The King's Revenge by Michael Walsh, Don Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

this court a Charge of High Treason and other High Crimes against Charles Stuart, King of England’. 6
    On the morning of Saturday 20 January, the court looked over the charge one last time. The nub of it was that the king was
     guilty of tyranny by waging war against his people for his personal advancement rather than the good of his subjects. Due
     to his actions, tens of thousands of his subjects had died in two wars, the first from 1642 to 1646 and the second in 1648.
     The charge was inscribed on parchment and signed by Cook. The court then adjourned to Westminster Hall to sit in judgment
     on the king of England.
    At twelve noon, a procession entered the vast, echoing hall to begin the trial that would ultimately establish the supremacy
     ofParliament over the crown, increase religious freedom with the Toleration Act of 1650 and lead to the independence of the
     judiciary in 1652. This was the true revolution that would change the country for ever – not the ‘glorious revolution’ of
     1688, which merely restored some of the innovations brought about in 1649. Although generations of writers have sought to
     downplay the importance of the event and its participants, the first war crimes trial in history was to provide the basis
     of the rights and freedoms we take for granted today.
    The procession was led by Edward Dendy, bearing the great mace of the House of Commons. An assistant carried the ceremonial
     sword. Then came the Lord President of the Court, John Bradshaw, in ceremonial robes, accompanied by sixty-six other commissioners,
     all dressed in black. They were escorted by twenty-one soldiers carrying long-handled ceremonial spears known as partisans.
     Making up the procession were the various office-bearers of the court, including the two clerks, Broughton and Phelps.
    Bradshaw proceeded to a long stage that had been built for the judges and jury. In the middle was his seat, a grandiose crimson
     velvet chair with a desk before it bearing a velvet cushion. As Bradshaw sat he made quite a sight. He wore his armour under
     his judicial robes and on his head a ridiculous conical hat covered with beaver skin and lined with steel. It was reported
     that his wife had made him wear it as she feared he might face an assassin’s bullet at any moment. In contemporary engravings,
     Bradshaw looks like an iron-clad Humpty Dumpty.
    Although reluctant, John Bradshaw was bravely doing what he believed was his duty. Bradshaw had been thrust unwillingly into
     the public glare – the king himself said he had never heard of him, but then the king was more likely to know the names of
     fifteenth-century Venetian painters than those of his own subjects. The second son of a Cheshire landowner, Bradshaw had prospered
     as a barrister, making a name for himself by successfully defending John Lilburne, the Leveller and freedom campaigner known
     as ‘Freeborn John’. Inan appeal against the charge of publishing unlicensed literature, Bradshaw, aided by John Cook, had made legal history, arguing
     the defendant’s right to silence – later to become a central tenet of British criminal trial procedure. *
    Bradshaw sat in pomp, looking out over the medieval vastness of the hall, now reconfigured for the trial. On either side and
     behind him sat his fellow judges in two long rows. At his right hand sat John Lisle, whose experience as a practising judge
     would be invaluable on points of procedure. Lisle was also a member of parliament and had chaired the committee that set up
     the New Model Army. On Bradshaw’s left sat William Say, another eminent lawyer, who had acted as the court’s president until
     Bradshaw agreed to the role. At a table covered by a Turkish carpet sat the two clerks. Before them was an empty space in
     which a wooden dock had been erected, stretching across the width of the hall. In the middle of the dock was a large seat
     for the accused, leaving plenty of room on either side for guards, attendants