The Trial of King Charles I (Historia Civilis) - A Historian Reacts - p1

welcome back everyone to another reaction video well ask and you shall receive you guys have been asking and asking and asking for me to do something from historia savilis so here we are uh and before we get into some of the stuff uh the ancient stuff the uh julius caesar stuff which i will get to i wanted to do something that not only i knew a little something about but also that i have a particular interest in learning more about because i've got a personal connection and i know there's kind of this joke about you guys have to drink every time i mention ohio or one of my ancestors so i'm going to mention one of my ancestors right now because my 11th great grandfather was a man named edward wally and he in addition to being the nephew of oliver cromwell around whom a lot of this story centers he also was one of the men who signed king charles the first death warrant in fact he signed just after his uncle oliver cromwell uh he was the son of oliver cromwell's sister catherine and so you see edward wally right there he's my 11th great grandfather he was a lieutenant general during the english civil war and after the war like many of the men whose signatures appear on the death warrant of charles the first he had to flee he fled to new england and actually spent some time hiding and living in a cave in new england and you can actually go see that cave to this day i need to get over there to be able to see some of the that stuff i haven't yet but so i've got a little bit of a personal connection to this and i'm excited to learn more about it so let's go ahead and dive into historia so villas the story of the death of a king as always the link is in the description below to the original content [Music] creator on january 20th 1649 charles the first king of england scotland and ireland appeared before the english high court of justice hours earlier he had been officially charged with tyranny treason and murder [Music] oliver cromwell watched from a window as the king approached the palace of westminster under armed guard according to people in the room when cromwell saw the king he went white as a wall he then went over to lord president john bradshaw the guy who would be running the trial and urgently whispered something in his ear after a minute cromwell rose and addressed the larger group my masters he has come he has come i desire you to let us resolve here what answer we shall give to the king when he comes before us for the first question he will ask us will be by what authority and commission do we try him yeah because honestly i think in the king's mind certainly and in the mind of a lot of people as well he is the source of any such authority and so uh for the king to be tried would mean to try the very one from whom they get their authority of course cromwell didn't see it that way and he was trying to bring in something new which was that we don't get our authority from the monarch uh you know this is going to be a republic and of course it didn't end up being that way cromwell ended up just being a monarch in all but name only under what authority did they put the king on trial the true answer was that it all came from the house of commons who had unilaterally and illegally declared its own supremacy in other words their illegal authority was thin everybody knew this for a time the room was filled with an embarrassed silence what on earth would they say to the king you know it seems to me that maybe this is something that should have been considered before this moment you know like as the king's walking in now we're gonna try and figure out what are we gonna answer him when he says by what authority do you do this like maybe a little more planning might have been an order and i'm sure people had been thinking about this but maybe they hadn't talked about it as a group yet one of the commissioners named martin spoke up in the name of the commons and parliament assembled and all the good people of england it was a weak answer but at least it was an answer they'd go with that the full high court of justice entered westminster hall where they awaited the king lord president bradshaw took center stage he feared assassination and so he wore on his head a giant bulletproof hat even his allies thought he looked ridiculous better to look ridiculous than to look dead that's all i'm saying but yeah i mean this is high tension stuff remember they're coming out of years of civil war where parliament and the king both had armies and they fought against each other and a lot of people died so tensions are very very high and there's certainly concern that there could be some armed attempt to rescue the king or at least to take out the people who put him on trial king charles entered the hall and took his place before the tribunal before the trial began a complete list of the members of the tribunal was entered onto the record several seats were empty when lord fairfax's name was called the commander-in-chief of the parliamentarian army a voice rang out from the gallery he has more wit than to be here it was the lady fairfax his wife his wife that is fantastic uh lord fairfax incidentally if you're familiar with that name from northern virginia that's where uh fairfax virginia gets its name from this outburst was cause for concern within the tribunal most of whom had served under lord fairfax during the civil war was he trying to send them a message or was the lady fairfax speaking for herself and here's the thing with that too i mean remember everybody's on edge this is a very like do we do this are we really going to put the king on trial do we have the authority to do this there's a lot of questions a lot of fear a lot of doubt and you really need everyone to be united in this right so um all of these men who have really put their necks literally on the line for this need to stand together and if there seems like there's cracks and it seems like maybe somebody might be backing out that could be a real problem unclear either way nobody dared to remove the commander-in-chief's wife after an awkward silence lord president bradshaw moved things along he opened up proceedings with a long speech about how this court was acting on behalf of god justice the house of commons the people blah blah blah he then instructed the solicitor general john cook the lead prosecutor to begin reading the charges against the king charles had something else in mind when john cook began reading the king lightly tapped him with his cane and indicated that he would like to speak cookie ignored he didn't hit him okay just picture this in your mind the king just taps him hey let me let me talk just shut up let me talk i'm the king him and went back to reading the charges the king was baffled by this and tapped him even harder cause he's got a whacking hilt on his cane to fall off and hit the ground with a loud bang this would have sounded like a musket shot and it scared the living hell out of everybody the entire room looked at the king as he bent down to retrieve his little ornament the fact that nobody moved to help him was significant not his last humiliation of the day solicitor general john cook went back to reading the charges which concluded by condemning the king as a tyrant traitor murderer and a public and implacable enemy of the commonwealth of england at this charles led out a quick burst of laughter a traitor a traitor against what himself these charges made no sense lord yeah because think about this and it's it's foreign to you know us in the united states who don't have a monarchy and things like that but i mean the king was seen as the source of all authority and everything was done in his name you know it's the royal navy the royal army it's the um you know the the court is the royal court and it's his majesty's government and you know everything is seen as being the source so this is this is not just about a trial of the king this is a trial of everything that this kingdom stands for uh to put him on trial as being a traitor against the people is to say that the people are the source of authority not the king this is revolutionary stuff president bradshaw asked the king how he pled was he guilty or did he maintain his innocence the king responded there are many unlawful authorities in this world thieves and robbers by the highway but i would know by what lawful authority i was brought here this is exactly what cromwell had feared it was a simple question but it contained within it a sharp argument first and most importantly before english law a king could not be charged with a crime for any reason before any court everybody in the room knew this the king wanted the tribunal to explain themselves second even if a king could be charged with a crime the legislation establishing the tribunal had been rejected by the house of lords so under what authority was the king on trial today it was a legitimate question this got under bradshaw's skin his role as lord president was not being shown the proper respect and here's the thing looking at this from the outside in and granted listen my ancestors are one of these people who is supporting this trial this trial didn't have legal authority and if their whole basis for having a trial was to somehow make this legal to execute the king to to you kind of cover it in legality how can you do that when the very basis of the trial itself has no legal authority so it's really interesting and while i'm thinking about it for that matter not only had the house of lords not approved this if the whole parliament had been able to vote they wouldn't have approved it either they actually the the new model army which was the army that uh oliver cromwell and and uh these others were in charge of that had helped win this civil war had basically helped to either deny entrance or flat out remove or arrest anyone in the parliament who might have been sympathetic to the king because parliament was going to negotiate a settlement that restored the king to uh to his uh throne but with reduced power it would have been more of a constitutional monarch kind of thing but they were gonna put him back on the throne they were gonna kind of move on with king charles uh and cromwell's people were not having that him and bradshaw and these others so they basically got rid of anybody from the parliament who would have been okay with this and it was a very small percentage then of the parliament that even voted for this this tribunal to happen and then so that they don't get the house of lords they obviously don't get royal assent which is supposed to be required for any law that gets passed there is no legal basis whatsoever this is a military coup plain and simple that they're trying to cloak in some appearance of legal authority he answered in a burst of anger in the name of the people of england of which you were elected king elected king this was not the answer that they had all agreed to beforehand bradshaw had just made a massive blunder it also gives us a hint as to how bradshaw viewed the monarchy bradshaw had ties to radical protestantism and radical protestants at the time used the word election to mean some calvinism arbitrary and unearned bradshaw was a republican and so calvinists uh presbyterians uh especially up in like scotland and places like that uh named after john calvin the calvinist this idea of election which uh to oversimplify it is basically that god has kind of preordained who is going to be saved who will not and things like that and and really man is completely powerless to have any say in what happens he's only acting out what has already been preordained as the will of god that's how he secretly viewed the monarchy random arbitrary and unearned the king pounced at this slip of the tongue he explained to the court that england had been a hereditary monarchy for a thousand years and that he as the heir to that tradition stood quote more for the liberties of my people than any of my pretended i've got a case to make therefore show me by what authority i am seated here and i will answer it charles could smell blood in the water he knew that there was no precedent for what the high court of justice was doing here today clearly they were just making it up as they went along yeah bradshaw again asked the king to enter his plea the king countered by asking on what legal authority he was brought here today this went back and forth for quite a while with bradshaw becoming angrier and louder and and this is probably part of charles's strategy that he's already gotten him to do an outburst once this is like all law and order stuff right you're trying to get the guy to slip up and have an outburst and say something he wasn't intending to say and the king is he's going to very forcefully challenge us and he's got an argument here is screwed up as the king had been in some of his policies and he hadn't been a very good king he still has a very strong legal case here more that doesn't matter eventually charles said to bradshaw you have shown no lawful authority to satisfy any reasonable man hard argument shaw shot back that is your apprehension that's your opinion and i don't care we are satisfied who are your judges charles replied which is not my apprehension nor yours either that ought to decide not wrong lord president bradshaw was extremely frustrated he adjourned proceedings for the day they would try again tomorrow as charles was being escorted out of westminster hall people began to chant god save the king the soldiers in the courtroom tried to drown this out by shouting over top of them justice it was pandemonium in her book the english civil war a people's history historian diane perkis provides a really good summary truly disgusting she describes charles's strategy as quote both intelligent and stupid he was displaying bright legal maneuvering but his recalcitrance was also a tactically dim way of getting everybody's goat she's right charles was running circles around bradshaw but he was needlessly antagonizing him in the process so far the whole thing was a mess yeah but that said i don't think there was anything charles was going to do that was going to win bradshaw over i mean i think i think the people running this court had pretty well decided how it was going to go as evidenced by all the stuff they had done beforehand to put themselves in position to even have this trial so i don't think the outcome was ever going to be in any doubt so in charles's mind i think he's probably more just doing this for posterity and to make sure that he gets this stuff on the record on the second day of the trial lord president bradshaw sought to take back the initiative and make sure that everybody recognized the high court of justice as a legitimate court of law he began the day with another lengthy opening statement he talked about the strong legal authority on display here today and at the end he asked solicitor general john cook to once more read the charges when he was finished so it seems like the strategy is if you say something often enough people will believe it's true bradshaw again asked the king for his plea the king calmly asked the high court of justice to show him upon what legal authority this trial was being held already they were back in this cul-de-sac the king had clearly been working on his argument overnight and he said to bradshaw this is not my case alone it is the freedom and liberty of the people of england and do you pretend what you will i stand more for their liberties for if power without law may make laws may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom i do not know what subject he is in england that can be sure of his life or anything he calls his own the king was trying to pull a switcheroo the high court of justice had claimed to be acting on behalf of the people of england but now charles was trying to position himself as the true champion of liberty let's just let's face it here uh clearly in this situation the parliament side is acting like tyrants and and i say that as somebody who i came into this like i knew some of the details i didn't know all of the day by day what was said in court and stuff like that but found myself kind of on the side of parliament just because that's what side my family comes down on but not feeling it so far i'm kind of finding myself siding with charles now granted he did a lot to get himself in this position in the first place there's no good guys here nobody's clean he was arguing that if the aristocracy could ignore the rule of law and come after the king himself nobody in england was safe this must have been laughable to those who remembered being thrown in prison for refusing to loan the king money but here we are fair charles had skillfully maneuvered bradshaw into a corner bradshaw interjected sir i must interrupt you sir it seems you were entering on arguments and disputes about the authority of the court before which you are convinced as prisoner and it's a little thing but just the fact that he calls him sir not your majesty not even your grace or anything like that is an insult and it's a um a statement in and of itself you may not do it bradshaw was trying to say that questioning the legitimacy of the court was against the rules kind of weak if you ask [Music] if me legitimate you should be able to defend something about law and reason bradshaw cut him off again you speak of laws and reason it is fit there should be law and reason and those are both against you the vote of the commons of england in parliament that is the reason of the kingdom the vote of the people that we didn't get rid of or arrest or detain or keep out of parliament that vote it is the law of the kingdom this last bit about the commons being the law of the kingdom was incorrect under normal circumstances the house of lords and the monarch had to sign off on any new laws in fact in modern perspective uh in the united states we're talking about the house of representatives the senate and the president and you know it's got to pass both houses and then be signed by the president uh royal assent in this case so very similar system uh obviously there are some differences but just to kind of think of it in a simple way that's what it is and so imagine if the house of representatives voted to pass a law the uh part of the house of representatives a bunch if imagine if the army came in removed some of the house of representatives they purged a bunch of members until they got down just to the ones that supported one side the senate voted against a law that was passed by that percentage of the house of representatives the president vetoed the law and the house went forward with it as though it had actually been passed anyway that's kind of what's happened here that the house of commons had illegally declared its own supremacy was actually the central issue here and reminding everybody of this actually kinda worked in the king's favor it's puzzling why bradshaw would go down this road the king tried to interject but bradshaw cut him off again sir you are not to dispute our authority you are told it again by the court again the king tried to speak sir it will be taken notice of you that you stand in contempt of court a contempt of court charge was a huge deal at this time it meant that the trial could proceed without the defendant okay the king replied to the lord president i do not know how a king can be a delinquent continuing later he said to demure against any proceedings is legal i do demand that the king was challenging the contempt charge on multiple fronts he was saying first that a king cannot be held in contempt and second even if he could simply asking why am i here is perfectly legal so far they had not really answered that question let's pause here for a moment the king was behaving as if refusing to enter a plea was some kind of immovable force this wasn't exactly true english law had a provision for situations like this if a defendant refused to enter a plea the law at the time empowered the court to take the defendant outside and torture them until they changed their minds of the king for real king charles was making a bet here he was betting that the high court of justice wouldn't dare torture the king of england he was right they wouldn't dare bradshaw and company believed rightly in my opinion that any mistreatment of the king would cause public opinion to swing in his favor and honestly a lot of the public opinion you saw yes in the first day of the trial as people were walking out people are yelling god save the king so there's already strong public opinion not universal but a lot of people supporting the king and a lot of people would be horrified by the thought of executing a king so they're already kind of up against it here it might even set off a royalist uprising way too risky bradshaw tried a new argument he told the king that they had put one of his predecessors on trial before and that had been entirely legitimate now i have no idea what bradshaw is talking about here i can't think of one of those had been imprisoned or forced to step down but nothing like this yeah i mean so richard ii was forced to abdicate and ended up basically being locked up um uh henry well let's see henry iv was the one who overthrew richard ii um king john was about to be replaced uh edward ii uh got overthrown in favor of his son um so it has happened like that but whatever he's talking about i couldn't think of anything in history not a trial charles didn't know what he was talking about either he interrupted bradshaw i deny that i deny it show me one precedent bradshaw had made an assertion that he couldn't back up he's making stuff up third major blunder he responded sir you ought not to interrupt while the court is speaking to you when i'm lying you don't interrupt me even though you're making complete sense i gotta be honest uh this whole thing is just a complete sham and i could you imagine being charles the first and again i'm not saying charles the first didn't do a lot of stuff to get himself into this position in the first place but imagine being charles the first and seeing all of this unfold and realizing you are completely powerless to stop it even though you're the king and that no matter what you say no matter what you have the laws on your side it's not gonna help they're just gonna make it up and they're gonna do what they want regardless the point of precedent is not to be debated by you so i said so therefore it's true you're not allowed to challenge it oh my gosh this is ridiculous bradshaw was saying with a straight face that this court of law was not interested in hearing precedent what bradshaw feebly asked again for the king to enter his plea and again the king responded that he would be happy to do so once he knew under what authority this trial was being held bradshaw had had enough and called for the prisoner to be removed but the king had more to say he called out wait i require some time to state my reasons bradshaw responded in anger sir it is not for prisoners to require the king replied sir i am not an ordinary prisoner i'm the freaking king bradshaw started shouting again but charles talked over him and just started giving his speech anyway he got to a part where he said that it was quote for the liberty freedom and laws of my subjects that i ever took up he stopped himself charles had just made a mistake he was going to say took up arms but this would have been an admission that he had started the civil war he corrected himself defended myself with arms i never took up arms against the people but for the laws that was a close one at last the king was taken away under guard the calls of god save the king and justice followed him out of the room in the commotion one of the members of the tribunal a cobbler named john hewson pushed through the crowd and spat in the king's face charles calmly wiped his face clean telling the cobbler well sir god hath justice in store for you and me finally day two of the trial was over it was a disaster you wouldn't have thought it possible but bradshaw had mucked things up even worse than on day one king charles was successfully positioning himself as a champion of the liberties of the people and bradshaw had failed to stop him so we're going to stop right there just because i've been talking a lot in the midst of this i don't want to make these videos too long and we're we're right at the halfway point so i'll come back tomorrow and we'll dive into the rest of this trial i would love to hear your thoughts your additions um you know your observations about all this like i said you know i i know some about all of this but i'm definitely learning some things about the day in and day out of this trial that i didn't know and so far it's looking pretty bad for uh for the the court but i know it's not going to continue that way so we'll see what happens tomorrow thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 97,724

Keywords: historia civilis, historia civilis reaction, history reaction, historian reaction, historian react, regicide, king charles i, trial of charles i, oliver cromwell

Id: ARJhucwFhNc

Length: 29min 5sec (1745 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021