" Whereupon the priest told it him as a great secret,
that there were thirty of them here in London, who by instructions
from Cardinal Mazarine, did take care of such affairs, and had sat in
council, and debated the question, whether the King should be put to
death or not;--and that it was carried in the affirmative, and there
were but two voices for the negative, which was his own and another's;
and that for his part, he could not concur with them, as foreseeing
what misery this would bring upon his country. Mr. Atkins stood to
the truth of this, but thought it a violation of the laws of
friendship to name the man.
Richard Baxter was too thoroughly good for any experience to make him
worldly wise; else, how could he have been simple enough to suppose,
that Mazarine would leave such a question to be voted 'pro' and 'con',
and decided by thirty emissaries in London! And, how could he have
reconciled Mazarine's having any share in Charles's death with his own
masterly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Cromwell, though he might have
prevented, could not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal judges
were not his creatures. Consult the Life of Colonel Hutchinson upon this.
Ib. p. 374.
Since this, Dr. Peter Moulin hath, in his Answer to 'Philanax
Anglicus', declared that he is ready to prove, when authority will
Call him to it, that the King's death, and the change of the
government, was first proposed both to the Sorbonne, and to the Pope
with his Conclave, and consented to and concluded for by both.
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