Today's historical note
On this date in 1649, Charles I was executed in London. Andrew Marvell described it thus in his "Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland":
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrooke's narrow case:
That thence the royal actor born
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene:
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try:
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured that forced power.
Katherine Philips looks back on the event with a considerably more royalist viewpoint:
Had any heathen been this Prince's foe,
He would have wept to see him injur'd so.
His title was his crime, they reason'd good
To quarrel at the right they had withstood.
He broke God's laws, and therefore he must die;
And what shall then become of thee and I?
Slander must follow treason; but yet stay,
Take not our reason with our King away.
Though you have seiz'd upon all our defense,
Yet do not sequester our common sense.
But I admire not at this new supply:
No bounds will hold those who at scepters fly.
Christ will be King, but I ne're understood
His subjects built His kingdom up with blood,
Except their own; or that he would dispense
With his commands, though for his own defense.
Oh! to what height of horror are they come,
Who dare pull down a crown, tear up a tomb?
(from "Upon the Double Murder of King Charles I")
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrooke's narrow case:
That thence the royal actor born
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene:
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try:
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured that forced power.
Katherine Philips looks back on the event with a considerably more royalist viewpoint:
Had any heathen been this Prince's foe,
He would have wept to see him injur'd so.
His title was his crime, they reason'd good
To quarrel at the right they had withstood.
He broke God's laws, and therefore he must die;
And what shall then become of thee and I?
Slander must follow treason; but yet stay,
Take not our reason with our King away.
Though you have seiz'd upon all our defense,
Yet do not sequester our common sense.
But I admire not at this new supply:
No bounds will hold those who at scepters fly.
Christ will be King, but I ne're understood
His subjects built His kingdom up with blood,
Except their own; or that he would dispense
With his commands, though for his own defense.
Oh! to what height of horror are they come,
Who dare pull down a crown, tear up a tomb?
(from "Upon the Double Murder of King Charles I")