had an
unanswerable case, and he was enough of a lawyer to make the most of it.
Bradshaw, on the other hand, seems, to me at least, to have played his
part not badly. Considering all things, I do not myself see that his
behaviour to Charles was unnecessarily harsh. If you have made up your
mind to cut off a man's head, and if you are aware that your position as
a judge is a false one, you are bound to assert your authority without
much regard to prisoners' feelings, or even good manners. I am not in a
position to discuss what effect the essential illegality of the trial,
from a formal point of view, produced on contemporary and subsequent
opinion; but I think it may safely be said that the trial presents the
most striking example to be found in English history of the view held in
this country of the authority of the law. I have only to add that in
this trial I have reproduced the original report exactly as I found it.

On Saturday, being the 20th day of January 1649, the Lord
President of the High Court of Justice,[20] with near fourscore
of the members of the said Court, having sixteen gentlemen with
partizans, and a sword, and a mace, with their and other
officers of the said Court, marching before them, came to the
place ordered to be prepared for their sitting at the west-end
of the great Hall at Westminster; where the Lord President, in a
crimson velvet chair, fixed in the midst of the Court, placed
himself, having a desk with a crimson-velvet cushion before him;
the rest of the members placing themselves on each side of him
upon several seats, or benches, prepared and hung with scarlet
for that purpose; and the partizans dividing themselves on each
side of the court before them.

The Court being thus sat, and Silence made, the great gate of
the said Hall was set open, to the end that all persons without
exception, desirous to see or hear, might come into it. Upon
which the Hall was presently filled, and silence again ordered.

This done, colonel Thomlinson, who had the charge of the
Prisoner, was commanded to bring him to the Court; who within a
quarter of an hour's space brought him, attended with about
twenty officers with partizans, marching before him, there being
other gentlemen, to whose care and custody he was likewise
committed, marching in his rear.

Being thus brought up within the face of the Court, the