Chapter III

At an earlier stage [365] the President had told the King that the Court “sat here by the Authority of the Commons of England: & all your predecessours, & you are responsible to them.” The King answered “I deny that, shew me one Precedent.” The President, instead of quoting the precedents which were at least plausible, told the prisoner that he was not to interrupt the Court. Earlier still the King had objected to the authority of the Court that “he saw no Lords there which should make a Parliament, including the King, & urged that the Kingdom of England was hereditary, & not successive.” The strong point of Charles’s argument undoubtedly was the want of concurrence on the part of the Lords. Both Houses of Parliament had agreed in the proceedings against Edward the Second and Richard the Second.

It is a small point, but it is well to notice that the description of the King as Charles Stewart was perfectly accurate. Charles, the son of James, the son of Henry Stewart Lord Darnley, really had a surname, though it might not be according to Court etiquette to call him by it. The helpless French imitators in 1793 summoned their King by the name of “Louis Capet,” as if Charles had been summoned by the name of “Unready,” “Bastard,” “Lackland,” “Longshanks,” or any other nickname of an earlier King and forefather.

I believe that many people fancy that Guelph or Welf is a surname of the present, or rather late, royal family.

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