The Dutch Ambassador interceded for the King; the Queen and the Prince of Wales wrote, offering to accept any conditions Parliament might require if only the King might be spared; but the stern enthusiasts who had resolved to sacrifice the blood of the tyrant were not to be turned from their purpose now by any entreaty or threat whatever; the thing they were about to do was awful, incredible to the whole world, but they were not to be stopped now. The Scottish commissioners spoke for the King, too, but in vain; neither they nor the others got any answer.
That day, Monday, the King was permitted to take leave of the only two of his children left in England—the Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Elisabeth; that day Oliver Cromwell and his colleagues signed the death-warrant at Whitehall.
The next day was appointed for the execution; the King slept that night at St. James's Palace, but Oliver Cromwell, in the rich chamber in Whitehall, slept not at all, but prayed from candlelight to dawn, then armed himself and went out to meet the other commissioners who were in the banqueting hall, urging that the workmen be hastened with the scaffold in front of the Palace, which was not yet ready, nor did look to be ready before the King came.
Charles slept; neither dreams nor visions disturbed him, and when he woke, two hours before the dawn, he remembered everything at once, very clearly.
He remembered that he was to die to-day, that he had taken leave of his children and given Elisabeth two diamond seals for her mother.... He remembered that he would never see the Queen again, and that he left her an exile dependent on her sister-in-law, the Regent of France.
And as he got out of bed he remembered Lord Strafford.
He dressed himself with great slowness and care in the clothes he had worn during his trial; he put on two shirts and a blue silk vest, for it was cold and he had no wish to shiver; he exactly adjusted the black and silver, the Flemish lace, the knots of ribbon; he combed his hair and arranged it in the long, smooth ringlets.... Once or twice while he was dressing he paused.
"O God," he said, "am I—the King—going to die to-day?"
He was still incredulous; it seemed to himself that his feelings were suspended. He moved mechanically; he had an almost childish anxiety not to tremble; he kept holding out his right hand and looking at it; when he saw that it was steady he smiled.
When he came to fasten his doublet he went to the mirror framed in embroidery and tortoise-shell, which hung at the foot of his bed, and then he noticed that his face was slightly distorted—at one side drawn with a strange contraction.... Yet he told himself that he felt quite calm; he tried to smooth that look away from his features with his fingers, then moved away abruptly and opened the window.
He wondered what Strafford had looked like just before his death, and it came to him that he was enduring what Strafford had endured—minute by minute the same—he was also the same age as Strafford had been, to the very year.
He sat down in the great arm-chair by the bed and tried to think; what a failure his life had been, what a collapse of all hopes and ambitions—how incomplete; he was very,very weary of the long struggle which he had maintained so unyieldingly, and not sorry to have it ended.
Yet it was an awful thing to die this way—and so suddenly.
Only a month ago he had been at Windsor, firmly believing that his enemies would destroy each other, firmly believing that he would once more come to Whitehall, a king, and hang all these rebels and traitors.
And now it was all over, all the hopes and fears, suspenses and agitations, all the struggles and defeats and intrigues; there were only a few hours of time left, and only one thing more to do—to die decently.
He put on his shoes with the big crimson roses, his light sword, his George with the collar of knots and roses, his black velvet cloak; then as the dawn began to blur the candlelight, Bishop Juxon, whose attendance had been permitted him, came to him. It was this Bishop who had urged him not to assent to Strafford's death—how well both men remembered that now—across all the tumultuous events which lay between—how well!
Charles rose.
"I thank you for your loyalty, my lord," he said; and then he was silent, for he thought that his voice sounded unnatural.
"May Your Majesty wake to-morrow so glorified that you will forget to-day!" replied the Bishop.
"To-morrow!" repeated Charles absently. "Ay, to-morrow—you will get up to-morrow and move and eat—ay, to-morrow——"
"To-morrow thou wilt be in Paradise, sire," replied Juxon firmly, and a sincere hope and courage shone in his eyes, which were red and swollen with weeping.
"I die for the Church of England," said the King quickly. "They may say what they will, but if I had abandoned Episcopacy I might have lived."
"God knoweth it," answered the Bishop solemnly, "and men will know it after a little while."
Charles took up his hat, his gloves, his cane, and without speaking followed the Bishop into the little royal chapel where he had so often worshipped in happier times.
He took the Sacrament; when the ceremony was over a calm, almost a lethargy, fell on his spirits; he tried to think of great and tremendous things, of what was behind him and what was before him, but his brain slipped from them; even the Queen had become absolutely remote. He found himself wondering how Strafford had felt at this same moment in his life.
When he left the chapel he went to one of the antechambers and waited.
Trivial things attracted his attention: he noticed that the ceiling needed repainting, and, looking down at his collar of the George, the foolish thought occurred to him as he saw the enamelled blossoms that he would never behold real roses again, for this was winter and there would be no flowers in the park which he would have to pass through.
He wished that he could fix his mind on something high and splendid now there was so little longer left in which to think of anything, and it distressed him that he could not.
None of this appeared in his demeanour; he sat, looking very stately and noble, with his cloak wrapped round him for the cold and his cane in his hand.
"The omens were against me from the first," he said suddenly. "I was crowned in white, like a shroud, and at my coronation sermon the text was: 'Be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a crown of Eternal Life'; then my flag was blown down at Nottingham—and the other day, at what they call my trial, the head fell off my cane."
This speech showed that his mind still ran on worldly things; but Juxon seized hold on a portion of his words with which to give him comfort.
"Thou hast been faithful unto death," he said, "and to-day will enter on to Eternal Life."
"I said I would die rather than betray the Church ofEngland," answered Charles, "and I have redeemed it to the letter."
As he spoke there entered unceremoniously Colonel Hacker, one of the three officers appointed to convey him to Whitehall.
Charles rose with such majesty and undaunted dignity that the stout Puritan was, for a moment, abashed, and held out his warrant in silence.
"I submit to your power, but I defy your authority," said the King contemptuously, and with that clapped on his hat and followed the officer, Juxon following him.
When they reached the fresh air Charles felt a new vigour, a certain excitement; in all the depth of his fall and the bitterness of his humiliation, in all the extreme of his failure and the mightiness of his defeat, he had his own inner triumph. He might be broken but he was not bent; he died a King, not yielding a jot of his rights, bequeathing to his son a lost heritage, but one uncurtailed by any concession of his. He was dying for his beliefs—because he would not forgo them they were killing him; he found satisfaction in that thought.
When he came to where his escort of guards waited, he cried out in his usual tone of authority, "March on apace!"
It was now about ten o'clock; the heavy air had hardly lifted over London, but it was pleasant in the Park, and from the bare fields and hedgerows beyond came a waft of winter freshness; all the view was blocked by people and regiment upon regiment of soldiers, all motionless and expressionless.
"It is an ordinary day," said Charles, "like a hundred other days, but it shall long be marked with red in England's calendar."
The people, overawed by the soldiers and by the terror of the occasion, were strangely silent as he passed; the prevailing emotion seemed a desperate curiosity, as if they waited, breathless, to know if this horrific thing could really come to pass.
The King thought of nothing but of how Strafford had walked so....
When he came to Whitehall he was conducted to his own bedchamber; there was a fire burning and a breakfast laid for him. In these familiar surroundings, where some of the happy moments of his splendid life had been spent, a faint horror came over him, and he felt his knees tremble; he found, too, that a physical sickness touched him at the sight of the food.
"I have taken the Sacrament," he said briefly. Then he asked of the soldiers still attending him—"How long?"—and they told him "Till the scaffold was finished."
"It is terrible," said Charles to the bishop, "to wait."
The Commissioners were waiting too. Oliver Cromwell was in the boarded gallery, and with him was one Nunelly, the doorkeeper to the committee of the army, who had a warrant of ₤50,000 to deliver to the Lieutenant-General, with them were Major Harrison and Mr. Hugh Peters.
"O Lord!" cried this last, "what mercy to see this great city fall down before us! And what a stir there is to bring this great man to justice, without whose blood he would turn us all to blood had he reigned again!"
Oliver Cromwell took the packet from Nunelly; he was quite white, and his hand shook so that twice the package dropped.
"Nunelly," he said hoarsely, "will you see the beheading of the King—surely you will see the beheading of the King?"
And without waiting for an answer he began to pace up and down, in uncontrollable agitation and excitement.
And presently Hugh Peters and Richard Nunelly went out into the banqueting hall, and out of the centre window on to the scaffold where the joiners were yet at work driving staples in.
When they returned to the boarded gallery, Cromwell and Harrison were still there.
"This will be a good day," said Peters.
"Are you not afraid that it will be a bloody day to all England?" asked Nunelly fearfully.
"This is not a thing done in a corner," replied Harrison calmly, "but before the world. I follow not my own poor judgment, but the revealed word of God in His Holy Scriptures."
Cromwell turned to Peters who stood in his black cloak and hat like death's own herald.
"Is it ready?" he asked. "Why this delay—this intolerable delay?"
His voice shook as he spoke.
"Are the vizards ready?" he asked again.
"Ay, it is Brandon the hangman and the fellow Hulet, and they are to have thirty pounds apiece—and now, I think, Colonel Hacker may go to fetch the King," replied Peters.
"Will you see him pass?" asked Harrison.
"I will not look on him again, alive or dead!" replied Cromwell sombrely.
But Peters and Nunelly went to an upper window where they might have a good view....
In his bedchamber the King still waited; the soldiers had withdrawn and left him alone with Juxon, to whom the dying man gave his last instructions, and one, above all, important.
"Let my son forgive his father's murderers—and lethim always maintain the Church of England and his own royal rights in this realm—let him make no compromise on these points. And let my younger sons never be cajoled into taking their brother's place—my son Charles, who, in a few moments now, will be King of England and Scotland."
"I promise," said Juxon.
Then the King rose and walked up and down.
"Jesus, God!" he cried, "spare me this waiting!"
"I implore Your Majesty to eat and drink a little," entreated the bishop, and Charles, who felt himself indeed sick and faint, drank a glass of claret and eat a piece ofbread. When he had finished he took a white satin cap from his pocket and gave it to Juxon, also his watch, with some broken words of thanks. Then Colonel Hacker came, and the King turned to go through the splendid galleries of his old home to his death.
He had his hat on and said not a word; beneath his composure he was struggling to overcome the physical weakness that beset him, rendering him incapable of high thoughts; the sensitive flesh shrank from what it had to face; already he felt a ring of pain round his neck.
The fine apartments, the paintings, the rich furniture still there, swam dizzily before his eyes; but he walked firmly....
Colonel Hacker led the way; they stepped through the centre window of the banqueting hall on to a scaffold hung with black, on which stood the two vizards or headsmen; both of whom wore frieze breeches and coats—one had a grey beard showing beneath the mask, the other was disguised with a light wig. When Charles stepped out of the window he recoiled with a repulsion no pride could control. In the foreground the two black figures, and beyond a sea of white faces, all looking at him; even the soldiers, horse and foot, their red coats and steel brightening the grey morning, were looking at him—all in silence.
His glance fell to the block. "Is it so low?" he asked, in a horrified way. Then he recovered himself and turned to the few about him.
"It was the Parliament began the war, not I," he said, "but I hope they may be guiltless too, and all blame may go to the ill instruments which came between us"—here one of the officers touched the axe, and the King cried out—"Take care of the axe! take care of the axe!"—resuming afterwards his speech. "The government rests with the King and not with the people, in that belief and in the faith of the Church of England I die."
He laid off his cloak and hat, then added with great wistfulness—
"In one respect I suffer justly, and that is because I have permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on another."
He took off his George and the little miniature of the Queen (which he kissed), and gave them to Juxon.
He gave a purse of guineas to the grey-bearded vizard with the axe, who knelt to ask his pardon, and again that awful sickness closed over his heart.
"Take care they do not put me to pain," he said to Colonel Hacker, and his lips trembled. Then to the man, "I shall say but very short prayers, and then thrust out my hands—at this sign do you strike."
"I will warrant, sir," said Colonel Hacker, "the fellow is skilful."
The King now took off his doublet, sword, and sword-string, doing it carefully that he might gain time for perfect composure at the supreme minute.
Juxon approached him.
"Your Majesty hath but one more stage to travel in this weary world, and though that is a turbulent and troublesome stage, it is a short one, and will carry Your Majesty all the way from earth to heaven."
Charles looked at St. James's Palace showing beyond the multitude of faces.
"I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side," he said. He took the white satin cap from the bishop, and put his hair up in it; a slight figure he looked now in the straight blue vest and white cap.
The church bells struck half-past twelve, the sluggard sun sent faint rays through the low winter clouds. The King knelt down. "Remember," he said to Juxon.
A great excitement steadied him, driving away the sickness; this was the end, the end—and after?
He placed his forehead in the niche of the block; the position was uncomfortable, and he was staring down at the black covering of the scaffold floor.
He closed his eyes, clutching his hands on his breast;he felt the keen air on his bare neck, and confused visions leaped before him. He tried to pray.
"Lord Jesus," he murmured swiftly. "Lord Jesus——" he could think of nothing more; with an almost mechanical movement he threw out his hands.
He heard the headsman step nearer; he set his teeth.
The axe struck cleanly; the blood was over all of them, and the vizard with the light wig held up by the long grey curls the head which had bounded to his feet.
"God save the people of England!" said Colonel Hacker.
A deep and awful groan broke from the multitude, and the soldiers, hitherto immovable, turned about in all directions, clearing the streets.
"We are Englishmen; that is one good account. And if God give a nation valour and courage, it is honour and a mercy."—Oliver P., 1656,Speech to Parliament, Tuesday, 16th Sept., in the Painted Chamber.
"I was by birth a gentleman living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity. I have been called to several employments in the Nation.... I did endeavour to discharge the duty of an honest man in those services."—Oliver P.,ibid.,12th Sept. 1654.
"If my calling be from God and my testimony from the People—only God and the People will take it from me, else I shall not part with it—I should be false to the trust that God hath placed in me, and to the interest of the people of these nations if I should."—Oliver P.,ibid.
On a soft golden blue day in September 1651, when the trees were still in full leafage in the Park, and the river reflected a sky veiled with delicate white clouds, when the last sheaves of corn were standing in the fields beyond St. James's Palace, and the orchards near glowed all red with fruit, a crowd was gathered in the streets of London—a crowd as vast and as excited as that which had waited to hear the verdict on Lord Strafford, or had thronged to witness the awful scene outside Whitehall when the King knelt before the headsman.
On both these occasions the people, if triumphant, in the first instance, were still awestruck and silenced, in the second, by the portents of great events and by the magnitude of the terrible daring of their leaders. Now they were triumphant openly, rejoicing almost light-heartedly; the King had died a traitor's death and the skies had not fallen; other great men had followed him in his final fate, and none had avenged them. The present Charles Stewart, called the King of Scots since his coronation at Scone, was flying the country, a proscribed fugitive; the Commonwealth, proclaimed after the death of the late King, was a year and a half old and had shown no signs of weakness nor unstability, and to-day the people were got together to welcome home the Lord-General, Oliver Cromwell, who was returning after having subdued Ireland and Scotland as those Islands had never yet been subdued.
Fire and sword had swept Ireland from coast to coast;Cromwell had not spared the enemies of the Lord, as Drogheda could witness, Papist priests had been hanged or knocked on the head, Papist garrisons massacred, Papist peasants transported, Papist gentry forbidden their religion, and driven from their estates into the desolate regions of Connaught.
Without pause or hesitation or check, with fierceness, vigour, and irresistible onslaught, Cromwell had overcome Ireland, and had left the unfortunate country, silenced now with her own blood, to cherish for ever a terrible image of this Englishman, and a terrible hatred.
Next, he turned against Scotland, where the second Charles, having denounced the faith of his father, and the religion of his mother, having taken the Covenant (submitting in a moment to those things which the late King had died rather than yield to), was setting up once more the standard of the Stewarts.
Cromwell (now Lord-General, for Fairfax, too cold and meticulous for these times, had retired) met the Scots at Dunbar and beat Lord Leven and David Leslie as thoroughly as he had beaten Hamilton at Preston, and with troops as tired, hungry, and outnumbered, as they had been hungry and outnumbered then. Dunbar Drove they called this, as they had called the other Preston Rout.
Both were mighty victories.
Then, a year later, on the 3rd of September, the anniversary of Dunbar, Cromwell, supported by Lambert and Harrison, marched to meet another invading army of Scots headed by the young Charles, and on the banks and bridges of the Severn and in the streets of Worcester city, beat them again, ruining completely the cause of the young Stewart, who watched the day from the cathedral tower, then fled, hopeless, not to Scotland, but beyond seas, this time to seek an asylum at his sister's court.
That was the end of it. Cromwell had subdued kings and kingdoms; there was no one left to lead any army across the Border or ships across St. George's Channel, and neitherof the sister islands would be likely to attempt to measure swords with England again. There were no more gallant Cavaliers to rise up for a lost cause. Montrose had been hanged in Edinburgh, and the young King for whom he died had repudiated him almost before the heroic soul had left the gallant body. Hamilton, Capel, Holland, Derby, had suffered on the block, kissing the axe that had slain their master; the rest were beyond seas, in exile and poverty, or in their own country outnumbered, forlorn, impoverished, and silenced.
And the man who had thus achieved the triumphs of his cause and his beliefs, the soldier who had been victorious in every engagement he had undertaken, whose enthusiasm, fire, and faith had heartened his party when even the bravest had been daunted, was the man who was riding into London to-day, welcomed by salvos of artillery and pealing of bells.
Five of the foremost Members of Parliament had ridden out to meet him on his march. One of the royal palaces, that of Hampton, had been given him as a residence; he enjoyed now a grant of nearly six thousand a year, and in his train, as he entered London, were many of the noblest in the country, and with him rode the Lord Mayor, the Speaker, the Council of State, the Aldermen, and Sheriffs.
It was noticed that his carriage was simple and modest; the triumphant conclusion of the nine years' struggle had no more power to shake him from the calm inspired by his sombre creed and intense beliefs than the rebuffs, confusions and temptations of the struggle itself. He was still, in his own eyes, as much God's mere instrument as when he sowed his grain and reaped his harvest in Huntingdon; and the future and his rise or fall were as absolutely preordained by the Lord now as then.
With a modesty that was absolutely unaffected he declined all credit for his overwhelming victories; and with a simplicity some mistook for irony (but irony was not inhis nature), he remarked of the huge multitude which had gathered to see him pass: "There would be even more to see me hanged," so exactly did he value the popular favour, and so completely was he aware of the peril of the height on which he stood.
When the triumphal entry was over and evening was closing in, he turned at last to his own home.
One sadness marred the return; Henry Ireton had died in Ireland, worn out by the fatigues of the strenuous campaign which had more than once laid the Lord-General himself on a bed of sickness, and Bridget Ireton was shut into her house, mourning her lord, whose body was being brought home for burial in the Abbey Church at Westminster.
The rest were all there to welcome him; his mother, his wife, his son Richard, now at last wedded to Dorothy Mayor (Henry was still in Ireland, doing good work there), Elisabeth Claypole and her husband, and the two unmarried girls, Mary and Frances.
The women wept, in their enthusiasm and joyful relief. Elisabeth Claypole hung on his breast in a passion of tears, so completely did the sadness of the world overwhelm her sensitive heart in any moment of emotion.
Almost her first words were to ask his kindness towards the poor Irish who were being sent to Jamaica and Barbadoes as slaves. After all Cromwell's victories his favourite daughter's delicate voice had risen with the same appeal: "Be merciful, be pitiful—spare the prisoners!"
"Why do you weep, Betty?" he asked.
"Because she is a foolish wench," said her husband good-humouredly.
"Nay," said Elisabeth Cromwell, "what doth your old poet say—'pity runneth soon in a gentle heart'; and we have had to bear some straining anxieties."
"And we have heard awful reports," murmured Mrs. Claypole, smiling through her tears with that simple archness which her father loved, however he might contemnher carnal mind. "Blood—nothing but blood was spoken of, until my dreams were coloured red."
"Ay," said old Mrs. Cromwell, with the vagueness of her great age. "Hast thou not slain the children of the Scarlet Woman by tens of thousands? I heard that at Drogheda thou didst close the blasphemous idolaters into their own church, and there burn them, as an offering of sweet savour in the nostrils of the Lord."
Cromwell glanced at his daughter Elisabeth, and answered nothing; the cries of the burning Papists echoed sometimes in his own heart for all his stern exaltation in slaying the enemies of God. For a moment his brow clouded, but the subject was swept away and forgotten in the congratulations, questions, and answers of Mr. Claypole and Richard Cromwell. The times were still momentous, even perilous; now there was peace what would they and all the other men of England do?
While the Lord-General talked with these two, the women took the old gentlewoman to her room; she could hardly walk now and her senses were failing, the Bible was constantly in her hands, and she spoke of little else but her son.
When she had reached the chamber set apart for her, she got into her chair by the window and looked at the sunset a little, half-dozing and talking to herself, then she roused suddenly and asked Mrs. Claypole, who tenderly remained with her, to "Fetch your father, child, fetch your father. I have had little of him but the pain of his absences, and I would see him now!"
Elisabeth Claypole, light-footed and delicate in her glimmering white and blue silks, sped on her errand, taking with her some of the last late roses with which she had adorned her grandmother's room.
When she gave her message she slipped the stems of two of them through the button-hole of her father's dusty uniform. Their gay beauty looked incongruous enough on his sober attire, but though his lips chid her, his eyes smiled, and he let the blossoms remain.
Elisabeth Cromwell was wondering, in sentences half-awed, half-vexed, how she should keep house in a great place like Hampton Court?—how many servants must she have, and how could they use such a number of rooms?
"We will come and stay with thee," said Dorothy, Richard's wife, who was not averse to her share of her father-in-law's splendour. Her pretty face was very bright and smiling to-day above the demure fall of her lawn collar, and her gown was new silk, embroidered in a fashion not uncourtly; her husband, too, was habited with a richness beyond his father's. The Lord-General had not failed to mark his son's wide, Spanish boots, fringed breeches, grey cloth passemented with rose-colour, and Malines lace collar and fall. It did not please him, for he took it as another indication of that weakness and levity which he had before suspected, with a terrible pang, in his eldest surviving son.
He made no reply to Dorothy Cromwell, but followed his daughter to her grandmother's room.
That night there was a wonderful sunset, not only the west but the whole horizon was gold, crimson, and scarlet; the earth seemed ringed with fire, and the glow penetrated even into the narrow street, so that there was the sense of a wonderful light and colour abroad—a light brilliant and mystical, shed from heaven upon the earth.
Oliver Cromwell crossed the room, which was dark and plain, but full of the odour of dry rose leaves and lavender and camphire, and stood before his mother who sat by the window, a small shrivelled gentlewoman in a hooded chair. She lifted her blurred eyes and held out her two little hands to him; he kissed them, and then as Elisabeth Claypole left them he broke forth, "Mother, I am tired, tired."
He rested his sick head against the mullions and gazed up at the little strip of sky, glorious with floating clouds of light, visible above the houses opposite.
"How is it with thee, my son Oliver?" she asked."Thou art come in triumph with much acclaim, but hast thou within the peace of God, which passeth all understanding?"
He answered with a fervour and a quickness which was like the passion of self-justification yet ennobled by his usual enthusiasm.
"I have followed the pillar of cloud by day," he answered, "the pillar of fire by night. I have disregarded the wind and the whirlwind, and I have listened for the still small voice.I believe God hath been with me because of the victories I have had."
"Surely," replied Mrs. Cromwell, "He hath witnessed for thee as He witnessed against the King. Is not this fight at Worcester spoken of on all tongues as the crowning mercy?"
The Lord-General continued to look at the sky which was fast paling from flame tints into a burning paleness, like gold in a furnace, thrice refined.
"For nine years I have laboured," he said, "and not once hath the Lord put me down. Yet sometimes the voice will fail, sometimes the Sign will not come—sometimes I even seem to fall from grace—sometimes I wonder why I ever left obscurity. Yet the Lord called me! I will maintain it—He held up my hands and made me His instrument! I have been one with the Spirit; I say it was God's work, for He did not put me down! Now, it were better that I should lay aside my high office and return to what I was."
"It were better," said the old gentlewoman; "but can England spare you yet? For me, I would rather die where I have lived than amid these splendours."
"I will go back to my own place," continued Oliver Cromwell. "I have done what God set me to do—I have swept the enemy from the land, I have seen the tyrant slain, and his children exiled. When shall the young man, Charles Stewart, get another army? Nay, when he fled from Worcester city, he fled from his throne for ever; his forces are scattered and no captain out of Egypt shall everget them together again. I say the land is purged, and what work is there for me?"
He was silent a moment, then he added, "I am weary and still something sick."
These recent sicknesses of his troubled him; he could not understand the fault for which this weakness had been laid on him. Following out his own thoughts he broke into speech again.
"As for Drogheda,I say it was in the heat of action, and were they not Papists, blasphemous idolaters whose hands were red with the blood of God's poor people?It was in the heat of action!What was that little moment compared to the torments of hell they have earned? When they were shut up in the church and the flames were getting hold on them, I heard one say—'God damn me, God confound me, I burn!' That is God's judgment. Godhathdamned him—to the flame that is never quenched and the worm that never dieth! Poor clay am I, but a reed He breatheth through—shall I be blamed for His vengeance against Drogheda? Nay, no more than I shall be praised for His victories at Dunbar and Worcester—when He was pleased to make use of a certain poor thing of mine, nay, a little invention, the army."
The ancient gentlewoman leant forward and stroked his sleeve with her pallid hand thickened with heavy veins. She had an instinct that he required comforting in this the highest moment of his glory.
He still wore his buff riding coat, his dusty boots, his plain sword-thread and sword; surely no victorious general had ever returned to take his triumph in such attire. No order, no ornament distinguished him from the meanest of his fellow-citizens; his features, always heavy, were slightly swollen and slightly suffused, his eyes most deeply lined and shadowed; there was as much grey as brown now in the locks that fell to his shoulders, and a general sadness was in his expression, his pose, the tone of his rough voice.
His little mother continued to anxiously stroke his cloth sleeve and to gaze up at him with those failing eyes which saw neither marks of age nor fatigue, saw neither plainness nor ill-health, but onlyherson in the glory of his matchless achievement.
He looked down at her at last.
"My mother," he said, "how long ago is it since I knelt to say my prayers at your knee? I feel the years grow marvellously heavy and my body full of the evils of old age. So little done, so much to do! For all of us, such a little while."
"Many more years for thee, son Oliver," she replied. "Many more and much to do in them! If there be something to be done in England, wilt thou not do it?"
"Surely," he said, straightening himself, "for I am English—it is the English who now testify most for the Lord, and He out of His mercy hath given us great gifts."
The last sunlight had faded from the narrow street, and the precise chamber was growing dark.
"God keep thee always," said Mrs. Cromwell quietly. "I would not hold thee even from manifest danger if He bade thee go!"
"I believe I never shall go back to Ely," he answered evenly. "My hand is on the plough——"
The door was gently opened and Elisabeth Claypole, holding a candle which illumined her wistful, frail beauty, half entered and told them the supper waited for them below.
The Council of State had done well; great names were among the members. Sir Harry Vane had devoted his patriotism and his great gifts to the administration of the navy, which was under the command of William Blake, already as renowned at sea as Cromwell on the land; the naval war with the United Provinces was already taxing the resources of the infant Commonwealth, and so far all had acquitted themselves with honour and distinction.
Rupert and his roving pirate ships had been swept from the seas, Deane and Monk kept an iron hand on Scotland, Fleetwood and Ludlow completed the bloody conquest of Ireland. Outwardly the new Republic might well present a uniform and solid appearance; but within it seethed with confusion.
The main cause of the two civil wars and the execution of the King—ecclesiastical questions—was still in abeyance; nothing was settled in Church or State. Nor were the finances of the country in a hopeful condition; neither the Church lands nor the King's lands nor all the revenues formerly given to royalty served to pay the expenses of the Dutch War. Cromwell's dreams of retirement vanished; urged from within by his own eager soul and from without by the appeals of those who could not bear their burdens without his help, he remained in the forefront of affairs, the leader of the army in name and fact, a figure slightly enigmatical, needed by all and by some feared.
He was not without his enemies. Edmund Ludlow, on one of his visits to London, told him frankly that the extreme Puritans could not forget his attempt to come to terms with the late King, and the extreme moderates could not forget his execution of the mutineers at Ware.
The last time Ludlow and Cromwell had crossed words Cromwell had ended the argument by hurling a cushion at his opponent's head. Now he answered mildly and declared that the Lord was bringing to pass through him what He had promised in the 110th Psalm; he expounded this theory for an hour, and Ludlow was silenced by rhetoric if not convinced by reason.
Meanwhile Cromwell, whether he silenced his critics by oratory or hurled cushions, went his way without heeding any of them; sometimes mildly, sometimes in sudden gusts of temper, sometimes in strange exalted excitements he pursued a policy which, however obscure and vague it might seem to others, was clear as crystal and bright as flame to him.
The feeling between the army and the remnant of Charles' last Parliament still ruling at Westminster became again restless and intense; all men began to see that the present Government was, and could be nothing else, but provisional. A date, three years off, was fixed for the dissolution of the present Parliament, and Cromwell called a conference between the chief lawyers and the chief captains, to whom he offered two vital questions: Should they have a republic or a monarchy? if a monarchy, who was to be King?
The Parliament men were mostly for a monarchy, the army men for a republic: Desborough and Whalley were especially strong for that.
Oliver Cromwell was not with them: he had never been at heart republican; but he said little, and the conference broke up, as the others had done, without solving a single difficulty.
Sometime after the Lord-General, coming from his luminous obscurity where he gleamed, keeping all men in an uncertainty as to his wishes and his intentions, asked the Lord Whitelocke, lawyer and Parliament man, to attend him in his walking in the Park, and to there discuss with him the unsettlement and turmoil of the State.
It was a day in November; the brambles in the hedges had sparse fox-coloured leaves; the trees in the orchard and archery ground were bare; the elms and oaks were hung with thin scattered gold leaves against a pale blue and frosty sky; the ground was hard with a thin ice in the ruts where yesterday had been mud; above the empty Palace, which might be plainly glimpsed through the bare trees, a solitary white cloud floated, like a forlorn banner. The Lord-General often looked at this cloud while he spoke: he had a habit of gazing much at the sky.
He wore a black suit and grey worsted hose, broad leathern shoes with wide steel buckles, sword, band, collar, and hat as plain as might be. There was nothing about his person to indicate the profession which he represented; he was in every way as plain as the plain lawyer to whom he talked. He opened with what was in his mind, but gently, indirectly and vaguely, after his usual manner.
"Where is the cause? Where is this for which we all fought? Lord Whitelocke, did so many poor people die to this end? Was the glorious climax of the war, the death of the tyrant to lead to no better conclusion than this? Hath the Lord led us out of Egypt to abandon us now? Truly, sir, I do not think it, yet I ask you where is the cause? I say that the cause is overlaid with jars, with jealousies, with confusion, and this must not be. The Lord will not have it—it is not as it should be, sir, in a Commonwealth."
Bulstrode Whitelocke hesitated a moment and struck at the frozen ground with his cane; he was a shrewd, prosaic man, a keen lawyer, and a fearless patriot. After his littlepause he resolved on boldness: his quick, direct speech was a contrast to Cromwell's involved phrases.
"The peril we are in, sir, cometh from the arrogance of the army, from their high pretensions and unruly ways and desire for dominance."
The Lord-General gave him a long glance.
"Say you so?" he returned mildly. "Yet methinks they are a lovely company, worthy of all honour."
"They have had all honour and all profit too," returned Whitelocke grimly, "and now they would have all power as well, under your favour, sir."
"Nay," returned Cromwell, "this is not so. The army is the poor instrument by which the Lord saved England; they did some little service at Naseby—at Preston—at Dunbar and Winchester, and though I dare say they would sooner die than take any of the glory of these mercies, yet the Lord chose them as His instruments, and that must be accounted to them as an honour. Sir, the army hath laboured much, sweated in your service; sir, without the army"—he pointed to Whitehall—"that Palace would now be the dwelling-place of the young man, Charles Stewart. I pray you consider these things."
"Yet I repeat," insisted the Lord Whitelocke, who was voicing the feeling of the entire Parliament and a great portion of the nation, "that the army is the cause of these present jars—their imperious carriage is hard to be borne, sir, and from it arises the confusions and jealousies which oppress us. As to their merits, the Council of State hath done somewhat too—the war with the Dutch——"
"Because of this war my spirit hath groaned!" interrupted Cromwell. "Should there not rather be a union between two Protestant republics than war? And what do not you spend on it? All that which you have gained from King and bishops. I say it were more befitting us, as Christians and Englishmen, to have peace with the Dutch."
Whitelocke refused to be drawn into this argument. He returned to his point.
"The Council of State rule well and wisely—the people uphold them."
"Nay, do they?" interrupted the Lord-General, in a very decided tone. "I tell you this, Mr. Whitelocke, I have been up and down the country and heard the opinions of many men, and I say that most, and the best of them, do loathe the Parliament."
"Where is this leading?" asked the lawyer sharply.
"Ay, where?" repeated Cromwell. "There are the people new come from civil strife unheard of, and ye lay on them the great burden of a foreign war; ye settle nothing and strive after nothing but to prolong your own sitting. There are scandalous members among you—ay, I know it well—self-seekers, drunkards, men of lewd life. I say it is not well these should be uncontrolled in power, therefore I spoke for a king or for one with a king's authority. They have none to check them, they do as they will, they are slow, they are idle, they meddle in private matters; it will not do. Let them look to their authority, which is on high; let them seek God painfully."
He spoke with passion now, but also with a certain weariness, as if he was oppressed with great thoughts and slowly struggled to the outward expression of them.
"You are a soldier and therefore impatient," returned Whitelocke quietly. "The Parliament is slow—but that is within human reason."
The Lord-General turned and looked at him grimly.
"There is another thing which is not within human reason, which is that this Commonwealth should stand without a master set over the Parliament."
"How may one do that?" demanded the lawyer sharply, "when the Parliament is itself the authority from which we derive ours?"
"That is a formal difficulty," replied Cromwell impatiently. "Do you think I should be stopped by nice points of law?"
Whitelocke marked the pronoun the soldier had used.
"Would you withstand the Parliament?" he asked keenly. "They are your masters."
"They are no man's masters; they are means to an end," replied Cromwell. "I am a poor thing, but the Lord hath made some use of me these ten years past—yea, a little use. He hath been pleased to appoint me to do a few things for Him, some little work, and I will do it, despite Parliament as I did and despite a king. I say we will have righteousness and justice; if need be these men can be put down as the tyrant was put down, and the poor and simple be cared for and the groans of the needy heard."
"These are stern words," said Whitelocke; "and how will you justify them?"
"God will justify them," replied the Lord-General, "as He hath hitherto upheld what I have said in His name. What was I? What did I know of armies or of the battalion? Yet the Lord said, 'Be thou ruler, even among Mine enemies,' and sent me forth to conquer kings and princes. And we were but a handful and they gentlemen. Yet we did it. 'With His own right hand and with His holy arm hath He gotten Himself the victory!' And now I am bidden to labour still in His cause and to go forward—and do you think that poor remnant sitting at Westminster shall hinder me?"
The Lord Whitelocke was silent; he was rather startled at what he took to be the kernel of Cromwell's speech—his enmity to the Parliament—and he was not deceived by the gentleness and self-effacement of the Lord-General, who, he knew, was indeed capable of doing away with the Parliament as he and his had done away with the King. And there was now, as always, the great fact to be remembered and reckoned with that Cromwell had behind him the army of his own creation, that fierce military whose enthusiasm was not much curbed or checked by regard for mere formal institutions and laws of men's framing.
"In very deed," he replied, "your power and the power behind you is too high. How can we withstand it?"
"My power, such as it be," returned the soldier mildly, "cometh from God and the People. Be assured that if I use it for other than the glory of one and the good of the other it will pass from me. I say this because meseemeth you have fear of the army, poor souls; but I did not open this talk for any matter of argument with thee, but rather in a friendly spirit to discuss the present jars."
"You have discussed them to good purpose, sir," returned Whitelocke dryly. "I perceive that you look upon the Parliament and the Council of State with ill-will and mistrust."
"I think," replied Cromwell, still gazing at the pale cloud floating in the pale sky over Whitehall, "that we need a Governor over this England."
"Where is he to be found?" demanded Whitelocke.
"The Lord will bring such an one forward in His good leisure," said Cromwell.
Whitelocke liked this speech still less than those which had gone before it; he thought it meant that the Lord-General intended in truth to set himself against the Parliament.
"Who will be your Governor of England?" he asked.
"Who can resolve that question?" said Cromwell evasively.
"What is your proposal to solve the present difficulties?" was Whitelocke's next question. He was determined that he would, if possible, gain something definite from the present conversation.
The Lord-General made no answer, and they walked on slowly and in silence. The very last leaves were scattered from the boughs overhead on to the frosty ground at their feet, and a little low, sharp wind was blowing across the city.
Bulstrode Whitelocke waited for the Lord-General's answer. Himself a moderate man, to a point he was wholly with Cromwell's tolerance and large-mindedness; but when Cromwell's moderation suddenly culminated in daringaction, then Whitelocke refused to follow him. He had been one of the most active of those who had endeavoured to frame a treaty with the late King, and had warmly supported Cromwell's attempts to bring Charles to a compromise; but he had refused to sit in the High Court of Justice that had tried and condemned the King. So now he felt that they were again reaching a crisis when he could not support any longer the man whom he so sincerely admired.
But the Lord-General would not any further disclose himself, and when Whitelocke was about to press for a reply he caused a distraction by pausing and pointing to a gentleman walking near the archery fields, to which they had now nearly approached.
"I know his face, who is he?" asked Cromwell.
Bulstrode Whitelocke, somewhat vexed at this abrupt change of subject, answered briefly—
"He is the Latin Secretary to the Council of State."
"Ah," said the Lord-General, "a very worthy citizen. I have heard of him. From the first he hath given his testimony to the good cause. I would there were many more such among you."
By this, the person of whom he spoke drew near, and seeing the two gentlemen, and knowing Whitelocke and recognizing Cromwell, he stopped and bowed.
Cromwell turned towards him, and Whitelocke had no choice but to do likewise.
"You are the Latin Secretary," said the Lord-General. "You have written much in defence of the cause. I have often sought an occasion to speak to you."
The gentleman thus addressed bowed in some confusion like one overwhelmed by a great honour.
"Do you know me?" asked Cromwell.
"I do, my Lord-General," was the reply, given in a sweet musical voice. "What lover of truth and freedom doth not?—'My lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.'"
He spoke with a warm sincerity which raised his wordsabove the suspicion of flattery, and a flush overspread his naturally pallid features.
There was something about his person and manner wholly attractive; in his youth (he was now in middle age) he must have been of a beauty almost feminine, and his traits still had a frail and delicate comeliness; his large dark blue eyes were fatigued and heavy lidded as if swollen with overuse, and his pale cheek and the brow shaded by the long locks of brown hair bore traces of sickness and anxiety; his figure was slender and noble, and his black clothes were fine in quality; his whole appearance was of an elegance wholly lacking to the Lord-General's person; indeed, for all the sobriety of his attire, he appeared more like one of the unfortunate Cavaliers than one of the most vigorous champions of the Independents, the author ofEikonoclastes.
"I thank you, Mr. Milton," replied Cromwell. "I hope we may be better acquainted. You have laboured much and your reward halts, but I believe you have that greatness in you which is pleased to serve England without fee."
"For the little that I do I am even overpaid," replied John Milton, with a deepening of his boyish flush.
The glance of the two men met, and a look flashed between them as if they were wholly one in spirit; then the Secretary bowed again, and each went his way.
"The Council have bidden him write an answer to Salmasius' work," said Whitelocke. "He calls itA Defence of the People of England—but it doth not proceed as quickly as he would wish because his eyes fail him. He told me that at times he could hardly see the letters on the paper."
Cromwell looked back at the slender, erect figure walking away under the bare trees.
"Thou hast a brave heart if I mistake not," he murmured.
Then he went on again, Bulstrode Whitelocke still waiting for him to deliver himself.
Not until they had almost reached the confines of the Park and the houses of Charing Cross did the Lord-General speak.
Then, turning suddenly to his expectant companion, he said—
"What if a man should take it upon himself to be king?"
Whitelocke stared, startled beyond concealment.
"Well?" urged Cromwell gently.
The lawyer, recovering himself, took refuge in the pedantic, formal objections offered by the law and the constitution.
Cromwell listened patiently. When Whitelocke, rather confused and breathless, had brought his speech to an end he answered mildly—
"Neither the law nor the constitution gave authority for the execution of a king. Yet we did it. Therefore we may do other things for which there is no warrant in charter or Parliament roll, but for which the warrant cometh from God. Yet for the moment I have no more to say."
During these days the Lord-General and his colleagues, Harrison and Lambert, waited much on the Lord, confessing their sinfulness and asking for Divine help.
Behind them was always the army, demanding arrears of pay, work for the poor, and the suppression of the general lawlessness of the kingdom; there were many more conferences between the lawyers and the soldiers; towards the close of 1652 Cromwell gently, and Lambert and Harrison not at all gently, began to say that it was the Lord's will that the Parliament should go. Parliament, they declared, should call a convention and then abdicate.
The gentlemen at Westminster, seeing the military saints were in earnest, set themselves to prepare a scheme of government which should meet the approval of the army; the wise and valiant Sir Harry Vane, the younger, drew up a bill to provide for a provisional government, the nucleus of which was to be the members now sitting, they who had been ever in the forefront of the fight since that fight had begun.
This scheme to give perpetuity to a body which they wished to completely abolish only further exasperated the army; Cromwell and Harrison pushed forward their own bill.
On the 19th of April, Vane and Cromwell and their several supporters held another conference in the suite of apartments in Whitehall Palace, now given to the Lord-General, at which both parties agreed to stay their hands until the discussion should be resumed and brought to some conclusion. The next day Cromwell was more cheerful than had been usual with him of late; he loved polemics and to measure his rhetoric with others; yesterday'slong argument with Sir Harry Vane had enlivened him; he looked forward to a resumption of the conference and to a final triumph for the Cause; he had recently communed much with himself, brooded and considered in his soul, and he was convinced that God had further work for him; part of that work he believed to be to settle the nation—and not by way of the Parliament.
That morning as he was at breakfast with Lambert and Harrison an abrupt end was put to his tranquillity and satisfaction.
News was brought that the Parliament had assembled early and were hurrying through Sir Harry Vane's bill.
The Lord-General sank at once into gloomy silence, while the other two soldiers heavily condemned the perfidy of the Parliament men.
"I will not believe it," said Cromwell at last. "Nay, I will not believe falsehood of Sir Harry Vane."
"But maybe," suggested Major-General Harrison, "his followers have got beyond Sir Harry and done this thing despite him."
"Nay," returned the Lord-General. "I believe it not."
"You are too slow to move!" cried Harrison, with some heat. "If it had not been for your hesitation there would have been no Parliament to defy the poor toilers in God's cause."
The Lord-General pushed his tankard away from him.
"You are one," he answered, "who will not wait the Lord's leisure, but would hurry into that which afterwards honest men must repent."
"You have waited the Lord's leisure too long," said Harrison. "Much delay is not good."
"When the Lord speaks, I obey," answered Cromwell, with some grimness; "and then my actions are as swift as any man's, yea, even as thine, Major-General Harrison. I have given some poor testimony to that effect."
"Meanwhile," put in Lambert, "the miserable remnant at Westminster are making their bill law—and where are we? Even made a mock of and slighted."
As he spoke another messenger arrived, and close on his heels a third, to say that the Parliament were in very deed pushing through Sir Harry Vane's bill.
Then Cromwell rose.
"'Up, Lord, and help me, O my God,'" he said, "'for Thou smitest all mine enemies upon the cheek-bone—Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly!' Now is the time—yea, even now." He turned to Harrison. "Come with me to Westminster and let us testify to God."
He called for his hat; he wore his black coat and his grey worsted stockings and a plain neck-band.
As he was leaving Whitehall he ordered a guard of soldiers to accompany him, and marched down to Westminster with them behind him, as Charles had marched with his armed followers from the same Palace to the same Parliament eleven years before.
When they reached Westminster Hall he left the file of muskets in the outer room, and he and his two generals passed to their usual places in the Commons.
There were about sixty members present; at the silent entrance of the three soldiers all looked round and about them, and some shifted in their places and whispered to their neighbours. "I see Old Noll's red nose," said one as Cromwell entered; "we are like to have a tempest."
But the Lord-General went quietly to his seat, as did his two companions; and the members, whatever trepidation they might feel, displayed none, but continued their debate, preparatory to passing Sir Harry Vane's bill.
Cromwell listened, his arms folded, his head bent on his breast; the sweet April sunshine filled the chamber with a pleasant haze in which the motes danced; Sir Harry Vane looked often at the Lord-General as if he would find an opportunity to excuse himself for his seeming breach of faith; indeed, his supporters had taken the matter out of his hands and forced the bill on, whether he would or no; but Cromwell sat glooming, and would not meet his eye.
The discussion proceeded, moderate, orderly; presently the Lord-General called to Major-General Harrison, who satopposite to him on the other side of the House, to come to him.
"Methinks," said Cromwell grimly, looking about him, "this Parliament is rife for a dissolution—and that this is the time for doing it."
Harrison, impetuous as he was, was startled by this; he might urge Cromwell to action, and blame his slowness, but when Cromwell was roused Harrison, like any other, was alarmed.
"Sir," he replied, lowering his voice (for their conversation was being observed with suspicion), "this work is very great and dangerous, therefore, seriously consider of it, before you engage in it."
"You say well," replied Cromwell, and lapsed into moody silence again. Harrison took the seat next him, Lambert being near.
The members, though still outwardly tranquil, hastened the debate, and in a short while the question for passing the bill was about to be put.
Then Cromwell moved, and, leaning sideways to Harrison, touched him on the arm and said, "This is the time; I must do it;" and then he suddenly stood up, taking off his hat, and throwing out his right hand, he addressed the members with great passion.
"What heart have ye for the public good," he cried—"ye who support the corrupt interest of presbytery and that of the lawyers, who are the props of tyranny and oppression? This is a time of rebuke and chastening, but as the Lord liveth, we will have neither rebuke nor chastening from such as you!"
The members, swept into silence by the suddenness and violence of his speech, made no reply; all eyes were fixed on him as he stood on the floor of the House, his face flushed and his eyes fiery under the lowering brows.
"What do ye care for but power?" he flung at them, and his voice rang into the farthest corners of the Hall. "What do you care for but to perpetuate that power? As for that Act"—he pointed to where it lay ready to bepassed—"you have been forced to it, and I dare affirm that you never designed to observe it! I say your time has come; the Lord hath done with you—He has chosen more worthy instruments for the carrying on of His work—I say He will have no more paltering and fumbling with traps and toys of the ungodly!"
Here Sir Peter Wentworth got to his feet amid a hum of approbation.
"This is the first time," he declared, red in the face, "that ever I heard such unbecoming language in Parliament—and it is the more horrid as it comes from the servant of the Parliament, and a servant whom Parliament hath so highly trusted—yea, and so highly obliged," he added, with meaning.
But he could get out no more. Cromwell stepped into the midst of the House and waved his hand contemptuously.
"Come, come!" he cried. "I will put an end to your prating!"
Then, stamping his feet and clapping on his hat as he saw several rise in a tumult to answer him, he said in a loud, stern voice, "You are no Parliament—I say you are no Parliament! I will put an end to your sitting!"
Then, while several tried to speak together and there was a confusion, the Lord-General bade the serjeant attending the House open the doors, which he did.
"Call them in," said Cromwell; "call them in." And Lieutenant-Colonel Wolseley, with two files of muskets, entered the House and marched up the floor.
Then Sir Harry Vane, seeing the soldiers, stood up in his place and protested loudly—
"This is not honest! Yea, it is against morality and common honesty!"
Cromwell turned round and sorted him with his glance from the press.
"Oh, Sir Harry Vane! Sir Harry Vane!" he cried. "The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!"
Then pointing out another member, he cried, "There sits a drunkard," and so railed at several separately, ending, "Are these fit to govern God's poor people?"
The House was now in absolute disorder and confusion, but the Lord-General's voice rose above it all.
His angry eye lit on the mace.
"What shall we do with this bauble?" he asked, and added, "There, take it away!"
Major-General Harrison went up to the Speaker.
"Sir," he said, "seeing things are reduced to this pass, it is no longer convenient for you to remain here."
The Speaker answered, "Unless you force me, I will not come down."
"Sir," replied Harrison, "I will lend you my hand."
And, so saying, he took hold of him and brought him down.
Then Cromwell turned again to the Members who were all coming from their places.
"It is you who have forced me to do this!" he cried, with passion, "for I have sought the Lord day and night that He would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work!"
Turning to Lieutenant-General Wolseley, who commanded the muskets, he ordered him to clear the House, which was done, the Members forlornly departing under the command of the soldiers, Cromwell sternly watching the while.
And when the benches were all empty he went to the clerk, who was blankly and in a bewildered way holding Sir Harry Vane's Bill, and, snatching it from his hands, put it under his cloak.
Then ordering the doors to be locked, he went back to Whitehall with Lambert and Harrison. But the day's work was not yet complete; he had barely reached his headquarters before Lieutenant-General Wolseley came up to say that the late Parliament's creation, the Council of State, were sitting as usual in the Painted Chamber.
"Say you so?" replied Cromwell, and he turned back to Whitehall as he had turned back to Hampton when he heard of Charles' double dealing.
Lambert and Harrison accompanied him, and the three swept into the Painted Chamber with little ceremony.
John Bradshaw, the late King's judge, was in the chair; he faced the Lord-General as he had faced the unhappy King, with unshaken dignity and calm.
Cromwell was now composed; but he eyed the Councillors fiercely as he walked up the room.
"If you meet here as private persons," he said, "you shall not be disturbed, but if you meet as a Council of State, this is no place for you," his harsh voice became ominous. "Since you cannot but know what has just been done in the House, take notice that the Parliament is dissolved."
The Latin secretary raised his tired blue eyes with something of admiration as well as keen interest in their glance, but Bradshaw replied with unmoved sternness, eyeing Cromwell with a directness as uncompromising as Cromwell eyed him.
"Sir," he said, "we have heard what you did in the House, and before many hours all England will hear it. But, sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved—for no power under Heaven can dissolve them but they themselves, therefore takeyounotice of that."
"Ha, Mr. Bradshaw," returned the Lord-General, "you may talk and talk, but I say that the Lord has done with you and with these others about you. I know that you are a person of an upright carriage, who has notably appeared for God and for the public good, but I say that your time is over—other means are to be used now, yea, other means!"