Sta,—But, of course, there is no reason in theory why
atheist Communism or, for that matter,sclevil-wofship Should not have its martyrs, though in practice it might not be easy to 'cite any. Sainthood is a completely different proposition, and though Dr. Sangster may call anyone a saint who keeps out of the hands of the police, he would rule out most of the saints of the Church, who were, and are, more apt to get into them. As for praying to or about saints Dr. Sangster may do this if he likes to Blessed Oliver of Drogheda ; I prefer to do so to Him who alone can confer sainthood, and whose verdict I do not presume to anticipate in Charles's or any other case.
But Dr. Sangster is mishandling truth most grievously when he lightly accuses King Charles of doing so, and I, for one, both can and do deny the railing accusation of " political duplicity," which has been repeated so often that it has come to be accepted for gospel in the teeth of all the evidence. A man to whom force it no argument, who defines his principles and maintains them with unswerving constancy through years of hopeless captivity to a torescen aeath, may be accused of obstinacy, perhaps, but hardly of duplicity. " I am resolved," he wrote after Naseby, " whatever it costs me, neither to abandon God's cause, injure my successors, nor forsake my friends." And " I cannot flatter myself," he added, " more than this, to end my days with honour and a good conscience, which obligeth me to continue my endeavours in not despair- ing that God may yet in due time avenge His own cause."
That exactly defines his whole subsequent attitude and conduct. In the course of the long tedious endeavours to cajole or bully him, to what engagement was he false or what offer did he make that he was not prepared to fulfil ? It is true that he went to the limit of concession as when he offered to accept the ecclesiastical status quo until a genuinely national settlement could be arrived at ; but on point of essential principle he was adamant. He could have purchased his life and crown from the Scots by conniving at their imposing the yoke of kirk discipline on England ; from the Tammany Hall at Westminster that still called itself Parliament, by betraying the sovereignty and constitution of the realm into the hands of its racketeers ; or from Cromwell and the Army by acting precisely as Victor Emmanuel did after the Fascist march on Rome—in which case he might have lasted as long and ended as ignominiously.
If we had only the passage I have cited to go by, it would be enough to dispose of your other correspondent's contention that Charles did not realise the nature of the sacrifice demanded of him. After his escape from the prospect of imminent murder at Hampton into the trap at Canis- brooke, there could be no doubt about it—nor can there be any mistaking the significance of that solemn and beautiful conclusion of his poetic Last Testament : "But sacred Saviour! with Thy words I woo Thee to forgive and not be bitter to Such as, Thou knowest, know not what they do. Augment my patience ; nullify my hate ; Preserve my issue and inspire my mate, And, though we perish, bless this Church and State."
Finally, on the eve of the " trial," when all the cards were on the table, Cromwell, who was no fool, and would have gone as far as he dared to avoid the supreme blunder and crime of regicide, sent Lord Denbigh to Windsor to offer the King terms of surrender. Charles con- temptuously refused to receive him. And even after the sentence there is excellent reason for believing that Cromwell had not given up hope—if Charles had been disposed to let him off—of a last-minute accommodation. But having offered himself as the pawn in his own gambit, Charles forced his 'opponent to accept it. And for Cromwell it proved ultimately, checkmate.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
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