CHAPTER 35 ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY MONARCH

There never were such profligate [恣意挥霍的] times in England as under Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy [黝黑的], ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy [想象] him in his Court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds [无赖] in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. It has been a fashion to call Charles the Second 'The Merry Monarch.' Let me try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry England.

The first merry proceeding [event] was - of course - to declare that he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted [未开化的] earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon [transfer to] him for life that old disputed tonnage [吨位税] and poundage which had been so bravely fought for. Then, General Monk being made Earl of Albemarle, and a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see what was to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides [the killing a king. regime+cide]) who had been concerned in making a martyr of [使成为] the late King. Ten of these were merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his heart. These executions were so extremely merry, that every horrible circumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. The hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living bodies; their bowels were burned before their faces; the executioner cut jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands together, that were reeking [发出难闻气味] with the blood of the last; and the heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the living to the place of suffering. Still, even so merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what he had done. Nay [and indeed; no], the most memorable thing said among them was, that if the thing were to do again they would do it.

Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished [提供] the evidence against Strafford, and was one of the most staunch [坚定忠实可靠的] of the Republicans, was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. When he came upon the scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his own defence with great power, his notes of what he had meant to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums and trumpets were ordered to sound lustily [strongly] and drown his voice; for, the people had been so much impressed by what the Regicides had calmly said with their last breath, that it was the custom now, to have the drums and trumpets always under the scaffold, ready to strike up [begin playing a piece of music]. Vane said no more than this: 'It is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man.' and bravely died.

These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. On the anniversary of the late King's death, the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were torn out of their graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face for half a moment! Think, after you have read this reign, what England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry Judas [犹大], over and over again.

六级/考研单词: merry, sovereign, gamble, indulge, vicious, converse, commit, excess, vogue, throne, noble, parliament, humble, million, likewise, regime, martyr, execute, colonel, hack, preach, abandon, revive, appal, bowel, rub, furnish, guilt, conduct, trumpet, drown, anniversary, grave, brutal, dare, reign