Bradshaw. "You will be heard in your turn. Listen first to the court."
The King. "Sir, if you please, I wish to be heard. It is only a word. An immediate decision."
Bradshaw. "Sir, you shall be heard at the proper time:—first, you must listen to the court."
The King. "Sir, I desire,—what I have to say applies to what the court is, I believe, about to pronounce; and it is difficult, sir, to recall a precipitate verdict."
Bradshaw. "We shall hear you, sir, before judgment is pronounced. Until then you ought to abstain from speaking."
Upon this assurance the king became more calm; he sat down, and Bradshaw proceeded:
"Gentlemen—it is well known that the prisoner at your bar has now been many times brought before this court to reply to a charge of treason, and other high crimes, exhibited against him in the name of the English people"——
"Not half the people," exclaimed the same voice that had spoken on hearing the name of Fairfax, "where is the people?—where is its consent?—Oliver Cromwell is a traitor."
The whole assembly seemed electrified!—all eyes turned towards the gallery: "Down with the w——s," cried Axtell; "soldiers fire upon them!"—It was lady Fairfax. A general confusion now arose; the soldiers, though everywhere fierce and active, could with difficulty repress it. Order being at length a little restored, Bradshaw again insisted upon the king's obstinate refusal to reply to the charge; upon the notoriety of the crimes imputed to him, and declared that the court, though unanimous in its sentence, had nevertheless consented to hear the prisoner's defence, provided that he would cease to question its jurisdiction.
"I demand," said the king, "to be heard in the painted chamber, by both Lords and Commons, upon a proposition which concerns the peace of the kingdom and the liberty of my subjects much more nearly than my own preservation."