CHARLES'S FAREWELL INTERVIEW WITH THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER AND THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH. (See p. [88].)

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On the king's right walked Juxon, on his left the Parliamentary Colonel Tomlinson, bareheaded. The king walked through the park at a brisk rate, and said to the guard, "Come, my good fellows, step on apace." He pointed out a tree planted by his brother Henry, and on arriving at Whitehall, he ascended the stairs with a light step, passed through the long gallery, and went to his chamber, where he remained with Juxon in religious exercise. It was past one o'clock before he was summoned to the scaffold, where the executioner, Brandon, and Hulet, a sergeant appointed to assist him, disguised in black masks, awaited him. The scaffold was raised in the street, in front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and he passed through a window which had been taken out, upon it. All was hung with black cloth, and in the middle of the scaffold stood the block, with the axe enveloped in black crape lying on it.

Charles made a speech, in which he denied making war on the Parliament, but the Parliament on him, by claiming the militia. Church, Lords, and Commons had, he said, been subverted with the sovereign power; if he would have consented to reign by the mere despotism of the sword, he asserted that he might have lived and remained king. He declared that he forgave all his enemies; and yet when the executioner knelt and begged his forgiveness, he said, "No, I forgive no subject of mine, who comes deliberately to shed my blood." He said that the nation would never prosper till they placed his son on the throne; and to the last moment, rooted in his theory of divine right, he denied that the people ought to have any share in the government—that being a thing "nothing pertaining to them"—and yet that "he died the martyr of the people."

Whilst he spoke some one disturbed the axe, on which he turned and said, "Have a care of the axe; if the edge be spoiled, it will be the worse for me." After concluding his speech, he put up his hair under a cap, and the bishop observed, "There is but one stage more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very short one. Consider it will carry you a great way—even from earth to heaven." "I go," said the king, "from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible, where no disturbance can take place." "You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crown—a good exchange," replied the bishop. The king then took off his cloak, and gave his George to Juxon, saying impressively, "Remember!" The warning is supposed, as the medallion of the George concealed a portrait of Henrietta, to have regarded a message to his wife. Having laid his head on the block, the executioner severed it at a single stroke, and Hulet, the sergeant, holding it up, cried, "Here is the head of a traitor." At that sight a universal groan seemed to go through the crowd.

The body lay at Whitehall, to be embalmed, till the 7th of February, when it was conveyed to Windsor, and laid in the vault of St. George's Chapel, near the coffins of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour. The day was very snowy, and the coffin being deposited without any service, was left without any inscription except the words, "Carolus Rex, 1648," the letters of which were cut out of a band of lead by the gentlemen present, with their penknives, and the lead folded round the coffin. In this condition it was discovered in 1813, when George IV., attended by Sir Henry Halford, had it opened, and found proof that the head had been separated from the body.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COMMONWEALTH.

Proclamation of the Prince of Wales Forbidden—Decline of the Peerage—Ultimus Regum—Establishment of a Republican Government—Abolition of the House of Lords and the Monarchy—Council of State—The Oath Difficulty—The Engagement—Religious Toleration—Trials of Royalists—Discontent among the People—The Levellers—Activity of John Lilburne—Quelling the Mutiny in Whalley's Regiment—Lockyer's Funeral—Arrest of Lilburne—Spread of the Disaffection to other Regiments—Suppression of the Insurrection—Cromwell appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland—Royalist Movement in Scotland—Charles's Son proclaimed King—The Scottish Deputation at the Hague—Charles's Court—Assassination of Dr. Dorislaus—Affairs in Ireland—Cromwell's Campaign—Defeat and Death of Montrose—Cromwell in Scotland—Battle of Dunbar—Movements of Charles—His March into England—Battle of Worcester—Charles Escapes to France—Vigorous Government—Foreign Difficulties—Navigation Act—War with Holland—Contest between Parliament and the Army—Expulsion of the Rump—The Little Parliament—Cromwell made Protector.