endants, "for a
little money they would do as much against their commanders."[*] Some of
them were permitted to go the utmost length of brutal insolence, and to
spit in his face, as he was conducted along the passage to the court. To
excite a sentiment of pity was the only effect which this inhuman insult
was able to produce upon him.

* Rush. vol. viii. p. 1425.

The people, though under the rod of lawless, unlimited power, could not
forbear, with the most ardent prayers, pouring forth their wishes for
his preservation; and in his present distress, they avowed him, by their
generous tears, for their monarch, whom, in their misguided fury, they
had before so violently rejected. The king was softened at this moving
scene, and expressed his gratitude for their dutiful affection. One
soldier, too, seized by contagious sympathy, demanded from Heaven a
blessing on oppressed and fallen majesty: his officer, overhearing the
prayer, beat him to the ground in the king's presence. "The punishment,
methinks, exceeds the offence:" this was the reflection which Charles
formed on that occasion.[*]

As soon as the intention of trying the king was known in foreign
countries, so enormous an action was exclaimed against by the general
voice of reason and humanity; and all men, under whatever form of
government they were born, rejected the example, as the utmost effort of
undisguised usurpation, and the most heinous insult on law and justice.
The French ambassador, by orders from his court, interposed in the
king's behalf: the Dutch employed their good offices: the Scots
exclaimed and protested against the violence: the queen, the prince,
wrote pathetic letters to the parliament. All solicitations were found
fruitless with men whose resolutions were fixed and irrevocable.

Four of Charles's friends, persons of virtue and dignity, Richmond,
Hertford, Southampton, Lindesey, applied to the commons. They
represented, that they were the king's counsellors, and had concurred by
their advice in all those measures which were now imputed as crimes to
their royal master: that, in the eye of the law, and according to
the dictates of common reason, they alone were guilty, and were alone
exposed to censure for every blamable action of the prince; and
that they now presented themselves, in order to save, by their own
punishment, that precious life which it became the commons themselves,
and every subject, with the utmost hazard to protect and