The one oil-lamp had burnt out, and the three soldiers either had not noticed, or were indifferent to the fact, that they were sitting in the half-dark.
"Shallow and frivolous he may be, nay, hath been proved to be," said Cromwell slowly. "But he is the King. Major Harrison, those words are as a tower of strength, as a wand of enchantment—there is the weight of seven hundred years or more to support them—and Charles, without one soldier, means more to England than you or I could ever mean were we backed by millions."
"During those seven hundred years you speak of," replied Harrison grimly, "there have been kings so detestable that means have been found to put them off their thrones. The thing is not without precedence."
"Nay, surely," said the Lieutenant-General gently; "but in the wars and quarrels of which you speak some rival prince was always there to take his kinsman's place. This is not a dispute among kings and nobles, but an uprising of the people for their liberty to force the King to grant them their just demands—therefore, the case is without precedent."
"And what, sir, do you deduct from that?" asked Henry Ireton.
"Why, that if we put the King down there is no one to set in his place. The Prince of Wales hath gone abroad to the French Court and a papist mother; the King's nephew, the Elector Charles Louis, who was flattered with some hopes of the succession, is a silly choice; the King's other sons are children, Rupert and Maurice are free lances—and which of these, were he ever so desirable, would be accepted by the nation while the King lives?"
There was a little pause, and then Harrison said boldly—
"Why need we a king at all?"
"It is a good form of government," replied Cromwell, "and I believe the only one the English will take. If you have no king you may have a worse thing—every shallow pate faction casts to the top seizing the direction of affairs. It was never the design of any of us," he added, "to depose the King when we took up arms."
"Nay," admitted Ireton, "the design was to bring him to reason, but how may that be done when we deal with one who knows not the name of reason?"