e
survey of the scene, looking around upon the judges, and upon the
armed guards by which he was environed, with a stern and unchanging
countenance. At length silence was proclaimed, and the president rose
to introduce the proceedings.

He addressed the king. He said that the Commons of England, deeply
sensible of the calamities which had been brought upon England by the
civil war, and of the innocent blood which had been shed, and
convinced that he, the king, had been the guilty cause of it, were
now determined to make inquisition for this blood, and to bring him to
trial and judgment; that they had, for this purpose, organized this
court, and that he should now hear the charge brought against him,
which they would proceed to try.

An officer then arose to read the charge. The king made a gesture for
him to be silent. He, however, persisted in his reading, although the
king once or twice attempted to interrupt him. The president, too,
ordered him to proceed. The charge recited the evils and calamities
which had resulted from the war, and concluded by saying that "the
said Charles Stuart is and has been the occasioner, author, and
continuer of the said unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars, and is
therein guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines, burnings,
spoils, desolations, damages, and mischiefs to this nation acted and
committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby."

The president then sharply rebuked the king for his interruptions to
the proceedings, and asked him what answer he had to make to the
impeachment. The king replied by demanding by what authority they
pretended to call him to account for his conduct. He told them that
he was their king, and they his subjects; that they were not even the
Parliament, and that they had no authority from any true Parliament to
sit as a court to try him; that he would not betray his own dignity
and rights by making any answer at all to any charges they might bring
against him, for that would be an acknowledgment of their authority;
but he was convinced that there was not one of them who did not in his
heart believe that he was wholly innocent of the charges which they
had brought against him.

These proceedings occupied the first day. The king was then sent back
to his place of confinement, and the court adjourned. The next day,
when called upon to plead to the impeachment, the king only insisted
the more strenuously in denying the authority of the court, and in
st