The trial of Charles I: a sesquitricentennial reflection.

• Author: Sirico, Jr., Louis J.

1. INTRODUCTION

   On July 20, 1787, deputies to the Constitutional Convention debated whether the national executive should be "removeable on impeachment and conviction for malpractice or neglect of duty."(1) Some, like Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, argued against impeachment: "Besides, who Is to impeach? Is the impeachment to suspend his function. [sic] If it is not the mischief will go on. If it is the impeachment will be nearly equivalent to a displacement, and will render the Executive dependent on those who are to impeach."(2)

   Benjamin Franklin argued that impeachment benefited the executive: "History furnishes one example only of a first Magistrate being formally brought to public Justice. Every body cried out [against] this as unconstitutional."(3) Franklin pointed out that the alternative had a drawback: "What was the practice before this in cases where the chief Magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why recourse was had to assassination in [which] he was not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character."(4) Impeachment thus would benefit both the citizen and the executive: "It [would] be the best way therefore to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused."(5)

   In referring to "the only first Magistrate brought to public justice," Franklin alluded to Charles I of England, the second Stuart king, who, in 1649, was tried and sentenced to beheading.(6) Franklin could not have supported his argument with a more inappropriate illustration. Charles confronted a High Court of Justice that the House of Commons had created to issue a predetermined verdict. When the King appeared before the High Court, he could not present his defense. By Franklin's time, English legal authorities had long since agreed that Charles was the victim of murder.(7)

   The hindsight of three hundred fifty years inevitably leads us to reflect on the subsequent reign of Oliver Cromwell, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which ended the Stuart line and established parliamentary supremacy. However, a narrower focus on Charles's trial and beheading is sufficient to teach us lessons on two subjects: first, how lawlessness seeks to impersonate the rule of law, and, second, as Gouverneur Morris recognized, how excessive power in one branch of government can destabilize a political system and even destroy it.

2. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

   A friend once described Charles as a very bad king, but a very good martyr.(8) Like his father, James I, he believed in the divine right of kings. This position aggravated his continuing conflicts with parliaments increasingly dominated by the Puritans. After four disastrous parliaments, Charles ruled for eleven years without calling another. During this interim, he managed to heighten his unpopularity. Not only did he support Archbishop Laud in imposing high church uniformity on religious observances, he also raised revenues by exacting duties and dues without calling Parliament.

   The cost of Charles's war against Scotland finally forced him to summon Parliament. The House of Commons was uncooperative, and Charles quickly dissolved it. The increasing financial demands of the war soon compelled him to call another Parliament and make numerous concessions concerning his prerogatives and methods of governance. Nonetheless, conflict continued and reached a climax when Charles sent armed men into the House of Commons to arrest the five members most hostile to him.

   By 1642, Charles and Parliament had begun a civil war, which ended in Charles's defeat. Numerous attempts to reach a negotiated settlement failed. The army now controlled Parliament and successfully insisted on trying the King for treason. As planned, Charles was convicted. On the scaffold, he delivered a stirring speech declaring that his loyalty to the rule of law made him the martyr of the people. This oft-quoted excerpt sums up his position and demonstrates his appeal to his supporters:

   For the people--and truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever--but I must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consists in having of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in government, sirs; that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things. And therefore until they do that--I mean, that you do put the people in that liberty as I say--certainly they will never enjoy themselves. Sirs, it was for this that now I am come here. If I would have given way to an arbitrary way for to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword, I needed not to have come here. And therefore I tell you--and I pray God it be not laid to your charge--that I am the martyr of the people.(9) Charles's death marked the beginning of the eleven-year Interregnum in which Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector. After Cromwell's death, England turned to Charles's son and acknowledged him as Charles II. The exhumed heads of Cromwell, his son-in law, and the High Court's President were placed on public display atop Westminster Hall. The anniversary of Charles's execution became a date of commemoration on the liturgical calendar of the Anglican Church.(10)

3. LAW AND LAWLESSNESS

   For the period surrounding the trial, the most powerful theme is the exaltation of form over substance: The army and its Puritan allies believed they could not execute Charles without appearing to follow acceptable legal procedure.

   The very idea of trying a king must have appalled English citizens. The concerns that Gouverneur Morris raised in 1787 about impeaching an American executive also plagued them--and with a far greater intensity. They were contemplating impeaching not just the constitutional head of government,(11) but also a hereditary monarch, who, some believed, could heal with his touch.(12) The Cromwellians tried to overcome objections by disposing of the King through the formal legal process of a...