The king replied. John noticed that in this crisis of his life he had lost his stammer. His diffidence in speaking directly to people had gone at last. He was clear and powerful as he told the court, in a voice raised loud enough to ensure that he could be heard in the courtroom and by the men scribbling down every word, that he was defending his own rights, but also the rights of the people of England. ‘If a power without law can make laws, then who can be sure of his life or anything that he calls his own?’

There was a soft mutter from the courtroom, and a few heads nodded in the galleries where the men of property were especially sensitive to the threat that a parliament free of king and tradition might make laws that did not suit the men of land and fortune. There were Levellers enough to frighten the men of property back on to the side of monarchy. Those that called for the king’s execution today might call for park walls to be pulled down tomorrow, for a law which treated commoners and peers equally, and for a parliament which represented the working man.

The Lord President Bradshaw, his metalled hat still clamped on his head, ordered the king to be silent, but Charles argued with him. Bradshaw ordered the clerk to call the prisoner to answer the charge but the king would not be silent.

‘Remove the prisoner!’ Bradshaw shouted.

‘I do require –’

‘It is not for prisoners to require –’

‘Sir. I am not an ordinary prisoner.’

The guards surrounded him. ‘God no!’ muttered John. ‘Don’t let them jostle him.’

For a moment he was back in the Whitehall palace courtyard with the king in the coach and the queen with her box of jewels. He had thought then that if one hand had touched the coach the whole mystery of majesty would be destroyed. He thought now that if one soldier took the butt end of his pike and irritably thumped Charles Stuart, then the king would go down, and all his principles fall with him.

‘Sir,’ the king raised his voice, ‘I never took arms against the people, but for the laws –’

‘Justice!’ the soldiers shouted. Charles rose from his chair, looked as if he wanted to say more.

‘Just go,’ John pleaded, his hands clapped over his mouth to prevent the words from being heard. ‘Go before some fool loses patience. Or before Cook pokes you back.’

The king turned and left the hall. Alexander looked at John.

‘A muddled business,’ he said.

‘A miserable one,’ John replied.

Tuesday 23 January 1649

The hall doors did not open until midday. John and Alexander were chilled and bored by the time they pushed their way in. At once John’s eyes were taken by a great shield, white with the red cross of St George, hung above the commissioners’ table which was draped in a richly coloured Turkey rug.