ver was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole
and to undermine Cromwell.

Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment
of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay, his
own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save a
prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and
misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was
made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that,
in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal
sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with his
blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy
predecessors, Edward II and Richard II. But he was in no danger of such
treason. Those who had him in their grip were not midnight stabbers.
What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven
and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They
enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient
constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to
regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on
effecting a complete political and social revolution.

In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should
first break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and
this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons
passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers
excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the
proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house was
instantly closed. No court known to the law would take on itself the
office of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was
created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a
murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed from his
shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the
banqueting-hall of his own palace.

In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious
zealots to whom this deed is to be ascribed had committed, not only a
crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his
people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great
theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities
which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the