"The Fair and Fatal King ", A ROYALIST wrote that

"half a dozen calves' heads in council say they will cut off the King's head. Doth not Oliver

and the rest of the grandees, think you, laugh in their sleeves at these nasty Levellers!" At the same time Hugh Peters was preaching to the mob for two or three hours not to "prefer the great Barabbas, murderer, tyrant and traitor, before these poor hearts "—pointing to the red coats, in a comparison we feel to-day was blasphemous. And the

red coats, who had occupied London, seized the players at Drury Lane and the Fortune and hurried them to the guard- room in their make-up. Citizens looked on and laughed, -nervously, there can- be nci doubt.

Christmas at Windsor was sad. King Charles missed his Episcopal chaplains and his mincepies and plum porridge (predecessor to the pudding of to-day) and when his entourage was forbidden to serve him "on the knee" he dined in his own room and read the Bible and Shakespeare.

In the Great Hall at Westminster the Commissioners of Parliament assembled. Bradshaw wore a black tufted• gown and a bullet-proof hat lined with sheet-iron, still to be seen at Oxford. The others also kept on their hats. King 'Charles did the same. His hat was of black felt, ringed with sapphire lozenges. In his hand he carried a white cane ; when, cavalierly, he poked John Cook with it, the silver head fell off. No one picked it up, so the King had to stoop (somewhat sheepishly) and put it in his pocket. It was an ill-omen. The King lost his composure during the trial— no impartial reader can doubt it. He only recovered himself at supreme moments—when Hewson spat in his face, for instance, when judgment was passed, and when he faced the regicides on the scaffold like an English gentleman.

Did the Commissioners mean to be fair ? If Charles had acknowledged the Court, would they have enforced the death penalty ? Readers may form their own opinions after reading Mr. Muddiman's impartial account, but more probably they have already done so and will come to these pages biased.

The author himself is strongly royalist, but he sets the facts

before us as a historian should. In a review we cannot follow his example and have only space for a few comments.

Lady Fairfax, when her husband's name was called, cried out, "He hath too much wit to be here." She escaped, Without injury. Lady De Lisle was not so fortunate, so the tale runs. When she shouted "Traitors and Rebels!" the horrible Hewson seized her and branded her in open court, so that King Charles winced at "seeing her flesh smoake and her hake all afire." Poor man, small wonder he was disgusted and disconcerted : the temper of his opponents he was constitutionally incapable of judging. Bradshaw was patient with the King's plea that the Court had no jurisdiction, but immovable : we need not enter into the adjournments, delays, arguments. On January 27th, after an extremely long speech from Bradshaw, and some pathetic interruptions

from the prisoner, King Charles was condemned to death by the severing of his head from his body. He was not

allowed to speak after the judgment of the Court was given.

On January 30th, the Commissioners met in the Painted Chamber at nine o'clock and ordered the scaffold at Whitehall

'to be draped in black. Who was to behead the King? Brandon, the public executioner, refused to do so at first. In spite of the evidence which can be adduced to show that he was persistent in his refusal, we incline to the belief that Cromwell, who persuaded so many people to do so many things, could and did coerce Brandon. It is improbable that the Roundheads would have risked a contretemps by

having an inexpert axeman. Now the fourth cervical vertebra was severed by a clean cut, as the exhumation in 1813 proved.

Given that cutting off heads is not so easy as it looks, the execution must have been the work of an expert.

Both the executioner and his assistant were disguised in beards and wigs. After the King had made his speech to the group on the scaffold (no one else could hear) the executioner adjusted a nightcap to keep the nape of his neck clear of hair. The King commented on the lowness of the block (it was only six inches high) and he was told it could not be raised. He then explained to the executioner that he would give the signal for the blow by stretching

out his hands. Laying his head on the block, he allowed his hair to be- arranged again, and after a few moments- of prayer gave the signal, when the axe fell instantly and all was over. No novice at the business could have carried through the dreadful work so calmly. It is true that when the assistant executioner seized the head,, and showed it to the people, he did not cry out according to custom, "Behold the head of a traitor." A horrible scene followed. Souvenir fiends there were then as now. The block was cut up and the chips sold and worse happened which we need not describe.

Lord Birkenhead writes a preface to this volume, recom- mending it both to students of the period and to less specialized readers, as we also do. The newsletters of the seventeenth century have been very carefully collated and studied by the author and from the mass of material derived therefrom he has been able to furnish by far the exactest and most vivid account as yet compiled of these tragic days. It is a book of enthralling interest, and although we cannot agree with Mr. Muddiman in his condemnation of the Roundheads (for without their courage—however misguided their action—we should not be in possession of the liberties which we enjoy to-day) we admit his impartiality and commend his method.

There is beauty in failure sanctified by an end such as the White King's. Remote as was his life in strength from the Life that Christendom above all reveres, there was in miniature a certain similarity :—

" Brief life and hapless ? Nay : Through death, life grew sublime. Speak after sentence ? Yea : And to the end of time." F. Y-B,