I could tell you of some souldiers which are turned out of his troup for defending those conditions of ours but let that pass and hence forward instead of life liberty and estate which were the Articles agreed upon let drawing hanging and quartring bear the Denomination of Captain Crooks Articles However I thank the Protectour for granting me this honourable Death I should now give you an accompt of my Faith But truly gentlemen this poor Nation is rent into so many several opinions that it is impossible for me to give you mine without displeasing some of you However if any be so criticall as to inquire of what Faith I die I shall refer him to the Apostles Athanasius and the Nicene Creed and to the testimony of this Reverend gentleman Dr. Short to whom I have unbosomed my self and if this do not satisfie look in the thirty nine Articles of the Catholick Church of England to them I have subscribed and do own them as authentick Having now given you an account concerning my self I hold my selfe obliged in duty to some of my friends to take off a suspicion which lyes upon them I mean as to some persons of Honour which upon my examination I was charged to have held correspondency with The Marquesse of Hartford the Marquesse of Winchester and my Lord of Pembrook were the persons nominated to me I did then acquit them and do now second it with this protestation That I never held any correspondence with either or any of them in relation to this particular businesse or indeed to any thing which concerned the Protectour or his Government As for the Marquesse of Winchester I saw him some twelve years since and not later and if I should see him here present I believe I should not know him And for the Earle of Pembrook he was not a man likely to whom I should discover my thoughts because he is a man of a contrary judgment I was examined likwise concerning my Brother Freke my Cousin Hastings Mr Dorrington and others It is probable their estates may make them lyable to this my condition but I do here so far acquit them as to give the world this farther protestation that I am confident they are as innocent in this businesse as the youngest child here I have no more to say to you now but to let you know that I am in charity with all men I thank God I both can and do forgive my greatest persecutors and all that ever had any hand in my death I have offered the Protectour as good security for my future demeanour as I suppose he could have expected if he had thought fit to have given me my life certainly I should not have been so ungratefull as to have imployed it against him I do humbely submit to Gods pleasure knowing that the issues of life and death are in his hand My bloud is but a small sacrifice if it had been saved I am so much a Gentleman as to have given thanks to him that had preserved it and so much a Christian as to forgive them which take it But seeing God by his providence hath called me to lay it down I willingly submit to it though terrible to nature but blessed be my Saviour who hath taking out the sting so that I look upon it without terrour Death is a debt and a due debt and it hath pleased God to make me so good a Husband that I am come to pay it before it is due I am not a shamed of the cause for which I die but rather rejoyce that I am thought worthy to suffer in the defence cause of Gods true Church my lawfull King the liberty of the subject and Priviliege of Parliaments Therefore I hope none of mine alliance friends will be ashamed of it it is so far from pulling down my Family that I look upon it as the raising it one story higher Neither was I so prodigall of nature as to throw away my life but have used though none but honourable and honest means to preserve it These unhappy times indeed have been very fatall to my family two of my Brothers already slain and my self going to the slaughter it is Gods will and I humbly submit to that providence I must render an acknowledgment of the great civilities that I have received from this City of Exon and some persons of quality and for their plentiful provision made for the prisoners I thank Mr. Sheriff for his favour towards us in particular to my self and I desire him to present my due respects to the Protectour and though he had no mercy for my self yet that he would have respect to my family I am now striping off my cloaths to fight a duell with death I conceive no other duell lawfull but my Saviour hath puld out the sting of this mine enemy by making himself a sacrifice for me And truly I do not think that man deserving one drop of his bloud that will not spend all for him in so good a cause The truth is Gentlemen in this age Treason is an Individuum vagum like the wind in the Gospell it bloweth where it listeth So now treason is what they please and lighteth upon whom they will Indeed no man except he will be a Traitour can avoid this Censure of Treason I know not to what end it may come but I pray God my own and my brothers bloud that is now to die with me may be the last upon this score Now Gentlemen you may see what a condition you are in without a King you have no law to protect you no rule to walk by when you performe your duty to God your King and Countrey you displease the Arbitrary power now set up I cannot call it government I shall leave you to peruse my triall and there you shall see what a condition this poor Nation is brought into and no question will be utterly destroyed if not restored by Loyal Subjects to its old and glorious Government I Pray God he lay not his Judgement upon England for their sluggishnesse in doing their duty and readiness to put their hands in their bosomes or rather taking part with the Enemy of Truth The Lord open their eyes that they may be no longer lead or drawn into such snares else the Child unborn will curse the day of their Parents birth God Almighty preserve my lawful King Charles the second from the hands of his Enemies and breake down the wall of Pride and Rebellion which so long hath kept him from his just Rights God perserve his Royal Mother and all his Majesties Royall Brethren and incline their hearts to seek after him God incline the hearts of all true English men to stand up as one Man to bring in the King and Redeem themselves and this poor Kingdome out of its more then Egyptian slavery As I have now put off these garments of cloth so I hope I have put off my garments of sin and have put on the
your intention to subvert the fundemental Laws of the Land for the great Bulwarks of the peoples Liberty is the Parliament of England and to subvert and root up that which your aim hath been to do would certainly at one blow have confounded the Liberties and the properties of England Truly Sir It makes me call to minde I cannot forbeare to express it for Sir we must deal plainly with you according to the merits of your Cause for so is our commission It makes me I say to call to minde what I have read of a great Romane Emperor a great Roman tyrant may I call him Caligula by name who wished that the people of Rome had but one Neck that at one blow he might cut it off Your proceedings have been something like to this the people of England have been are no where else to be represented but in Parliament and could you have but confounded that you had at one blow cut off the neck of England But God hath reserved better things for us and hath been pleased to breake your Forces and to overthrow your designes and to bring your person in to custody that you might be answerable unto Justice Sir we know very well that it is a question which hath been much pressed by your side By what Presidents we shall proceed Truly Sir for Presidents I shall not at this present make any long discourse on that subject howsoever I shall acquaint them that it is no new thing to cite Presidents almost out of all Nations where the people when power hath been in their hands have not sticked to call their Kings to an account and where a change of Government hath ensued upon the occasion of the Tyranny and misgovernment of those that have been placed over the people I will not waste time to mention France or Spain or the Empire of Germany or any other Countrey Volumnes may be written of it But truey Sir that President of the Kingdom of Arragon hath by some of us been thought upon The Justice of Arragon is as a man tanquam in medio positus it is placed between the people of that Countrey and the King of Spain so that if wrong be done by the King of Arragon the Justice of Arragon hath power to reform that wrong and he is acknowledged the Kings Superiour and bring the grand prisoner of the Priviledges and Liberties of the people he hath prosecuted against the Kings for their misgovernment Sir What the Tribunes were heretofore to Rome and what the Ephori were to the State of Lacedemon we sufficiently know they were as the Parliament of England to the English State and though Rome seemed to have lost her Liberty when once the Emperours were constituted yet you shall find some exemplary Acts of Justice even done by the Senate of Rome on the great Tyrant of his time Nero who was by them condemned and adjudged unto death But why Sir should I make mention of these Forreign Histories and Examples unto you If we shall look but over the Tweed we shall finde Examples enough in your Native Kingdom of Scotland If we look on your first King Forgusius he was an elective King he died and left two Sons both in their minority The elder brother afterwards giving small hopes to the people that he would govern them well so because he endeavoured to have supplanted his Uncle who was chosen by the people to govern them in his minority he was rejected by the people for it and the younger Brother was chosen c. Sir I will not take upon me to express what your Histories do at large declare you know very well that you are the hundred and nineth King of Scotland to mention all the Kings which the people of that Kingdome according to their power and Priviledge have made bold to deal withall either to banish imprison or put to death would be too long a story for this time and place Reges say your own Authors we created Kings at first Leges c. we imposed Laws upon them and as they were chosen by the suffrages of the people at the first so upon the same occasion by the same suffrages they may be taken down again and of this I may be bold to say that no Kingdom in the World hath yielded a more plentifull experience than your Native Kingdom of Scotland on the deposition and the punishment of their transgressing Kings I need not go far for an Example your Grand-mother was set aside and your Father an Infant Crown'd This State hath done the like in England The Parliament and people of England have made bold to call their King to an account therein frequent Examples of it in the Saxons time the time before the Conquest and since the Conquest there have not wanted some Presidents King Edward the second King Richard the second were so dealt with by the Parliament and were both deposed and deprived and truly Sir whosoever shall look into their stories shall not finde the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to the height and the Capitalnesse of the crimes that are laid to your charge nothing near Sir you were pleased the other day to alledge your descent and I did not contradict it but take all together if you go higher than the Conquest you shall find that for almost a thousand years these thinge have been and if you come down since the Conquest you are the four and twentieth King from William called the Conquerour and you shall find one half of them to come meerly from the State and not meerly upon the point of Descent This were easie to be instanced The time must not be lost that way I shall only represent what a grave and learned Judge said in his time who was well known unto you the words are since printed for posterity That although there were such a thing as a Descent many times yet the Kings of England ever held the greatest assurance of their Titles when it was declared by Parliament And Sir your Oath and the manner of your Coronation doth plainly shew that the Kings of England although it 's true by the Law the next person in bloud is designed yet if there were a just cause to refuse him the people of England might do it For there is a Contract and a bargain made betwixt the King and his people and your Oath is taken and certainly Sir the Bond is reciprocall for as you are Leige Lord so are they Leige Subjects and we know very well that Legantis est duplex the one is a Bond of perfection that is due from the Soveraign the other is a Bond of Subjection which is due from the Subject for if this Bond be once broken farewell Soveraignty â—ubjectio trahit c. These things may not be denyed for I speak it the rather and I pray God it may work upon your heart that you may be sensible of your miscarriages for whether you have been as you
of the whole Nation who being freely called and freely debating amongst themselves may by Gods blessing settle the Church when every opinion is freely and clearly discussed For the King indeed I will not much insist Then turning to a gentleman whose cloak he observed to touch the edge of the Ax he said unto him Hurt not the Ax meaning by blunting the edge thereof for that he said might hurt him Having made this short digression he proceeded For the King the laws of the land will clearly instruct you what you have to do but because it concerns my own particular I onely do give you but a touch of it As for the People truly I desire their liberty and freedome as much as any whosoever but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having of government by those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own It is not for them to have a share in Government that is nothing Sirs appertaining unto them A â—ubject and a Sovereign are clean different things and therefore untill that be done I mean untill the people be put into that liberty which I speak of certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sirs It was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an arbitrary power to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword I needed not to have come hither and therefore I tell you and I Pray God it be not laid to your charge that I am the martyr of the people In troth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer I shall onely say this unto you that in truth I could have desired some little longer time because I had a desire to put this that I have said into a little better order and to have a little better digested it than I have now done and therefore I hope you will excuse me I have delivered my conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are most for the good of the Kingdome and your own salvations Doct. Juxon Will your Majesty although the affection of your Majesty to religion is very well known yet to satisfie expectation be pleased to speak something for the satisfaction of the world King I thank you very heartily my Lord because I had almost forgotten it In troth Sirs my conscience in Religion I think is already very well known to all the world and therefore I declare before you all that I die a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left by my father and this honest man I think will witnesse it Then turning to the Officers he said Sirs excuse me for this same I have a good cause and I have a gratious God I will say no more Then turning to Colonel Hacker he said Take care they do not put me to pain and Sir this if it please you but then a gentleman one Mr. Clerk comming neer the Ax the King said take heed of the Ax Then the King turning to the Executioner said I shall say but very short prayers and when I stretch forth my hands Then the King called to Doctor Juxon for the Nightcap and having put it on he said to the Executioner will my hair trouble you who desired him to put it all under his Cap which the King did accordingly by the assistance of the Executioner and the Bishop the King then turning to Doctor Juxon said I have a good Cause and a Gratious God on my side Doctor Juxon There is but one stage more This stage is turbulent indeed and troublesome but very short and which in an instant will lead you a most long way from earth to Heaven where you shall finde great Joy and Solace King I go from a corruptible to an incorruptable Crown where can be no trouble none at all Doctor Juxon You shall exchange a temporall Crown for an eternall one it is a good change The King then said unto the executioner Is my haire as it should be He then did put off his cloak and his George which he gave to Doctor Juxon saying Remember He immediately afterwards did put off his Doublet and did put on his cloak again and looking on the block he said unto the Executioner you should make it to be steddie Execut. It is so King It might have been something higher Execut. It cannot be made higher now King When I shall stretch forth my hands in this manner then After that when standing he had spoke two or three words unto himself with his hands and eyes lifted up towards Heaven immediately stooped down he laid his neck upon the Block and when the Executioner had again put all his hair under his cap. The King said Stay till I give the signe Execut. So I do if it please your Majesty and after a very little respite the King did stretch forth his hands and immediately the Executioner at one blow did sever his head from his Body Sic transit gloria Mundi THE Illegall proceedings against the honourable Colonell John Penruddock of Comppton in Wiltshire and his Speech Which he delivered the day before he was beheaded in the Castle of Exon being the 16 day of May 1655 to a Gentleman whom he desired to publish them after his death Together with his prayer upon the Scaffold and the last Letter he received from his verteous Lady with his answer to the same Also the speech of that Piously resolved Gentlemen Hugh Grove of Chisenbury in the parish of Enford and County of Wilts Esquire beheaded there the same day Printed by order of the Gent. intrusted 1660. Col. Penruddock being writ to by a friend for an account of his triall writ as followeth SIR THough I received your desires something too late it being but two days before notice given me from the Sheriff of the day of my expiration for I cannot call this an execution it being for such a cause yet in order to your satisfaction I have borrowed so much time from my more serious Meditations as to give you this short account of my Triall wherein you must excuse both the brevity and imperfections it being but the issues of a bad memory UPon Thursday the 19. April 1655. the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer being sate in the Castle of Exon summoned before them my self Mr. Huge Grove Mr. Richard Reeves Mr. Robert Duke Mr. George Duke Mr. Thomas Fitz-James Mr. Francis Jones Mr. Edward Davis Mr. Thomas Poulton and Mr. Francis Bennet Being all called to the Barre we were commanded to hold up our hands and an Indictment of high treason was read against us and being asked whether we would plead guilty or not guilty to the Indictment in the behalf of my self and of the Gentlemen therein charged I spake as followeth Col. Penruddock My Lords though my education hath been such as not to give me those advantages which the knowledge of the Laws would assisted me with
I can The Reasons for which in conscience and duty which I ow first unto God and afterwards to my people for the preservation of their lives their liberties and their fortunes I believe I cannot answer untill I am satisfied of your legality of it All proceeding against any man whatsoever President Sir I must interrupt you which I would not do but that which you do agreeth not with the proceeding of any Tribunal of Justice you enter into a controversie and dispute against the Authority of this Court before which you appeare a prisoner and are accused as a great Delinquent If you will take upon you to controvert the Authority of this Court we cannot give way unto it neither will any tribunall of Justice admit it you ought to submit unto the Court and to give an exact and direct Answer whether you will answer to your charge or not and what is the answer that you make King Sir I know not the formalities of the law I know the law and reason and although I am no professed Lawyer I know the law as well as any Gentleman in England and I am more eager for the Liberties of the people of England than you are and if I should believe any man without he gives me Reasons what he saith It would be abused but I say unto you that the Reasons which you give is no wayes satisfactory L. President Sir I must interrupt you for it cannot be permitted to you in this manner to proceed you spake of law and reason it is fit that there should be both law and reason and they are both against you Sir the Vote of the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament is the reason of the Kingdome and they ordained this law according to which you ought to Reign Sir It is not lawfull for you dispute against our Authority This again hath been told you by the Court. Sir Notice will be taken that you contemn the Court and this contempt of yours will be recorded King I know not how a King can be interpreted to be a Delinquent but by any law that I ever heard all men whether Delinquent or what you will may lawfully make objections against their Professe this is that which I require and I again desire that my Reasons may be heard If you deny this you deny Reason L. President Sir you have objected something to the Court I will declare unto you their opinion Sir it is not lawfull for you or any man else to dispute against this subject It is Decreed you ought not to dispute against the jurisdiction of this Tribunall If you shall yet do it I must intimate unto you that they are above objections They set here by Authority of the Commons of England and all your Predecessors and you your selfe are bound to be accountable to them King I sdeny that shew me one example L. President Sir you ought not to interrupt but attend whilst the Court speakes unto you This subject is not to be disputed by you neither will the Court permit that you should object against the jurisdiction of it they have considered of their jurisdiction and do approve it King Sir I say that the Commons of England were never a Court of judicature and I would fain know how they came to be made so now President Sir it is not permitted to you to proceed in those discourses Then the Secretary of the Court did read as followeth Charles Stuard King of England you have been accused in the Name of the people of England of High Treason and other grievous Crimes The Court hath determined that you shal answer to your charge King I will answer as soon as ever I shall understand by what authority you do these things President If this be all that you will speake Gentlemen you who brought the prisonner hither take him back again King I demand that I may be permitted to exhibite my Reasons why I answer not unto the Charge and give me time to perform this President Sir it is not for prisoners to demand King Prisoners Sir I am no ordinary prisoner President The Court hath considered of their own jurisdiction and they have also confirmed their jurisdiction If you will not answer we will give order that your Default be recorded King You have not yet heard my Reasons President Your Reasons are not to be heard against the Supreme Jurisdiction King Shew me that jurisdiction in the world where Reason is not to be heard President Sir we shew it you here the Commons of England and the next time you are brought hither you shall understand further of the pleasure of the Court and peradventure their finall sentence King Shew me where the House of Commons was ever a Court of Judicature in that kind President Serjeant take away the Prisoner King Sir Remember that the King is not suffered to declare his Reasons for the Libertie and Immunities of his subjects President Sir That Freedome of speech is not permitted to you how great a friend you have been to the laws and the Liberties of the people let England and all the world judge King Sir by your leave I have alwayes loved the Liberty the Immunities Laws of the subjects If I have defended myself by Arms I have not taken them up against the people but for them President You must obey the Decree of the Court you give no answer to the Charge against you King Well Sir And so was he brought to the House of Sir Robert Cotton and the Court was adjourned to the Painted Chamber untill Wednesday following at twelve of the clock at what hour they intended to adjourn again to Westminster-hal where all whom it doth concern are commanded to be present The third dayes proceedings against the late King at the High Court of Justice Tuesday Jan. 23. 1648. THe Cryer according to the Custome having with his Oyes commanded silence and attention the King being sate Mr. Atturney Genrall turning to the L. President spake in these words May it please your Lordship This is now the third time that by the great grace and favour of this High Court the Prisoner hath been brought to the Bar and yet by reason of his refusall to put in his Answer there is yet no issue joyned in the cause My Lord I did at the first exhibit a Charge against him containing the highest practices of Treason that were ever wrought on the Theater of England That a King of England trusted to keep the Lawes of England and who had taken an Oath so to do had tribute paid him for that end should be guilty of so wicked a design as to subvert our Laws and introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical Government and set up his standard of warre against his Parliament and his people and I did humbly pray in the behalf of the people of England that he might speedily be required to make an answer to his charge But my Lord instead of making an answer he
into your heart that you had as effectually endeavoured and studied the peace of the Kingdome as in words you seem to pretend but as the other day it was represented to you that actions must expound intentions Your actions have been clean contrary and truly Sir it doth appear very plainly to the Court that you have gone upon very erroneous principles This Kingdom hath felt it to their smart and it will be no comfort to you to think of it for Sir you have been heard to let fall such language as if you had not been subject to the Law or that the Law had not been your Superiour The Court is very sensible of it I hope so are all the understanding people of England That the Law is your Superiour you ought to have ruled according to the law you ought to have done so and your pretence hath been that you have done so But Sir the question is who shall be the expositors of the Law whether you and your party out of the Courts of Justice shall take upon you to expound the Law Or whether the Courts of Justice shall be the expounders themselves Nay this Sovereign and high Court of Justice the Parliament of England who may well be obliged to be the highest expounders of the Law since they are the Sole makers of it Sir for you to set your selfe with your single judgement or for those who adhere unto you to set themselves against the highest Court of Justice there is no Law for it Sir as the Law is your superior so truly there is something that is Superiour to the Law which is the Parent or Author of the Law and that is the people of England For as they are those who at first as other Countries have done did chuse unto themselves this form of Government that Justice might be administred and the peace preserved so they gave Laws unto their Governors according to which they were to govern and if those Laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudicial to the publick they had power in them reserved to themselves to alter as they should finde cause It is very true what some of your side have alleadged Rex non habet parem in regno This Court will affirm the same in some sense that whilest King you have not your Peer for you are major singulis but they will aver again that you are minor universis and the same Author tels you that in exhibitione juris you have no power but they are quasi minimus This we know to be Law Rex haebt superiorem Deum legem etiam Curiam and so sayes the same Author and he makes bold to proceed further Debent ei fraenum ponere they ought to bridle him We know very well the stories of old we cannot be ignorant of those Wars that were called the Barons Wars when the Noblity of the Land did stand out for the Liberty and the property of the Subject and would not suffer the Kings that did invade their Liberties to play the Tryants but did call them to an account for it and did fraenum ponere But Sir If the Nobility of the Land do forbear to do their duty now and are not so mindfull of their own Honour and the Kingdomes good as the Barons of England of old have been certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindefull of what is requisite for their preservation and their safety Justitiae fruendi causa Reges constituti sunt By this we learn that the end of having Kings or Governours is for their enjoying of Justice that is the end Now Sir If the King will go contrary to that end or if any Governour will go contrary to the end of his government he must understand that he is but an Officer in trust and that he ought to discharge that trust and order is to be taken for the animadversion and punishment of such an offending Governour Sir This is not a Law of yesterday since the time of the division betwixt you and the Parliament but it is a Law of old And we know very well both the Authors and the Authorities that acquaint us what the Law was in that point on the election of Kings when they took their Oath to be true unto the people and if they did not observe it there were those remedies instituted which are called Parliaments The Parliaments were they that were to adjudge the very words of the Authors the plainness and wrongs done by the King and Queen or by their Children such wrongs eespecially when the people could have no where else a remedy Sir this is the Case of the people of Eugland they could not have their remedy else where but in Parliament Sir Parliaments were instituted for that intent it was their main end that the grievances of the people might be redressed and truly if the Kings of England had been rightly mindefull of themselves they were never more in Majestie or State than in the time of the Parliament but how forgetfull some have been Histories have informed us and we our selves have a miserable a lamentable and a sad experence of it Sir by the old Laws of England I speake these things the rather to you because you were pleased to affirme the other day that you had as much knowledge in the Law as most Gentlemen of England It is very well Sir and truly Sir it is very sit for the Gentlemen of England to understand the Laws under which they must live and by which they must be governed And then Sir the Scripture sayes they that know their Ma-Masters will and do it not you know what follows the Law is your Master the acts of Parliament the Parliaments were anciently to be kept twice in the year as we find in our old Author that the Subject upon any occasion might have a remedie and a redress for his grievance Afterwards by severall Acts of Parliament in the dayes of your predecessor Edward the third they were to be but once a year What the Intermission of Parliaments in your times hath produced is very well known and the sad consequences of it as also what in the interim instead of Parliaments there hath been by you by a high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the people But when God by his Providence had so far brought it about that you could no longer decline the calling of a Parliament a Parliament was called where it may appear what your ends were against your ancient and Native Kingdom of Scotl but this Parliament of Engl. not serving your turn against them you were pleased to dissolve it Not long after another great necessitie occasioned the calling of this Parliament and what your designes and indeavours all along have been for the crushing and confounding of it hath been most notorious to the whole Kingdom And truly Sir in that you did strike at all it had been a sure way to have brought about that which this Charge doth lay upon you
they intend to do yet wee do here declare that we shall not decline or forbear the doing of our duty in the administration of Justice even to your selfe and that according to the merit of your offence although God should permit those men to effect all their bloody designs in in hand against us Sir we will say and will declare it as those Children in the fiery furnace who refused to worship the Golden Image that Nabuchadonazer had set up That their God was able to deliver them from the danger they were neer unto but if he did not deliver them yet they would not fall down and worship the golden Image We shall make this application of it That though we should not be delivered from those bloody hands hearts who conspire the overthrow of the Kingdom in generall and of our selves in particular for being actors in this great work of Justice though I say we should perish in the work yet by the grace in the strength of God we are resolved to go on with it And those are the intire resolutions of us all Sir I say for your selfe that we do heartily wish and desire that God would be pleased to give you a sense of your sins that you may see wherein you have done amisse and that you may cry unto him that God would deliver you from bloody-guiltinesse A good King David by Name was once guilty of that particular guilt he was otherwise upright saving in the matter of Vriath Truly Sir the History doth represent unto us that he was a repentant King and he had died for his sinne but that God was pleased to be indulgent to him and to grant him his pardon Thou shalt not die saith the prophet but the child shall die Thou hast given cause to the Enemies of God to blaspheme King I would onely desire to be heard but one word before you give sentence and it is that to satisfie the world when I am dead you would but heare me concerning those great Imputations which you have laid unto my charge President Sir you must now give me leave to proceed for I am not far from your Sentence and your time is now past King I shall desire you that you will take these few words into your consideration For what soever sentence you shall pronounce against me in respect of those heavy imputations which I finde you have laid to my charge yet Sir It is most true that President Sir I must put you in minde I must Sir although at this time especially I would not willingly interrupt you in any thing you have to say which is proper for us to admit but Sir you have not owned us as a Court and you looke upon us as a sort of people huddled together and we know not what uncivill language we receive from your party King I know nothing of that President You disavow us as a Court and therefore for you to addresse your selfe to us whom you do not acknowledge to be a Court for us I say to judge what you shall speake is not to be permitted and the truth is all along from the to disavow and disown us The Court needed not to have heard you one word for unless they be acknowledged a Court and ingaged it is not proper for you to speak Sir We have given you too large an indulgence of time already and admitted so much delay that we may not admit of any more If it were proper for us we should heare you very freely not decline to hear the most that you could speake to the greatest advantage for your self whether it were totall or but in part excusing those great and hainous charges which are laid upon you But I shall trouble you no longer your sins are of so large a demension that if you do but seriously think of them they will drive you into a sad consideration and we wish that they may improve in you a sad and serious repentance And it is the desire of the Court that you may be so penitent for what you have done amisse that God may at least have mercy on your better part As for the other it is our part and duties to doe that which the law prescribeth we are not now here jus dare but jus dicere we cannot be unmindfull of what the word of God tels us To acquit the guilty is of an equall abomination as to condemn the Innocent we may not acquit the guilty What sentence the law pronounceth to a traytor a tyrant a murtherer and a publike enemy to the Country that sentence you are now to hear read unto you and that is the Sentence of the Court. Hereupon the Lord President commanded the Sentence to be read whereupon M. King who was Cryer of the Court having commanded silence by his Oyes the Clerke read the sentence which was drawn up in Parchment and did run in these words Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an High Court of Justice for the tryall of Charls Stuart King of England before whom he had been three times convented and at the first time a Charge of High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanors was read in the be halfe of the Kingdome of England which Charge followeth in these words This Charge being read said the Clerk Charls Stuard was required to give his answer which he refused to do but expressed these passages and many more such as these are in refusing to answer The Clerk having repeated many passages during the time of his triall in which the King shewed an aversenesse to acknowledge the Court did proceed to read the Sentence which was in these words For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge that the said Charls Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murtherer and a publike Enemy shall be put to death by severing his Head from his Body The Sentence being read the Lord President said This Sentence now read and published is the Act Sentence Judgement and resolution of the whole Court Hereupon the Court stood up as assenting to what the President said King Will you hear me one word Sir President Sir you are not to be heard after the Sentence King No Sir President No Sir by your favour Sir Guard withdraw your Prisoner King I may speak after the sentence By your favour Sir I may speak after Sentence ever The Guard drawing to him he said unto them by your favour hold and turning to the President he said the Sentence Sir I say Sir I do but being not permitted to proceed he said I am not suffered to speak expect what Justice other people will have Cryer All manner of persons that have any thing else to do are to depart at this time and to give their attendance in the Painted Chamber to which place this Court doth forthwith adjourn it self Then the Court arose and the Kings guard did bring him to Sir Rohert Cottons house and he was afterwards conducted to Saint Jameses
most humbly bowed his generious Neck to Go to be cut off by the Vizarded Executioner which was sudainly done at one blow Thus fell King Charles the I. and thus all Britan with him His Majesties Reasons against the pretended Jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice which he hath in tended to have given there on Munday Jan. 26. 1649. Faithfully transcribed from the original coppy of the King SInce I have already made my Protestation not onely against the illegality of this pretended Court but that no power on earth can justly call me who am your King into question as a Delinquent I would no longer have opened my mouth on this Argument but have referred my self to those things which I then spoke if this onely concerned my own particular But the duty which I ow to God to preserve the true liberty of my people doth not permit me at this time I should be silent for how can any free born Subject of England call his life or any thing he doth possess his own if power without law can daily make new and abrogate the old and Fundamentall Laws of this Land which I judge to be the present case Wherefore when I was brought hither I expected that you would have studied to satisfie me in those Fundamentals which do hinder me from puting in my Answer to the pretended charge but since I do observe that nothing which I can alledge can perswade you to it although negatives are not so naturally proved as affirmatives yet I have thought good to declear unto you the Reasons for which I am confident you are not in a capacity to judge me nor the vilest man in England for without showing my Reasons I will not as you be so unreasonable importunate as to exact either belief or obedience from my Subjects Here was I restrained and not suffered to speak any more of Reasons there is no just Processe against any man which deriveth not its authority either from the Law of God or from the municipall Laws of the Land Now I am most sure that the Processe at this day made against me cannot be confirmed by the law of God for on the contrary the necessity of obedience is cleerely confirmed and streightly commanded in the old and new Testament which if it be denyed I am prepared presently to prove it and as for the question now in agitation it is said there Where the word of a King is there is power and who can say unto him what doest thou Eccles 8. v. 4. Then as to the Laws of the land I am as confident that no learned Lawyer will affirm that any charge can be brought against the King since they all go forth under his name and it is one of their axioms that the King cannot do any injury Moreover the law on which you do ground your processe is either old or new if it be old shew that law unto me if it be new tell me what Authority established by the Fundamentall laws of this land did give it birth and when but how the House of Commons can erect a Tribunall of Justice which was never one it self as all Lawyers will confesse with me I leave it to God and to the world to judge and it will seeme most strange to any who ever have heard of the laws of England how they can pretend to make laws without either the King or the House of Peers Neverthelesse it be admited but not granted that a Commission from the people of England is able to confirm your pretended power yet I see nothing that you can show for it for I am confident that you never asked that question of the 10th man in the Kingdome in this method you do a most apparent injury even to the poorest ploughman if you ask not his consent neither can you pretend any coluor to this your pretended Commission if you have not the concurring voyces of at least the greatest part of this Nation of every degree and quality which you are so far from obtaining that I am confident you never so much as sought it You see then that I do not onely speake for my own Right as I am your King but also for the true liberty of all my subjects which confisteth not in dividing the power of Government but in living under such laws and such a Government as may grant them the best security of their lives and the propriety of their goods In this I ought not to be forgetfull neither do I forget the priviledges of both Houses of Parliament which these proceedings do not onely violate but give an occasion of the greatest breaking of the publick faith and such I believe as the like was never heard of before with which I will not at all charge both Houses for the pretended crime which they impose upon me are far before the Treaty at Newport in which when I assented to and did conclude as much as possibly lay in my power and did justly expect the assent of both Houses I was suddenly taken from thence and carried a way as a prisoner and against my will I was hurried hither and since I came to this Court I cannot with all my Indeavours defend the ancient laws and liberties of this Kingdome together with my just priviledges and as much as I can possiblely discern the upper House which is the House of Lords is totally excluded And as for the House of Commons it is to much known that the greater part of them are either imprisoned or affrighted from fitting so that if I had no other Cause this was sufficient enough to make me Protest against the authority of your pretended Tribunall Besides all these things the peace of the Kingdome is not the least part of my cares and what hope can there be of establishing it as long as power reigneth without the Rule of the law changing the whole frame of the Government under which this Kingdome hath flourished these many ages neither will I speak what is likely to follow if these unlawfull proceedings shall yet continue against me for I believe the Commons of England will give you no thankes for this change especially when they shall call into their mindes how happily they heretofore have lived in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and of the King my Father and in my own Reign before the beginnings of these unhappy tumults and they will have a just cause to doubt if they shall be so happy in any new Government In that time it will most evidently appeare that I onely took up Armes to defend the Fundamentall Lawes of this kingdome against those who opposed my power and totally would have subverted the antient Government Having so briefly declared my Reasons to you for which I could nor submit to your pretended Authority without violation of the Trust which God hath committed to me for the safety and liberty of my people I expect from you either clear Reasons to convince my Judgment by demonstrating to me