The Lords having rejected the ordinance for bringing the King to trial, the Commons, always under the influence of the army, declared themselves capable of enforcing their own act by their own law, "the People being, under God, the original of all just power."

Charles was hurried from Windsor to St. James's, and the day after his arrival in London put on his trial for having endeavoured to subvert his people's rights, for having levied war on them with the help of foreign troops, and with having, after once being spared, endeavoured by all wicked arts to again involve the kingdom in bloody confusion.

This was the end after so many years of strife, evasion, pacts made and broken, bloodshed and lives ruined. Charles was a prisoner on trial for his life, and in one of his splendid beds at Whitehall (now the headquarters of the army) Oliver Cromwell slept or lay awake and struggled with tumultuous thoughts.

Many who had been with him all along were against him now. Vane and Sidney protested hotly. Many members refused to sit among the judges who were to try Charles.

"The King," said Sidney, "can be tried by no court, and by such a court as this no man can be tried."

"I tell you," said Cromwell sombrely, "we will cut off his head with the crown upon it."

So passionate and vigorous and unalterable was his resolution now it was taken.

The fiercer spirits of the army were with him. "'Blood defileth the land,'" quoted Ludlow, "'and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.'"

Cromwell, too, now believed that by God's express law the King was doomed.

It mattered not a whit to him that the tribunal which was to try Charles had neither legal nor moral right, since there was no law by which the King could be brought to trial, and the judges represented neither the Commons nor the people, but a section of the army; indeed, while others endeavoured to find excuses with which to cover up the obvious illegality of the proceeding, Cromwell disdained any such shifts. As he had been the man who had striven longest and most arduously to make some compromise with the King, he was now the man who was advancing most boldly and directly to the climax of the King's last phase.

He had decided there could be no peace while Charles lived, and he spared no effort to secure his death.

The time for temporizing was past, he believed, and he acted, as he never failed to act at a crisis, with swiftness, with firmness, with unhesitating decision.

Whitelocke, St. John, Wilde, and Rolle declined to be President of the Court which tried the King, but John Bradshaw accepted.

For a week the trial in the great Hall of Westminster (which the King had last entered when he came to demand the five members) continued, a long haughty protest on the part of Charles, a stern overruling of him on the part of the Court—the whole thing almost incredible in swiftness, fierceness, and enthusiastic passion overlaid with the stately forms of ancient ceremonial. On the fourth time of the sitting, the 29th January, being Saturday, the Court was held—as many believed—for the last time.

Lord Digby, who had been separated from his master when Charles was removed to Hurst Castle, and had been wandering about, more or less in disguise ever since, had managed to gain London, and on this morning of the 29th, a cold, wet, and grey day, he made his way to Westminster Hall, to witness the awful, unbelievable spectacle of the trial of his King.

The great gates of the Hall were opened to admit the general public, which soon swarmed in, and Digby found himself in the midst of a vast concourse of people, mostly of the baser sort, who pushed and gossiped and passed food and drink from one to another, so that the atmosphere was like the pit of a theatre for the smell of beer and oranges, as it had been at the trial of Lord Strafford.

Lord Digby caught scraps of conversation which pierced him to the heart—how, on the second day, the head had fallen off the King's cane and he had had to stoop for it himself—how he had paled at this, as if he took it for an ill-omen ... how curt Bradshaw had been with him, and how certain all were that there could only be one end—the axe....

Soon the Court entered, and a great "Ah-h," like an indrawn breath, rose from the crowd when they saw that Serjeant Bradshaw, the Lord President, was attired in a scarlet robe, instead of the black one which he had worn on the previous occasions. "His cap," whispered the man next Lord Digby, "is lined with steel, for fear one might make an attempt on him."

John Bradshaw, with a very unmoved dignity and stern calmness, took his seat in the midst of the Court, in a crimson velvet chair, having a desk with a crimson velvet cushion before him; either side of him, on the scarlet-hung benches, the fourscore members of the Court seated themselves, all with their hats on; sixteen gentlemen with partisans stood either side the Court; before a table, set at the feet of the President and covered with a rich Turkey carpet on which lay the sword, stood the Serjeant-at-Arms with the mace; the Clerk of the Court sat at this table also.

A company of guards was placed about the Hall to keep order, and everywhere, in the body of the Court and in the galleries, was a great expectant press of people.

After the Court had been sitting about ten minutes, the prisoner arrived in the charge of Colonel Tomlinson and a company of gentlemen with partisans.

As he entered some of the soldiers cried out, "Execution! Execution! Justice against the traitor at the Bar!"

The Serjeant-at-Arms met the King and conducted him to the Bar, where a crimson velvet chair was placed for him.

Charles looked sternly at the Court, up at the galleries and the multitude gathered in the body of the Hall; then he seated himself, without moving his hat.

He was dressed more richly than Lord Digby remembered him to have been for some time; his suit was black velvet and pale blue silk, with Flemish lace and silver knots; he carried a long cane in his hand and a pair of doeskin gloves. He was scarcely seated before he rose up again and moved about and looked down at the spectators with a smile of unutterable haughtiness. Lord Digby was near enough to remark that he looked in good health, vigorous, and composed.

Suddenly he glanced up at the Lord President, and though he must have remarked the scarlet robe, he did not change colour.

"I shall desire a word—to be heard a little," he said, "and hope I shall give no occasion of interruption."

"You may answer in your time," replied Bradshaw coldly. "Hear the Court first."

"If it please you, sir, I desire to be heard," said the King. "And I shall not give any occasion of interruption—and it is only in a word—a sudden judgment——"

"Sir," interrupted the Lord President, "you shall be heard in due time, but you are to hear the Court first——"

"Sir, I desire—it will be in answer to what I believe the Court will say—sir, a hasty judgment is not so soon recalled——"

"Sir," replied the Lord President sternly, "you shall be heard before the judgment be given, and in the meantime you may forbear."

Charles took his seat again, saying, "Well, sir, shall I be heard before judgment be given?"

The Lord President now proceeded to address the Court.

"Gentlemen, it is well known to most of you that the prisoner at the Bar hath been several times convened before the Court to make answer to a charge of treason——"

Here the King looked up and laughed in the face of the Court.

"—and other high crimes exhibited against him in the name of the People of England——"

A shrill woman's voice interrupted from one of the galleries—"Not half the People!" The King smiled, and there was some disturbance while the lady was silenced or removed.

Bradshaw continued: "To which charge being required to answer, he began to take on him to offer reasoning and debate unto the authority of the Court to try and judge him; but being overruled in that, and still required to make his answer, he was still pleased to continue contumacious, and to refuse to submit or answer.

"Thereupon the Court have considered of the charge; they have considered of the contumacy and of the notoriety of the fact charged upon the prisoner, and have agreed upon the sentence to be pronounced against this prisoner."

The Lord President paused a moment, and a low hum went through the Court. The King threw back his head with that expression of incredulous haughtiness still on his face.

"The prisoner doth desire to be heard," continued Bradshaw, "before the sentence be pronounced, and the Court hath resolved that they will hear him."

Charles rose; his scornful eyes flickered along the faces of his judges and rested for a second on the white countenance of Oliver Cromwell, who was looking at him intently.

The Lord President addressed the King—

"Yet, sir, this much I must tell you beforehand, which you have been minded of before, that if that you have to say be to offer any debate concerning jurisdiction, you are not to be heard in it—you have offered it formerly and you have indeed struck at the root, that is, the power and supreme authority of the Commons of England—but, sir, if you have anything to say in defence of yourself concerning the matter charged, the Court hath given me in command to let you know that they will hear you."

The King caught hold of the bar in front of him. He began to speak; at first his voice, though steady, was so low that only those near could hear him; he addressed himself to Bradshaw, but he faced all his judges, and his glance travelled from one to another.

At last Lord Digby, straining forward through the press, caught some words.

"... This many a day all things have been taken away from me, but that which I call more dear to me than my life, my honour, and my conscience—and if I had respect to my life more than the peace of the kingdom, the liberty of the subject, certainly I should have made a particular defence for myself, for by that at leastwise I might have deferred an ugly sentence, which I believe will pass on me."

He then asked to be heard in the Painted Chamber before the Lords and Commons before any sentence was given.

As he concluded he raised his voice and spoke with great nobleness and force.

"And if I cannot get this liberty I do here protest that so fair shows of liberty and peace are pure shows and not otherwise since you will not hear your King."

A hush followed his speech; Cromwell whispered to a neighbour; a faint sunlight penetrated the narrow Gothic window and touched to brilliancy John Bradshaw in his scarlet robes among his crimson cushions.

"Sir, you have spoken," he said.

"Yes, sir," replied the King, looking at him austerely.

The sunlight strengthened; the judge blazed in his unrelieved red; the prisoner was still in shadow; he stood with his hands on the bar; Lord Digby could see that he was biting his under-lip.

"What you have said," announced Bradshaw, "is a further declining of the jurisdiction of this Court, which was the thing wherein you were limited before——"

The King's voice cut his speech.

"Pray excuse me, sir, for my interruption, because you mistake me—it is not a declining of it; you do judge me before you hear me speak. I say I will not, I do not decline, though I cannot acknowledge the jurisdiction of this Court——"

A deep humming from the Court drowned the rest of his speech.

Bradshaw, stern, slightly flushed, and in a voice of terrible import, made reply—

"Sir, this is not altogether new that you have moved unto us—not altogether new to us, though it is the first time in person that you have offered it to the Court. Sir, you say you do not decline the jurisdiction of the Court."

"Not in this that I have said," answered Charles swiftly.

"I understand you well, sir," said the Lord President; "but, nevertheless, that which you have offered seems to be contrary to that saying of yours—for the Court are ready to give a sentence."

The very slightest quiver disturbed the King's face; he sought for his handkerchief, found it, and wiped his lips, looking down the while.

"It is not as you say," continued Bradshaw sternly, "that we will not hear our King—we have been ready to hear you, we have patiently waited your pleasure for three Courts together, to hear what you would say to the People's charges against you, to which you have not vouchsafed to give any answer at all."

As Lord Digby, pressed in the pushing crowd, listened to these words and gazed at the awful scene a sickness came over him; he saw that terrible red of judge and cushion, chair and bench float in a mist before his eyes, and through that scarlet blur the King's figure, stripped now of the inviolate sacredness of Majesty—merely a man, a desperate man in a sea of enemies, making a last stand for his life.

Bradshaw concluded his speech by saying that the Court would withdraw to the Court of Awards to consider of the King's request to be heard in the Painted Chamber, and so they moved out, leaving the red chair and the red benches bare.

Charles was also removed; as he passed the sword lying on the table covered with the Turkey carpet he said, "I do not fear that," and Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Harrison, hearing the words, looked at him over their shoulders as they went out.

Lord Digby struggled nearer the front and cried out, "God save your Majesty!" hoping the King would recognize his voice, but it was lost in cries of "Justice!" and "Execution!" which rose from the soldiers.

After half an hour the Court returned and the Serjeant-at-Arms brought back the prisoner. Charles now held in his hand a small bunch of herbs, and truly the atmosphere was stifling; he was still composed, but his face was now as white as the wall behind him; he seated himself and folded his arms.

Bradshaw addressed him; he was not to be allowed to go before the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber. "The judges are resolved to proceed to punishment and to judgment, and that is their unanimous resolution."

Some of the spectators groaned; the sense of impending doom, calamity, and horror spread from one to another. Charles rose; he was not a whit abashed or lowered in his pride, but there was a passion in his tones, a ringing challenge in his words, which were the indications of an inner despair.

"I know it is vain for me to dispute," he said. "I am no sceptic for to deny the power you have—I know that you have power enough! I confess, sir, I think it would have been for the kingdom's peace if you had shown the lawfulness of your power!" His haughty contempt showed for a moment unmasked, his look, his bearing, his voice, defied them utterly. "For this delay that I have desired, I confess it is a delay, but a delay very important to the peace of the kingdom, for it is not my person that I look on alone, it is the kingdom's welfare and the kingdom's peace—it is an old sentence that we should think long before we resolve of great matters—therefore, sir, I do say again, that I do put at your doors all the inconveniency of a hasty sentence. I confess I have been here this week, this day eight days ago was the day I came here first, but a little delay of a day or two further may give peace—whereas a hasty judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconveniency to the kingdom that the child which is unborn may repent it." He paused a second, then raised his voice slightly. "Therefore again, out of the duty I owe to God, and to my country, I do desire that I may be heard by the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, or any other chamber that you will appoint me."

The sixty-eight judges made no movement; Bradshaw, whose dignity and unfaltering composure were as remarkable as the dignity and composure of the prisoner, considering the extraordinary position in which he, a mere Cheshire gentleman, was now placed towards his sovereign, and what a responsibility he was taking on himself, what undying vengeance, what possibly horrible fate he was facing if the tide should one day turn, briefly replied that the Court had made their resolution and again asked Charles if he had anything to say for himself before sentence was delivered.

The King, facing him, replied—

"I say this, sir, that if you will hear me, if you will but give this delay, I doubt not but I shall give some satisfaction to you all here, and to my People, after that. And, therefore, I do require you, as you shall answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment, that you will consider it once again."

It was what he had said since he had first been put on trial, a steady refusal to recognize this Court (as on all legal grounds he was justified in doing), a refusal to plead or argue the cause, a repetition of the haughty demand—"By what authority?" Before the Lords and Commons he might defend himself, not before this tribunal of his rebellious subjects. But as deeply rooted, as unyielding, as his refusal to recognize the Court was the Court's intention to judge and condemn him; they were there to make inquisition for blood, and not one of them faltered in their stern task.

In answer to the King's last speech Bradshaw said merely, "Sir, I have received direction from the Court."

The King sat down.

"Well, sir," he said, and looked about him with utter haughtiness.

"The Court will proceed to sentence," continued the Lord President, "if you have nothing more to say."

Lord Digby and many others held their breath: would the King, even now, disdain to answer to his charge?

He looked at Bradshaw and very faintly smiled.

"Sir," he said, "I have nothing more to say, but I shall desire that this may be entered—what I have said."

He knew as he spoke that his last hope had gone; he put the herbs to his nostrils and his thoughts flew to Paris and the woman waiting there.... The winter sun had faded; the crimson and scarlet glowed through a sombre shadow of river mist and afternoon fog, which began to encroach upon the Court and blot the eager faces and blur the coloured garments and dim the glitter of the great bare sword at which the King, turning in his chair, looked curiously.

"The Court, sir, hath something more to say to you," said Bradshaw, "which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet they are resolved to discharge their duty. Sir, you speak very well of a precious thing, which you call Peace, and it is much to be wished that God had put it into your heart that you had as effectually and really endeavoured and studied the peace of the kingdom, as now in words you do pretend—but, as you were told the other day, actions must expound intentions—yet your actions have been clean contrary."

In this strain the speech continued, delivered with clearness, with force and point, yet with a rapidity that strained the speed of the licensed penmen who were taking down the report of the trial.

Bradshaw spoke with learning, with eloquence, with weight and fire; yet what he said was but a repetition of the old grounds the Parliament had taken since the beginning of the war; the law was above the King. The King had defied the law and was therefore answerable.

He cited many precedents, quoted many authorities, but he could not disguise the illegality of the tribunal over which he presided, or cloak the fact that the King was being judged by means as outside the law as his had been when he had cast Sir John Eliot into the Tower or forced John Hampton to pay ship money.

The King had lost in the long struggle and was now paying the penalty as they on the scarlet benches would have paid if he had been the victor.

This fact Bradshaw might adorn with all dignity and eloquence—but it remained obvious and undeniable.

The Lord President spoke too long; the crowd became restless; and awful as the moment was, unprecedented as was the occasion, human weakness and human levity prevailed. Some yawned, some fought their way out for fresh supplies of food and drink, some went away to spread the news the King was doomed.

Some followed the speech eagerly enough and hummed their approbation, some shouted protests and were thrown out by the soldiers.

Charles, listening to an indictment such as no king had ever listened to before, in a situation in which no king had ever been before, sat perfectly still, holding the herbs to his nostrils.

To him this talk was mere waste of air; he was, as he had said, as good a lawyer as any in the kingdom, and he knew that the Court which Bradshaw so burningly justified had no shadow of legal right; he knew that he was the victim of force, and he knew that he was suffering, not so much for the offences which the Lord President laid to his charge, as because he had remained faithful to the Church of England and the Divine right of kings; he knew that if he had forsaken these two tenets even a few days ago when Lord Denbigh came to Windsor he might have been saved.

And he did not regret his firmness—even at this moment.

Once, when Bradshaw, appealing to history, said, "You are the hundred and ninth King of Scotland," he moved, and his look brightened as if he had been recalled from wandering thoughts to the present moment; and when the Lord President spoke of the violent end of his grandmother, Mary Stewart, he started a little and frowned.

For the rest he was motionless and silent, save only when Bradshaw arraigned him as, "Tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the Commonwealth of England"; then he blushed and cried out, "Ha!"

The Lord President, spurred afresh by this cry of defiance, proceeded to prove these charges against the King, reinforcing them with texts of Scripture, and so upbraiding and fiercely condemning the King that at last Charles, amid a general murmur and buzz of the Court, sprang to his feet.

"I would only desire one word before you give sentence," he said, "and that is that you hear me concerning those great imputations that you have laid to my charge!"

"Sir," replied Bradshaw undauntedly, "you must give me leave to go on—for I am not far from your sentence and your time is now past——"

Again Charles interrupted.

"But I desire that you will hear me a few words only—for truly whatever sentence you will put upon me in respect of those heavy imputations that I see by your speech you have put upon me—sir, it is very true that——"

"Sir," said Bradshaw, with great sternness, "I would not willingly, especially at this time, interrupt you in anything you have to say, but, sir, you have not owned us as a Court—you look upon us as a sort of people met together—and we know what language we receive from your party."

"I know nothing of that!" exclaimed Charles contemptuously.

Bradshaw continued with the old bitter grievance: "You disavow us as a Court"—and on that theme spoke a little longer, the King the while facing him, leaning forward eagerly, with clenched hands and white face, frowning.

"We cannot be unmindful of what the Scripture tells us, for to acquit the guilty is of equal abomination as to condemn the innocent. We may not acquit the guilty. What sentence the law affirms to a traitor, tyrant, a murderer, and a public enemy to the country, that sentence you are now to hear read unto you, and that is the sentence of the Court."

There was a great movement in the Hall as of a wave advancing, then flung back. Oliver Cromwell put his hands before his face; the King did not move.

"Read the sentence," said Bradshaw. "Make an oyer and command silence while the sentence is read."

Which was done by the Clerk of the Court, and silence indeed fell—a silence which seemed to shudder.

The Clerk read over the charge from the parchment he held, and then proceeded—

"This charge being read unto him, he, the said Charles Stewart, was required to give his answer, but he refused to do so, 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 Stewart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body."

Terrible sighs broke from the spectators; they swayed to and fro. The King, now the moment had come, looked incredulous.

"The sentence now read and published," said Bradshaw, "is the Act, Sentence, Judgment, and Resolution of the whole Court."

At this the sixty-eight judges stood up to show their assent.

"Will you hear me a word, sir?" cried Charles.

"Sir," returned Bradshaw, "you are not to be heard after the sentence."

"No, sir?"

"No, sir—by your favour, sir. Guard, withdraw your prisoner."

The partisans closed round Charles; incredulous, outraged, he continued to protest.

"I may speak after the sentence—by your favour, sir, I may speak after the sentence—ever——"

The guards caught hold of him none too civilly.

"I say, sir, I do," cried the unfortunate King—then sternly to the soldier who had seized his arm, "Hold!"—"by your favour the sentence, sir——"

They pushed and dragged him away. He raised his voice.

"I am not suffered for to speak! Expect what justice other people will have!"

So, still incredulous, protesting, he was forced away, and the Court rose and went into the Painted Chamber.

Lord Digby made his way out of the crowd; he found a dun mist over London and rows of Cromwell's Ironsides keeping guard outside the Hall.

As the King passed out with his guards on his way to Sir Robert Cotton's, one of these men called out, "God bless you, sir!" and his officer struck him on the face.

"It is a severe punishment for a little offence," said Charles. He was now quite calm.

The mist deepened, blotting out the surging crowd, some of whom wept and some of whom were silent, but none of whom openly rejoiced.