action, committed in the name of all," the right of
the majority was so little respected by these false assertors of liberty
of opinion, "that it was now a state offence to express the natural
feelings of compunction and pity." Driven to their own houses by the
satellites of usurpation, tyranny, and murder, the people then gave vent
to their tears and execrations. The contrite prayers of a sinful nation
arose from every dwelling; and, like the blood of the Paschal Lamb on
the doors of the Israelites, implored Divine Mercy to avert the sword of
the destroying angel from them and their families, when he should be
sent in wrathful visitation to take vengeance for that detestable
regicide.

[1] For a very interesting account of what passed at Pontefract
Castle, and of the adventures of Colonel Morrice; see Clarendon,
vol. iii.

[2] Henry, a pious and eminent Nonconformist divine, gives this
account of the awful sensation generally produced by the King's
murder.

CHAP. XVIII.

Vast confusion waits;
As doth the raven on a sick-fall'n beast,
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest.

Shakspeare.

I avoid dwelling on the bitter anguish of the Beaumont family at the
dreadful catastrophe of the long-imprisoned King. Its pious head added
largely to his intercessory prayers, imploring heaven to avert its
vengeance from all who had inadvertently been accessary to the fact, to
forgive those who repented of the heinous sin, and to soften the hearts
of those who still gloried in having murdered their Sovereign. For the
English nation, his petitions were most fervent and impressive. The
character of the young King had in it some traits which excited his
apprehension; he prayed earnestly that they might be found (as many
people said they were) merely the exuberance of youth; and that the
acknowledged grace and affability of his manners, and the placableness
of his temper, might ornament, but not supplant, those christian virtues
and noble principles which had so eminently distinguished his father.
Considering the provocations the people had committed, the great
dissoluteness of one sort, and the wild fanaticism or palpable hypocrisy
of the others, added to the furious passions and implacable resentments
which were excited, especially by this last de