CHAPTER XVI.
THE EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES.
The news of the failure of the Welsh insurrection and the Scotch invasion, while the risings in Kent and Essex were crushed out, showed Harry Furness that, for the time at least, there was no further fighting to be done. Cromwell, after the defeat of the Scotch, marched with his army to Edinburgh, where he was received with enthusiasm by Argyll and the fanatic section, who were now again restored to power, and recommenced a cruel persecution of all suspected of Royalist opinions. Now that the Scotch had been beaten, and the Royalist rising everywhere crushed out, the Parliament were seized with fear as to the course which Cromwell and his victorious army might pursue. If they had been so arrogant and haughty before, what might not be expected now. Negotiations were at once opened with the king. He was removed from Carisbrook to a good house at Newport. Commissioners came down there, and forty days were spent in prolonged argument, and the commissioners returned to London on the 28th of November with a treaty signed. It was too late. The army stationed at St. Albans sent in a remonstrance to Parliament, calling upon them to bring the king to trial, and stating that if Parliament neglected its duty the army would take the matter into its own hands. This remonstrance caused great excitement in the Commons. No steps were taken upon it however, and the Commons proceeded to discuss the treaty, and voted that the king's concessions were sufficient. On the 29th a body of soldiers went across to the Isle of Wight, surrounded the king's house, seized him and carried him to Hurst Castle. The next day Parliament voted that they would not debate the remonstrance of the army, and in reply the army at Windsor marched on the 2d of December into London. On the 5th the Commons debated all day upon the treaty.
Prynne, formerly one of the stanchest opposers of King Charles, spoke with others strongly in his favor, and it was carried by a hundred and twenty-nine to thirty-eight. The same day some of the leaders of the army met, and determined to expel from the house all those opposed to their interests. On the 7th the Trained Bands of the city were withdrawn from around the House, and Colonel Pride with his regiment of foot surrounded it. As the members arrived forty-one of them were turned back. The same process was repeated on the two following days, until over a hundred members had been arrested. Thus the army performed a revolution such as no English sovereign has dared to carry out. After this it is idle to talk of the Parliament as in any way representing the English people. The representatives who supported the king had long since left it. The whole of the moderate portion of those who had opposed him, that is to say, those who had fought to support the liberties of Englishmen against encroachments by the king, and who formed the majority after the Royalists had retired, were now expelled; there remained only a small body of fanatics devoted to the interests of the army, and determined to crush out all liberties of England under its armed heel. This was the body before whom the king was ere long to undergo the mockery of a trial.
King Charles was taken to Hurst Castle on the 17th of December, and three days later carried to Windsor. On the 2d of January, 1649, the Commons voted that in making war against the Parliament the king had been guilty of treason, and should be tried by a court of a hundred and fifty commissioners. The Peers rejected the bill, and the Commons then voted that neither the assent of the Peers nor the king was necessary for a law passed by themselves.
All the encroachments of King Charles together were as nothing to this usurpation of despotic power.
In consequence of the conduct of the Peers, the number of commissioners was reduced to a hundred and thirty-five; but of these only sixty-nine assembled at the trial. Thus the court which was to try the king consisted only of those who were already pledged to destroy him. Before such a court as this there could be but one end to the trial. When, after deciding upon their sentence, the king was brought in to hear it, the chief commissioner told him that the charges were brought against him in the name of the people of England, when Lady Fairfax from the gallery cried out, "It's a lie! Not one-half of them." Had she said not one hundredth of them, she would have been within the mark.
On the 27th sentence was pronounced. On the 29th the court signed the sentence, which was to be carried out on the following day.