is temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten
because he hath died like a martyr?

"He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of virtues as might
make his vices most dangerous. He was not a tyrant after our wonted
English model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, and
the eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and
of wine, of no outward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler after
the Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober
diet; as constant at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as an
atheist."

Mr Cowley answered somewhat sharply: "I am sorry, Sir, to hear you speak
thus. I had hoped that the vehemence of spirit which was caused by these
violent times had now abated. Yet, sure, Mr Milton, whatever you may
think of the character of King Charles, you will not still justify his
murder?"

"Sir," said Mr Milton, "I must have been of a hard and strange nature,
if the vehemence which was imputed to me in my younger days had not been
diminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath pleased Almighty God
to chasten my age. I will not now defend all that I may heretofore have
written. But this I say, that I perceive not wherefore a king should be
exempted from all punishment. Is it just that where most is given least
should be required? Or politic that where there is the greatest power to
injure there should be no danger to restrain? But, you will say,
there is no such law. Such a law there is. There is the law of
selfpreservation written by God himself on our hearts. There is the
primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, or sealed with
wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form of
words by men when of old they came together; but implied in the very act
that they so came together, pre-supposed in all subsequent law, not to
be repealed by any authority, nor invalidated by being omitted in any
code; inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all authority.

"Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and, indeed, many of us
whom you merrily call Roundheads, distinguish between those who fought
against King Charles, and specially after the second commission given to
Sir Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned him to death. Sure, if his
person were inviolable, it was as wicked to lift the sword against it at
Naseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his life might justly be taken, why
not i