by Simon Parke
Ireton had done his work. Made resilient in the matter by Ludlow, he’d given Colonel Pride his favourite task, the sort he enjoyed – wielding the sword of judgement, separating the sheep from the goats. He’d stood at the doorway of the Commons with a dour band of well-armed soldiery, and there, on the morning of 6 December, stopped from entering any treacherous members who had supported the hypocritical Treaty of Newport.
‘How many MPs were turned away?’ Oliver asked.
‘Two hundred and thirty-one,’ said Wood.
‘Leaving two hundred and ten honest and godly souls to continue with business.’
‘The leaflets are not kind, Oliver. They call it a “rump”; the arse of the Long Parliament.’
‘Better a faithful arse than a treasonous head, Wood.’
And it was this rump that Cromwell addressed now, much stirred in his soul. After months of indecision – months spent in the wilderness of unknowing, seeking the face of the Lord – he now knew what to do. And there was none keener to hear his intentions than his son-in-law, sitting four seats away.
‘If any man, whatsoever,’ declared Oliver, his hand closed around his sword butt – ‘if any man whatsoever has carried on the design of deposing the king and disinheriting his posterity’ – he looked around a little – ‘or if any man has yet such a plan in mind,’ and he looked around again, ‘then I say this: he should be called the greatest traitor and rebel in the world! Yes, the greatest traitor!’
There were surprised faces around him; the godly were shocked and Ireton tense. Where was Oliver taking this matter now?
‘But since the providence of God has cast this way upon us,’ he continued, ‘since the providence of God has made our path clear – and really, my friends, it could not be clearer – I cannot but submit this day to providence. I submit! Let providence reign! This king must face trial!’
‘Hear, hear!’ shouted the Long Parliament’s rump.
So a trial there would be; a trial of the king, when such a thing was quite impossible.
January 1649
Charles returned to London, seven years after his leaving.
It had been a hasty departure back then, mobbed by a crowd of undesirables – tradesmen, apprentices and seamen, that sort, who’d displayed the rough badinage of alcohol and violence; truly a day when it seemed a treason to be sober. And such ill-language! Charles had not been harmed, not physically at least. But how unnecessary! he thought.
‘Privilege of parliament! Privilege of parliament!’ they had shouted, as if that meant anything at all. What about the privileges of the king? They seemed quite forgetful of those!
But in the face of such violence, it had been wise to consider his position. And a week later, they had left the capital and their Whitehall home, sitting in the cabin at the stern of the barge, Queen Henrietta on his arm. She had appeared quite fearless, of course.
‘I do not give zem ze pleasure,’ she’d said, looking straight at the jeering crowds. And she passed her courage to him as he glimpsed the gilded weathervanes of Whitehall Palace, before the boat turned westwards, alongside the abbey and then under the great east window of St Stephen’s Chapel – the Commons’ chamber and the source of so much woe.
But that was seven years ago. Since then he’d started and lost two wars, mislaid his marriage, lost his freedom, drifted from his children, lied and conspired, joined naughtily with Jane, failed to escape and disappointed all negotiators but the Scots. It might not appear glorious to earthly eyes; this was so. But it was glorious in heaven, for what else had been possible against the small-minded tyranny of the people? How were they all so blind to the vision of Rubens in the Banqueting Hall?
He was a little scared now, with no Henrietta to stiffen his resolve.
‘But I will not give them the pleasure,’ he said to himself from his new holding in the Westminster house of Thomas Cotton, who had vacated his home to allow for royal detention.
*
It was the morning of the trial and the commissioners were gathered in their warm winter finery. They met in the Painted Chamber at the back of the Great Hall and the mood was nervous. There were no nerves among the preachers, who called the day ‘momentous’ and the gateway to the new Jerusalem. But Jerusalem did not feel near. There was unease in the ranks, uncertainty about the nature of the proceedings and the legal grounds for what they were about to do.
‘How do you put a king on trial? You might as well try and pluck the sun from the sky.’ And this was a parliamentarian speaking.
Hugh Peters had delivered a sermon to the assembly. He didn’t hold back; he never did. But it was reckoned more uplifting for him than for his congregation, who felt queasy and ill-disposed. They were to try a king, the Lord’s anointed . . . and none had done this before. And then, after a long prayer – similar in tone to the sermon – Charles was seen to be arriving, a little early, as though he wished to catch them out. They looked out of the window and felt unprepared. He was now walking with guards through the garden towards them, and they were not ready. Not one of the commissioners in their heart imagined themselves to be ready.
Cromwell spoke out: ‘My masters, he is come, he is come. The king is come.’ He was trying to calm them but only consternation spread. ‘We see him draw near – a little early is better than late! And in our hearts, approach now the great work that our whole nation will be full of.’ He stood on the plinth vacated by the preacher. ‘Therefore I desire we resolve what answer we shall give the king when he comes before us.’
A sense of foreboding prevailed.
‘I know this man. I have spoken with him a great deal. And the first question he will ask is this: by what authority as commissioners do we try him? This shall be his question.’
And that explained the foreboding, for there was no answer from those around; and where could such an answer be found? There was no ancient manual to consult, no precedent in any known law. And then Henry Marten, never short of a word, rose to his feet and spoke simply and confidently: ‘In the name of the Commons in parliament assembled and of all the good people of England. That is the authority by which we speak!’
Silence . . . and then around him, the outbreak of relief.
The words had just come to him, as occasionally they do, formed and ready. His wife had said something similar as they’d parted that morning – very similar – but he had given her lines their final shape, and he now sat down in some exhilaration. He was pleased for himself and for the happiness around him – relief that was physical. Faces relaxed; tight stomachs were eased. They had an answer, as the king approached through the garden.
‘We must use those words,’ said John Bradshawe, who was to be president of this trial. ‘Note them, please,’ he added to one of his clerks. ‘In the name of the Commons in parliament and, er, whatever followed.’
The king had now entered the building.
*
And here was the setting for the first and last trial of an English monarch: the Great Hall of Westminster! Such a court was a thing unknown and unheard of, created from nothing. But the traders’ booths had been cleared away and their complaints quietened by buff-coated troopers – men made mean by war and now billeted at Whitehall. And with the sellers removed, the south end of the hall hosted a wooden platform, separated from the rest of the space by a barrier three feet high.
The hall itself had two gangways in the shape of a cross, separating the four quarters where the public would be squeezed on benches, or pressed up standing against the wall; this is how it would be when the gates opened. In more comfort (though not much) and higher up, would be those in the two small galleries above the platform, which looked down on the commissioners. The commissioners would be judge and jury in this affair, sitting on benches covered in scarlet cloth at the back of the platform, facing out from beneath the great south window.
In the front
row of commissioners, in the middle, was the raised desk of the president, John Bradshawe. He had been plucked from legal obscurity (and some said incompetence) to preside over the trial, and no one’s first choice. He’d merely been the first lawyer to say yes after many had declined. What sane man would preside over such an event as this? And Mr Bradshawe came prepared, wearing metal lining inside his hat for fear of attack; the good behaviour of the public could not be guaranteed today. Beneath him, as a thin wall between himself and the mob, the court clerks were seated, alongside the mace and sword of state.
And there was the king’s seat – or was it a throne? At the edge of the dais, on the spectators’ right, was a crimson velvet armchair for Charles. He would sit with his back to the body of spectators. There was no defence council ready on his behalf – for what defence could there be? And anyway, Charles was intent on presenting his own.
On the left of the stage was the door that led to St Stephen’s Chapel where the Commons met in ever-decreasing numbers.
How would the day go?
*
Charles was led into the hall, stately in demeanour, between two guards. He liked a stage; he knew where he was on a stage. Relationships, he didn’t understand at all. But a stage – with its distance and formality – he could manage well.
‘He has lost his throne but not his majesty,’ as one royalist hack would write on witnessing the king’s entrance.
Charles was surprised that no audience was there; he had been told his trial would be public and earnestly hoped as much. He would like his people to be with him, to witness his calm defiance. And they would be allowed in . . . but not yet. There was court business to be undertaken first. Charles, meanwhile, cut a small figure on the dais alongside his tall guards. Had they deliberately been chosen to dwarf him? The king wore a black hat which he would not remove, and this was the first source of trouble.
‘The defendant will remove his hat,’ said the clerk.
But the defendant would not remove his hat and explained his reasons. ‘I believe the removal of my hat would be a mark of deference to the present authorities,’ said Charles, patting it more firmly on to his skull. ‘And there is no deference; no acknowledgement at all.’
‘This goes well,’ muttered Ireton.
The forty-nine-year-old defendant had a grey beard – greyer for the past year – and his face was drawn, haggard; though peacefully resigned. According to Jane Whorwood, he had looked thus since his Christmas spent at Windsor, where he was taken after three bleak weeks at Hurst Castle. ‘From the worst castle to the best,’ as he’d declared on leaving that hateful place.
It was there, so some said, that he put all pretence of negotiation aside and embraced the martyr’s way, setting his face towards the cross. Charles the Martyr, this was his destiny, and there was some peace in that discovery . . . though another escape plan had been ready as he left Hurst Castle, organized by Jane and involving a well-regarded mare called Eager.
On his departure from Hurst, he was told a horse awaited him in Bagshot, ‘the swiftest creature in England’.
‘There is no faster horse in Christendom,’ said the ciphered note from Jane, passed on to him by the cook. ‘Others have failed you, but I will not!’
It was to be the king’s final attempt to escape, and was to occur on the journey to Windsor. Charles was to slip the guard of Colonel Harrison and be away on this fastest of beasts, the horse they called Eager, waiting for him in Bagshot.
But the cool hand of providence conspired against him again; and the king’s chaplain, Father Downe, passed on the sad news.
‘The horse we had hoped for has gone lame, your majesty.’
‘Lame? Is he a parliamentarian?’
The chaplain travelled with the king to give him the sacraments; and to help with plans for escape.
‘We have news only that the horse is indisposed, your majesty.’
‘Eager is indisposed.’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Poorly named.’
‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.’
‘I believe I’ve seen more taking of late.’
‘So we travel now to Windsor, sire . . . with no other excursion foreseen.’
‘I see,’ said Charles, as one in a trance. ‘The horse has fallen lame.’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘The fastest horse in England.’
‘No longer, your majesty.’
‘You can leave me now.’
‘If your majesty requires anything further—’
‘You can leave me now.’
‘Perhaps your majesty would like the comfort of the sacraments?’
‘You can leave me now.’
And so it was that he’d arrived at Windsor on 23 December, with the same slow horse on which he’d started out, while Eager recuperated in Bagshot. The travel had not been unpleasant in itself; he had liked his escort, Colonel Harrison, which came as a surprise. At the journey’s start, he’d imagined Harrison would murder him – he was in no doubt of this, for this butcher’s son was an infamous republican. Indeed, it was he who had coined the unfortunate phrase ‘man of blood’, the most common army epithet for Charles.
Yet Charles had found him to be both courteous and correct as they travelled together. ‘If he had not been a soldier,’ said Charles, ‘and if I had met him before all this, I should not have harboured an ill opinion of him.’
And, strangely, Harrison’s face was the first he saw as he entered the Great Hall and looked across at the commissioners. He did not seek anyone’s eye, but maybe he looked for a friend. Charles smiled at the colonel, remembering their conversations; Harrison nodded in return, perhaps a little shamed, for he was no friend to this tyrant who deserved only death. And the colonel had seen much death in his time, both on the battlefield and at home, where not one of his three children had survived infancy. Thomas Harrison knew the task of this court, and would not flinch from seeing it through.
Charles looked around for comfort. Was Jane here?
*
The president of the court, John Bradshawe, was reading the charges.
‘Charles Stuart, you are arraigned in this manner and in this day in relation to your chief and prime responsibility for all the treasons, murders, ravages, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages and mischief to this nation – enacted by you from a wicked design to erect and uphold for yourself unlimited and tyrannical power, to rule according to your own desires and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people of England.’
Charles laughed at the word ‘treasons’. That seemed to him most amusing, that a king could somehow be accused of treason against his own person. Risible! And then came ‘the moment’, as Ireton later called it. It was the moment when all might have collapsed . . . and Ireton found himself squeezing Cromwell’s hand in fear. And the moment occurred when the king tried to interrupt proceedings by reaching forward to touch the prosecutor, John Cook, with his cane.
‘What’s he doing?’ whispered Henry as Charles leaned forward with his stick.
They then watched in shock as the silver tip of the cane fell off and rolled across the stage. There was silence in the hall, all eyes on the metal ball, now come to rest. The king responded first, indicating to the prosecutor that he should pick it up. And this was when Ireton squeezed his father-in-law’s hand, hardly able to watch.
‘Do not pick it up,’ he said to himself seeing the dark panorama of possibility. If Cook picked up the silver tip, the king’s trial would be over . . . and theirs would begin. Charles’ authority would be established, the king in command again. Ireton could see it all, if Cook bent down now to assist the king.
‘He will pick it up,’ said Cromwell gloomily.
‘Don’t!’ muttered Ireton under his breath . . . and he didn’t. John Cook stayed standing, ignoring the king, his divi
nely appointed ruler. And so Charles had to get up from his chair and, bowing down, picked up the silver tip himself. There followed a large release of breath among the commissioners, and Ireton released Cromwell’s hand.
‘Thank God,’ he said. The law had not bowed to Charles. He had bowed to the law; this was Henry’s view. The man before them was no longer a ruler of men but a prisoner of the court.
‘I swear he’s never picked up anything in his life!’ joked a soldier, for the moment had passed and all could proceed; and Cromwell would never mention the squeezing of his hand.
*
With the charges read, the president announced, with some pomp, that the public may now be allowed in: ‘Let the nation in to see justice done!’
The large doors of the hall opened and there was a thunderous rush of folk, soldiers instantly pushed back. Like water hurtling over rocks, they surged forward, making for the benches, shouting and jostling with soldiers who held their lines as best they could. Above the commissioners, and behind, the galleries filled as well, gentlemen and ladies of substance taking their seats. Charles could not help but look around at the filling hall; these were his friends, his subjects – though never quite as close. His subjects felt unnaturally close, which was not the true order of things.
He turned back towards the commissioners and composed himself. And when the court returned to calm, like that before a performance, Charles spoke.
‘The soldiers?’ he asked theatrically. ‘Are they here to make difficult my escape? Or perhaps to protect my judges from the people?’
There was uncomfortable movement among the commissioners and cautious laughter in the Great Hall, as the coughing quietened.
‘Still glad of a public trial, Oliver?’ asked Ireton.
It was the most miserable of winter days and the waiting crowd had been standing in the snow too long . . . and then another moment. Charles was asked by the clerk how he pleaded; he did not answer, staring ahead in silence. He was asked again and then again, but he would not say.