King Richard III.
The Lord Protector was seated beneath a royal canopy in the lofty parliament-chamber of England. At his left stood Thurloe, his secretary, on his right was seated a part of the bold Puritan band who had dared affix their signatures to the death-warrant of Charles Stuart. There was Bradshaw, the intrepid judge who wrote his name first on that fatal paper; there was Ireton—the fiery-hearted Ireton—who had come up in defense of Protestantism fierce and raging “as a lion from the swelling of Jordan;” Goffe, and Whalley, and Dixwell, too, were there, whose ashes repose in our own quiet “City of Elms,” and many others of that fearless band of regicides that three years after were fleeing from home and country, to escape the block or gibbet. Ambassadors from every nation were there—princes and courtiers, officers of the army, judges, petitioners, all helped to make up the illustrious Protectorate Assembly of 1655.
Seated side by side, and discoursing in low tones of the projected treaty, were Sir Matthew Hale and Milton, the world-renowned bard; and in a listening posture near them, was the accomplished Lambert. No purple robe or kingly crown distinguished the chief of this august body, but nature had stamped a seal on him that could not be mistaken, for Oliver Cromwell bore in the parliament-hall the look and bearing of a man born to command, while at the same time the most unconquerable determination and the highest-wrought enthusiasm were traced on every lineament of his face. But to our story.
A gentleman, in the splendid dress that distinguished the court of Louis Fourteenth, approached the Lord Protector, and bending low, presented a paper to his highness. It was Bordeaux, the French ambassador, and the treaty so long in contemplation between the two nations, was this day to receive the seal of the Protectorate. The hand of Cromwell was already on the paper, when some confusion near the door arrested his attention, and a frown was gathering on his brow, when his piercing eye detected a youth with foreign air and aspect boldly striving to make his way through the guards that were stationed near the entrance of the hall.
“Silence, guards!” shouted the deep, nasal voice of the Protectorate, “stay not the boy; let him approach our presence if he have petition to offer.”
The guards gave way, and a slender but graceful-looking youth of some fourteen years came forward, and, knelt at the feet of the sovereign. Every eye was fastened upon him, and a deep silence came over the throng as he knelt there with clasped hands, his dark, earnest eyes fixed on the stern-looking, shaggy-browed Puritan in mute supplication—for no word fell from the boy’s lips. A heavy mass of raven curls were gathered back from the snowy forehead of the strange youth, and fell in singular beauty over his shoulders, and his simple peasant garb, had forced the idea of some wandering minstrel-boy, but for the deep and earnest pleading of the eyes, which told of excitement and anguish too deep for the utterance of the lips.
The silent but impassioned pleading of the poor youth touched the susceptible heart of Cromwell, and he laid his hand kindly and caressingly on the locks of the fair stranger, and said, in his gentlest accents,
“Whence come you, my son, and how can the Protectorate aid you? Be calm,” added he, noticing a nervous tremor on his countenance, “you have nothing to fear here—speak your errand plainly.”
“I am come from the valley of Piedmont, my noble lord,” replied the youth, “and the snow was red with the blood of the poor Vaudois;” and a cold shudder passed over his pale face.
“Hell and furies!” shouted Cromwell, in momentary wrath; “Are the cursed heretics on their track again?” Then bursting into tears, he added, in a subdued tone, “Poor martyred saints of the Most High, ye shall wear a glorious crown, in spite of your persecutors, and your blood shall not redden the Alpine snows in vain! If there is might in human arm, your enemies shall be humbled, and know that the Lord of Hosts will avenge his elect.”