Left alone, the king remained for some time in deep thought. All anger and weakness appeared to have passed from his mood, and the remarkable expression of melancholy which we have before described, deepened on his face to a degree scarce ever seen except upon canvas. Not less heightened, however, was that coldly resolute air likewise previously alluded to—so that if evidently sad, it might likewise have been seen that Charles Stuart was also determined unto death.
What were his reflections in view of the announcement he had just received from the lips of Alice Heath, and which he saw no means of averting short of sacrificing the dignity with which his rank as sovereign of England invested him, we will not attempt to conjecture. None who have not been in his situation can form any thing like an adequate conception of his state of mind; and it were sacrilege to attempt to invade the sanctuary of the human soul in such hour of agony.
Whatever his cogitations were, they were of limited duration. For, after sitting thus for a considerable time, Charles pushed back his chair, and falling upon his knees before the table, he drew the Book of Prayer toward him, and clasping his hands upon it, read aloud:
“The day of thy servant’s calamity is at hand, and he is accounted as one of them that go down to the pit. Blessed Lord, remember thy mercies; give him, we beseech thee, patience in this his time of adversity, and support under the terrors that encompass him; set before his eyes the things which he hath done in the body, which have justly provoked thee to anger, and forasmuch as his continuance appeareth to be short among us, quicken him so much the more by thy grace and Holy Spirit; that he, being converted and reconciled unto thee, before thy judgments have cut him off from the earth, may at the hour of his death depart in peace, and be received into thine everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
Rising, he slowly disrobed, and throwing himself upon the bed, soon sunk into a placid slumber. Strange! that sleep of the prisoner in the prospect of death. The excitement of suspense—the palpitation of hope not altogether dead—these banish rest; but when the feverish perturbation caused by expectation departs, and the mind has nothing to feed upon but one dark and fearful certainty, it turns to seek forgetfulness in sleep.
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CHAPTER III.
With my own power my majesty they wound;
In the king’s name, the king himself’s uncrowned,
So doth the dust destroy the diamond.