The king lived at Windsor in a strange security, more merry than his servants had seen him for a long while. "I have three cards to play," he said, "and the worst may enable me to regain all." A significant sign, however, troubled his repose. Hitherto he had been served upon bended knees, with all the forms used at court. Suddenly, upon an order coming from headquarters, the ceremony disappeared, and the canopy which surmounted the royal chair was taken away. Charles was keenly affected at this. "Is there anything more contemptible than a despised prince?" he said; and he desired henceforth to take his meals in his apartment, in order to escape the contrast between the present and the past, in this same Windsor Castle. On the 19th of January, the king was transferred to London, and lodged in St. James's palace. "God is everywhere," he said, when attendants came to prepare him for departure, "and everywhere the same in power and goodness." Nevertheless he was visibly affected. On the morrow, the 20th, towards noon, it was announced to the high court that the king, borne in a close sedan-chair between two rows of soldiers, was about to arrive. Cromwell hastened to the window, pale, but nevertheless very animated. "He is come! he is come!" he said, "and now we are doing that great work that the whole nation will be full of; therefore I desire you let us resolve here what answer we shall give the king when he comes before us: for the first question he will ask us will be by what authority and commission we do try him." {187} No one spoke. "In the name of the Commons and Parliament assembled, and of all the good people of England," said Henry Martyn. The doors opened; the mob rushed into the Hall. "Sergeant," said Bradshaw, "let the prisoner be brought in." The king appeared under the custody of Colonel Hacker and thirty-two officers. He advanced, cast a long and severe look upon the tribunal, and sat down, without removing his hat, upon the chair prepared for him at the bar; then, rising, he looked behind him at the guard placed upon the left, and the crowd of spectators on the right of the hall; he resumed his seat, looked again at the judges, and waited. Bradshaw immediately arose. "Charles Stuart, King of England," he said, "the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament, being deeply sensible of the calamities that have been brought upon this nation which are fixed upon you as the principal author of them, have resolved to make inquisition for blood. You are about to hear the charges which weigh upon you."