"Tell me," said Elisabeth, creeping closer to him, "will there be

another war?"

"God forfend," he answered gravely.

"Then what will the King do?" she insisted.

"Thou art very tender towards the King."

"I am sorry for him, surely. And I have heard thee say--he must have

his rights again."

"He hath forfeited his rights," said Cromwell, glooming. "He is a

hypocrite."

"Once you were his friend," said Elisabeth Claypole; "is that over?

Why, Major Harrison even called you royalist."

"Yes, it is over," returned her father, "and now you may sooner call

me republican--a name I did use to hate. The King is not one to be

trusted, neither is he fortunate. God is against him, and will not have

him raised up again; even as the Lord's judgment went forth against

Tyrus, so hath it gone forth against Charles Stewart. What hath God

said--'I shall bring thee down with them that descend to the pit--and

thou shalt be no more--thou shalt be sought for, but never shalt thou

be found!'"

"But what wilt thou do with the tyrant?" asked Mrs. Cromwell.

"He is not my prisoner, nor am I his judge," replied Cromwell, with

sudden vehemence. "Ask _me_ not what his fate will be! Ask me not to

pity the King--'he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and the rod

of his anger shall fail.'"

He crossed to the sideboard and set his glass there.

Elisabeth Claypole stood sad and thoughtful by her grandmother's chair;

Cromwell came and kissed her delicate forehead.

"Thy brother's marriage treaty sticks," he said pleasantly. "I must

go and write to Mr. Mayor, and cast up what higher settlements I can

offer."

"He demands too much," declared Mrs. Cromwell.

"Nay, he is prudent; but I have two wenches still to provide

for--farewell for a moment." He had gone again.

"The affairs of men!" muttered the old gentlewoman. "Well, well."

Elisabeth Claypole, too, felt sad; she, too, felt helpless in a busy

world that did not need her. She returned to her stool and began to

fold up her grandmother's work; both of them, being women, were used to

loneliness.

CHAPTER VI

PRESTON ROUT

Charles was a prisoner at Carisbrooke, more strictly guarded than ever

before, but not any less dangerous to Parliament or the disrupting

forces which stood for Parliament. In spite of everything they still

tried to come to an agreement with him, for the confusion of the

kingdom was beyond words, beyond any one man's brain to grasp and cope

with, and all turned to the King and the tradition behind the King as

the one stable thing in a whirl of chaos.

Charles thought that they, traitors and rebels as they were, were

speeding to their own doom. Outwardly he played with them as he had

done before; he referred himself, he said, wholly to them. Meanwhile he

was sowing the seeds of another Civil War.

He had come to an agreement with the Scots whereby they were to unite

with the English royalists against the Parliament, and he on his side

was to suppress Sectaries and Independents and to establish presbytery

for three years, himself retaining the Anglican form of worship. This

agreement was signed secretly, wrapped in lead, and buried in the

garden of Carisbrooke Castle.

Royalist risings broke out all over the country, particularly in Wales;

mutinies were frequent in the still undisbanded, unpaid army; the

struggle between Presbyterian and Independent was as sharp as it had

ever been. Hamilton triumphed over the Argyll faction in the Scottish

Parliament, raised an army 40,000 strong, and prepared to march across

the Border "to deliver the King from Sectaries." Part of the fleet

had revolted, gone to Holland, fetched the young Prince of Wales and

Rupert, and was buccaneering round Yarmouth Roads. In Ireland the

Marquess of Ormonde and the papal Nuncio were coming to some pact to

unite against the Parliament, and the feeling of the sheer people of

England was veering against the austere rule of the Puritan and coming

again to the old known and tried idea of Kingship. "Why not," they

asked, "a good peace with His Majesty?"

Cromwell and a few others knew why not; because the King was utterly

impossible to deal with; because he did not admit that he, the King,

_could_ be dealt with, made party to a bargain or an agreement, like an

ordinary man.

But in the minds of the common people, Charles did not get the blame

nor they the credit of this attitude of his. Cromwell in particular had

lost much of his prestige; the zealots blamed him for his conferences

with the King, the moderates because they had not succeeded. He brought

about meetings between the leaders of the two factions, Presbyterians

and Independents, but quite uselessly--neither would yield a jot. Then

the extreme men of the Parliament and the extreme men of the army were

gotten together by his care to discuss the desperate state of affairs.

This conference resolved itself into a bitter and academic dispute on

the various forms of government, each man backing himself by manifold

quotations from Scripture.

"Wherefore," cried Cromwell, starting up impatiently, "do you argue

which is best--monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy--when you are come

here to find a remedy for the present evils?"

Thereat they began to reply together, tediously and idly, and Cromwell

picked up the cushion from the chair on which he sat and hurled it at

Ludlow's head, and before it could be flung back to him he ran down the

stairs, thus ending the conference.

Soon after, the army came together at Windsor and, with prayers and

tears and exhortations, besought God to tell them for what mistreading

or fault all these turmoils and distresses had come upon them.

And the conclusion of these three days of mystic exaltation was that

God was punishing them for their dealings with Charles Stewart, who was

henceforth to be no more considered or dealt with, but treated as a

delinquent and man of blood who would be, in good time, made to answer

for his sins to men before he went to answer for them to God.

The situation was a paradox. The Scots were invading the kingdom to

restore Charles and to force the Covenant on England; these two matters

were no less the object of the parliamentary majority, yet they were

bound to withstand Hamilton, for his victory would mean their own utter

overthrow.

To further complicate the situation, Langdale and the English

Cavaliers, joined with Hamilton, abhorred the Covenant, and were

fighting not merely for the re-establishment of the monarchy but the

re-establishment of the Church of England.

It was obvious, even to the most hopeful, that only the sword could cut

these tangles; it was obvious, even to the most hesitating, that the

Scots must be driven back over their own Border.

Cromwell, who had been on the edge of impeachment, who had many eager

foes now in Parliament and army, was called forth again at the supreme

moment.

He was sent to South Wales, crushed the rebellion there, took Pembroke

Castle, heard Hamilton had crossed the Border, turned northwards and,

by July, was in Leicestershire. By the middle of August he had joined

General Lambert between Leeds and York.

There his scouts brought him news that Hamilton and Langdale had

effected a juncture and were marching for London.

"If," said Cromwell, "they reach London, then goodnight to us, for the

King will be master for all in all, and all the blood and bitterness

will have been for naught."

There was nothing but him and his force to stay them. He had, perhaps,

eight thousand men; they, twenty-one thousand, or near it. The weather

was tumultuous, stormy; torrents of rain fell, the upland fells were

almost impassable from mud and bog. Cromwell had brought his army by

long and arduous marches from Wales; many of them were barefoot, many

in rags. None of them had yet received the months of arrears of pay

which had been so long in dispute. Plunder was forbidden them; they

were there, like the hosts of Joshua, to fight for the Lord, and for

nothing else.

My Lord Duke, with his great straggling army, came over the open heaths

as far as Preston and Wigan, no colours displayed because of the wind,

no tents nor fires at night because of the wind and the rain; so they

marched, a weary troop, neither well-disciplined nor well-generaled,

and soon to face those troops which Oliver Cromwell had made the best

in the world. But there was with them neither hesitation nor dismay,

for half of them were Scots, and Langdale's men were of the same breed

as Cromwell's, and would fight as well and endure as stubbornly.

Cromwell came to Clitheroe and lay in the house of a Mr. Sherburn, a

Papist, at Stonyhurst. The next day was Wednesday, and still raining;

the weather, the soldiers said, "was as fearful a marvel as the hideous

sight of English fighting English on English earth"; the sky was one

colour with earth, heavy, dun; the beaten heath, the broken bushes

dripped with moisture, the water ran in rivulets through the soaked

earth. As the rain ceased for a while the wind would rise, sweeping

strongly across the open spaces.

Ashton marched to Whalley, other troops of dragoons to Clitheroe,

Cromwell advanced towards Preston. On the other side my Lord Duke

advanced, also, hardly knowing where, in the rain and wind, on the

undulating ground of hillocks and hollows, his army lay, or how and

where it was available.

Sir Marmaduke Langdale was near Langdridge Chapel, on Preston Moor, the

other side of the Ribble. Four miles away my lord the Duke, who was at

Darwen, the south side of the river too, where there should have been

a ford, but was not, so swollen was the tide with the mighty rains. My

Lord Duke passed the bridge with most of his brigades and sent Lord

Middleton with a large portion of the cavalry to Wigan.

Meanwhile, through the rain and the confusion, stumbling over the

incredibly rough ground, a forlorn of horse and foot, commanded by

Major Hodgson and Major Rounal, came upon Sir Marmaduke and his three

thousand English.

The Scots, themselves confused, thinking it only an attack of Lancaster

Presbyterians, did not support Langdale, who complained that he had

not even enough powder; but he fought, he and his men, like heroes,

against forces more than double their number--against the Ironsides,

for four hours, always in the wind and wet, on the rough ground. Then

such as was left of them gave way and fell back on Preston; some of the

infantry surrendered, some of the horse escaped north to join Munro.

Meanwhile, Cromwell had swept Hamilton and Baillie back across the

Darwen, back across the Ribble, had captured both bridges and driven

my lord towards Preston town. Three times in his retreat my lord

turned round to face his enemies, crying out for "King Charles!" Three

times he repulsed the troops pursuing him, and the third time he drove

them far back and, escaping from them, swam the river and joined

Lieutenant-General Baillie where he had enclosed himself on the top of

a hill.

Night fell and the battle was stayed; all were wet, weary, hungry,

haggled; the Parliamentarians, the victors, not the less exhausted, but

with fire in their hearts and hymns of praise on their lips. Cromwell

wrote to "the Committee of Lancashire sitting at Manchester" his

account of the day's fight, dispatched it, prayed, and got into the

saddle again.

It was still foul weather, wind, rain, miles of muddy heath, hillocks,

hollows now stained with blood and scattered with bodies, men, and

horses, dead and dying.

The Duke of Hamilton's forces fought all that day and the next, routed

again and again, rallied again and again; always the rain, the wind,

the muddy heath, the low clouds, always the soldiers growing fainter

and wearier. Beaten from the bridge of Ribble, falling back, a drumless

march on Wigan Moor, leaving the ammunition to the enemy, falling

farther back on to Wigan town, where they thought to make some stand,

but decided not to, with skirmishes of detachments at Redbank where

the Scots nearly worsted Colonel Pride at Ribble Bridge, and where

Middleton (the weather, always foul, bringing confusion and fatigue)

missed his chief, coming too late. And so it went for three days on

the wet Yorkshire heaths, till finally it was over; the fate of King,

Church, Constitution, and Covenant was decided. Hamilton and the

vanguard of horse rode wearily and aimlessly towards Uttoxeter; Munro

and the rearguard straggled back to their own country; a thousand of

them were left dead under the rain, trodden into the bloody heath;

three thousand of them were made prisoners. And the second Civil War

which had flamed up so suddenly and so fiercely was ended.

The Puritans--the patriots--had passed through their darkest hour

triumphantly; their ragged, hungry, unpaid soldiers, fighting truly for

God and not for pay, had again saved England from the return of the

tyrant and his manifold oppressions and confusions.

After the three days' fight was over, Cromwell sat down at Warrington

to write to the Speaker of the House of Commons a long account of the

rout.

"The Duke," he wrote, "is marching with his remaining horse towards

Namptwich.... If I had a thousand horse that could but trot thirty

miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but

truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are

not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them."

But whether or no the Puritans were too wearied to pursue their enemies

mattered little; the day was decided.

The Duke of Hamilton, wandering vaguely, with fewer and fewer men after

him, was finally taken at Uttoxeter, where he surrendered, a sick and

broken man.

Cromwell cleared the Border of the remnants of the Scots, retook

Berwick and Carlisle, engaged the Argyll faction, now the head of the

Government of Scotland, to exclude all royalists from power, and turned

back towards England, the foremost man of the moment again, and in the

eyes of at least half England, the saviour of the country from the

invader.

But if the country was grateful, the Parliament was not. Denzil Holles,

fiercest of Presbyterians, rose up at Westminster to lead a party

against his enemy Cromwell. The Lords, who had all become royalists,

considered whether they should impeach the victorious general; it was

noticeable how much bolder they all were when the Independents and

their indomitable leader were absent, and how, as the return of the

army, strengthened in renown and prestige, drew nearer, they began to

cast round for some means of escape from the fact facing them, that

when Cromwell reappeared at Westminster he would be absolute master of

the political situation, for he had behind him the entire army and they

had nothing but the mere unsupported weight of the law.

So sharp was the division and so fierce had party hatred become, that

the Presbyterians at Westminster hated the Independents with the army

as no Roundhead or Cavalier had ever hated in the first broad division

of the war.

Toleration was the watchword of Cromwell and his followers, and no

word was more detestable to the Parliament. To mark their loathing of

it they passed an ordinance punishing Atheism. Arianism, Socinianism,

Quakerism, Arminianism, and Baptists with death.

Meanwhile, Cromwell, looming ever larger in the imaginations of men,

was returning triumphant to London. If his fame had been at the lowest

when he left for Wales, it was at the highest now. Denzil Holles

conceived the idea of meeting material force by moral force; as they

had nothing else to oppose to Cromwell they must oppose the King.

Charles still remained, in many ways, the hub of the political wheel.

The Parliament must now yield either to him or to the army; they

thought they saw their chance with Charles. If terms could be come

to with him, and he be installed in London before the army returned,

Cromwell would be faced with a situation with which he would probably

not be able to cope. _He_ had denounced the King solemnly at the

Windsor meeting, therefore Charles, once again in power, could not

treat him otherwise than as an enemy.

The vote against further addresses to the King, which Cromwell's

eloquence had hurried through the House, was repealed, and

parliamentary commissions were sent to the Isle of Wight to open a new

treaty with the King.

But they were not prepared to make concessions; the propositions of

Uxbridge, of Newcastle, of Oxford, of Hampton Court were offered again

and again, fought inch by inch. Charles, too, was still as intractable

as ever; the coalition between royalist and Presbyterian seemed doomed

to failure; the negotiations were continually ruptured on the subject

of Church government. Charles would not forgo his bishops, and the

Parliament would not endure them; though each side was desperate, on

this point they were firm.

Meanwhile, Cromwell and his Ironsides were coming nearer.

CHAPTER VII

THE CONSTANCY OF THE KING

The fifteen commissioners had left the King; Sir Harry Vane, perhaps

the sincerest republican of all, had stayed behind a moment to entreat

Charles--as Pym--as Cromwell--had entreated him--"to be sincere."

The King, grave, composed, courtly, had answered him as he had answered

Pym and Cromwell--"In all these dealings I have been sincere."

And so they left him, and the wearisome yet desperate negotiations,

which had been protracted from the middle of the September after

Preston Rout to nearly the end of November, were over.

Charles had given way; he had consented to the temporary abolition of

the bishops, for three years at least; the coalition of Royalist and

Presbyterian was formed against Cromwell and the army; the treaty which

made a third Civil War imminent was signed.

After the commissioners had departed, Lord Digby came to Charles,

who still sat at the head of the table at which he had so often held

his own in caustic argument and learned dispute on the subject of

Episcopacy.

"Bring me," said the King, "a little wine."

Lord Digby, without calling a servant, served the King himself.

The winter twilight was falling; the sea fog drifting over the island

thickened the sad atmosphere that filled the room in which the King

sat. A private house at Newport had been for some weeks now his

residence, and carried with it less state, but more semblance of

freedom, than Carisbrooke Castle.

The King wore grey. Since his own servants had been taken from him he

had grown more and more neglectful of his attire; there was nothing

either fine or splendid in his garments, and he wore no jewels. His

face showed a more cheerful expression than had been of late usual to

him, and when he had drunk the alicant, a faint colour came into his

cheeks and a sparkle to his eyes.

"Digby," he said, "I think I shall yet be able to undo these rogues,

these traitors, these villains--but come, I must write to my Lord

Ormonde, for I have had to publicly give orders that he is to do

nothing in Ireland, and he may be misled."

To most these words, the first he had spoken since he had assured Sir

Harry Vane of his sincerity, would have appeared indeed startling

and ironical, but Lord Digby knew the whole of his master's tortuous

intrigues. He was aware that from the moment the negotiations with the

Parliament began, Charles had been planning to escape from the Isle

of Wight, and join that portion of the navy which was now under the

command of Rupert and the Prince of Wales, and thus make a descent on

Ireland, where the incredible exertions of the Marquess of Ormonde kept

alive a royalist party, and from there attempt another such invasion of

England as had just ended so fatally at Preston Rout.

Such was the wild, vague, and desperate scheme which the King nursed

in preference to returning triumphantly to London as the ally of the

Parliament, and from there dealing with the army, now his open enemies.

But this, though it might seem the surest proof of his levity and

falsity, was in reality the uttermost testimony he could give of his

constancy to principles which he accounted Divine.

The price the Parliament asked was the sacrifice of Episcopacy, and

that was what Charles would never consent to. Far preferable was the

wild hazard, the desperate risk, the almost certain danger of trusting

to Rupert and his lawless little fleet, or Ormonde and his inadequate

forces, or Ireland and her uncertain loyalty, than keeping the pact

with the Presbyterian, who refused the Divine form of Church government.

Now, almost before the commissioners had entered their coaches, he was

hurriedly writing to Ormonde and to the Queen.

"Do not be astonished at any concession I may make," he wrote to the

Marquess, "for it will come to nothing, and heed no public commands I

may give, until you hear that I am free; but keep alive with all vigour

the spirit of loyalty in Ireland."

To his wife he wrote--"The great concessions I have made to-day were

merely in order to my escape."

When these hasty letters, in the writing of which the King seemed to

relieve some of the feelings that he had had to contain in his bosom

during the long hours of his conference with the representatives of

Parliament, were finished and locked into the secret drawers of the

King's desk, Lord Digby lit the candles and closed the shutters over

the mournful, wet, misty night.

"I would, sir," he said, with a little shudder, "that we were well out

of this cursed island."

Charles rose from the little desk; his eyes were brilliant, his mouth

hardly set under the delicate moustaches.

"If I were once in Ireland," he said, "fortune would look differently

on me."

He had always been so--always, under the most cruel mortification

hopeful, trustful in some expedient. Ever since his overthrow he had

trusted first in Rupert and Montrose, then in the foreign armies the

Queen would raise, then in Hamilton, then in the divisions of his

enemies, and now in Rupert and his elusive ships.

Lord Digby could not fail to see this incurable hopefulness of his

master, nor to argue ill from it; but he was himself light-spirited

and fantastical, and his remonstrances were few and faint.

Yet he hazarded one now.

"As the army is deadly disloyal and much raised up of late, and as the

Parliament is your one sure refuge from it, sir, would it not be wiser

to observe this treaty, at least for a while?"

"Never!" cried Charles fiercely. "Never will I yield! I have sworn that

I will defend the Church of England and my rights--even unto death.

I will not deal with these rebels save by the sword. The sword? Nay,

the halter. I hope, Digby, that God will give me the day when I can

see these rogues marched to Tyburn. Thou canst scarcely conceive," he

added, with great intensity, "what a hatred I have for them--how my

mortifications, my humiliations, my losses, all the loyal blood shed

for me cry out for repayment! How I loathe them and their heretical

opinions and their canting speech--how I detest them for mine own

helplessness!"

He flung himself into the arm-chair beside the hearth, where a feeble

fire burnt neglected.

"Hamilton's a prisoner," he said gloomily. "What will they do with my

faithful lord? How many noble lives have I not to avenge?"

As he spoke he thought (as he thought often now, too often for his own

peace) of Strafford, his first great, awful, and useless sacrifice.

"If it cost my heart's blood I will not submit," he muttered, biting

his lip.

But Lord Digby would not so easily relinquish his point--that the

Parliament was a surer refuge from the army than Rupert or Ormonde, or

any possible ships or possible men either of these Cavaliers might be

able to command.

"Fairfax," he reminded the King, "sent Ireton to the House with a

remonstrance from the army, protesting against the Parliament dealing

with Your Majesty, and even daring to say that you should be brought

to trial."

"But the House," replied the King, with a grim smile, "refused to

consider these demands of 'armed sectaries.'"

"But the army," persisted Lord Digby, "hath the power."

"I will be free of all of them," cried Charles passionately. "Of the

army, of the Parliament, of all their cursed sects and heresies."

He lapsed into a melancholy silence again. My lord put another log on

the fire and stirred the faint flames to a blaze.

"In the Queen's letter of this morning," said Charles suddenly, "she

mentioned that loyal gentlewoman, Margaret Lucas--she hath fallen ill.

When she had the news of the end of her brother, Sir Charles, she was

as one who had received a death-sentence."

Tears moistened his own eyes. He was not usually very sensible of the

sorrows of those who were ruined in his service, and gratitude was no

part of his character or tradition; yet there was something in the

story of the gallant young Lucas, who, after an heroic defence of

Colchester, had surrendered on terms which bargained for quarter for

the inferiors, but left the superiors at the mercy of the enemy, yet

who had been taken out with his fellow-officer, Sir George Lisle, and

shot like a dog before those walls he had so valiantly defended through

three months of famine and misery, which moved the King, even to tears.

"Ireton's doing," he cried. "Jesus God! grant that I may send Ireton to

Tyburn one day."

"From an officer who came here recently I heard an account of it," said

Lord Digby, in a low voice. "They neither of them thought to have died,

seeing they had surrendered to mercy, but they made no grief of it. Sir

Charles was shot first, and Sir George bent and kissed him while he was

yet warm (and conscious, I hope) and spoke to the wretched rebels,

'Come nearer and make sure of me.' And upon one of the dogs replying,

'I warrant you we shall hit you, Sir George,' he smiled and said, 'Ay!

but I have been nearer to you, many a time, my friends, and you have

missed me,--I would I had been there to give them company.'"

"And they are gone!" sighed Charles. "How many of the young and brave

have I not lost! Ah, Digby, mine hath been a dismal fate, to ruin all

those I would most advance, to bring down those whom I would most

exalt."

He was not thinking now of Sir Charles Lucas, but of the Queen; his

thoughts were never long from her. The image of her in her exile, in

her poverty and humiliation, in her beaten pride and broken splendour

was the most lively of all his mortifications, the most exquisite of

all his secret tortures; he felt that he had abjectly failed towards

her, towards her children, and, keenest sting of all, that she must

despise him for his failure and his misfortune.

His head sank lower and lower on his breast, and two tears forced

themselves from his tired eyes and hung burning on his faded cheeks.

"Digby, my faithful lord," he said, "I do sometimes think that it would

have been better for me to have died at Naseby. By now the Lord would

have judged me, and I should have been at peace--peace, peace! How the

word dangles before us while the thing is never to be found, this side

of heaven."

Digby dropped on one knee beside him.

"May Your Majesty soon find it," he said, in a broken voice, "and live

long to enjoy it."

"If it were possible!" murmured Charles. "But we must get to

Ireland--it is very needful that we should get to Ireland."

Lord Digby lowered his voice, as if somewhere in this lonely,

desolate-looking room a spy of Parliament or army might lurk.

"The preparations are all complete," he said. "It only needs to wait

until the commissioners have left the Island."

A little shudder shook the King.

"What will it feel, Digby," he murmured, "to be free again--free!"

Then, as if rousing himself from thoughts that threatened to be

overwhelming, he put out his hand and took up a small brown volume

tooled in gold, and, turning over the thin pages rough with print,

let slip his mind from the leases of care and suffered himself to be

distracted by Lucan's _Pharsalia_.

The mist changed to rain, which slashed at the window; a winter wind

disturbed the tapestry and flickered the flames on the deep hearth,

which hissed beneath the drops falling down the wide chimney.

Charles, sunk in the deep, worn leather chair, with one thin hand

supporting his thin face, the long curls flowing over his breast,

gathered consolation from those ancient deeds of melancholy heroism and

fated endeavour.

Lord Digby left the room to concert with the few personal attendants

left the King about the final arrangements for the King's flight from

Newport as soon as the Parliamentarians should have returned to London.

But again Charles Stewart proved unfortunate.

The day before his projected escape Colonel Hammond, the Governor

of the Island, sent an escort to remove His Majesty from Newport to

Hurst Castle, a dreary residence near the coast, on the sea shingle,

where Charles was closely guarded beyond all hope of escape, even if

his word of honour not to escape had not been extracted from him: and

this was a point where he would admit of no sophistries. So the dream

of Rupert and his ships and Ormonde and his loyal Catholics vanished,

as all Charles' dreams had vanished, into the bitter obscurity of

disappointment.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE BALANCE

It was the army who had ordered the King's removal to a place of

greater security, the army who had now resolved to make an end of these

long negotiations between King and Parliament.

On the day after Charles was closed into Hurst Castle the army marched

into London, Cromwell not yet with them; but other men, embued with his

spirit, were his representatives. He had proposed that the Parliament

should be forcibly dissolved and a new one elected, and a Declaration

to this effect had been issued by the army now openly at variance with

the assembly, which had flung aside their great Remonstrance. Leading

officers spoke darkly, yet unmistakably, of what they would do to the

King, ay, and to the Parliament.

The Commons, undaunted, voted that the King's concessions were

sufficient ground for treating of a general peace; the reply of the

army was to send Colonel Pride down to the House to arrest every member

who had voted to continuing negotiations with the King.

"It was the only way," said Henry Ireton, "to save the kingdom from a

new war into which King and Parliament conjointly would plunge us--that

is our warrant and our law for what we do."

Cromwell, coming the evening of that day to London, approved. "Since

it is done, I am glad of it," he said, "and will endeavour to maintain

it."

Meanwhile, Harrison had gone down to Hurst Castle and removed the King

from that melancholy solitude to Windsor.

The now purged House of Commons, which consisted of a mere handful

of Independent members, was nothing but the mouthpiece of the army,

who were now the masters of the hour. In council they decided against

bringing the King to trial if he could be brought by any means to

reason, and Lord Denbigh was sent to Windsor again--once more and for

the last time--to offer Charles terms.

The same terms--the abandonment of Episcopacy and of his own absolute

sovereignty.

All illusion was at last stripped from the proceedings; no meaningless

courtesies or formalities obscured the issue. The army were treating

Charles as they would treat a vanquished enemy, and he at last saw

it--saw there was no hope, no evasion possible, no succour at hand, no

shift, no expedient to which he could turn; saw, too, for the first

time, the sharp and bitter nature of the alternative of his refusal of

these terms.

The army talked freely of his trial and death; there was barely a

disguise given to the fact that Lord Denbigh gave him his choice

between the Church of England, his Crown--and his life.

This struck not at the King's ambition or lust of power or love of

authority, but at his conscience, for he believed as firmly that

he was there to uphold the Divine ordinance in Church and State as

Cromwell believed that God was mocked by Lawd's surplices, candles, and

genuflexions.

On the gloomy day in the end of December when the return of Lord

Denbigh with the King's answer was expected, Henry Ireton was with his

father-in-law in his house in Drury Lane. Both men showed signs of the

tremendous physical and spiritual stress they had lately undergone.

Cromwell especially was haggard; the burden which he had assumed was

no light one, nor was the responsibility he was about to undertake one

which could be worn easily.

Up to the very last he had hoped that the King would give way. Lord

Denbigh's journey had been on his recommendation, and he still clung to

the possibility that Charles, now absolutely with his back against the

wall, might make those concessions which would enable the army to spare

him.

But the other and more likely alternative had to be faced.

"Can we," said Henry Ireton, in a tone almost of awe, "bring to trial

the crowned and anointed King?"

The thing was indeed unheard of, appalling in its audacity even to the

men who had been already years in arms against their King--a thing

without precedent, full of a nameless horror. But Oliver Cromwell

was not troubled by this consideration. He was uplifted by his stern

enthusiasm from all fears of laws and tradition; he knew himself

capable of moulding the movement to suit the need; and he was of an

incalculable courage.

Yet in this affair he had shown himself more moderate, almost more

hesitating, than many of his colleagues; he did not see clearly; he

was not sure what God had meant him to do, and his personal feeling,

despite his absolute refusal to deal further with Charles after his

treachery had been made manifest, was still towards some arrangement by

which the King could be returned to the throne and forced to keep his

people's laws.

His trust in the King had been utterly scattered; his sentiments had

become almost republican; yet in his heart he struggled to find some

means of saving the King as he had struggled since the end of the first

civil war.

He still hesitated before committing himself to the fierce measures

advocated by the great body of the army; yet Charles had done some

things which Cromwell could never forgive.

Notably the calling in of the Scots.

To the Englishman, English of the English in every fibre, this "attempt

to vassalage us to a foreign nation," as he had called it, was the

intolerable, unforgivable wrong--a thing which burnt the blood to think

of--a wrong which the Scots, beaten back across the border and Hamilton

waiting death in London, did not soften or make amends for. Cromwell

had broken the Scots, but he could not forgive them.

"Had he not done that," he cried aloud, "it had been easier to forget

his manifold deceits."

"God hath witnessed against him," replied Ireton.

But he, too, was for moderation; he had suggested a trial of the King

and then a decorous imprisonment.

Such a compromise did not please the Lieutenant-General, who was

waiting for the indication for swift, prompt action. He wanted an

impetus to an irrecoverable decision, not an expedient for avoiding it;

nothing in the nature of a shift was ever tolerable to him.

"Until Lord Denbigh return," he broke out, "we can decide on nothing. I

know not what the Providence of God may put upon us; but this I know,

the King hath one more chance, and if he take it not--there will be no

excuse but folly and cowardice to delay our dealings with him."

"And when we have dealt with him--what then?" asked Ireton, and he

looked gloomy and apprehensive, like a man oppressed with many heavy

thoughts.

Oliver Cromwell rose from the table at which both had been sitting;

through his air of weariness the indomitable fire of his inner

conviction, his inner faith glowed. Ireton, looking at him, thought

that he always, even in his moments of deepest dejection or melancholy,

gave that impression of one carrying a flame.

"I have much rested on these words of late," he said: "'They that shine

with thee shall perish. They that war against thee shall be as nothing;

and as a thing of nought. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right

hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.'"

As he spoke he moved to the window and stood with his back against the

dark curtains which hung before it. His clothes were dark too, his

white band and his tanned but pale face, his brown hair and clasped

hands were all picked out and shone upon by the candlelight; for the

rest, his figure was in shadow. Ireton, gazing at him, was impressed

by something about him which, hearty and homely as were his manners,

seemed to always put him beyond his brother officers: the quality of

greatness, Henry Ireton thought it was; but he wondered wherein lay

greatness.

Cromwell did not speak again, and Ireton took his leave.

"I am going to Sir Thomas Fairfax," he said, "and if any messenger

comes from Windsor to-night, I will send one over to you with the news."

After he had been alone a little while Cromwell went upstairs, still

with a thoughtful face, with eyes downcast and a frowning brow.

The room he entered was rendered cheerful by the bright firelight and

the glow of the candles in the wall sconces of polished brass, and it

formed the setting to a fair and tender picture.

Cromwell's wife was seated at the spinet which occupied one corner of

the room, and either side of her stood one of her younger daughters,

singing. The lady and the children were all dressed in a brown colour,

and the purity of their fair-complexioned faces and the delicacy of

their soft and waving gold-brown hair was heightened by their collars

and caps of white cambric enriched with exquisite needlework.

At the Lieutenant-General's entrance they paused, and Elisabeth

Cromwell was about to rise, but he bade them continue and crossed to

the fireplace, where he stood quietly, with his head hanging on his

breast.

With a blush for the presence of their father at their simple

performance, the two little girls began again; the fresh voices,

sharply pure and sweetly tremulous, rose clearly and echoed clearly in

the high-ceiled chamber, accompanied by the faint, half-muffled notes

of the spinet.

"Ye Holy Angels bright,

Who wait at God's right hand,

Or through the realms of light

Fly at your Lord's command.

Assist our song,

Or else the theme

Too high doth seem

For mortal tongue."

The little singers had forgotten the embarrassment of an audience;

their eyes sparkled, their little round mouths strained open in a

rapture.

Elisabeth Cromwell, as her fingers touched the keys to the simple

melody, looked across the spinet to her husband.

"Ye blessed souls at rest,

Who ran this earthly race,

And now from sin released,

Behold the Saviour's face.

His praises sound

As in His light

With sweet delight

Ye do abound."

The mother's head bent a little; she dropped her eyes. She was thinking

of Robert and Oliver, and wondering if they were leaning from heaven to

listen to this song--"blessed souls at rest." Ah, well!

"Ye saints, who toil below,

Adore your Heavenly King,

And onward as ye go

Some joyful anthem sing.

Take what He gives

And praise Him still

Through good and ill,

Who ever lives!"

The young voices gathered greater fervency on the next lines--

"My soul, bear thou thy part,

Triumph in God above,

And with a well-tuned heart

Sing thou the songs of love!

Let all thy days

Till life shall end,

Whate'er He send,

Be filled with praise!"

Frances and Mary Cromwell, having ended their hymn, came round from

behind the spinet and curtsied to their father.

"A sweet song," he said, "and sweetly sung. Who wrote the words, Mary?"

"Mr. Richard Baxter, sir," she replied; "he taught them to the troop

he was chaplain of at Kidderminster--and Henry copied them and brought

them home to us."

"Learn Mr. Baxter's hymns," he smiled, "but not his tenets. He is

lukewarm and unstable."

Mrs. Cromwell rose.

"And now they must to bed--I fear it is already over-late."

The Lieutenant-General stooped and kissed each of them on the fair,

untroubled brow.

"A good night, my dears, my sweets. A good night, my little wenches."

He lingered over the farewell caress half wistfully, and as they left

the room his tired eyes followed them.

Elisabeth Cromwell came to her husband's side and glanced up at him,

then down at the fire.

"You are troubled to-night," she said, in a low voice.

"No," he answered, "no."

"About Richard's marriage settlements," she returned. "It is over a

year since that affair was first opened."

"I know," he replied, "I know. But what can I do? I cannot settle on

Dorothy Mayor moneys which I have not got for my own. There is Henry

to think of, and the two little ones--and thou knowest, Bess, I am not

rich."

She knew well enough from many economies of her own. He had strained

his estates at the commencement of the first war, when he had raised

and equipped, at his own expense, his troop in Cambridgeshire; his pay

was in arrears and had lately been reduced; he had waited many ancient

debts due to him from the Government; and he had returned the larger

portion of the income arising from the grant of Lord Worchester's lands

to the Parliament to be used in settling that unhappy country, Ireland.

Therefore he was now more hampered and with less money to dispose

of than when in private life, and all his frugal living and all his

wife's good management would not permit him to afford Mr. Mayor what he

demanded for his daughter; therefore Richard's match had hung a year,

and seemed likely to hang longer.

"I would rather," said Richard's father abruptly, "that the lad was

more like his brother Henry, and less eager to take a wife and live

easily."

"All cannot be as thee," answered Elisabeth Cromwell half sadly,

"wrapped in great affairs."

He turned.

"Why, Bess," he said, taking her hand, "that did sound as a reproach."

"Nay, my lord, my dear," she replied, in a subdued passion; "but thou

art so much away."

"But thou art not alone," he said, eagerly bending over her.

"A woman is always alone, Oliver, when she is away from him she

loves. I think a man doth not understand that--he hath so much

else--thou--thou hast so much--and I am gone right into the background

of thy life!"

He took both her hands now and laid them on his heart.

"Thou art dearer to me than any creature in the world," he said. "Let

that content thee."

She sighed and smiled together. By her great love for him she could

measure her great pain because of him--the separations, the anxieties,

the apprehension, the knowledge that she was only a part of his life,

that he had now many, many other things to think of more important

than her, while she had nothing but him--always him. But he could not

understand.

"Well, well," she said.

"Why art thou sad, Bess?" he asked tenderly. "Is it about Dick's

marriage?"

She shook her head; her gentle face flushed with the thought that came

to her.

"Oh, Oliver, I have been sorry about the King," she said simply.

"The King!" He dropped her hands.

Elisabeth Cromwell lifted her large, clear grey eyes.

"What is to be the fate of the King?" she asked, trembling.

"That hangs in the balance," he replied briefly. "Bring not these

questions on to my own hearth, Bess."

Thus rebuked, she moved away, trembling more.

Her husband looked at her kindly.

"It is not for me or thee," he said gently, "to discuss the fate of the

King, but for God in His good time to disclose it. Maybe He will harden

His heart as He hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and maybe He will turn

it to peace."

"These are terrible times," replied Elisabeth Cromwell rapidly.

"I cannot but think of how terrible--being a woman I cannot but

tremble--fearful things are said now about the King--about--bringing

him to trial."

"Why not?" asked her husband sternly. "Hath he not been the author of

two civil wars, and would he not have brought about a third save that

God struck his forces at Preston Battle?"

"But he--he is the Governor of England," she answered timidly.

"Nay, no longer," returned Oliver Cromwell; "that high office hath

he defiled. God hath overturned him--'He shall put down the mighty

from their seats and exalt the humble and meek.' The King hath sinned

against God, against his people, against the laws of England."

"Alack--it is beyond my understanding," sighed his wife; "but it seems

to me _he is the King_!"

"Be not deceived by high-sounding words," replied the

Lieutenant-General. "Charles Stewart is a man and must pay as men

pay--for their sins and their follies."

As he spoke the servant entered with a note, which had just been

brought, he said, by General Fairfax's man.

Cromwell gazed at the seal--Henry Ireton's arms pressed into wax

scarcely cold--a full minute before he opened it, and the blood rushed

to his face.

When he opened the letter his fingers shook.

It contained a few words from his son-in-law, the sand yet sticking to

the ink.

The King had utterly refused to see Lord Denbigh, and utterly refused

to have any dealings either with Parliament or army.

He defied them. Now, driven to the last extremity, he had flung aside

all subterfuge and all evasion; he stood by his conscience, and no

matter what the consequences, he refused terms which he regarded as a

betrayal of God's laws in Church or State.

Oliver Cromwell crumpled up the letter with a gesture of, for him,

unusual agitation.

"So it is over!" he muttered. He gazed at his wife with eyes that did

not see her; drops of sweat stood out on his forehead and his lips

quivered.

"What is over?" asked Elisabeth Cromwell, in terrified tones.

He drew himself together with an effort.

"The reign of Charles Stewart," he replied simply.

CHAPTER IX

BY WHAT AUTHORITY?

The Lords having rejected the ordinance for bringing the King to

trial, the Commons, always under the influence of the army, declared

themselves capable of enforcing their own act by their own law, "the

People being, under God, the original of all just power."

Charles was hurried from Windsor to St. James's, and the day after his

arrival in London put on his trial for having endeavoured to subvert

his people's rights, for having levied war on them with the help of

foreign troops, and with having, after once being spared, endeavoured

by all wicked arts to again involve the kingdom in bloody confusion.

This was the end after so many years of strife, evasion, pacts made

and broken, bloodshed and lives ruined. Charles was a prisoner on

trial for his life, and in one of his splendid beds at Whitehall (now

the headquarters of the army) Oliver Cromwell slept or lay awake and

struggled with tumultuous thoughts.

Many who had been with him all along were against him now. Vane and

Sidney protested hotly. Many members refused to sit among the judges

who were to try Charles.

"The King," said Sidney, "can be tried by no court, and by such a court

as this no man can be tried."

"I tell you," said Cromwell sombrely, "we will cut off his head with

the crown upon it."

So passionate and vigorous and unalterable was his resolution now it

was taken.

The fiercer spirits of the army were with him. "'Blood defileth the

land,'" quoted Ludlow, "'and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood

shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.'"

Cromwell, too, now believed that by God's express law the King was

doomed.

It mattered not a whit to him that the tribunal which was to try

Charles had neither legal nor moral right, since there was no law by

which the King could be brought to trial, and the judges represented

neither the Commons nor the people, but a section of the army;

indeed, while others endeavoured to find excuses with which to cover

up the obvious illegality of the proceeding, Cromwell disdained any

such shifts. As he had been the man who had striven longest and most

arduously to make some compromise with the King, he was now the man who

was advancing most boldly and directly to the climax of the King's last

phase.

He had decided there could be no peace while Charles lived, and he

spared no effort to secure his death.

The time for temporizing was past, he believed, and he acted, as he

never failed to act at a crisis, with swiftness, with firmness, with

unhesitating decision.

Whitelocke, St. John, Wilde, and Rolle declined to be President of the

Court which tried the King, but John Bradshaw accepted.

For a week the trial in the great Hall of Westminster (which the King

had last entered when he came to demand the five members) continued,

a long haughty protest on the part of Charles, a stern overruling

of him on the part of the Court--the whole thing almost incredible

in swiftness, fierceness, and enthusiastic passion overlaid with

the stately forms of ancient ceremonial. On the fourth time of the

sitting, the 29th January, being Saturday, the Court was held--as many

believed--for the last time.

Lord Digby, who had been separated from his master when Charles was

removed to Hurst Castle, and had been wandering about, more or less in

disguise ever since, had managed to gain London, and on this morning

of the 29th, a cold, wet, and grey day, he made his way to Westminster

Hall, to witness the awful, unbelievable spectacle of the trial of his

King.

The great gates of the Hall were opened to admit the general public,

which soon swarmed in, and Digby found himself in the midst of a vast

concourse of people, mostly of the baser sort, who pushed and gossiped

and passed food and drink from one to another, so that the atmosphere

was like the pit of a theatre for the smell of beer and oranges, as it

had been at the trial of Lord Strafford.

Lord Digby caught scraps of conversation which pierced him to the

heart--how, on the second day, the head had fallen off the King's cane

and he had had to stoop for it himself--how he had paled at this, as if

he took it for an ill-omen ... how curt Bradshaw had been with him, and

how certain all were that there could only be one end--the axe....

Soon the Court entered, and a great "Ah-h," like an indrawn breath,

rose from the crowd when they saw that Serjeant Bradshaw, the Lord

President, was attired in a scarlet robe, instead of the black one

which he had worn on the previous occasions. "His cap," whispered the

man next Lord Digby, "is lined with steel, for fear one might make an

attempt on him."

John Bradshaw, with a very unmoved dignity and stern calmness, took

his seat in the midst of the Court, in a crimson velvet chair, having

a desk with a crimson velvet cushion before him; either side of him,

on the scarlet-hung benches, the fourscore members of the Court seated

themselves, all with their hats on; sixteen gentlemen with partisans

stood either side the Court; before a table, set at the feet of the

President and covered with a rich Turkey carpet on which lay the sword,

stood the Serjeant-at-Arms with the mace; the Clerk of the Court sat at

this table also.

A company of guards was placed about the Hall to keep order, and

everywhere, in the body of the Court and in the galleries, was a great

expectant press of people.

After the Court had been sitting about ten minutes, the prisoner

arrived in the charge of Colonel Tomlinson and a company of gentlemen

with partisans.

As he entered some of the soldiers cried out, "Execution! Execution!

Justice against the traitor at the Bar!"

The Serjeant-at-Arms met the King and conducted him to the Bar, where a

crimson velvet chair was placed for him.

Charles looked sternly at the Court, up at the galleries and the

multitude gathered in the body of the Hall; then he seated himself,

without moving his hat.

He was dressed more richly than Lord Digby remembered him to have been

for some time; his suit was black velvet and pale blue silk, with

Flemish lace and silver knots; he carried a long cane in his hand and

a pair of doeskin gloves. He was scarcely seated before he rose up

again and moved about and looked down at the spectators with a smile of

unutterable haughtiness. Lord Digby was near enough to remark that he

looked in good health, vigorous, and composed.

Suddenly he glanced up at the Lord President, and though he must have

remarked the scarlet robe, he did not change colour.

"I shall desire a word--to be heard a little," he said, "and hope I

shall give no occasion of interruption."

"You may answer in your time," replied Bradshaw coldly. "Hear the Court

first."

"If it please you, sir, I desire to be heard," said the King. "And

I shall not give any occasion of interruption--and it is only in a

word--a sudden judgment----"

"Sir," interrupted the Lord President, "you shall be heard in due time,

but you are to hear the Court first----"

"Sir, I desire--it will be in answer to what I believe the Court will

say--sir, a hasty judgment is not so soon recalled----"

"Sir," replied the Lord President sternly, "you shall be heard before

the judgment be given, and in the meantime you may forbear."

Charles took his seat again, saying, "Well, sir, shall I be heard

before judgment be given?"

The Lord President now proceeded to address the Court.

"Gentlemen, it is well known to most of you that the prisoner at the

Bar hath been several times convened before the Court to make answer to

a charge of treason----"

Here the King looked up and laughed in the face of the Court.

"--and other high crimes exhibited against him in the name of the

People of England----"

A shrill woman's voice interrupted from one of the galleries--"Not half

the People!" The King smiled, and there was some disturbance while the

lady was silenced or removed.

Bradshaw continued: "To which charge being required to answer, he

began to take on him to offer reasoning and debate unto the authority

of the Court to try and judge him; but being overruled in that, and

still required to make his answer, he was still pleased to continue

contumacious, and to refuse to submit or answer.

"Thereupon the Court have considered of the charge; they have

considered of the contumacy and of the notoriety of the fact charged

upon the prisoner, and have agreed upon the sentence to be pronounced

against this prisoner."

The Lord President paused a moment, and a low hum went through the

Court. The King threw back his head with that expression of incredulous

haughtiness still on his face.

"The prisoner doth desire to be heard," continued Bradshaw, "before the

sentence be pronounced, and the Court hath resolved that they will hear

him."

Charles rose; his scornful eyes flickered along the faces of his judges

and rested for a second on the white countenance of Oliver Cromwell,

who was looking at him intently.

The Lord President addressed the King--

"Yet, sir, this much I must tell you beforehand, which you have been

minded of before, that if that you have to say be to offer any debate

concerning jurisdiction, you are not to be heard in it--you have

offered it formerly and you have indeed struck at the root, that is,

the power and supreme authority of the Commons of England--but, sir, if

you have anything to say in defence of yourself concerning the matter

charged, the Court hath given me in command to let you know that they

will hear you."

The King caught hold of the bar in front of him. He began to speak;

at first his voice, though steady, was so low that only those near

could hear him; he addressed himself to Bradshaw, but he faced all his

judges, and his glance travelled from one to another.

At last Lord Digby, straining forward through the press, caught some

words.

"... This many a day all things have been taken away from me, but

that which I call more dear to me than my life, my honour, and my

conscience--and if I had respect to my life more than the peace of the

kingdom, the liberty of the subject, certainly I should have made a

particular defence for myself, for by that at leastwise I might have

deferred an ugly sentence, which I believe will pass on me."

He then asked to be heard in the Painted Chamber before the Lords and

Commons before any sentence was given.

As he concluded he raised his voice and spoke with great nobleness and

force.

"And if I cannot get this liberty I do here protest that so fair shows

of liberty and peace are pure shows and not otherwise since you will

not hear your King."

A hush followed his speech; Cromwell whispered to a neighbour; a faint

sunlight penetrated the narrow Gothic window and touched to brilliancy

John Bradshaw in his scarlet robes among his crimson cushions.

"Sir, you have spoken," he said.

"Yes, sir," replied the King, looking at him austerely.

The sunlight strengthened; the judge blazed in his unrelieved red; the

prisoner was still in shadow; he stood with his hands on the bar; Lord

Digby could see that he was biting his under-lip.

"What you have said," announced Bradshaw, "is a further declining of

the jurisdiction of this Court, which was the thing wherein you were

limited before----"

The King's voice cut his speech.

"Pray excuse me, sir, for my interruption, because you mistake me--it

is not a declining of it; you do judge me before you hear me speak.

I say I will not, I do not decline, though I cannot acknowledge the

jurisdiction of this Court----"

A deep humming from the Court drowned the rest of his speech.

Bradshaw, stern, slightly flushed, and in a voice of terrible import,

made reply--

"Sir, this is not altogether new that you have moved unto us--not

altogether new to us, though it is the first time in person that you

have offered it to the Court. Sir, you say you do not decline the

jurisdiction of the Court."

"Not in this that I have said," answered Charles swiftly.

"I understand you well, sir," said the Lord President; "but,

nevertheless, that which you have offered seems to be contrary to that

saying of yours--for the Court are ready to give a sentence."

The very slightest quiver disturbed the King's face; he sought for his

handkerchief, found it, and wiped his lips, looking down the while.

"It is not as you say," continued Bradshaw sternly, "that we will not

hear our King--we have been ready to hear you, we have patiently waited

your pleasure for three Courts together, to hear what you would say to

the People's charges against you, to which you have not vouchsafed to

give any answer at all."

As Lord Digby, pressed in the pushing crowd, listened to these words

and gazed at the awful scene a sickness came over him; he saw that

terrible red of judge and cushion, chair and bench float in a mist

before his eyes, and through that scarlet blur the King's figure,

stripped now of the inviolate sacredness of Majesty--merely a man, a

desperate man in a sea of enemies, making a last stand for his life.

Bradshaw concluded his speech by saying that the Court would withdraw

to the Court of Awards to consider of the King's request to be heard in

the Painted Chamber, and so they moved out, leaving the red chair and

the red benches bare.

Charles was also removed; as he passed the sword lying on the table

covered with the Turkey carpet he said, "I do not fear that," and

Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Harrison, hearing the words, looked at him

over their shoulders as they went out.

Lord Digby struggled nearer the front and cried out, "God save your

Majesty!" hoping the King would recognize his voice, but it was lost in

cries of "Justice!" and "Execution!" which rose from the soldiers.

After half an hour the Court returned and the Serjeant-at-Arms brought

back the prisoner. Charles now held in his hand a small bunch of herbs,

and truly the atmosphere was stifling; he was still composed, but his

face was now as white as the wall behind him; he seated himself and

folded his arms.

Bradshaw addressed him; he was not to be allowed to go before the Lords

and Commons in the Painted Chamber. "The judges are resolved to proceed

to punishment and to judgment, and that is their unanimous resolution."

Some of the spectators groaned; the sense of impending doom, calamity,

and horror spread from one to another. Charles rose; he was not a whit

abashed or lowered in his pride, but there was a passion in his tones,

a ringing challenge in his words, which were the indications of an

inner despair.

"I know it is vain for me to dispute," he said. "I am no sceptic for

to deny the power you have--I know that you have power enough! I

confess, sir, I think it would have been for the kingdom's peace if you

had shown the lawfulness of your power!" His haughty contempt showed

for a moment unmasked, his look, his bearing, his voice, defied them

utterly. "For this delay that I have desired, I confess it is a delay,

but a delay very important to the peace of the kingdom, for it is not

my person that I look on alone, it is the kingdom's welfare and the

kingdom's peace--it is an old sentence that we should think long before

we resolve of great matters--therefore, sir, I do say again, that I do

put at your doors all the inconveniency of a hasty sentence. I confess

I have been here this week, this day eight days ago was the day I

came here first, but a little delay of a day or two further may give

peace--whereas a hasty judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual

inconveniency to the kingdom that the child which is unborn may repent

it." He paused a second, then raised his voice slightly. "Therefore

again, out of the duty I owe to God, and to my country, I do desire

that I may be heard by the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, or

any other chamber that you will appoint me."

The sixty-eight judges made no movement; Bradshaw, whose dignity and

unfaltering composure were as remarkable as the dignity and composure

of the prisoner, considering the extraordinary position in which he, a

mere Cheshire gentleman, was now placed towards his sovereign, and what

a responsibility he was taking on himself, what undying vengeance, what

possibly horrible fate he was facing if the tide should one day turn,

briefly replied that the Court had made their resolution and again

asked Charles if he had anything to say for himself before sentence was

delivered.

The King, facing him, replied--

"I say this, sir, that if you will hear me, if you will but give this

delay, I doubt not but I shall give some satisfaction to you all here,

and to my People, after that. And, therefore, I do require you, as you

shall answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment, that you will consider

it once again."

It was what he had said since he had first been put on trial, a

steady refusal to recognize this Court (as on all legal grounds he

was justified in doing), a refusal to plead or argue the cause, a

repetition of the haughty demand--"By what authority?" Before the

Lords and Commons he might defend himself, not before this tribunal of

his rebellious subjects. But as deeply rooted, as unyielding, as his

refusal to recognize the Court was the Court's intention to judge and

condemn him; they were there to make inquisition for blood, and not one

of them faltered in their stern task.

In answer to the King's last speech Bradshaw said merely, "Sir, I have

received direction from the Court."

The King sat down.

"Well, sir," he said, and looked about him with utter haughtiness.

"The Court will proceed to sentence," continued the Lord President, "if

you have nothing more to say."

Lord Digby and many others held their breath: would the King, even now,

disdain to answer to his charge?

He looked at Bradshaw and very faintly smiled.

"Sir," he said, "I have nothing more to say, but I shall desire that

this may be entered--what I have said."

He knew as he spoke that his last hope had gone; he put the herbs to

his nostrils and his thoughts flew to Paris and the woman waiting

there.... The winter sun had faded; the crimson and scarlet glowed

through a sombre shadow of river mist and afternoon fog, which began to

encroach upon the Court and blot the eager faces and blur the coloured

garments and dim the glitter of the great bare sword at which the King,

turning in his chair, looked curiously.

"The Court, sir, hath something more to say to you," said Bradshaw,

"which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet they are

resolved to discharge their duty. Sir, you speak very well of a

precious thing, which you call Peace, and it is much to be wished that

God had put it into your heart that you had as effectually and really

endeavoured and studied the peace of the kingdom, as now in words you

do pretend--but, as you were told the other day, actions must expound

intentions--yet your actions have been clean contrary."

In this strain the speech continued, delivered with clearness, with

force and point, yet with a rapidity that strained the speed of the

licensed penmen who were taking down the report of the trial.

Bradshaw spoke with learning, with eloquence, with weight and fire; yet

what he said was but a repetition of the old grounds the Parliament had

taken since the beginning of the war; the law was above the King. The

King had defied the law and was therefore answerable.

He cited many precedents, quoted many authorities, but he could not

disguise the illegality of the tribunal over which he presided, or

cloak the fact that the King was being judged by means as outside the

law as his had been when he had cast Sir John Eliot into the Tower or

forced John Hampton to pay ship money.

The King had lost in the long struggle and was now paying the penalty

as they on the scarlet benches would have paid if he had been the

victor.

This fact Bradshaw might adorn with all dignity and eloquence--but it

remained obvious and undeniable.

The Lord President spoke too long; the crowd became restless; and awful

as the moment was, unprecedented as was the occasion, human weakness

and human levity prevailed. Some yawned, some fought their way out for

fresh supplies of food and drink, some went away to spread the news the

King was doomed.

Some followed the speech eagerly enough and hummed their approbation,

some shouted protests and were thrown out by the soldiers.

Charles, listening to an indictment such as no king had ever listened

to before, in a situation in which no king had ever been before, sat

perfectly still, holding the herbs to his nostrils.

To him this talk was mere waste of air; he was, as he had said, as

good a lawyer as any in the kingdom, and he knew that the Court which

Bradshaw so burningly justified had no shadow of legal right; he knew

that he was the victim of force, and he knew that he was suffering, not

so much for the offences which the Lord President laid to his charge,

as because he had remained faithful to the Church of England and the

Divine right of kings; he knew that if he had forsaken these two tenets

even a few days ago when Lord Denbigh came to Windsor he might have

been saved.

And he did not regret his firmness--even at this moment.

Once, when Bradshaw, appealing to history, said, "You are the hundred

and ninth King of Scotland," he moved, and his look brightened as if he

had been recalled from wandering thoughts to the present moment; and

when the Lord President spoke of the violent end of his grandmother,

Mary Stewart, he started a little and frowned.

For the rest he was motionless and silent, save only when Bradshaw

arraigned him as, "Tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the

Commonwealth of England"; then he blushed and cried out, "Ha!"

The Lord President, spurred afresh by this cry of defiance, proceeded

to prove these charges against the King, reinforcing them with texts of

Scripture, and so upbraiding and fiercely condemning the King that at

last Charles, amid a general murmur and buzz of the Court, sprang to

his feet.

"I would only desire one word before you give sentence," he said, "and

that is that you hear me concerning those great imputations that you

have laid to my charge!"

"Sir," replied Bradshaw undauntedly, "you must give me leave to go

on--for I am not far from your sentence and your time is now past----"

Again Charles interrupted.

"But I desire that you will hear me a few words only--for truly

whatever sentence you will put upon me in respect of those heavy

imputations that I see by your speech you have put upon me--sir, it is

very true that----"

"Sir," said Bradshaw, with great sternness, "I would not willingly,

especially at this time, interrupt you in anything you have to say,

but, sir, you have not owned us as a Court--you look upon us as a sort

of people met together--and we know what language we receive from your

party."

"I know nothing of that!" exclaimed Charles contemptuously.

Bradshaw continued with the old bitter grievance: "You disavow us as

a Court"--and on that theme spoke a little longer, the King the while

facing him, leaning forward eagerly, with clenched hands and white

face, frowning.

"We cannot be unmindful of what the Scripture tells us, for to acquit

the guilty is of equal abomination as to condemn the innocent. We may

not acquit the guilty. What sentence the law affirms to a traitor,

tyrant, a murderer, and a public enemy to the country, that sentence

you are now to hear read unto you, and that is the sentence of the

Court."

There was a great movement in the Hall as of a wave advancing, then

flung back. Oliver Cromwell put his hands before his face; the King did

not move.

"Read the sentence," said Bradshaw. "Make an oyer and command silence

while the sentence is read."

Which was done by the Clerk of the Court, and silence indeed fell--a

silence which seemed to shudder.

The Clerk read over the charge from the parchment he held, and then

proceeded--

"This charge being read unto him, he, the said Charles Stewart, was

required to give his answer, but he refused to do so, and so expressed

the several passages of his trial in refusing to answer. For all which

Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge that the said Charles

Stewart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy, shall be put

to death by the severing of his head from his body."

Terrible sighs broke from the spectators; they swayed to and fro. The

King, now the moment had come, looked incredulous.

"The sentence now read and published," said Bradshaw, "is the Act,

Sentence, Judgment, and Resolution of the whole Court."

At this the sixty-eight judges stood up to show their assent.

"Will you hear me a word, sir?" cried Charles.

"Sir," returned Bradshaw, "you are not to be heard after the sentence."

"No, sir?"

"No, sir--by your favour, sir. Guard, withdraw your prisoner."

The partisans closed round Charles; incredulous, outraged, he continued

to protest.

"I may speak after the sentence--by your favour, sir, I may speak after

the sentence--ever----"

The guards caught hold of him none too civilly.

"I say, sir, I do," cried the unfortunate King--then sternly to the

soldier who had seized his arm, "Hold!"--"by your favour the sentence,

sir----"

They pushed and dragged him away. He raised his voice.

"I am not suffered for to speak! Expect what justice other people will

have!"

So, still incredulous, protesting, he was forced away, and the Court

rose and went into the Painted Chamber.

Lord Digby made his way out of the crowd; he found a dun mist over

London and rows of Cromwell's Ironsides keeping guard outside the Hall.

As the King passed out with his guards on his way to Sir Robert

Cotton's, one of these men called out, "God bless you, sir!" and his

officer struck him on the face.

"It is a severe punishment for a little offence," said Charles. He was

now quite calm.

The mist deepened, blotting out the surging crowd, some of whom wept

and some of whom were silent, but none of whom openly rejoiced.

CHAPTER X

EXIT THE KING

The Dutch Ambassador interceded for the King; the Queen and the Prince

of Wales wrote, offering to accept any conditions Parliament might

require if only the King might be spared; but the stern enthusiasts who

had resolved to sacrifice the blood of the tyrant were not to be turned

from their purpose now by any entreaty or threat whatever; the thing

they were about to do was awful, incredible to the whole world, but

they were not to be stopped now. The Scottish commissioners spoke for

the King, too, but in vain; neither they nor the others got any answer.

That day, Monday, the King was permitted to take leave of the only

two of his children left in England--the Duke of Gloucester and the

Princess Elisabeth; that day Oliver Cromwell and his colleagues signed

the death-warrant at Whitehall.

The next day was appointed for the execution; the King slept that night

at St. James's Palace, but Oliver Cromwell, in the rich chamber in

Whitehall, slept not at all, but prayed from candlelight to dawn, then

armed himself and went out to meet the other commissioners who were

in the banqueting hall, urging that the workmen be hastened with the

scaffold in front of the Palace, which was not yet ready, nor did look

to be ready before the King came.

Charles slept; neither dreams nor visions disturbed him, and when he

woke, two hours before the dawn, he remembered everything at once, very

clearly.

He remembered that he was to die to-day, that he had taken leave of his

children and given Elisabeth two diamond seals for her mother.... He

remembered that he would never see the Queen again, and that he left

her an exile dependent on her sister-in-law, the Regent of France.

And as he got out of bed he remembered Lord Strafford.

He dressed himself with great slowness and care in the clothes he had

worn during his trial; he put on two shirts and a blue silk vest, for

it was cold and he had no wish to shiver; he exactly adjusted the black

and silver, the Flemish lace, the knots of ribbon; he combed his hair

and arranged it in the long, smooth ringlets.... Once or twice while he

was dressing he paused.

"O God," he said, "am I--the King--going to die to-day?"

He was still incredulous; it seemed to himself that his feelings were

suspended. He moved mechanically; he had an almost childish anxiety not

to tremble; he kept holding out his right hand and looking at it; when

he saw that it was steady he smiled.

When he came to fasten his doublet he went to the mirror framed in

embroidery and tortoise-shell, which hung at the foot of his bed, and

then he noticed that his face was slightly distorted--at one side drawn

with a strange contraction.... Yet he told himself that he felt quite

calm; he tried to smooth that look away from his features with his

fingers, then moved away abruptly and opened the window.

He wondered what Strafford had looked like just before his death, and

it came to him that he was enduring what Strafford had endured--minute

by minute the same--he was also the same age as Strafford had been, to

the very year.

He sat down in the great arm-chair by the bed and tried to think;

what a failure his life had been, what a collapse of all hopes and

ambitions--how incomplete; he was very, very weary of the long

struggle which he had maintained so unyieldingly, and not sorry to have

it ended.

Yet it was an awful thing to die this way--and so suddenly.

Only a month ago he had been at Windsor, firmly believing that his

enemies would destroy each other, firmly believing that he would once

more come to Whitehall, a king, and hang all these rebels and traitors.

And now it was all over, all the hopes and fears, suspenses and

agitations, all the struggles and defeats and intrigues; there were

only a few hours of time left, and only one thing more to do--to die

decently.

He put on his shoes with the big crimson roses, his light sword, his

George with the collar of knots and roses, his black velvet cloak;

then as the dawn began to blur the candlelight, Bishop Juxon, whose

attendance had been permitted him, came to him. It was this Bishop

who had urged him not to assent to Strafford's death--how well both

men remembered that now--across all the tumultuous events which lay

between--how well!

Charles rose.

"I thank you for your loyalty, my lord," he said; and then he was

silent, for he thought that his voice sounded unnatural.

"May Your Majesty wake to-morrow so glorified that you will forget

to-day!" replied the Bishop.

"To-morrow!" repeated Charles absently. "Ay, to-morrow--you will get up

to-morrow and move and eat--ay, to-morrow----"

"To-morrow thou wilt be in Paradise, sire," replied Juxon firmly, and a

sincere hope and courage shone in his eyes, which were red and swollen

with weeping.

"I die for the Church of England," said the King quickly. "They may say

what they will, but if I had abandoned Episcopacy I might have lived."

"God knoweth it," answered the Bishop solemnly, "and men will know it

after a little while."

Charles took up his hat, his gloves, his cane, and without speaking

followed the Bishop into the little royal chapel where he had so often

worshipped in happier times.

He took the Sacrament; when the ceremony was over a calm, almost

a lethargy, fell on his spirits; he tried to think of great and

tremendous things, of what was behind him and what was before him,

but his brain slipped from them; even the Queen had become absolutely

remote. He found himself wondering how Strafford had felt at this same

moment in his life.

When he left the chapel he went to one of the antechambers and waited.

Trivial things attracted his attention: he noticed that the ceiling

needed repainting, and, looking down at his collar of the George, the

foolish thought occurred to him as he saw the enamelled blossoms that

he would never behold real roses again, for this was winter and there

would be no flowers in the park which he would have to pass through.

He wished that he could fix his mind on something high and splendid now

there was so little longer left in which to think of anything, and it

distressed him that he could not.

None of this appeared in his demeanour; he sat, looking very stately

and noble, with his cloak wrapped round him for the cold and his cane

in his hand.

"The omens were against me from the first," he said suddenly. "I was

crowned in white, like a shroud, and at my coronation sermon the text

was: 'Be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a crown of

Eternal Life'; then my flag was blown down at Nottingham--and the other

day, at what they call my trial, the head fell off my cane."

This speech showed that his mind still ran on worldly things; but Juxon

seized hold on a portion of his words with which to give him comfort.

"Thou hast been faithful unto death," he said, "and to-day will enter

on to Eternal Life."

"I said I would die rather than betray the Church of England,"

answered Charles, "and I have redeemed it to the letter."

As he spoke there entered unceremoniously Colonel Hacker, one of the

three officers appointed to convey him to Whitehall.

Charles rose with such majesty and undaunted dignity that the stout

Puritan was, for a moment, abashed, and held out his warrant in silence.

"I submit to your power, but I defy your authority," said the King

contemptuously, and with that clapped on his hat and followed the

officer, Juxon following him.

When they reached the fresh air Charles felt a new vigour, a certain

excitement; in all the depth of his fall and the bitterness of his

humiliation, in all the extreme of his failure and the mightiness of

his defeat, he had his own inner triumph. He might be broken but he was

not bent; he died a King, not yielding a jot of his rights, bequeathing

to his son a lost heritage, but one uncurtailed by any concession of

his. He was dying for his beliefs--because he would not forgo them they

were killing him; he found satisfaction in that thought.

When he came to where his escort of guards waited, he cried out in his

usual tone of authority, "March on apace!"

It was now about ten o'clock; the heavy air had hardly lifted over

London, but it was pleasant in the Park, and from the bare fields

and hedgerows beyond came a waft of winter freshness; all the view

was blocked by people and regiment upon regiment of soldiers, all

motionless and expressionless.

"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.

"Nunelly," he said hoarsely, "will you see the beheading of the

King--surely you will see the beheading of the King?"

And without waiting for an answer he began to pace up and down, in

uncontrollable agitation and excitement.

And presently Hugh Peters and Richard Nunelly went out into the

banqueting hall, and out of the centre window on to the scaffold where

the joiners were yet at work driving staples in.

When they returned to the boarded gallery, Cromwell and Harrison were

still there.

"This will be a good day," said Peters.

"Are you not afraid that it will be a bloody day to all England?" asked

Nunelly fearfully.

"This is not a thing done in a corner," replied Harrison calmly, "but

before the world. I follow not my own poor judgment, but the revealed

word of God in His Holy Scriptures."

Cromwell turned to Peters who stood in his black cloak and hat like

death's own herald.

"Is it ready?" he asked. "Why this delay--this intolerable delay?"

His voice shook as he spoke.

"Are the vizards ready?" he asked again.

"Ay, it is Brandon the hangman and the fellow Hulet, and they are to

have thirty pounds apiece--and now, I think, Colonel Hacker may go to

fetch the King," replied Peters.

"Will you see him pass?" asked Harrison.

"I will not look on him again, alive or dead!" replied Cromwell

sombrely.

But Peters and Nunelly went to an upper window where they might have a

good view....

In his bedchamber the King still waited; the soldiers had withdrawn

and left him alone with Juxon, to whom the dying man gave his last

instructions, and one, above all, important.

"Let my son forgive his father's murderers--and let _him always

maintain the Church of England and his own royal rights in this

realm_--let him make no compromise on these points. And let my

younger sons never be cajoled into taking their brother's place--my

son Charles, who, in a few moments now, will be King of England and

Scotland."

"I promise," said Juxon.

Then the King rose and walked up and down.

"Jesus, God!" he cried, "spare me this waiting!"

"I implore Your Majesty to eat and drink a little," entreated the

bishop, and Charles, who felt himself indeed sick and faint, drank a

glass of claret and eat a piece of bread. When he had finished he took

a white satin cap from his pocket and gave it to Juxon, also his watch,

with some broken words of thanks. Then Colonel Hacker came, and the

King turned to go through the splendid galleries of his old home to his

death.

He had his hat on and said not a word; beneath his composure he was

struggling to overcome the physical weakness that beset him, rendering

him incapable of high thoughts; the sensitive flesh shrank from what it

had to face; already he felt a ring of pain round his neck.

The fine apartments, the paintings, the rich furniture still there,

swam dizzily before his eyes; but he walked firmly....

Colonel Hacker led the way; they stepped through the centre window of

the banqueting hall on to a scaffold hung with black, on which stood

the two vizards or headsmen; both of whom wore frieze breeches and

coats--one had a grey beard showing beneath the mask, the other was

disguised with a light wig. When Charles stepped out of the window he

recoiled with a repulsion no pride could control. In the foreground

the two black figures, and beyond a sea of white faces, all looking

at him; even the soldiers, horse and foot, their red coats and steel

brightening the grey morning, were looking at him--all in silence.

His glance fell to the block. "Is it so low?" he asked, in a horrified

way. Then he recovered himself and turned to the few about him.

"It was the Parliament began the war, not I," he said, "but I hope they

may be guiltless too, and all blame may go to the ill instruments which

came between us"--here one of the officers touched the axe, and the

King cried out--"Take care of the axe! take care of the axe!"--resuming

afterwards his speech. "The government rests with the King and not with

the people, in that belief and in the faith of the Church of England I

die."

He laid off his cloak and hat, then added with great wistfulness--

"In one respect I suffer justly, and that is because I have permitted

an unjust sentence to be executed on another."

He took off his George and the little miniature of the Queen (which he

kissed), and gave them to Juxon.

He gave a purse of guineas to the grey-bearded vizard with the axe, who

knelt to ask his pardon, and again that awful sickness closed over his

heart.

"Take care they do not put me to pain," he said to Colonel Hacker,

and his lips trembled. Then to the man, "I shall say but very short

prayers, and then thrust out my hands--at this sign do you strike."

"I will warrant, sir," said Colonel Hacker, "the fellow is skilful."

The King now took off his doublet, sword, and sword-string, doing it

carefully that he might gain time for perfect composure at the supreme

minute.

Juxon approached him.

"Your Majesty hath but one more stage to travel in this weary world,

and though that is a turbulent and troublesome stage, it is a short

one, and will carry Your Majesty all the way from earth to heaven."

Charles looked at St. James's Palace showing beyond the multitude of

faces.

"I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side," he said. He took

the white satin cap from the bishop, and put his hair up in it; a

slight figure he looked now in the straight blue vest and white cap.

The church bells struck half-past twelve, the sluggard sun sent faint

rays through the low winter clouds. The King knelt down. "Remember," he

said to Juxon.

A great excitement steadied him, driving away the sickness; this was

the end, the end--and after?

He placed his forehead in the niche of the block; the position was

uncomfortable, and he was staring down at the black covering of the

scaffold floor.

He closed his eyes, clutching his hands on his breast; he felt the

keen air on his bare neck, and confused visions leaped before him. He

tried to pray.

"Lord Jesus," he murmured swiftly. "Lord Jesus----" he could think of

nothing more; with an almost mechanical movement he threw out his hands.

He heard the headsman step nearer; he set his teeth.

The axe struck cleanly; the blood was over all of them, and the vizard

with the light wig held up by the long grey curls the head which had

bounded to his feet.

"God save the people of England!" said Colonel Hacker.

A deep and awful groan broke from the multitude, and the soldiers,

hitherto immovable, turned about in all directions, clearing the

streets.

PART IV

THE ACHIEVEMENT

"We are Englishmen; that is one good account. And if God give a nation

valour and courage, it is honour and a mercy."--OLIVER P., 1656,

_Speech to Parliament, Tuesday, 16th Sept., in the Painted Chamber_.

"I was by birth a gentleman living neither in any considerable height

nor yet in obscurity. I have been called to several employments in the

Nation.... I did endeavour to discharge the duty of an honest man in

those services."--OLIVER P., _ibid._, _12th Sept. 1654_.

"If my calling be from God and my testimony from the People--only God

and the People will take it from me, else I shall not part with it--I

should be false to the trust that God hath placed in me, and to the

interest of the people of these nations if I should."--OLIVER P.,

_ibid._

CHAPTER I

"THE CROWNING MERCY"

On a soft golden blue day in September 1651, when the trees were still

in full leafage in the Park, and the river reflected a sky veiled with

delicate white clouds, when the last sheaves of corn were standing in

the fields beyond St. James's Palace, and the orchards near glowed all

red with fruit, a crowd was gathered in the streets of London--a crowd

as vast and as excited as that which had waited to hear the verdict

on Lord Strafford, or had thronged to witness the awful scene outside

Whitehall when the King knelt before the headsman.

On both these occasions the people, if triumphant, in the first

instance, were still awestruck and silenced, in the second, by the

portents of great events and by the magnitude of the terrible daring

of their leaders. Now they were triumphant openly, rejoicing almost

light-heartedly; the King had died a traitor's death and the skies

had not fallen; other great men had followed him in his final fate,

and none had avenged them. The present Charles Stewart, called the

King of Scots since his coronation at Scone, was flying the country,

a proscribed fugitive; the Commonwealth, proclaimed after the death

of the late King, was a year and a half old and had shown no signs of

weakness nor unstability, and to-day the people were got together to

welcome home the Lord-General, Oliver Cromwell, who was returning after

having subdued Ireland and Scotland as those Islands had never yet been

subdued.

Fire and sword had swept Ireland from coast to coast; Cromwell had

not spared the enemies of the Lord, as Drogheda could witness, Papist

priests had been hanged or knocked on the head, Papist garrisons

massacred, Papist peasants transported, Papist gentry forbidden their

religion, and driven from their estates into the desolate regions of

Connaught.

Without pause or hesitation or check, with fierceness, vigour, and

irresistible onslaught, Cromwell had overcome Ireland, and had left the

unfortunate country, silenced now with her own blood, to cherish for

ever a terrible image of this Englishman, and a terrible hatred.

Next, he turned against Scotland, where the second Charles, having

denounced the faith of his father, and the religion of his mother,

having taken the Covenant (submitting in a moment to those things which

the late King had died rather than yield to), was setting up once more

the standard of the Stewarts.

Cromwell (now Lord-General, for Fairfax, too cold and meticulous for

these times, had retired) met the Scots at Dunbar and beat Lord Leven

and David Leslie as thoroughly as he had beaten Hamilton at Preston,

and with troops as tired, hungry, and outnumbered, as they had been

hungry and outnumbered then. Dunbar Drove they called this, as they had

called the other Preston Rout.

Both were mighty victories.

Then, a year later, on the 3rd of September, the anniversary of Dunbar,

Cromwell, supported by Lambert and Harrison, marched to meet another

invading army of Scots headed by the young Charles, and on the banks

and bridges of the Severn and in the streets of Worcester city, beat

them again, ruining completely the cause of the young Stewart, who

watched the day from the cathedral tower, then fled, hopeless, not to

Scotland, but beyond seas, this time to seek an asylum at his sister's

court.

That was the end of it. Cromwell had subdued kings and kingdoms; there

was no one left to lead any army across the Border or ships across St.

George's Channel, and neither of the sister islands would be likely

to attempt to measure swords with England again. There were no more

gallant Cavaliers to rise up for a lost cause. Montrose had been hanged

in Edinburgh, and the young King for whom he died had repudiated him

almost before the heroic soul had left the gallant body. Hamilton,

Capel, Holland, Derby, had suffered on the block, kissing the axe

that had slain their master; the rest were beyond seas, in exile and

poverty, or in their own country outnumbered, forlorn, impoverished,

and silenced.

And the man who had thus achieved the triumphs of his cause and his

beliefs, the soldier who had been victorious in every engagement he had

undertaken, whose enthusiasm, fire, and faith had heartened his party

when even the bravest had been daunted, was the man who was riding into

London to-day, welcomed by salvos of artillery and pealing of bells.

Five of the foremost Members of Parliament had ridden out to meet him

on his march. One of the royal palaces, that of Hampton, had been given

him as a residence; he enjoyed now a grant of nearly six thousand a

year, and in his train, as he entered London, were many of the noblest

in the country, and with him rode the Lord Mayor, the Speaker, the

Council of State, the Aldermen, and Sheriffs.

It was noticed that his carriage was simple and modest; the triumphant

conclusion of the nine years' struggle had no more power to shake him

from the calm inspired by his sombre creed and intense beliefs than

the rebuffs, confusions and temptations of the struggle itself. He was

still, in his own eyes, as much God's mere instrument as when he sowed

his grain and reaped his harvest in Huntingdon; and the future and his

rise or fall were as absolutely preordained by the Lord now as then.

With a modesty that was absolutely unaffected he declined all credit

for his overwhelming victories; and with a simplicity some mistook

for irony (but irony was not in his nature), he remarked of the huge

multitude which had gathered to see him pass: "There would be even more

to see me hanged," so exactly did he value the popular favour, and so

completely was he aware of the peril of the height on which he stood.

When the triumphal entry was over and evening was closing in, he turned

at last to his own home.

One sadness marred the return; Henry Ireton had died in Ireland, worn

out by the fatigues of the strenuous campaign which had more than

once laid the Lord-General himself on a bed of sickness, and Bridget

Ireton was shut into her house, mourning her lord, whose body was being

brought home for burial in the Abbey Church at Westminster.

The rest were all there to welcome him; his mother, his wife, his

son Richard, now at last wedded to Dorothy Mayor (Henry was still in

Ireland, doing good work there), Elisabeth Claypole and her husband,

and the two unmarried girls, Mary and Frances.

The women wept, in their enthusiasm and joyful relief. Elisabeth

Claypole hung on his breast in a passion of tears, so completely did

the sadness of the world overwhelm her sensitive heart in any moment of

emotion.

Almost her first words were to ask his kindness towards the poor Irish

who were being sent to Jamaica and Barbadoes as slaves. After all

Cromwell's victories his favourite daughter's delicate voice had risen

with the same appeal: "Be merciful, be pitiful--spare the prisoners!"

"Why do you weep, Betty?" he asked.

"Because she is a foolish wench," said her husband good-humouredly.

"Nay," said Elisabeth Cromwell, "what doth your old poet say--'pity

runneth soon in a gentle heart'; and we have had to bear some straining

anxieties."

"And we have heard awful reports," murmured Mrs. Claypole, smiling

through her tears with that simple archness which her father loved,

however he might contemn her carnal mind. "Blood--nothing but blood

was spoken of, until my dreams were coloured red."

"Ay," said old Mrs. Cromwell, with the vagueness of her great age.

"Hast thou not slain the children of the Scarlet Woman by tens of

thousands? I heard that at Drogheda thou didst close the blasphemous

idolaters into their own church, and there burn them, as an offering of

sweet savour in the nostrils of the Lord."

Cromwell glanced at his daughter Elisabeth, and answered nothing; the

cries of the burning Papists echoed sometimes in his own heart for

all his stern exaltation in slaying the enemies of God. For a moment

his brow clouded, but the subject was swept away and forgotten in the

congratulations, questions, and answers of Mr. Claypole and Richard

Cromwell. The times were still momentous, even perilous; now there was

peace what would they and all the other men of England do?

While the Lord-General talked with these two, the women took the old

gentlewoman to her room; she could hardly walk now and her senses were

failing, the Bible was constantly in her hands, and she spoke of little

else but her son.

When she had reached the chamber set apart for her, she got into her

chair by the window and looked at the sunset a little, half-dozing and

talking to herself, then she roused suddenly and asked Mrs. Claypole,

who tenderly remained with her, to "Fetch your father, child, fetch

your father. I have had little of him but the pain of his absences, and

I would see him now!"

Elisabeth Claypole, light-footed and delicate in her glimmering white

and blue silks, sped on her errand, taking with her some of the last

late roses with which she had adorned her grandmother's room.

When she gave her message she slipped the stems of two of them through

the button-hole of her father's dusty uniform. Their gay beauty looked

incongruous enough on his sober attire, but though his lips chid her,

his eyes smiled, and he let the blossoms remain.

Elisabeth Cromwell was wondering, in sentences half-awed, half-vexed,

how she should keep house in a great place like Hampton Court?--how

many servants must she have, and how could they use such a number of

rooms?

"We will come and stay with thee," said Dorothy, Richard's wife,

who was not averse to her share of her father-in-law's splendour.

Her pretty face was very bright and smiling to-day above the demure

fall of her lawn collar, and her gown was new silk, embroidered in a

fashion not uncourtly; her husband, too, was habited with a richness

beyond his father's. The Lord-General had not failed to mark his son's

wide, Spanish boots, fringed breeches, grey cloth passemented with

rose-colour, and Malines lace collar and fall. It did not please him,

for he took it as another indication of that weakness and levity which

he had before suspected, with a terrible pang, in his eldest surviving

son.

He made no reply to Dorothy Cromwell, but followed his daughter to her

grandmother's room.

That night there was a wonderful sunset, not only the west but the

whole horizon was gold, crimson, and scarlet; the earth seemed ringed

with fire, and the glow penetrated even into the narrow street, so that

there was the sense of a wonderful light and colour abroad--a light

brilliant and mystical, shed from heaven upon the earth.

Oliver Cromwell crossed the room, which was dark and plain, but full

of the odour of dry rose leaves and lavender and camphire, and stood

before his mother who sat by the window, a small shrivelled gentlewoman

in a hooded chair. She lifted her blurred eyes and held out her two

little hands to him; he kissed them, and then as Elisabeth Claypole

left them he broke forth, "Mother, I am tired, tired."

He rested his sick head against the mullions and gazed up at the little

strip of sky, glorious with floating clouds of light, visible above the

houses opposite.

"How is it with thee, my son Oliver?" she asked. "Thou art come in

triumph with much acclaim, but hast thou within the peace of God, which

passeth all understanding?"

He answered with a fervour and a quickness which was like the passion

of self-justification yet ennobled by his usual enthusiasm.

"I have followed the pillar of cloud by day," he answered, "the pillar

of fire by night. I have disregarded the wind and the whirlwind, and I

have listened for the still small voice. _I believe God hath been with

me because of the victories I have had._"

"Surely," replied Mrs. Cromwell, "He hath witnessed for thee as He

witnessed against the King. Is not this fight at Worcester spoken of on

all tongues as the crowning mercy?"

The Lord-General continued to look at the sky which was fast paling

from flame tints into a burning paleness, like gold in a furnace,

thrice refined.

"For nine years I have laboured," he said, "and not once hath the Lord

put me down. Yet sometimes the voice will fail, sometimes the Sign will

not come--sometimes I even seem to fall from grace--sometimes I wonder

why I ever left obscurity. Yet the Lord called me! I will maintain

it--He held up my hands and made me His instrument! I have been one

with the Spirit; I say it was God's work, for He did not put me down!

Now, it were better that I should lay aside my high office and return

to what I was."

"It were better," said the old gentlewoman; "but can England spare you

yet? For me, I would rather die where I have lived than amid these

splendours."

"I will go back to my own place," continued Oliver Cromwell. "I have

done what God set me to do--I have swept the enemy from the land, I

have seen the tyrant slain, and his children exiled. When shall the

young man, Charles Stewart, get another army? Nay, when he fled from

Worcester city, he fled from his throne for ever; his forces are

scattered and no captain out of Egypt shall ever get them together

again. I say the land is purged, and what work is there for me?"

He was silent a moment, then he added, "I am weary and still something

sick."

These recent sicknesses of his troubled him; he could not understand

the fault for which this weakness had been laid on him. Following out

his own thoughts he broke into speech again.

"As for Drogheda, _I say it was in the heat of action_, and were they

not Papists, blasphemous idolaters whose hands were red with the blood

of God's poor people? _It was in the heat of action!_ What was that

little moment compared to the torments of hell they have earned? When

they were shut up in the church and the flames were getting hold on

them, I heard one say--'God damn me, God confound me, I burn!' That

is God's judgment. God _hath_ damned him--to the flame that is never

quenched and the worm that never dieth! Poor clay am I, but a reed

He breatheth through--shall I be blamed for His vengeance against

Drogheda? Nay, no more than I shall be praised for His victories at

Dunbar and Worcester--when He was pleased to make use of a certain poor

thing of mine, nay, a little invention, the army."

The ancient gentlewoman leant forward and stroked his sleeve with her

pallid hand thickened with heavy veins. She had an instinct that he

required comforting in this the highest moment of his glory.

He still wore his buff riding coat, his dusty boots, his plain

sword-thread and sword; surely no victorious general had ever returned

to take his triumph in such attire. No order, no ornament distinguished

him from the meanest of his fellow-citizens; his features, always

heavy, were slightly swollen and slightly suffused, his eyes most

deeply lined and shadowed; there was as much grey as brown now in the

locks that fell to his shoulders, and a general sadness was in his

expression, his pose, the tone of his rough voice.

His little mother continued to anxiously stroke his cloth sleeve and to

gaze up at him with those failing eyes which saw neither marks of age

nor fatigue, saw neither plainness nor ill-health, but only _her_ son

in the glory of his matchless achievement.

He looked down at her at last.

"My mother," he said, "how long ago is it since I knelt to say my

prayers at your knee? I feel the years grow marvellously heavy and my

body full of the evils of old age. So little done, so much to do! For

all of us, such a little while."

"Many more years for thee, son Oliver," she replied. "Many more and

much to do in them! If there be something to be done in England, wilt

thou not do it?"

"Surely," he said, straightening himself, "for I am English--it is the

English who now testify most for the Lord, and He out of His mercy hath

given us great gifts."

The last sunlight had faded from the narrow street, and the precise

chamber was growing dark.

"God keep thee always," said Mrs. Cromwell quietly. "I would not hold

thee even from manifest danger if He bade thee go!"

"I believe I never shall go back to Ely," he answered evenly. "My hand

is on the plough----"

The door was gently opened and Elisabeth Claypole, holding a candle

which illumined her wistful, frail beauty, half entered and told them

the supper waited for them below.

CHAPTER II

THE TALK IN ST. JAMES'S PARK

The Council of State had done well; great names were among the members.

Sir Harry Vane had devoted his patriotism and his great gifts to the

administration of the navy, which was under the command of William

Blake, already as renowned at sea as Cromwell on the land; the naval

war with the United Provinces was already taxing the resources of the

infant Commonwealth, and so far all had acquitted themselves with

honour and distinction.

Rupert and his roving pirate ships had been swept from the seas, Deane

and Monk kept an iron hand on Scotland, Fleetwood and Ludlow completed

the bloody conquest of Ireland. Outwardly the new Republic might well

present a uniform and solid appearance; but within it seethed with

confusion.

The main cause of the two civil wars and the execution of the

King--ecclesiastical questions--was still in abeyance; nothing was

settled in Church or State. Nor were the finances of the country in a

hopeful condition; neither the Church lands nor the King's lands nor

all the revenues formerly given to royalty served to pay the expenses

of the Dutch War. Cromwell's dreams of retirement vanished; urged from

within by his own eager soul and from without by the appeals of those

who could not bear their burdens without his help, he remained in the

forefront of affairs, the leader of the army in name and fact, a figure

slightly enigmatical, needed by all and by some feared.

He was not without his enemies. Edmund Ludlow, on one of his visits to

London, told him frankly that the extreme Puritans could not forget his

attempt to come to terms with the late King, and the extreme moderates

could not forget his execution of the mutineers at Ware.

The last time Ludlow and Cromwell had crossed words Cromwell had ended

the argument by hurling a cushion at his opponent's head. Now he

answered mildly and declared that the Lord was bringing to pass through

him what He had promised in the 110th Psalm; he expounded this theory

for an hour, and Ludlow was silenced by rhetoric if not convinced by

reason.

Meanwhile Cromwell, whether he silenced his critics by oratory or

hurled cushions, went his way without heeding any of them; sometimes

mildly, sometimes in sudden gusts of temper, sometimes in strange

exalted excitements he pursued a policy which, however obscure and

vague it might seem to others, was clear as crystal and bright as flame

to him.

The feeling between the army and the remnant of Charles' last

Parliament still ruling at Westminster became again restless and

intense; all men began to see that the present Government was, and

could be nothing else, but provisional. A date, three years off, was

fixed for the dissolution of the present Parliament, and Cromwell

called a conference between the chief lawyers and the chief captains,

to whom he offered two vital questions: Should they have a republic or

a monarchy? if a monarchy, who was to be King?

The Parliament men were mostly for a monarchy, the army men for a

republic: Desborough and Whalley were especially strong for that.

Oliver Cromwell was not with them: he had never been at heart

republican; but he said little, and the conference broke up, as the

others had done, without solving a single difficulty.

Sometime after the Lord-General, coming from his luminous obscurity

where he gleamed, keeping all men in an uncertainty as to his wishes

and his intentions, asked the Lord Whitelocke, lawyer and Parliament

man, to attend him in his walking in the Park, and to there discuss

with him the unsettlement and turmoil of the State.

It was a day in November; the brambles in the hedges had sparse

fox-coloured leaves; the trees in the orchard and archery ground were

bare; the elms and oaks were hung with thin scattered gold leaves

against a pale blue and frosty sky; the ground was hard with a thin ice

in the ruts where yesterday had been mud; above the empty Palace, which

might be plainly glimpsed through the bare trees, a solitary white

cloud floated, like a forlorn banner. The Lord-General often looked at

this cloud while he spoke: he had a habit of gazing much at the sky.

He wore a black suit and grey worsted hose, broad leathern shoes with

wide steel buckles, sword, band, collar, and hat as plain as might be.

There was nothing about his person to indicate the profession which he

represented; he was in every way as plain as the plain lawyer to whom

he talked. He opened with what was in his mind, but gently, indirectly

and vaguely, after his usual manner.

"Where is the cause? Where is this for which we all fought? Lord

Whitelocke, did so many poor people die to this end? Was the glorious

climax of the war, the death of the tyrant to lead to no better

conclusion than this? Hath the Lord led us out of Egypt to abandon us

now? Truly, sir, I do not think it, yet I ask you where is the cause?

I say that the cause is overlaid with jars, with jealousies, with

confusion, and this must not be. The Lord will not have it--it is not

as it should be, sir, in a Commonwealth."

Bulstrode Whitelocke hesitated a moment and struck at the frozen ground

with his cane; he was a shrewd, prosaic man, a keen lawyer, and a

fearless patriot. After his little pause he resolved on boldness: his

quick, direct speech was a contrast to Cromwell's involved phrases.

"The peril we are in, sir, cometh from the arrogance of the army, from

their high pretensions and unruly ways and desire for dominance."

The Lord-General gave him a long glance.

"Say you so?" he returned mildly. "Yet methinks they are a lovely

company, worthy of all honour."

"They have had all honour and all profit too," returned Whitelocke

grimly, "and now they would have all power as well, under your favour,

sir."

"Nay," returned Cromwell, "this is not so. The army is the poor

instrument by which the Lord saved England; they did some little

service at Naseby--at Preston--at Dunbar and Winchester, and though

I dare say they would sooner die than take any of the glory of

these mercies, yet the Lord chose them as His instruments, and that

must be accounted to them as an honour. Sir, the army hath laboured

much, sweated in your service; sir, without the army"--he pointed to

Whitehall--"that Palace would now be the dwelling-place of the young

man, Charles Stewart. I pray you consider these things."

"Yet I repeat," insisted the Lord Whitelocke, who was voicing the

feeling of the entire Parliament and a great portion of the nation,

"that the army is the cause of these present jars--their imperious

carriage is hard to be borne, sir, and from it arises the confusions

and jealousies which oppress us. As to their merits, the Council of

State hath done somewhat too--the war with the Dutch----"

"Because of this war my spirit hath groaned!" interrupted Cromwell.

"Should there not rather be a union between two Protestant republics

than war? And what do not you spend on it? All that which you have

gained from King and bishops. I say it were more befitting us, as

Christians and Englishmen, to have peace with the Dutch."

Whitelocke refused to be drawn into this argument. He returned to his

point.

"The Council of State rule well and wisely--the people uphold them."

"Nay, do they?" interrupted the Lord-General, in a very decided tone.

"I tell you this, Mr. Whitelocke, I have been up and down the country

and heard the opinions of many men, and I say that most, and the best

of them, do loathe the Parliament."

"Where is this leading?" asked the lawyer sharply.

"Ay, where?" repeated Cromwell. "There are the people new come from

civil strife unheard of, and ye lay on them the great burden of a

foreign war; ye settle nothing and strive after nothing but to prolong

your own sitting. There are scandalous members among you--ay, I know it

well--self-seekers, drunkards, men of lewd life. I say it is not well

these should be uncontrolled in power, therefore I spoke for a king or

for one with a king's authority. They have none to check them, they

do as they will, they are slow, they are idle, they meddle in private

matters; it will not do. Let them look to their authority, which is on

high; let them seek God painfully."

He spoke with passion now, but also with a certain weariness, as if he

was oppressed with great thoughts and slowly struggled to the outward

expression of them.

"You are a soldier and therefore impatient," returned Whitelocke

quietly. "The Parliament is slow--but that is within human reason."

The Lord-General turned and looked at him grimly.

"There is another thing which is not within human reason, which is

that this Commonwealth should stand without a master set over the

Parliament."

"How may one do that?" demanded the lawyer sharply, "when the

Parliament is itself the authority from which we derive ours?"

"That is a formal difficulty," replied Cromwell impatiently. "Do you

think I should be stopped by nice points of law?"

Whitelocke marked the pronoun the soldier had used.

"Would you withstand the Parliament?" he asked keenly. "They are your

masters."

"They are no man's masters; they are means to an end," replied

Cromwell. "I am a poor thing, but the Lord hath made some use of me

these ten years past--yea, a little use. He hath been pleased to

appoint me to do a few things for Him, some little work, and I will

do it, despite Parliament as I did and despite a king. I say we will

have righteousness and justice; if need be these men can be put down as

the tyrant was put down, and the poor and simple be cared for and the

groans of the needy heard."

"These are stern words," said Whitelocke; "and how will you justify

them?"

"God will justify them," replied the Lord-General, "as He hath hitherto

upheld what I have said in His name. What was I? What did I know of

armies or of the battalion? Yet the Lord said, 'Be thou ruler, even

among Mine enemies,' and sent me forth to conquer kings and princes.

And we were but a handful and they gentlemen. Yet we did it. 'With

His own right hand and with His holy arm hath He gotten Himself the

victory!' And now I am bidden to labour still in His cause and to go

forward--and do you think that poor remnant sitting at Westminster

shall hinder me?"