o do; but he
gave his consent to both bills, although he in his heart believed that
the bill against the Earl of Strafford was unlawful and unjust. The Earl
had written to him, telling him that he was willing to die for his sake.
But he had not expected that his royal master would take him at his word
quite so readily; for, when he heard his doom, he laid his hand upon his
heart, and said, 'Put not your trust in Princes!'

The King, who never could be straightforward and plain, through one
single day or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a letter to the
Lords, and sent it by the young Prince of Wales, entreating them to
prevail with the Commons that 'that unfortunate man should fulfil the
natural course of his life in a close imprisonment.' In a postscript to
the very same letter, he added, 'If he must die, it were charity to
reprieve him till Saturday.' If there had been any doubt of his fate,
this weakness and meanness would have settled it. The very next day,
which was the twelfth of May, he was brought out to be beheaded on Tower
Hill.

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's ears cropped off
and their noses slit, was now confined in the Tower too; and when the
Earl went by his window to his death, he was there, at his request, to
give him his blessing. They had been great friends in the King's cause,
and the Earl had written to him in the days of their power that he
thought it would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hampden publicly
whipped for refusing to pay the ship money. However, those high and
mighty doings were over now, and the Earl went his way to death with
dignity and heroism. The governor wished him to get into a coach at the
Tower gate, for fear the people should tear him to pieces; but he said it
was all one to him whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands.
So, he walked, with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes pulled
off his hat to them as he passed along. They were profoundly quiet. He
made a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had prepared (the paper
was found lying there after his head was struck off), and one blow of the
axe killed him, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

This bold and daring act, the Parliament accompanied by other famous
measures, all originating (as even this did) in the King's having so
grossly and so long abused his power. The name of DELINQUENTS was
applied to all sheriffs and other officers who had been concer