Page:Life of Oliver Cromwell.pdf/11

 ruined the cause of the unhappy king, we find Cromwell at the head of the military and political influence of the kingdom, a power of which the first use he made was to bring his unfortunate sovereign to the block. This he accomplished with the aid of Harrison, the son of a butcher, Treton; Bradshaw, and several other men of mean extraction, ringleaders of the faction of which Cromwell himself was the chief. The king, who was now a prisoner in the hands of the Parliament, was brought to a public trial, and charged, "in the name of the people of England," with the crimes of misgovernment, breach of trust, and a wicked design to erect an unlimited and tyrannical government. During the trial, the unhappy monarch evinced the utmost calmness and intrepidity, never for a moment forgetting the dignity of royalty, or forfeiting his claim to respect, by any ebullition of passion, or indication of fear. Mild and majestic, but subdued by misfortune, the sovereign of England stood a striking contrast to the mean, furious, and bigoted wretches by whom he was surrounded, and by whom his life was sought. Never, even when encompassed with all the splendours of royalty, and seated on the throne of his ancestors, did Charles appear half so dignified as when-with his "grey discrowned head uncovered," as he himself affectingly termed it-he looked round, from the place of his humiliation, on the blood-hounds who had run him down, and who, yelling on all sides, longed to spring upon their prey and imbue their fangs in his heart's blood.

The soldiers, who guarded the court were instigated to add insult to the humiliation of the king as he passed them. Some of these carried their brutality so far as to spit in the face of the miserable and degraded monarch, whose amiable and