* Whitlocke, p. 360.

Colonel Harrison, the son of a butcher, and the most furious enthusiast in the army, was sent with a strong party to conduct the king to London. At Windsor, Hamilton, who was there detained a prisoner, was admitted into the king’s presence: and falling on his knees, passionately exclaimed, “My dear master!”—-“I have indeed been so to you,” replied Charles, embracing him. No further intercourse was allowed between them, The king was instantly hurried away. Hamilton long followed him with his eyes all suffused in tears, and prognosticated, that in this short salutation, he had given the last adieu to his sovereign and his friend.

Charles himself was assured that the period of his life was now approaching; but notwithstanding all the preparations which were making, and the intelligence which he received, he could not even yet believe that his enemies really meant to conclude their violences by a public trial and execution. A private assassination he every moment looked for; and though Harrison assured him that his apprehensions were entirely groundless, it was by that catastrophe, so frequent with dethroned princes, that he expected to terminate his life. In appearance, as well as in reality, the king was now dethroned. All the exterior symbols of sovereignty were withdrawn, and his attendants had orders to serve him without ceremony. At first, he was shocked with instances of rudeness and familiarity, to which he had been so little accustomed. “Nothing so contemptible as a despised prince!” was the reflection which they suggested to him. But he soon reconciled his mind to this, as he had done to his other calamities.

All the circumstances of the trial were now adjusted, and the high court of justice fully constituted. It consisted of one hundred and thirty-three persons, as named by the commons; but there scarcely ever sat above seventy: so difficult was it, notwithstanding the blindness of prejudice and the allurements of interest, to engage men of any name or character in that criminal measure. Cromwell, Ireton, Harrison, and the chief officers of the army, most of them of mean birth, were members, together with some of the lower house, and some citizens of London. The twelve judges were at first appointed in the number: but as they had affirmed, that it was contrary to all the ideas of English law to try the king for treason, by whose authority all accusations for treason must necessarily be conducted, their names, as well as those of some peers, were afterwards struck out. Bradshaw, a lawyer, was chosen president. Coke was appointed solicitor for the people of England. Dorislaus, Steele, and Arke, were named assistants. The court sat in Westminster Hall.

It is remarkable, that in calling over the court, when the crier pronounced the name of Fairfax, which had been inserted in the number, a voice came from one of the spectators, and cried, “He has more wit than to be here.” When the charge was read against the king, “In the name of the people of England,” the same voice exclaimed, “Not a tenth part of them.” Axtel, the officer who guarded the court, giving orders to fire into the box whence these insolent speeches came, it was discovered that Lady Fairfax was there, and that it was she who had had the courage to utter them. She was a person of noble extraction, daughter of Horace Lord Vere of Tilbury; but being seduced by the violence of the times, she had long seconded her husband’s zeal against the royal cause, and was now, as well as he, struck with abhorrence at the fatal and unexpected consequence of all his boasted victories.

The pomp, the dignity, the ceremony of this transaction corresponded to the greatest conception that is suggested in the annals of human kind; the delegates of a great people sitting in judgment upon their supreme magistrate, and trying him for his misgovernment and breach of trust. The solicitor, in the name of the commons, represented, that Charles Stuart, being admitted king of England, and intrusted with a limited power, yet nevertheless, from a wicked design to erect an unlimited and tyrannical government, had traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present parliament, and the people, whom they represented, and was therefore impeached as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to the commonwealth. After the charge was finished, the president directed his discourse to the king, and told him that the court expected his answer.

The king, though long detained a prisoner, and now produced as a criminal, sustained, by his magnanimous courage, the majesty of a monarch. With great temper and dignity, he declined the authority of the court, and refused to submit himself to their jurisdiction. He represented, that having been engaged in treaty with his two houses of parliament, and having finished almost every article, he had expected to be brought to his capital in another manner, and ere this time to have been restored to his power, dignity, revenue, as well as to his personal liberty: that he could not now perceive any appearance of the upper house, so essential a member of the constitution; and had learned, that even the commons, whose authority was pretended, were subdued by lawless force, and were bereaved of their liberty: that he himself was their “native, hereditary king;” nor was the whole authority of the state, though free and united, entitled to try him, who derived his dignity from the Supreme Majesty of heaven: that, admitting those extravagant principles which levelled all orders of men, the court could plead no power delegated by the people; unless the consent of every individual, down to the meanest and most ignorant peasant, had been previously asked and obtained: that he acknowledged, without scruple, that he had a trust committed to him, and one most sacred and inviolable; he was intrusted with the liberties of his people, and would not now betray them by recognizing a power founded on the most atrocious violence and usurpation: that having taken arms, and frequently exposed his life in defence of public liberty, of the constitution, of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, he was willing in this last and most solemn scene, to seal with his blood those precious rights for which, though in vain, he had so long contended: that those who arrogated a title to sit as his judges, were born his subjects, and born subjects to those laws which determined “that the king can do no wrong:” that he was not reduced to the necessity of sheltering himself under this general maxim which guards every English monarch, even the least deserving; but was able, by the most satisfactory reasons, to justify those measures in which he had been engaged: that to the whole world, and even to them, his pretended judges, he was desirous, if called upon in another manner, to prove the integrity of his conduct, and assert the justice of those defensive arms to which, unwillingly and unfortunately, he had had recourse; but that, in order to preserve a uniformity of conduct, he must at present forego the apology of his innocence lest, by ratifying an authority no better founded than that of robbers and pirates, he be justly branded as the betrayer instead of being applauded as the martyr, of the constitution.

The president, in order to support the majesty of the people, and maintain the superiority of his court above the prisoner still inculcated, that he must not decline the authority of his judges; that they overruled his objections; that they were delegated by the people, the only source of every lawful power; and that kings themselves acted but in trust from that community which had invested this high court of justice with its jurisdiction. Even according to those principles, which, in his present situation, he was perhaps obliged to adopt, his behavior in general will appear not a little harsh and barbarous; but when we consider him as a subject, and one too of no high character, addressing himself to his unfortunate sovereign, his style will be esteemed to the last degree audacious and insolent.

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