 Chapter 33 of a Child's History of England. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gwyneth Connell. A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens. Chapter 33, England under Charles I. Baby Charles became King Charles I in the 25th year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his private character and grave and dignified in his bearing. But, like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the rights of a king and was evasive and not to be trusted. If his word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a different end. His first care was to send over that insolent upstart Buckingham to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his queen, upon which occasion Buckingham, with his usual audacity, made love to the young Queen of Austria and was very indignant indeed with Cardinal Richelieu, the French minister, for thwarting his intentions. The English people were very well disposed to like their new queen and to receive her with great favor when she came among them as a stranger. But she held the Protestant religion in great dislike and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests who made her do some very ridiculous things and forced themselves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence the people soon came to dislike her and she soon came to dislike them and she did so much all through this reign in setting the king, who was dotingly fond of her, against his subjects that it would have been better for him if she had never been born. Now you are to understand that King Charles I of his own determination to be a high and mighty king, not to be called to account by anybody and urged on by his queen besides, deliberately set himself to put his parliament down and to put himself up. You are also to understand that even in pursuit of this wrong idea, enough in itself to have ruined any king, he never took a straight course but always took a crooked one. He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that war, now that they began to think a little more about the story of the Spanish match. But the king rushed into it hotly, raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses and encountered a miserable failure at Cadiz in the very first year of his reign. An expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder, but as it was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from the parliament. And when they met in no very complying humor, the king told them to make haste to let him have it or it would be the worst for themselves. Not put in a more complying humor by this, they impeached the king's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, as the cause, which he undoubtedly was, of many great public grievances and wrongs. The king, to save him, dissolved the parliament without getting the money he wanted. And when the lords implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, no, not one minute. He then began to raise money for himself by the following means among others. He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage, which had not been granted by the parliament and could lawfully be levied by no other power. He called upon the seaport towns to furnish and to pay all the costs for three months of a fleet of armed ships. And he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money, the repayment of which was very doubtful. If the poor people refused, they were pressed as soldiers or sailors. If the gentry refused, they were sent to prison. Five gentlemen named Sir Thomas Darnell, John Corbett, Walter Earl, John Heaveningham, and Everard Hampton for refusing were taken up by a warrant of the king's privy council and were sent to prison without any cause, but the king's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then the question came to be solemnly tried whether this was not a violation of Magna Carta and an encroachment by the king on the highest rights of the English people. His lawyers contended, no, because to encroach upon the rights of the English people would be to do wrong and the king could do no wrong. The accommodating judges decided in favor of this wicked nonsense and here was a fatal division between the king and the people. For all this it became necessary to call another parliament. The people sensible of the danger in which their liberties were chose for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to the king, but still the king quite blinded by his determination to carry everything before him addressed them when they met in a contemptuous manner and just told them in so many words that he had only called them together because he wanted money. The parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared little for what he said and laid before him one of the great documents of history which is called the petition of right requiring that the free men of England should no longer be called upon to lend the king money and should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so. Further, that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the king's special mandate or warrant it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the king returned an answer to this position in which he tried to shirk it altogether, but the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the king in alarm returned an answer giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and honor on these points over and over again, but at this very time he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first answer and not his second, merely that the people might suppose that the parliament had not got the better of him. That pestilent Buckingham to gratify his own wounded vanity had by this time involved the country in war with France as well as with Spain. For such miserable causes and such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made, but he was destined to do little more mischief in this world. One morning as he was going out of his house to his carriage he turned to speak to a certain Colonel Fryer who was with him and he was violently stabbed with a knife which the murderer left sticking in his heart. This happened in his hall. He had had angry words upstairs just before with some French gentlemen who were immediately suspected by his servants and had a close escape from being set upon and killed. In the midst of the noise the real murderer who had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away drew his sword and cried out, I am the man. His name was John Felton, a Protestant and a retired officer in the army. He said he had no personal ill will to the Duke but had killed him as a curse to the country. He had aimed his blow well for Buckingham had time to cry out, Villain. And then he drew out the knife, fell against a table and died. The council made a mighty business of examining John Felton about this murder though it was a plain case enough one would think. He had come 70 miles to do it, he told them and he did it for the reason he had declared. If they put him upon the rack as that noble Marquis of Dorset whom he saw before him had the goodness to threaten. He gave that Marquis warning that he would accuse him as his accomplice. The King was unpleasantly anxious to have him racked nevertheless but as the judges now found out that torture was contrary to the law of England it is a pity they did not make the discovery a little sooner. John Felton was simply executed for the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was and not in the least to be defended though he had freed England from one of the most profligate, contemptible and base court favorites to whom it has ever yielded. A very different man now arose. This was Sir Thomas Wentworth, a Yorkshire gentleman who had sat in parliament for a long time and who had favored arbitrary and haughty principles but who had gone over to the people's side on receiving offense from Buckingham. The King much wanting such a man for besides being naturally favorable to the King's cause he had great abilities, made him first a baron and then a vicount and gave him high employment and won him most completely. A parliament however was still in existence and was not to be won. On the 20th of January 1629 Sir John Elliott, a great man who had been active in the petition of right brought forward other strong resolutions against the King's chief instruments and called upon the speaker to put them to the vote. To this the speaker answered, he was commanded otherwise by the King and got up to leave the chair which according to the rules of the House of Commons would have obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more. When two members named Mr. Hollis and Mr. Valentine held him down. A scene of great confusion arose among the members and while many swords were drawn and flashing about the King who was kept informed of all that was going on told the captain of his guard to go down to the house and force the doors. The resolutions were by that time however voted and the house adjourned. Sir John Elliott and those two members who had held the speaker down were quickly summoned before the council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to answer out of parliament for anything they had said in it they were committed to the tower. The King then went down and dissolved the parliament in a speech wherein he made mention of these gentlemen as vipers which did not do him much good that ever I have heard of. As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for what they had done the King always remarkably unforgiving never overlooked their offense. When they demanded to be brought up before the court of King's bench he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about from prison to prison so that the rits issued for that purpose should not legally find them. At last they came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines and to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure. When Sir John Elliott's health had quite given way and he so longed for change of air and scene as to petition for his release the King sent back the answer worthy of his sow ship himself that the petition was not humble enough. When he sent another petition by his young son in which he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was restored if he might be released for its recovery the King still disregarded it. When he died in the tower and his children petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall there to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers the King returned for answer let Sir John Elliott's body be buried in the church of that parish where he died. All this was like a very little King indeed I think. And now for 12 long years steadily pursuing his design of setting himself up and putting the people down the King called no parliament but ruled without one. If 12,000 volumes were written in his praise as a good many have been it would still remain a fact impossible to be denied that for 12 years King Charles I reigned in England unlawfully and despotically seized upon his subjects goods and money at his pleasure and punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose him. It is a fashion with some people to think that this King's career was cut short but I must say myself that I think he ran a pretty long one. William Lodd Archbishop of Canterbury was the King's right hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's liberties. Lodd who was a sincere man of large learning but small sense for the two things sometimes go together in very different quantities. Though a Protestant held opinions so near those of the Catholics that the Pope wanted to make a cardinal of him if he would have accepted that favor. He looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, images and so forth as amazingly important in religious ceremonies and he brought in an immensity of bowing and candle snuffing. He also regarded archbishops and bishops as a sort of miraculous persons and was inveterate in the last degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly he offered up thanks to heaven and was in a state of much pious pleasure when a Scotch clergyman named Layton was pilloried, whipped, branded in the cheek and had one of his ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit for calling bishops trumpery and the inventions of men. He originated on a Sunday morning the prosecution of William Prynne, a barrister who was of similar opinions and who was fined a thousand pounds who was pilloried who had his ears cut off on two occasions, one ear at a time and who was imprisoned for life. He highly approved of the punishment of Dr. Bastwick, a physician who was also fined a thousand pounds and who afterwards had his ears cut off and was imprisoned for life. These were gentle methods of persuasion, some will tell you. I think they were rather calculated to be alarming to the people. In the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties the king was equally gentle as some will tell you as I think equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and poundage and increased them as he thought fit. He granted monopolies to companies of merchants on their paying him for them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had for years and years been made on the subject of monopolies. He fined the people for disobeying proclamations issued by his sowship and direct violation of law. He revived the detested forest laws and took private property to himself as his forest right. Above all, he determined to have what was called ship money, that is to say money for the support of the fleet not only from the seaports, but from all the counties of England. Having found out that in some ancient time or other all the counties paid it. The grievance of this ship money being somewhat too strong, John Chambers, a citizen of London refused to pay his part of it. For this the Lord Mayor ordered John Chambers to prison and for that John Chambers brought a suit against the Lord Mayor. Lord Say also behaved like a real nobleman and declared he would not pay. But the sturdiest and best opponent of the ship money was John Hampton, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire who had sat among the vipers in the House of Commons when there was such a thing and who had been the bosom friend of Sir John Elliott. The case was tried before the 12 judges in the Court of Exchequer. And again, the king's lawyers said it was impossible that ship money could be wrong because the king could do no wrong, however hard he tried and he really did try very hard during these 12 years. Seven of the judges said that was quite true and Mr. Hampton was bound to pay. Five of the judges said that was quite false and Mr. Hampton was not bound to pay. So the king triumphed, as he thought, by making Hampton the most popular man in England where matters were getting to that height now that many honest Englishmen could not endure their country and sailed away across the seas to found a colony in Massachusetts Bay in America. It is said that Hampton himself and his relation Oliver Cromwell were going with the company of such voyagers and were actually on board ship when they were stopped by a proclamation prohibiting sea captains to carry out such passengers without the royal license. But oh, it would have been well for the king if he had let them go. This was the state of England. If Lord had been a madman just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief than he did in Scotland. In his endeavors in which he was seconded by the king, then in person in that part of his dominions to force his own ideas of bishops and his own religious forms and ceremonies upon the Scotch, he roused that nation to a perfect frenzy. They formed a solemn league which they called the Covenant for the preservation of their own religious forms. They rose in arms throughout the whole country, they summoned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by beat of drum. They sang Psalms in which they compared their enemies to all the evil spirits that ever were heard of and they solemnly vowed to smite them with the sword. At first the king tried force, then treaty, then a Scottish parliament which did not answer at all. Then he tried the Earl of Straford, formerly Sir Thomas Wentworth who as Lord Wentworth had been governing Ireland. He too had carried it with a very high hand there though to the benefit and prosperity of that country. Straford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people by force of arms. Other lords who were taken into council recommended that a parliament should at last be called to which the king unwillingly consented. So on the 13th of April, 1640, that then strange sight, a parliament, was seen at Westminster. It is called the short parliament for it lasted a very little while. While the members were all looking at one another doubtful who would dare to speak, Mr. Pym arose and set forth all that the king had done unlawfully during the past 12 years and what was the position to which England was reduced. This great example said, other members took courage and spoke the truth freely though with great patience and moderation. The king a little frightened sent to say that if they would grant him a certain sum on certain terms, no more ship money should be raised. They debated the matter for two days and then as they would not give him all he asked without promise or inquiry, he dissolved them. But they knew very well that he must have a parliament now and he began to make that discovery too though rather late in the day. Wherefore on the 24th of September, being then at York with an army collected against the Scottish people, but his own men, sullen and discontented like the rest of the nation, the king told the great council of the lords whom he had called to meet him there that he would summon another parliament to assemble on the 3rd of November. The soldiers of the Covenant had now forced their way into England and had taken possession of the Northern counties where the coals are got. As it would never do to be without coals and as the king's troops could make no head against the Covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce was made and a treaty with Scotland was taken into consideration. Meanwhile, the Northern counties paid the Covenanters to leave the coals alone and keep quiet. We have now disposed of the short parliament, we have next to see what memorable things were done by the long one. Second part, the long parliament assembled on the 3rd of November, 1641. That day week, the Earl of Stratford arrived from York, very sensible that the spirited and determined men who formed that parliament were no friends towards him who had not only deserted the cause of the people but who had on all occasions opposed himself to their liberties. The king told him for his comfort that the parliament should not hurt one hair of his head. But on the very next day Mr. Pym in the House of Commons and with great solemnity impeached the Earl of Stratford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custody and fell from his proud height. It was the 22nd of March before he was brought to trial in Westminster Hall where although he was very ill and suffered great pain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty that it was doubtful whether he would not get the best of it. But on the 13th day of the trial, Pym produced in the House of Commons a copy of some notes of a council found by young Sir Harry Vane in a red velvet cabinet belonging to his father, Secretary Vane, who sat at the council table with the Earl, in which Stratford had distinctly told the king that he was free from all rules and obligations of government and might do with his people whatever he liked and in which he had added, you have an army in Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience. It was not clear whether by the words this kingdom he had really meant England or Scotland, but the Parliament contended that he meant England and this was treason. At the same sitting of the House of Commons, it was resolved to bring in a bill of attainer declaring the treason to have been committed in preference to proceeding with the trial by impeachment which would have required the treason to be proved. So a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the House of Commons by a large majority and was sent up to the House of Lords. While it was still uncertain whether the House of Lords would pass it and the king consent to it, Pym disclosed to the House of Commons that the king and queen had both been plotting with the officers of the army to bring up the soldiers and control the Parliament and also to introduce 200 soldiers into the Tower of London to affect the Earl's escape. The plotting with the army was revealed by one George Goreing, the son of a lord of that name, a bad fellow who was one of the original plotters and turned traitor. The king had actually given his warrant for the admission of the 200 men into the tower and they would have got in too but for the refusal of the governor, a sturdy Scotchman by the name of Balfour to admit them. These matters being made public, great numbers of people began to riot outside the Houses of Parliament and to cry out for the execution of the Earl of Stratford as one of the king's chief instruments against them. The bill passed the House of Lords while the people were in this state of agitation and was laid before the king for his assent, together with another bill declaring that the Parliament then assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned without their own consent. The king, not unwilling to save a faithful servant though he had no great attachment for him, was in some doubt what to do but he gave his consent to both bills although he in his heart believed that the bill against the Earl of Stratford was unlawful and unjust. The Earl had written to him telling him that he was willing to die for his sake but he had not expected that his royal master would take him at his word quite so readily for when he heard his doom he laid his hand upon his heart and said put not your trust in princes. The king, who never could be straightforward and plain through one single day or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a letter to the lords and sent it by the young Prince of Wales in treating them to prevail with the commons that that unfortunate man should fulfill the natural course of his life in a close imprisonment. In a post script to the very same letter he added, if he must die it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday. If there had been any doubt of his fate this weakness and meanness would have settled it. The very next day which was the 12th of May he was brought out to be beheaded on Tower Hill. Archbishop Lodd, who had been so fond of having people's ears cropped off and their noses slit was now confined in the Tower too and when the Earl went by his window to his death he was there at his request to give him his blessing. They had been great friends in the king's cause and the Earl had written to him in the days of their power that he thought it would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hampton publicly whipped for refusing to pay the ship money. However, those high and mighty doings were over now and the Earl went his way to death with dignity and heroism. The governor wished him to get into a coach at the Tower Gate for fear the people should tear him to pieces but he said it was all one to him whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands. So he walked with a firm tread and a stately look and sometimes pulled off his hat to them as he passed along. They were profoundly quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had prepared. The paper was found lying there after his head was struck off and one blow of the axe killed him in the 49th year of his age. This bold and daring act, the parliament accompanied by other famous measures all originating as even this did in the kings having so grossly and so long abused his power. The name of delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and other officers who had been concerned in raising the ship money or any other money from the people in an unlawful manner. The Hampton judgment was reversed. The judges who had decided against Hampton were called upon to give large securities that they would take such consequences this parliament might impose upon them and one was arrested as he sat in high court and carried off to prison. Loud was impeached. The unfortunate victims whose ears had been cropped and whose noses had been slit were brought out of prison in triumph and a bill was passed declaring that a parliament should be called every third year and that if the king and the king's officers did not call it, the people should assemble of themselves and summon it as of their own right and power. Great illuminations and rejoicings took place over all these things and the country was wildly excited. That the parliament took advantage of this excitement and stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt, but you are always to remember those 12 long years during which the king had tried so hard whether he really could do any wrong or not. All this time there was a great religious outcry against the right of the bishops to sit in parliament to which the Scottish people particularly objected. The English were divided on this subject and partly on this account and partly because they had had foolish expectations that the parliament would be able to take off nearly all the taxes, numbers of them sometimes wavered and inclined towards the king. I believe myself that if at this or almost any other period of his life the king could have been trusted by any man not out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his throne. But on the English army being disbanded, he plotted with the officers again as he had done before and established the fact beyond all doubt by putting his signature of approval to a petition against the parliamentary leaders which was drawn up by certain officers. When the Scottish army was disbanded, he went to Edinburgh in four days which was going very fast at that time to plot again and so darkly too that it is difficult to decide what his whole object was. Some suppose that he wanted to gain over the Scottish parliament as he did in fact gain over by presence and favors many Scottish lords and men of power. Some think that he went to get proofs against the parliamentary leaders in England of there having treasonably invited the Scottish people to come and help them. With whatever object he went to Scotland, he did little good by going. At the instigation of the Earl of Montrose, a desperate man who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to kidnap three Scottish lords who escaped. A committee of the parliament at home who had followed to watch him writing an account of this incident as it was called to the parliament, the parliament made a fresh stir about it, were or feigned to be much alarmed for themselves and wrote to the Earl of Essex, the commander in chief fur guard to protect them. It is not absolutely proved that the king plotted in Ireland besides, but it is very probable that he did and that the queen did and that he had some wild hope of gaining the Irish people over to his side by favoring a rise among them. Whether or no, they did rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion in which, encouraged by their priests, they committed such atrocities in the numbers of the English of both sexes and of all ages as nobody could believe but for their being related on oath by eyewitnesses. Whether 100,000 or 200,000 Protestants were murdered in this outbreak is uncertain, but that it was as ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known among any savage people is certain. The king came home from Scotland determined to make a great struggle for his lost power. He believed that through his presence and favors, Scotland would take no part against him and the Lord Mayor of London received him with such a magnificent dinner that he thought he must have become popular again in England. It would take a good many Lord Mayors, however, to make a people and the king soon found himself mistaken. Not so soon though, but that there was a great opposition in the parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and Hampton and the rest called the Remonstrance which set forth all the illegal acts that the king had ever done but politely laid the blame of them on his bad advisors. Even when it was passed and presented to him, the king still thought himself strong enough to discharge Balfour from his command in the tower and to put in his place a man of bad character to whom the commons instantly objected and whom he was obliged to abandon. At this time, the old outcry about the bishops became louder than ever and the old archbishop of York was so near being murdered as he went down to the House of Lords, being laid hold of by the mob and violently knocked about in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was yelping out, no bishops, that he sent for all the bishops who were in town and proposed to them to sign a declaration that as they could no longer without danger to their lives attend their duty in parliament, they protested against the lawfulness of everything done in their absence. This they asked the king to send to the House of Lords, which he did. Then the House of Commons impeached the whole party of bishops and sent them off to the tower. Taking no warning from this, but encouraged by there being a moderate party in the parliament who objected to these strong measures, the king on the 3rd of January, 1642, took the rascist step that ever was taken by mortal man. Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the attorney general to the House of Lords to accuse of treason certain members of parliament who as popular leaders were the most obnoxious to him. Lord Kimbalton, Sir Arthur Hessellrig, Denzel Hollis, John Pym, they used to call him King Pym, he possessed such power and looked so big. John Hampton and William Strode. The houses of those members he caused to be entered and their papers to be sealed up. At the same time, he sent a messenger to the House of Commons demanding to have the five gentlemen who were members of that House immediately produced. To this the House replied that they should appear as soon as there was any legal charge against them and immediately adjourned. Next day, the House of Commons sent into the city to let the Lord Mayor know that their privileges are invaded by the king and that there is no safety for anybody or anything. Then when the five members are gone out of the way, down comes the king himself with all his guard and from two to 300 gentlemen and soldiers of whom the greater part were armed. These he leaves in the hall and then with his nephew at his side goes into the house, takes off his hat and walks up to the speaker's chair. The speaker leaves it, the king stands in front of it, looks about him steadily for a little while and says he has come for those five members. No one speaks and then he calls John Pym by name. No one speaks and then he calls Denzel Hollis by name. No one speaks and then he asks the speaker of the House where those five members are. The speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies that he is the servant of that House and that he has neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak anything but what the House commands him. Upon this the king, beaten from that time ever more, replies that he will seek them himself for they have committed treason and goes out with his hat in his hand amid some audible murmurs from the members. No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when all this was known. The five members had gone for safety to a house in Coleman Street in the city where they were guarded all night and indeed the whole city watched in arms like an army. At 10 o'clock in the morning the king already frightened at what he had done came to the Guild Hall with only half a dozen lords and made a speech to the people hoping they would not shelter those whom he accused of treason. Next day he issued a proclamation for the apprehension of the five members but the parliament minded it so little that they made great arrangements for having them brought down to Westminster in great state five days afterwards. The king was so alarmed now at his own imprudence if not for his own safety that he left his palace at White Hall and went away with his queen and children to Hampton Court. It was the 11th of May when the five members were carried in state and triumphed to Westminster. They were taken by water. The river could not be seen for the boats on it and the five members were hemmed in by barges full of men and great guns ready to protect them at any cost. Along the strand a large body of the train bans of London under their commander, Skippen, marched to be ready to assist the little fleet. Beyond them came a crowd who choked the streets roaring incessantly about the bishops and the papists and crying out contemptuously as they passed White Hall. What has become of the king? With this great noise outside the House of Commons and with great silence within, Mr. Pym rose and informed the house of the great kindness with which they had been received in the city. Upon that, the house called the sheriffs in and thanked them and requested the train bans under their commander, Skippen, to guard the House of Commons every day. Then came 4,000 men on horseback out of Buckinghamshire offering their services as a guard too and bearing a petition to the king, complaining of the injury that had been done to Mr. Hampton, who was their county man and much beloved and honoured. When the king set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen and soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town as far as Kingston upon Thames. Next day, Lord Digby came to them from the king at Hampton Court in his coach and six to inform them that the king accepted their protection. This, the parliament said, was making war against the kingdom and Lord Digby fled abroad. The parliament then immediately applied themselves to getting hold of the military power of the country, well knowing that the king was already trying hard to use it against them and that he had secretly sent the Earl of Newcastle to Hull to secure a valuable magazine of arms and gunpowder that was there. In those times, every county had its own magazines of arms and powder for its own train bans or militia, so the parliament brought in a bill claiming the right, which up to this time had belonged to the king, of appointing the Lord Lieutenants of Counties who commanded these train bans, also of having all the forts, castles and garrisons in the kingdom put into the hands of such governors as they the parliament could confide in. It also passed a law depriving the bishops of their votes. The king gave his assent to that bill but would not abandon the right of appointing the Lord Lieutenants, though he said he was willing to appoint such as might be suggested to him by the parliament. When the Earl of Pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on that question for a time, he said, by God, not for one hour and upon this he and the parliament went to war. His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange on pretense of taking her to the country of her future husband, the queen was already got safely away to Holland, there to pawn the crown jewels for money to raise an army on the king's side. The Lord Admiral being sick, the House of Commons now named the Earl of Warwick to hold his place for a year. The king named another gentleman, the House of Commons took its own way and the Earl of Warwick became Lord Admiral without the king's consent. The parliament sent orders down to Hull to have that magazine removed to London. The king went down to Hull to take it himself. The citizens would not admit him into the town and the governor would not admit him into the castle. The parliament resolved that whatever the two houses passed and the king would not consent to, should be called an ordinance and should be as much a law as if he did consent to it. The king protested against this and gave notice that these ordinances were not to be obeyed. The king, attended by the majority of the House of Peers and by many members of the House of Commons established himself at York. The chancellor went to him with the great seal and the parliament made a new great seal. The queen sent over a ship full of arms and ammunition and the king issued letters to borrow money at high interest. The parliament raised 20 regiments of foot and 75 troops of horse and the people willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewelry and trinkets, the married women even with their wedding rings. Every member of parliament who could raise a troop or a regiment in his own part of the country dressed it according to his taste and in his own colors and commanded it. Foremost among them all, Oliver Cromwell raised a troop of horse, thoroughly and earnest and thoroughly well armed who were perhaps the best soldiers that ever were seen. In some of their proceedings this famous parliament passed the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favored riotous assemblages of the people and acted tyrannically in imprisoning some who differed from the popular leaders. But again, you are always to remember that the 12 years during which the king had had his own willful way had gone before and that nothing could make the times what they might, could, would or should have been if those 12 years had never rolled away. Third part. I shall not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war between King Charles I and the long parliament which lasted nearly four years and a full account of which would fill many large books. It was a sad thing that Englishmen should once more be fighting against Englishmen on English ground, but it is some consolation to know that on both sides there was great humanity forbearance and honor. The soldiers of the parliament were far more remarkable for these good qualities than the soldiers of the king, many of whom fought for mere pay without much caring for the cause. But those of the nobility and gentry who were on the king's side were so brave and so faithful to him that their conduct cannot but command our highest admiration. Among them were great numbers of Catholics who took the royal side because the queen was so strongly of their persuasion. The king might have distinguished some of these gallant spirits if he had been as generous a spirit himself by giving them the command of his army. Instead of that, however, true to his old high notions of royalty, he entrusted it to his two nephews, Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who were of royal blood and came over from abroad to help him. It might have been better for him if they had stayed away since Prince Rupert was an impetuous, hot-headed fellow whose only idea was to dash into battle at all times and seasons and lay about him. The general-in-chief of the parliamentary army was the Earl of Essex, a gentleman of honor and an excellent soldier. A little while before the war broke out, there had been some rioting at Westminster between certain officious law students and noisy soldiers and the shopkeepers in their apprentices and the general people in the streets. At that time, the king's friends called the crowd round heads because the apprentices wore short hair. The crowd, in return, called their opponents cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set who pretended to be very military. These two words now began to be used to distinguish the two sides in the Civil War. The royalists also called the parliamentary men rebels and rogues, while the parliamentary men called them malignants and spoke of themselves as the godly, the honest, and so forth. The war broke out at Portsmouth where that double-trader goreng had again gone over to the king and was besieged by the parliamentary troops. Upon this, the king proclaimed the Earl of Essex and the officers serving under him traitors and called upon his loyal subjects to meet him in arms at Nottingham on the 25th of August. But his loyal subjects came about him in scanty numbers and it was a windy, gloomy day and the royal standard got blown down and the whole affair was very melancholy. The chief engagements after this took place in the Vale of the Red Horse near Banbury at Brentford, at De Vizis, at Chalgrave Field where Mr. Hampton was so sorely wounded while fighting at the head of his men that he died within a week at Newbury in which battle Lord Falkland, one of the best noblemen on the king's side was killed, at Lester, at Nassaby, at Winchester, at Marston War near York, at Newcastle, and in many other parts of England and Scotland. These battles were attended with various successes. At one time the king was victorious, at another time the parliament, but almost all the great and busy towns were against the king and when it was considered necessary to fortify London, all ranks of people from laboring men and women up to lords and ladies worked hard together with hardiness and goodwill. The most distinguished leaders on the parliamentary side were Hampton, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and above all Oliver Cromwell, and his son-in-law, Irton. During the whole of this war, the people to whom it was very expensive and irksome and to whom it was made the more distressing by almost every family being divided, some of its members attaching themselves to one side and some to the other, were over and over again most anxious for peace. So were some of the best men in each cause. Accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed between commissioners from the parliament and the king, at York, at Oxford, where the king held a little parliament of his own, and at Uxbridge, but they came to nothing. In all these negotiations and in all his difficulties, the king showed himself at his best. He was courageous, cool, self-possessed, and clever, but the old taint of his character was always in him, and he was never for one single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, the historian, one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappily promised the queen never to make peace without her consent, and that this must often be taken as his excuse. He never kept his word from night to morning. He signed a cessation of hostilities with the blood-stained Irish rebels for a sum of money, and invited the Irish regiments over to help him against the parliament. In the Battle of Nassby, his cabinet was seized and was found to contain a correspondence with the queen in which he expressly told her that he had deceived the parliament, a mongrel parliament, he called it now, as an improvement on his old term of vipers in pretending to recognize it and to treat with it, and from which it further appeared that he had long been in secret treaty with the Duke of Lorraine for a foreign army of 10,000 men. Disappointed in this, he sent a most devoted friend of his, the Earl of Glamorgan, to Ireland, to conclude a secret treaty with the Catholic powers, to send him an Irish army of 10,000 men, in return for which he was to bestow great favors on the Catholic religion. And when this treaty was discovered in the carriage of a fighting Irish archbishop who was killed in one of the many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied and deserted his attached friend, the Earl, on his being charged with high treason, and even worse than this, had left blanks in the secret instructions he gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that he might thus save himself. At last, on the 27th day of April, 1,646, the king found himself in the city of Oxford, so surrounded by the parliamentary army who were closing in upon him, on all sides, that he felt that if he would escape, he must delay no longer. So that night, having altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was dressed up as a servant and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped behind him, and rode out of the town behind one of his own faithful followers with a clergyman of that country who knew the road well for a guide. He rode towards London as far as Harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved, it would seem, to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had been invited over to help the parliamentary army and had a large force then in England. The king was so desperately intriguing in everything he did that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this step. He took it anyhow and delivered himself up to the Earl of Levin, the Scottish general-in-chief who treated him as an honorable prisoner. Negotiations between the parliament on the one hand and the Scottish authorities on the other as to what should be done with him lasted until the following February. Then, when the king had refused to the parliament, the concession of that old militia point for 20 years, and had refused to Scotland the recognition of its solemn league and covenant, Scotland got a handsome sum for its army and its help, and the king into the bargain. He was taken by certain parliamentary commissioners appointed to receive him to one of his own houses called Holmby House in Althorpe in Northamptonshire. While the civil war was still in progress, John Pym died and was buried with great honour in Westminster Abbey, not with greater honour than he deserved for the liberties of Englishmen owe a mighty debt to Pym and Hampton. The war was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died of an illness brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt in Windsor Forest. He too was buried in Westminster Abbey with great state. I wish it were not necessary to add that Archbishop Lod died upon the scaffold when the war was not yet done. His trial lasted in all nearly a year and it being doubtful even then whether the charges brought against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance of the worst kings was resorted to. And a bill of attainder was brought in against him. He was a violently prejudiced and mischievous person, had had strong ear cropping and nose splitting propensities as you know, and had done a world of harm, but he died peaceably and like a brave old man. Fourth part. When the Parliament had got the king into their hands, they became very anxious to get rid of their army in which Oliver Cromwell had begun to acquire great power, not only because of his courage and high abilities, but because he professed to be very sincere in the Scottish sort of Puritan religion that was then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. They were as much opposed to the bishops as to the Pope himself, and the very privates, drummers and trumpeters had such an inconvenient habit of starting up and preaching long-winded discourses that I would not have belonged to that army on any account. So the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army might begin to preach and fight against them now it had nothing else to do, proposed to disband the greater part of it to send another part to serve in Ireland against the rebels and to keep only a small force in England. But the army would not consent to be broken up, except upon its own conditions, and when the Parliament showed an intention of compelling it, it acted for itself in an unexpected manner. A certain cornet of the name of Joyce arrived at Homeby House one night attended by 400 horsemen, went into the king's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in the other and told the king that he had come to take him away. The king was willing enough to go and only stipulated that he should be publicly required to do so the next morning. Next morning, accordingly, he appeared on the top of the steps of the house and asked Cornette Joyce before his men and the guards set there by the Parliament what authority he had for taking him away. To this, Cornette Joyce replied, the authority of the army. Have you a written commission, said the king? Joyce, pointing to his 400 men on horseback, replied, that is my commission. Well, said the king, smiling as if he were pleased. I never before read such a commission, but it is written in fair and legible characters. This is a company of as handsome proper gentlemen as I have seen a long while. He was asked where he would like to live and he said at Newmarket. So to Newmarket he and Cornette Joyce and the 400 horsemen rode. The king remarking in the same smiling way that he could ride as far as at a spell as Cornette Joyce or any man there. The king quite believed, I think, that the army were his friends. He said as much to Fairfax when that general Oliver Cromwell and Irton went to persuade him to return to the custody of the Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was and resolved to remain as he was. And when the army moved near and near London to frighten the Parliament into yielding to their demands, they took the king with them. It was a deplorable thing that England should be at the mercy of a great body of soldiers with arms in their hands, but the king certainly favored them at this important time of his life as compared with the more lawful power that tried to control him. It must be added, however, that they treated him as yet more respectfully and kindly than the Parliament had done. They allowed him to be attended by his own servants to be splendidly entertained at various houses and to see his children at Cavisham House near Reading for two days. Whereas the Parliament had been rather hard with him that had only allowed him to ride out and play at bowls. It is much to be believed that if the king could have been trusted, even at this time he might have been saved. Even Oliver Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man could enjoy his possessions in peace unless the king had his rights. He was not unfriendly towards the king. He had been present when he received his children and had been much affected by the pitiable nature of the scene. He saw the king often. He frequently walked and talked with him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace at Hampton Court wither he was now removed. And in all this risked something of his influence with the army. But the king was in secret hopes of help from the Scottish people. And the moment he was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new friends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possibly do without him. At the very time too when he was promising to make Cromwell an Irton nobleman, if they would help him up to his old height, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them. They both afterwards declared that they had been privately informed that such a letter would be found on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle which would be taken to the Blue Boar in Holburn to be sent to Dover, and that they went there disguised as common soldiers and sat drinking in the in-yard until a man came with the saddle which they ripped up with their knives and therein found the letter. I see little reason to doubt the story. It is certain that Oliver Cromwell told one of the king's most faithful followers that the king could not be trusted and that he would not be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still, even after that he kept a promise he had made to the king by letting him know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army to seize him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the king to escape abroad and so to be got rid of without more trouble or danger, that Oliver himself had worked enough with the army as pretty plain, for some of the troops were so mutinous against him and against those who acted with him at this time that he found it necessary to have one man shot at the head of his regiment to overaw the rest. The king, when he received Oliver's warning, made his escape from Hampton Court. After some indecision and uncertainty he went to Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight. At first he was pretty free there, but even there he carried on a pretended treaty with the parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners from Scotland to send an army into England to take his part. When he broke off this treaty with the parliament, having settled with Scotland and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very night to a ship sent by the queen, which was lying off the island. He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scotland. The agreement he had made with the Scottish commissioners was not favourable enough to the religion of that country to please the Scottish clergy, and they preached against it. The consequence was that the army raised in Scotland and sent over was too small to do much, and that although it was helped by a rising of the royalists in England and by good soldiers from Ireland, it could make no head against the parliamentary army under such men as Cromwell and Fairfax. The king's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, came over from Holland with 19 ships, a part of the English fleet having gone over to him, to help his father, but nothing came of his voyage and he was feigned to return. The most remarkable event of the Second Civil War was the cruel execution by the parliamentary general of Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lyle, two grand royalist generals who had bravely defended Colchester under every disadvantage of famine and distress for nearly three months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lyle kissed his body and said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, come nearer and make sure of me. I warrant you, Sir George, said one of the soldiers, we shall hit you. I, he returned with a smile, but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time and you have missed me. The parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army, who demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given up to them, had voted that they would have nothing more to do with the king. On the conclusion, however, of the Second Civil War, which did not last more than six months, they appointed commissioners to treat with him. The king, then so far released again, is to be allowed to live in a private house at Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed his own part of the negotiation with a sense that was admired by all who saw him and gave up in the end all that was asked of him, even yielding, which he had steadily reviewed so far, to the temporary abolition of the bishops and the transfer of their church land to the crown. Still, with his old fatal vice upon him, when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching him to yield all those points as the only means of saving himself from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island, he was holding correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in Ireland, though declaring that he was not and he was writing with his own hand that in what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to escape. Matters were at this pass when the army resolved to defy the parliament, marched up to London. The parliament, not afraid of them now and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the king's concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of the kingdom. Upon that, Colonel Rich and Colonel Pride went down to the House of Commons with a regiment of horse soldiers and a regiment of foot and Colonel Pride, standing in the lobby with a list of the members who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had them pointed out to him as they came through and took them all into custody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the people for a joke, Pride's Purge. Cromwell was in the north at the head of his men at the time, but when he came home, approved of what had been done. What with imprisoning some members and causing others to stay away, the army had now reduced the House of Commons to some fifty or so. These soon voted that it was treason and a king to make war against his parliament and his people and sent an ordinance up to the House of Lords for the king's being tried as a traitor. The House of Lords then sixteen in number to a man rejected it. Thereupon the Commons made an ordinance of their own that they were the supreme government of the country and would bring the king to trial. The king had been taken for security to a place called Hearst Castle, a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with the coast of Hampshire by a rough road two miles long at low water. Thence he was ordered to be removed to Windsor. Thence, after being but rudely used there and having none but soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was brought up to St. James Palace in London and told that his trial was appointed for next day. On Saturday, the 20th of January 1649, this memorable trial began. The House of Commons had settled that 135 persons should form the court and these were taken from the house itself, from among the officers of the army and from among the lawyers and citizens. John Bradshaw, Sergeant-at-Law, was appointed president. The place was Westminster Hall, at the upper end in a red velvet chair sat the president with his hat lined with plates of iron for his protection on his head. The rest of the court sat on side benches also wearing their hats. The king's seat was covered with velvet like that of the president and was opposite to it. He was brought from St. James's to Whitehall and from Whitehall he came by water to his trial. When he came in he looked round very steadily on the court and on the great number of spectators and then sat down. Presently he got up and looked round again. On the indictment against Charles Stewart for high treason being read, he smiled several times and he denied the authority of the court saying that there could be no parliament without a house of lords and that he saw no house of lords there. Also that the king ought to be there and that he saw no king in the king's right place. Bradshaw replied that the court was satisfied with its authority and that its authority was God's authority in the kingdoms. He then adjourned the court to the following Monday. On that day the trial was resumed and went on all the week. When the Saturday came as the king passed forward to his place in the hall some soldiers and others cried for justice and execution on him. That day too Bradshaw like an angry sultan wore a red robe instead of the black robe he had worn before. The king was sentenced to death that day. As he went out one solitary soldier said, God bless you sir, for this his officer struck him. The king said he thought the punishment exceeded the offense. The silver head of his walking stick had fallen off while he leaned upon it at one time of the trial. The accident seemed to disturb him as if he thought it ominous of the following of his own head and he admitted as much now it was all over. Being taken back to Whitehall he sent to the house of commons saying that as the time of his execution might be nigh he wished he might be allowed to see his darling children. It was granted. On the Monday he was taken back to St. James and his two children then in England, the princess Elizabeth 13 years old and the Duke of Gloucester nine years old were brought to take leave of him from Sion House near Brentford. It was a sad and touching scene when he kissed and fondled those poor children and made a little present of two diamond seals to the princess and gave them tender messages to their mother who little deserved them for she had a lover of her own whom she married soon afterwards and told them that he died for the laws and liberties of the land. I am bound to say that I don't think he did but I dare say he believed so. There were ambassadors from Holland that day to intercede for the unhappy king whom you and I both wished the parliament had spared but they got no answer. The Scottish commissioners interceded too so did the Prince of Wales by a letter in which he offered as the next heir to the throne to accept any conditions from the parliament. So did the Queen by letter likewise. Notwithstanding all the warrant for the execution was this day signed. There is a story that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table with the pen in his hand to put his signature to it he drew his pen across the face of one of the commissioners who was standing near and marked it with ink. That commissioner had not signed his own name yet and the story adds that when he came to do it he marked Cromwell's face with ink in the same way. The king slept well untroubled by the knowledge that it was his last night on earth and rose on the 30th of January two hours before day and dressed himself carefully. He put on two shirts lest he should tremble with the cold and had his hair very carefully combed. The warrant had been directed to three officers of the army, Colonel Hacker, Colonel Hunks and Colonel Fayer. At 10 o'clock the first of these came to the door and said it was time to go to Whitehall. The king, who had always been a quick walker, walked at his usual speed through the park and called out to the guard with his accustomed voice of command, march on a pace. When he came to Whitehall he was taken to his own bedroom where a breakfast was set forth. As he had taken the sacrament he would eat nothing more but at about the time when the church bells struck 12 at noon for he had to wait through the scaffold not being ready he took the advice of the good Bishop Jackson who was with him and ate a little bread and drank a glass of claret. Soon after he had taken this refreshment Colonel Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand and called for Charles Stewart. And then through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace which he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded in very different times the fallen king passed along until he came to the center window of the banqueting house through which he emerged upon the scaffold which was hung with black. He looked at the two executioners who were dressed in black and masked. He looked at the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot and all looked up at him in silence. He looked at the vast array of spectators filling up the view beyond and turning all their faces upon him. He looked at his old palace of St. James's and he looked at the block. He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low and asked if there were no place higher. Then to those upon the scaffold he said that it was the parliament who had begun the war and not he but he hoped they might be guiltless too as ill instruments had gone between them. In one respect he said he suffered justly and that was because he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on another. In this he referred to the Earl of Stratford. He was not at all afraid to die but he was anxious to die easily. When someone touched the axe while he was speaking he broke off and called out, take heed of the axe, take heed of the axe. He also said to Colonel Hacker take care that they do not put me to pain. He told the executioner, I shall say but very short prayers and then thrust out my hands as the sign to strike. He put his hair up under a white satin cap which the bishop had carried and said I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side. The bishop told him that he had but one stage more to travel in this weary world and that though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage it was a short one and would carry him a great way all the way from earth to heaven. The king's last word as he gave his cloak and the George the decoration from his breast to the bishop was remember he then kneeled down laid his head on the block spread out his hands and was instantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd and the soldiers who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues were of a sudden all in motion clearing the streets. Thus in the 49th year of his age falling at the same time of his career as Straford had fallen in his perished Charles I with all my sorrow for him I cannot agree with him that he died the martyr of the people for the people had been martyrs to him and to his ideas of a king's rights long before. Indeed I am afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs for he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham the martyr of his sovereign. End of chapter 33 recording by Gwyneth Connell New York City. Chapter 34 of a child's history of England. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Robin Cotter November 2007 A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens Chapter 34 England under Oliver Cromwell Before sunset on the memorable day on which King Charles I was executed the House of Commons passed an act declaring it treason in anyone to proclaim the Prince of Wales or anybody else, King of England. Soon afterwards it declared that the House of Lords was useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished and directed that the late King's statue should be taken down from the royal exchange in the city and other public places. Having laid hold of some famous royalists who had escaped from prison and having beheaded the Duke of Hamilton Lord Holland and Lord Capal in Palace Yard all of whom died very courageously they then appointed a Council of State to govern the country. It consisted of forty-one members of whom five were peers. Bradshaw was made President. The House of Commons also readmitted members who had opposed the King's death and made up numbers to about a hundred and fifty. But it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to deal with and a very hard task it was to manage them. Before the King's execution the army had appointed some of its officers to remonstrate between them and the Parliament and now the common soldiers began to take that office upon themselves. The regiments under orders for Ireland mutinied. One troop of horse in the City of London seized their own flag and refused to obey orders. For this the ringleader was shot which did not mend the matter. Four, both his comrades and the people made a public funeral for him and accompanied the body to the grave with sound of trumpets and with a gloomy procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary steeped in blood. Oliver was the only man to deal with such difficulties as these and he soon cut them short by bursting at midnight into the town of Burford near Salisbury where the mutineers were sheltered taking four hundred of them prisoners and shooting a number of them by sentence of court-martial. The soldiers soon found, as all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be trifled with and there was an end of the mutiny. The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet so on hearing of the King's execution it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King Charles II on condition of his respecting the solemn league and covenant. Charles was abroad at that time and so was Montrose from whose help he had hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners from Scotland just as his father might have done. These hopes were soon at an end for Montrose having raised a few hundred exiles in Germany and landed with them in Scotland found that the people there instead of joining him deserted the country at his approach. He was soon taken prisoner and carried to Edinburgh there he was received with every possible insult and carried to prison in a cart his officers going to and to before him. He was sentenced by the Parliament to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high to have his head set on a spike in Edinburgh and his limbs distributed in other places according to the old barbarous manner. He said he had always acted under the royal orders and only wished he had limbs enough to be distributed through Christendom that it might be the more widely known how loyal he had been. He went to the scaffold in a bright and brilliant dress and made a bold end at thirty-eight years of age. The breath was scarcely out of his body when Charles abandoned his memory and denied that he had ever given him orders to rise in his behalf. Oh, the family failing was strong in that Charles then. Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command the army in Ireland where he took a terrible vengeance for the Sanguinary Rebellion and made tremendous havoc particularly in the siege of Drogeda where no quarter was given and where he found at least a thousand of the inhabitants shut up together in the Great Church, every one of whom was killed by his soldiers, usually known as Oliver's Ironsides. There were numbers of friars and priests among them and Oliver gruffly wrote home in his dispatch that these were knocked in the head, like the rest. But Charles having got over to Scotland where the man of the solemn league in Covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and made him very weary with long sermons and grim Sundays, the Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver home to knock the Scottish men on the head for setting up that prince. Oliver left his son-in-law, Irton, as general in Ireland in his stead. He died there afterwards and he imitated the example of his father-in-law with such goodwill that he brought the country to subjection and laid it at the feet of the Parliament. In the end they passed an act for the settlement of Ireland, generally pardoning all the common people, but exempting from this grace such of the wealthier sort as has been concerned in the rebellion or in any killing of Protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. Great numbers of Irish were got out of the country to serve under Catholic powers abroad and a quantity of land was declared to have been forfeited by past offences and was given to people who had lent money to the Parliament early in the war. These were sweeping measures, but if Oliver Cromwell had had his own way fully and had stayed in Ireland, he would have done more yet. However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for Scotland, so home Oliver came and was made commander of all the forces of the Commonwealth of England. And in three days away he went with 16,000 soldiers to fight the Scottish men. Now the Scottish men being then, as you will generally find them now, mighty cautious reflected that the troops they had were not used to war like the Ironsides and would be beaten in an open fight. Therefore they said, if we live quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here and if all the farmers come into town and desert the country, the Ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger and be forced to go away. This was no doubt the wisest plan, but as the Scottish clergy would interfere with what they knew nothing about and would perpetually preach long sermons exhorting the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their heads that they absolutely must come out and fight. Accordingly in an evil hour for themselves they came out of their safe position. Oliver fell upon them instantly and killed 3,000 and took 10,000 prisoners. To gratify the Scottish Parliament and preserve their favour, Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching the memory of his father and mother and representing himself as a most religious prince to whom the solemn league and covenant was his dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in this and soon afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome Highland friends who were always flourishing dirks and broadswords. He was overtaken and induced to return but this attempt, which was called the start, did him just so much service that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him afterwards as they had done before. On the 1st of January 1651, the Scottish people crowned him at Schoon. He immediately took the chief command of an army of 20,000 men and marched to Stirling. His hopes were heightened, I dare say, by the redoubtable Oliver being ill of an Agu, but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no time and went to work with such energy that he got behind the royalist army and cut it off from all communication with Scotland. There was nothing for it then but to go on to England so it went on as far as Worcester where the mayor and some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles II straightway. His proclamation, however, was of little use to him for very few royalists appeared and on the very same day two people were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause. Up came Oliver to Worcester II at double quick speed and he and his Ironsides so late about them in the great battle which was fought there that they completely beat the Scottish men and destroyed the royalist army though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five hours to do so. The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good service long afterwards for it induced many of the generous English people to take a romantic interest in him and to think much better of him than he ever deserved. He fled in the night with not more than 60 followers to the house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire. There for his greater safety, the whole 60 left him. He cropped his hair, stained his face and hands brown as if they were sunburned, put on the clothes of a laboring countryman and went out in the morning with his axe in his hand accompanied by four woodcutters who were brothers and another man who was their brother-in-law. These good fellows made a bed for him under a tree as the weather was very bad and the wife of one of them brought him food to eat. And the old mother of the four brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the wood and thanked God that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At night he came out of the forest and went on to another house which was near the river Severn with the intention of passing into Wales, but the place swarmed with soldiers and the bridges were guarded and all the boats were made fast. So after lying in a hayloft covered over with hay for some time, he came out of his place attended by Colonel Careless, a Catholic gentleman who had met him there and with whom he lay hid all next day up in the shady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the king that it was September time and that the leaves had not begun to fall since he and the Colonel perched up in this tree could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below and could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beating the bows. After this he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered and having been concealed all one day in a house which was searched by the troopers while he was there, went with Lord Wilmot, another of his good friends, to a place called Bentley, where one Miss Lane, a Protestant lady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant, he rode in the saddle before this young lady to the house of Sir John Winter while Lord Wilmot rode there boldly like a plain country gentleman with dogs at his heels. It happened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant in Richmond Palace and knew Charles the moment he set eyes upon him, but the butler was faithful and kept the secret. As no ship could be found to carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go, still travelling with Miss Lane as her servant, to another house at Trent near Sherbourne in Dorseture, and then Miss Lane and her cousin, Mr. Lachelles, who had gone on horseback beside her all the way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to marry that cousin, for I am sure that she must have been a brave, kind girl. If I had been that cousin, I should certainly have loved Miss Lane. When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe at Trent, a ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which engaged to take two gentlemen to France. In the evening of the same day, the king, now riding a servant before another young lady, set off for a public house at a place called Charmouth, where the captain of the vessel was to take him on board, but the captain's wife, being afraid of her husband getting into trouble, locked him up and would not let him sail. Then they went away to Bridport, and, coming to the inn there, found the stable-yard full of soldiers who were on the lookout for Charles, and who talked about him while they drank. He had such presence of mind that he led the horses of his party through the yard as any other servant might have done, and said, Come out of the way, you soldiers, let us have room to pass here. As he went along, he met a half-tipsy Ostler, who rubbed his eyes and said to him, Why, I was formerly servant to Mr. Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen you there, young man? He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there. His ready answer was, Ah, I did live with him once, but I have no time to talk now. We'll have a pot of beer together when I come back. From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay there concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heel, near Salisbury, where, in the house of a widow-lady, he was hidden five days under the master of a collier lying offshore him in Sussex, undertook to convey a gentleman to France. On the night of the fifteenth of October, accompanied by two colonels and a merchant, the king rode to Brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of the ship a supper before going on board, but so many people knew him, that this captain knew him too, and not only he, but the landlord and landlady also. Before he went away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live to be a lord, and to see his wife a lady, at which Charles laughed. They had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and drinking, at which the king was a first-rate hand, so the captain assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed that the captain should pretend to sail to Diehl, and that Charles should address the sailors, and say he was a gentleman in debt, who was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped they would join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore in France. As the king acted his part very well indeed, and gave the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they begged the captain to do what such a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended to yield to their entreaties, and the king got safe to Normandy. Ireland, being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the parliament would have gone on quietly enough as far as fighting with any foreign enemy went, but forgetting into trouble with the Dutch, who in the spring of the year 1651 sent a fleet into the Downs, under their admiral, Van Tromp, to call upon the bold English admiral Blake, who was there with half as many ships as the Dutch, to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging broadside instead, and beat off Van Tromp, who in the autumn came back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake, who still was only half as strong to fight him. Blake fought him all day, but finding that the Dutch were too many for him, got quietly off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but goes cruising and boasting about the channel between the North Forland and the Isle of Wight, with a great Dutch broom tied to his mast-head as a sign that he could, and would, sweep the English of the sea. Within three months Blake lowered his tone, though, and his broom, too, for he and two other bold commanders, Dean and Monk, fought him three whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and settled his business. Things were no sooner quiet again than the army began to complain to the parliament that they were not governing the nation properly, and to hint that they thought they could do it better themselves. Oliver, who had now made up his mind to be the head of the state, or nothing at all, supported them in this, and called a meeting of officers, and his own parliamentary friends, and his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider the best way of getting rid of the parliament. It had now lasted just as many years as the king's unbridled power had lasted, before it came into existence. The end of the deliberation was that Oliver went down to the house in his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings, but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These last he left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he got up, made the parliament his speech, told them that the Lord had done with them, stamped his foot, and said, You are no parliament, bring them in, bring them in. With this signal the door flew open, and the soldiers appeared. This is not honest, said Sir Harry Vane, one of the members. Sir Harry Vane, cried Cromwell, O Sir Harry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane. Then he pointed out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the house, called the mace upon the table, which is a sign that the house is sitting, a fool's bobble, and said, Here, carry it away. Being obeyed in all these orders he quietly locked the door, but the key in his pocket walked back to Whitehall again, and told his friends who were still assembled there what he had done. They formed a new council of state, after this extraordinary proceeding, and got a new parliament together in their own way, which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, who would take in the singular name of Praise God Bearbones, and from whom it was called for a joke, Bearbones as Parliament, though its general name was the Little Parliament. As it soon appeared that it was not going to put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was not to be born with. So he cleared off that parliament in much the same way as he had disposed of the other, and then the council of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. So on the 16th of December 1653 a great procession was formed at Oliver's door, and he came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got into his coach, and went down to Westminster, attended by the judges and the Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen, and all the other great and wonderful personages of the country. There in the court of Chancery he publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then he was sworn, and the city sword was handed to him, and the seal was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him, which are usually handed to kings and queens on state occasions. When Oliver had handed them all back he was quite made, and completely finished off as Lord Protector, and several of the Ironsides preached about it at great length, all the evening. Oliver Cromwell, whom the people long called Old Knoll, in accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain paper which was handed to him, called The Instrument, to summon a Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in the election of which neither the royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. He had also pledged himself that this Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent until it had sat five months. When this Parliament met Oliver made a speech to them of three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and happiness of the country. To keep down the more violent members he required them to sign a recognition of what they were forbidden by The Instrument to do, which was, chiefly, to take the power from one single person at the head of the state, or to command the army. And he dismissed them to go to work. With his usual vigor and resolution he went to work himself with some frantic preachers, who were rather overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain and a tyrant, by shutting up their chapels and sending a few of them off to prison. There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man so able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he ruled with a strong hand and levied a very heavy tax on the royalists, but not until they had plotted against his life, he ruled wisely and as the times required. He caused England to be so respected abroad that I wish some lords and gentlemen, who have governed it under kings and queens in later days, would have taken a leaf out of Oliver Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the Mediterranean Sea to make the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects, and spoliation he had committed on English merchants. He had further dispatched him and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli to have every English ship and every English man delivered up to him that had been taken by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously done, and it began to be thoroughly well known all over the world that England was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the English name to be insulted or slighted anywhere. These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet against the Dutch, and the two powers, each with one hundred ships upon its side, met in the English Channel off the North Forland, where the fight lasted all day long. One was killed in this fight, but Monk, who commanded in the same ship with him, threw his cloak over his body, that the sailors might not know of his death, and be disheartened. Nor were they. The English broadsides so exceedingly astonished the Dutch that they sheared off at last, though the redoubtable van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards the two fleets engaged again off the coast of Holland. There the valiant van Tromp was shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace was made. Further than this Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering and bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a right to all the gold and silver that could be found in South America, and treated the ships of all other countries who visited those regions as pirates, but put English subjects into the horrible Spanish prisons of the Inquisition. So Oliver told the Spanish ambassador that English ships must be free to go wherever they would, and that English merchants must not be thrown into those same dungeons, no not for the pleasure of all the priests in Spain. To this the Spanish ambassador replied that the gold and silver country and the holy inquisition were his king's two eyes, neither of which he could submit to have put out. Very well said Oliver, then he was afraid he, Oliver, must damage those two eyes directly. So another fleet was dispatched under two commanders, Penn and Venables, for Hispaniola, where, however, the Spaniards got the better of the fight. Consequently the fleet came home again, after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, indignant with the two commanders, who had not done what bold Admiral Blake would have done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against Spain, and made a treaty with France, in virtue of which it was to shelter the king and his brother, the Duke of York, no longer. Then he sent a fleet abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which brought the king of Portugal to his senses, just to keep its hand in, and then engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more, laden with silver, to the value of two millions of pounds, which Dazzling Price was brought from Portsmouth to London in wagons, with the populace of all the towns and villages, through which the wagons passed, shouting with all their might. After this victory, bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of Santa Cruz, to cut off the Spanish treasure ships coming from Mexico. There he found them, ten in number, with seven others to take care of them, and a big castle, and seven batteries all roaring and blazing away at him with great guns. Blake cared no more for great guns than for pop guns, no more for their hot iron balls than for snowballs. He dashed into the harbour, captured and burnt every one of the ships, and came sailing out again triumphantly, with the victorious English flag flying at his mast head. This was the last triumph of this great commander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite worn out. He died as his successful ship was coming into Plymouth Harbour, amidst the joyful acclamations of the people, and was buried in state in Westminster Abbey, not to lie there long. Over and above all this, Oliver found that Vadoy, or Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for their religion in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly he informed those powers that this was a thing which Protestant England would not allow, and he speedily carried his point through the might of his great name, and established their right to worship God in peace after their own harmless manner. Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting with the French against the Spaniards that, after they had assaulted the town of Dunkirk together, the French king in person gave it up to the English that it might be a token to them of their might and valor. There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic religionists who called themselves fifth monarchy men, and among the disappointed Republicans. He had a difficult game to play, for the royalists were always ready to side with either party against him. The king, over the water too, as Charles was called, had no scruples about plotting with any one against his life, although there is reason to suppose that he would willingly have married one of his daughters if Oliver would have had such a son-in-law. There was a certain Colonel Saxby of the army, once a great supporter of Oliver's, but now turned against him, who was a gravest trouble to him through all this part of his career, and who came and went between the discontented in England and Spain, and Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown off by France. This man died in prison at last, but not until there had been very serious plots between the royalists and the Republicans, and an actual rising of them in England when they burst into the city of Salisbury, on a Sunday night seized the judges who were going to hold the assizes there next day, and would have hanged them but for the merciful objections of the more temperate of their number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that he soon put this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies, and it was well for one of its chief managers, that same Lord Wilmot, who had assisted in Charles's flight, and was now Earl of Rochester, that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information, as his enemies little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six persons, called the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and most secret confidence of Charles. One of the foremost of these very men, a Sir Richard Willis, reported to Oliver everything that passed among them, and had two hundred a year for it. Charles Cindercomb, also of the Old Army, was another conspirator against the Protector. He and a man named Cecil bribed one of his lifeguards to let them have good notice when he was going out, intending to shoot him from a window. But owing either to his caution or his good fortune, they could never get an aim at him. Disappointed in this design, they got into the chapel in Whitehall, with a basket full of combustibles, which were to explode by means of a slow match in six hours. Then in the noise and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But the lifeguardsman himself disclosed this plot, and they were seized, and Miles died, or killed himself in prison, a little while before he was ordered for execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and many more, including those who rose in arms against him, to be sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws of England, when a Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, killed a London citizen in mistake for another man with whom he had had a quarrel. Oliver caused him to be tried before a jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London. One of Oliver's own friends, the Duke of Oldenborough, in sending him a present of six fine coach horses, was very near doing more to please the royalists than all the plotters put together. One day Oliver went with his coach, drawn by these six horses into Hyde Park, to dine with his secretary and some of his other gentlemen under the trees there. After dinner, being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends inside and to drive them home, a pastillion riding one of the foremost horses, as the custom was. On account of Oliver's being too free with the whip, the six fine horses went off at a gallop, the pastillion got thrown, and Oliver fell upon the coach pole, and narrowly escaped being shot by his own pistol, which got entangled with his clothes and the harness, and went off. He was dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot came out of the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground, under the broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of all parties were much disappointed. The rest of the history of the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell is a history of his parliaments. The first one not pleasing him at all, he waited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. The next was better suited to his views, and from that he desired to get, if he could with safety to himself, the title of king. He had had this in his mind some time, whether because he thought that the English people, being more used to the title, were more likely to obey it, or whether because he really wished to be a king himself, and to leave the succession to that title in his family, is far from clear. He was already as high in England and in all the world as he would ever be, and I doubt if he cared for the mere name. However a paper called The Humble Petition and Advice was presented to him by the House of Commons, praying him to take a high title and to appoint his successor. That he would have taken the title of king there is no doubt, but for the strong opposition of the army. This induced him to forbear and to assent only to the other points of the petition, upon which occasion there was another grand show in Westminster Hall, when the Speaker of the House of Commons formerly invested him with a purple robe, lined with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly bound Bible, and put to golden scepter in his hand. The next time Parliament met he called a House of Lords of sixty members, as the petition gave him power to do, but as that Parliament did not please him either, and would not proceed to the business of the country, he jumped into a coach one morning, took six guards with him, and sent them to the right about. I wished this had been a warning to Parliament to avoid long speeches, and do more work. It was the month of August one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight, when Oliver Cromwell's favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, who had lately lost her youngest son, lay very ill, and his mind was greatly troubled, because he loved her dearly. Another of his daughters was married to Lord Falkenburg, another to the grandson of the Earl of Warwick, and he had made his son Richard, one of the members of the Upper House. He was very kind and loving to them all, being a good father and a good husband, but he loved this daughter the best of the family, and went down to Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir from her sick room, until she died. Although his religion had been of a gloomy kind, his disposition had always been cheerful. He had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open table once a week for all officers of the army, not below the rank of captain, and had always preserved in his house a quiet sensible dignity. He encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved to have them about him. Milton was one of his great friends. He was good-humoured, too, with the nobility, whose dresses and manners were very different from his, and to show them what good information he had, he would sometimes jokingly tell them when they were his guests, where they had last drunk the health of the king over the water, and would recommend them to be more private, if they could, another time. That he had lived in busy times, had borne the way to heavy state affairs, and had often gone in fear of his life. He was ill of the gout and ague, and when the death of his beloved child came upon him in addition, he sank, never to raise his head again. He told his physicians on the twenty-fourth of August, that the Lord had assured him that he was not to die in that illness, and that he would certainly get better. This was only his sick fancy. For on the third of September, which was the anniversary of the Great Battle of Worcester, and the day of the year which he called his fortunate day, he died in the sixtieth year of his age. He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some hours, but he had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the day before. The whole country lamented his death. If you want to know the real worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real services to his country, you can hardly do better than compare England under him, with England under Charles the Second. He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and after there had been at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying in state more splendid than sensible, as all such vanities after death are, I think, Richard became Lord Protector. He was an amiable country gentleman, but had none of his father's great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post in such a storm of parties. Richard Protectorate, which only lasted a year and a half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the army and the parliament, and between the officers among themselves, and of a growing discontent among the people, who had far too many long sermons, and far too few amusements, and wanted a change. At last General Monk got the army well into his own hands, and then in pursuance of a secret plan he seems to have entertained from the time of Oliver's death declared for the king's cause. He did not do this openly, but in his place in the House of Commons, as one of the members for Devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir John Greenville, who came to the house with the letter from Charles, dated from Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret communication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a recall of the last members of the long parliament, and an end of the long parliament, and risings of the royalists that were made too soon, and most men being tired out, and there being no one to head the country, now great Oliver was dead, it was readily agreed to welcome Charles Stewart. Some of the wiser and better members said, what was most true, that in the letter from Breda he gave no real promise to govern well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himself beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of the kingdom. Monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, and he could not come too soon. So everybody found out all in a moment that the country must be prosperous and happy, having another Stewart to condescend to rain over it, and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people drank the king's health by thousands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced. Down came the arms of the Commonwealth, up went the royal arms instead, and out came the public money. Fifty thousand pounds for the king, ten thousand pounds for his brother, the Duke of York, five thousand pounds for his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Members for these gracious stewards were put up in all the churches. Commissioners were sent to Holland, which suddenly found out that Charles was a great man, and that it loved him to invite the king home. Monk and the Kentish grandees went to Dover to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed and embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May, his birthday, in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty. Greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by city companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord Mayor and the majestic Alderman, the king went on to Whitehall. When entering it he commemorated his restoration with the joke that it really would seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished for him with all his heart. End of chapter thirty-four