The charge, following the same lines as the Act of 6 January, used such words of the King as “tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy of the Commonwealth of England”; he was said to have abused his trust as governor by erecting a tyrannical power, had then levied war against Parliament and finally become “the author of the second war”. But when Bradshaw called on Charles to answer this charge “in the behalf of the Commons assembled in Parliament and the good people of England” the irrepressible Lady Fairfax called out: “It’s a lie, not half, nor a quarter of the people. Oliver Cromwell is a traitor.” Colonel Axtell, in charge of the troops in the hall, lost control and was for firing into the gallery, but others of greater wisdom merely hustled the demonstrative lady from the court.
In answer to Bradshaw, Charles’s first question was also his strongest point. By what authority had he been brought to the bar? He saw no Lords there who would make it a Parliament, and since he was not convinced that they constituted a lawful authority, he would not answer them, since that would betray his trust. In vain Bradshaw answered yet again that it was by the authority of the people of England, by whom he had been elected King. This made it easy for Charles to answer that he had inherited his crown, not received it by election. Charles conceded nothing and answered nothing. On 22 January he battled away again, most effectively, on the same point, accusing his judges of “power without law”. What might follow such a heinous combination? “For if power without law may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or anything he calls his own.”
The next day he had another exchange on the subject with Bradshaw who refused to allow Charles to address the court in order to explain his reasons for not answering the charge. Once again Charles held his own. “I do require that I may give in my reasons why I do not answer, and give me time for that,” he said. Bradshaw: “It is not for prisoners to require.” Charles: “Prisoners! Sir, I am not an ordinary prisoner.” It was too true. For all Charles’s imprudences, for all the fatal combination of arbitrary governmentwith a newlyindependent-minded age, for all that the doctrine of divine right could not be allowed to flourish on English soil, he was still not a subject within the Common Law of England. No machinery did exist to try him. In the end in the face of Charles’s fixed refusal to plead, Bradshaw was compelled to tell the clerk to “record his default”.
The court did not sit publicly on the 24th, and the conclusion can probably be drawn that Charles’s steadfast denial of their legality had caused much confusion among the judges. There was much behind-thescenes activity. Some of this centred on the absent Fairfax who some hoped might provide a focal point for opposition. The three votes of the Scottish Parliament denouncing the trial, the last of these on 22 January, were also not without their effect on the men who were still theoretically their allies in London. Burnet had from Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, who was present, the story of Cromwell’s own arguments with the Scots about this time, in which he repeated the doctrines of Mariana and Buchanan (by gist if not by name – it is doubtful if he had actually read their works) both of whom in the previous century had argued that it was lawful to kill a tyrant under given circumstances.35 In suggesting further that the King should be punished that much more than an ordinary subject for a breach of his trust, rather than less, Cromwell was indeed on much more logical if not legal ground, than the absurd accusations of high treason. On the question of legality even, it was possible to argue, as Cromwell was apparently arguing to the Scots, that the King’s whole position was founded on a contract with his subjects; in that case, if he broke the contract, he could be penalized judicially by whatever sentence was considered requisite. A judicial execution – as opposed to trial for treason – was something which leaders had certainly undergone on occasion throughout history. There were certainly strong arguments to be put forward that King Charles had failed in his trust.
Then Cromwell met the objection that they had all signed the National Covenant, which bound its adherents formally to preserve the King, with the argument that Charles had obstructed the true settlement of the religion, and they were thus released from their oath. But Burnet also casts light in another direction on Cromwell’s state of mind at this period. Burnet gave further revelations, derived from conversations he had with one who knew Cromwell “and all that set of men” well. Burnet asked how they could have possibly justified their behaviour to themselves. His informant replied: “they believed there were great occasions in which some men were called to great services, in the doing of which they were excused from the common rules of morality: such were the practices of Ehud and Jael, Samson and David: and by this they fancied they had a privilege from observing the standing rules.” As Burnet was quick to comment : “It is very obvious how far this principle may be carried, and how all justice and mercy may belaidasideonthispretence by every bold enthusiast.”
Obviously this argument approached the death of the King from exactly the opposite angle to the previous one. Now Cromwell and his party were being led to put the King to death by the dictates of God as revealed step by step in his signs. A year later he wrote pleadingly to his friend Lord Wharton: “It’s easy to object to the glorious actings of God, if we look too much upon instruments … Be not offended at the manner; perhaps no other way was left.”36 It was a kind of inexorable process (provided it succeeded) to which there could be only one conclusion. Since Cromwell himself in his own words and speeches made frequent allusions to the second argument, compared to this one brief mention of the theory of a contract broken, we must suppose that it was this providentialist inspiration which swayed him personally. Even if he thought it worth paying lipservice to the doctrines of Buchanan and Mariana beloved of some of his contemporaries, it was this other conviction which ultimately manifested itself in his own behaviour, while the hired clique of soldiers shouted “Justice, justice” and the crowd continued to murmur: “God Save the King.”
On the 25th there was some public attempt at the usual processes of judicature when witnesses were called to say that they had seen Charles setting up his standard. Others declared that they had observed him on the field of battle with his sword drawn and present at several fights. All of this was intended to prove, if rather bizarrely, that Charles had indeed levied war against his people. Yet it was hardly relevant to the foregone conclusion: on the same day the forty-six men present resolved officially that the court should now proceed to sentence Charles Stuart, and that this condemnation – for being “public enemy to the Commonwealth of England” – should extend to his death. But while a further committee was now appointed to draw up an official sentence, with its actual description left ominously blank in the terms of their commission, forty-six votes seem to have been considered altogether too weak a quorum. Therefore the next day a new condemnation was issued by the court, by now a total of sixty-two judges having been scraped together. In this sentence, although it was noticeable that the charge of high treason was dropped, it was pronounced for the first time that Charles should be “put to death by the severing of his head from his body.”
By this date, Friday, 26 January, it seems that some of the most determined men amongst the judges, such as Cromwell himself, had already signed the warrant. His name can be seen third on the still surviving document, below that of the President Bradshaw and Lord Grey of Groby. Many of the names on the historic roll remind one vividly of the bygone days of the war – here was Edward Whalley, John Okey, Hardress Waller, Ireton, Thomas Pride, Richard Deane, Harrison, and Isaac Ewer. But there was less unity in the signing than such a reflection implies. Out of the sixty-two men who had given sentences, only fifty-nine ultimately signed the warrant itself, under circumstances which have given rise to some controversy, and it seems that not more than twenty-eight of these had placed their names on it by the following Saturday. The truth is much obscured since the evidence given at the trials of the regicides te
n years later was understandably a compound of incrimination and self-exculpation. Two points do emerge with some verisimilitude: first, since the original date for the execution inscribed on the warrant was altered to the 30th, and the warrant itself was dated “upon Saturday last” (i.e. the 27th,) there must have been some unexpected delays. Perhaps it was even hoped to perform the execution forthwith on the Saturday, the 27th, but not sufficient signatures had been obtained. In any case the clumsy use of erasure, rather than issuing a new warrant under a new date, does substantiate the theory that by the 29th some of those who had signed were already regretting it, and might have refused to sign twice.37
Secondly, relevant to Cromwell himself, stories offeree, whether moral or physical, used to get signatures, are sufficiently widespread to point to his maniacal determination to get this measure through, allowing nothing to stop him. For all the caution necessary in weighing the excuses of the regicides – who naturally had a vested interest in accusing the dead Cromwell of bullying them into submission – there seems to have been a horrifying exhilaration about his behaviour which reminds one either of Burnet’s theory of righteousness – or perhaps his laughter riding into battle. There is the story told by Colonel Ewer that he and Henry Marten inked each other’s faces with pens after signing, as the warrant lay in the Painted Chamber, like grotesque schoolboys. There is the testimony of Clarendon as to how Sir Richard Ingoldsby came to sign; Cromwell ran at him across the room, and taking him by the hand, dragged him to the table, crying out that “though he had escaped him all the while, he should now sign that paper as well as they”. When Ingoldsby refused, Cromwell and others held him down and Cromwell laughing loudly put the pen between his fingers and forced him to trace RICHARD INGOLDSBY with his own hand.* * ( It is only fak to say that Ingoldsby’s signature shows in fact no signs of such violence; for all his boasted words: “If his name there were compared with what he had ever writ himself it could never be looked upon as his own hand”, it seems perfectly normal.) The story of Thomas Waite, another apparently reluctant signatory, lends further support to the ruthless manner in which some signatures were obtained: tricked into going down to the court by a forged note, purporting to come from Lord Grey of Groby, but actually from Cromwell and Ireton, he witnessed some of that Saturday’s scenes. He only attended on the Monday (29th) because he had been assured there would be no execution, but Cromwell overrode his objections to signing with the words: “These that are gone in shall set their hands, I will have their hands now.”38
It is true that Lucy Hutchinson afterwards in her Memoirs showed scorn for such cowardly stories of compulsion: “Some of them, after, to excuse, belied themselves and said they were under the awe of the Army, and overpersuaded by Cromwell, and the like, but it is certain that all men herein were left to their free liberty of acting, neither persuaded nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the cornmission who never sat, and others who sat at first, but durst not hold on, so all the rest might have declin’d if they would .. ,”39 As Mrs Hutchinson was able to save her own husband from trial through her own Royalist family connexions, she was arguably in a better position to speak the truth than those who were concerned at a trial to save their own skins. Nevertheless the kernel of her remarks lies surely in her last reflection on the eternal variety of human reactions to any given situation. Certainly there were some men Cromwell could never have compelled, and indeed there is no evidence that these men who honourably retired were ever harassed. But as always there were also weaker brethren. On these we must believe that Cromwell, in the full flood of belief in himself as God’s instrument, was not above bringing whatever pressure seemed suited to the occasion. In the midst of all these chicaneries, both behind and in front of the scenes, it was on Saturday, the 27th, that Charles was brought back into the court to hear the sentence against him read out. That gesture in itself was probably the result of some sort of compromise or sense of delay, since he had now been taken away from Cotton House within the precincts of Westminster to the more distant St James’s Palace, and may not therefore have been intended to reappear. The soldiers set up their familiar cry of “Justice” now amplified to that of “Justice and Execution!” But when Bradshaw once more spoke of the court as constituted in the name of the people of England, there was still a lady present in the gallery to call out: “Not half the people!”40 Charles himself demanded most movingly that he should be allowed to make a speech, his own apologia, in front of the ranks of both Lords and Commons. To some present, this request seemed by now eminently reasonable, and one John Downes, MP for Arundel, later testified in his own defence at his trial that he had jumped up at this point, intending to make a stirring speech supporting this right of the King. But he was restrained by Cromwell, who turned round, and in a furious whisper, asked him if he was himself? Although Downes was denied a public hearing, the court did then withdraw into the adjacent Inner Court of Wards to hear his arguments; Downes lectured them on the illegality of the court, but all Cromwell did was to answer him “with a great deal of storm … sure he [Downes] doth not know that he had to do with the hardest-hearted man that lives upon the earth.” The court should not be hindered from their duty by thewords of one “peevish man”. Waite, another witness to the scene, spoke of Cromwell laughing and smiling and jeering in the Court of Wards.41 So the proceedings went forward. Bradshaw called on the clerk to read the formal sentence, and himself made a long harangue in which those previous deposed or decapitated sovereigns, Edward II, Richard II and Mary Queen of Scots were once more recalled to notice. But Charles, having protested at the sentence being read without himself being heard, continued manfully to try to interrupt the court. From what could be distinguished of what he said, he gasped: “I am not suffered to speak – expect what justice other people will have.” And as he was taken forcibly from the court, to the renewed cries of the soldiers, he was still visibly if not audibly protesting.
Back in St James’s Palace, King Charles restored to himself that spiritual peace he prized: he listened reverently to the devotions of the Anglican Church, the body for whose integrity he had sacrificed much, and adjured his little children Henry and Elizabeth to keep trust and to forgive, in words which still retain their capacity to move. Meanwhile abroad frantic efforts were being made to preserve the life which Charles himself evidently held less dear than his own conception of the royal honour. Louis XIV wrote personal letters of pleading to both Cromwell and Fairfax; the States-General of the Netherlands also solicited both, although their Ambassador reported that the generals had not dared open the letters of credence without the presence of three hundred officers, such were the suspicions of the times. In England, it is easy to credit Fairfax’s own story that he was urging the Council of Officers to mercy; but like the weak good man he was, he shrank from the possibility of further bloodshed which more determined opposition would have aroused.42 It was another case of the importance of personal qualities in a moment of crisis: a more ruthless man than Fairfax who would have been prepared to rally the soldiers to him at whatever cost, could well have saved the King.
Among the frenzied solutions to Charles’s safety which many tried to discover, there was one story of a mission “within a few days of the murder” by one of Cromwell’s own relations, a Colonel John Cromwell who commanded an English regiment in the service of the Netherlands. John Cromwell was said to have come over from Holland armed with two blank sheets, one already signed by the King’s signet, and one by that of the Prince of Wales; both signified that the Prince was ready to grant anything to save his father’s life. The Colonel found Oliver withdrawn and unresponsive in his own house, unwilling to listen to reminders of his former promises, to which he merely replied that “times were altered, and Providence seemed to dispose things otherwise; that he had prayed and fasted for the King but no return that way was yet made to him.” John Cromwell tried threats which ranged from the welfare of his own family and posterity, to the need to change the Cromwel
l name back to Williams again if he brought such shame on their heads; but the most he could get out of Cromwell was a promise to consider the subject, if he would leave the two papers, and retire to his own lodging, but not go to bed. About i.oo a.m. John Cromwell received his final answer: there was to be no message to carry to the Prince of Wales, for “the Council of Officers had been’ seeking God, as he [Oliver] had also done the same, and it was resolved by them all that the King must die”. The story rests on the imperfect authority of Heath, but the language at least has a Cromwellian ring, and even if over-dramatized by its author, it is not impossible that something of the sort happened, particularly as Cromwell was on amicable terms with many of his Royalist relations. The year before he had pleaded for poor old Sir Oliver, saving his land from sequestration, and this year would help his cousin Henry secure remission of his fines. This same John Cromwell remained on terms with Oliver throughout the Protectorate and was even employed by him on some sort of Danish mission.43
So, in the absence of any kind of opposition whose agency could match the compulsion of those who were pushing it forward, preparations for the execution went on apace. The scaffolding continued to rise in Whitehall in front of the King’s lovely decorated Banqueting House. Such was the nervous apprehension of those in charge of these arrangements that staples were actually hammered into the ground for ropes, which it was somehow imagined would be needed to hold down the King while he met his end. The humble fry responsible for these practical details were later arraigned like the loftier regicides. One Robert Lockier confessed in
1660 that he had been ordered by a master carpenter named Hammond to erect a scaffold, and employed by Colonel Dean to fetch four iron staples from an ironmonger in near-by King Street. So little was understood of the character of the man they were dealing with, that Lockier was requested to remain ready with his,hammer and other tools on the scaffold itself till after the execution in case the King struggled; for this he got wages of 2s. 6d. per day.44