Their old leaders were Republicans: they were about to pay dearly for their attachment to the order of things which they desired to establish. At first an amnesty was granted to all. Monk had required that the exceptions should be limited to four; they had now become ten. The king then referred the question to the justice of Parliament. The passions of men in large assemblies are the most violent and cruel by reason of the fact that responsibility rests upon no single one. Before the arrival of Charles the spirit of vengeance had already arisen in the two Houses. {345} Some arrests had been made, and thirty persons were excluded from the amnesty by the House of Commons--all who remained of the old leaders of the revolution--Scott, Harrison, Sir Henry Vane, Sir John Haselrig, Desborough, Lambert, Fleetwood, Lenthall--politicians or soldiers. Some had already left England, distrusting, like Ludlow, the promises of the amnesty. The greater part were arrested. The House of Lords resolved that one victim ought to expiate the death of each of the members of the Upper House executed during the rebellion, and ended by excepting from the general pardon all those who had signed the sentence of Charles I., adding to this fatal list Hacker, Vane, Lambert, Haslerig, Axtel, and Peters, who had not sat among the revolutionary judges. This was too much. Monk and some others of moderate views remonstrated. Twenty-nine persons were condemned, ten perished by the tortures inflicted on traitors inflexible in their convictions and their courage. "Where is now your good old cause?" cried a bystander to Colonel Harrison, as he was being drawn to Charing Cross on a hurdle. "Here!" exclaimed the old soldier, placing his hand upon his heart, "and I am going to seal it with my blood." Indifferent to the cruelties which he believed to be necessary, Cromwell nevertheless had not accustomed the English people to the sight of torture. The spectacle soon caused a shock. The executions ceased, political vengeance was suspended. The ecclesiastical question was pressing; the king's embarrassment was great. {346}