dote is told by Clarendon; that Colonel Ingoldsby, one who
signed the warrant, was forced to do so with great violence, by Cromwell
and others; "and Cromwell, with a loud laughter, taking his hand in his,
and putting the pen between his fingers, with his own hand writ 'Richard
Ingoldsby,' he making all the resistance he could."

Ingoldsby gave this relation, in the desire to obtain a pardon after
the Restoration; and to confirm his story he said, "if his name there
were compared with what he had ever writ himself, it could never be
looked upon as his own hand." Warburton, in a note upon this passage,
says, "The original warrant is still extant, and Ingoldsby's name has no
such mark of its being wrote in that manner."

The King knew his fate. He resigned himself to it with calmness and
dignity; with one exceptional touch of natural human passion, when he
said to Bishop Juxon, although resigning himself to meet his God: "We
will not talk of these rogues, in whose hands I am; they thirst for my
blood, and they will have it, and God's will be done. I thank God, I
heartily forgive them, and I will talk of them no more." He took an
affectionate leave of his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, twelve years
old; and of his son, the Duke of Gloucester, of the age of eight. To him
he said: "Mark, child, what I say: they will cut off my head, and
perhaps make thee king; but thou must not be king so long as thy
brothers Charles and James live." And the child said, "I will be torn in
pieces first."

There were some attempts to save him. The Dutch ambassador made vigorous
efforts to procure a reprieve, while the French and Spanish ambassadors
were inert. The ambassadors from the states nevertheless persevered, and
early in the day of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from
Fairfax. "But we found," they say in their despatch, "in front of the
house in which we had just spoken with the general, about two hundred
horsemen; and we learned, as well on our way as on reaching home, that
all the streets, passages, and squares of London were occupied by
troops, so that no one could pass, and that the approaches of the city
were covered with cavalry, so as to prevent anyone from coming in or
going out. The same day, between two and three o'clock, the King was
taken to a scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall."

To that scaffold before Whitehall Charles walked, surrounded by
soldiers, through the leafless avenues of St. J