armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all
ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that
singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen,
and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the
peaceable citizen and the honor of woman were held sacred. If outrages
were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those
of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl
complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate
was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon, or a
window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the
Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of
the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to
restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the
pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time,
were not savory; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of
the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of
popery.
To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No
sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt than the nation,
unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections
broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been
the most submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself
abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous
to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the
troops. In Scotland, at the same time, a coalition was formed between
the Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the
doctrines of the Independents with detestation.
At length the storm burst. There were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk,
Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal
colors, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast. A great
Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire. It
might well be suspected that these movements were contemplated with
secret complacency by a majority both of the Lords and of the Commons.
But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax
suppressed the risings in the neighborhood of the capital, Oliver routed
the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched
against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the invaders;
but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The Scottish
army was utterly destroyed. A change in the Scottish government
followed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at
Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers,
returned in triumph to London.
And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man
would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the
Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to
take a distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the nation had,
during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King.
When and how the scheme originated, whether it spread from the general
to the ranks or from the ranks to the general, whether it is to be
ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool or to fanaticism bearing
down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this
day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence.
It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was
really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great
occasion a few years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own
inclinations to the wishes of the army. For the power which he had
called into existence was a power which even he could not always
control; and, that he might ordinarily command, it was necessary that he
should sometimes obey. He publicly protested that he was no mover in the
matter, that the first steps had been taken without his privity, that he
could not advise the Parliament to strike the blow, but that he
submitted his own feelings to the force of circumstances which seemed to
him to indicate the purposes of Providence.
It has been the fashion to consider these professions as instances of
the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even those who
pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool. They
are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve by
secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not
venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he who
was never by his respectable enemies represented as wantonly cruel or
implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his
life under the influence of mere malevolence. He was far too wise a man
not to know, when he consented to shed that august blood, that he was
doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and
horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine-tenths of those who had
stood by the Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he
was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern nor
of the millennial reign of the saints. If he already aspired to be
himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles I was a
less formidable competitor than Charles II would be.
At the moment of the death of Charles I the loyalty of every Cavalier
would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles II. Charles I was a
captive: Charles II would be at liberty. Charles I was an object of
suspicion and dislike to a large proportion of those who yet shuddered
at the thought of slaying him: Charles II would excite all the interest
which belongs to distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to
believe that considerations so obvious and so important escaped the most
profound politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had at one
time meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to
reorganize the distracted state by the power of the sword, under the
sanction of the royal name.
In this design he persisted till he was compelled to abandon it by the
refractory temper of the soldiers and by the incurable duplicity of the
King. A party in the camp began to clamor for the head of the traitor,
who was for treating with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of
impeachment were loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigor
and resolution of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious
mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he
saw that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to
contend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as
their foe and as the foe of their God. At the same time it became more
evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices of
Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which difficulties
and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is
the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, who is habitually
a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness
in the midst of embarrassments and distresses.
Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler.
There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were
brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognized the Houses
at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and at the same time made a
private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly
disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his people; he
privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine. He
publicly denied that he employed papists: at the same time he privately
sent to his generals directions to employ every papist that would serve.
He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford as a pledge that he never would
even connive at popery. He privately assured his wife that he intended
to tolerate popery in England; and he authorized Lord Glamorgan to
promise that popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted
to clear himself at his agent's expense.
Glamorgan received, in the royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be
read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To
such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole
nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining
to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His
defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had
been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had
not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but
never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole
and to undermine Cromwell.
Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment
of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay, his
own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save a
prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and
misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was
made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that,
in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal
sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with his
blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy
predecessors, Edward II and Richard II. But he was in no danger of such
treason. Those who had him in their grip were not midnight stabbers.
What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven
and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They
enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient
constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to
regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on
effecting a complete political and social revolution.
In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should
first break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and
this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons
passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers
excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the
proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house was
instantly closed. No court known to the law would take on itself the
office of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was
created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a
murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed from his
shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the
banqueting-hall of his own palace.
In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious
zealots to whom this deed is to be ascribed had committed, not only a
crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his
people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great
theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities
which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the
high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a
penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the
very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of
England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No
demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the
captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity,
and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the
feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a
court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the
principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons
had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords
deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers that
he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs.
His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His
memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects,
associated with those free institutions which he had during many years
labored to destroy; for those free institutions had perished with him,
and, amid the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had
been defended by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in
favor of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction which never ceased
till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity.
CHARLES KNIGHT
The drawbridge of Hurst castle[39] is lowered during the night, December
17, 1648, and the tramp of a troop of horse is heard by the wakeful
prisoner. He calls for his attendant Herbert, who is sent to ascertain
the cause of this midnight commotion. Major Harrison is arrived. The
King is agitated. He has been warned that Harrison is a man chosen to
assassinate him. He is reassured in the morning, in being informed that
the major and his troop are to conduct him to Windsor. Two days after,
the King sets out, under the escort of Lieutenant-Colonel Cobbett. At
Winchester he is received in state by the mayor and aldermen; but they
retire alarmed on being told that the House has voted all to be traitors
who should address the King.
The troop commanded by Cobbett has been relieved on the route by another
troop, of which Harrison has the command. They rest at Farnham. Charles
expresses to Harrison, with whose soldierly appearance he is struck, the
suspicions which had been hinted regarding him. The major, in his new
buff coat and fringed scarf of crimson silk, told the King "that he
needed not to entertain any such imagination or apprehension; that the
Parliament had too much honor and justice to cherish so foul an
intention; and assured him that whatever the Parliament resolved to do
would be very public, and in a way of justice to which the world should
be witness, and would never endure a thought of secret violence." This,
adds Clarendon, "his majesty could not persuade himself to believe; nor
did imagine that they durst ever produce him in the sight of the people,
under any form whatsoever of a public trial."
The next day the journey was pursued toward Windsor. The King urged his
desire to stop at Bagshot, and dine in the forest at the house of Lord
Newburgh. He had been apprised that his friend would have ready for him
a horse of extraordinary fleetness, with which he might make one more
effort to escape. The horse had been kicked by another horse the day
before and was useless. That last faint hope was gone. On the night of
December 23d the King slept, a prisoner surrounded with hostile guards,
in the noble castle which in the days of his youth had rung with
Jonson's lyrics and ribaldry; and the "Gipsy of the Masque" had
prophesied that his "name in peace or wars, nought should bound."
But even here he continued to cherish some of the delusions which he had
indulged in situations of far less danger. He was still surrounded with
something of regal pomp. He dined, as the ancient sovereigns had dined,
in public--as Elizabeth, and his father, and he himself had
dined--seated under a canopy, the cup presented to him on the knee, the
dishes solemnly tasted before he ate. These manifestations of respect he
held to be indicative of an altered feeling. But he also had an
undoubting confidence that he should be righted, by aid from Ireland,
from Denmark, from other kingdoms--"I have three more cards to play, the
worst of which will give me back everything." After three weeks of
comparative comfort, the etiquette observed toward him was laid aside;
and with a fearful sense of approaching calamity in the absence of
"respect and honor, according to the ancient practice," is there
anything more contemptible than a despised prince?
During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor there had been
proceedings in Parliament of which he was imperfectly informed. On the
day he arrived there it was resolved by the Commons that he should be
brought to trial. On January 2, 1649, it was voted that, in making war
against the Parliament, he had been guilty of treason; and a high court
was appointed to try him. One hundred fifty commissioners were to
compose the court--peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London.
The ordinance was sent to the Upper House and was rejected. On the 6th a
fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being, after God, the source
of all just power, the representatives of the people are the supreme
power in the nation; and that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law
by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are
concluded thereby, though the consent of king or peers be not had
thereto.
Asserting this power, so utterly opposed either to the ancient
constitution of the monarchy or to the possible working of a republic,
there was no hesitation in constituting the high court of justice in the
name of the Commons alone. The number of members of the court was now
reduced to one hundred thirty-five. They had seven preparatory meetings,
at which only fifty-eight members attended. "All men," says Mrs.
Hutchinson, "were left to their free liberty of acting, neither
persuaded nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the
commission who never sat, and others who sat at first but durst not hold
on, so all the rest might have declined it if they would when it is
apparent they should have suffered nothing by so doing."
Algernon Sidney, although bent upon a republic, opposed the trial,
apprehending that the project of a commonwealth would fail if the King's
life were touched. It is related that Cromwell, irritated by these
scruples, exclaimed: "No one will stir. I tell you, we will cut his head
off with the crown upon it." Such daring may appear the result of
ambition or fear or revenge or innate cruelty in a few men who had
obtained a temporary ascendency. These men were, on the contrary, the
organs of a widespread determination among thousands throughout the
country, who had long preached and argued and prophesied about vengeance
on "the great delinquent"; and who had ever in their mouths the text
that "blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the
blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it."[40]
They had visions of a theocracy, and were impatient of an earthly king.
Do we believe, as some, not without reasonable grounds, may believe,
that the members of the high court of justice expressed such convictions
upon a simulated religious confidence? Do we think that, in the clear
line of action which Cromwell especially had laid down for his guidance,
he cloaked his worldly ambition under the guise of being moved by some
higher impulse than that of taking the lead in a political revolution?
Certainly we do not. The infinite mischiefs of assuming that the finger
of God directly points out the way to believers when they are walking in
dangerous and devious paths may be perfectly clear to us who calmly look
back upon the instant events which followed upon Cromwell's confidence
in his solemn call to a fearful duty. But we are not the more to
believe, because the events have a character of guilt in the views of
most persons, that such a declared conviction was altogether, or in any
degree, a lie.
Those were times in which, more for good than for evil, men believed in
the immediate direction of a special providence in great undertakings.
The words "God hath given us the victory" were not with them a mere
form. If we trace amid these solemn impulses the workings of a deep
sagacity--the union of the fierce resolves of a terrible enthusiasm
with the foresight and energy of an ever-present common-sense--we are
not the more to conclude that their spiritualism or fanaticism or
whatever we please to call their ruling principle was less sincere by
being mixed up with the ordinary motives through which the affairs of
the world are carried on. Indeed, when we look to the future course of
English history, and see--as those who have no belief in a higher
direction of the destiny of nations than that of human wisdom can alone
turn away from seeing--that the inscrutable workings of a supreme power
led our country in the fulness of time to internal peace and security
after these storms, and in a great degree in consequence of them, can we
refuse our belief that the tragical events of those days were ordered
for our good? Acknowledging that the overthrow of a rotten throne was
necessary for the building up of a throne that should have its sole
stable foundation in the welfare of the people, can we affirm that the
men who did the mightier portion of that work--sternly, unflinchingly,
illegally, yet ever professing to "seek to know the mind of God in all
that chain of Providence"--are quite correctly described, in the statute
for their attainder, as "a party of wretched men, desperately wicked,
and hardened in their impiety"?
On January 19th Major Harrison appeared again at Windsor with his troop.
There was a coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the King
took his seat; and, once more, he entered London, and was lodged at St.
James' palace. The next day the high court of justice was opened in
Westminster hall. The King came from St. James' in a sedan; and after
the names of the members of the court had been called, sixty-nine being
present, Bradshaw, the president, ordered the sergeant to bring in the
prisoner. Silently the King sat down in the chair prepared for him. He
moved not his hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously around. The
sixty-nine rose not from their seats and remained covered. It is
scarcely eight years since he was a spectator of the last solemn trial
in this hall--that of Strafford. What mighty events have happened since
that time!
There are memorials hanging from the roof which tell such a history as
his saddest fears in the hour of Strafford's death could scarcely have
shaped out. The tattered banners taken from his Cavaliers at Marston
Moor and Naseby are floating above his head. There, too, are the same
memorials of Preston. But still he looks around him proudly and
severely. Who are the men that are to judge him, the King, who "united
in his person every possible claim by hereditary right to the English as
well as the Scottish throne, being the heir both of Egbert and William
the Conqueror"? These men are, in his view, traitors and rebels, from
Bradshaw, the lawyer, who sits in the foremost chair, calling himself
lord-president, to Cromwell and Marten in the back seat, over whose
heads are the red cross of England and the harp of Ireland, painted on
an escutcheon, while the proud bearings of a line of kings are nowhere
visible.
Under what law does this insolent president address him as "Charles
Stuart, King of England," and say: "The Commons of England being deeply
sensible of the calamities that have been brought upon this nation,
which are fixed upon you as the principal author of them, have resolved
to make inquisition for blood"? He will defy their authority. The clerk
reads the charge, and when he is accused therein of being tyrant and
traitor he laughs in the face of the court. "Though his tongue usually
hesitated, yet it was very free at this time, for he was never
discomposed in mind," writes Warwick. "And yet," it is added, "as he
confessed himself to the Bishop of London that attended him, one action
shocked him very much; for while he was leaning in the court upon his
staff, which had a head of gold, the head broke off on a sudden. He took
it up, but seemed unconcerned, yet told the Bishop it really made a
great impression upon him." It was the symbol of the treacherous hopes
upon which he had rested--golden dreams that vanished in this solemn
hour.