[Footnote 1:  Journals, Dec. 8.  Whitelock, 362.  Rushworth, vii. 1339.]

[Footnote 2:  Journals, Dec. 3, 13, 14, 20.  Whitelock, 362, 363.  Clarendon Papers, ii.  App. xlix.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  Dec. 12.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1648.  Dec. 13.]

they were soon called upon to pass a vote, the very mention of which a few years before would have struck the boldest among them with astonishment and terror.

It had long been the conviction of the officers that the life of the king was incompatible with their safety.  If he were restored, they would become the objects of royal vengeance; if he were detained in prison, the public tranquillity would be disturbed by a succession of plots in his favour.  In private assassination there was something base and cowardly from which the majority revolted; but to bring him to public justice, was to act openly and boldly; it was to proclaim their confidence in the goodness of their cause; to give to the world a splendid proof of the sovereignty of the people and of the responsibility of kings.[1][a] When the motion was made in the Commons, a few ventured to oppose it, not so much with the hope of saving the life of Charles, as for the purpose of transferring the odium of his death on its real authors.  They suggested that the person of the king was sacred; that history afforded no precedent of a sovereign compelled to plead before a court of judicature composed of his own subjects; that measures of vengeance could only serve to widen the bleeding wounds of the country; that it was idle to fear any re-action in favour of the monarch, and it was now time to settle on a permanent basis the liberties of the country.  But their opponents were clamorous, obstinate, and menacing.  The king, they maintained, was the capital delinquent; justice required that he should suffer as well as the minor offenders.  He had been guilty of treason against the people, it remained for their representatives to bring

[Footnote 1:  Clarendon, Hist. iii. 249.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  Dec. 29.]

him to punishment; he had shed the blood of man, God made it a duty to demand his blood in return.  The opposition was silenced; and a committee of thirty-eight members was appointed to receive information and to devise the most eligible manner of proceeding.  Among the more influential names were those of Widdrington and Whitelock, Scot and Marten.  But the first two declined to attend; and, when the clerk brought them a summons, retired into the country.[1]

[a]At the recommendation of this committee, the house passed a vote declaratory of the law, that it was high treason in the king of England, for the time being, to levy war against the parliament and kingdom of England; and this was followed up with an ordinance erecting a high court of justice to try the question of fact, whether Charles Stuart, king of England, had or had not been guilty of the treason described