for though
Cromwell had seized the whole administration into his own hands,
managing what was called the House of Commons and the army by his
creatures, annihilating the aristocratic branch of the legislature, and
cajoling his brother-general, while he prepared the scaffold and
sharpened the axe for the Monarch whom it was the settled purpose of
Fairfax to preserve; yet his government had the feature which constantly
characterizes newly-assumed power. He durst not disoblige the supporters
of his greatness; and the services of his myrmidons were purchased by a
sort of tacit agreement, that they might enrich themselves with the
plunder of an oppressed people. Rapacity, therefore, walked triumphant
through the land. Loyalty and Episcopacy had already been stripped. The
bare carcase of truth and honour afforded no food for the carrion birds
who floated round the unfledged antitype of the royal eagle. The
adherents to the Rump parliament (as the House of Commons was then
called, before Cromwell excluded from it the members who were offensive
to his views), the Presbyterians and Republicans, had lately fattened on
the miseries of their countrymen. Some of these, repenting their former
errors, made efforts to save the King's life; and, for the crime of
petitioning to that effect, were exposed to the rigorous punishments of
imprisonment and sequestration. The royalists, conscious of their
weakness, had suspended all military efforts, and fearing lest, by
irritating their enemies, they should precipitate their Master's fate,
they confined themselves to supplicatory addresses to him who alone had
power to chain the fury of these human tigers. But, in the present
instance, it was the will of the Almighty to give a fearful lesson to
those who engage in fomenting rebellion and confusion, with an
expectation of being able to muzzle the many-headed monster they let
loose, and to govern that ignorance and depravity whose irregular
appetites and malignant passions they have inflamed. The blow was struck
which disgraced the nation, released the royal martyr from his crown of
thorns, but had no power to prevent his receiving one of glory. "A
dismal, universal groan burst from the thousands who witnessed the
horrid scene[2], such as was never before heard! May England never utter
such another! The troopers rode among the populace, driving them in all
directions, and shewing the multitude, that though nine-tenths of the
kingdom abhorred the