the people of England, was read, a voice from one of the galleries exclaimed, "not the tenth part of them!" Again, as the names of the judges were called over, when that of General Fairfax occurred, the same voice replied, "He bas more sense than to be here." Upon the officer who commanded the guard ordering the musketeers to fire into the gallery from which the interruption came, the speaker was discovered to be Lady Fairfax, wife of Sir Thomas, the General of the forces, and a daughter of the noble house of Vere, who in this manner declared her resentment at the extraordinary scene.

The King, when placed at the bar, looked around on the awful preparations for trial, on the bench, crowded with avowed enemies, and displaying what was still more painful, the faces of one or two ungrateful friends, without losing his steady composure. When the public accuser began to speak, he touched him with his staff, and sternly admonished him to forbear. He afterwards displayed both talent and boldness in his own defence. He disowned the authority of the novel and incompetent court before which he was placed; reminded those who sat as his judges, that he was their lawful King, answerable indeed to God for the use of his power, but declared by the constitution incapable of doing wrong. Even if the authority of the people were sufficient to place him before the bar, he denied that such authority had been obtained. The act of violence, he justly stated, was the deed, not of the English nation, but of a few daring men, who had violated, by military force, the freedom of the House of Commons, and altogether destroyed and abolished the House of Peers. He declared that he spoke not for himself, but for the sake of the laws and liberties of England.

Though repeatedly interrupted by Bradshaw, a lawyer, president of the pretended High Court of Justice, Charles pronounced his defence in a manly, yet temperate manner. Being then three times called on to answer to the charge, he as often declined the jurisdiction of the Court. Sentence of

death was then pronounced, to be executed in front of the royal palace, lately his own.

On the 30th January, 1649, Charles I. was brought forth through one of the windows in front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, upon a large scaffold hung with black, and closely surrounded with guards. Two executioners in masks attended (one wearing a long grey beard), beside a block and cushion. Juxon, a bishop of the Church of England, assisted the King's devotions. As Charles laid his head on the block, he addressed to the bishop, emphatically, the word remember, and then gave the signal for the fatal stroke. One executioner struck the head from the shoulders at a single blow; the other held it up, and proclaimed it the head of a traitor. The soldiers shouted in triumph, but the multitude generally burst out into tears and lamentations.

This tragic spectacle was far from accomplishing the purpose intended by those who had designed it. On the contrary, the King's serene and religious behaviour at his trial and execution excited the sympathy and sorrow of many who had been his enemies when in power; the injustice and brutality which he bore with so much dignity, overpowered the remembrance of the errors of which he had been guilty; and the almost universal sense of the iniquity of his sentence, was a principal cause of the subsequent restoration of his family to the throne.

CHAPTER XIII.

Montrose makes a Descent upon the Highlands, is taken prisoner, and Executed-Charles II., being declared King, arrives in ScotlandCromwell's Invasion of Scotland-Battle of Dunbar-Coronation of Charles II.—He takes the Command of the Army, marches into England, is defeated at Worcester, and Escapes abroad-War in Scotland under General Monk-Cromwell makes himself Lord Protector of the Republics of Great Britain and Ireland-Glencairn's RisingExploits of Evan Dhu, of Lochiel, Chief of the Camerons.

THE death of Charles I. was nowhere more deeply resented than in his native country of Scotland; and their national pride was the more hurt, that they could not but be conscious that the surrender of his person by the Scottish army at Newcastle, was the event which contributed immediately to place him in the hands of his enemies.

The government, since the Whigamores' Raid, had continued in the hands of Argyle and the more rigid Presbyterians; but even they, no friends to the House of Stewart, were bound by the Covenant, which was their rule in all things, to acknowledge the hereditary descent of their ancient Kings, and call to the throne Charles, the eldest son of the deceased monarch, providing he would consent to unite with his subjects in taking the Solemn League and Covenant, for the support of Presbytery, and the putting down of all other forms of religion. The Scottish Parliament met, and resolved accordingly to proclaim Charles II. their lawful sovereign; but, at the same time, not to admit him to the actual power as such, until he should give security for the religion, unity, and peace of the kingdoms. Commissioners were sent to wait

upon Charles, who had retreated to the Continent, in order to offer him the throne of Scotland on these terms.

The young Prince had already around him counsellors of a different character. The celebrated Marquis of Montrose, and other Scottish nobles, few in number, but animated by their leader's courage and zeal, advised him to reject the proposal of the Presbyterians to recall him to the regal dignity on such conditions, and offered their swords and lives to place him on the throne by force of arms.

It appears that Charles II., who never had any deep sense of integrity, was willing to treat with both of these parties at one and the same time; and that he granted a commission to the Marquis to attempt a descent on Scotland, taking the chance of what might be accomplished by his far-famed fortune and dauntless enterprise, while he kept a negotiation afloat with the Presbyterian commissioners, in case of Montrose's failure.

That intrepid but rash enthusiast embarked at Hamburgh, with some arms and treasure, supplied by the northern courts of Europe. His fame drew around him a few of the emigrant Royalists, chiefly Scottish, and he recruited about six hundred German mercenaries. His first descent was on the Orkney islands, where he forced to arms a few hundreds of unwarlike fishermen. He next disembarked on the mainland; but the natives fled from him, remembering the former excesses of his army. Strachan, an officer under Lesley, came upon the Marquis by surprise, near a pass called Invercharron, on the confines of Ross-shire. The Orkney men made but little resistance; the Germans retired to a wood, and there surrendered; the few Scottish companions of Montrose fought bravely, but in vain. Many gallant cavaliers were made prisoners. Montrose, when the day was irretrievably lost, threw off his cloak bearing the star, and afterwards changed clothes with an ordinary Highland kern, that he might endeavour to effect his escape. Exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he was at length taken by a Ross-shire chief, MacLeod of Assint, who happened to

be out with a party of his men in arms. The Marquis discovered himself to this man, thinking himself secure of favour, since Assint had been once his own follower. But tempted by a reward of four hundred bolls of meal, this wretched chief delivered his old commander into the unfriendly hands of David Lesley.

The Covenanters, when he who had so often made them tremble was at length delivered into their hands, celebrated their victory with all the exultation of mean, timid, and sullen spirits, suddenly released from apprehension of imminent danger. Montrose was dragged in a sort of triumph from town to town, in the mean garb in which he had disguised himself for flight. To the honour of the town of Dundee, which, you will recollect, had been partly plundered, and partly burnt by Montrose's forces, during his eventful progress in 1645, the citizens of that town were the first who supplied their fallen foe with clothes befitting his rank, with money, and with necessaries. The Marquis himself must have felt this as a severe rebuke for the wasteful mode in which he had carried on his warfare; and it was a still more piercing reproach to the unworthy victors, who now triumphed over a heroic enemy in the same manner as they would have done over a detected felon.

While Montrose was confined in the house of the Laird of Grange, in Fifeshire, he had almost made his escape through the bold stratagem of the Laird's wife, a descendant of the house of Somerville. This lady's address had drenched the guards with liquor; and the Marquis, disguised in female attire, with which she had furnished him, had already passed the sleeping sentinels, when he was challenged and stopped by a half-drunken soldier, who had been rambling about without any duty or purpose. The alarm being given, he was again secured, and the lady's plot was of no avail. She escaped punishment only by her husband's connexion with the ruling party.

Before Montrose reached Edinburgh, he had been con