It ought not to be forgotten that the king had previously waited several days before that appointed for his execution, and had had the satisfaction of receiving a letter from his son Charles, by Mr. Seymour, a special messenger, enclosing a carte blanche with his signature, to be filled up at pleasure. In this paper the prince bound himself to any terms, if his royal father's life might be spared. It must have proved a cordial to the king's heart to find, in that dire hour, how far family affection prevailed over ambition. The king carefully burnt the carte blanche, lest an evil use might be made of it, and did not attempt to bargain for his life by means of concession from his heir.
On the night preceding the awful day, Charles I. was blessed with calm and refreshing sleep. He awoke before daybreak, undrew his curtain, and said to Herbert, "I will rise; I have a great work to do this day." Herbert's hands trembled while combing the king's hair. Charles, observing that it was not arranged so well as usual, said, "Nay, though my head be not to stand long on my shoulders, take the same pains with it that you were wont to do. Herbert, this is my second marriage-day; I would be as trim to-day as may be." The cold was intense at that season, and the king desired to have a warm additional shirt. "For," continued he, "the weather is sharp, and probably may make me shake. I would have no imputation of fear, for death is not terrible to me. I bless my God I am prepared. Let the rogues come whenever they please." He observed that he was glad he had slept at St. James's, for the walk through the park would circulate his blood, and counteract the numbness of the cold. Bishop Juxon arrived by the dawn of day. He prayed with the king, and read to him the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew.
At ten o'clock the summons came to conduct the king to Whitehall, and he went down into the park, through which he was to pass. Ten companies of infantry formed a double line on each side of his path. The detachment of halberdiers preceded him, with banners flying and drums beating. On the king's right hand was the bishop; on the left, with head uncovered, walked Colonel Tomlinson. The king walked through the park, as was his wont, at a quick, lively pace. He wondered at the slowness of his guard, and called out pleasantly, "Come, my good fellows, step on apace." One of the officers asked him, "If it was true that he had concurred with the Duke of Buckingham in causing his father's death?" "My friend," replied Charles, with gentle contempt, "if I had no other sin than that, as God knows, I should have little need to beg his forgiveness at this hour." The question has been cited as an instance of premeditated cruelty and audacity on the part of the officer. But this was the falsehood that had injured him most among the common people.
As the king drew near Whitehall Palace, he pointed to a tree in the park, and said to either Juxon or Tomlinson, "That tree was planted by my brother Henry." There was a broad flight of stairs from the park, by which access was gained to the ancient palace of Whitehall. The king entered the palace that way; he ascended the stairs with a light step, passed through the long gallery, and gained his own bedroom, where he was left with Bishop Juxon, who administered the sacrament to him. Nye and Godwin, two Independent ministers, knocked at the door, and tendered their spiritual assistance. "Say to them frankly," said the king, "that they have so often prayed against me, that they shall not pray with me in mine agony. But if they will pray for me now, tell them that I shall be thankful." Dinner had been prepared for the king at Whitehall; he refused to eat. "Sir," said Juxon, "you have fasted long to-day; the weather is so cold, that faintness may occur." "You are right," replied the king. He therefore took a piece of bread and a glass of wine. "Now," said the king, cheerfully, "let the rascals come. I have forgiven them, and am quite ready." But "the rascals" were not ready.
A series of contests had taken place regarding the executioner and the warrant. Moreover, the military commanders, Huncks and Phayer, appointed to superintend the bloody work, resisted alike the scoffings, the jests, and threats of Cromwell, and had their names scratched out of the warrant; as to Huncks, he refused to write or sign the order to the executioner. This dispute occurred just before the execution took place. Huncks was one of the officers who guarded the king on his trial, and had been chosen for that purpose as the most furious of his foes; he had, like Tomlinson, become wholly altered from the result of his personal observations. Colonel Axtel and Colonel Hewson had, the preceding night, convened a meeting of thirty-eight stout sergeants of the army, to whom they proposed, that whosoever among them would aid the hangman in disguise, should have 100l. and rapid promotion in the army. Each one refused, with disgust. Late in the morning of the execution, Colonel Hewson prevailed on a sergeant in his regiment, one Hulet, to undertake the detestable office; and while this business was in progress, Elisha Axtel, brother of the colonel, went by water to Rosemary Lane, beyond the Tower, and dragged from thence the reluctant hangman, Gregory Brandon, who was, by threats and the promise of 30l. in half-crowns, induced to strike the blow. The disguises of the executioners were hideous, and must have been imposed for the purpose of trying the firmness of the royal victim. They were coarse woollen garbs buttoned close to the body, which was the costume of butchers at that era. Hulet added a long grey peruke, and a black mask, with a large grey beard affixed to it. Gregory Brandon wore a black mask, a black peruke, and a large flapped black hat, looped up in front.
It was past one o'clock before the grisly attendants and apparatus of the scaffold were ready. Colonel Hacker led the king through his former banqueting-hall, one of the windows of which had originally been contrived to support stands for public pageantries; it had been taken out, and led to the platform raised in the street. The noble bearing of the king as he stepped on the scaffold, his beaming eyes and high expression, were noticed by all who saw him. He looked on all sides for his people, but dense masses of soldiery only presented themselves far and near. He was out of hearing of any persons but Juxon and Herbert, save those who were interested in his destruction. The soldiers preserved a dead silence; this time they did not insult him. The distant populace wept, and occasionally raised mournful cries in blessings and prayers for him. The king uttered a short speech, to point out that every institute of the original constitution of England had been subverted with the sovereign power. While he was speaking, some one touched the axe, which laid enveloped in black crape on the block. The king turned round hastily, and exclaimed, "Have a care of the axe. If the edge is spoiled, it will be the worse for me." The executioner, Gregory Brandon, drew near, and kneeling before him, entreated his forgiveness. "No!" said the king; "I forgive no subject of mine who comes deliberately to shed my blood." The king spoke as became his duty as chief magistrate and the source of the laws, which were violated in his murder.
The king put up his flowing hair under a cap; then, turning to the executioner, asked, "Is any of my hair in the way?"—"I beg your majesty to push it more under your cap," replied the man, bowing. The bishop assisted his royal master to do so, and observed to him, "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," replied the king, "from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown." He unfastened his cloak, and took off the medallion of the order of the Garter. The latter he gave to Juxon, saying, with emphasis, "Remember!" Beneath the medallion of St. George was a secret spring which removed a plate ornamented with lilies, under which was a beautiful miniature of his Henrietta. The warning word, which has caused many historical surmises, evidently referred to the fact that he only had parted with the portrait of his beloved wife at the last moment of his existence. He then took off his coat, and put on his cloak; and pointing to the block, said to the executioner, "Place it so that it will not shake."—"It is firm, sir," replied the man. "I shall say a short prayer," said the king; "and when I hold out my hand thus, strike." The king stood in profound meditation, said a few words to himself, looked upward on the heavens, then knelt, and laid his head on the block. In about a minute he stretched out his hands, and his head was severed at one blow.
A simultaneous groan of agony arose from the assembled multitude at the moment when the fatal blow fell on the neck of Charles I. It was the protest of an outraged people, suffering, equally with their monarch, under military tyranny, and those who heard that cry remembered it with horror to their deaths. When the king's head fell, Hulet, the gray-beard mask, came forward to earn his bribe and subsequent promotion. He held up the bleeding head, and vociferated, "This is the head of a traitor!" A deep and angry murmur from the people followed the announcement. Two troops of horse, advancing in different directions, dispersed the indignant crowd. Hulet, in his anxiety to gain his stipulated reward, did more than was required, for he dashed down the dissevered head of the king, yet warm with life, and bruised one cheek grievously—an outrage noted with sorrow. The king was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor; the burial service was not permitted. The body was, when it was conveyed for interment to Windsor, followed by Bishop Juxon and the six attached gentlemen who had attended on the king in all his wanderings. The king had expressed a wish to be interred by his father in the royal chapel in Westminster Abbey, but Cromwell forbade it, having, from an absurd species of ambition, reserved that place for himself.
The trial, death, and burial of Charles I. had taken place before Queen Henrietta, besieged as Paris was from without, and her place of abode, the Louvre, beset from within, could receive the least intelligence concerning him. Meantime, her second son James, the young Duke of York, who had escaped from the custody of the republican English, was brought to her through the beleaguering lines of Paris. His arrival raised her spirits very high, too soon to be crushed. Whispers of the dire events in England had transpired through her circle at the Louvre; her English household gazed aghast on the unconscious widow, marveling how the tidings were to be told her. Such awe-struck looks caused her inquiries, but the answers she received almost stopped the springs of her life; when at last the queen comprehended her loss with all its frightful facts, she stood motionless as a statue, without words and without tears. "To all we could say our queen was deaf—frozen in her grief," writes Pére Gamache, "at last, awed by her appalling grief, we became silent, with tearful looks bent on her. So passed the time till night-fall. When her aunt, the Duchess de Vendôme, whom she loved much and we had sent to in fear for the queen's life, came, she gently took the hand of the royal widow, kissed it, remained silent, and wept. Then Henrietta felt the relief of tears. She was able to sigh and weep when her little daughter, then four years old, was brought to her; and though she felt it hard to part with her, yet she longed to retire to some quiet place where she might, as she said, 'weep at will.'" The convent of the Carmelites, St. Jacques, was the place to which she retreated, with one or two of her ladies.