Har. Why cry ye not, “God save our righteous King”?

Crom. Through me, he did proclaim, he would accept Our army’s terms.  Alas! had we been cozen’d, I, that believed his false tongue, had betray’d The hope of Israel—–­

Vane. It is true, indeed, He is the slave of his pernicious Queen.

Mar. I say the King of England henceforth is An alien in blood, a bitter traitor—­ What doth he merit of us?

Ireton. This!  ’Tis right That one man die for all, and that the nation For one man perish not—­

Crom. Ho! what? son Ireton.

Vane. Alas! indeed he merits not to live.

Brad. What say ye?

Ireton. Death!

Mar.  Har.  Lilb.  Lud.  Hacker. [Severally.] Death!  Death!

Brad. I think, Sir Harry,
You said, “not live,” the others all say, “Death,”
Why then we are agreed—­
Stay!  General Cromwell,
There was no word from you—­

Crom. I thought to save My breath; ye were so eager.

Arth. Hold, a moment.  I do desire your ears—­

Crom. Our ears?  Your years
Should teach you silence, sir! before your elders,
Till they have said—­
We would hear Master Milton: 
He hath to speak. [To Milton.]
What think you of the man,
The king, that arm’d the red, apostate herd
In Ireland against our English throats? 
Was it well done; deserves it that we crouch?

Mil. Oh, it was base, degrading and unhappy,
To make God’s different worship, damning means
Of an unholy war between his people;
To be the beggar of his people’s blood,
To set that crown upon his false, weak brow,
His pale, insolvent, moat dishonour’d brow,
From which, too wide, it slipp’d into the mire,
To fit him ne’er again.—­

Crom. A right good figure!  Who’ll pluck the crown from out this royal mire?

Mar. They say his queen, our foreign, English queen, Doth ofttimes antler him; perchance ’tis reason Why his crown fits him not.

Mil. Oh, it was base
To use such means to gain such selfish end! 
So I have heard,
There have been men, in such a hapless clime,
As this poor Ireland, unctuous, wordy men,
With slug-like skins, and smiling, cheerful faces,
That, with their pamper’d families, grew fat,
By bleeding Famine’s well-nigh bloodless frame;
Lessening the pauper’s bitter, scanty bread,
Season’d with salt tears; shredding finer still
The blanket huddled to the stone-cold heart
Of the wild, bigot, ghastly, dying wretch.—­
Thus, for a devilish and unnatural gain,
Mowing the lean grass of a Golgotha! 
Sitting, like grinning Death, to clutch the toll
Tortur’d from poverty, disease and crime;
And this with Liberty upon their lips,