State Trials, Political and Social Volume I Part 9

KING--Not in this that I have said.

LORD PRESIDENT--I understand you well, Sir; but nevertheless, that which you have offered seems to be contrary to that saying of yours; for the Court are ready to give a Sentence; It is not as you say, That they will not hear your king; for they have been ready to hear you, they have patiently waited your pleasure for three Courts together, to hear what you would say to the People's Charge against you, to which you have not vouchsafed to give any Answer at all. Sir, this tends to a further delay; truly, Sir, such delays as these, neither may the kingdom nor justice well bear; you have had three several days to have offered in this kind what you would have pleased. This Court is founded upon that Authority of the Commons of England in whom rests the supreme jurisdiction; that which you now tender is to have another jurisdiction, and a co-ordinate jurisdiction. I know very well you express yourself, Sir, that notwithstanding that you would offer to the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, yet nevertheless you would proceed on here, I did hear you say so. But, Sir, that you would offer there, whatever it is, it must needs be in delay of the Justice here; so as if this Court be resolved, and prepared for the Sentence, this that you offer they are not bound in justice to grant; But, Sir, according to what you seem to desire, and because you shall know the further pleasure of the Court upon that which you have moved, the Court will withdraw for a time.

KING--Shall I withdraw?

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you shall know the pleasure of the Court presently.

The Court withdraws for half an hour into the Court of Wards.

SERJEANT-AT-ARMS--The Court gives command, that the Prisoner be withdrawn; and they give order for his return again.

The Court withdraws for half an hour and returns.

LORD PRESIDENT--Serjeant-at-Arms, send for your Prisoner.

Sir, you were pleased to make a motion here to the Court to offer a desire of yours, touching the propounding of somewhat to the Lords in the Painted Chamber, for the peace of the kingdom; Sir, you did, in effect, receive an Answer before the Court adjourned; truly, Sir, their withdrawing, and adjournment was _pro forma tantum_: for it did not seem to them that there was any difficulty in the thing; they have considered of what you have moved, and have considered of their own Authority, which is founded, as hath been often said, upon the supreme Authority of the Commons of England a.s.sembled in parliament: the Court acts according to their Commission. Sir, the return I have to you from the Court, is this: That they have been too much delayed by you already, and this that you now offer hath occasioned some little further delay; and they are Judges appointed by the highest Judges; and Judges are no more to delay, than they are to deny Justice: they are good words in the great old Charter of England; _Nulli negabimus, nulli vendemus, nulli differemus Just.i.tiam._ There must be no delay; but the truth is, Sir, and so every man here observes it, that you have much delayed them in your Contempt and Default, for which they might long since have proceeded to Judgment against you; and notwithstanding what you have offered, they are resolved to proceed to Punishment, and to Judgment, and that is their unanimous Resolution.

KING--Sir, I know it is in vain for me to dispute, I am no sceptic for to deny the Power that you have; I know that you have Power enough: Sir, I confess, I think it would have been for the kingdom's peace, if you would have taken the pains for to have shewn the lawfulness of your Power; for this Delay that I have desired, I confess it is a delay, but it is a delay very important for the Peace of the Kingdom; for it is not my person that I look on alone, it is the kingdom's welfare, and the kingdom's peace; it is an old Sentence, That we should think long, before we resolve of great matters. Therefore, Sir, I do say again, that I do put at your doors all the inconveniency of an hasty Sentence. I confess I have been here now, I think, this week; this day eight days was the day I came here first, but a little Delay of a day or two further may give Peace; whereas an hasty Judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconveniency to the kingdom, that the child that is unborn may repent it; and therefore again, out of the duty I owe to G.o.d, and to my country, I do desire that I may be heard by the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, or any other chamber that you will appoint me.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you have been already answered to what you even now moved, being the same you moved before, since the Resolution and the Judgment of the Court in it; and the Court now requires to know whether you have any more to say for yourself than you have said, before they proceed to Sentence?

KING--I say this, Sir, That if you will hear me, if you will give but this Delay, I doubt not but I shall give some satisfaction to you all here, and to my People after that; and therefore I do require you, as you will answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment, that you will consider it once again.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, I have received direction from the Court.

KING--Well, Sir.

LORD PRESIDENT--If this must be re-enforced, or any thing of this nature, your Answer must be the same; and they will proceed to Sentence, if you have nothing more to say.

KING--Sir, I have nothing more to say, but I shall desire, that this may be entered what I have said.

LORD PRESIDENT--The Court then, Sir, hath something else to say to you; which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet notwithstanding they are willing, and are resolved to discharge their duty. Sir, You speak very well of a precious thing, which you call Peace; and it had been much to be wished that G.o.d had put it into your heart, that you had as effectually and really endeavoured and studied the Peace of the kingdom, as now in words you seem to pretend; but, as you were told the other day, actions must expound intentions; yet actions have been clean contrary. And truly, Sir, it doth appear plainly enough to them, that you have gone upon very erroneous principles: The kingdom hath felt it to their smart; and it will be no case to you to think of it; for, Sir, you have held yourself, and let fall such language, as if you had been no way subject to the Law, or that the law had not been your superior. Sir, the Court is very sensible of it, and I hope so are all the understanding people of England, that the law is your superior; that you ought to have ruled according to the law; you ought to have so. Sir, I know very well your pretence hath been that you have done so; but, Sir, the difference hath been who shall be the expositors of this law: Sir, whether you and your party, out of courts of justice, shall take upon them to expound law, or the courts of justice, who are the expounders? Nay, the Sovereign and the High Court of Justice, the Parliament of England, that are not only the highest expounders, but the sole makers of the law? Sir, for you to set yourself with your single judgment, and those that adhere unto you, to set yourself against the highest Court of Justice, that is not law. Sir, as the Law is your Superior, so truly, Sir, there is something that is superior to the Law, and that is indeed the Parent or Author of the Law, and that is the people of England: for, Sir, as they are those that at the first (as other countries have done) did chuse to themselves this form of government even for Justice sake, that justice might be administered, that peace might be preserved; so, Sir, they gave laws to their governors, according to which they should govern; and if those laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudicial to the public, they had a power in them, and reserved to themselves, to alter as they shall see cause. Sir, it is very true what some of your side have said, '_Rex non habet parem in regno_,' say they: This Court will say the same, while King, that you have not your peer in some sense, for you are _major singulis_; but they will aver again that you are _minor universis_. 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_' [Bract., De Leg., lib. I. c.

viii.]

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 ei ponere fraenum_: they ought to bridle him. And, Sir, we know very well the stories of old: those wars that were called the Barons' War, when the n.o.bility of the land did stand out for the Liberty and Property of the Subject, and would not suffer the kings, that did invade, to play the tyrants freer, but called them to account for it; we know that truth, that they did _fraenum ponere_. But, sir, if they do forbear to do their duty now, and are not so mindful of their own honour and the kingdom's good as the Barons of England of old were, certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindful of what is for their preservation, and for their safety; _Just.i.tiae fruendi causa reges const.i.tuti 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, or any other governor will go contrary to the end of his government; Sir, 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 animadversion and punishment of such an offending governor.

This is not law of yesterday, Sir (since the time of the division betwixt you and your people), but it is law of old. And we know very well the Authors and the Authorities that do tell us what the law was in that point upon the Election of Kings upon the Oath that they took unto their people: And if they did not observe it, there were those things called Parliaments; the Parliaments were they that were to adjudge (the very Words of the Author) the plaints and wrongs done of the king and the queen, or their children; such wrongs especially, when the people could have no where else any Remedy. Sir, that hath been the people of England's case: they could not have their Remedy elsewhere but in parliament.

Sir, Parliaments were ordained for that purpose, to redress the Grievances of the people; that was their main end. And truly, Sir, if so be that the kings of England had been rightly mindful of themselves, they were never more in majesty and state than in the Parliament: But how forgetful some have been, Stories have told us, we have a miserable, a lamentable, a sad experience of it. Sir, by the old laws of England, I speak these things the rather to you, because you were pleased to let fall the other day, You thought you had as much knowledge in the Law as most gentlemen in England: it is very well, Sir. And truly, Sir, it is very fit for the gentlemen of England to understand that Law under which they must live, and by which they must be governed.

And then, Sir, the Scripture says, 'They that know their master's will and do it not' what follows? The Law is your master, the acts of parliament.

The Parliaments were to be kept antiently, we find in our old Author, twice in the year, that the Subject upon any occasion might have a ready Remedy and Redress for his Grievance.

Afterwards, by several acts of parliament in the days of your predecessor Edward the third, they should have been once a year.

Sir, what the Intermission of parliaments hath been in your time, it is very well known, and the sad consequences of it; and what in the interim instead of these Parliaments hath been by you by an high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the People, that likewise hath been too well known and felt. But when G.o.d by his Providence had so far brought it about, that you could no longer decline the calling of a Parliament, Sir, yet it will appear what your ends were against the antient and your native kingdom of Scotland: the Parliament of England not serving your ends against them, you were pleased to dissolve it. Another great necessity occasioned the calling of this parliament; and what your Designs, and Plots, and Endeavours all along have been, for the crus.h.i.+ng and confounding of this Parliament, hath been very notorious to the whole kingdom. And truly, Sir, in that you did strike at all; that had been a sure way to have brought about That that this Charge lays upon you, your intention to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Land; for the great bulwark of the Liberties of the People is the Parliament of England; and to subvert and root up that, which your aim hath been to do, certainly at one blow you had confounded the Liberties and the Property of England.

Truly, Sir, it makes me to call to mind; I cannot forbear to express it; for, Sir, we must deal plainly with you, according to the merits of your cause; so is our Commission; it makes me to call to mind (these proceedings of yours) That that we read of a great Roman Emperor, by the way let us call him a great Roman tyrant, Caligula, that wished that the people of Rome had had but one neck, that at one blow he might cut it off. And your proceedings have been somewhat like to this; for the body of the people of England hath been (and where else) represented but in the Parliament; and could you but have confounded that, you had at one blow cut off the neck of England. But G.o.d hath reserved better things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your designs, and to break your forces, and to bring your person into custody, that you might be responsible to justice.

Sir, we know very well that it is a question much on your side press'd, By what Precedent we shall proceed? Truly, Sir, for Precedents, I shall not upon these occasions inst.i.tute any long discourse; but it is no new thing to cite precedents almost of all nations, where the people (where the power hath been in their hands) have made bold to call their Kings to account; and where the change of government hath been upon occasion of the Tyranny and Misgovernment of those that have been placed over them, I will not spend time to mention either France, or Spain, or the Empire, or other countries; volumes may be written of it.

But truly, Sir, that of the kingdom of Arragon, I shall think some of us have thought upon it, where they have the justice of Arragon, that is, a man, _tanquam in medio positus_, betwixt the King of Spain and the people of the country; that if wrong be done by the King, he that is king of Arragon, the justice, hath power to reform the wrong; and he is acknowledged to be the king's superior, and is the grand preserver of their privileges, and hath prosecuted kings upon their miscarriages.

Sir, what the Tribunes of Rome were heretofore, and what the Ephori were to the Lacedemonian State, we know that is the Parliament of England to the English state; and though Rome seemed to lose its liberty when once the Emperors were; yet you shall find some famous acts of justice even done by the Senate of Rome; that great Tyrant of his time, Nero, condemned and judged by the Senate. But truly, Sir, to you I should not need to mention these foreign examples and stories: If you look but over Tweed, we find enough in your native kingdom of Scotland.

If we look to your first King Fergus, that your Stories make mention of, he was an elective king; he died, and left two sons, both in their minority; the kingdom made choice of their uncle, his brother, to govern in the minority. Afterwards the elder brother, giving small hope to the people that he would rule or govern well, seeking to supplant that good uncle of his that governed them justly, they set the elder aside, and took to the younger. Sir, if I should come to what your Stories make mention of, you know very well you are the hundred and ninth king of Scotland; for not to mention so many kings as that kingdom, according to their power and privileges, have made bold to deal withal, some to banish, and some to imprison, and some to put to death, it would be too long: and as one of your own authors says, it would be too long to recite the manifold examples that your own stories make mention of. _Reges_, etc. (say they) we do create: we created kings at first: _Leges_, etc., we imposed laws upon them. And as they are chosen by the suffrages of the People at the first, so upon just occasion, by the same suffrages they may be taken down again. And we will be bold to say, that no kingdom hath yielded more plentiful experience than that your native kingdom of Scotland hath done concerning the Deposition and the Punishment of their offending and transgressing kings.

It is not far to go for an example: near you--Your grandmother set aside, and your Father, an infant, crowned. And the State did it here in England; here hath not been a want of some examples. They have made bold (the Parliament and the People of England) to call their Kings to account; there are frequent examples of it in the Saxons' time, the time before the Conquest. Since the Conquest there want not some Precedents neither; King Edward the Second, King Richard the Second, were dealt with so by the Parliament, as they were deposed and deprived. And truly, Sir, whoever shall look into their Stories, they shall not find the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to that height and capitalness of Crimes that are laid to your Charge; nothing near.

Sir, you were pleased to say, the other day, wherein they dissent; and I did not contradict it. But take all together, Sir; If you were as the Charge speaks, and no otherwise, admitted king of England; but for that you were pleased then to alledge, how that for almost a thousand years these things have been, Stories will tell you, if you go no higher than the time of the Conquest; if you do come down since the Conquest, you are the twenty-fourth king from William called the Conqueror, you shall find one half of them to come merely from the state, and not merely upon the point of descent. It were easy to be instanced to you; but time must not be lost that way. And truly, Sir, what a grave and learned Judge said in his time, and well known to you, and is since printed for posterity, That although there was such a thing as a descent many times, yet the kings of England ever held the greatest a.s.surance of their t.i.tles when it was declared by Parliament. And, Sir, your Oath, the manner of your Coronation, doth shew plainly, that the kings of England, although it is true, by the law the next person in blood is designed: yet if there were just cause to refuse him, the people of England might do it. For there is a Contract and a bargain made between the King and his people, and your Oath is taken; and certainly, Sir, the bond is reciprocal; for as you are the Liege Lord, so they Liege Subjects. And we know very well, that hath been so much spoken of, _Ligeantia est duplex_. This we know, now, the one tie, the one bond, is the Bond of Protection that is due from the sovereign; the other is the Bond of Subjection that is due from the Subject. Sir, if this bond be once broken, farewell sovereignty! _Subjectio trahit_, etc.

These things may not be denied, Sir; I speak it rather, and I pray G.o.d it may work upon your heart, that you may be sensible of your Miscarriages. For whether you have been, as by your office you ought to be, a Protector of England, or the Destroyer of England, let all England judge, or all the world, that hath look'd upon it. Sir, though you have it by inheritance in the way that is spoken of, yet it must not be denied that your office was an office of trust, and indeed an office of the highest trust lodged in any single person; For as you were the Grand Administrator of Justice, and others were, as your delegates, to see it done throughout your realms; if your greatest office were to do Justice, and preserve your People from wrong, and instead of doing that, you will be the great Wrong-doer yourself; if instead of being a Conservator of the Peace, you will be the grand Disturber of the Peace; surely this is contrary to your office, contrary to your trust. Now, Sir, if it be an office of inheritance, as you speak of, your t.i.tle by Descent, let all men know that great offices are seizable and forfeitable, as if you had it but for a year, and for your life.

Therefore, Sir, it will concern you to take into your serious consideration your great Miscarriages in this kind. Truly, Sir, I shall not particularize the many Miscarriages of your reign whatsoever, they are famously known: It had been happy for the kingdom, and happy for you too, if it had not been so much known, and so much felt, as the Story of your Miscarriages must needs be, and hath been already.

Sir, That which we are now upon, by the command of the highest Court, hath been and is to try and judge you for these great offences of your's. Sir, the Charge hath called you Tyrant, a Traitor, a Murderer, and a Public Enemy to the Commonwealth of England. Sir, it had been well if that any of all these terms might rightly and justly have been spared, if any one of them at all.

KING--Ha!

LORD PRESIDENT--Truly, Sir, We have been told '_Rex est dum bene regit, Tyrannus qui populum opprimit_': And if so be that be the definition of a Tyrant, then see how you come short of it in your actions, whether the highest Tyrant, by that way of arbitrary government, and that you have sought for to introduce, and that you have sought to put, you were putting upon the people? Whether that was not as high an Act of Tyranny as any of your predecessors were guilty of, nay, many degrees beyond it?

Sir, the term Traitor cannot be spared. We shall easily agree it must denote and suppose a Breach of Trust; and it must suppose it to be done to a superior. And therefore, Sir, as the people of England might have incurred that respecting you, if they had been truly guilty of it, as to the definition of law; so on the other side, when you did break your trust to the kingdom, you did break your trust to your superior; For the kingdom is that for which you were trusted. And therefore, sir, for this breach of Trust when you are called to account, you are called to account by your superiors. '_Minimus ad majorem in judicium vocat._' And, Sir, the People of England cannot be so far wanting to themselves, G.o.d having dealt so miraculously and gloriously for them: but that having power in their hands, and their great enemy, they must proceed to do justice to themselves and to you: For, Sir, the Court could heartily desire, that you would lay your hand upon your heart, and consider what you have done amiss, that you would endeavour to make your peace with G.o.d. Truly, Sir, these are your High-Crimes, Tyranny and Treason.

There is a third thing too, if those had not been, and that is Murder, which is laid to your charge. All the b.l.o.o.d.y Murders, which have been committed since this time that the division was betwixt you and your people, must be laid to your charge, which have been acted or committed in these late wars. Sir, it is an heinous and crying sin: And truly, Sir, if any man will ask us what Punishment is due to a Murderer, let G.o.d's Law, let man's law speak. Sir, I will presume that you are so well read in Scripture, as to know what G.o.d himself hath said concerning the shedding of man's blood: Gen. IX., Numb. x.x.xV. will tell you what the punishment is: And which this Court, in behalf of the whole kingdom, are sensible of, of that innocent blood that has been shed, whereby indeed the land stands still defiled with that blood; and, as the text hath it, it can no way be cleansed but with the shedding of the Blood of him that shed this blood.

Sir, we know no dispensation from this blood in that Commandment 'Thou shalt do no Murder': We do not know but that it extends to kings as well as to the meanest peasants, the meanest of the people: the command is universal. Sir, G.o.d's law forbids it; Man's law forbids it: Nor do we know that there is any manner of exception, not even in man's laws, for the punishment of murder in you. It is true, that in the case of kings every private hand was not to put forth itself to this work for their reformation and punishment; But, Sir, the people represented having power in their hands, had there been but one wilful act of murder by you committed, had power to have convened you, and to have punished you for it.

But then, Sir, the weight that lies upon you in all those respects that have been spoken, by reason of your Tyranny, Treason, Breach of Trust, and the Murders that have been committed; surely, Sir, it must drive you into a sad consideration concerning your eternal condition. As I said at first, I know it cannot be pleasing to you to hear any such things as these are mentioned unto you from this Court, for so we do call ourselves, and justify ourselves to be a Court, and a high Court of Justice, authorized by the highest and solemnest court of the kingdom, as we have often said; And although you do not yet endeavour what you may to discourt us, yet we do take knowledge of ourselves to be such a Court as can administer Justice to you: and we are bound, Sir, in duty to do it. Sir, all I shall say before the reading of your Sentence, it is but this: The Court does heartily desire that you will seriously think of those evils that you stand guilty of. Sir, you said well to us the other day, you wished us to have G.o.d before our eyes. Truly Sir, I hope all of us have so: That G.o.d, who we know is a King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; that G.o.d with whom there is no respect of Persons; that G.o.d, who is the Avenger of innocent Blood; We have that G.o.d before us; that G.o.d, who does bestow a curse upon them that with-hold their hands from shedding of blood, which is in the case of guilty malefactors, and that do deserve death: That G.o.d we have before our eyes. And were it not that the conscience of our duty hath called us unto this place, and this imployment, Sir, you should have had no appearance of a Court here. But, Sir, we must prefer the discharge of our duty unto G.o.d, and unto the kingdom, before any other respect whatsoever. And although at this time many of us, if not all of us, are severely threatened by some of your party, what they intend to do, Sir, we do here declare, That we shall not decline or forbear the doing of our duty in the administration of Justice, even to you, according to the merit of your Offence although G.o.d should permit those men to effect all that b.l.o.o.d.y design in hand against us. Sir, we will say, and we will declare it, as those Children in the Fiery Furnace, that would not wors.h.i.+p the golden image, that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, 'That their G.o.d was able to deliver them from that danger that they were near unto'; But yet if he would not do it, yet notwithstanding that they would not fall down and wors.h.i.+p the Image. We shall thus apply it; That though we should not be delivered from those b.l.o.o.d.y hands and hearts that conspire the overthrow of the kingdom in general, of us in particular, for acting in this great Work of Justice, though we should perish in the Work, yet by G.o.d's grace, and by G.o.d's strength, we will go on with it. And this is all our resolutions, Sir, I say for yourself, we do heartily wish and desire that G.o.d would be pleased to give you a sense of your sins, that you would see wherein you have done amiss, that you may cry unto him, that G.o.d would deliver you from Blood-guiltiness. A good king was once guilty of that particular thing, and was clear otherwise, saving in the matter of Uriah. Truly, Sir, the Story tells us that he was a repentant king: and it signifies enough, that he had died for it, but that G.o.d was pleased to accept of him, and to give him his pardon, 'Thou shalt not die, but the child shall die: Thou hast given cause to the enemies of G.o.d to blaspheme.'

KING--I would desire only one word before you give Sentence; and that is, that you would hear me concerning those great Imputations that you have laid to my charge.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, You must give me now leave to go on; for I am not far from your Sentence, and your time is now past.

KING--But I shall desire you will hear me a few words to you: For truly, whatever Sentence you will put upon me in respect of those heavy imputations, that I see by your Speech you have put upon me; Sir, It is very true, that----

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, I must put you in mind: Truly, Sir, I would not willingly, at this time especially, interrupt you in anything you have to say, that is proper for us to admit of; but, Sir, you have not owned us as a Court, and you look upon us as a sort of people met together; and we know what language we receive from your party.

KING--I know nothing of that.

LORD PRESIDENT--You disavow us as a Court; and therefore for you to address yourself to us, not acknowledging us as a Court to judge of what you say, it is not to be permitted. And the truth is, all along, from the first time you were pleased to disavow and disown us, the Court needed not to have heard you one word; For unless they be acknowledged a Court, and engaged, it is not proper for you to speak. Sir, we have given you too much liberty already, and admitted of too much delay, and we may not admit of any farther. Were it proper for us to do it, we should hear you freely; and we should not have declined to hear you at large, what you could have said or proved on your behalf, whether for totally excusing, or for in part excusing those great and heinous Charges, that in whole or in part are laid upon you.

But, Sir, I shall trouble you no longer; your sins are of so large a dimension, that if you do but seriously think of them, they will drive you to a sad consideration of it, and they may improve in you a sad and serious repentance; And that the Court doth heartily wish that you may be so penitent for what you have done amiss, that G.o.d may have mercy, at leastwise, upon your better part: Truly, Sir, for the other, it is our parts and duties to do that, which the law prescribes. We are not here _jus dare_ but _jus dicere_. We cannot be unmindful of what the Scripture tells us; 'For to acquit the Guilty is of equal Abomination, as to condemn the Innocent.' We may not acquit the Guilty. What sentence the law affirms to a Traitor, Tyrant, a Murderer, and a public Enemy to the Country, that Sentence you are now to hear read unto you; and that is the Sentence of the Court.

The Lord President commands the sentence to be read: make an O yes, and command Silence while the Sentence is read.

O yes made: Silence commanded.

The Clerk read the Sentence, which was drawn up in Parchment:

'Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an High Court of Justice, for the Trying of Charles Stuart, King of England, before whom he had been three times convened; and at the first time a Charge of High-Treason, and other Crimes and Misdemeanors, was read in the behalf of the Kingdom of England,'

etc. [Here the Clerk read the Charge.] 'Which Charge being read unto him, as aforesaid, he the said Charles Stuart was required to give his Answer: But he refused so to do; and so expressed the several Pa.s.sages of his Trial in refusing to answer. For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge, That the said Charles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a Public Enemy, shall be put to Death, by the severing his Head from His Body.'

After the Sentence read, the Lord President said, This Sentence now read and published, is the Act, Sentence, Judgment, and Resolution of the whole Court.