Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/374

356 and turning all their faces upon him; he looked at his old palace of St. James's; and he looked at the block. He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, and asked, "if there were no place higher?" Then, to those upon the scaffold, he said "that it was the Parliament who had begun the war, and not he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill instruments had gone between them. In one respect," he said, " he suffered justly; and that was because he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on another." In this he referred to the Earl of Strafford.

He was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily. When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off and called out, "Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!" He also said to Colonel Hacker, " Take care that they do not put me to pain." He told the executioner, "I shall say but very short prayers, and then thrust out my hands "—as the sign to strike.

He put his hair up under a white satin cap which the bishop had carried, and said, "I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side." The bishop told him that he had but one stage more to travel in this weary world, and that, though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would carry him a great way—all the way from earth to heaven. The King's last word, as he gave his cloak and the George—the decoration from his breast—to the bishop, was, "Remember!" He then kneeled down, laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd; and the soldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets.

Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished Charles the First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with him that he died "the martyr of the people;" for the people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a King's rights, long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs; for he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham "the Martyr of his Sovereign."