Trial of King Charles I.

1649 January 20th.Charles I's trial on charges of high treason and "other high crimes" began, Charles I refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a Monarch; Charles I believed that his own authority to rule had been given to him by God and by the traditions and laws of England when he was crowned and anoin- ted, and that the power wielded by those trying him was simply that of force of arms. Charles I insisted that the trial was illegal, explaining: "Then for the law of this land, I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name and one of their maxims is, the King can do no wrong". When urged to enter a plea, he stated his objection with the words: "I would know by what power I am called hither by what lawful authority?" The court, by contrast, proposed an interpretation of the law that legitimised the trial, which was founded on". The fundamental proposition that the King of England was not a person, but an office whose every occupant was entrusted with a limited power to govern 'by and according to the laws of the land and not otherwise'. "Over a period of a week, when Charles I was asked to plead three times, he refused, it was then normal practice to take a refusal to plead as pro-confesso: an admis- sion of guilt, which meant that the prosecution could not call witnesses to its case. However, the trial did hear witnesses, fifty nine of the Commissioners signed Charles I's death warrant, after the ruling, he was led from St. James's Palace, where he was confined, to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected in front of the Banqueting House Whitehall.