ner" to
walk apace, and at two he stepped upon the scaffold from a window,
probably the middle one, of the Banqueting House (see ARCHITECTURE,
Plate VI., fig. 75). He was separated from the people by large ranks of
soldiers, and his last speech only reached Juxon and those with him on
the scaffold. He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of
the people as much as any; "but I must tell you that their liberty and
freedom consists in having government. ... It is not their having a
share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A
subject and a sovereign are clean different things." These, together
with his declaration that he died a member of the Church of England, and
the mysterious "Remember," spoken to Juxon, were Charles's last words.
"It much discontents the citizens," wrote a spectator; "ye manner of his
deportment was very resolutely with some smiling countenances,
intimating his willingness to be out of his troubles."[3] "The blow I
saw given," wrote another, Philip Henry, "and can truly say with a sad
heart, at the instant whereof, I remember well, there was such a grone
by the Thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may
never hear again. There was according to order one Troop immediately
marching fromwards Charing-Cross to Westminster and another fromwards
Westminster to Charing-Cross, purposely to masker" (i.e. to overpower)
"the people and to disperse and scatter them, so that I had much adoe
amongst the rest to escape home without hurt."[4]

Amidst such scenes of violence was at last effected the destruction of
Charles. "It is lawful," wrote Milton, "and hath been held so through
all ages for any one who have the power to call to account a Tyrant or
wicked King and after due conviction to depose and put him to death."[5]
But here (it might well be contended) there had been no "due
conviction." The execution had been the act of the king's personal
enemies, of "only some fifty or sixty governing Englishmen with Oliver
Cromwell in the midst of them" an act technically illegal, morally
unjustifiable because the supposed crimes of Charles had been condoned
by the later negotiations with him, and indefensible on the ground of
public expediency, for the king's death proved a far greater obstacle to
the re-establishment of settled government than his life could have
been. The result was an extraordinary revulsion of feeling in favour of
Charles and the monarchy, in w