wife rushed into her husband's chamber at Westminster (where he had been lodged for safety and convenience), and solemnly beseeched him, by his hopes of happiness here and hereafter, to absent himself in future from Westminster Hall. "Do not," she said, "sentence this earthly king, for fear of the dreadful sentence of the King of Heaven; you have no child, why should you do such a monstrous act to favour others?" Bradshaw pushed her away. "I confess," he said, "he has done me no harm, nor will I do him any, except what the law commands." Bradshaw, it would seem, was intoxicated with the extraordinary position in which he found himself placed; the insignificant lawyer had risen to be the judge of his sovereign, the elected chief magistrate of the people of England. This day the president entered the hall in his scarlet gown, a signal to Charles that his doom was fixed, and that, before another sun had set, the fatal sentence would be pronounced.

After a vulgar and tiresome tirade from Bradshaw, the "Oh, yes," was pronounced, and silence commanded in the court. The clerk then read the sentence, which formally accused him of being the author and continuer of the late unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars, and consequently guilty of high treason, and of all the murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages, and mischiefs occasioned by, and committed during, the

said wars; "for which treason and crimes," it proceeded, "this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death, by severing his head from his body." As soon as the sentence was concluded, the king smiled calmly, lifting up his eyes as if pleading for that mercy in heaven which he was denied upon earth.

Bradshaw then stood up. "The sentence now read and published," he said, "is the act, sentence, judgment, and resolution of the whole court." On this, as had already been agreed upon, the whole of the judges also rose, as a tacit acknowledgment of their acquiescence and consent. The king, with the same placid smile, inquired of the president if he would hear him for a few moments.

Bradshaw. No, sir, by your favour. Guards, withdraw your prisoner.

Charles.I may speak after the sentence, by your favour, sir. I may speak after the sentence, By your favour

ever. By your

Bradshaw. - Hold!

Charles. The sentence, sir; I say, sir, I doBradshaw.

Charles.

Hold!

I am not suffered to speak! Expect what justice the people will have.

Before he could say more, the king was removed by the guards. The regicides accounted for their refusal to listen to the condemned monarch by an argument too absurd even to be plausible. The king, they said, being accounted dead in law, a hearing could not be permitted. As Charles passed, for the last time, through that famous hall, the banqueting-room of the kings, his ancestors, and the trial scene of more than one of his own friends, he was insulted in the grossest manner by the poor hirelings whom he passed. soldiers not only smoked their tobacco in his face, and threw their pipes before him in his path, but also heaped on him the lowest and most virulent abuse.

The

From Westminster the king was conveyed, in a sedan-chair, through a double line of soldiers, to his chambers at Whitehall. As he passed through King Street, the more respectable inhabitants, many of them with tears in their eyes, stood at their stalls and windows, offering up audible prayers, some for his temporal safety, and others for his eternal happiness. After a delay of two hours he was removed to St. James's, where he passed the three remaining days of his life.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHARLES I.

Charles's Dignity and Fortitude in His Last Hours His Preparation for Death - Herbert's Mission to Lady WheelerThe King's Farewell - Interview with His Children - The Fatal Morning - The King's Bequests - His DevotionsHis Progress from St. James's to the Scaffold - His Arrival at Whitehall The Summons to Execution.

THE importance of religion and the advantages of a virtuous life were never more beautifully exemplified than in the last hours of Charles. His accumulated miseries, his loss of power, and the prospect of dissolution, were nothing to a mind prepared like his, to the brave man, the pious Christian, the conscientious monarch. How well did he say to Lord Digby, "Either I will live as a king, or die like a gentleman." There was nothing of that fanatical enthusiasm, or those false and rapturous ecstasies, which so often sullied the zeal and sanctity of his persecutors. His death was that of a good man, who forgave his persecutors, and trusted in his God. His dignity and his fortitude, too, were all his own. Bishop Juxon, his spiritual adviser, was a cold, dry man, but little

calculated to excite an adventitious enthusiasm in the last hours of life.

"I

With the assistance of this prelate, the king prepared himself for the latest scene. Having sent his kindest remembrances to his friends, he gave directions that he should by no means be interrupted in his preparation for death. know," he said, "my nephew, the elector, will endeavour it, and other lords that love me, which I should take in good part, but my time is short and precious, and I am desirous to improve it the best I may in preparation. I hope they will not take it ill that none have access to me but my children. The best office they can do now is to pray for me." The same night, according to a contemporary journal, The Moderate Intelligencer, "he commanded his dogs should be taken away, and sent to his wife, as not willing to have anything present that might take him off from serious consideration of himself. Being desired to say somewhat, how far he was guilty of the death of his father, and the rebellion of Ireland, he said, 'With reverence of God be it spoken, he had done nothing that he needed to ask pardon for.'" When some of the dissenting ministers requested permission to pray with him, he told them he had already selected his ghostly adviser; at the same time, thanking them for their offer, and desiring they would remember him in their prayers.

On one of the intermediate nights between his