popularity in a short time, going into twenty editions by the first month of its publication, and has been named by Philip A. Knachel "the most widely read, widely discussed work of royalist propaganda to issue from the English Civil War". The book presented Charles' supposed meditations on the events of his kingship and his justifications for his past actions, widely disseminating the view of Charles as the pious "martyr of the people" he had declared himself. It aggravated the fervor of the royalists in the wake of Charles' execution and their high praise led to the wide circulation of the book; some sections even put into verse and music for the uneducated and illiterate of the population. John Milton described it as "the chiefe strength and nerves of their [royalist] cause". On the other side, the parliamentarians led their own propaganda war against these royalists reports. They suppressed royalist works like the and the other various elegies to the deceased king by arresting and suppressing the printers of such books. Simultaneously, they worked with radical booksellers and publishers to push pro-regicide works, outprinting their opponents by two to one in the month of February, following Charles' execution. Even commissioning Milton to publish as a parliamentarian rejoinder to —sharply mocking the piety of and the "image-doting rabble" who latched on to its depiction of Charles—attacking its royalist arguments in a chapter-by-chapter fashion. Charles's prosecutor, John Cook, published a pamphlet defending the execution of Charles, giving "an appeal to all rational men concerning his tryal at the High Court of Justice", in which he asserted that the execution had "pronounced sentence not only against one tyrant but against tyranny itself". These publications had such an effect on the public perception that—despite the regicide going against nearly every conception of social order in the period—the regicides of Charles felt safe in their positions soon after. A contemporary source described Cromwell and Ireton as "very cheerfull & well pleased" at the events by 24 February. In Europe The reaction among European statesmen was almost universally negative, with the princes and rulers of Europe quick to voice their horror at the regicide. Despite this, very little action was taken against the new English government, as foreign governments carefully avoided cutting off relations with England over their condemnations of the execution. Even the allies of the royalists in the Vatican, France and the Netherlands avoided