he authority of the people of England, who had elected
him king; Charles making the obvious reply that he was king by
inheritance and not by election, that England had been for more than
1000 years an hereditary kingdom, and Bradshaw cutting short the
discussion by adjourning the court. On the 22nd Charles repeated his
reasoning, adding, "It is not my case alone; it is the freedom and
liberty of the people of England, and do you pretend what you will, I
stand more for their liberties, for if power without law may make laws
... I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his
life or anything that he calls his own." On the 23rd he again refused to
plead. The court was adjourned, and there were several signs that the
army in their prosecution of the king had not the nation at their back.
While the soldiers had shouted "Justice! justice!" as the king passed
through their ranks, the civilian spectators from the end of the hall
had cried "God save the king!" There was considerable opposition and
reluctance to proceed among the members of the court. On the 26th,
however, the court decided unanimously upon his execution, and on the
27th Charles was brought into court for the last time to hear his
sentence. His request to be heard before the Lords and Commons was
rejected, and his attempts to answer the charges of the president were
silenced. Sentence was pronounced, and the king was removed by the
soldiers, uttering his last broken protest: "I am not suffered to speak.
Expect what justice other people will have."

In these last hours Charles, who was probably weary of life, showed a
remarkable dignity and self-possession, and a firm resignation supported
by religious faith and by the absolute conviction of his own innocence,
which, says Burnet, "amazed all people and that so much the more because
it was not natural to him. It was imputed to a very extraordinary
measure of supernatural assistance....; it was owing to something within
himself that he went through so many indignities with so much true
greatness without disorder or any sort of affectation." Nothing in his
life became Charles like the leaving it. "He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene." On the morning of the 29th of January he
said his last sad farewell to his younger children, Elizabeth and Henry,
duke of Gloucester. On the 30th at ten o'clock he walked across from St
James's to Whitehall, calling on his guard "in a pleasant man