In the meanwhile the special tribunal established for the trial of the king had commenced its work. At its head sat John Bradshaw, a sergeant-at-law and sometime a judge of the sheriffs’ court of the Wood Street compter in the city.(927) Five aldermen were placed on the commission, viz., Isaac Pennington, Thomas Andrews, Thomas Atkins, Rowland Wilson and John Fowke;(928) but only the first two named took any active part in the trial, and Wilson absolutely declined to serve. Not one of them affixed his signature to the king’s death-warrant. Among the rest of the commissioners were, however, two citizens of repute, viz., Robert Tichborne, afterwards an alderman,(929) and Owen Rowe, both of whom took an active part in the trial and both signed the warrant for the king’s execution. When put upon his trial in October, 1660, for the part he now took, Tichborne pleaded that what he had done was through ignorance, and that had he known more he would sooner have entered a "red hot oven" than the room in which the warrant was signed.(930) His penitence saved his life, and he, like Pennington, spent the remainder of his days in confinement. The proceedings of the trial were unreasonably short and sharp. On Friday, the 19th January, Charles was brought from Windsor to London. On the following day he made his first appearance before his judges. On that day week—Saturday, the 27th—sentence was pronounced, and three days later (30 Jan.) it was carried out before the king’s own banquetting-house at Whitehall. CHAPTER XXVI. (M474) Within a week of the king’s execution the Commons, confident in their own strength and that of the army, voted the abolition of king and house of lords, and declared England to be a Commonwealth.(931) They next proceeded (14 Feb.) to place the executive power in the hands of a Council of State of forty-one members, most of whom were also members of their own body, with Bradshaw as president. Cromwell, Fairfax and Skippon were members of the council, as also were two aldermen of the city, viz., Pennington and Wilson.(932) The post of Secretary for Foreign Languages was offered to a kinsman of Bradshaw, and one of whom the city of London is justly proud, to wit, John Milton. (M475) The revolution which was taking place in the government of the kingdom found its counterpart in the municipal government of the City, where the mayor, aldermen and commons bore close analogy to the king, lords and commons of the realm. The City was but the kingdom in miniature, the kingdom was but the City writ large. No sooner was the house of lords abolished, and with it the right of the lords to veto the Acts of the commons, than the Court of Aldermen was deprived of a similar right over the proceedings of the Common Council. (M476)