"For you to set yourself and those who adhere unto you against the highest court of justice, that is not law, sir, as the law is your superior; so, truly, sir, there is some thing that is superior to the law, and that is the parent or author of the law, the people of England. . . . Sir, it is true that some of your side have said, ' Rex non habet parem in regno.' This court will say the same : while king, that you have not your peer in some sense, for you are major singu lis; but they will aver again that you arc minor uuiversis. And the same author tells you that ' non debet esse major eo in regno suo in exhibitione juris, minimus autem esse debet in judicio suscipiendo.' This we know to be law, ' Rex habet superiorem, Deum et legem, etiam et curiam '; so says the same author. And truly, sir, he makes bold to go a little further: ' Debent ci ponere frcenum,' they ought to bridle him. ' Justitiae fruendi causa rcges constituti sunt' This we learn : the end of having kings or any other governors, it is for the enjoying of justice; that is the end. Now, sir, if so be the king will go contrary to that end of his government, he must understand that he is but an officer in trust, and he ought to discharge that trust, and they are to take order for the punishment of such an offend ing governor." The king continued to delay the proceed ings by refusing to answer the charge or to plead. He was secretly instructed by that able jurist, Sir Mathew Hale, then a serjeantat-law. In every way Charles tried to goad the president to anger but only once did Bradshaw show any strong feeling and then he exclaimed warmly : " Men's intentions were best known by their actions, and that Charles Stuart's meaning was written in bloody characters throughout the whole kingdom." Witnesses from all parts of the kingdom testified against the king, proving that he sold judges' places for £5,000 or £10,000, and then ordered judges to deliver opinions
in his favor, that he granted judges' patents during pleasure instead of during good be havior; that he had used the army and militia for his own purposes and against the will of parliament; that he had dissolved parliaments illegally; pardoned murderers "whom the Lord says shall not be par doned "; and that he had made war upon innocent persons so that he might injure the cause of the parliament. After a patient trial the court adjourned and after careful consideration of the evi dence found the prisoner guilty as charged. The clerk read the sentence. It recited the act of the commons establishing the court, and the charge exhibited before it against the king; his Majesty's refusal to answer, or to admit the court-'s jurisdiction; that the court had therefore given judgment against him for his contumacy, but, "for further and clearer satisfaction, had ex amined witnesses on oath touching the charge"; and it alleged that, "on mature deliberation of the premises, and consider ation had of the notoriety of the matters of fact charged on the prisoner, the court was in conscience satisfied that the said Charles Stuart was guilty of levying war against the parliament and people, and by the general course of his government, counsels and practices before and since the parliament began, the court was fully satisfied that he was guilty of the wicked designs and en deavors in the charge set forth; and that he had been, and was, the occasioner, author, and continuer of the said unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars, and therein guilty of high treason, and of the murders, rapines, burn ings, spoils, desolations, damages, and mis chiefs to this nation acted and committed in the said war, etc." And the sentence con cluded : " For all of which treasons and crimes this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death, by severing his head from his body"
