State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
History
State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
Trials -- Great Britain
LORD PRESIDENT--You disavow us as a Court; and therefore for you
to address yourself to us, not acknowledging us as a Court to
judge of what you say, it is not to be permitted. And the truth
is, all along, from the first time you were pleased to disavow
and disown us, the Court needed not to have heard you one word;
For unless they be acknowledged a Court, and engaged, it is not
proper for you to speak. Sir, we have given you too much liberty
already, and admitted of too much delay, and we may not admit of
any farther. Were it proper for us to do it, we should hear you
freely; and we should not have declined to hear you at large,
what you could have said or proved on your behalf, whether for
totally excusing, or for in part excusing those great and
heinous Charges, that in whole or in part are laid upon you.
But, Sir, I shall trouble you no longer; your sins are of so
large a dimension, that if you do but seriously think of them,
they will drive you to a sad consideration of it, and they may
improve in you a sad and serious repentance; And that the Court
doth heartily wish that you may be so penitent for what you have
done amiss, that God may have mercy, at leastwise, upon your
better part: Truly, Sir, for the other, it is our parts and
duties to do that, which the law prescribes. We are not here
_jus dare_ but _jus dicere_. We cannot be unmindful of what the
Scripture tells us; 'For to acquit the Guilty is of equal
Abomination, as to condemn the Innocent.' We may not acquit the
Guilty. What sentence the law affirms to a Traitor, Tyrant, a
Murderer, and a public Enemy to the Country, that Sentence you
are now to hear read unto you; and that is the Sentence of the
Court.
The Lord President commands the sentence to be read: make an O yes, and
command Silence while the Sentence is read.
O yes made: Silence commanded.
The Clerk read the Sentence, which was drawn up in Parchment:
'Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them
an High Court of Justice, for the Trying of Charles Stuart, King
of England, before whom he had been three times convened; and at
the first time a Charge of High-Treason, and other Crimes and
Misdemeanors, was read in the behalf of the Kingdom of England,'
etc. [Here the Clerk read the Charge.] 'Which Charge being read
unto him, as aforesaid, he the said Charles Stuart was required
to give his Answer: But he refused so to do; and so expressed
the several Passages of his Trial in refusing to answer. For all
which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge, That the said
Charles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a Public
Enemy, shall be put to Death, by the severing his Head from His
Body.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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