Note (return) — NEW BOOKS.

"When the body was put into a coffin at Whitehall," says Rushworth, "there were many sighs and weeping eyes at the scene; and divers strove to dip their handkerchiefs in the King's blood." A general gloom and consternation pervaded London on the day of this atrocious perpetration; many of the chief inhabitants either shut themselves up in their houses, or absented themselves from the city. On that day none of the courts of justice sat; and on the next, Whitelocke, one of the commissioners of the Great Seal, says, "The commissioners met, but did not think fit to do any business, or seal any writs, because of the King's death." Whitelocke says, "I went not to the House, but stayed all day at home in my study, and at my prayers, that this day's work might not so displease God as to bring prejudice to this poor afflicted nation."8 Evelyn, in his Diary, writes, "I kept the day of this martyrdom as a fast, and would not be present at that execrable wickedness, receiving the sad account of it from my brother George and Mr. Owen, who came to visit me this afternoon, and recounted all the circumstances." Archbishop Usher came out to witness the scene from his house at Whitehall; but he fainted when the King was led out on the scaffold.