An officer then arose to read the charge. The king made a gesture for him to be silent. He, however, persisted in his reading, although the king once or twice attempted to interrupt him. The president, too, ordered him to proceed. The charge recited the evils and calamities which had resulted from the war, and concluded by saying that "the said Charles Stuart is and has been the occasioner, author, and continuer of the said unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars, and is therein guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages, and mischiefs to this nation acted and committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby." The president then sharply rebuked the king for his interruptions to the proceedings, and asked him what answer he had to make to the impeachment. The king replied by demanding by what authority they pretended to call him to account for his conduct. He told them that he was their king, and they his subjects; that they were not even the Parliament, and that they had no authority from any true Parliament to sit as a court to try him; that he would not betray his own dignity and rights by making any answer at all to any charges they might bring against him, for that would be an acknowledgment of their authority; but he was convinced that there was not one of them who did not in his heart believe that he was wholly innocent of the charges which they had brought against him. These proceedings occupied the first day. The king was then sent back to his place of confinement, and the court adjourned. The next day, when called upon to plead to the impeachment, the king only insisted the more strenuously in denying the authority of the court, and in stating his reasons for so denying it. The court were determined not to hear what he had to say on this point, and the president continually interrupted him; while he, in his turn, continually interrupted the president too. It was a struggle and a dispute, not a trial. At last, on the fourth day, something like testimony was produced to prove that the king had been in arms against the forces of the Parliament. On the fifth and sixth days, the judges sat in private to come to their decision; and on the day following, which was Saturday, January 27th, they called the king again before them, and opened the doors to admit the great assembly of spectators, that the decision might be announced.