"It is an ordinary day," said Charles, "like a hundred other days, but it shall long be marked with red in England's calendar."
The people, overawed by the soldiers and by the terror of the occasion, were strangely silent as he passed; the prevailing emotion seemed a desperate curiosity, as if they waited, breathless, to know if this horrific thing could really come to pass.
The King thought of nothing but of how Strafford had walked so....
When he came to Whitehall he was conducted to his own bedchamber; there was a fire burning and a breakfast laid for him. In these familiar surroundings, where some of the happy moments of his splendid life had been spent, a faint horror came over him, and he felt his knees tremble; he found, too, that a physical sickness touched him at the sight of the food.
"I have taken the Sacrament," he said briefly. Then he asked of the soldiers still attending him—"How long?"—and they told him "Till the scaffold was finished."
"It is terrible," said Charles to the bishop, "to wait."
The Commissioners were waiting too. Oliver Cromwell was in the boarded gallery, and with him was one Nunelly, the doorkeeper to the committee of the army, who had a warrant of ₤50,000 to deliver to the Lieutenant-General, with them were Major Harrison and Mr. Hugh Peters.
"O Lord!" cried this last, "what mercy to see this great city fall down before us! And what a stir there is to bring this great man to justice, without whose blood he would turn us all to blood had he reigned again!"
Oliver Cromwell took the packet from Nunelly; he was quite white, and his hand shook so that twice the package dropped.