"_Executioner._ Yes, I will, and please your Majesty."--After a little pause, the King stretching forth his hands, the executioner at one blow severed his head from his body, and held it up and showed it to the people, saying, "Behold the head of a traitor!" At the instant when the blow was given, a dismal universal groan was uttered by the people (as if by one consent) such as was never before heard; and as soon as the execution was over, one troop of horse marched rapidly from Charing Cross to King Street, and another from King Street to Charing Cross, to disperse and scatter the multitude. Though Joyce and Hugh Peters have been suspected of inflicting the murderous blow on Charles, and though another claimant for this infamous distinction is put forward in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1767, there seems little doubt that Richard Brandon, the common hangman, assisted by his man, Ralph Jones, a ragman in Rosemary Lane, in fact perpetrated the deed. Among the tracts relative to the Civil War presented to the British Museum by George III., in 1762, are three on this subject, which are fully noticed in a note to Mr. Ellis's Letters on English History, vol. iii. (second series.) It appears, by the register of Whitechapel Church, that Richard Brandon was buried there on the 24th of June, 1649; and a marginal note (not in the hand of the Registrar, but bearing the mark of antiquity), states, "This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off the head of Charles I."--One of the tracts, entitled "The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman, upon his Death-bed, concerning the Beheading of his late Majesty," printed in 1649, states, "During the time of his sickness, his conscience was much troubled, and exceedingly perplexed in mind; and on Sunday last, a young man of his acquaintance going to visit him, fell into discourse, asked him how he did, and whether he was not troubled in conscience for cutting off the King's head. He replied yes, by reason that (upon the time of his tryall) he had taken a vow and protestation, wishing God to punish him, body and soul, if ever he appeared on the scaffold to do the act, or lift up his hand against him. He likewise confessed that he had 30_l_. for his pains, all paid him in half-crowns within an hour after the blow was given; and he had an orange stuck full with cloves, and a handkircher out of the King's pocket, so soon as he was carried off the scaffold; for which orange he was proffered twenty shillings by a gentleman in Whitechapel, but refused the same, and afterwards sold it for ten shillings in Rosemary Lane. About eight o'clock at night he returned home to his wife, living in Rosemary Lane, and gave her the money, saying, it was the dearest money, he earned in his life, for it would cost him his life. About three days before he died, he lay speechless, uttering many a sigh and heavy groan, and so in a desperate state departed from his bed of sorrow. For the burial whereof great _store of