35—
'To Vindicate His Helpless Right'

Charles had not long to wait after his refusal to see Denbigh. On 1 January 1649 an Ordinance passed the House of Commons for the trial of the King on a charge of treason on the grounds that he had levied war against the Parliament and Kingdom of England. The Lords rejected the motion. On the 3rd the Commons passed it a second time together with an Ordinance establishing a High Court of Justice of 135 Commissioners. On the same day they refused to consider a letter from Henrietta-Maria begging permission to visit her husband. The next day they constituted themselves the sole law-making body without the concurrence of King or House of Lords and on the 6th passed what they could now call an Act, for the trial of Charles Stuart on the grounds that he

had a wicked design totally to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and, in their place, to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government; and that, besides all other evil ways and means to bring this design to pass, he hath prosecuted it with fire and sword, levied and maintained a cruel war in the land against the Parliament and Kingdom, whereby the country hath been miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other mischiefs committed.

Since they could not make use of the Great Seal with its inscription in the name of Charles they had another made which was inscribed 'In the first year of freedom, by God's blessing restored'. The trial was fixed for January 20 and a Committee appointed to consider the preparation of Westminster Hall for the purpose.

The leaders of the Army, who since Pride's Purge were also the leaders of the nation and among whom Cromwell was the chief, had come to the conclusion that there could be no peace while Charles

remained King. Cromwell's last, almost despairing, effort to avoid the consequences of that decision by sending Denbigh to Windsor had failed and he saw no alternative to the trial: what he expected from it is uncertain. It is likely that, as in the case of Strafford, he and his most intimate associates had come to the conclusion that 'stone dead hath no fellow'. But many supporters of Parliament and the Army shrank from either the trial itself or the consequences. The eminent and respected lawyers John Selden and Bulstrode Whitelocke were among those who retired from the capital. Equally serious were the refusals of Lord Chief Baron Wilde, Chief Justice Henry Rolle and, above all, Chief Justice Oliver St John, the kinsman of Cromwell and defender of Hampden in the ship-money case, to serve on a High Court of Justice to try the King. At its first meeting on January 8 only 52 were present out of the 135 named, and procedure at the trial could not be agreed. When Algernon Sidney made the point that the King could be tried by no court and no man by that court, Cromwell betrayed his anxiety by shouting, 'I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it!' Sidney did not attend again.

Fairfax gave the first meeting of the court some substance by his presence, but he had nothing to contribute and never reappeared either at preliminary meetings or at the trial itself. Fairfax was a good and brave soldier who took and executed military decisions firmly, yet off the field he was indecisive and weak, and at this moment of crisis chose to stand aside. Another notable absentee was Philip Skippon, Commander of the London trained bands and a zealous Puritan.

But the list of appointees to the High Court of Justice was long, including soldiers, Parliament men, lawyers, civic dignitaries and local leaders, and since a quorum of only twenty had been named, even the small attendance of 45 at their next meeting on January 10 was sufficient to enable them to proceed to business and elect a Lord President to conduct the trial. The choice was difficult, and in the absence of so many powerful legal figures it fell upon Sergeant John Bradshaw of the Sheriff's court in London, who had recently been appointed Chief Justice of Chester but who was otherwise of no particular repute. Equally important was the choice of Counsel for the Prosecution. The Attorney General, Anthony Steel, withdrew at the last moment on the plea of illness, real or feigned, and the lawyer John Cook was brought in to present the charge against the King, which he immediately began to draw up with the help of Isaac Dorislaus, a Dutch lawyer who had also taught at Cambridge University.

Meanwhile on January 9 the Sergeant at Arms had made proclamation in Westminster Hall, at Cheapside and at the Old Exchange that Charles Stuart, King of England, was to be brought to trial and that the Court of Justice would be in session from January 10 in the Painted Chamber which adjoined Westminster Hall. On January 13, the report on the preparation of the Hall was received. Public trials were only occasional episodes in the life of the great timbered Hall, whose hammerbeam roof was the finest in Europe. It was 240 feet long, 67 feet wide, large enough to house several of the courts of law — Common Pleas, King's Bench, the Exchequer Court, and Chancery — which functioned in various parts of the Hall with only low, temporary partitions separating them from the citizens, courtiers and others who sauntered at will, gossiping, buying news-sheets from hawkers or patronizing the booksellers' and stationers' booths that lined the walls. Westminster Hall had now to be cleared, decisions had to be made concerning the seating of the judges, the admission of the public, the position of the King during the trial, and security: mighty subjects had stood trial in Westminster Hall but never before had a reigning monarch been brought there as a prisoner on trial for his life.

Strafford had been brought in, as was customary, by the public or great North door of the Hall and his trial had been conducted about halfway down towards the southern end. Such a dignified walk, in full view, was to be denied the King. His place of trial was brought nearer to the southern end of the Hall and he would enter from a short passage beneath the Hall that brought him, by a flight of a few steps, close to the place he would occupy. A wooden partition was to be built from wall to wall across the width of the Hall, between him and the public, behind which soldiers would stand. Security would thus be provided and, what was perhaps more important, he would be denied contact with the spectators, and they with him, for he would be effectively screened from the body of the Hall except when he was standing.

Charles was brought on January 19 from Windsor to St James's in a coach and six, escorted by soldiers and with Hugh Peters, the Puritan divine, riding in front of the entourage. When a man on horseback put off his hat to him Charles returned the courtesy but his guard threw both man and horse into a ditch. The following day Charles was taken in a closed sedan chair to Whitehall and thence in his own barge, again enclosed, to Cotton House, which was conveniently near to West-

minster Hall. Spectators thronged the river and the banks and some of them cheered, but his own boat was closely followed and preceded by guards. While he was on his way Cromwell and the Commissioners were still discussing procedure in the Painted Chamber and as they heard the sounds that indicated that Charles was disembarking at Cotton steps Cromwell rushed to the window, turning deathly white: 'He is come, he is come!', he cried, 'and now we are doing that great work that the nation will be full of.' But what answer, he asked, as he asked himself and others over and over again, should be given when the King enquired by what authority he was being tried? After a pause Henry Marten spoke: 'In the name of the Commons in Parliament assembled and all the good people of England.'

At the south end of Westminster Hall benches had been erected for the men who were to be Charles's Judge and Jury. In the middle of them, and a little raised, sat John Bradshaw, the President, with a table before him. The benches, President's chair and table were covered with crimson cloth; Bradshaw wore a black gown and, considering his exposed position and the feelings the trial would evoke, he had had his hat reinforced with steel plates. At right angles to the Commissioners' seats, stretching northwards down the Hall, were two bodies of soldiers, several lines deep, and in the middle of the open space in front of Bradshaw and between the soldiers was a table bearing the mace and the sword of state at which two clerks sat ready to make their notes. Beyond the clerks and opposite the Commissioners' seats was the dock, a rectangular wooden enclosure with a crimson chair in the middle facing Bradshaw and the Commissioners. Immediately behind the dock was the high wooden partition that separated off the rest of the Hall. Soldiers lined this barrier and were stationed also down the middle of the Hall as far as the door so that the spectators were divided into two. On each side of the Hall at the South end, above the Judges' seats, galleries had been erected for privileged spectators who gained access through adjoining buildings. In view of the general security and the care taken to guard the King from sympathetic eyes there appeared to be a strange carelessness here. But whatever happened in the galleries there was no chance of escape for Charles, for all the doors to the Hall were securely guarded and troops of horse waited outside.

When all was ready it was apparent that only half of the Commissioners' chairs were occupied and, in fact, only 68 answered to their names. As the name of Fairfax was pronounced Lady Fairfax cried out

from the gallery that her husband was not there and never would be there. Order was restored as she hastily withdrew and the court waited.

It was a small man who walked into Westminster Hall with short steps and hurried gait under the guard of Colonel Tomlinson's men and mounted the few steps to the dock. He was dressed entirely in black with an enveloping black cloak round his shoulders on which gleamed the large embroidered star of the Order of the Garter. Apart from the deep white collar and cuffs, the only relief was a jewel at his throat and round his neck the blue ribbon of the garter, suspending the onyx and diamond George, his most precious jewel, which opened to reveal a portrait of his wife. The beard was tinged with grey, it was bushier, less finely trimmed than it had been, and there was more hair on his upper lip. Under the high-crowned black hat the dark auburn hair fell down to his shoulders and was still thick though its lustre had gone and it was streaked with grey. Those who had not seen him since the war would have noted the sunken eyes and the pouches beneath them. He looked a man who had suffered, who had faced hardship and expected more; who was disillusioned, and somewhat bitter. It was the face of one who had fought hard and perhaps knew he had lost. Yet as well as resignation there was a maturity in the face that was absent from the Court portraits of Van Dyck. Nor was his face or his figure that of an old, or of a sick man, and when he spoke people noted, as Lady Fairfax did, that his stammer had entirely gone.

Charles looked slowly round the hall and up at the galleries; he sat down on his red chair, rose, and turned to look over the barrier at the spectators and the guards behind him before resuming his seat. His head remained covered to mark his refusal to recognize the court. After Bradshaw had opened proceedings, John Cook, the Solicitor General, who was standing within the bar by the King, began the charge. Charles, wishing to speak, tapped him on the shoulder with his cane and as he did so its silver top fell off. No one stirred to pick it up so Charles stooped and put it in his pocket while Cook continued, 'I do in the name and on the behalf of the people of England exhibit and bring into this court a charge of high treason and other high crimes whereof I do accuse Charles Stuart, King of England.'

'By your favour, Hold!', exclaimed Charles, but the clerk to the court was ordered to proceed with the long indictment: 'Charles Stuart, King of England . . . trusted with a limited power to govern

by and according to the laws of the land . . . obliged to use the power committed to him for the good and benefit of the people for the preservation of their rights and liberties' had nevertheless 'out of a wicked design . . . to . . . uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power' conspired 'to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people . . . to take away . . . the right and power of frequent and successive Parliaments' and for the accomplishment of his design had 'trayterously and maliciously levyed war against the present Parliament, and the people therein represented.'

There were then enumerated the various battles of the civil war, the attempted use of foreign troops and the renewal of the war in 1648, all the evils resulting being laid at his door. 'Charles Stuart', concluded the charge, was 'guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, dammages, and mischiefs to this nation, ordered and committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby.' On behalf of the people of England, consequently, the said Charles Stuart was impeached 'as a tyrant, traytor, murderer and a publick and implacable enemy to the commonwealth of England'.

Charles sat looking sometimes at the court, sometimes up at the galleries. At one point he rose and turned again with a stern countenance to look down the long, intimidating length of the hall. When it came to the final words of the impeachment he laughed in the face of the court as he had laughed in the face of Strafford's accusers.

Charles asked over and over again, as Cromwell had foreseen, to be told by what authority he was brought there, and the answer was always basically the one upon which his judges had agreed: 'the authority of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament'. Once they added the words 'of which you are the elected King'. Charles was quick to seize the point: the English monarchy was not elective but had been hereditary for a thousand years. And, he said, though 'I will stand for the privilege of the Commons, rightly understood, as any man here whatsoever', yet a Parliament — and he looked round — 'I see no House of Lords here that may constitute a Parliament'. He might also have pointed out that the House of Commons was not at that moment a House elected by the people but a rump of what had been elected by a part of the people over eight years before. Without the King and the House of Lords, with an out-of-date and unrepresentative House of Commons, what authority remained to institute a court of justice to try a King?

Throughout the first day Charles made his point repeatedly,

refusing to acknowledge the court or to answer to the charge made against him. 'I am your King', he asserted at one time, 'I have a trust committed to me by God, by old and lawful descent. I will not betray that trust to answer to a new unlawful authority.' 'I stand more for the liberty of my people than any here that sitteth to be my judge', he declared. Bradshaw became increasingly on edge: 'You, instead of answering, interrogate this court, which doth not become you in this condition . . .' 'Well, let me tell you', said the King brightly, 'to say you have legal authority will satisfy no reasonable man.'

'That is your apprehension', snapped Bradshaw. Charles remarked that apprehension  — neither his nor Bradshaw's — would decide the issue and in despair Bradshaw ordered the guard to withdraw the prisoner, but the last word on the first day of the trial rested with Charles:

'I do not fear that ', he remarked pointing to the clerk's table upon which lay both the indictment and the sword. No one was quite sure to which object he was referring.

The court was adjourned until Monday, leaving Sunday free for prayer and meditation, and Charles was taken back to Cotton House with Herbert in attendance. A few people cried for God to bless him but others cried 'Treason!' as he passed. He was allowed the services of Dr Juxon, Bishop of London, and while the Commissioners were fasting and listening to sermons Charles heard the words of the Church of England in the fashion he desired. The soldiers guarding him were contemptuous, occupying his bedroom and puffing in his face the tobacco smoke he detested. He went to another room, where Herbert slept on a mattress by his side, but he himself slept little; sometime over that weekend he put into writing his reasons for refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court.

Monday the 22nd, the second day of the trial, was not unlike the first, but with Charles more fluent, clearly having considered his words in the interim. Upon Cook's formal request that the prisoner be called upon to plead, Bradshaw recapitulated the position, finally turning to Charles: 'the court expects that you apply yourself to the charge not to lose any more time, but to give a positive answer thereto', he concluded.

'It is not my case alone, it is the freedom and the liberty of the people of England', Charles began, 'and, do you pretend what you will, I must justly stand for their liberties. For if power, without law, may make law, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom — I do

not know what subject he is in England can be assured of his life or anything he can call his own.'

Bradshaw was at a loss to stem the King's eloquence. But as Charles continued,

'My reasons why in conscience of that duty I owe to God first, and my people afterwards for their lives, liberties and estates, I conceive I cannot answer at this time till I be satisfied of the legality of it . . .'

Bradshaw seized his opportunity.

'Sir, I must interrupt you . . . it seems you are about the entering into arguments and disputes concerning the authority of the court . . . You may not do it!'

Since this had been Charles's point all along, Bradshaw's interjection at this point fell a little flat.

'Sir', replied the King courteously, 'by your favour . . . I do know law and reason though I am no lawyer professed. I know as much law as any gentleman in England, and therefore, Sir (by your favour), I do plead for the liberties of the people of England more than any of you do . . .'

Charles was again interrupted, but the argument continued. When pressed by the King Bradshaw said again, 'We sit here by the authority of the Commons of England, and that authority hath called your ancestors . . . to account.'

'I deny that! Show me one precedent!'

'The point is not to be debated by you!'

'The Commons of England was never a court of judicature.'

'Confess or deny the charge!', cried the clerk.

'By what authority do you sit?' reiterated the King.

'Take him away!', roared Bradshaw.

'I do require that I may give my reasons.'

"Tis not for a prisoner to require  . . .'

'I am not an ordinary prisoner . . .'

At this Colonel Hewson, who was sitting as one of the Judges, rushed forward, called out 'Justice!' and spat in the King's face.

'Well Sir', remarked Charles, wiping his face, 'God hath justice in store both for you and me.'

The next day Cook pointed out that it was the third time they had met and the issue had not been joined. Charles attempted still to keep them from coming to the charge for, as he observed, the affirmative was easier to establish than the negative — it would be easier to charge him than for him to rebut the accusation. But although he managed to

speak at some length, Bradshaw had this time been well primed. He wasted no time on argument with the prisoner.

'Clerk, do your duty!' he commanded.

'Duty!' exclaimed Charles derisively, but the clerk read on:—

'Charles Stuart, King of England, you are accused in the behalf of the People of England of divers high crimes and treasons; which charge hath been read to you. The court now requires you to give your final and positive answer by way of confession or denial of the charge.'

Charles still refused. To acknowledge the court would be contrary to the privileges of the people of England and an alteration of the fundamental laws of the land, he said.

'Sir!' thundered Bradshaw, 'this is the third time you have publicly disowned this court and put an affront upon it.'

He was visibly agitated and he proceeded hurriedly to the attack:

'How far you have preserved the fundamental laws and freedom of the subject, your actions have spoken it. For truly, Sir, men's intentions are used to be shown by their actions. You have written your meaning in bloody characters throughout the whole kingdom . . . Clerk, record the default! And, gentlemen, you that brought the prisoner, take him back again.'

Charles was surprised by the sudden dismissal and cried in vain, 'I have one word to you . . . I find I am before a power . . .': the words were drowned in uproar as he was hustled away.

The court did not sit again in Westminster Hall until Saturday January 27. Meanwhile it continued to consult in he Painted Chamber, taking evidence from selected witnesses. But less than half the Commissioners attended; in spite of all that Cromwell could do only 63 were present on Friday 26 when, after long debate, it was ordered that the King be brought on the morrow to Westminster Hall to be sentenced.

Bradshaw appeared on that final day in scarlet. As he rose to open the court Charles, who knew that their intention was to sentence him that day, also attempted to speak. 'A hasty judgment', he was saying, 'is not so soon recalled . . .'

'You shall be heard before judgment is given,' Bradshaw promised him.

Charles required a double assurance, perhaps surprised at the ease with which he had won his point:

'I shall be heard before the judgment be given?'

'You shall.'

With that Bradshaw began his address. As he was saying that the prisoner was to answer to a charge of treason and other high crimes exhibited against him in the name of the people of England, two masked women in the gallery cried out 'It is a lie . . . Oliver Cromwell is a tyrant!' One of them was thought to be Lady Fairfax, but they slipped away in the hubbub unidentified and, as order was restored, Bradshaw was heard saying that the prisoner would be allowed to speak before sentence was passed provided he made no more attacks on the jurisdiction of the court.

This time Charles did not address the court but asked instead to be heard before the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber. He was, in fact, appealing over the heads of a court he refused to recognize to a political body which, however unrepresentative it had become, was nevertheless part of the constitution which he would be able to acknowledge as legal.

An uneasiness in the court, and the King's reasonable request, caused disquiet among the Commissioners and one of them, John Downes, became so agitated that Cromwell had to rebuke him. But Downes brushed Cromwell aside, crying out that he was not satisfied. The disturbance was enough to persuade Bradshaw to adjourn the court while Charles's request was being considered. But it only delayed the real issue. No concession was made, and when the court reassembled it was in order to proceed immediately to judgment and to sentence.

'I have a plan', he cried, 'to put before the Lords and Commons for a lasting peace . . .'

But it was too late. Though Ludlow thought he might have been about to propose abdicating in favour of his son, Bradshaw would hold no longer, and had begun the long indictment. Charles abandoned his attempts to speak and listened intently, only interrupting with an occasional exclamation. When he realized the charge was at an end and that verdict and sentence would be forthcoming, he hurriedly claimed his right to speak, according to Bradshaw's promise. He was refused permission unless he first acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court.

'You disavow us as a court, and therefore for you to address yourself to us, not acknowledging of us as a court to judge of what you say, it is not to be permitted.'

Amid growing tension the clerk read the sentence, ending with the words:

'For all which treasons and crimes this Court doth adjudge that the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traytor, murtherer and publique enimy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by the severing of his heade from his body.'

Charles tried desperately to speak.

'Sir,' roared Bradshaw, 'you shall not be heard after the sentence!'

'No, Sir?'

'No, Sir!'

'Guards, withdraw your prisoner!'

Charles was trying to speak above the noise:

'I may speak after the sentence . . . I am not suffered to speak . . . hold! . . . Expect what justice the people will have . . .'

The broken sentences were accompanied by uncouth and brutal behaviour by Colonel Axtell and his men who were hustling the prisoner and burning grains of gunpowder to make smoke to blow in his face. At a signal from their commander they broke into cries of 'Justice!' 'Execution!'.

Charles was taken in a closed sedan chair through King Street, with troops close lining the route, to his own apartments at Whitehall. He walked between guards through his own Privy garden and even saw one of his old servants, weeping at his master's plight. The next day he was taken to St James's Palace.

He had conducted his defence virtually unaided. His claim that he knew as much law as any man in England was not far from the truth, but no amount of sophisticated legal assistance would have made the slightest difference to the verdict. His refusal to plead before a court which, by all he knew of law, was unconstitutional, was a simple and straightforward way of meeting the issue, one which John Lilburne had used several times and would use again with great effect, but without influencing the verdict, in a few months' time. Whether the King could, or should, have met the charges head on and tried to prove that he was not a tyrant and not responsible for the civil wars is another matter. He would have needed more time than they gave him, he would have required assistance and access to documents to answer the long list of charges. Perhaps he knew from the beginning what the verdict would be and shrank from the long attempt to vindicate his actions in public. Perhaps the offer which he appeared about to make—but too late—really did concern his abdication. Perhaps he was relying on the kind of offer that some of his friends had reputedly made—to

guarantee with their estates and their lives any terms that would reinstate him. But his accusers were not prepared for compromise or negotiation. Appeals for clemency, including one from the Netherlands, were disregarded. No notice was taken of a blank sheet of paper, signed by the Prince of Wales, on which the Prince offered to let them inscribe any terms they wished in return for his father's life.^[1]

Charles remained at St James's throughout the 29th and did not hear the sounds of the scaffold being erected outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall. He knew nothing of the difficulties his accusers were having in obtaining signatures for the death warrant. He no longer felt the loneliness of the last months. He burned some papers, he sent his dogs away, he refused to see his closest friends; only Herbert and Juxon stayed near him. He sent Herbert on a few errands. He received a messenger from his eldest son with a note craving his father's blessing. He was allowed a visit from Elizabeth and Henry, who had been staying at Sion House. They burst into tears at the sight of their father. Charles told Elizabeth he was about to die for the laws and liberties of the land and the true Protestant religion, he begged her not to grieve and to tell her mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her and that his love would be the same to the last. Little Henry, who was only nine, he took on his knee. 'Sweetheart,' he said, 'now they will cut off thy father's head . . . and perhaps make thee a king.' But he charged the boy never to accept the throne while his elder brother lived and never to accept it from the hands of their enemies. 'I will sooner be torn in pieces first!' cried the little boy. Charles then divided the few jewels he had between the children and retired to prayer.

On the morning of the 30th he rose early, was careful of his toilet and asked for two shirts, since the weather was cold and shivering might be mistaken for fear. Morning prayers were conducted by Bishop Juxon and shortly afterwards the soldiers arrived. As they left Jane Whorwood ran forward to greet him, their affectionate embrace reviving the rumour that she had been his mistress at Hampton Court and Carisbrooke.^[2] He walked this time, with his usual quick, lively gait, across St James's Park between Colonel Tomlinson and Bishop Juxon, with Herbert following behind and foot soldiers at front and rear with drums beating and flags flying; his spaniel, Rogue, had escaped from her confinement and joyously made to follow him but was turned back. At Whitehall Charles ate a piece of bread and drank a glass of wine before returning to prayer. Not until 2 o'clock did the

call come. When he stepped out of a window of the Banqueting House on to the scaffold with Juxon by his side, Herbert being too distraught to accompany him, he found Colonel Hacker and Colonel Tomlinson already there with the masked executioner and his assistant. The scaffold ran from about the second to the sixth window of the building, large enough for the fifteen or so people who occupied it, including Puritan divines, soldiers, and some of the shorthand writers who would speed the details of the execution to the printers.

The scaffold was black, the rails round it were draped with black cloth; the low block, about eighteen inches long and six inches high, was similarly covered with black and near it, attached to four staples driven into the scaffold, were the hooks and pulleys that would be attached to the King to hold him down if he resisted execution. He made no comment except to ask if a higher block were available and was told there was no other. Round the scaffold were ranks of soldiers, horse and foot, and beyond them the crowds who had come to witness the beheading of a king: by intent they were too far away to hear anything he might say. Charles realized this but, he said, if he did not speak, it would appear he submitted to the guilt as well as to the punishment. So, speaking from the notes he had made on a little piece of paper some four inches square, he addressed himself to those about him.

He made two protestations: 'I never did begin a war with the two Houses of Parliament,' he said, and 'I call God to witness . . . that I never did intend for to encroach upon their privileges.'

Then he made public repudiation of his own act in signing Strafford's death warrant: 'God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say God's judgments are just upon me. Many times he does pay justice by an unjust sentence . . . an unjust sentence that I suffered for to take effect, is punished now by an unjust sentence upon me.'

He turned then to his political testament: a society, he said, must give God his due, the King his due, the people their due. A national synod, freely called, freely debating could settle religion; the laws of the land would define the position of the king; as to the people, he said, 'truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whatsoever; but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government, those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own. It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things!'

He made his profession of faith, saying that he died a Christian according to the tenets of the Church of England, he put on the white satin cap which would confine his hair, placed his George, which he had worn to the last, in the hands of the Bishop, and spoke to him one word — 'Remember'. Then he lay down, put his head upon the block, and, after a second or two, stretched out his arms. It was the signal. The axe fell and the executioner raised aloft the head of Charles Stuart. The crowd groaned. The troops immediately moved to disperse the people. Devoted followers and souvenir hunters rushed to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood; to acquire hairs from his head or beard, threads from his garment or chips from the block.

The following day the head was sewn on, the body embalmed and placed in a leaden coffin which was taken to St James's Palace where it was watched over by a few of his friends. Many tried to see him but few were admitted. Rumour said that Cromwell came by night to look at the coffin, sighing 'Cruel necessity!' as he departed. Charles was refused interment in Henry VII's chapel at Westminster, but was taken on the night of February 7 in a black coach drawn by six horses decked in black to his own bedchamber at Windsor. The following day he was brought to the Dean's Hall, which was draped with black mourning cloths. There was some confusion over the exact place of burial, which was sad for one who so liked order in his life. But on February 9 his coffin was carried to St George's Chapel by soldiers, with Richmond, Hertford, Southampton and Lindsey holding over it the four corners of the black funeral pall. The service he would have wished was denied but Juxon walked behind the coffin with the English Prayer Book in his hand and Herbert and a few other friends and household servants followed their master to the vault which had been opened towards the middle of the choir and which was found to contain the coffins of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. The simple coffin bore nothing but the words King Charles , and the date. As it was brought from the Hall to the vault snow began to fall and the black pall was thickly covered with white snowflakes.

People remembered that he had dressed in white for his Coronation, and the legend of the White King grew. On the day of his interment his meditations in captivity were published as Eikon Basilike , and the legend of the Martyr King began. Yet his opponents had executed him as a traitor and Milton wrote Eikonoklastes to destroy the image that had been built up. But even Milton could not succeed in doing so and the Eikon was published again and again in

English, French, Dutch, German, Danish, Italian, Latin and Greek editions, most with a frontispiece showing the King at his devotions — sad, ethereal, noble. For a century the view persisted, modified but basically unchanged, until the beneficiaries of the Great Rebellion began to replace it by a constitutional interpretation of the civil wars which justified their own ascendancy and cast Charles in a role which more nearly resembled the King of the indictment. Where the truth lay depended, largely, upon the point of view.^[3]

Concerning religion Charles said many times, and probably believed, that so long as a man held the basic tenets of Christianity he would have no quarrel with him; it was in this spirit that he had allowed the Roman Catholic Church to approach him. But he also believed, like his father, that Church and State were mutually supporting and that a religious toleration that extended to an unlimited and uncontrolled anarchy of belief would result in social and constitutional chaos. Cromwell believed the same, the difference between them being that Cromwell would banish the Catholics whom Charles would tolerate and would tear down Charles's Church of England in favour of the Independency which Charles proscribed. Both men were suspicious of Presbyterians, and Cromwell, like Charles but with less logic, stopped short of tolerating the extremer forms of sectarianism. Both men walked with God, Cromwell in a more hearty fashion than Charles and with a more constant awareness of the Lord's hand in every event. Yet if Charles did not express himself as forcibly as Cromwell, he was none the less aware of God's presence in his life: he needed an ordered Church to assure him of this; Cromwell did not.

Most of Charles's constitutional transgressions stemmed from the fact that he was trying to raise money in a country which employed no regular system of taxation, and where he could make use of occasional taxes only with the consent of Parliament. From the beginning of his reign he was saddled with debts not of his making, with departments of state that were riddled with graft and inefficiency, with a virtually non-existent civil service and a form of local government — if it deserved the name — that was voluntary, amateur, and self-centred. The waste of the money that was raised for war was due as much to the inherited venality of his executive as to his own inability to reform. His personal expenses, even taking into account his pictures, the Court masques, and the extravagance of his wife, were not high on any comparison with his father or with European monarchs; that

Court expenditure, which he made some effort to contain, remained an unwieldy item was due as much to some of the people who afterwards opposed him as to himself. Nor did his methods of raising money without a Parliament always deserve the censure accorded them. Though they too often included pickings for his friends, they mainly affected vested interests and, apart from some monopolies, hit the rich rather than the poor, they generally accorded a care for the underdog, and they amounted to less than the taxes imposed in most other countries.

Charles was wrong in thinking he could influence the European situation in favour of the Palatine House by means of war: the ill-judged, obsessive preoccupation with La Rochelle, the gross inefficiency and the failure of each venture he embarked upon, proved the contrary. Yet during the period of which his opponents chiefly complained, and while Europe was devastated by war, his country enjoyed eleven years of prosperity. He himself never ceased to attend to the details of government — like a cobbler, he once said, going through all the papers that came before him, not originating but patching and sewing.

He had faults of character and training which made him a difficult man to deal with — splitting hairs in argument, depending upon the rigid letter of the word rather than its spirit, a tendency to discount the means if the desired end could be achieved, too obvious a reliance upon Guicciardini and his Maxims . He could be distressingly vindictive, as he was with Eliot, but he could also show compassion. He lacked subtlety and the lighter touch, though he was shrewd and a good judge of an argument or a character. When driven into a corner he could become obstinate and, though he himself would have shrunk from the accusation, there was a grain of justification in his opponents' belief that he could not be trusted, and that he would substitute his own interpretation for whatever agreement might be reached.

But faults in Charles do not necessarily imply virtue in his opponents. The core of opposition which began the struggle and remained to the end consisted of the men of property for whom Ireton spoke at the Putney debates. But the easy slide into opposition under the cry of 'Freedom' had brought in many people who either returned to neutrality, joined the King, or — mistakenly — remained with the opposition until it was too late. It was not the King who stood in their way, denying the universal suffrage and the toleration which the Agreement of the People demanded — it was those very men for whom Ireton

spoke. The 'poor scrubs' had been deceived certainly — not by the King but by their own superior officers. One of the few who saw the situation clearly was John Lilburne — and he was kept in prison by Parliament or by the Army throughout the greater part of the civil wars. There was truth in Cromwell's vision of revolution after revolution stretching out indefinitely as layers of dissatisfaction came to the surface. But to arrest it at the point where the underprivileged, who had joined Parliament for freedom and a decent standard of life, still stood outside his settlement could hardly be justified. When, after the King's execution, the Rump abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords and erected in their place a Council of State, Lilburne's bitter cry of 'the old cheat, the transmutation of names', rang out in the pamphlet he called England's New Chains . Cromwell's reply was to crush Lilburne and the Levellers shortly after the execution of the King. If honest dealing was in question, it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

It was three hundred years before 'the poorest hee in England' could raise his head in social and political equality. But the men of property for whom Cromwell was at first the instrument but was, in the end, too radical, achieved their ends when Charles's son ascended the throne in 1660. The irony was that the Restoration Settlement broadly restored the constitution of 1641, which Charles himself had agreed to observe and had later proposed as the basis of a settlement. The difference between 1660 and the 1640s lay in a new monarch, more pliant than his father, a man who was the grandson of Henri IV — not the grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots — who knew that if Paris was worth a mass England was worth a settlement with men whose preoccupation with their property could be made to coincide with his own interests. The crowning irony was that Charles I himself was not far removed from at least some of his opponents: Ireton's speech at Putney and Charles's on the scaffold show precisely the same attitude to the people and the uses of government.

Whether Charles I could have averted, or postponed, the civil war, whether the change could have been effected peaceably, is doubtful. Charles had all the faults of character and temperament which made negotiation difficult, while his opponents had, in Parliament, the supreme negotiating body. Charles, like Laud and Clarendon, had always feared Parliaments — particularly Parliaments that sat long, giving to their Members the advantages of self-knowledge and propinquity. And now he was brought down by the longest Parliament of all.

In the end, when the various currents of the Interregnum had settled into one stream and the men of property were securely at the helm, there seemed to be a certain inevitability about the events that brought Charles to the scaffold; wealth must be matched by influence, it had been said, economic power by political power. Since wealth, even when reinforced in other ways, still depended primarily upon land, there was no need to change the electoral system. It was merely necessary to restrict the power of the monarch and guarantee frequent Parliaments, to sweep away irksome vestiges of feudalism like the Court of Wards and Knighthood fines in a general tidying up that brought echoes of Salisbury's Great Contract and, of necessity, to make the adjustments that had become necessary through the land confiscations of the civil wars. Religion remained difficult to fit into any mould but, in a similar spirit of expediency, Bishops returned to the House of Lords and the Church of England was Established without being too strongly political, while Dissent was tolerated but skilfully excluded from effective influence.

Charles did not see all this — or only dimly. He had fought for something more simple. If he had won, as in the early stages it had seemed he could, he might well have postponed, or even averted, the Whig supremacy. But the alternative — involuntary, perhaps — might well have been, as many of his opponents feared, a royal despotism of a European kind. The ordered society, benevolently guided from above, that Charles envisaged belonged to the past rather than the future and there is no certainty that it would have prevailed.

It was Charles's misfortune that accident had placed him in the path of momentous change of one kind or another. His strength lay in preservation, in guarding his heritage. He had no aptitude for presiding over the difficult birth of a new society. He once wrote to Digby that if he could not live as a King he would chose to die like a gentleman; it was his personal tragedy that he was not allowed to live as a gentleman, for it was a role he would have filled impeccably.