yal presence.

But King James, who sometimes showed a good deal of sagacity, ordered them
to desist.

"Thou art a bold boy," said he, looking fixedly at little Noll; "and, if
thou live to be a man, my son Charlie would do wisely to be friends with
thee."

"I never will!" cried the little prince, stamping his foot.

"Peace, Charlie, peace!" said the king; then addressing Sir Oliver and the
attendants, "Harm not the urchin; for he has taught my son a good lesson,
if Heaven do but give him grace to profit by it. Hereafter, should he be
tempted to tyrannize over the stubborn race of Englishmen, let him
remember little Noll Cromwell, and his own bloody nose!"

So the king finished his dinner and departed; and, for many a long year,
the childish quarrel between Prince Charles and Noll Cromwell was
forgotten. The prince, indeed, might have lived a happier life, and have
met a more peaceful death, had he remembered that quarrel, and the moral
which his father drew from it. But, when old King James was dead, and
Charles sat upon his throne, he seemed to forget that he was but a man,
and that his meanest subjects were men as well as he. He wished to have
the property and lives of the people of England entirely at his own
disposal. But the Puritans, and all who loved liberty, rose against him,
and beat him in many battles, and pulled him down from his throne.

Throughout this war between the king and nobles on one side, and the
people of England on the other, there was a famous leader, who did more
towards the ruin of royal authority, than all the rest. The contest seemed
like a wrestling-match between King Charles and this strong man. And the
king was overthrown.

When the discrowned monarch was brought to trial, that warlike leader sat
in the judgment-hall. Many judges were present, besides himself; but he
alone had the power to save King Charles, or to doom him to the scaffold.
After sentence was pronounced, this victorious general was entreated by
his own children, on their knees, to rescue his Majesty from death.

"No!" said he sternly. "Better that one man should perish, than that the
whole country should be ruined for his sake. It is resolved that he shall
die!"

When Charles, no longer a king, was led to the scaffold, his great enemy
stood at a window of the royal palace of Whitehall. He beheld the poor
victim of pride, and an evil education, and misused power, as he laid his
head upon the block. He looked on, wi