King's trial began. That could scarcely be called a trial which
consisted entirely in a struggle between the King and the Court on a
point of law. In the charge of high treason, read in Westminster Hall
against the King, special mention was made of the commission which he
"doth still continue to the Earl of Ormond, and to the Irish rebels and
revolters associated with him, from whom further invasions upon the land
are threatened." There appear to have been no witnesses examined on
this point, all that were examined during three days, in the painted
chamber, simply witnessing to having seen the King in arms. Indeed, all
witnesses were unnecessary, the sentence having been already determined
upon, and the King utterly refusing to plead or to acknowledge the
Court. The King, indeed, never appeared to such advantage as on his
trial; he was perfectly unmoved by any personal thought; no fear,
hesitation, or wavering appeared in his behaviour. He took his stand
simply on the indisputable point of law that neither that Court, nor
indeed any Court, had any authority to try him. To Bradshaw's assertion
that he derived his authority from the people, he in vain requested a
single precedent that the Monarchy of England was elective, or had been
elective, for a thousand years. In his abandonment of self, and his
unshaken constancy to a point of principle, he contrasted most
favourably with his judges, whose sole motive was self. That none of
the Parliamentary leaders were safe while the King lived is probable;
but sound statesmanship does not acknowledge self-preservation as an
excuse for mistaken policy, and the murder of the King was not more a
crime than it was a blunder. Having been condemned by this unique
Court, he was, with the most indecent haste, hurried to his end. A
revolting coarseness marks every detail of the tragic story; the flower
of England on either side was beneath the turf or beyond the sea, and
the management of affairs was left in the hands of butchers and brewers.
Ranting sermons, three in succession, before a brewer in Whitehall, is
the medium to which the religious utterance of England is reduced, and
Ireton and Harrison in bed together, with Cromwell and others in the
room, signed the warrant for the fatal act. The horror and indignation
which it impressed on the heart of the people may be understood a little
by the fact, that in no country so much as in England the peculiar
sacredness of Monarchy has since been carried so far. The impression
caused by his death was so profound, that, forty years afterwards, when
his son was arrested in his flight, the only thing that during the whole
course of that revolution caused the least reaction in his favour was
(according to the Whig Burnet) the fear that the people conceived that
the same thing was going to be acted over again, and men remembered that
saying of King Charles--"The prisons of princes are not far from their
graves." He walked across the park from the garden at St. James's that
January morning with so firm and quick a pace that the guards could
scarcely keep the step, and stepping from his own banqueting house upon
the scaffold, where the men who ruled England had so little understood
him as to provide ropes and pulleys to drag him down in case of need, he
died with that calm and kingly bearing which none could assume so well
as he, and by his death he cast a halo of religious sentiment round a
cause which, without the final act, would have wanted much of its
pathetic charm, and struck that keynote of religious devotion to his
person and the Monarchy which has not yet ceased to reverberate in the
hearts of men.
"That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands:
He nothing common did, nor mean,
Upon that memorable scene;
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed."
_The Republican, Andrew Marvell._
*CHAPTER XV.*
Inglesant remained in the Tower for several months after the King's
death. The Lords Hamilton, Holland, and Capel were the first who
followed their royal master to the block, and many other names of equal
honour and little inferior rank followed in the same list. In excuse
for the murders of these men there is no other plea than, as in the case
of their master--self-preservation. But the purpose was not less
abortive than the means were criminal. The effect produced on the
country was one of awe and hatred to the ruling powers. Thousands of
copies of the King's Book, edged with black, were sold in London within
the few days following his death, and Milton was obliged to remonstrate
pitifully with the people for their unaccountable attachment to their
King. The country, it is true, was for the moment cowed, and, although
individual gentlemen took every opportunity to rise against the
usurpers, and suffered death willingly in such a cause, the mass of the
people remained quiet. The country gentlemen indeed were, as a body,
ruined; the head of nearly every family was slain, and the widows and
minors had enough to do to arrange, as best they might, with the
Government agents who assessed the fines and compositions upon
malignants' estates. It required a few years to elapse before England
would recover itself, and declare its real mind unmistakably, which it
very soon did; but during those years it never sank into silent
acquiescence to the great wrong that had been perpetrated. It is the
custom to regard the Commonwealth as a period of great national
prosperity and peace. Nothing can be a greater mistake. There never was
a moment's peace during the whole of Cromwell's reign of power. He began
by destroying that Parliament utterly, for seeking the arrest of five
members of which the King lost his crown and was put to death. The best
of the Republican party were kept in prison or exiled, just as the King
had been seized and executed by Cromwell, independently of the
Parliament. But the oppressed sections of the Puritan party never
ceased to hate the usurper as much as the Royalists did, and the want of
their support insured the fall of the Republic the moment the master
hand was withdrawn.
After a few months Inglesant's imprisonment was much lighter; he was
allowed abundance of food, and liberty to walk in the courtyards of the
Tower, and was allowed to purchase any books he chose. He had received
a sum of money from an unknown hand, which he afterwards found to have
been that of Lady Cardiff, his brother's wife, and this enabled him to
purchase several books and other conveniences. He remained in prison
under these altered circumstances until the end of January 1650, when,
one morning, his door opened, and without any announcement his brother
was admitted to see him. Eustace was much altered; he was richly
dressed, entirely in the French mode, his manner and appearance were
altogether those of a favourite of the French Court, and he spoke
English with a foreign accent. He greeted his brother with great
warmth, and it need not be said that Johnny was delighted to see him.
Eustace told his brother at once that he was free, and showed him the
warrant for his liberation.
"I was in Paris," he said, "on the eve of starting for England on
affairs which I will explain to you in a moment, when 'votre ami' the
Jesuit came to see me. He told me he understood I was going to England
on my private affairs, but he thought possibly I might not object to do
a little service for my brother;--you know his manner. He said if I
would apply in certain quarters, which he named to me, I should find the
way prepared, and no difficulties in obtaining your release. The words
were true, and yesterday I received this warrant. As soon as it is
convenient to you I shall be glad for you to leave this sombre place, as
I want you to come with me to Oulton, to my wife,--my wife, who is
indeed so perfectly English in all her manners, as I shall proceed to
explain to you. Since you were at Oulton my wife has been growing worse
and worse in health, and more and more eccentric and crotchety; every
new remedy and every fresh religious notion she adopts at once. She has
filled the house with quacks, of whom Van Helmont is chief, mountebanks,
astrologers, and physicians,--a fine collection of beaux-esprits. The
last time I was there I could not see her once, though I stayed a
fortnight; she was in great misery, extremely ill, and said she was near
her last. Since I have been in Paris I have been obliged to give up
many of my suppers with the French King and Lords, from her letters
saying she is at the point of death. She is ill at present, and no one
has seen her these ten days; but I suppose it is much after the same
sort; and she sends me word that Van Helmont has promised that she shall
not be buried, but preserved by his art till I can come and see her. To
crown all, she has lately become a Quaker, and in my family all the
women about my wife, and most of the rest, are Quakers, and Mons. Van
Helmont is governor of that flock,--an unpleasing sort of people,
silent, sullen, and of reserved conversation, though I hear one of the
maids is the prettiest girl in all the county. These and all that
society have free access to my wife, but I believe Dr. More, the
Platonist, who is a scholar and gentleman, if an enthusiast, though he
was in the house all last summer, did not see her above once or twice.
She has been urging me for months to search all over Europe for an
eagle's stone, which she says is of great use in such diseases as hers;
and when I, at great labour and expense, found her one, she sends back
word that it is not one, but that some of her quacks were able to
decipher it at once, and that it is a German stone, such as are commonly
sold in London at five shillings apiece. I have grown learned in these
stones, by which the fairies in our grandfather's time used to preserve
the fruits from hail and storms. There is a salamander stone. This
eagle stone is one made after a cabalistic art and under certain stars,
and engraved with the sign of an eagle. I could prove their virtue to
you," he continued laughing, "throughout all arts and sciences, as
Divinity, Philosophy, Physic, Astrology, Physiognomy, Divination of
Dreams, Painting, Sculpture, Music, and what not. This affair of the
stone, and these reports of sickness and death, however, and doleful
stories of coffins prepared by art, and of open graves, would not have
brought me over, but for another circumstance of much greater moment.
When I was in Italy and stayed some time at Venice, and was desirous of
engaging in some of the intrigues and amusements of the city, I was
recommended to an Italian, a young man, who made himself useful to
several of the nobility, as a man who could introduce me to, and show me
more of that kind of pleasure, than any one else. I found him all that
had been represented to me, and a great deal more, for, not to tell you
too long a story, he was an adept at every sort of intrigue, and was
acquainted at any rate with every species of villany and vice that the
Italians have conceived. The extent to which they carry these tastes of
theirs cannot be described, and from them the wildest of the gallants of
the rest of Europe start back amazed. To cut this short, I was very
deeply engaged to him, and in return I held some secrets of his, which
he would not even now have known. At last, upon some villanous proposal
made by him, I drew upon him. We had been dining at one of the Casinos
in St. Mark's Place, and I would have run him through the body, but the
crowd of mountebanks, charlatans, and such stuff, interposed and saved
him. I have often wished since I had. He threatened me highly, but as I
was a foreigner and acquainted with most of the principal nobles, he
could do me no harm. He endeavoured to have me assassinated more than
once, and one Englishman was set upon and desperately wounded in mistake
for me; but by advice I hired bravoes myself who baffled his plots, for
I had the longest purse. I knew nothing of him afterwards until I heard
that he had left Italy, a ruined and desperate man, whose life was
sought by many; and the next thing I heard, not many weeks ago, was that
he was at Oulton, having gained admission to my wife as a foreign
physician who had some especial knowledge of her disease. She fancies
herself much the better for his nostrums, and gives herself entirely to
his directions, and I believe he professes Quakerism, or some sort of
foreign mysticism allied to it, which has established him with the rest
of her confidants. I no sooner heard this pleasing information than I
resolved to come over to England at once, and at least drive away this
villain from my family, even if I had no other way to do it than by
running him through the body, as I might have done in Italy. I,
however, sent a messenger to my wife to inform her that I was coming,
and on my reaching London a few days ago, I found him waiting for me
with a packet from Oulton. In a letter my wife desires me earnestly not
to come to Oulton to see her, as she is assured by good hands that some
imminent danger awaits me if I do, and she encloses this horoscope,
which no doubt one of her astrologers has prepared for her. Now I have
no doubt the Italian is at the bottom of all this, and that, at his
instigation, the horoscope has been drawn out; yet I confess that it
appears to me to have something about it that looks like the truth,
something beyond what would be written at the instigation of an enemy.
You can read it and judge for yourself. I have dabbled a little in
astrology as in other arts."
John Inglesant took the paper from his brother and examined it
carefully. At the top was an astrological scheme, or drawing of the
heavens, taken at some moment when the intention of Eustace to come to
Oulton had first become known to his wife. Beneath was the judgment of
the adept, in the following words:--
"Saturn, the significator of the quesited, being in conjunction with
Venus, I judge him to have gained by ladies to a considerable extent, to
be much attached to them, greatly addicted to pleasure, and very
fortunate where females are concerned, and to be a man of property. The
significator being affected both by Mercury, lord of the eighth in the
figure, and also by Mars, the lord of the quesited's eighth house, and
the aspect of separation of the moon being bad,--namely, conjunction of
Jupiter and square of Mercury, who is ill aspected to Jupiter, and is
going to a square of the sun on the cusp of the mid-heaven,--I judge
that the quesited is in imminent danger of death; and the lord of the
third house being in the eighth, and the significator being combust, in
conjunction with the lord of the eighth, and the hyleg afflicted by the
evil planets, makes it more certain. His significator being in the
eleventh house denotes that at the present time he is well situated and
with some near friend (I should judge, as he is well aspected with the
moon, the lady of the third house, a brother), and happy. Mars being in
the ascendant, and the cusp of the first house wanting only three
degrees of the place of the evil planet in a common sign, I judge the
time of death to occur in three weeks' time, and that it will be caused
by a sword or dagger wound, by which Mars kills. The danger lies to the
south-west--south, because the quarter of the heaven where the lord of
the ascendant is, is south-west, because the sign where he is, is west."
John Inglesant read this paper two or three times, and returned it to
his brother with a smile. "I should not be greatly alarmed at it," said
he; "that is not a true horoscope, or rather it is a true horoscope
tampered with. The man who erected the scheme, I should say, was an
honest man, though not a very clever astrologer. It has, however, as
most schemes have, a glimmering of a truth not otherwise known (you and
I being together, which no one at Oulton could have thought of, though
you see he was wrong as to the time); but some other hand has been at
work upon the judgment, and a very unskilful one. It contradicts
itself. What is most important, however, is that the artist has no
ground to take Saturn for your significator, which should be either the
lord of the third house, the cusp of the third, or the planets therein,
neither of which Saturn is. Besides, he takes the place of Fortune to
be hyleg, for which he has no ground. He has taken Saturn as
significator, as suiting what he knows of your character, and I think
there is no doubt the Italian's hand is in this. Now I should rather
say that Venus, the lady of the third, being significator and applying
to a friendly trine of Jupiter, lord of the ascendant, and Saturn being
retrograde, and Venus also casting a sextile to the cusp of the
ascendant, is a very good argument that the querent should see the
quesited speedily, and that in perfect health. I would have you think
no more of this rubbish, with which a wicked man has tried to make the
heavens themselves speak falsely."
"I did not know you were so good an astrologer, Johnny," said his
brother.
"Father St. Clare taught it me among other things," said Inglesant; "and
I have seen many strange answers that he has known himself; but it is
shameful that the science should be made a tool of by designing men."
Eustace returned the papers to his pockets, and requested his brother
again to prepare to leave the Tower at once. After taking leave of the
Lieutenant, and feeing the warders, the two brothers departed in a coach
in which Eustace had come to the Tower, and went to the lodgings of the
latter in Holborn. Eustace furnished his brother with clothes until he
could procure some for himself, and gave him money liberally, of which
he seemed to have no stint. He wished his brother to come with him to
all the places of resort in the city, but Johnny prudently declined.
Indeed, the city was so quiet and dull, that few places of amusement
remained. The theatres were entirely closed. Whitehall was sombre and
nearly empty, and the public walks were filled only with the townspeople
in staid and sober attire. The two brothers were therefore reduced to
each other's society, and it seemed as though absence or a sense of
danger united them with a warmth of affection which they had seldom
before known.
To John Inglesant, who had always been devotedly attached to his
brother, this display of affection was delightful, cut off as he had
been so long from all sympathy and friendliness. Dressed in his
brother's clothes, the likeness which had once been so striking returned
again, and as they walked the streets people turned to look at them with
surprise. The brothers felt in their hearts old feelings and thoughts
returning, which had long been forgotten and had passed away; and to
John Inglesant especially, always given to half melancholy musings and
brooding over the past, all his happiest recollections seemed to
concentrate themselves on his brother, the last human relation that
seemed left to him, since he had, as he thought, lost the favour of all
his friends, relations, and acquaintances in the world. Possibly a
sense of a great misfortune made this sentiment more tender and acute,
for, as we shall see, there were some things in his brother's position,
and in the horoscope he had shown him, which Inglesant did not like. At
present, however, his whole nature, so long crushed down and lacerated,
seemed to expand and heal itself in the light of his brother's love and
person, and to concentrate all its powers into one intense feeling, and
to lose its own identity in this passion of brotherly regard.
This feeling might also be increased by his own state of health, which
made him cling closer to any support, His long imprisonment, and the
sudden change from his quiet cell to all the bustle of the city life,
affected his mind and brain painfully. He was confused and excited
among a crowd of persons and objects to which he had been so long
unaccustomed; his brain and system had received a shock from which he
never entirely recovered, and for some time, at any rate, he walked as
one who is in a dream, rather than as a man engaged in the active
pursuits of life.
After two or three days Eustace told his brother one morning that he was
ready to go into the west, but before starting he said he wished Johnny
to accompany him to a famous astrologer in Lambeth Marsh, to whom
already he had shown the horoscope, and who had appointed a meeting that
night to give his answer, and who had also promised to consult a
crystal, as an additional means of obtaining information of the future.
Accordingly, late in the afternoon, they took a wherry at the Temple
Stairs, and were ferried over to Lambeth Marsh, a wide extent of level
ground between Southwark and the Bishop's Palace, on which only a few
straggling houses had been built. The evening was dark and foggy, and a
cold wind swept across the marsh, making them wrap their short cloaks
closely about them. It was almost impossible to see more than a yard or
two before them, and they would probably have found great difficulty in
finding the wizard's house had not a boy with a lantern met them a few
paces from the river, who inquired if they were seeking the astrologer.
This was the wizard's own boy, whom, with considerable worldly prudence
at any rate, he had despatched to find his clients and bring them to his
house. The boy brought them into a long low room, with very little
furniture in it, a small table at the upper end, with a large chair
behind it, and three or four high-backed chairs placed along the wall.
On the floor, in the middle of the room, was a large double circle, but
there were no figures or signs of any kind about it. On the table was a
long thin rod. A lamp which hung from the roof over the table cast a
faint light about the room, and a brazier of lighted coals stood in the
chimney.
The astrologer soon entered the room with the horoscope Eustace had left
with him in his hand. He was a fine-looking man, with a serious and
lofty expression of face, dressed in a black gown, with the square cap
of a divine, and a fur hood or tippet. He bowed courteously to the
gentlemen, who saluted him with great respect. His manner was coldest
to John Inglesant, whom he probably regarded with suspicion as an
amateur. He, however, acknowledged that Inglesant's criticisms on the
horoscope were correct, but pointed out to him that in his own reading
of it many of the aspects were very adverse. John Inglesant knew this,
though he had chosen to conceal it from his brother. The astrologer
then informed them that he had drawn out a scheme of the heavens himself
at the moment when first consulted by Eustace, and that, in quite
different ways, and by very different aspects, much the same result had
been arrived at. "As, however," he went on to say, "the whole question
is to some extent vitiated by the suspicion of foul play, and it will be
impossible for any of us to free our minds entirely from these
suspicions, I do not advise any farther inquiry; but I propose that you
should consult a consecrated beryl or crystal--a mode of inquiry far
more high and certain than astrology, so much so, indeed, that I will
seriously confess to you that I use the latter but as the countenance
and blind; but this search in the crystal is by the help of the blessed
spirits, and is open only to the pure from sin, and to men of piety,
humility, and charity."
As he said these words he produced from the folds of his gown a large
crystal or polished stone, set in a circle of gold, supported by a
silver stand. Round the circle were engraved the names of angels. He
placed this upon the table, and continued,--
"We must pray to God that He will vouchsafe us some insight into this
precious stone; for it is a solemn and serious matter upon which we are,
second only to that of communication with the angelical creatures
themselves, which, indeed, is vouchsafed to some, but only to those of
the greatest piety, to which we may not aspire. Therefore let us kneel
down and humbly pray to God."
They all knelt, and the adept, commencing with the Prayer-book collect
for the festival of St. Michael, recited several other prayers, all for
extreme and spotless purity of life.
He then rose, the two others continuing on their knees, and struck a
small bell, upon which the boy whom they had before seen entered the
room by a concealed door in the wainscot. He was a pretty boy, with a
fair and clean skin, and was dressed in a surplice similar to those worn
by choristers. He took up a position by the crystal, and waited his
master's orders.
"I have said," continued the adept, "that these visions can be seen only
by the pure, and by those who, by long and intense looking into the
spiritual world, have at last penetrated somewhat into its gloom. I
have found these mostly to be plain and simple people, of an earnest
faith,--country people, grave-diggers, and those employed to shroud the
dead, and who are accustomed to think much upon objects connected with
death. This boy is the child of the sexton of Lambeth Church, who is
himself a godly man. Let us pray to God."
Upon this he knelt down again and remained for some time engaged in
silent prayer. He then rose and directed the boy to look into the
crystal, saying, "One of these gentlemen desires news of his wife."
The boy looked intently into the crystal for some moments, and then
said, speaking in a measured and low voice,--
"I see a great room, in which there is a bed with rich hangings; pendant
from the ceiling is a silver lamp. A tall dark man, with long hair, and
a dagger in his belt, is bending over the bed with a cup in his hand."
"It is my wife's room," said Eustace in a whisper, "and it is no doubt
the Italian; he is tall and dark."