Page:Life of Oliver Cromwell.pdf/12

 patient disposition was no further roused, by this unparalleled audacity, than to excite him to express a sentiment of pity or compassion. After a trial, without precedent and without justice, Charles was condenmed to die. Three days were allowed him between his sentence and execution. Every night during this melancholy interval, the king slept as round is usual, though the noise of the workmen elmployed in erecting the scaffold, of which he was to suffer, continually resounded in his ears. On the morning of the fatal day, he rose early, and calling Herbert, one of his attendants, bade him employ more than usual care in dressing and preparing him for the awful approaching event. When on the scaffold; and preparing himself for the block, Bishop Juxon, a mild, virtuous man, and steady adherent of the unhappy monarch, who attended him on this last solemn occasion, called to him, "There is, sir, but one stage more, which though turbulent and troublesome is yet a very short one." "I go," replied the "from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can have place. Having said this, he calmly laid his head upon the block, and at one blow it was several from his body! This dreadful office was performed by a man in a vizor; another, in a similar disguise; field up the streaming head to the spectators, and exclaimed, "This is the head of a traitorǃ"

Perhaps no event in the course of Crowell's extraordinary career elicted, in a more striking manner; the gross hypocrisy which formed a prominent part of his character, or places that hypocrisy in a more abominable point of view, than the circumstances connected with this tragical occurrence. During the last scenes of the king's life, he talked jestingly, behaved throughout with the