one or two persons who
were near, knowing that they would put the substance of it on record,
and thus make it known to all mankind. There was then some further
conversation about the preparations for the final blow, the adjustment
of the dress, the hair, &c., in which the king took an active part,
with great composure. He then kneeled down and laid his head upon the
block.

The executioner, who wore a mask that he might not be known, began to
adjust the hair of the prisoner by putting it up under his cap, when
the king, supposing that he was going to strike, hastily told him to
wait for the sign. The executioner said that he would. The king spent
a few minutes in prayer, and then stretched out his hands, which was
the sign which he had arranged to give. The axe descended. The
dissevered head, with the blood streaming from it, was held up by the
assistant executioner, for the gratification of the vast crowd which
was gazing on the scene. He said, as he raised it, "Behold the head
of a traitor!"

The body was placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and taken
back through the window into the room from which the monarch had
walked out, in life and health, but a few moments before. A day or two
afterward it was taken to Windsor Castle upon a hearse drawn by six
horses and covered with black velvet. It was there interred in a vault
in the chapel, with an inscription upon lead over the coffin:

KING CHARLES
1648.

After the death of Charles, a sort of republic was established in
England, called the Commonwealth, over which, instead of a king,
Oliver Cromwell presided, under the title of Protector. The country
was, however, in a very anomalous and unsettled state. It became more
distracted still after the death of the Protector, and it was only
twelve years after beheading the father that the people of England, by
common consent, called back the son to the throne. It seems as if
there could be no stable government in a country where any very large
portion of the inhabitants are destitute of property, without the aid
of that mysterious but all controlling principle of the human breast,
a spirit of reverence for the rights, and dread of the power of an
hereditary crown. In the United States almost every man is the
possessor of property. He has his house, his little farm, his shop and
implements of labor, or something which is his own, and which he feels
would be jeopardized