Mar. (to Ireton.) What fell? The breathless silence | Triumphant. None may better know than I,

of this vast

And crowded court gives to each common sound

A startling clearness. What has fallen?
Ire.

The head

Of the King's staff. See how it spins and bounds
Along the floor, as hurrying to forsake
The royal wretch its master. Now it stops

At Cromwell's feet-direct at Cromwell's feet!
Crom. The toy is broken.
Har.

What is the device?

Some vain idolatrous image?

Crom.

No, a crown;

A gilded crown, a hollow glittering crown,

For it so pleased the Ruler of the Field,
The Almighty King of Battles, that my arm
Struck down the standard-bearer, and restored
The English lion to the lion hearts
Of England.

Cook. Please you, Sir, retire. Now summon-
King. Call not another. What I have done boldly,
In the face of day and of the nation, that,
Nothing repenting, nothing derogating
From the King's high prerogative, as boldly
As freely I avow-to you—to all men.
I own ye not as Judges. Ye have power
As pirates or land-robbers o'er the wretch

Shaped by some quaint and cunning goldsmith. Look Entrapped within their den, a power to mock

Cook.

Master Cook,

My Lord, the witnesses

Brad. Call any man. Within our bleeding land
There lives not one so blest in ignorance
As not to know this treason, None so high
But the storm overtopped him; none so low

But the wind stooped to root him up. Call any man ;
The Judge upon the bench, the Halberdier
That guards the door.

Cook.

Crom.

Oliver Cromwell!

Ay!

Cook. No need to swear him; he hath ta'en already The Judges' oath.

Crom.

The Judges' oath, not this. Omit no form of guardian law; remember

King.
Could reach my loyal people! That the winds
Could waft the echoes of this groined roof
So that each corner of the land might hear,
From the fair Southern valleys to the hills
Of my own native North, from the bleak shores
Of the great ocean to the channelled West,
Their rightful Monarch's cry. Then should ye hear
From the universal nation, town and plain,
Forest and village, the stern awful shout
Of just deliverance, mighty and prolonged,
Deafening the earth, and piercing Heaven, and smit-
ing

Each guilty conscience with such fear as waits
On the great Judgment-Day. The wish is vain-
Ah! vainer than a dream? I and my people
Are over-mastered. Yet, Sir, I demand

A conference with these masters. Tell the Commons

Cook. Lieutenant-General Cromwell, wast thou The King would speak with them.

To slanderers, but this tale was forced upon me—
'Tis said that one whose grave and honoured name
Sorts ill with midnight treachery, was seen
Stealing from the Queen's lodging!-I'm thy friend,
Thy fast friend! We oft see in this bad world
The shadow Envy crawling stealthily
Behind fair Virtue ;-I hold all for false
Unless thou prove it true;-I am thy friend!
But if the sequestrators heard this tale-

Thou hast broad lands. (aloud.) Why do ye pause?
Cook.
My high

And honouring task to plead at this great bar
For lawful liberty, for suffering conscience,

For the old guardians of our rights, the Commons,
Against the lawless fiend Prerogative,

The persecuting Church, the tyrant King,

To aid ye, not impede. If in this land
To wear the lineal crown, maintain the laws,
Uphold the insulted church, be crimes, then I
Am guilty, guiltier than your King. "T was I
That urged the war-ye know he loved me; I
That prompted his bold councils; edged and whetted
His great resolves, spurred his high courage on
Against ye, rebels! I that armed my knight,
And sent him forth to battle. Mine the crime-
Be mine the punishment! Deliver him,
And lead me to the block. Pause ye? My blood
Is royal too. Within my veins the rich

Were needless now and vain. The haughty prisoner Commingled stream of princely Medici
Denies your jurisdiction. I call on ye

I am the Queen!-here is my place, my seat,
My Lord and Sovereign-here at thy feet.
I claim it with a prouder, humbler heart,
A lowlier duty, a more loyal love,
Than when the false and glittering diadem
Encircled first my brow, a queenly bride.
Put me not from thee! scorn me not! I am
Thy wife.

King. Oh, true and faithful wife! Yet leave me,
Lest the strong armour of my soul, her patience,
Be melted by thy tears. Oh, go! go! go!
This is no place for thee.
Queen.

Who shall divide us?
Ire.
Remove her.

King.

Why thou art here!

Force her from him, guards;

Tremble ye who come so near
As but to touch her garments. Cowards! slaves!
Though the King's power be gone, yet the man's

strength

Remains unwithered. She's my wife; my all.

And regal Bourbon flows; 't will mount as high, 'T will stain your axe as red, 't will feed as full Your hate of Kings.

Har.

Woman, peace! The sentence !
Queen. Your sentence, bloody judges! As ye deal
With your anointed King, the red right arm
Of Heaven shall avenge him: here on earth
By clinging fear and black remorse, and death,
Unnatural, ghastly death, and then the fire,
The eternal fire, where panting murderers gasp
And cannot die, that deepest Hell which holds
The regicide.

Brad. Peace! I have overlong
Forgotten my great office. Hence! or force
Shall rid us of thy frenzy. Know'st thou not
That curses light upon the curser's head,
As surely as the cloud which the sun drains
From the salt sea returns into the wave
In stormy gusts or plashing showers? Remove her.
Queen. Oh mercy! mercy! I'll not curse; I'll
Be as gentle as a babe. You cannot doom him
Whilst I stand by. Even the hard headsman veils
His victim's eyes before he strikes, afeard
Lest his heart fail. And could ye, being men,
Not fiends, abide a wife's keen agony

Whilst I'll not leave thee, Charles! I'll never leave
thee!

King. This is the love stronger than life, the love
Of woman. Henrietta, listen. Loose

Thy arms from round my neck; here is no axe;
This is no scaffold. We shall meet anon,
Untouched, unharmed; I shall return to thee
Safe, safe, shall bide with thee. Listen, my dear

one;

Thy husband prays, thy King commands thee-Go!
Go! Lead her gently, very gently.

[Exit the Queen, led.

Now

I am ready. Speak your doom, and quickly.
Brad.

Thou art adjudged to die. Sirs, do ye all
Accord in this just sentence?

King.

Death.

Heart-broken. Then, for well thou know'st him,

Cromwell,

Bid him to think on me, and how I fell

Hewn in my strength and prime, like a proud oak.

The tallest of the forest, that but shivers

(The Judges all stand up. His glorious top and dies. Oh! thou shalt envy, I am ready.

To a grey head, aching with royal cares,
The block is a kind pillow. Yet once more-

In thy long agony, my fall, that shakes
A kingdom, but not me.
Crom.

He is possessed!—

Brad. Silence. The sentence is pronounced; the My good Lord President, the day wears on

Possessed of a fierce devil!
Brad.

Lead him forth.

My subject-judges I could weep; for thee,
Beloved and lovely country. Thou wilt groan
Under the tyrant Many, till some bold
And crafty soldier, one who in the field
Is brave as the roused lion, at the Council
Watchful and gentle as the couchant pard,
The lovely spotted pard, what time she stoops
To spring upon her prey; one who puts on,
To win each several soul, his several sin,
A stern fanatic, a smooth hypocrite;
A fierce republican, a coarse buffoon,
Always a great bad man; till he shall come,
And climb the vacant throne, and fix him there,
A more than King. Cromwell, if such thou know'st,
Tell him the rack would prove an easier couch
Than he shall find that throne; tell him the crown
Of an Usurper's brow will scorch and burn,
As though the diamonded and ermined round
Were framed of glowing steel.

Crom.

Smitten thee with frenzy?

King.

Hath His dread wrath

Foul shame it were here in a Christian land

Tell him, for thou know'st him, To govern by brute force-How many hast thou?

That Doubt and Discord like fell harpies wait
Around the Usurper's board. By night, by day,
Beneath the palace roof, beneath that roof
More fair, the summer sky, fear shall appal
And danger threaten, and all natural loves
Wither and die; till on his dying bed,

Old 'fore his time, the wretched traitor lies

They gave him

Har. And they are answered, Sir.
Thou know'st that Cromwell singly put them down,
As they had been young babes.
Dow.

Crom. Pshaw!
Dow.

The pensionary

Hath sent pressing missives; Embassies From every court are on the seas; and Charles Proffers great terms.

Crom.

Cook.

Have we not all?

But he

Will give a fair security, a large
And general amnesty. So we are freed
From fear of after-reckoning.

Crom.

Master Cook,
No wonder that a lawyer pleads to-day
Against his cause of yesterday-if feed

To the height. But thou art not of us; thy part
Is o'er.

Mar. He will give large securities!
For what?

Dow. The general safety and our own.
Mar. Safety-say liberty! Securities.
Marry, large promises! An ye will trust,
Ye may be Earls and Marquesses, and portion
This pretty islet England as a manor
Amongst ye. Shame ye not to think a bribe
Might win your souls from freedom?

Har.
From the Lord!
Would you desert His people? sell for gain
His cause?

Crom. Hush! hush! none thinketh to forsake
The cause!

Tich. Let Bradshaw sign. What need more names Than the Lord President's?

Brad.

I am ready, Sirs,
An ye will follow me; the instrument
Were else illegal. When ye are prepared.
Speak.

Crom. My good masters, ye remember me
Of a passage of my boyhood.

(Then aside to Bradshaw and Harrison.

Why so. Where goes The elect and godly of the land!
Our zealous alderman? I deemed to see
His name the first.

Their fears. I dare not. Fear! Sir, didst thou come That are assembled here, should lift your voice
By water hither?
Tich