Prynne, formerly one of the stanchest opposers of King Charles, spoke with others strongly in his favor, and it was carried by a hundred and twenty-nine to thirty-eight.  The same day some of the leaders of the army met, and determined to expel from the house all those opposed to their interests.  On the 7th the Trained Bands of the city were withdrawn from around the House, and Colonel Pride with his regiment of foot surrounded it.  As the members arrived forty-one of them were turned back.  The same process was repeated on the two following days, until over a hundred members had been arrested.  Thus the army performed a revolution such as no English sovereign has dared to carry out.  After this it is idle to talk of the Parliament as in any way representing the English people.  The representatives who supported the king had long since left it.  The whole of the moderate portion of those who had opposed him, that is to say, those who had fought to support the liberties of Englishmen against encroachments by the king, and who formed the majority after the Royalists had retired, were now expelled; there remained only a small body of fanatics devoted to the interests of the army, and determined to crush out all liberties of England under its armed heel.  This was the body before whom the king was ere long to undergo the mockery of a trial.

King Charles was taken to Hurst Castle on the 17th of December, and three days later carried to Windsor.  On the 2d of January, 1649, the Commons voted that in making war against the Parliament the king had been guilty of treason, and should be tried by a court of a hundred and fifty commissioners.  The Peers rejected the bill, and the Commons then voted that neither the assent of the Peers nor the king was necessary for a law passed by themselves.

All the encroachments of King Charles together were as nothing to this usurpation of despotic power.

In consequence of the conduct of the Peers, the number of commissioners was reduced to a hundred and thirty-five; but of these only sixty-nine assembled at the trial.  Thus the court which was to try the king consisted only of those who were already pledged to destroy him.  Before such a court as this there could be but one end to the trial.  When, after deciding upon their sentence, the king was brought in to hear it, the chief commissioner told him that the charges were brought against him in the name of the people of England, when Lady Fairfax from the gallery cried out, “It’s a lie!  Not one-half of them.”  Had she said not one hundredth of them, she would have been within the mark.

On the 27th sentence was pronounced.  On the 29th the court signed the sentence, which was to be carried out on the following day.