made, consisted of only seven peers: neither the earl of Northumberland, nor Manchester, nor Warwick were present; and the peers proceeded no further in the business d. Journals, Jan. 9. Algernon Sidney, in a letter dated the day following, which is inserted in the quarto edition of his works, calls this a "very seasonable" measure. What was however likely to be the operation of such an ordinance? It is not to be supposed that any king of England would ever be put upon his trial, unless he were first either deposed or a prisoner, in either of which cases his jailors or conquerors must be expected to treat him as they pleased. Such a law would therefore in its own nature be nugatory, telum imbelle sine ictu, a threat hung up in idleness, a laughing-stock to him it was meant to control. Sidney adds, probably with as little reason, "I think, if the commons had not been very hasty in turning the ordinance for the king's trial into an act of their own, the lords are now in a temper to have given their assent, if they had received a second message from us." At all events the house of lords, as it was then constituted, and considered in reference to the commonwealth about to be established, was, what a few days after the king's death the commons voted it to be, useless. CHAP. XXV. 1649. 664 II. 1649. CHAPTER XXVI. TRIAL OF THE KING.-BRADSHAW APPOINTED TWO HOUSES. SENTENCE PRONOUNCED. TAKES LEAVE OF HIS CHILDREN. HIS DEATH. BOOK THE commissioners sat for the first time in the Painted Chamber in Westminster Hall, on the eighth of January. The number of those who met of the high was fifty-three. Fairfax was present at this meeting, and never after. The business of this sit First sitting court of justice. • A considerable error seems to have crept into many of our historians as to the political and religious sentiments of Fairfax. In his letter to the speaker, accompanying the remonstrance of the army on the twentieth of November, in which the king's being brought to justice as the capital source of all grievances is especially called for, (See above, p. 630,) he says, “I do, at the desire of the council of war, and in behalf of them and myself, intreat that the remonstrance may have a present reading, and that the things proposed in it may be timely considered." He was therefore an advocate for the king's being tried as a capital offender. With respect to his religious sentiments, Mrs. Hutchinson, who XXVI. 1649. ting was to nominate counsel and the officers of CHAP. the court, to order due proclamation to be made in Westminster Hall of the coming trial by the serjeant at arms, and to appoint the second day after their present meeting, for the next sitting. Similar proclamation was ordered by the house is the highest and most unexceptionable witness to whom we at present have access, says, Vol. II, p. 101, "The generall's lady was exceeding kind to her husband's chaplains, independent ministers, till the army return'd [in 1647] to be nearer London, and then the presbyterian ministers quite chang'd the lady into such a bitter aversion against them, that they could not endure to come into the generall's presence while she was there, and the generall had an unquiett, unpleasant life with her, who drove away from him many of those friends, in whose conversation he had found such sweetnesse." Lady Fairfax was one of the daughters and coheirs of Horace lord Vere of Tilbury, proud of her noble descent, and was persuaded by the presbyterian ministers, that their religion, which was professed by nearly all the nobility who adhered to the parliament, was the religion for persons of generous rank and blood, while the party of the independents, comprising a countless host of sects, was the fit receptacle only for fanatics and upstarts. It was lady Fairfax, who is said, on one of the days of the king's trial, when her husband's name was called among the other commissioners, to have exclaimed (Clarendon, Vol. III, p. 255) from one of the boxes appropriated to spectators, "He has more wit than to be there;" and, when the president said that the king was brought before them to answer to a charge exhibited in the name of the people of England, to have interposed (Trial, Fourth Day, Jan. 27), "Not half of the people." From all this we have a right to infer, that Fairfax, with high military talents, and the kindest and most amiable disposition that almost ever fell to the lot of man, was weaned both from the religious and political connections of his choice, by the ascendancy BOOK 1649 Bradshaw appointed president. of commons to be made at the Old Exchange and in Cheapside b. At their second sitting the commissioners chose John Bradshaw, serjeant at law, and chief justice of Chester, to be president of the court. The chief justice of England, the chief justice of the common pleas, and the chief baron of the exchequer, had been struck out of the original draught of the ordinance; and Whitlocke and Widdrington, the two professional men among the keepers of his wife. Directed by her, he became first a presbyterian, and finally a royalist. It is true, that, in the Short Memorials of his Life, published from his manuscript by one of his descendants in 1699, p. 125, he says, "From the time that the council of officers declared their usurped authority at Triplow Heath, I never gave my free consent to any thing they did; but, being yet undischarged of my place, they set my name in way of course to all their papers, whether I consented or not." But in this sort of retractation there is nothing to excite our wonder. The adversaries of Charles I. who survived the Restoration of his son, were peculiarly unfortunate. They were consigned to an ignominious death, or to perpetual imprisonment, or driven into exile. The few whose offences the court consented to overlook, spent the remainder of their lives in retreat and obscurity. There was still one way left, which was to recant every thing in which before they had prided themselves. It was thus that Ingoldsby, who had been the first, with his regiment, in express terms to demand the death of the king (See above, p. 627), was reduced to say, that Cromwel held and guided his hand, when he signed the warrant for the execution. Ingoldsby was Fairfax also became a courtier to the therefore made a baronet. restored sovereign. Journals, Jan. 9. Journal of the Trial, by Phelps. of the seal, were so well known to be averse to the proceeding, that they were not named among the commissioners. To preside on so extraordinary an occasion demanded from the man who was appointed to the office great courage, great presence of mind, sound judgment, a composed and impressive carriage, and a character unstained with reproach or the imputation of any vice. СНАР. XXVI. 1649. racter by Bradshaw was a relative of Milton by the mo- His chather's side, and we have his character as drawn by his kinsman. "Being of a distinguished family, he devoted the early part of his life to the study of the laws of his country. Thence he became an able and an eloquent pleader, and subsequently discharged all the duties of an uncorrupt judge. In temper neither gloomy nor severe, but gentle and placid, he exercised in his own house the rites of hospitality in an exemplary manner, and proved himself on all occasions a faithful and unfailing friend. Ever eager to acknowledge merit, he assisted the deserving to the utmost of his power. Forward at all times to publish the talents and worth of others, he was always silent respecting his own. No one more ready to forgive, he was yet impressive and terrible, when it fell to his lot to pour shame on the enemies of his country. If the cause of the oppressed was to be defended, if the favour or the violence of the great was to be withstood, it was impossible in that case to find an advocate more |