On the Monday he was taken back to St.James's;and his two children then in England,the PRINCESS ELIZABETH thirteen years old,and the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER nine years old,were brought to take leave of him,from Sion House,near Brentford.It was a sad and touching scene,when he kissed and fondled those poor children,and made a little present of two diamond seals to the Princess,and gave them tender messages to their mother (who little deserved them,for she had a lover of her own whom she married soon afterwards),and told them that he died 'for the laws and liberties of the land.'I am bound to say that I don't think he did,but I dare say he believed so.
There were ambassadors from Holland that day,to intercede for the unhappy King,whom you and I both wish the Parliament had spared;
but they got no answer.The Scottish Commissioners interceded too;
so did the Prince of Wales,by a letter in which he offered as the next heir to the throne,to accept any conditions from the Parliament;so did the Queen,by letter likewise.
Notwithstanding all,the warrant for the execution was this day signed.There is a story that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table with the pen in his hand to put his signature to it,he drew his pen across the face of one of the commissioners,who was standing near,and marked it with ink.That commissioner had not signed his own name yet,and the story adds that when he came to do it he marked Cromwell's face with ink in the same way.
The King slept well,untroubled by the knowledge that it was his last night on earth,and rose on the thirtieth of January,two hours before day,and dressed himself carefully.He put on two shirts lest he should tremble with the cold,and had his hair very carefully combed.The warrant had been directed to three officers of the army,COLONEL HACKER,COLONEL HUNKS,and COLONEL PHAYER.At ten o'clock,the first of these came to the door and said it was time to go to Whitehall.The King,who had always been a quick walker,walked at his usual speed through the Park,and called out to the guard,with his accustomed voice of command,'March on apace!'When he came to Whitehall,he was taken to his own bedroom,where a breakfast was set forth.As he had taken the Sacrament,he would eat nothing more;but,at about the time when the church bells struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait,through the scaffold not being ready),he took the advice of the good BISHOP JUXON who was with him,and ate a little bread and drank a glass of claret.Soon after he had taken this refreshment,Colonel Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand,and called for Charles Stuart.
And then,through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace,which he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded,in very different times,the fallen King passed along,until he came to the centre window of the Banqueting House,through which he emerged upon the scaffold,which was hung with black.He looked at the two executioners,who were dressed in black and masked;he looked at the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot,and all looked up at him in silence;he looked at the vast array of spectators,filling up the view beyond,and turning all their faces upon him;
He looked at his old Palace of St.James's;and he looked at the block.He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low,and asked,'if there were no place higher?'Then,to those upon the scaffold,he said,'that it was the Parliament who had begun the war,and not he;but he hoped they might be guiltless too,as ill instruments had gone between them.In one respect,'he said,'he suffered justly;and that was because he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on another.'In this he referred to the Earl of Strafford.
He was not at all afraid to die;but he was anxious to die easily.
When some one touched the axe while he was speaking,he broke off and called out,'Take heed of the axe!take heed of the axe!'He also said to Colonel Hacker,'Take care that they do not put me to pain.'He told the executioner,'I shall say but very short prayers,and then thrust out my hands'-as the sign to strike.
He put his hair up,under a white satin cap which the bishop had carried,and said,'I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side.'The bishop told him that he had but one stage more to travel in this weary world,and that,though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage,it was a short one,and would carry him a great way-all the way from earth to Heaven.The King's last word,as he gave his cloak and the George-the decoration from his breast-to the bishop,was,'Remember!'He then kneeled down,laid his head on the block,spread out his hands,and was instantly killed.
One universal groan broke from the crowd;and the soldiers,who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues,were of a sudden all in motion,clearing the streets.
Thus,in the forty-ninth year of his age,falling at the same time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his,perished Charles the First.With all my sorrow for him,I cannot agree with him that he died 'the martyr of the people;'for the people had been martyrs to him,and to his ideas of a King's rights,long before.Indeed,Iam afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs;for he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham 'the Martyr of his Sovereign.'