of the nation, for the voice of public opinion had never been heard, and therefore the country must be exonerated of any participation by approval or otherwise in the criminality of that unfortunate deed—it was the act of a faction in the House of Commons, acting under the influence of a faction in the army. In this momentous business Bradshaw may have persuaded himself that he was performing a solemn act of duty to his country, but, looked at in the light of after history, that act can only be pronounced a criminal blunder. Tradition says that the warrant for the King’s execution was signed in Bradshaw’s house[12] at Walton-on-Thames, a building still standing near Church Street in that pleasant little town, though now subdivided into several small tenements, and shorn of much of its ancient splendour—his own signature, of course, appearing first on that well-known document. [Note 12: Though now closed in by humbler dwellings, the house must have been in Bradshaw’s time far away from any other building of equal size and pretensions. There is a common belief in the neighbourhood that an underground passage led from it to Ashley Park, where Cromwell, it is said, at that time resided.] [Illustration: Autograph of John Bradshaw] Now, after a lapse of more than two centuries, and when the welfare of the throne and the people are identical, we can afford to look back upon the great tragedy in which Bradshaw played so profound a part calmly and without bitterness of spirit. From the anarchy, the foulness of the tyranny of those times, the nation, the Church, and the people have emerged with a firm hold on better things. Prelacy, which had been trampled under foot, and Presbyterianism, which became to Independency much what Prelacy had been to Presbyterianism, have reappeared, but the severe asceticism and religious fervour of the Puritan, and the catholicity and breadth of view of the Churchman have commingled and become elements of the national life, fruitful for good by reason that they no longer come into violent collision with each other. When Bradshaw had brought his Sovereign to the block, he may be said to have fulfilled the prediction of his early youth, for assuredly he had Done that Which all the world did wonder at.