The King's Revenge Quotes

“As each prisoner was brought before the court – and before a word of evidence was heard – the public hangman came and stood beside him holding a noose.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge

“…[it] would ultimately establish the supremacy of Parliament over the crown, increase religious freedom with the Toleration Act of 1650 and lead to the independence of the judiciary in 1652. This was the true revolution that would change the country for ever – not the ‘glorious revolution’ of 1688, which merely restored some of the innovations brought about in 1649.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge

“Sir Heneage Finch opened the prosecution with a lesson on the divine right of kings and their sanctity throughout history: ‘We bring before your Lordships into judgment this day the murderers of a King. A man would think the laws of God and men had so fully secured these sacred persons that the sons of violence should never approach to hurt them. For, my Lord, the very thought of such an attempt hath ever been presented by all laws, in all ages, in all nations, as a most unpardonable treason.’ Had Isaac Dorislaus been alive he might have sought to put Sir Heneage right on a few points, chiefly by explaining that the killing of kings and tyrants had an ancient pedigree. Milton, if he had been able, might have pointed out that kings were anything but sacred. Despite his uncertain history, there was nothing shaky about Sir Heneage’s legal acumen. Homing”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“After selecting and swearing in a hand-picked jury, the prosecution then lowered the bar for the amount of evidence necessary to convict. Traditionally, in a treason trial, a minimum of two witnesses was required to prove guilt. Bridgeman announced that one witness would now be sufficient.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“The accused were to be tried under a three-hundred-year-old Act. The Treason Act of 1351 had come into being during the reign of Edward III, its purpose to define and limit the number of offences classed as treason. It sill exists today. The”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“Twenty-eight men were on trial. If found guilty, they faced death by the grisly form of torture known as hanging, drawing and quartering. The most important of these were twenty-four who had sat as judges at the king’s trial. Most of them had played other key roles in bringing the king to trial.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“As the trial opened, most of London had thoughts of little else. The king was often otherwise engaged; he was spending increasing amounts of time with his new mistress, the very beautiful and willing Barbara Villiers, with whom he was totally infatuated. It was said that their relationship ‘did so disorder him that often he was not master of himself nor capable of minding business, which in so critical a time, required great application’.3 Hyde, a fastidious man, found Charles’s philandering a considerable irritation. He was also infuriated by the king’s general lack of attention to matters of state; but Charles’s inattentiveness and apparent laziness were traits developed over long years of exile and futility and were to prove fixed within his character.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“A Cavalier Parliament, watched over by the king’s brothers and his parliamentary contacts, had drawn up the list of those to be tried. Charles’s placemen had done their jobs in other ways, too; the highest lawyers in the land, all royal appointees, had designed the trials in such a way that there could only be one possible outcome. Yet”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“The trial of the regicides was a sensation even before it opened. London talked of nothing else: a mass trial of those who only months before had ruled the land and were now accused of treason for killing the king. Thanks to meticulous preparation behind the scenes, it was to be a political show trial. Medieval law was invoked to frame watertight charges, and ancient rules of evidence were cast aside to ensure convictions. As each prisoner was brought before the court – and before a word of evidence was heard – the public hangman came and stood beside him holding a noose.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“On the day that the king was delivering his injunction to the Lords, the Prudent Mary was disembarking Edward Whalley and William Goffe in Boston. New England was as yet unaware of the reversal of fortunes in England. No one in America, including the two newcomers, yet knew of the hue and cry unleashed all over England in pursuit of the king’s judges. The two men were war heroes and stars of a revolution of which Massachusetts heartily approved, and the colony’s Puritan establishment opened its arms to them.22”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“A decision was taken to attach the terrible label ‘regicide’ to those who had been present in the High Court as Charles I’s death sentence was pronounced and from their number to select the death list of seven. Thirty-seven of these men were still alive, and the order went out to sheriffs and other law officers across the country to seize them and seize their property. The seven were deemed to be unpardonable and were wholly ‘excepted’ from the Bill of Indemnity. They could expect the full savagery of a traitor’s death – hanging, castration and disembowelment before the victim was beheaded and the trunk quartered so parts could be displayed across the land.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“Attainder was medieval England’s great disincentive to treason. It was seen by many as a punishment equally dire as execution. As well as condemning the individual to a traitor’s death, it condemned his bloodline to ruin by declaring all titles, property and estate held at the time of the treason forfeit to the crown. The”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History

“These lawyers agreed to charge the alleged regicides under the ancient law of treason, which made ‘imagining’ the death of the king or his heir punishable by death. ‘Imagining’ could cover a range of acts from direct involvement in a royal death to advocating it. They then agreed to drop the requirement under common law for two witnesses to prove an action. In the forthcoming trials one witness was to be deemed sufficient.”
― Don Jordan, The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History