ment hath been upon occafion of the tyranny and mifgovernment of thofe that have been placed over them. I will not fpend time to mention either France, or Spain, or the Empire, or other countries; volumes may be written of it. But truly, Sir, that of the kingdom of Arragon, I fhall think fome of us have thought upon it, where they have the juftice of Arragon, that is, a man, tanquam in medio pofitus, betwixt the King of Spain and the people of the country; that if wrong be do te by the King, he that is the King of Arragon, the Justice, hath power to reform the wrong; and he is acknowledged to be the King's fuperior, and is the grand preferver of their privileges, and hath profecuted Kings upon their mifcarriages. Sir, what the tribunes of Rome were heretofore, and what the Ephori were to the Lacedemonian ftate, we know, that is the Parliament of England to the Englifh ftate: And though Rome feemed to lole its liberty when once the Emperors were; yet you fhall find fonie famous acts of juftice even done by the fenate of Rome; that great tyrant of his time, Nero, condemned and judged by the fenate. But truly, Sir, to you I fhould not need to mention thefe foreign examples and ftories: If you look but over Tweed, we find enough in your native kingdom of Scotland: If we look to your firft King Fergufius,' that your ftories make mention of, he was an elective King: he died, and left two fons, both in their minority; the kingdom made choice of their uncle, his brother, to govern in the minority. Afterwards, the elder brother giving fmall hopes to the people that he would rule or govern well, feeking to fupplant that good uncle of his that governed them juftly, they fet the elder afide, and took to the younger. Sir, if I fhould come to what your ftories make mention of; you know very well you are the hundred and ninth King of Scotland; for not to mention fo many Kings as that kingdom, according to their power and privilege, have made bold to deal withal, fome to banith, and fome to imprifon, and fome to put to death, it would be too long; and, as one of your own authors fays, it would be too long to recite the manifold examples that your own stories make mention of. Reges, &c. (fay they) we do create; we created Kings at first: Leges, &c. we impofed laws upon them. And as they are chofen by the fuffrages of the people at the first; fo upon just occafion, by the fame fuffrages they may be taken down again. And we will be bold to fay, that no kingdom hath yielded more plentiful experience than that your native kingdom of Scotland hath done, concerning the depofition and the punishment of their offending and tranfgreffing Kings, &c. It is not far to go for an example near you: your grandmother fet afide, and your father, an infant, crowned. And the state did it here in England: here hath not been a want of fome examples. They have made bold (the Parliament and the people of England) to call their Kings to account: There are frequent examples of it in the Saxons time, the time before the conquest. Since the conqueft there want not fome precedents neither; King Edward the Second, King Richard the Second, were dealt with fo by the Parliament, as they were depofed and deprived. And truly, Sir, whoever fhall look into their ftories, they fhall not find the articles that are charged upon them, to come near to that height and capitalnefs of crimes that are laid to your charge; nothing near. Sir, you were pleafed to fay the other day wherein they diffent; and I did not contradict it, But take all together, Sir; If you were as the charge speaks, and no otherwife, admitted King of England: but for that you were pleafed then to alledge, how that almoft, for a thousand years these 1 things have been, ftories will tell you, if you go no higher than the time of the than the time of the conqueft; if you do come down fince the conqueft, you are the twenty-fourth King from William called the Conqueror, you fhall find one half of them to come merely from the itate, and not merely upon the point of descent. It were eafy to be intanced to you; but the time must not be loft that way. And truly, Sir, what a grave and learned Judge faid in his time, and well known to you, and is fince printed for pofterity, That although there was fuch a thing as a descent many times, yet the Kings of England ever held the greatest affurance of their titles, when it was declared by Parliament. And, Sir, your oath, the manner of your coronation, doth fhew plainly, that the Kings of England, although it's true, by the law the next perfon in blood is defigned, yet if there were just cause to refufe him, the people of England might do it. For there is a contract and a bargain made between the King and his people, and your oath is taken: And certainly, Sir, the bond is reciprocal, for as you are the liege Lord, fo they are liege fubjects. And we know very well that hath been fo much spoken of, Ligeantia eft duplex. This we know now, The one tie, the one bond, is the bond of protection that is due from the fovereign; the other is the bond of fubjection that is due from the subject. Sir, if this bond be once broken, farewel fovereignty; Subjetio trabit, &c.. yet it must not be denied that your office was an office of trust, and indeed an office of the highest truft, lodged in any fingle perfon: For as you were the grand adminiftrator of justice, and others were, as your delegates, to fee it done throughout your realms; if your greatest office were to do juftice, and preferve your people from wrong, and instead of doing that, you will be the great wrong-doer yourfelf; if inftead of being a confervator of the peace, you will be the grand disturber of the peace, furely this is contrary to your office, contrary to your truft. Now, Sir, if it be an office of inheritance, as you fpeak of, your title by defcent, let all men know that great offices are feizable and for feitable, as if you had it bur for a year, and for your life. Therefore, Sir, it will concern you to take into your serious confideration your great mifcarriages in this kind. For Thefe things may not be denied, Sir: I speak it rather, and I pray God that it may work upon you heart, that you may be fenfible of your miscarriages. whether you have been, as by your office you ought to be,. a protector of England, or the deftroyer of England, let all England judge, or all the world, that hath looked upon it. Sir, though you have it by inheritance in the way that is fpoken of, VOL. I. No. 6. Truly, Sir, I fhall not particularize the many mifcarriages of your reign whatfoever, they are famously known: it had been happy for the kingdom, and happyfor you too, if it had not been fo much known, and fo much felt, as the story of your mifcarriages muft needs be, and hath been already. Sir, that that we are now upon, by the command of the highest court, hath been and is to try and judge you for thefe great offences of yours. Sir, the charge hath called you a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy to the commonwealth of England. Sir, it had been well if that any of all thefe terms might rightly and juftly have been spared, if any. one of them. at all. King Ha Ld. Prefident.. Truly, Sir,. We have been told, Reft eft dum bene regit, Tyrannus qui populum opprimit and if so be that be the definition of a tyrant, then fee how you: come fhort of it in your actions, whether K.k. the. the highest tyrant, by that way of arbitrary | fume that you are fo well read in fcripture, government, and that you have fought for as to know what God himself hath faid conto introduce, and that you have fought to cerning the fhedding of man's blood: Gen. put, you were putting upon the people? 9. Numb. 35. will tell you what the punishWhether that was not as high an act of ment is: and which this court, in behalf tyranny as any of your predeceffors were of the whole kingdom, are fenfible of, of guilty of, nay, many degrees, beyond it? that innocent blood that has been fhed, whereby the land ftands still defiled with that blood; and, as the text hath it, it can no way be cleansed but with the fhedding of the blood of him that fhed this blood. Sir, we know no difpenfation from this blood in that commandment, "Thou fhall do no murder :" we do not know but that it extends to Kings as well as to the meanest peasants, the meanest of the people; the command is univerfal. Sir, God's law forbids it; man's law forbids it nor do we know that there is any manner of exception, not even in man's laws for the punishment of murder in you. 'Tis true, that in the cafe of Kings every private hand was not to put forth itfelf to this work, for their reformation and punishment: but, Sir, the people represented having power in their hands, had there been but one wilful act of murder by you committed, had power to have convented you, and to have punished you for it. Sir, the term Traitor cannot be spared. We shall easily agree it muft denote and fuppofe a breach of truft; (and it muft fuppofe it to be done by a fuperior. And therefore, Sir, as the people of Fngland might have incurred that refpecting you, if they had been truly guilty of it, as to the definition of law; fo on the other fide, when you did break your trust to the king dom, you did break your trust to your fuperior for the kingdom is that for which you were trufted. And therefore, And therefore, Sir, for this breach of truft, when you are called to account, you are called to account by your fuperiors. Minimus ad majorem in judicium vocat. And, Sir, the people of England cannot be fo far wanting to themselves, which God having dealt fo mi raculously and gloriously for; they having power in their hands, and their great enemy, they must proceed to do juftice to themfelves and to you: for, Sir, the court .could heartily defire that you would lay your hand upon your heart, and confider what you have done amifs, that you would endeavour to make your peace with God. Truly, Sir, thefe are your high crimes, Tyranny and Treafon. But then, Sir, the weight that lies upon you in all thofe refpects that have been fpoken, by reafon of your tyranny, treafon, breach of truft, and the murders that have been committed: furely, Sir, it must drive you into a fad confideration concernThere is a third thing too, if thofe had ing your eternal condition. As I faid at. not been, and that is Murder, which is laid firft, I know it cannot be pleafing to you to to you charge. All the bloody murders hear any fuch things as these are mentioned that have been committed fince this time unto you from this court, for fo we do call that the divifion was betwixt you and your ourselves, and juftify ourselves to be a people, must be laid to your charge, that court, and a high court of juftice, authorized have been acted or committed in these late by the highest and folemneft court of the Sir, it is an heinous and crying fin: kingdom, as we have often faid: and altho' and truly, Sir, if any man will afk us what you do yet endeavour what you may to difpunishment is due to a murderer, let God's court us, yet we do take knowledge of ourlaw, let man's law speak. Sir, I will pre-felves to be fuch a court as can administer juftice justice to you; and we are bound, Sir, in duty to do it. Sir, all I fhall fay before the reading of your fentence, it is but this; The court does heartily defire that you will feriously think of thofe evils that you ftand guilty of. Sir, you faid well to us the other day, you wished us to have God before our eyes. Truly, Sir, I hope all of us have fo: that God that we know is a King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; that God with whom there is no respect of perfons; that God that is the avenger of innocent blood: we have that God before us: that God that does bestow a curfe upon them that with-hold their hands from fhedding of blood which is in the cafe of guilty malefactors, and that do deferve death: that God we have before our eyes. And were it not that the confcience of our duty hath called us unto this place, and this employment, Sir, you fhould have had no appearance of a court here. But, Sir, we muft prefer the discharge of our duty unto God, and unto the kingdom, before any other refpect whatfoever. And although at this time many of us, if not all of us, are feverely threatened by fome of your party, what they intend to do, Sir, we do here declare, That we shall not decline or forbear the doing of our duty in the adminiftration of juftice, even to you, according to the merit of your offence, although God fhould permit thofe men to effect all that bloody defign in hand against us. Sir, we will fay, and we will declare it, as thofe children in the fiery furnace, that would not worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar had fet up, "That their God was able to deliver them from that danger that they were near unto:" But yet if he would not do it, yet notwithstanding that they would not fall down and worthip the image. We fhall thus apply it: that though we should not be delivered from those bloody hands and hearts that conspire the overthrow of the kingdom in general, of us in particular, for acting in this great work of juftice, though we fhould perish in the work, yet by God's grace, and by God's ftrength, we will go on with it. And this is all our refolutions. Sir, I fay for yourself, we do heartily with and defire that God would be pleased to give you a fenfe of your fins, that you would fee wherein you have done amifs, that you may cry unto him, that God would deliver you from blood-guiltinefs. A good King was once guilty of that particular thing, and was clear otherwife, faving in the matter of Uriah. Truly, Sir, the story tells us that he was a repentant King; and it fignifies enough that he had died for it, but that God was pleafed to accept of him, and to give him his pardon," Thou shalt not die, but the child fhall die: Thou haft given cause to the enemies of God to blafpheme." King. I would defire only one word before you give fentence; and that is, That you would hear me concerning thofe great imputations that you have laid to my. charge. Ld. Prefident. Sir, You must give me now leave to go on; for I am not far from your fentence, and your time is now past. King. But I fhall defire you will hear me a few words to you; for truly whatever fentence you will put upon me in refpect of thofe heavy imputations, that I fee by your fpeech you have put upon me; Sir, it is very true, that Ld. Prefident. Sir, I must put you in mind: Truly, Sir, I would not willingly, at this time efpecially, interrupt you in any thing you have to fay, that is proper for us to admit of; but, Sir, you have not owned us as a court, and you look upon us as a fort of people met together; and we know what language we receive from your party. King. I know nothing of that. Ld. Prefident;" ་ Ld. Prefident. You difavow us as a court; and therefore for you to addrefs yourself to us, not acknowledging us as a court to judge of what you fay, it is not to be permitted. And the truth is, all along, from the first time you were pleased to difavow and difown us, the court needed not to have heard you one word; for unless they be acknowledged a court, and engaged, it is not proper for you to fpeak. Sir, we have given you too much liberty already, and admitted of too much delay, and we may not admit of any farther. Were it proper for us to do, we should hear you freely, and we fhould not have declined to hear you at large, what you could have faid or proved on your behalf, whether for totally excufing, or for in part excufing thofe great and heinous charges that in whole or in part are laid upon you. But, Sir, I fhall trouble you no longer, your fins are of fo large a dimenfion, that if you do but feriously think of them, they will drive you to a fad confideration of it, and they may improve in you a fad and serious repentance: And that the court doth heartily with that you may be fo penitent for what you have done amifs, that God may have mercy, at least wife, upon your better part; truly, Sir, for the other, it is our parts and duties to do that that the law prescribes. We are not here jus dare, but jus dicere. We cannot be unmindful of what the fcripture tells us, "For to acquit the guilty is of equal abomination, as to condemn the innocent:" We may not acquit the guilty. What fentence the law affirms to a traitor, tyrant, a murderer, and a public enemy to the country, that fentence you are now to hear read unto you; and that is the fentence of the court. The Lord President commands, the fen. tence to be read; make an O'yes, and command filence while the fentence is read. O yes made: Silence commanded. The clerk read the fentence, which was drawn up in parchment, "Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an High Court of Juftice, for the trying of Charles Stuart, King of England, before whom he had been three times convented; and at the first time a charge of high treafon, and other crimes and misdemeanors, was read in the behalf of the people of England," &c.: Here the clerk read the charge. Which charge being read unto him, as aforefaid, he the faid Charles Stuart was required to give his answer, but he refused fo to do; and fo exprefs'd the feveral paffages at his trial in refusing to answer. "For all which treafons and crimes this court doth adjudge, That the faid Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public enemy, fhall be put to death, by the fevering his head from his body. After the fentence read, the Lord Prefi dent faid, This fentence now read and published, it is the act, fentence, judgment and refolution of the whole court. Here the court ftood up, as affenting to what the Prefident faid. King. Will you hear me a word, Sir P Ld. Prefident. Sir, you are not to be heard after the fentence... King, No, Sir?.. Ld. Prefident. No, Sir; by your favour, Sir, Guard, withdraw your prisoner. King I may fpeak after the fentence. By your favour, Sir, I may speak after the fentence ever. |