"I have seen nothing more pathetic than touches in the life of some of these Puritans—men who have, as they thought in obedience to the will of the Deity, denied themselves pleasure—human pleasure—through their lives, and now and then some old song, some pleasant natural tale of love flashes across their path, and the true human instinct of the sons of Adam lights up within them.
"Nothing but the Infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life.
"As you know, we have many parties in our Church, nay, in our own order: different members may be sent on opposing missions; but it is no matter, they are all alike. Hereafter it will be of little importance which of these new names, Cavalier or Roundhead, you are called by, whether you turn Papist or Puritan, Jesuit or Jansenist, but it will matter very much whether you acted as became a man, and did not flinch ignobly at the moment of trial. Choose your part from the instinct of your order, from your birth, or from habit or what not; but having chosen it, follow it to the end. Stand by your party or your order, and especially in the hour of trial or danger be sure you never falter; for, be certain of this, that no misery can be equal to that which a man feels who is conscious that he has proved unequal to his part, who has deserted the post his captain set him, and who, when men said 'such and such a one is there on guard, there is no need to take further heed,' has left his watch or quailed before the foeman, to the loss, perhaps the total ruin, of the cause he had made his choice. I pray God that such misery as this may never be yours."
The elections being over, London became very full. The new members hastened up. The nobility and country gentry came crowding in, and all the new houses in the Strand and Charing Cross were occupied, and a throng of young Cavaliers filled the courts and precincts of the palace. As soon as the King arrived, Inglesant went into waiting in his new post, in which great responsibility in the keeping of the royal household, especially at night, devolved upon him. His post came immediately after that of the gentlemen of the privy chamber, with whom the immediate attendance on the person of the King stopped, but the charge of the King's rooms brought him continually into the royal presence.
As soon as the Parliament met, the impeachment of Strafford began; and as it proceeded, the excitement grew more and more intense. It was not safe for the courtiers to go into the city, except in numbers together, and a court of guard was kept by the Cavaliers before Whitehall towards Charing Cross.
One day Inglesant received a letter from the Jesuit, whom he seldom saw, as follows:—
"Jack, tell your friend, the Archbishop, that Lambeth House will be attacked two nights from this, by a rabble of the populace. The Parliament leaders will not be seen in this, but they can be felt. Burn this, but let the Archbishop know the hand from which it comes."
On receiving this warning the Archbishop fortified his house, and crossed the water to his chamber in Whitehall, where he slept that night and two others following. His house was attacked by a mob of five hundred men; one of them was wounded and afterwards executed; not much damage was done.
History can furnish few events so startling and remarkable as the trial and death of Lord Strafford—events which, the more they are studied, the more wonderful they appear. It is not easy to find words to express the miserable weakness and want of statesmanship which led to, and made possible, such an event; and one is almost equally surprised at the comparatively few traces of the sensation and consternation that such an event must have produced. I am not speaking of the justice or the injustice of the sentence, nor of the crime or innocence of the accused,—I speak only of a great minister and servant of the Crown, in whose policy and support the whole of the royal power, the whole strength of the national establishment, was involved and pledged. That such a man, by the simple clamour of popular opinion, should have been arrested, tried, and executed in a few days, with no effort but the most degrading and puny one made on his behalf by his royal master and friend, certainly must have produced a terror and excitement, one would think, unequalled in history. That the King never recovered from it is not surprising; one would have thought he would never have held up his head again. That the royal party was amazed and confounded is not wonderful; one would have thought it would have been impossible ever to have formed a royal party afterwards. What considerations were powerful enough in the King's mind to induce him to consent to an act of such wretched folly and meanness we shall never know.
It was two nights after the execution. The guard was set at Whitehall and the "all night" served up. The word for the night was given, and the whole palace was considered as under the sole command of Inglesant, as the esquire in waiting. He had been round to the several gates, and seen that the courts and anterooms were quiet and clear of idlers, and then came up into the anteroom outside the privy chamber, and sat down alone before the fire. In the room beyond him were two gentlemen of the privy chamber, who slept in small beds drawn across the door opening into the royal bedchamber beyond. The King was in his room, in bed, but not asleep; Lord Abergavenny, the gentleman of the bedchamber in waiting, was reading Shakespeare to him before he slept. Inglesant took out a little volume of the classics, of the series printed in Holland, which it was the custom of the gentlemen of the Court, and those attached to great nobles, to carry with them to read in antechambers while in waiting. The night was perfectly still, and the whole palace wrapped in a profound quiet that was almost oppressive to one who happened to be awake. Inglesant could not read; the event that had just occurred, the popular tumults, the shock of feeling which the royal party had sustained, the fear and uncertainty of the future, filled his thoughts. The responsibility of his post sat on him to-night like a nightmare, and with very unusual force; a sense of approaching terror in the midst of the intense silence fascinated him and became almost insupportable. His fancy filled his mind with images of some possible oversight and of some unseen danger which might be lurking even then in the precincts of the vast rambling palace. Gradually, however, all these images became confused and the sense of terror dulled, and he was on the point of falling asleep when he was startled by the ringing sound of arms and the challenge of the yeoman of the guard, on the landing outside the door. The next instant a voice, calm and haughty, which sent a tremor through every nerve, gave back the word "Christ." Inglesant started up and grasped the back of his chair in terror.