George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[15] Sidney opposed, and saw the danger of a counter

Chap XI}

revolution. ‘No one will stir,’ cried Cromwell impatiently; ‘I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown on it.’¹ Sidney withdrew; and Charles was abandoned to the sanguinary severity of a sect. To sign the death-warrant was a solemn deed, from which some of his judges were ready to shrink; Cromwell concealed the magnitude of the act under an air of buffoonery; the chamber rung with gayety; he daubed the cheek of one of the judges that sat next him with ink, and, amidst shouts of laughter, compelled another, the wavering Ingoldsby, to sign the paper as a jest. The ambassadors of foreign princes, eager to make purchases when the collections of the unhappy king were sold at auction, presented no remonstrance. Holland alone negotiated. The English people were overawed.

Treason against the state, on the part of its highest officers, is the darkest of human offences. Fidelity to the constitution is due from every citizen; in a monarch, the debt of gratitude is enhanced, for the monarch is the hereditary and special favorite of the fundamental laws. The murderer, even where his victim is eminent for genius and virtue, destroys what time will repair, and, deep as is his guilt, society suffers but transiently from the transgression. But the king who conspires against the liberties of the nation, conspires to subvert the most precious bequest of past ages, the dearest hope of future time; he would destroy genius in its birth, and enterprise in its sources, and sacrifice the prolific causes of intelligence and virtue to his avarice or his vanity, his caprices or his ambition; would rob