ndid proof of the sovereignty of the
people and of the responsibility of kings.[1][a] When the motion was made
in the Commons, a few ventured to oppose it, not so much with the hope of
saving the life of Charles, as for the purpose of transferring the odium of
his death on its real authors. They suggested that the person of the king
was sacred; that history afforded no precedent of a sovereign compelled
to plead before a court of judicature composed of his own subjects; that
measures of vengeance could only serve to widen the bleeding wounds of the
country; that it was idle to fear any re-action in favour of the monarch,
and it was now time to settle on a permanent basis the liberties of the
country. But their opponents were clamorous, obstinate, and menacing. The
king, they maintained, was the capital delinquent; justice required that he
should suffer as well as the minor offenders. He had been guilty of treason
against the people, it remained for _their_ representatives to bring

[Footnote 1: Clarendon, Hist. iii. 249.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. Dec. 29.]

him to punishment; he had shed the blood of man, God made it a duty to
demand his blood in return. The opposition was silenced; and a committee of
thirty-eight members was appointed to receive information and to devise the
most eligible manner of proceeding. Among the more influential names were
those of Widdrington and Whitelock, Scot and Marten. But the first two
declined to attend; and, when the clerk brought them a summons, retired
into the country.[1]

[a]At the recommendation of this committee, the house passed a vote
declaratory of the law, that it was high treason in the king of England,
for the time being, to levy war against the parliament and kingdom of
England; and this was followed up with an ordinance erecting a high court
of justice to try the question of fact, whether Charles Stuart, king
of England, had or had not been guilty of the treason described in the
preceding vote. But the subserviency of the Commons was not imitated by the
Lords. They saw the approaching ruin of their own order in the fall of the
sovereign; and when the vote and ordinance were transmitted to their house,
they rejected both without a dissentient voice, and then adjourned for a
week.[b] This unexpected effort surprised, but did not disconcert, the
Independents.[c] They prevailed on the Commons to vote that the people are
the origin of all just power, and from this theoretica