This inauguration day, reading passages from the trial and disposition of Charles I (King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 27 March 1625 to 30 January 1649), seemed the thing to do.
The transcript of the trial from 20 January 1649, starts with Charles protesting the indictment he had started a brutal civil war against his people. Then Charles stopped as his cane slipped from his hand. The cane’s ornate silver top struck the stone floor and flew off, clattering loudly through Westminster Hall. Charles went down on all fours in search of it.
Charles looked up as he heard the Solicitor General, John Cook, standing before him. As prosecutor, Cook went on reading charges.
For Charles it was all a very bad start. The symbolism was unmistakable. There was the King who had claimed the Divine Right of Kings down on the floor in trial looking up as the prosecutor read the law.
As Charles retook his seat, Solicitor General John Cook went on: “My Lord, I did at the first Court exhibit a charge against him, containing the highest treason that was ever wrought upon the theater of England, that a king of England, trusted to keep the law, that had taken an oath so to do….”
The trial thus began with the charge leveled that the King had violated the trust of the people of England “to keep the law” though he “had taken an oath so to do.” It was a reference to the oath Charles had given the Archbishop of Canterbury at his coronation in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Here then was the gravamen of the complaint against Charles I: that Charles had violated his sacred oath of office given at the start of his reign before God.
A modern US President’s oath at inauguration is his promise to “faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” At its heart, it is an oath to see the laws are faithfully executed. Contemplating that, images come flooding back of the unanswered violence of four years ago against Capitol police. And against Representatives, Senators and the Vice President of the United States made to flee their chambers as the President of the United States watched it all unresponsive until hours later after the assault had failed.
At the trial of Charles I, Cook had continued on. He said Charles I was “guilty of a wicked design to subvert and destroy our laws, and introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government in the defiance of the parliament and their authority, [and] set up his standard for war against the parliament and people.”
Charles, instead of pleading to charges, interjected at every point parliament had no authority to try him. He was King. Cook, describing the proceedings leading to indictment, told the Court: “And I did humbly pray, in behalf of the people of England, that he might speedily be required to make an answer to the charge. But, my Lord, instead of making any answer, he did then dispute the authority of this High Court.”
Familiar enough. When else in recent months have we all heard a person on high claim Court proceedings against him were bereft of authority and “a total disgrace?”
Charles answered the Court that: “For the charge, I value it not a rush.” Unimpressed, Court Commissioners found him guilty. Parliament’s men soon enough led Charles from a window of the Banqueting House before a roaring crowd on Whitehall to face justice.
Years back as a younger lawyer, I visited Longleat House, on view in the beautiful green countryside of Wiltshire. There I was fascinated to look into a glass case. The owners, the Marquesses of Bath, had preserved through the centuries the white linen shirt Charles had worn on 30 November 1649. I could see the dark stains visible still at the fringes of the neckline.
Charles I discovered on the scaffold of the Banqueting House he was not divinely immune; he was not above the law. From that day, the English-speaking peoples of the world began to sever from the notion rulers are set apart. We in the United States are part of that world. This inauguration day it remains an article of faith under the Constitution a President—at least in the long run—is accountable with every other mortal citizen to the rule of law.
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
