"
"Did they dare condemn their King?"
"Ah, madam, they found him guilty of high treason, in that he had taken
arms against the Parliament. They sentenced their royal master to
death--and seven days ago London saw the spectacle of judicial murder--a
blameless King slain by the minion of an armed rabble!"
"But did the people--the English people--suffer this in silence? The wisest
and best of them could surely be assembled in your great city. Did the
citizens of London stand placidly by to see this deed accomplished?"
"They were like sheep before the shearer. They were dumb. Great God! can
I ever forget that sea of white faces under the grey winter sky, or the
universal groan that went up to heaven when the stroke of the axe sounded
on the block, and men knew that the murder of their King was consummated;
and when that anointed head with its grey hairs, whitened with sorrow, mark
you, not with age, was lifted up, bloody, terrible, and proclaimed the head
of a traitor? Ah, reverend mother, ten such moments will age a man by ten
years. Was it not the most portentous tragedy which the earth has ever
seen since He who was both God and Man died upon Calvary? Other judicial
sacrifices have been, but never of a victim as guiltless and as noble.
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