"Can we," said Henry Ireton, in a tone almost of awe, "bring to trial the crowned and anointed King?"
The thing was indeed unheard of, appalling in its audacity even to the men who had been already years in arms against their King—a thing without precedent, full of a nameless horror. But Oliver Cromwell was not troubled by this consideration. He was uplifted by his stern enthusiasm from all fears of laws and tradition; he knew himself capable of moulding the movement to suit the need; and he was of an incalculable courage.
Yet in this affair he had shown himself more moderate, almost more hesitating, than many of his colleagues; he did not see clearly; he was not sure what God had meant him to do, and his personal feeling, despite his absolute refusal to deal further with Charles after his treachery had been made manifest, was still towards some arrangement by which the King could be returned to the throne and forced to keep his people's laws.
His trust in the King had been utterly scattered; his sentiments had become almost republican; yet in his heart he struggled to find some means of saving the King as he had struggled since the end of the first civil war.
He still hesitated before committing himself to the fierce measures advocated by the great body of the army; yet Charles had done some things which Cromwell could never forgive.
Notably the calling in of the Scots.
To the Englishman, English of the English in every fibre, this "attempt to vassalage us to a foreign nation," as he had called it, was the intolerable, unforgivable wrong—a thing which burnt the blood to think of—a wrong which the Scots, beaten back across the border and Hamilton waiting death in London, did not soften or make amends for. Cromwell had broken the Scots, but he could not forgive them.
"Had he not done that," he cried aloud, "it had been easier to forget his manifold deceits."
"God hath witnessed against him," replied Ireton.
But he, too, was for moderation; he had suggested a trial of the King and then a decorous imprisonment.