Virgin Earth

Tuesday, 23 January 1649

The hall doors did not open until midday. John and Alexander were chilled and bored by the time they pushed their way in. At once John’s eyes were taken by a great shield, white with the red cross of St. George, hung above the commissioners’ table, which was draped in a richly colored Turkey rug.

“What does it mean?” he asked Alexander. “Will they sentence him without another word?”

“If they decide that his silence means guilt then he cannot speak,” Alexander said. “Once sentence is pronounced he’ll just be taken out. That’s how all the courts work. There’s nothing more to say.”

John nodded in silence, his face dark.

There was a sympathetic murmur as the guards brought the king into court. John could see traces of strain in his face, especially around his dark, solemn eyes. But he looked at the commissioners as if he despised them and he dropped into his chair as if it were his convenience to be seated before them.

John Bradshaw, the man with the hardest task in England, pulled the brim of his hat down to his eyebrows and looked at the king as if he were not far off begging him to see reason. He spoke quietly, reminding the king that the court was asking him, once more, to answer the charges.

The king looked up from turning a ring on his finger. “When I was here yesterday I was interrupted,” he said sulkily.

“You can make the best defense you can,” Bradshaw promised him. “But only after you have given a positive answer to the charges.”

It was opening a door for the king; at once he soared into grandeur. “For the charges I care not a rush…” he started.

“Just plead not guilty,” John whispered to himself. “Just deny tyranny and treason.”

He could have shouted his advice out loud, nothing would have stopped the king. Bradshaw himself tried to interrupt.

“By your favor you ought not to interrupt me. How I came here I know not; there’s no law to make your king your prisoner.”

“But-” Bradshaw started.

The king’s outflung hand meant that Bradshaw should be silenced. The Lord President of the court tried again against the king’s torrent of speech. He gave up and nodded to the clerk of the court to read the charge.

John looked over to where Cromwell was sitting, his chin in his hands, watching the king dominating his own trial, his face grim.

The clerk read the long, wordy charge again. John heard his voice tremble at the embarrassment of being forced to read over and over again to a man who ignored him.

“You are before a court of justice,” Bradshaw asserted.

“I see I am before a power,” the king said provocatively. He rose to his feet and made that little gesture with his hand again which was a cue for a servant to bow and go. John recognized it at once but did not think that any other man in the court would realize that they had been dismissed. The king did not care to stay any longer.

“Answer the charges,” John whispered soundlessly as the guards closed around him and the king walked from the court.