unhappy King, whom you and I both wish the Parliament had spared;
but they got no answer. The Scottish Commissioners interceded too;
so did the Prince of Wales, by a letter in which he offered as the
next heir to the throne, to accept any conditions from the
Parliament; so did the Queen, by letter likewise.
Notwithstanding all, the warrant for the execution was this day
signed. There is a story that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table
with the pen in his hand to put his signature to it, he drew his
pen across the face of one of the commissioners, who was standing
near, and marked it with ink. That commissioner had not signed his
own name yet, and the story adds that when he came to do it he
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marked Cromwell’s face with ink in the same way.
The King slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it was his
last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of January, two
hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. He put on two
shirts lest he should tremble with the cold, and had his hair very
carefully combed. The warrant had been directed to three officers
of the army, COLONEL HACKER, COLONEL HUNKS, and COLONEL PHAYER. At
ten o’clock, the first of these came to the door and said it was
time to go to Whitehall. The King, who had always been a quick
walker, walked at his usual speed through the Park, and called out
to the guard, with his accustomed voice of command, ‘March on
apace!’ When he came to Whitehall, he was taken to his own
bedroom, where a breakfast was set forth. As he had taken the
Sacrament, he would eat nothing more; but, at about the time when
the church bells struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through
the scaffold not being ready), he took the advice of the good
BISHOP JUXON who was with him, and ate a little bread and drank a
glass of claret. Soon after he had taken this refreshment, Colonel
Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand, and called
for Charles Stuart.
And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, which he
had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, in very
different times, the fallen King passed along, until he came to the
centre window of the Banqueting House, through which he emerged
upon the scaffold, which was hung with black. He looked at the two
executioners, who were dressed in black and masked; he looked at
the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot, and all looked up
at him in silence; he looked at the vast array of spectators,
filling up the view beyond, and turning all their faces upon him;
he looked at his old Palace of St. James’s; and he looked at the
block. He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, and
asked, ‘if there were no place higher?’ Then, to those upon the
scaffold, he said, ‘that it was the Parliament who had begun the
war, and not he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill
instruments had gone between them. In one respect,’ he said, ‘he
suffered justly; and that was because he had permitted an unjust
sentence to be executed on another.’ In this he referred to the
Earl of Strafford.
He was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily.
When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off
and called out, ‘Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!’ He
also said to Colonel Hacker, ‘Take care that they do not put me to
pain.’ He told the executioner, ‘I shall say but very short
prayers, and then thrust out my hands’ – as the sign to strike.
He put his hair up, under a white satin cap which the bishop had
carried, and said, ‘I have a good cause and a gracious God on my
side.’ The bishop told him that he had but one stage more to