29th January 1649.
Charles I was executed on this day, upon a scaffold outside the second window on the North of Whitehall Banqueting Hall, at four in the afternoon.
Men were well into the working week; it was a Tuesday and everyone was usurped by the labour for bread throughout the city of London and the suburbs. The overcast condition and the cold weather added to the gloom and the murky disposition that the day did behold.
The streets were empty and the silence that had descended on the city somewhat signified the somber truth that was destined to be unfurled to the milieu on this day. The trial and the sentence of the King had put all that great concourse of men into the very presence of death.
As the day wore on, the noise of the workmen could be heard at the scaffold by Whitehall; one hour rushed through to yield to another; rumours and flat assertions were busy everywhere, especially among the young and an young boy left undecided by contradictory reasonings grew curious as the day lumbered on to find out the truth all by himself. He was determined to choose his moment and to slip away lest he should miss so great a sight. The tyranny of the army had kept the city in doubt all day long and allowed no news; none the less, from before noon there had begun a little gathering of people in Whitehall, round the scaffold at which men were still giving the last strokes of the hammer. Somewhat after noon a horseshoe of cavalry assembled in their long cloaks and curious tall civilian hats; they stood ranked, with swords drawn, all round the platform. Their horses shifted uneasily in the cold.
The young boy seized the earliest of opportunities to dart across his tutor’s lawn and ran up breathlessly to Whitehall Gate, fearing he might have missed his great expectation; however, he was at the spot much before time.
It was perhaps half-past three o’ clock when he got through the gate and found himself in the press of people. Far off to the left, among the soldiery that lined the avenue from the park to the Mall and so to St, James’s, a continuous roll of drums burdened the still air. The crowd was not very large but it filled the space from the gate to the scaffold and little beyond, save where it pressed outward by the ring of cavalry. It did not overflow into the wide spaces of the park, though these lay open to Whitehall, or did it run up towards Charing Cross beyond the Banqueting Hall.
The boy was much shorter than the men about him, making him strain and elbow a little to see and he was invariably sworn at. He could make out the low scaffold, a large platform, all draped in black with iron staples and a railing round it; it covered the last three blank windows of Whitehall, running from the central casement until it met the brick house at north end of the stonework; there the brickwork beneath one of the windows had been taken out so as to give access through it from the floor within to the scaffold on the same level without; and whispers round told the apprentice, though he did not know how much to trust them, that it was through this hasty egress that the King would appear. Upon the scaffold itself stood a group of men, two of them masked and one of the masked ones, of great stature and strong, leant upon an axe with his arms crossed upon the haft of it. A little block, barely raised above the floor of the platform, he could only see by leaping on tiptoe, catching it by glimpses between the heads of his neighbours of the shoulders of the cavalry guards; but he noticed in those glimpses how very low it was and saw, ominous about it, two staples driven as though to contain the struggler. Before it, so that on kneeling would have his face toward the palace and away from the crowd, was a broad footstool covered with red velvet and making a startling-patch upon all that expanse of black baize.
It was cold waiting; the motionless twigs of the small trees in the park made it seem colder still. The three-quarters struck in the new clock behind him upon Whitehall Gate but as yet no one had appeared. The crowd had started murmuring in anticipation which made the boy and others like him restive.
Soon, there was a movement in the crowd which got heads to turn right to witness the corresponding backing of the mounted men to contain the first beginnings of a rush, for the commanders of the army feared, while they despised, the popular majority of London; and the wealthy merchants, the allies of the army, had not joined this common lot. The turning of the faces towards the great blank stone wall of the palace was caused by a sound of many footsteps within; they were walking very sharply along the floor (which was here raised above the level of the level of the window itself and cut the lower panes of it); they were hurrying towards the northern end of the great Banqueting Hall. It was but a moment’s vision and again they appeared in the open air through the broken brickwork at the far end of the stone façade.
For a moment everyone could see the tall King clearly, his face grown old, his pointed beard left full, his long features not moved. The great cloak that covered him, with the Great Star of Garter upon the left shoulder, he drew off quickly and let fall into the hands of Herbert. He wore no hat, he stepped forward with precision towards the group of executioners and a little murmur ran through the crowd. The old bishop, moving his limbs with difficulty but suppliant and attendant upon his friend, stood by, in agony. He helped the King to pull off his inner coat until he stood conspicuous in the sky-blue vest beneath it and round his neck a ribbon and one ornament upon it, a George carved in onyx. This also he removed and gave to the bishop, while he took from his hands a white silken cap and fixed it firmly upon his long and beautiful hair. From beneath the sky-blue of his garment, at the neck and at the wrists, appeared frills of exquisite linen and the adornment of lace. He stood for a few moments, praying, then turned and spoke as though he was addressing them all. But the apprentice, though he held his breath and strained to hear, as did all others about him, could catch no separate word but only the sound of the King’s voice speaking. The movement of the horses, the occasional striking of the hoof upon the setts of the street, the distance, covered that voice. Next, Charles was saying something to the masked man and a moment later he was kneeling upon the footstool. The apprentice saw him turn a moment and spread his arms out as an example of what he next should do; he him toward the block-it was too low; he lay at full length and the crowd lifted and craned to see him in this posture.
The four heavy strokes of the hour struck and boomed in silence. The hands of the lying figure were stretched out again, this time as a final signal and right up in the air above them all the axe swung, white against the grey sky, flashed and fell.
In a moment the group upon the scaffold had closed round, a cloth was thrown, the body was raised and among the hands stretched out to it were eager and enfeebled hands of the bishop, trembling and still grasping the George.
A long moan of wail, very strange and dreadful, not very loud, rose from the people now that their tension was slackened by the accomplishment of the deed. And at once from the north and from the south, with such ceremony as is used to the conquered, the cavalry charged right through, hacking and dispersing these Londoners and driving them every way.
The boy dodged and ran, his head full of tragedy and bewildered, his body in active fear of the horses that pursued flying packets of the crowd down the alley-ways of the offices and palace buildings.
He went off by a circuitous way to find, not anywhere else after such an escapade, but his grandmother’s, where she lived beyond St. Martin’s.
The dusk did not long tarry; as it gathered and turned to night small flakes of snow began to fall and lie upon the frozen ground.
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