Part 18

This happened on the 19th of December, and on the 20th of January the King's trial began. That could scarcely be called a trial which consisted entirely in a struggle between the King and the Court on a point of law. In the charge of high treason, read in Westminster Hall against the King, special mention was made of the commission which he "doth still continue to the Earl of Ormond, and to the Irish rebels and revolters associated with him, from whom further invasions upon the land are threatened." There appear to have been no witnesses examined on this point, all that were examined during three days, in the painted chamber, simply witnessing to having seen the King in arms. Indeed, all witnesses were unnecessary, the sentence having been already determined upon, and the King utterly refusing to plead or to acknowledge the Court. The King, indeed, never appeared to such advantage as on his trial; he was perfectly unmoved by any personal thought; no fear, hesitation, or wavering appeared in his behaviour. He took his stand simply on the indisputable point of law that neither that Court, nor indeed any Court, had any authority to try him. To Bradshaw's assertion that he derived his authority from the people, he in vain requested a single precedent that the Monarchy of England was elective, or had been elective, for a thousand years. In his abandonment of self, and his unshaken constancy to a point of principle, he contrasted most favourably with his judges, whose sole motive was self. That none of the Parliamentary leaders were safe while the King lived is probable; but sound statesmanship does not acknowledge self-preservation as an excuse for mistaken policy, and the murder of the King was not more a crime than it was a blunder. Having been condemned by this unique Court, he was, with the most indecent haste, hurried to his end. A revolting coarseness marks every detail of the tragic story; the flower of England on either side was beneath the turf or beyond the sea, and the management of affairs was left in the hands of butchers and brewers. Ranting sermons, three in succession, before a brewer in Whitehall, is the medium to which the religious utterance of England is reduced, and Ireton and Harrison in bed together, with Cromwell and others in the room, signed the warrant for the fatal act. The horror and indignation which it impressed on the heart of the people may be understood a little by the fact, that in no country so much as in England the peculiar sacredness of Monarchy has since been carried so far. The impression caused by his death was so profound, that, forty years afterwards, when his son was arrested in his flight, the only thing that during the whole course of that revolution caused the least reaction in his favour was (according to the Whig Burnet) the fear that the people conceived that the same thing was going to be acted over again, and men remembered that saying of King Charles--"The prisons of princes are not far from their graves." He walked across the park from the garden at St. James's that January morning with so firm and quick a pace that the guards could scarcely keep the step, and stepping from his own banqueting house upon the scaffold, where the men who ruled England had so little understood him as to provide ropes and pulleys to drag him down in case of need, he died with that calm and kingly bearing which none could assume so well as he, and by his death he cast a halo of religious sentiment round a cause which, without the final act, would have wanted much of its pathetic charm, and struck that keynote of religious devotion to his person and the Monarchy which has not yet ceased to reverberate in the hearts of men.

"That thence the royal actor borne The tragic scaffold might adorn, While round the armed bands Did clap their bloody hands: He nothing common did, nor mean, Upon that memorable scene; But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try; Nor called the gods with vulgar spite To vindicate his helpless right, But bowed his comely head Down, as upon a bed." _The Republican, Andrew Marvell._

*CHAPTER XV.*

Inglesant remained in the Tower for several months after the King's death. The Lords Hamilton, Holland, and Capel were the first who followed their royal master to the block, and many other names of equal honour and little inferior rank followed in the same list. In excuse for the murders of these men there is no other plea than, as in the case of their master--self-preservation. But the purpose was not less abortive than the means were criminal. The effect produced on the country was one of awe and hatred to the ruling powers. Thousands of copies of the King's Book, edged with black, were sold in London within the few days following his death, and Milton was obliged to remonstrate pitifully with the people for their unaccountable attachment to their King. The country, it is true, was for the moment cowed, and, although individual gentlemen took every opportunity to rise against the usurpers, and suffered death willingly in such a cause, the mass of the people remained quiet. The country gentlemen indeed were, as a body, ruined; the head of nearly every family was slain, and the widows and minors had enough to do to arrange, as best they might, with the Government agents who assessed the fines and compositions upon malignants' estates. It required a few years to elapse before England would recover itself, and declare its real mind unmistakably, which it very soon did; but during those years it never sank into silent acquiescence to the great wrong that had been perpetrated. It is the custom to regard the Commonwealth as a period of great national prosperity and peace. Nothing can be a greater mistake. There never was a moment's peace during the whole of Cromwell's reign of power. He began by destroying that Parliament utterly, for seeking the arrest of five members of which the King lost his crown and was put to death. The best of the Republican party were kept in prison or exiled, just as the King had been seized and executed by Cromwell, independently of the Parliament. But the oppressed sections of the Puritan party never ceased to hate the usurper as much as the Royalists did, and the want of their support insured the fall of the Republic the moment the master hand was withdrawn.

After a few months Inglesant's imprisonment was much lighter; he was allowed abundance of food, and liberty to walk in the courtyards of the Tower, and was allowed to purchase any books he chose. He had received a sum of money from an unknown hand, which he afterwards found to have been that of Lady Cardiff, his brother's wife, and this enabled him to purchase several books and other conveniences. He remained in prison under these altered circumstances until the end of January 1650, when, one morning, his door opened, and without any announcement his brother was admitted to see him. Eustace was much altered; he was richly dressed, entirely in the French mode, his manner and appearance were altogether those of a favourite of the French Court, and he spoke English with a foreign accent. He greeted his brother with great warmth, and it need not be said that Johnny was delighted to see him.

Eustace told his brother at once that he was free, and showed him the warrant for his liberation.

"I was in Paris," he said, "on the eve of starting for England on affairs which I will explain to you in a moment, when 'votre ami' the Jesuit came to see me. He told me he understood I was going to England on my private affairs, but he thought possibly I might not object to do a little service for my brother;--you know his manner. He said if I would apply in certain quarters, which he named to me, I should find the way prepared, and no difficulties in obtaining your release. The words were true, and yesterday I received this warrant. As soon as it is convenient to you I shall be glad for you to leave this sombre place, as I want you to come with me to Oulton, to my wife,--my wife, who is indeed so perfectly English in all her manners, as I shall proceed to explain to you. Since you were at Oulton my wife has been growing worse and worse in health, and more and more eccentric and crotchety; every new remedy and every fresh religious notion she adopts at once. She has filled the house with quacks, of whom Van Helmont is chief, mountebanks, astrologers, and physicians,--a fine collection of beaux-esprits. The last time I was there I could not see her once, though I stayed a fortnight; she was in great misery, extremely ill, and said she was near her last. Since I have been in Paris I have been obliged to give up many of my suppers with the French King and Lords, from her letters saying she is at the point of death. She is ill at present, and no one has seen her these ten days; but I suppose it is much after the same sort; and she sends me word that Van Helmont has promised that she shall not be buried, but preserved by his art till I can come and see her. To crown all, she has lately become a Quaker, and in my family all the women about my wife, and most of the rest, are Quakers, and Mons. Van Helmont is governor of that flock,--an unpleasing sort of people, silent, sullen, and of reserved conversation, though I hear one of the maids is the prettiest girl in all the county. These and all that society have free access to my wife, but I believe Dr. More, the Platonist, who is a scholar and gentleman, if an enthusiast, though he was in the house all last summer, did not see her above once or twice. She has been urging me for months to search all over Europe for an eagle's stone, which she says is of great use in such diseases as hers; and when I, at great labour and expense, found her one, she sends back word that it is not one, but that some of her quacks were able to decipher it at once, and that it is a German stone, such as are commonly sold in London at five shillings apiece. I have grown learned in these stones, by which the fairies in our grandfather's time used to preserve the fruits from hail and storms. There is a salamander stone. This eagle stone is one made after a cabalistic art and under certain stars, and engraved with the sign of an eagle. I could prove their virtue to you," he continued laughing, "throughout all arts and sciences, as Divinity, Philosophy, Physic, Astrology, Physiognomy, Divination of Dreams, Painting, Sculpture, Music, and what not. This affair of the stone, and these reports of sickness and death, however, and doleful stories of coffins prepared by art, and of open graves, would not have brought me over, but for another circumstance of much greater moment. When I was in Italy and stayed some time at Venice, and was desirous of engaging in some of the intrigues and amusements of the city, I was recommended to an Italian, a young man, who made himself useful to several of the nobility, as a man who could introduce me to, and show me more of that kind of pleasure, than any one else. I found him all that had been represented to me, and a great deal more, for, not to tell you too long a story, he was an adept at every sort of intrigue, and was acquainted at any rate with every species of villany and vice that the Italians have conceived. The extent to which they carry these tastes of theirs cannot be described, and from them the wildest of the gallants of the rest of Europe start back amazed. To cut this short, I was very deeply engaged to him, and in return I held some secrets of his, which he would not even now have known. At last, upon some villanous proposal made by him, I drew upon him. We had been dining at one of the Casinos in St. Mark's Place, and I would have run him through the body, but the crowd of mountebanks, charlatans, and such stuff, interposed and saved him. I have often wished since I had. He threatened me highly, but as I was a foreigner and acquainted with most of the principal nobles, he could do me no harm. He endeavoured to have me assassinated more than once, and one Englishman was set upon and desperately wounded in mistake for me; but by advice I hired bravoes myself who baffled his plots, for I had the longest purse. I knew nothing of him afterwards until I heard that he had left Italy, a ruined and desperate man, whose life was sought by many; and the next thing I heard, not many weeks ago, was that he was at Oulton, having gained admission to my wife as a foreign physician who had some especial knowledge of her disease. She fancies herself much the better for his nostrums, and gives herself entirely to his directions, and I believe he professes Quakerism, or some sort of foreign mysticism allied to it, which has established him with the rest of her confidants. I no sooner heard this pleasing information than I resolved to come over to England at once, and at least drive away this villain from my family, even if I had no other way to do it than by running him through the body, as I might have done in Italy. I, however, sent a messenger to my wife to inform her that I was coming, and on my reaching London a few days ago, I found him waiting for me with a packet from Oulton. In a letter my wife desires me earnestly not to come to Oulton to see her, as she is assured by good hands that some imminent danger awaits me if I do, and she encloses this horoscope, which no doubt one of her astrologers has prepared for her. Now I have no doubt the Italian is at the bottom of all this, and that, at his instigation, the horoscope has been drawn out; yet I confess that it appears to me to have something about it that looks like the truth, something beyond what would be written at the instigation of an enemy. You can read it and judge for yourself. I have dabbled a little in astrology as in other arts."

John Inglesant took the paper from his brother and examined it carefully. At the top was an astrological scheme, or drawing of the heavens, taken at some moment when the intention of Eustace to come to Oulton had first become known to his wife. Beneath was the judgment of the adept, in the following words:--

"Saturn, the significator of the quesited, being in conjunction with Venus, I judge him to have gained by ladies to a considerable extent, to be much attached to them, greatly addicted to pleasure, and very fortunate where females are concerned, and to be a man of property. The significator being affected both by Mercury, lord of the eighth in the figure, and also by Mars, the lord of the quesited's eighth house, and the aspect of separation of the moon being bad,--namely, conjunction of Jupiter and square of Mercury, who is ill aspected to Jupiter, and is going to a square of the sun on the cusp of the mid-heaven,--I judge that the quesited is in imminent danger of death; and the lord of the third house being in the eighth, and the significator being combust, in conjunction with the lord of the eighth, and the hyleg afflicted by the evil planets, makes it more certain. His significator being in the eleventh house denotes that at the present time he is well situated and with some near friend (I should judge, as he is well aspected with the moon, the lady of the third house, a brother), and happy. Mars being in the ascendant, and the cusp of the first house wanting only three degrees of the place of the evil planet in a common sign, I judge the time of death to occur in three weeks' time, and that it will be caused by a sword or dagger wound, by which Mars kills. The danger lies to the south-west--south, because the quarter of the heaven where the lord of the ascendant is, is south-west, because the sign where he is, is west."

John Inglesant read this paper two or three times, and returned it to his brother with a smile. "I should not be greatly alarmed at it," said he; "that is not a true horoscope, or rather it is a true horoscope tampered with. The man who erected the scheme, I should say, was an honest man, though not a very clever astrologer. It has, however, as most schemes have, a glimmering of a truth not otherwise known (you and I being together, which no one at Oulton could have thought of, though you see he was wrong as to the time); but some other hand has been at work upon the judgment, and a very unskilful one. It contradicts itself. What is most important, however, is that the artist has no ground to take Saturn for your significator, which should be either the lord of the third house, the cusp of the third, or the planets therein, neither of which Saturn is. Besides, he takes the place of Fortune to be hyleg, for which he has no ground. He has taken Saturn as significator, as suiting what he knows of your character, and I think there is no doubt the Italian's hand is in this. Now I should rather say that Venus, the lady of the third, being significator and applying to a friendly trine of Jupiter, lord of the ascendant, and Saturn being retrograde, and Venus also casting a sextile to the cusp of the ascendant, is a very good argument that the querent should see the quesited speedily, and that in perfect health. I would have you think no more of this rubbish, with which a wicked man has tried to make the heavens themselves speak falsely."

"I did not know you were so good an astrologer, Johnny," said his brother.

"Father St. Clare taught it me among other things," said Inglesant; "and I have seen many strange answers that he has known himself; but it is shameful that the science should be made a tool of by designing men."

Eustace returned the papers to his pockets, and requested his brother again to prepare to leave the Tower at once. After taking leave of the Lieutenant, and feeing the warders, the two brothers departed in a coach in which Eustace had come to the Tower, and went to the lodgings of the latter in Holborn. Eustace furnished his brother with clothes until he could procure some for himself, and gave him money liberally, of which he seemed to have no stint. He wished his brother to come with him to all the places of resort in the city, but Johnny prudently declined. Indeed, the city was so quiet and dull, that few places of amusement remained. The theatres were entirely closed. Whitehall was sombre and nearly empty, and the public walks were filled only with the townspeople in staid and sober attire. The two brothers were therefore reduced to each other's society, and it seemed as though absence or a sense of danger united them with a warmth of affection which they had seldom before known.

To John Inglesant, who had always been devotedly attached to his brother, this display of affection was delightful, cut off as he had been so long from all sympathy and friendliness. Dressed in his brother's clothes, the likeness which had once been so striking returned again, and as they walked the streets people turned to look at them with surprise. The brothers felt in their hearts old feelings and thoughts returning, which had long been forgotten and had passed away; and to John Inglesant especially, always given to half melancholy musings and brooding over the past, all his happiest recollections seemed to concentrate themselves on his brother, the last human relation that seemed left to him, since he had, as he thought, lost the favour of all his friends, relations, and acquaintances in the world. Possibly a sense of a great misfortune made this sentiment more tender and acute, for, as we shall see, there were some things in his brother's position, and in the horoscope he had shown him, which Inglesant did not like. At present, however, his whole nature, so long crushed down and lacerated, seemed to expand and heal itself in the light of his brother's love and person, and to concentrate all its powers into one intense feeling, and to lose its own identity in this passion of brotherly regard.

This feeling might also be increased by his own state of health, which made him cling closer to any support, His long imprisonment, and the sudden change from his quiet cell to all the bustle of the city life, affected his mind and brain painfully. He was confused and excited among a crowd of persons and objects to which he had been so long unaccustomed; his brain and system had received a shock from which he never entirely recovered, and for some time, at any rate, he walked as one who is in a dream, rather than as a man engaged in the active pursuits of life.

After two or three days Eustace told his brother one morning that he was ready to go into the west, but before starting he said he wished Johnny to accompany him to a famous astrologer in Lambeth Marsh, to whom already he had shown the horoscope, and who had appointed a meeting that night to give his answer, and who had also promised to consult a crystal, as an additional means of obtaining information of the future.

Accordingly, late in the afternoon, they took a wherry at the Temple Stairs, and were ferried over to Lambeth Marsh, a wide extent of level ground between Southwark and the Bishop's Palace, on which only a few straggling houses had been built. The evening was dark and foggy, and a cold wind swept across the marsh, making them wrap their short cloaks closely about them. It was almost impossible to see more than a yard or two before them, and they would probably have found great difficulty in finding the wizard's house had not a boy with a lantern met them a few paces from the river, who inquired if they were seeking the astrologer. This was the wizard's own boy, whom, with considerable worldly prudence at any rate, he had despatched to find his clients and bring them to his house. The boy brought them into a long low room, with very little furniture in it, a small table at the upper end, with a large chair behind it, and three or four high-backed chairs placed along the wall. On the floor, in the middle of the room, was a large double circle, but there were no figures or signs of any kind about it. On the table was a long thin rod. A lamp which hung from the roof over the table cast a faint light about the room, and a brazier of lighted coals stood in the chimney.

The astrologer soon entered the room with the horoscope Eustace had left with him in his hand. He was a fine-looking man, with a serious and lofty expression of face, dressed in a black gown, with the square cap of a divine, and a fur hood or tippet. He bowed courteously to the gentlemen, who saluted him with great respect. His manner was coldest to John Inglesant, whom he probably regarded with suspicion as an amateur. He, however, acknowledged that Inglesant's criticisms on the horoscope were correct, but pointed out to him that in his own reading of it many of the aspects were very adverse. John Inglesant knew this, though he had chosen to conceal it from his brother. The astrologer then informed them that he had drawn out a scheme of the heavens himself at the moment when first consulted by Eustace, and that, in quite different ways, and by very different aspects, much the same result had been arrived at. "As, however," he went on to say, "the whole question is to some extent vitiated by the suspicion of foul play, and it will be impossible for any of us to free our minds entirely from these suspicions, I do not advise any farther inquiry; but I propose that you should consult a consecrated beryl or crystal--a mode of inquiry far more high and certain than astrology, so much so, indeed, that I will seriously confess to you that I use the latter but as the countenance and blind; but this search in the crystal is by the help of the blessed spirits, and is open only to the pure from sin, and to men of piety, humility, and charity."