all these purposes and this war to have been carried on for the upholding a personal interest of will and power, and a pretended prerogative to himself and family, against the public interest and common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation.* answer. During the reading, Charles smiled contemptuously at the passage which described him as a "tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public and implacable enemy to the commonwealth of England.” When the president called upon him to answer, he replied very gravely and with great ability, demanding to know by what The King's authority he was brought thither, affirming that he was King of England, that he had a trust committed to him by God, and delivered to him by old and lawful descent, and that he would never betray it by answering to a new and unlawful authority. As soon as he was satisfied of the authority of the court, he would proceed further. The president overruled his objection, saying, "Sir, if what we tell you of our authority is not sufficient for you, it is sufficient for us; we know it is His founded on the authority of God and of the kingdom," The second and third days were consumed in similar discourses; the court would not allow the authority by which they sat there to be disputed; and the King desired that he objections overruled. * Forster's Lives, IV.. 307. 1649 might give his reasons. This produced interruption and altercation; and at last the president ordered the "default and contempt of the prisoner to be recorded." On the fourth and fifth days the court sat in private, to receive evidence that the King had commanded in several engagements, and to deliberate on the form of judgment. On the sixth day (January 27th), the president again took his seat in the court, to pronounce sentence.* The King immediately demanded to be heard, not to question, he said, the authority of the court, but to request a conference with the Lords and Commons, to whom he wished to propose something which concerned the peace and liberty of the kingdom. But the president opposed this proceeding; one of the commissioners, however, named Downes, a timid man, expressed dissatisfaction at the president's opposition, on which the court retired to deliberate. In half an hour they returned, and sentence was pronounced, which, after reciting the The charges, concluded thus; "for all which treasons sentence. and crimes, this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy, should be put to death by severing his head from his body." The president then rose and said, "The sentence now read and published is the act, sentence, judgment, and resolution of the whole court; upon which all the commissioners stood up, by way of declaring their assent. The fortitude and dignity which had sustained Charles throughout now gave way; and his words betrayed a human suffering and agony of heart to the last degree affecting. "Will you hear me a word, sir," he asked. Sir," said the president, “You are not to be heard after the sentence." "No, sir?" exclaimed the King. "No, sir, by your favour," retorted the president. "Guards, withdraw the prisoner." Charles then exclaimed, with the struggle of deep emotion, "I may speak after sentence! By your favour, sir! I may speak after the sentence! Ever! By your favour." A stern monosyllable from Bradshaw interrupted him. "Hold!" and signs were given to the guards. With passionate entreaty the King again interfered: The sentence, sir! I say sir, I do-" Again Bradshaw said "Hold!" and the King was taken out of court as these words broke from him, "I am not suffered to speak. Expect what justice other people will have." The soldiers cried, as the King was taken away, as they also did when he was 66 66 Sixty-seven members were present on this occasion. When Fairfax's name was called, a lady in the gallery, supposed to be his wife, exclaimed, "He has too much wit to be here and when an allusion was made to the prosecution being the act of the people of England, she also cried out, "Not one half of them." The King's CHAP. IX. brought in on this last day, "Justice! Justice and execution!" The people cried "God save the King!" The commonly recorded insults of the soldiers spitting in his face, and otherwise illtreating him, rest on no good authority; and the story of one of the soldiers being struck down for saying "God bless you, sir!" is distinctly denied by Milton. It was the fashion of the Royalists to run a parallel 'between the last days of Charles and the crucifixion of our Blessed Lord. "Suffering many things like to Christ," was their profane expression. In the short interval that remained to him, every consolation of spiritual advisers, or of the society of his friends, was granted by the governors of the commonwealth. He passed the 28th of January, which was Sunday, alone with Dr. Juxon, engaged in exercises of devotion; on the Monday he received the farewell visits of his children, the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester. The last hours. warrant for his execution had meanwhile been signed (January 29th) by fifty-nine of the commissioners; and about ten o'clock on the morning of the 30th, he was conducted from St. James's, on foot, between two detachments of military, across the park, to Whitehall. Here he took the sacrament at the hands of Juxon, and at two o'clock was conducted through the long gallery, at the end of which an aperture had been made in the wall, through which he stepped at once upon the scaffold. the whole of this last mournful and tragic scene, he bore himself with a dignified composure, and was, to the last, undisturbed, self-possessed, and serene. He addressed those around him, for the people were kept far off by the military, forgave all his enemies, protested that the war was not begun by him, declared that the people's right was only to have their life and goods their own, "a share in the government being nothing pertaining to them;" and concluded with words which perhaps expressed a sincere delusion, that he died "the martyr of the people." When his head fell, severed at one blow by the executioner, a "dismal universal groan issued from the crowd," who were quietly dispersed by the military. The body was immediately enclosed in a coffin, and exposed for seven days at Whitehall. Cromwell looked at it attentively, and raising the head, as if to make sure that it was indeed severed from the body, said, "This was a well-constituted frame, and which promised a long life." On the 6th of February, it was given to the King's servants, and interred by them in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. On the coffin were engraved these words only, Charles Rex, 1648." In CHAPTER X. THE COMMONWEALTH. 1649 TO 1660. SECTION I.-RULE OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 1649-1653. I. CONTINUATION OF THE CIVIL WARS. 1. The new government. The death of the King was followed by the abolition of Kingship and of the House of Lords, A council and the formation of a council of state for the executive of state. power. The latter consisted of forty-one members; Bradshaw was made president; Milton, his kinsman, was appointed foreign secretary; Vane, who had returned to public affairs, was placed at the head of the admiralty; and Robert Blake, Edward Popham, and Richard Dean, were appointed to command the fleet. All these officers, as well as the members of the council, were appointed for one year only. At first, there was some division concerning the new oath of allegiance to the new powers. This oath New oath of expressed approbation of all that had been done; Crom- allegiance. well and eighteen others cheerfully took it; but Vane, Fairfax, and the rest declined. It was, therefore, changed into a general promise of adhesion to the parliament, in which form it was taken by all. Other changes followed. Lisle, Keble, and Whitelocke were entrusted with the great seal; all writs ran in the name of "the keepers of the liberty of England by authority of parliament;" new commissions were issued to all judges and magistrates; but with the exception that the name of the King's Bench was altered to that of Upper Bench, no change was made in the mode of administering the law. In religion, the Presbyterian form was maintained, but stripped of all coercive Some power and temporal pretension; and some toleration was toleration. granted to the episcopal clergy, and even to the Roman Catholics. The dissolution of the present parliament was next considered; but the republican leaders did not consider it advisable to disturb the country at that time with a general election, and they made no parliamentary changes, except the re-admission of those excluded members who agreed to enter on the journals their dissent from the vote of December 5th, which declared that the King's concessions at Newport were sufficient to form the basis of a treaty with him.* religious 2. Mutinies of the Levellers. The only Royalists whom parliament brought to the scaffold were Hamilton, Holland, and * See Forster's Lives, IV., 130; Godwin's Commonwealth, III., 108. John 66 CHAP. X. Capel. But it had other enemies besides the Royalists, and the Levellers, led by John Lilburne, gave it considerable trouble. Lilburne had been a partisan of Dr. Bastwick, and had undergone the usual horrible punishments inflicted by the Star Chamber, for circulating his tracts. He and his friends strongly suspected Cromwell, Ireton, and Harrison, as seeking their own aggrandisement, under the mantle of patriotism; they considered the revolution had not gone far enough; and to stop the Lilburne. mouth of Free-born John," as Lilburne was called, parliament voted him £3,000, out of the estates of the delinquents. But, as soon as he had secured this bribe, he renewed his agitation, and the Commons were besieged with petitions from the army, demanding annual parliaments, and new members every year; the enforcement of the self-denying ordinance; the abolition of the present government; the decrease of lawyers, reduction of fees, and the exclusive use of the English language in the law courts; the abolition of excise and customs; the sale of delinquents' lands; reformation of religion, "according to the mind of God;" full religious toleration; abolition of tithes, and in lieu thereof the levy of a rate upon all parishioners, for the support of the ministers. Lilburne, having published a pamphlet called "England's New Chains Discovered," and read it to a numerous assembly of the soldiers, at Winchester House (March 25th), was imprisoned in the Tower; but the soldiers mutinied in London, Salisbury, and Banbury; and both Cromwell and Fairfax saw that it was high time to adopt decisive measures. Parliament made it treason for any one to deny its supremacy; words spoken were made capital offences, and simple sedition was converted into treason. The Salisbury mutineers were surprised at Burford, and their ringleaders shot; the risings in Hants, Devon, and Somerset, were quickly suppressed; and a grand national thanksgiving was then held in London, for so signal a deliverance* (June 7th). Parties in 3. The Irish War. Soon after the suppression of these mutinies, the council of state entrusted Cromwell with the government of Ireland, where affairs were in a most Ireland. miserable condition. The country was distracted by its factions. The Catholics of the Pale, under Preston, demanded freedom of religion; the old Irish Catholics, or Confederates, under Owen Roe O'Neil, demanded the restoration of popery, and the restoration of all estates to the native proprietors; the Ope 1 Royalists, composed of Episcopalians, were strong Lingard, X., 280-282: Carlyle's Cromwell, II., 22-30. |