The British nation a history / by George MWrong . quired all his resolution. The House of Lords, inwhich there were now rarely more than a dozen members,refused to aid in judging the king, and the Scots, alwaysstrong for the monarchy, protested against the menace ofdeath to him ; but a few determined men carried out whatthey believed to be the will of God. On January 6, thepurged Commons took the revolutionary step of creatingon its own authority a High Court of Justice consistingof 135 persons (of whom only 68 would act) to try Charlesfor treason in levying war upon the Parliament and king-do
The British nation a history / by George MWrong . quired all his resolution. The House of Lords, inwhich there were now rarely more than a dozen members,refused to aid in judging the king, and the Scots, alwaysstrong for the monarchy, protested against the menace ofdeath to him ; but a few determined men carried out whatthey believed to be the will of God. On January 6, thepurged Commons took the revolutionary step of creatingon its own authority a High Court of Justice consistingof 135 persons (of whom only 68 would act) to try Charlesfor treason in levying war upon the Parliament and king-dom. On January 20, he was brought to Westminster Hall,but he refused to plead or to acknowledge the court thattried him. The proceedings went on for a week. Manyof Charless judges would have shrunk from carrying thecase through to the end had not Cromwell and Iretonheld them to their task. I tell you, Cromwell answered 376 THE BRITISH NATION to some questionings of Algernon Sydney, we will cuL offhis head with the crown upon it. On January 27 the. The House of a print of 1648. king was sentenced to death. He still firmly believedthat to no human tribunal was he responsible, and be-fore that of Cod he was ready to stand: I fear notdeath. Death is not terrible to me ; I bless my God I amprepared. On a frosty morning, the 30th of January,1649, with his guards he walked rapidly from St. JamessPalace across the park to Whitehall. For two or threehours he was kept waiting in a bedchamber of the palace,but about two in the afternoon came the final the king stepped through a window of the ban-queting hall to the scaffold he was in the presence of agreat crowd thronging the streets, the windows, and theroofs of houses, lie spoke, but liis voice could hardlyreach beyond those with him on the scaffold. I am the THE STUART MONARCHY 377 martyr of the people, he said, and in his heart he believedthat the laws and liberties of England were safer in akings hands than in
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