RELICS OF THE “ROYAL MARTYR”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 86, 10 January 1928, Page 15

RELICS OF THE “ROYAL MARTYR”

THE FAIR AND FATAL KING The London Museum already has its memorials of “the fair and fatal King.’’ The shirt which King Charles wore on the January morning when Colonel Hacker knocked at his door in St. James’s Palace and told him that it was time to go is now to be set off by his skull-cap, his jabot, and his gloves. Of the authenticity of these relics there is no doubt (says the London “Daily Telegraph”). For ten generations they have been in the family of the Earl of Lindsey. The second Earl was one of the four peers who attended the King to tho last and bore his body to Windsor. When Charles was in the hands of tho Puritans, Lindsey acted as one of his advisers and commissioners. In the last scenes of trial and execution the King must needs stand alone. Those of whom we do hear, among them the Bishops Juxon and Morton, play parts not much more important than his valet, the faithful George Herbert. On the day of execution Bishop Juxon walked with him across the park from St. James’s’ to Whitehall. There was a guard of halberdiers before and behind, with drums beating and colours flying, a line of troops .marching on either side. The King felt faint in the park and had to sit down and rest, but when ho came out upon the scaffold info the view of his people, he bore himself, all witnesses agree, boldly enough. It is a Puritan poet who noted how “his keener eye the axe’s edge did try,” and acknowledges that “he nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene.” To Juxon he gave his hat and cloak, and they prayed together. Then he walked about the scaffold and held out his hands to the people and made a declaration to them, of which the last words are said, not very, credibly, to have been. “To your power I must submit, but your authority I must deny.” He took off his doublet and of himself knelt down by the block, thrusting away an officer who “offered to unbutton him or such such thing.” Juxon took leave of him with the assurance, “You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crownfi a good exchange.” The King, as he laid his head on the block, spoke tho one word, “Remember!” Then the executioner, a fellow in a vizard and false hair, struck the blow. Two mysteries have been made out of this story. Many and strange answers have been invented to the unnecessary question who was tho executioner. Ardent Royalists persuaded themselves that ho must have been a Puritan officer, or at least a Puritan divine, Colonel. Pride, or Colonel Joyce, or Hugh Peters. But the Court of Charles II was well aware that nobody but the common executioner had been employed. He was Richard Brandon. As soon as the deed was done he was put into a boat at Whitehall Stairs with the axe, the block, and every other article that had been stained with the King’s blood. All these things were conveyed to the Tower and burnt. 'The Puritan Government wanted no relics of its martyr. The other mystery, the King’s “Remember!” beyond doubt refers to the assurances he had given Juxon of his loyalty to the Church. Permission to bury the body in Westminster was sought in vain. Juxon was able, to obtain leave that it should be embalmed, and he and Lord Lindsey and their friends bore the coffin to chapel at Windsor. No prayers were said over the grave, for the service of the King’s Church was forbidden. Twelve years had hardly gone before the King’s son was back in power nnd the head of Cromwell on a spear above Westminster Hall.