588 CHAP. 1649 Jan. 27. moved to CHAPTER LXXI. THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES I. As soon as the fatal sentence had been pronounced, Charles was led back to Cotton House, and then, after a short delay, removed to Whitehall, where he Charles re- was allowed to spend the night. On Sunday, the Whitehall. 28th, he listened with reverent devotion to the prayers of the Church read to him by Bishop Juxon, who had been allowed to visit him now that he was lying under sentence of death. At five o'clock in the afternoon he was conducted back to St. James's,2 St. James's. perhaps in order that the preparations for his execution might not reach his ears. Jan. 28. Juxon reads prayers. Charles taken to Hugh Peters preaches at Words very different from those consolations which Juxon addressed to the King resounded on Whitehall. that Sunday morning in the Chapel of Whitehall, where Hugh Peters preached before the members of the High Court of Justice, in justification of those who were seeking the King's death. There was need of all his rude eloquence if those judges who had not yet given their signatures to the death warrant were to be steeled to the work before them. The protests 1 In his letter of the 26th Lawrans states that Juxon was allowed to see the King on the 25th. This is, I believe, a mistake. See C.J. vi. 123, and Leicester's diary in Blencowe, 57. 2 The Moderate, E. 540, 20. 3 Extracts from his sermons were given at his trial (State Trials, v. 1,131-34), but there is some difficulty in assigning any one of them either to this sermon or to the one delivered on the previous Sunday. VAIN PROTESTS. against any attempt to act on that sentence were many and loud. On the 29th the members of the Assembly of Divines joined in supplicating for the King's life, and on the same day two Dutch ambassadors, who had been specially despatched from the Netherlands for the purpose, made a similar request to the House of Commons. It was also reported that Fairfax had urged the Council of Officers in the same direction, whilst it was no secret that the Prince of Wales had sent a blank sheet of paper, signed and sealed by himself, on which the Parliament might inscribe any terms they pleased. That the vast majority of the English people would have accepted this offer gladly was beyond all reasonable doubt.4 3 589 CHAP. LXXI. 1649 Jan. 29. Efforts to save the King's life. minority. It was but a small knot of men-a bare majority, A resolute if they were even that, amongst the sitting members of the High Court of Justice itself-who had fixedly determined that there should be no relenting; but they had Cromwell amongst them, and Cromwell's will, when once his mind had been made up, was absolutely inflexible. They had, moreover, behind them the greater part of the rank and file of the army, to whom the shortest issue seemed the best. Jan. 27. Difficulty of obtain tures to the ing signa death The first difficulty encountered by those who were bent on carrying out the sentence of the Court was that of obtaining signatures to the death warrant in sufficient numbers to give even an appearance warrant, of unanimity amongst the judges. On Saturday, the 27th, a few more signatures had been added to those obtained on the 26th, but on the morning of Monday, Evidence of Corbet at Harvey's trial, State Trials, v. 1,197. 2 C.J. vi. 125. 3 The Kingdom's Faithful Scout, E. 541, 5. 4 A facsimile of this sheet of paper forms the frontispiece of Ellis's Original Letters, ser. I. vol. iii. CHAP. 1649 an incor rect date. the 29th, not only were many still wanting, but there was reason to believe that some of the judges who had already signed would refuse to repeat their signatures if called on to do so. Yet it was impossible to make use of the warrant of the 26th in its existing which bore condition. It had been, as there is little doubt, dated on the 26th, and it presupposed a sentence passed on that day, whereas it was notorious that no sentence had been passed till the 27th. Under these circumstances the natural course of proceeding would have been to re-copy the warrant with altered dates. What was actually done was to erase the existing date, and to make such other alterations as were requisite to bring the whole document into conformity with actual facts. Of the names of the three officers finally charged with the execution of the sentence, Hacker, Huncks, and Phayre, that of Huncks alone. was unaltered. The names over which those of Hacker and Phayre were written are now illegible, but they can hardly fail to have been those of men who shrank from carrying out the grim duty assigned to them.1 How more signatures were obtained. Having by this extraordinary means secured the retention of the signatures already given, the managers of the business, whoever they were, applied themselves energetically to increase the number. The testimony of those regicides who pleaded after the Restoration that they had acted under compulsion must, indeed, be received with the utmost caution; but there is no reason to doubt that considerable pressure was put upon those judges who having agreed to the sentence now showed a dis 1 The evidence for all this is given in Thoms's Death Warrant of Charles I., the warrant itself being in the library of the House of Lords. |