him, and the clerks of the court sitting be low him at a table covered with a rich Tur key carpet, on which rested the sword and mace. The rest of the courts, with their hats on, " and dressed," says Rushworth, "in their best habits," took their seats on the side benches. When the king entered he was taken to a crimson velvet chair, facing Bradshaw. He showed neither the least emotion nor the slightest respect to the tribunal which was to declare his inno cence or guilt. The lord president announced the court open, and told the king that the commission had been appointed by the commons of England to inquire into the acts of the king and fix the responsibility for the shedding of innocent blood. When Cook, the solicitor for the com monwealth, rose to read the indictment, Charles laid his staff on his shoulder and ordered him to refrain from such a crime against his king. The court commanded Cook to proceed, and told the king that if he had anything to say after the charge had been read, the court would hear him. The charge, the f1rst ever framed against a king, was an indictment for the offense of treason in " levying war " against the sove reign people. The prosecution was not in the name of the king, but in that of " the people of England." It was admitted that Charles was king of England, trusted with "a limited right to govern according to the laws, and by his trust and oath being obliged to use his power for the good of his people and for the preservation of their liberties; yet, out of wicked design and to uphold in himself unlimited and tyrannical power, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of his people, and to take away the foundation thereof, for the accomplishment of his de signs, treacherously and wickedly levied war against the parliament and the people rep resented therein, particularly ..." here followed a list of battles fought between the royalists and parliamentarians, " by which
unnatural war much innocent blood of the free people of this nation had been spilt, families undone, the public treasury wasted and exhausted, trade decayed, and parts of the land spoiled even to desolation. All of which wicked designs and wars were carried on for the advancement of a personal inter est of will and power, and a pretended pre rogative to himself and his family, against the liberty and peace of the nation, by and for whom he was entrusted as aforesaid." The king smiled several times during the reading of the charge, but when the prose cutor asked that the king should be adjudged guilty of murder and treason, he became excited and raised his cane angrily. A sil ver crown which formed the head of the cane dropped off, and Charles sank down in his chair, muttering, " It is all over! All is lost! " He looked on the accident as an evil omen. Being asked what he had to say in refer ence to the charge he had heard read, Charles denied the authority of the court, and asserted that only God could call him to an accounting, for he was king " by God's will." Waving his hand above his head, he shouted, " Let me see a legal au thority warranted by the word of God, the Scriptures, and I will answer." The lord president remained cool, and said that if the king refused to answer the charge the court would adjourn and con sider the course of procedure. Charles again called on his judges to produce au thority which should " satisfy God and then the countty." Upon being told that the commons had created the tribunal and that the people were the sovereign rulers of the country and that the king held power from them, he angrily denounced such principles as blasphemous, and maintained that no court could have any jurisdiction, because a man could only be tried by his peers and the king had no peer. In his summing up, the lord president thus answered this assertion of the king :
