inted the King's whole
nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining
to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His
defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had
been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had
not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but
never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole
and to undermine Cromwell.

Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment
of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his
own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save
a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and
misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was
made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that,
in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal
sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with
his blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy
predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in
no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not
midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a
spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting
remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That
the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly
opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party
bent on effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order
to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first
break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this
necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed
a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the
majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that
the King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed.
No court, known to the law, would take on itself the office of judging
the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That
tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a
public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before
thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own
palace.

In no long time