The following report was first published 'by Authority, to prevent false and impertinent relations.' It was licensed by Gilbert Mabbot, and, so far as one can judge from internal evidence, is rather the slightly amplified transcript of a barrister's note, than the work of anybody who in those days might represent a modern newspaper reporter. The whole is carelessly put together, as far as form is concerned; the grammar is often halting, and the sentences are not always finished. But I should suppose that all the arguments used on either side are fairly indicated, except in those places where it is suggested in a note that 'authority' made excisions. If such excisions were made, however, the fact that the gaps were left in their present state is evidence of the substantial accuracy and fairness of the rest of the report. Taking a purely legal view of the matter, which no one will pretend covers the whole, or indeed the most important part of the case, one does not see why, if Bradshaw left in as much as he did, he should not have left in everything. From the point of view of defending counsel, Charles 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.