e defiantly answered. "Yet, being thus left alone,
I am not afraid, in this great presence, to bear my witness to the
glorious cause, nor to seal it with my blood."

Stimulated by the magnanimity of this noble spirit, his enemies clamored
for his life. The king wrote:

"Certainly Sir Henry Vane is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can
honestly put him out of the way."

Though he could not be honestly put out of the way, it was resolved that
he should die. The day before his execution his friends were admitted
to his prison, and sought to cheer his drooping spirits. He calmly
reviewed his political career, and in conclusion said:

"I have not the least recoil in my heart as to matter or manner of what
I have done. Why should we fear death? I find it rather shrinks from me
than I from it." His children gathered around him, and he stopped to
embrace them, mingling consolation with his kisses. "The Lord will be a
better father to you than I could have been. Be not you troubled, for I
am going to my father."

His farewell counsel was:

"Suffer anything from men rather than sin against God." When his family
had withdrawn, he declared: "I leave my life as a seal to the justness
of that quarrel. Ten thousand deaths, rather than defile the chastity of
my conscience; nor would I, for ten thousand worlds, resign the peace
and satisfaction I have in my heart."

He was beheaded at the block, and Charles II. smiled when news was
brought to him of the execution. We must not regard Charles II. as a
bloodthirsty man. In fact, he was rather good-natured, thinking more of
pleasures and beautiful mistresses than of vengeance; but it was only
natural that he should feel anxious to bring the murderers of his father
to the scaffold.

He had no love for Puritan Massachusetts and threatened to deprive them
of their liberties, demanding the retiring of the charter, which they
refused to surrender. Various rumors went to England to the detriment of
the people of Massachusetts. The New Englanders were not ignorant of the
great dangers they incurred by refusing to comply with the demand of the
sovereign. In January, 1663, the council for the colonies complained
that the government there had withdrawn all manner of correspondence, as
if intending to suspend their obedience to the authority of the king. It
was currently reported in England that Whalley and Goffe were at the
head of an army. The union of the four New England colonies was