Read Ebook: State Trials Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2) by Stephen Harry Lushington Editor

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kes me to call to mind; I cannot forbear to express it; for, Sir, we must deal plainly with you, according to the merits of your cause; so is our Commission; it makes me to call to mind That that we read of a great Roman Emperor, by the way let us call him a great Roman tyrant, Caligula, that wished that the people of Rome had had but one neck, that at one blow he might cut it off. And your proceedings have been somewhat like to this; for the body of the people of England hath been represented but in the Parliament; and could you but have confounded that, you had at one blow cut off the neck of England. But God hath reserved better things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your designs, and to break your forces, and to bring your person into custody, that you might be responsible to justice.

It is not far to go for an example: near you--Your grandmother set aside, and your Father, an infant, crowned. And the State did it here in England; here hath not been a want of some examples. They have made bold to call their Kings to account; there are frequent examples of it in the Saxons' time, the time before the Conquest. Since the Conquest there want not some Precedents neither; King Edward the Second, King Richard the Second, were dealt with so by the Parliament, as they were deposed and deprived. And truly, Sir, whoever shall look into their Stories, they shall not find the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to that height and capitalness of Crimes that are laid to your Charge; nothing near.

These things may not be denied, Sir; I speak it rather, and I pray God it may work upon your heart, that you may be sensible of your Miscarriages. For whether you have been, as by your office you ought to be, a Protector of England, or the Destroyer of England, let all England judge, or all the world, that hath look'd upon it. Sir, though you have it by inheritance in the way that is spoken of, yet it must not be denied that your office was an office of trust, and indeed an office of the highest trust lodged in any single person; For as you were the Grand Administrator of Justice, and others were, as your delegates, to see it done throughout your realms; if your greatest office were to do Justice, and preserve your People from wrong, and instead of doing that, you will be the great Wrong-doer yourself; if instead of being a Conservator of the Peace, you will be the grand Disturber of the Peace; surely this is contrary to your office, contrary to your trust. Now, Sir, if it be an office of inheritance, as you speak of, your Title by Descent, let all men know that great offices are seizable and forfeitable, as if you had it but for a year, and for your life. Therefore, Sir, it will concern you to take into your serious consideration your great Miscarriages in this kind. Truly, Sir, I shall not particularize the many Miscarriages of your reign whatsoever, they are famously known: It had been happy for the kingdom, and happy for you too, if it had not been so much known, and so much felt, as the Story of your Miscarriages must needs be, and hath been already.

Sir, That which we are now upon, by the command of the highest Court, hath been and is to try and judge you for these great offences of your's. Sir, the Charge hath called you Tyrant, a Traitor, a Murderer, and a Public Enemy to the Commonwealth of England. Sir, it had been well if that any of all these terms might rightly and justly have been spared, if any one of them at all.

KING--Ha!

But then, Sir, the weight that lies upon you in all those respects that have been spoken, by reason of your Tyranny, Treason, Breach of Trust, and the Murders that have been committed; surely, Sir, it must drive you into a sad consideration concerning your eternal condition. As I said at first, I know it cannot be pleasing to you to hear any such things as these are mentioned unto you from this Court, for so we do call ourselves, and justify ourselves to be a Court, and a high Court of Justice, authorized by the highest and solemnest court of the kingdom, as we have often said; And although you do not yet endeavour what you may to discourt us, yet we do take knowledge of ourselves to be such a Court as can administer Justice to you: and we are bound, Sir, in duty to do it. Sir, all I shall say before the reading of your Sentence, it is but this: The Court does heartily desire that you will seriously think of those evils that you stand guilty of. Sir, you said well to us the other day, you wished us to have God before our eyes. Truly Sir, I hope all of us have so: That God, who we know is a King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; that God with whom there is no respect of Persons; that God, who is the Avenger of innocent Blood; We have that God before us; that God, who does bestow a curse upon them that with-hold their hands from shedding of blood, which is in the case of guilty malefactors, and that do deserve death: That God we have before our eyes. And were it not that the conscience of our duty hath called us unto this place, and this imployment, Sir, you should have had no appearance of a Court here. But, Sir, we must prefer the discharge of our duty unto God, and unto the kingdom, before any other respect whatsoever. And although at this time many of us, if not all of us, are severely threatened by some of your party, what they intend to do, Sir, we do here declare, That we shall not decline or forbear the doing of our duty in the administration of Justice, even to you, according to the merit of your Offence although God should permit those men to effect all that bloody design in hand against us. Sir, we will say, and we will declare it, as those Children in the Fiery Furnace, that would not worship the golden image, that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, 'That their God was able to deliver them from that danger that they were near unto'; But yet if he would not do it, yet notwithstanding that they would not fall down and worship the Image. We shall thus apply it; That though we should not be delivered from those bloody hands and hearts that conspire the overthrow of the kingdom in general, of us in particular, for acting in this great Work of Justice, though we should perish in the Work, yet by God's grace, and by God's strength, we will go on with it. And this is all our resolutions, Sir, I say for yourself, we do heartily wish and desire that God would be pleased to give you a sense of your sins, that you would see wherein you have done amiss, that you may cry unto him, that God would deliver you from Blood-guiltiness. A good king was once guilty of that particular thing, and was clear otherwise, saving in the matter of Uriah. Truly, Sir, the Story tells us that he was a repentant king: and it signifies enough, that he had died for it, but that God was pleased to accept of him, and to give him his pardon, 'Thou shalt not die, but the child shall die: Thou hast given cause to the enemies of God to blaspheme.'

KING--I would desire only one word before you give Sentence; and that is, that you would hear me concerning those great Imputations that you have laid to my charge.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, You must give me now leave to go on; for I am not far from your Sentence, and your time is now past.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, I must put you in mind: Truly, Sir, I would not willingly, at this time especially, interrupt you in anything you have to say, that is proper for us to admit of; but, Sir, you have not owned us as a Court, and you look upon us as a sort of people met together; and we know what language we receive from your party.

KING--I know nothing of that.

The Lord President commands the sentence to be read: make an O yes, and command Silence while the Sentence is read.

O yes made: Silence commanded.

The Clerk read the Sentence, which was drawn up in Parchment:

'Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an High Court of Justice, for the Trying of Charles Stuart, King of England, before whom he had been three times convened; and at the first time a Charge of High-Treason, and other Crimes and Misdemeanors, was read in the behalf of the Kingdom of England,' etc. 'Which Charge being read unto him, as aforesaid, he the said Charles Stuart was required to give his Answer: But he refused so to do; and so expressed the several Passages of his Trial in refusing to answer. For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge, That the said Charles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a Public Enemy, shall be put to Death, by the severing his Head from His Body.'

After the Sentence read, the Lord President said, This Sentence now read and published, is the Act, Sentence, Judgment, and Resolution of the whole Court.

Here the Court stood up, as assenting to what the President said.

KING--Will you hear me a word, Sir?

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you are not to be heard after the Sentence.

KING--No, Sir?

LORD PRESIDENT--No, Sir; by your favour, Sir. Guard, withdraw your Prisoner.

I am not suffered for to speak: Expect what Justice other People will have.

O yes: All manner of Persons that have any thing else to do, are to depart at this time, and to give their attendance in the Painted Chamber; to which place this Court doth forthwith adjourn itself.

Then the Court rose, and the King went with his guard to sir Robert Cotton's, and from thence to Whitehall.

FOOTNOTES:

John Bradshaw was the son of a Cheshire gentleman. Called to the bar in 1627, he practised at Congleton till about 1643, when he became judge of the Sheriff's Court in London, and was enjoying, according to Campbell, 'a considerable but obscure practice'; had, according to Clarendon, 'a good practice in his chamber, and much employed by the fractious'; and became, according to Milton, 'a profound lawyer, an eloquent advocate.' He defended Lilburne successfully in 1645. He was made President of the High Court for the purpose of this trial, after the position had been declined by Whitelock, Rolle, St. John, and Wilde. After this trial he presided at the trials of the Duke of Hamilton following on the Battle of Worcester; and Holland, Norwich, Capel, and Owen after the siege of Colchester. Later on he vigorously opposed Cromwell, and accepted a seat in Richard Cromwell's Council of State. He became a Commissioner of the Great Seal in 1659, and died in October of that year. His body was exhumed at the Restoration with those of Cromwell and others, hung at Tyburn, and buried under the gallows. According to a legend perpetuated by an inscription on a cannon, his body was taken to Annapolis and buried there. A panegyric was written on him by Milton.

John Cook acted with Bradshaw as one of the counsel defending Lilburne in 1646. After the trial, of a scurrilous account of which he was probably the author, he was made Master of the hospital of St. Cross, and afterwards held various judicial posts in Ireland. On the Restoration he was tried and executed with the other regicides.

'This is as the king expressed it; but I suppose he meant Answer.'--Former Edition.

Clement Walker says: 'Whether these breaches and interruptions were made by Bradshaw, or are omissions and expunctions of some material parts of the king's speech, which this licensed penman durst not set down, I know not. I hear much of the king's argument is omitted, and much depraved, none but licensed men being suffered to take notes.'

See p. 150.

THE REGICIDES

The trials began on the 9th of October 1660, at Hick's Hall in the County of Middlesex, when the Grand Jury were charged by the Lord Chief-Baron Bridgman. True bills were found against thirty-one persons, a true bill being found against Hulet on the 12th.

On the next day Thomas Harrison was put up to plead.

CLERK--Thomas Harrison, How sayest thou? Art thou Guilty of the treason whereof thou standest indicted, and art now arraigned? Or not Guilty?

HARRISON--My Lords, have I liberty to speak?

COURT--No more than Guilty or Not Guilty. Mr. Harrison, you have heard the direction before. We can but give you the same rule. If you plead Guilty you shall be heard at large; if Not Guilty, you know what remains.

HARRISON--Will you give me leave to give you my answer in my own words?

LORD CHIEF-BARON--There is no answer but what the law directs; it is the same with you as with all others, or as I would desire if I was in your condition. You must plead Not Guilty, or if you confess Guilty, there must be judgment on your confession.

HARRISON--You express your rule very fair, as well to me as to this gentleman ; but I have something to say, which concerns your Lordships as well as myself.

COURT--You must hold, and plead Guilty or Not Guilty.

HARRISON--My Lord, I have been kept close prisoner near these three months, that nobody might have access to me. Do you call me to give you a legal answer, not knowing of my trial till nine of the clock last night, and brought away from the Tower to this place at six of the clock this morning?

COURT--You must give your direct answer, Guilty, or Not Guilty. You cannot say it is sudden or unprovided. You spend your time in vain. You trouble the Court. You must plead Guilty, or Not Guilty. We must not suffer you to make discourses here. You must plead either Guilty or Not Guilty.

CLERK--Are you Guilty, or Not Guilty?

After objecting to plead in this way for a little more time, Harrison was at last persuaded to plead Not Guilty. He then objected to complete the usual formula by saying that he would be tried by God and his Country, saying that they were vain words; but eventually--

HARRISON--I do offer myself to be tried in your own way by God and my Country.

CLERK--God send you a good deliverance.

On the next day, the 11th, at seven o'clock in the morning, Harrison's trial began by the calling of the jury, of whom Harrison challenged thirty-five, his maximum number.

The case was then opened by Finch, the Solicitor-General, who, after explaining the law of treason by quotations from the Bible and Coke, charged the prisoner more particularly with having brought the King up to London; with having signed the warrant constituting the Court which tried him; with having sat as a member of the Court; and with having signed the death-warrant.

All the witnesses were then sworn, six in all.

I do remember well it was in the evening; they were lighting of candles, they were somewhat private. This gentleman was there, I saw him; for through the kindness of Mr. Phelps, who was then Clerk to that Committee, I was admitted, pretending first to speak with the said Mr. Phelps, and that I had some business with him; and so I was admitted into the Committee Chamber. Being there I did observe some passages fall from the prisoner at the bar; the words were to this purpose; he was making a narrative of some discourse that passed between his late majesty and himself in coming between Windsor and London, or Hurst Castle, I know not well which. My Lord, that passage that I observed to fall from him in that discourse was this; he said that the King as he sat in the coach with him was importunate to know what they intended to do with him. The King asked, What do they intend to do with me; Whether to murder me or no? 'and I said to him, There was no such intent on as to kill him, we have no such thoughts.' But the Lord has reserved you for a public example of justice. There is one word more, my Lords, and that is this, which I heard from the prisoner at the bar. The reason and end of their meeting together at that Committee was concerning the charge. So much I observed. It was concerning the contracting of the impeachment. I observed that some found fault with the length of that as it was drawn. They were offering some reasons to contract it, and I heard this prisoner at the bar vent this expression; 'Gentlemen, it will be good for us to blacken him what we can; pray let us blacken him,' or words to that purpose. I am sure 'blacken' was his word.

HARRISON--I do not come to be denying anything that in my own judgment and conscience I have done or committed, but rather to be bringing it forth to the light.

COURT--Sir, you must understand this by the way, this you must take along with you, that these are read not as anything of authority in themselves, or as used to any other purpose, but as evidence of the fact against you; take that along with you.

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