DEATH OF CHARLES I. A.D. 1649--1651.
The Long Parliament did not wish to have no king, only to make him do
what they pleased; and then went on trying whether he would come back
to reign according to their notions. He would have given up a great
deal, but when they wanted him to declare that there should be no
bishops in England he would never consent, for he thought there could
be no real Church without bishops, as our Lord himself had appointed.
At last, after there had been much debating, and it was plain that it
would never come to an end, Oliver Cromwell sent some of his officers
to take King Charles into their hands, instead of the persons appointed
by Parliament. So the king was prisoner to the army instead of to the
parliament.
Cromwell was a very able man, and he saw that nobody could settle the
difficulties about the law and the rights of the people but himself.
He saw that things never would be settled while the king lived, nor
by the Parliament, so he sent one of his officers, named Pryde, to
turnout all the members of Parliament who would not do his will, and
then the fifty who were left appointed a court of officers and lawyers
to try the king. Charles was brought before them; but, as they had
no right to try him, he would not say a word in answer to them.
Nevertheless, they sentenced him to have his head cut off. He had
borne all his troubles in the most meek and patient way, forgiving
all his enemies and praying for them: and he was ready to die in the
same temper. His queen was in France, and all his children were safe
out of England, except his daughter Elizabeth, who was twelve years
old, and little Henry, who was five. They were brought to Whitehall
Palace for him to see the night before he was to die. He took the
little boy on his knee, and talked a long time to Elizabeth, telling
her what books to read and giving her his message to her mother and
brothers; and then he told little Henry to mark what he said, and to
mind that he must never be set up as a king while his elder brothers,
Charles and James were alive. The little boy said through his tears,
"I will be torn to pieces first." His father kissed and blessed the
two children, and left them.
The next day was the 30th of January, 1649. The king was allowed to
have Bishop Juxon to read and pray with him, and to give him the holy
communion. After that, forgiving his enemies and praying for them,
he was led to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and out through a
window, on to the scaffold hung with black cloth. He said his last
prayers, and the executioner cut off his head with one blow, and held
it up to the people. He was buried at night,--a light snow falling
at the time,--in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, by four faithful
noblemen, but they were not allowed to use any service over his grave.
The Scots were so much shocked to find what their selling of their
king had come to, that they invited his eldest son, Charles, a young
man of nineteen, to come and reign over them, and offered to set him
on the English throne again. Young Charles came; but they were so
strict that they made his life very dull and weary, since they saw
sin in every amusement. However, they kept their promise of marching
into England, and some of the English cavaliers joined them; but Oliver
Cromwell and his army met them at Worcester, and they were entirely
beaten. Young King Charles had to go away with a few gentlemen, and
he was so closely followed that they had to put him in charge of some
woodmen named Penderel, who lived in Boscobel Forest. They dressed
him in a rough leather suit like their own, and when the Roundhead
soldiers came to search, he was hidden among the branches of an oak
tree above their heads. Afterwards, a lady named Jane Lane helped
him over another part of his journey, by letting him ride on horseback
before her as her servant; but, when she stopped at an inn, he was
very near being found out, because he did not know how to turn the
spit in the kitchen when the cook asked him. However, he got safely
to Brighton, which was only a little village then, and a boat took
him to France, where his mother was living.
In the meantime, his young sister and brother, Elizabeth and Henry,
had been sent to the Isle of Wight, to Carisbrook Castle. Elizabeth
was pining away with sorrow, and before long she was found dead, with
her cheek resting on her open Bible. After this, little Henry was
sent to be with his mother in France.
The eldest daughter, Mary, had been married just as the war began to
the Prince of Orange, who lived in Holland, and was left a widow with
one little son. James, Duke of York, the second brother, had at first
been in the keeping of a Parliamentary nobleman, with his brother and
sister, in London; but, during a game of hide-and-seek, he crept out
of the gardens and met some friends, who dressed him in girls' clothes
and took him to a ship in the Thames, which carried him to Holland.
Little Henrietta, the youngest, had been left, when only six weeks
old, to the care of one of her mother's ladies. When she was nearly
three, the lady did not think it safe to keep her any longer in
England. So she stained her face and hands brown with walnut juice,
to look like a gipsy, took the child upon her back, and trudged to
the coast.
Little Henrietta could not speak plain, but she always called herself
by a name she meant to be princess, and the lady was obliged to call
her Piers, and pretend that she was a little boy, when the poor child
grew angry at being treated so differently from usual, and did all she
possibly could to make the strangers understand that she was no beggar
boy. However, at last she was safe across the sea, and was with her
mother at Paris, where the king of France, Queen Henrietta's nephew,
was very kind to the poor exiles. The misfortune was, that the queen
brought up little Henrietta as a Roman Catholic, and tried to make
Henry one also; but he was old enough to be firm to his father's
Church, and he went away to his sister in Holland. James, however
did somewhat late become a Roman Catholic; and Charles would have
been one, if he had cared enough about religion to do what would have
lessened his chance of getting back to England as king. But these two
brothers were learning no good at Paris, and were growing careless of
the right and fond of pleasure. James and Henry, after a time, joined
the French army, that they might learn the art of war. They were both
very brave, but it was sad that when France and England went to war,
they should be in the army of the enemies of their country.