“I am glad you have come,” he told her, “for there is something I wish to say to you which I could not tell to another and the cruelty of it, I fear, was too great to permit me to write it…. But, sweetheart, you will forget what I tell thee.”
Elizabeth assured him that she would not. “For I will write it down,” she said, “and it will be with me for as long as I shall live.”
“Do not grieve,” he said. “Do not torment yourself for me. It will be a glorious death which I shall die, it being for the laws of the land and for religion. I have forgiven all my enemies and I hope God will forgive them too. You must forgive them, as must your brothers and sisters. When you see your mother…” And this is the part which I could never read without my tears blinding me…“tell her that my thoughts have never strayed from her and my love for her will be the same until the end. Love her and be obedient to her. Do not grieve for me. I shall die and I doubt not that God will restore the throne to your brother and then you will all be happier than you would have been if I had lived.”
Then he took little Henry onto his knee. “Sweetheart,” he said, “now they will cut off thy father’s head.”
Poor little Henry stared at his father’s neck and seemed utterly dismayed and bewildered.
“Heed what I say, my child,” went on the King. “They will cut off my head and perhaps make thee King. But mark what I say, you must not be King as long as your brothers Charles and James live. Therefore I charge you, do not be made a king by them.”
Poor little Henry tried hard to understand. Then he drew a deep breath and said: “I will be torn into pieces first.”
Then they prayed together and Charles commanded them always to fear God and this they promised to do.
One of the bishops came to take the children away; they were weeping bitterly. Charles watched them and when they reached the door he ran after them and snatched them up that he might embrace them once more and they clung to him as though they would never let him go.
The hour was fixed. They brought him dinner but he was in no mood to eat.
“You should eat, sire,” his Bishop Juxon warned him. “You will faint for lack of food.”
“Yes,” agreed Charles, “and it might be misconstrued if I did that.” Whereupon he took some wine and food.
When he had eaten he said: “Let them come. I am ready.”
But they did not come. There was a delay. Two of the military commanders who had been chosen to superintend the murder refused to do so at the last minute. Nothing could shift their decision; they were jeered at and threatened; still they would not take charge of the grisly task. Their names were Hunks and Phayer. I would remember them too.
There was a small grain of comfort in knowing that they had to offer one hundred pounds to one who would aid the executioner—and thirty-eight people refused.
In the end they had to threaten one of the sergeants from another regiment to do the deed, and the executioner himself had tried to hide himself and when he was found he had to be threatened too and offered thirty pounds to do his work. They insisted on wearing masks as they did not want to be seen as executioners of the King.
It must have been a great joy for Charles to receive from our son Charles a blank sheet of paper with his signature at the bottom. Our son had written in a separate note that he would pledge himself to carry out any terms which might be imposed on him in exchange for his father’s life.
Charles kissed the paper and burned it.
I heard that he slept quietly on the night before he went out to face his murderers. Thomas Herbert who, as Groom of the Bedchamber, was sleeping in the room with him awoke shouting in his sleep and he told the King that he had been disturbed by a nightmare. He had dreamed that Archbishop Laud had come into the room and knelt before the King while they talked together.
The King knew why he was shaken. It was because Archbishop Laud was dead, having been executed four years before.
They could not sleep after that although it was only five o’clock.
When Herbert was dressing him he said he wished to be as trim on this day as he had been on the day of his marriage. They said his voice broke a little when he said that and I knew it was because he was thinking of the sorrow this day would bring to me.
He bade Herbert bring him two shirts.
“It is cold outside,” he said. “The wind might cause me to shake on my way to the scaffold and I would have no imputation of fear, for death is not terrible to me. I am prepared, I thank God. Let the rogues come for me when they please.”
I do not want to think of that scene but I can picture it so clearly and I cannot get it out of my mind. I can see the mass of people who would not be allowed to come too close to the scaffold and were kept back by the many soldiers whom Cromwell had commanded should be there. How apprehensive he and his friends must have been!
Charles stepped out through the banqueting hall for one of the windows had been removed so that he could do this.
I often wonder what his thoughts were as he went up to the scaffold. Of me, I like to think; and yet again I did not want him to think of me then because I knew that to do so would increase his sorrow.
What does one think of when one faces death? He was a good man, a man who had tried to do his duty, and if he had failed to please his people it was through no lack of effort on his part. He had always done what he believed to be right; and I knew—and was proved right in this—that these would be seen to be unhappy days for England and those people who had fought—valiantly I must admit—for Cromwell would soon be longing for the days when people could sing and dance and be joyful; they would regret those harsh laws of the Puritans ere long. And I was glad. I hated them. I was not calm and thoughtful like Charles. They were my enemies…those men who had put to death a great good man and I fervently wished that they would all burn in hell.
So he came out looking beautiful as he always had and without showing a tremor of fear.
I could imagine his looks of contempt for the bewigged and masked murderers who had not the courage to do the deed in the open but must cower behind disguises.
The executioner knelt and asked forgiveness.
Charles’s reply was quiet and dignified. “I forgive no subject of mine who comes hither to shed my blood.”
When he stepped up to the scaffold there was a terrible hush in the crowd. The executioner in a quiet and respectful voice asked him to push his hair under his cap.
This he quietly did.
He said in a clear voice: “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown.” Then he took off his coat and doublet.
He asked the executioner to make sure that the block was firm. “Now,” he said, “I will say a short prayer in silence and when I lift my hands I shall be ready for you to strike.”
That was the end.
My Charles, King, husband, lover, friend and martyr was dead.
They told me that a groan was heard through the crowd of people and that there was a terrible sense of foreboding in Whitehall that day.
I had to shut myself away for a while. I could not bear to see my attendants, let alone hear them speak to me. There was so much to remind me.
My poor little Henriette, who was not yet five years old, was quite bewildered. She would watch me and her eyes would fill with tears.
“I am doing no good to her and none to myself,” I told Lady Morton. “She would be better with you alone.”
Lady Morton had too much good sense to deny this and so I decided that for a while I would seek the peace and solace of my favorite Carmelite convent in the Faubourg St. Jacques. I gave my daughter into the care of Lady Morton with instructions that she should look after the child’s creature comforts while Father Cyprien should see to her spiritual welfare. I thought I could not do better than that and I gave myself up to meditation and prayer and lived a life of seclusion governed by bells. I needed it. I was angry with the Almighty for what seemed like indifference to my suffering and for permitting the cruel murder of my husband. I knew I should not complain; it was His will; but I railed against such treatment and I could not be reconciled until I had wrestled with myself.