Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/314

300 Cromwell; but he referred them to their own league and covenant, and contended that if it were necessary to punish malignants, it was pre-eminently so to punish the chief and instigator of malignants.

When Charles was removed to St. James's, he began to think more seriously of his situation. There he was consigned to the keeping of Tomlinson, a colonel of foot, who treated him not as a crowned head, but as a prisoner who must not, on any account, be suffered to escape. No one was suffered to see him but the soldiers of his guard, who, day and night, remained in his chamber, never suffering him to go into another room for prayer or any other purpose; and lest any of them should be corrupted by him, the same men never came twice on that duty.

On the 20th of January the commissioners assembled in the Painted Chamber to the number of sixty-six, and proceeded in state to Westminster Hall. The decisive hour was now come! The great hour of the teaching and the liberation of nations was come! The sublime drama of king and people was already composed; its characters were already in existence; the stage and machinery were prepared. Kings had for ages proclaimed their divine commission and appointment to rule, and trample down nations and laws at their pleasure; priests and nobles had echoed and applauded these vaunts, and they who had dared to deny them, had fallen in their blood. Tyranny, with its self-seeking favourites and its armed myrmidons, had ridden royally over human rights, with hurrahs from the silken minions behind its chariots, and groans of crushed hearts beneath its wheels. Patriots had risen, had dared, perished, and left behind adored but ineffectual names. Bloody blocks, prisons with their freezing dungeons, their racks and secret horrors, had done their work on the noblest of God's creation. Thrones and crowns, and coronets glittered gaily where the brave had fallen and the righteous had been condemned; but the hour of retribution was now come. The grandest spectacle in the history of man had now to be exhibited. The tears, and prayers, and blood of the saints of liberty should be proved not to have been spent in vain. It must be given to England, as the portion of its eternal fame, to avenge the scorn and sufferings of the fallen hosts of patriots; to assert the rights, not of cities, but of nations; not of nations, but of mankind. Royalty had long enough lorded it over patriotism—patriotism should now rule, arraign, and condemn royalty. The people of England had erected its tribunal in the face of Heaven and of all nations, formally to impeach, try, condemn, and punish absolutism in the person of one of its most earnest and most determined champions. The scene was one to hold in statue-like stillness the eyes of angels and of men; the lesson one to strike terror through the hearts of all monarchs, and to go forth as the charter of liberty to the ends of the earth and of all time.

It may be imagined that such a spectacle drew immense throngs. Every avenue to the hall was guarded by soldiers, and others stood armed within it. The open space below the bar was densely crowded, and equally packed throngs of nobles, gentlemen, and ladies, looked down from the galleries right and left. A chair of crimson velvet stood elevated on thrice steps towards the upper end of the hall, and behind and in a line with him right and left the commissioners took the seats placed for them, which were covered with scarlet. Before the president stood a long table on which lay the mace and sword, and just below him, at its head, sate two clerks. At the bottom of the table, directly opposite to the president, was placed a chair for the king.

After the commission had been read, Bradshaw ordered the prisoner to be brought to the bar. He had been brought from Whitehall, to which he had been removed from St. James's, in a sedan chair, and the serjeant-at-arms conducted him to the bar. His step was firm, and his countenance, though serious, unmoved. He seated himself covered, according to the wont, not of a prisoner, but of a king; then rose and surveyed the court and crowds around him. The commissioners all sate with their hats on, and Charles eyed them sternly. He then glanced round on the people in the galleries and those around with an air of superiority,and reseated himself. Bradshaw then addressed him to this effect:—"Charles Stuart, king of England,—The commons of England, being deeply sensible of the calamities that have been brought upon this nation, which are fixed upon you as the principal author of them, have resolved to make inquisition for blood; and, according to that debt and due they owe to justice, to God, the kingdom, and themselves, they have resolved to bring you to trial and judgment, and for that purpose have constituted this high court of justice before which you are brought." Coke, the solicitor-general, then rose to make the charge against him, but Charles, rising and crying, "Hold! hold!" tapped him on the shoulder with his cane. In doing this the gold head dropped from his cane, and though he took it up with an air of indifference, it was an incident that made a deep impression both on him and the spectators. He mentioned the circumstance to the bishop of London, who attended him in private, with much concern, and those who saw it regarded it as an especial omen.

Coke, however, went on, and desired the clerk to read the charge, and whilst it was reading, Charles again cried, "Hold!" but as the clerk continued, he sate down, looking very stern; but when the words of the charge declaring him to be a tyrant and traitor were read, he is said to have laughed outright. When the charge was finished, Bradshaw demanded what he had to say in reply to it; but he in his turn demanded by what authority he had been brought there? And he asserted very forcibly that he was king; acknowledged no authority superior to his own, and would not by any act of his diminish or yield up that authority, but leave it to his posterity as he had derived it from his ancestors. He reminded them that he had lately, in the Isle of Wight, treated with a number of lords and gentlemen; that they were upon the conclusion of that treaty, and he wanted to know by what authority he had, under such circumstances, been brought thence.

This was very true, and would have been unanswerable, had he, as he asserted, treated with them honestly and uprightly; but we know that at the very time that he was carrying on that treaty, and to the very last, he was also carrying on a secret correspondence with Ormond in Ireland, his wife in France, and with other parties, informing