had received their power from the people, the source of all right. He pressed the prisoner not to decline the authority of a court that was delegated by the commons of England, and interrupted and overruled the king in his attempts to reply.

In this manner the king was three times produced before the court, and as often persisted in declining its jurisdiction. The fourth and last time he was brought before this self-created court, as he was proceeding thither, he was insulted by the soldiers and the mob, who exclaimed, “Justice! justice! Exe cution! execution!" but he continued undaunted. His judges having now examined some witnesses, by whom it was proved that the king had appeared in arms against the forces commissioned by parliament, they pronounced sentence against him. He seemed very anxious at this time to be admitted to a conference with the two houses; and it was supposed that he intended to resign the crown to his son; but the court refused compliance, and considered his request as an artifice to delay justice.

The conduct of the king, under all these instances of low-bred malice, was great, firm, and equal; in going through the hall from this execrable tribunal, the soldiers and rabble were again instigated to cry out Justice and Execution. They reviled him with the most bitter reproaches. Among other insults, one miscreant presumed to spit in the face of his sovereign. He patiently bore their insolence. "Poor souls," cried he, "they would treat their generals in the same manner for sixpence." Those of the populace who still retained the feelings of humanity, expressed their sorrow in sighs and tears. A soldier, more compassionate than the rest, could not help imploring a blessing upon his royal head. An officer, overhearing him, struck the honest sentinel to the ground before the king; who could not help saying, that the punishment exceeded the offence.

At his return to Whitehall, he desired the permission of the house to see his children, and to be attended in his private devotions by doctor Juxon, late bishop of London. These requests were granted, and also three days to prepare for the execution of the sentence. All that remained of his family now in England were the princess Elizabeth, and the duke of Gloucester, a child of eight years of age. After many seasonable and sensible exhortations to his daughter, he took his little son in his arms, and embracing him, "My child," said he, "they will cut off thy father's head; yes, they will cut off my head, and make thee a king. But mark what I say, thou must not be a king as long as thy brothers Charles and James are alive. They will cut off their heads when they can take them; and thy head too they will cut off at last, and therefore I charge thee do not be made a king by them." The child, bursting into tears, replied, "I will be torn in pieces first."

Every night during the interval between his sentence and execution, the king slept soundly as usual, though the noise of the workmen, employed in framing the scaffold, continually resounded in his ears. The fatal morning being at last arrived, he rose early, and calling one of his attendants, he bade him employ more than usual care in dressing him, and preparing him for so great and joyful a solemnity. The street before Whitehall was the place destined for his execution; for it was intended that this should increase the severity of his punishment. He was led through the Banqueting-house to the scaffold adjoining to that edifice, attended by his friend and servant bishop Juxon, a man endowed with the mild and steady virtues of his master. The scaffold, which was covered with black, was guarded by a regiment of soldiers under the command of colonel Tomlinson; and on it were to be seen the block, the axe, and two executioners in masks. The people in crowds stood at a greater distance, in dreadful expectation of the event. The king surveyed all these preparations with calm composure; and as he could not expect to be heard by the people at a distance, he addressed himself to the few persons who stood round him. He there justified his own innocence in the late fatal wars; and observed, that he had not taken arms till after the parliament had shewn him the example; that he had no other object in his warlike preparations than to preserve that authority entire which had been transmitted to him by his ancestors; but, though innocent towards his people, he acknowledged the equity of his execution in the eyes of his

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Maker. He owned that he was justly punished for having consented to the execution of an unjust sentence upon the earl of Strafford. He forgave all his enemies, exhorted the people to return to their obedience, and acknowledged his son as his successor; and signified his attachment to the protestant religion as professed in the church of England. So strong was the impression his dying words made upon the few who could hear him, that colonel Tomlinson himself, to whose care he had been committed, acknowledged himself a convert.

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While he was preparing himself for the block, bishop Juxon called out to him, "There is, sir, but one stage more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very short one. It will soon carry you a great way it will carry you from earth to heaven; and there you will find, to your great joy, the prize to which you hasten-a crown of glory." "I go," replied the king, "from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can have place." You exchange," replied the bishop, a temporal for an eternal crown-a good exchange." Charles having taken off his cloak, delivered his George to the prelate, pronouncing the word, "Remember." Then he laid his neck on the block; and, when he had stretched out his hands as a signal, one of the executioners severed his head from his body at a blow, while the other, holding it up, exclaimed, "This is the head of a traitor!" The spectators testified their horror at the sad spectacle in sighs, tears, and lamentations; the tide of their duty and affection began to return, and each blamed himself either for active disloyalty to his king, or a passive compliance with his destroyers. The very pulpits that used to resound with insolence and sedition, were now bedewed with tears of unfeigned repentance; and all united in their detestation of those dark bypocrites, who, to satisfy their own enmity, involved a whole nation in the guilt of treason.

Charles was executed in the forty-ninth year of his age, and [A. D. 1649. the twenty-fourth of his reign. He was of a middling stature, robust, and well proportioned. His visage was pleasing, but melancholy; and it is probable that the continual troubles in which he was involved might have made that impression on his countenance. As for his character, the reader will deduce it with more precision and satisfaction to himself from the detail of his conduct, than from any summary given of it by the historian. It will suffice to say, that all his faults seem to have arisen from the error of his education; while all his virtues (and he possessed many) were the genuine offspring of his heart. He lived at a time when the established exercise of the prerogative was at variance with the genius of the people; and, governing by old rules and precedents, instead of accommodating himself to the changes of the times, he fell, and drew down, as he sunk, the constitution in ruins round him. Many kings before him expired by treason or assassination; but never, since the times of Agis the Lacedæmonian, was there any other sacrificed by his subjects with all the formalities of justice. Many were the miseries sustained by the nation in bringing this monarch to the block; and more were yet to be endured previous to the settlement of the constitution: yet these struggles were ultimately productive of domestic happiness and security; the laws became more precise, the monarch's privileges better ascertained, and the subject's duty better delineated; all became more peaceable, as if a previous fermentation in the constitution was necessary for its subsequent refinement.

CHAP. XXXIV.

THE COMMONWEALTH.-A. D. 1649 to 1658.

Cromwell, who had secretly solicited and contrived the king's death, now began to feel wishes to which he had been hitherto a stranger. His prospects widening as he rose, his first principles of liberty were all lost in the unbounded stretch of power that lay before him. When the peers met on the day appointed in their adjournment, they entered upon business, and sent down some votes to the commons, of which the latter deigned not to take the least notice. In a few days after, the commons voted that the house of lords,

being useless and dangerous, should be abolished. They voted it high-treason to acknowledge Charles Stuart, son of the late king, as successor to the throne. A great seal was made, on one side of which were engraven the arms of England and Ireland, with this inscription: “The great seal of England.” On the reverse was represented the house of commons sitting, with this motto: "In the first year of freedom, by God's blessing restored, 1648." The forms of all public business were changed from the king's name to that of the keepers of the liberties of England.

The reigning party now proceeded to try those gallant men, whose attachment to their late sovereign had been the most remarkable. The duke of Hamilton and lord Capel were condemned and executed; the earl of Holland lost his life by a like sentence; the earl of Norwich and sir John Owen were condemned, but afterwards pardoned by the commons.

The Scots, who had in the beginning shewn themselves so averse to the royal family, having by a long train of success totally suppressed all insurrections in its favour, now began to relent from their various persecutions. Their loyalty began to return; and the insolence of the independents, with their victories, served to inflame them still more. The execution of their favourite duke Hamilton also, who was put to death not only in defiance of the laws of war, but of nations, was no small vexation; they therefore determined to acknowledge prince Charles for their king. But their love of liberty was still predominant, and seemed to combat with their manifold resentments. At the same time that they resolved upon raising him to the throne, they abridged his power with every limitation which they had attempted to impose on their late sovereign.

Charles, after the death of his father, having passed some time at Paris, and finding no prospect of assistance from that quarter, was glad to accept of any conditions. He possessed neither the virtues nor the constancy of his father; and being attached to no religion as yet, he agreed to all their proposals, being satisfied with even the formalities of royalty. It is remarkable, that, while the Scots were thus inviting their king over, they were, nevertheless, cruelly punishing those who had adhered to his cause. Among others, the marquis of Montrose, one of the bravest, politest, and most finished characters of that age, was taken prisoner, as he endeavoured to raise the Highlanders in the royal cause; and, being brought to Edinburgh, was hanged on a gibbet thirty feet high, then quartered, and his limbs stuck up in the principal towns of the kingdom. Yet, notwithstanding all this severity to his followers, Charles ventured into Scotland, and had the mortification to enter the gate of Edinburgh, where the limbs of that faithful adherent were still exposed.

Being now entirely at the mercy of the gloomy and austere zealots who had been the cause of his father's misfortunes, he soon found that he had only exchanged exile for imprisonment. He was surrounded and incessantly importuned by the fanatical clergy, who obtruded their religious instructions, and obliged him to listen to long sermons, in which they seldom failed to stigmatize the late king as a tyrant, to accuse his mother of idolatry, and himself of an untoward disposition. Six sermons a day were his usual allowance; and though they laboured to outgo each other in absurdity, yet he was denied the small consolation of laughter. In short, the clergy having brought royalty under their feet, were resolved to keep it still subservient, and to trample upon it with all the contumely of successful upstarts. Charles for a while bore all their insolence with hypocritical tranquillity, and even pretended to be highly edified by their instructions. He once, indeed, attempted to escape from among them; but, being brought back, he owned the greatness of his error; he testified repentance for what he had done, and looked about for another opportunity of escaping.

In the mean time, Cromwell, who had been appointed to the command of the army in Ireland, prosecuted the war in that kingdom with his usual success. He had to combat against the royalists, commanded by the duke of Ormond, and the native Irish, led on by O'Neal. But such ill-connected and barbarous troops could give very little opposition to Cromwell's more numerous forces, conducted by such a general, and emboldened by long success.