Great Civil War In England, Execution Of Charles I Part 1
Author: Macaulay, Lord;Knight, Charles
By Lord Macaulay
1649
No period of English history is more crowded with important events than
that of the civil war. The intolerant reign of James I had brought him into
conflict, not only with the religious elements in the kingdom, but also with
Parliament.
Like James, his son and successor, Charles I, was a stubborn believer in
the divine right of the monarch; and as James had shown throughout his reign a
flagrant disregard of law, so Charles from the outset betrayed the same
disposition. He surrounded himself with advisers who supported his favorite
views. In the first fifteen months of his reign he summoned two parliaments
only to dissolve them in anger. Next he raised money by forced loans and
other expedients which were odious to many of his subjects.
For the first time England was now divided between two great parties.
Matters proceeded with constantly increasing friction, and at last the
struggle developed into civil war. Macaulay's summary of it, and Knight's
picture of its culmination in that most melancholy tragedy, the execution of
the King, cover the subject in its essential aspects, without unnecessary
dealing with minor details.
In August, 1642, the sword was at length drawn; and soon, in almost every
shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in arms against each
other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at first the
more formidable. The Houses commanded London and the counties round London,
the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, and most of the large towns and
seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the military stores of the
kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on goods imported from foreign
countries and on some important products of domestic industry.
King Charles was ill provided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes
which he laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops produced, it is
probable, a sum far less than that which the Parliament drew from the city of
London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid on the
munificence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mortgaged their land,
pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers and christening-bowls
in order to assist him. But experience has fully proved that the voluntary
liberality of individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor
financial resource when compared with severe and methodical taxation, which
presses on the willing and unwilling alike.
Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he had used it well, would
have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, and which,
notwithstanding his mismanagement, gave him, during some months, a superiority
in the war. His troops at first fought much better than those of the
Parliament. Both armies, it is true, were almost entirely composed of men who
had never seen a field of battle. Nevertheless, the difference was great.
The Parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idleness had
induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was regarded as one of the best; and
even Hampden's regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters
and serving-men out of place.
The royal army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen,
high-spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider dishonor as more terrible than
death, accustomed to fencing, to the use of fire-arms, to bold riding, and to
manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the image of war. Such
gentlemen, mounted on their favorite horses, and commanding little bands
composed of their younger brothers, grooms, gamekeepers, and huntsmen, were
from the very first day on which they took the field, qualified to play their
part with credit in skirmish. The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the
mechanical precision of movement, which are characteristic of the regular
soldier, these gallant volunteers never attained. But they were at first
opposed to enemies as undisciplined as themselves, and far less active,
athletic, and daring. For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were successful in
almost every encounter.
The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a general. The
rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most important
members of the Parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the Continent with
credit, and, when the war began, had as high a military reputation as any man
in the country. But it soon appeared that he was unfit for the post of
commander-in-chief. He had little energy and no originality. The methodical
tactics which he had learned in the war of the Palatinate did not save him
from the disgrace of being surprised and baffled by such a captain as Rupert,
who could claim no higher fame than that of an enterprising partisan.
Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex
qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the Houses are
scarcely to be blamed. In a country which had not, within the memory of the
oldest person living, made war on a great scale by land, generals of tried
skill and valor were not to be found. It was necessary, therefore, in the
first instance, to trust untried men; and the preference was naturally given
to men distinguished either by their station or by the abilities which they
had displayed in Parliament.
In scarcely a single instance, however, was the selection fortunate.
Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The Earl of
Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of England, was routed by the Royalists
at Stratton. Nathaniel Fiennes, inferior to none of his contemporaries in
talents for civil business, disgraced himself by the pusillanimous surrender
of Bristol. Indeed, of all the statesmen who at this juncture accepted high
military commands, Hampden alone appears to have carried into the camp the
capacity and strength of mind which had made him eminent in politics.
When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the
Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern
counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from the
Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single
serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adversity had begun to
produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept in alarm,
sometimes by plots and sometimes by riots. It was thought necessary to
fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens
at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto
remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted
that if the operations of the Cavaliers had at this season been directed by a
sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to
Whitehall.
But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never
returned. In August, 1643, he sat down before the city of Gloucester. That
city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a determination
such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the
adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The train -
bands of the city volunteered to march wherever their services might be
required. A great force was speedily collected and began to move westward.
The siege of Gloucester was raised; the Royalists in every part of the kingdom
were disheartened; the spirit of the Parliamentary party revived; and the
apostate lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back
from Oxford to Westminster.
And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the
distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the
Parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which the
majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men were, in
religion Independents. They conceived that every Christian congregation had,
under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to
provincial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to
the court of arches or to the Vatican; and that popery, prelacy, and
Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy. In politics,
the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and brance men,
or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content with
limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth
on the ruins of the old English polity.
At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight; but
before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but
the most powerful, faction in the country. Some of the old Parliamentary
leaders had been removed by death; and others had forfeited the public
confidence. Pym had been borne, with princely honors, to grave among the
Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavoring, by
his heroic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery
cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was
known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigor and
ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjucture it was
that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to
raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons.
The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful
occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a commission in
the Parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier than he discerned,
with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men like Essex, with all their
experience, were unable to perceive. He saw precisely where the strength of
the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered.
He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He
saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose,
materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant
squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits
who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave
character, fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he
filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more
rigid than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their
intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency.
The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his
abilities. In the South, where Essex held the command, the Parliamentary
forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in the North the
victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost
elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists than to
the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster; for it was
notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians, had been
retrieved by the energy of Cromwell and by the steady valor of the warriors
whom he had trained.
These events produced the "Self-denying Ordinance" and the new model of
the army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and
most of those who had held high posts under him were removed; and the conduct
of the war was intrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a brave soldier,
but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the nominal lord-general
of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head.
Cromwell made haste to organize the whole army on the same principles on
which he had organized his own regiment. As soon as this process was
complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now to
encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than their
own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon became a
proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of a different
breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the first great
encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled anry of the Houses. The
victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It was followed by other
triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months the authority of the Parliament
was fully established over the whole kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and
was by them, in a manner which did not much exalt their national character,
delivered up to his English subjects.
While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the
primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority, the
use of the liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that renowned
instrument known by the name of the "Solemn League and Covenant." Covenanting
work, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands affixed their
names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up toward heaven, swore to
endeavor, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery and prelacy,
heresy and schism, and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who
should hinder the reformation of religion. When the struggle was over, the
work of innovation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardor. The
ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy
were ejected from their benefices. Fines, ofter of ruinous amount, were laid
on the Royalists, already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King.
Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient
to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the
victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and
to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction.
In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was
at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as
the title was insecure, and as the awe inspired by powerful bidders prevented
free competition, the prices were often merely nominal. Thus many old and
honorable families disappeared and were heard of no more; and many new men
rose rapidly to affluence.
But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly
passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling into existence a
power which could not be controlled. In the summer of 1647, about twelve
months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers had submitted to the
Parliament was compelled to submit to its own soldiers. Thirteen years
followed, during which England was, under various names and forms, really
governed by the sword. Never before that time, or since that time, was the
civil power in our country subjected to military dictation.
The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very different
from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common
soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English
laborers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from
the commissioned officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the
service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote
dependencies of England that every man who enlists in the line must expect to
pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavorable to the health
and vigor of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised
for home service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the wages
earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished himself by
intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands.
The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and
education to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and
accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pressure
of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts of
recruiting-officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the
desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, as we find it
recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into
the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no
janizaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their
lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right
and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved.
A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be
indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would have
proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who should form
themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high
questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to
form an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor
would it be safe in our time to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings,
at which a corporal versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less
gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the
intelligence, the gravity, and the self-command of the warriors whom Cromwell
had trained that in their camp a political organization and a religious
organization could exist without destroying military organization. The same
men, who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers were
distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience
on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle.
In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage
characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, at once
regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained order as strict.
Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent. But in his
camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company with the fiercest
enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines, while
burning with the wildest fanaticism of crusaders. From the time when the army
was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in
the British Islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset.
In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often
surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not
only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces
whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the day of
battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned
battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence.
Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his
English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true
soldier when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to
rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers felt an
emotion of national pride when they saw a brigade of their countrymen,
outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout
the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counter-scarp which
had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the marshals of France.
But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other
armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks.
It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that singular camp,
no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the
long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the
honor of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were
outrages of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army is
generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry of the
redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths.
But a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted,
produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost
exertions of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was
to restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the
pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were
not savory; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred
with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of popery.
To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No
sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt than the nation,
unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections broke
out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been the most
submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself abhorred its old
defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous to come to terms of
accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops. In Scotland, at the
same time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists and a large body of
Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents with detestation.
At length the storm burst. There were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk,
Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal
colors, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast. A great Scottish
force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire. It might well be
suspected that these movements were contemplated with secret complacency by a
majority both of the Lords and of the Commons.
But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax
suppressed the risings in the neighborhood of the capital, Oliver routed the
Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the
Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the invaders; but he was
little in the habit of counting his enemies. The Scottish army was utterly
destroyed. A change in the Scottish government followed. An administration,
hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the
darling of his soldiers, returned in triumph to London.
And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man
would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the
Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to take a
distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the nation had, during some
months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King. When and how the
scheme originated, whether it spread from the general to the ranks or from the
ranks to the general, whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism
as a tool or to fanaticism bearing down policy with headlong impulse, are
questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence.
It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was
really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great
occasion a few years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own
inclinations to the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called
into existence was a power which even he could not always control; and, that
he might ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey.
He publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps
had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the Parliament to
strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the force of
circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes of Providence.
It has been the fashion to consider these professions as instances of the
hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even those who pronounce him
a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool. They are therefore
bound to show that he had some purpose to serve by secretly stimulating the
army to take that course which he did not venture openly to recommend. It
would be absurd to suppose that he who was never by his respectable enemies
represented as wantonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken the
most important step of his life under the influence of mere malevolence. He
was far too wise a man not to know, when he consented to shed that august
blood, that he was doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the
grief and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of ninetenths of those who
had stood by the Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was
assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern nor of the
millennial reign of the saints. If he already aspired to be himself the A
founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles I was a less formidable
competitor than Charles II would be.
At the moment of the death of Charles I the loyalty of every Cavalier
would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles II. Charles I was a captive:
Charles II would be at liberty. Charles I was an object of suspicion and
dislike to a large proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of
slaying him: Charles II would excite all the interest which belongs to
distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that
considerations so obvious and so important escaped the most profound
politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had at one time meant to
mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to reorganize the
distracted state by the power of the sword, under the sanction of the royal
name.
In this design he persisted till he was compelled to abandon it by the
refractory temper of the soldiers and by the incurable duplicity of the King.
A party in the camp began to clamor for the head of the traitor, who was for
treating with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were
loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigor and resolution of
Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and
kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the
highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against the rage of warriors,
who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe and as the foe of their God. At
the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be
trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices
which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest
light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, who
is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn
frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses.
Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler.
There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were
brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognized the Houses at
Westminster as a legal Parliament, and at the same time made a private minute
in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly disclaimed all thought
of calling in foreign aid against his people; he privately solicited aid from
France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he employed
papists: at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to
employ every papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at
Oxford as a pledge that he never would even connive at popery. He privately
assured his wife that he intended to tolerate property in England; and he
authorized Lord Glamorgan to promise that popery should be established in
Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense.
Glamorgan received, in the royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be
read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such
an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that
his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to each other,
with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said,
gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there
was no section of the victorious party which had not been the object both of
his flatteries and of his machinations; but never was he more unfortunate than
when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell.
Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment
of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay, his own
life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save a prince whom
no engagement could bind. With many struggles and misgivings, and probably
not without many prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his
fate. The military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the
realm, and of the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the King should
expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected a death like that
of his unhappy predecessors, Edward II and Richard II. But he was in no
danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight
stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to
heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They
enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient
constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to
regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting
a complete political and social revolution.
In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should
first break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this
necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed a
vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the
majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that the
King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed. No court
known to the law would take on itself the office of judging the fountain of
justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced
Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was
severed from his shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the
banqueting-hall of his own palace.
In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious
zealots to whom this deed is to be ascribed had committed, not only a crime,
but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his people
chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre,
before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities which irresistibly
call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gallant
gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay, they had so
contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had been a series of
attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of
those liberties. No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public
mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal
dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the
feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court
unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the principles of the
constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons had been purged of its
most respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its legislative
functions, and told his weeping hearers that he was defending, not only his
own cause, but theirs.
His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His
memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated
with those free institutions which he had during many years labored to
destroy; for those free institutions had perished with him, and, amid the
mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended by his
voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favor of monarchy and of the
exiled house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been set
up in all its old dignity.
