Charles the King (41 page)

When the Royalist commander Lisle was executed under the wall of Colchester a few months earlier he had called out to the firing party to come closer, lest they miss him as they had missed him so often in battle. That was the spirit which must stand on trial at Westminster, that was the pride which must be humbled under the common headsman's axe.

It was now the 20th January, and he had given orders the previous evening that the King should be brought to London for his trial. Westminster Hall was ready, the benches were set up and the railings which would divide the Court and the spectators had been hammered into place a week before. Everything was ready but the legal formula without which even he could not deliver Charles to be tried for his life.

There was a knock on his door but Cromwell was too preoccupied to hear it. Some were suggesting that he murder the King or have him poisoned, but Cromwell was too wise for that. The army wanted him to die a public death, and a public death left no doubt in anybody's mind what happened to the enemies of the army and the army's general. When the door opened, he swung round, his face reddening irritably. His son-in-law, Ireton stood in front of him. He looked at Cromwell uncomfortably. “General, excuse me … I knocked but you didn't hear me. The Commission are sitting in the Painted Chamber and they have asked for you to be present.”

“What do they want with me?” Cromwell demanded. “Don't they know their business?—Can't they get on with it and have done? They've been deliberating about law and forms for three weeks and nothing has been decided! God give me patience—must I write out the procedures for them and act as judge and jury too? Come on, then,” he said angrily, “come on and get this business over. Nothing is carried out without my standing watchdog over them …”

They sat in the old Banqueting Hall, and Rubens's gorgeous painting glowed above their heads as it had done once above the glittering Courts of Charles; his chair of State was taken down and Cromwell seated himself at the head of the long table in the place where the King had spent so many happy hours watching Henrietta dancing.

One of the members was talking. Cromwell knew the voice—it belonged to Henry Marten, one of the staunchest of the Independents.

“The King began the Civil War in order to win for himself an unlimited and tyrannical power. He corrupted our allies and was the deliberate instigator of that second conflict which has just been resolved by force of arms. He is guilty on both these charges and the whole is simply this, sirs, that the King has committed treason against the Realm. What more do we require than that?”

“The authority to try him. We must establish that authority or else we make the King a victim and ourselves plain murderers.”

That was the lawyer, John Bradshaw. Cromwell turned his back on them and went to stand by the window. He was still standing there when the barge drew up at the waterfront steps at the edge of the garden leading to Cotton House. He stiffened and pulled back the curtains to the edge to get a better view. He knew that figure in the middle of a guard of soldiers because it was smaller and slighter than the rest, and dressed in sober black, with a wide-brimmed, feathered hat hiding the face. He saw one of the officers give the prisoner his hand to help him disembark, and then the little company began to walk up the path between the bare trees until it disappeared into Cotton House where he had ordered them to lodge the King.

When Cromwell turned round his face was as grey as the Thames water; his voice sounded very loud and harsh with a strange tremor in it, and the Commissioners became suddenly silent.

“He is come, my friends, he is come! Now we must do that great work which the nation is full of. Therefore we must resolve here and now what answer we will give the King when he comes before us. Do you not know that his first question will be, ‘By what authority do you try me?'”

It was not only an order, it was a cry of appeal. His nerves were so shaken by the sight of that figure walking unhurriedly through the freezing garden as if he were about to enter his own Palace at Whitehall, that Cromwell's whole massive body trembled. At first no one answered him. They stared at him, discomforted by the wild, expression and the clenching hands, and then they looked at one another.

“Answer!” Cromwell strode up to them and shouted. “Answer or be ready to let him go free!” and he pointed towards Cotton House. At last someone moved, someone pushed their chair back and stood up. It was Henry Marten.

“We try him in the name of the Commons assembled in Parliament and all the good people of England.”

“Enough!” To their astonishment Cromwell laughed and the ghastly pallor began to fade, his cheeks and forehead were as red as fire and there was an unholy, roistering joy in the face which had been grey and contorted a moment before. God had given the sign. Not in the legal quibbling of a lot of doubting old women who lived by their law-books, but out of the mouth of plain Henry Marten.

“By Parliament and the people!” he repeated. “That is our ordinance, and by God's Grace we'll see to it that right is done! Enough now, friends, put up your pens and papers. The trial begins this afternoon.”

The Commissioners rose to their feet and left the Hall, some of them bowing to the General, and as the last of them went out Cromwell went up to Ireton and stopped him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.

“By the Parliament and the good people of England, my son! I will meet you at Westminster Hall at one o'clock.”

Charles had not been inside Westminster Hall since the time he had sat there listening to the trial of Strafford. He came from Cotton House in a sedan chair, so closely surrounded by Ironside soldiers that his view of the streets was completely obscured. But as he stepped from the sharp January sunlight into that cold dark entrance of the ancient Hall, he shivered and looked around him for a moment without recognizing it. He hesitated on the threshold, and Colonel Hacket, the rough and ill-bred officer who had been his chief escort on the journey to London, attempted to take his arm and urge him forward. Charles felt that touch, and for a moment his self-control snapped. He wrenched his arm away from Hacket and, stopping, he turned on him so quickly and with such an expression of fury that the man recoiled.

“How dare you put your hand on me! Remember who I am and what you are!”

His eyes were accustomed to the altered light and he saw that the interior of the Hall had been completely transformed. A platform covered the far end of the Hall and there were ranks of benches on it under the great window. These were filled by his judges, and in front of them he saw the mace on a covered table. The body of the chamber was divided by a long gangway lined with wooden rails and guarded by pikemen and musketeers. Behind these rails he saw the people, massed in hundreds pushing and craning to see him come forward to his public humiliation.

Charles had annoyed his guards by taking so long a time about his dressing that he was told he would be late. But at no time in his reign of twenty-four years had appearances mattered more to him than on that occasion. His suit was of deep black velvet, his cloak was also black but lined with bright blue satin and the colour matched the brilliant ribbon of the Garter which hung round his neck, the magnificent jewelled St. George and Dragon ornament suspended from it.

The Garter Star was richly embroidered on the shoulder of his cloak, and his broad black velvet hat was covered in sable plumes. He carried a tall ebony stick with a gold mount and after he had inspected the inside of the Hall, he tapped it sharply on the ground and gave the order to march forward. The soldiers moved even before Hacket could intervene. He found himself pushing forward out of step and Charles turned round and said curtly, “Hurry, if you please, but take care not to come too close lest you brush up against me. I dislike it.”

He felt the people watching him, and he was almost overcome by the heat and the smell of them as he advanced down the centre of the Hall. He did not look to either side of him, he walked slowly as he was accustomed to do when passing among his subjects, with his eyes fixed high ahead. For a moment he glanced quickly at the end of the Hall where the Court had sat for Strafford's trial and looked for the little box with its concealing grille which had been built for him and Henrietta. Its place was taken by a gallery full of favoured spectators who were thus able to look down upon the platform itself. At the end of the platform, facing the ranks of judges, a railed enclosure had been placed for him, with a red velvet chair and a table. As he observed, his back would be to the people in the Hall, and a view of his shoulders and the back of his head was unlikely to invite much of their sympathy.

The soldiers divided, and he walked between them to his chair and sat down. He did not once look at the judges or even behave as if he knew that they were there. Bradshaw was the elected President of the Court and he rose, followed by a rustling and coughing as the other seventy followed, and in a loud voice, louder still because he was nervous, Bradshaw began to read the charges. Charles heard the indictment begin and after the first few sentences concerning the titles of the Parliament and the Court he laid his cane against the side of the chair and getting up he half turned and looked round at the galleries on his left and right. They were full of people, many of whom he recognized from the days when they had attended his Courts at Whitehall. The Countess of Carlisle was not among them however, and Charles remembered that she was in the Tower on the orders of General Cromwell. It was rumoured that the General disliked her and suspected her of intriguing with the Presbyterians. It was also rumoured that he had threatened her with the rack unless she revealed her activities in detail.

Charles put the thought of Lucy Carlisle out of his mind. For if he thought of the past or Henrietta or entertained for a moment more the tragic memories of this place and its associations with the unjust condemnation of his greatest friend and Minister, his contempt for his accusers might change into anger, and he was determined to show them nothing but contempt. Contempt was in his face and in the casual way in which he reseated himself, examined the pen on the table before him to see if the nib was suitable, and then after a moment or two yawned, and got up and looked down the end of the Hall where the ordinary spectators were gathered. He had sat down again, having heard every word of the indictment in which he was accused of starting the Civil War and instigating the second outbreak, when Bradshaw said that he was a tyrant and a traitor, and to his astonishment, the King put his head back and facing them all for the first time, laughed out loud. Bradshaw was so put off by this that he stammered over the rest of the charges, and sat down with his puffy face scarlet. He collected himself and leaning forward he addressed the King.

“What answer do you make to these charges brought against you?”

At the back of the last row of benches, Cromwell leaned forward. He had felt sure from the moment Charles entered the Hall that the King would refuse to plead. He was even human enough to be angry at the contempt and indifference Charles had shown for his elaborate and intimidating set-piece. The elegant, dignified figure in his splendid black, with one ancient Royal Order blazing on his breast and shoulder, made the ranks of soldiers and gentlemen and the President Bradshaw look ridiculous merely by sitting with his legs crossed and gazing at the ceiling while they spoke.

But now he had to answer. The man who on public occasions had such an impediment in his speech that he had addressed his Commons as seldom as possible and deputed others to read long speeches for him, must now stand before an audience of many hundreds and answer for his own life. Cromwell sat forward to see and hear. He confidently expected that nervous strain would render the King incomprehensible.

The King folded his hands over the top of his cane and his voice carried very clearly and distinctly to the furthest corners of the Hall. He spoke slowly but without a trace of hesitation.

“If you will tell me by what authority you ask that question, and by what authority I sit here, I shall be willing to answer you. But first, remember that I am your King.” There was a second's pause and he stood up. Cromwell thanked God that he had had the foresight to place him as he did, so that he was practically hidden from the majority of the people present.

“Remember,” Charles' voice rang out, “that I am your lawful King, and the sins you bring upon your heads and the judgment of God upon this land. Think well on it before you go further from one sin to a greater, and tell me by what lawful authority I am seated here. Then I will answer you. But in the meantime I will not betray my trust.” Cromwell saw that the King's pale face had coloured slightly, and for the first time the stern tones wavered and he showed some sign of emotion. “I have a trust committed to me, by God and by old and lawful descent. I will not betray it to answer something new and unlawful.”

“I knew it.” Henry Marten was seated on the other side of Cromwell; they were divided by a backcloth emblazoned with the arms of the new Commonwealth of England. He leaned across to whisper. “I knew he would refuse to answer. What will Bradshaw do now?”

“Proceed without it,” Cromwell snapped back. “It doesn't matter what he says. The Court will find him guilty!”

“Amen,” Marten murmured and sat back.

Bradshaw spoke up as soon as the King had re-seated himself. He was sufficiently irritated by the nature of the King's answer to make an elementary mistake, which Cromwell detected immediately the words had left his mouth.

“The authority is that of the people of England by whom you were elected King!”

“No, Sir!” There was a note of mockery in the King's voice. “I deny that. This is not an elective but an hereditary Kingdom for these last thousand years. That answer will not do at all. I stand more for the liberty of my people than any here who pretend to be my judges!”